Thank you gjm and Guy for the responses! It lifts my spirits immensely to know that my work is being received favorably.
Reproduced verbatim so both recipients are notified.
Pablo Repetto
Karma: 103
Thank you gjm and Guy for the responses! It lifts my spirits immensely to know that my work is being received favorably.
Reproduced verbatim so both recipients are notified.
Working through D&D.Sci, problem 2 (solution)
Working through D&D.Sci, problem 2
Working through D&D.Sci, problem 2 (preface)
It’s great fun! I’m very pleased you are enjoying the posts. :)
Working through D&D.Sci, problem 1 (solution)
I’m late for the party. I put my blind analysis on a full post, and will be going through all the problems in order.
Working through D&D.Sci, problem 1
Certainly for crux-hunting, you need two people who are fundamentally collaborating.
It has been pointed out to me that therapy is analogous to depositions in a way relevant to your argument: in therapy both patient and therapist are there with the stated purpose of resolving emotional tensions in the patient, but the patient can prove unhelpful or actively oppose the therapist’s probes.
I think this is an example of an interaction that is collaborative in principle, but where techniques designed for adversarial interactions may do good.
“I don’t know” can be a accurate. I think the advice is intended against people playing dumb, like Bill Clinton’s “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” or this witness denying knowledge of what a photocopier is. I know I’ve pulled this bullshit on myself at least once.
Using strategies that still work when some people act adverserial with you and try to deceive you is in line with being rational.
I think this gets close to the insight that motivated my post: a part of ourselves often tries to curl into a ball and deny reality to avoid emotional stress, interacting with that part of you is kind of adversarial.
Thank you for the comment!
Depositions and Rationality
No and no.
When I appear in the room I observe that I exist, but I couldn’t have observed that I didn’t exist, thus I don’t update.
When a minute passes I observe that I survived, but I couldn’t have observed that I didn’t survive, thus I don’t update.
This comment did not deserve the downvotes; I agree with asking for disclosure.
It does deserve criticism for tone. “Alarmist and uninformed” and “AGI death cult” are distractingly offensive.
The same argument for disclosure could could have been made by “given that LW’s audience has outsized expectations of AI performance” and “it costs little, and could avoid an embarrasing misunderstanding”.
I see. The spikiness is a tipoff that the numbers are being generated by some simple underlying process. I’m still not clear about why primes, though.
I’m guessing the idea is looking out for multiplicative processes, like looking out for the hump-tail shape of the distribution? Multiplying numbers together is an addition on their multiplicities-of-factors representation, so nd6 can never generate a number with a prime factor of 7 or higher. But I’m not explicitly hearing that as the rationale, so it feels like “primes are bound to show up, just keep an eye out for them”.