Sable

• Sable 24 Apr 2015 19:34 UTC

  11 points

  on: Wel­come to Less Wrong! (7th thread, De­cem­ber 2014)

  Hello, my name is Daniel.

  I’ve wanted to join the rationality community for a little while now, and I finally worked up the courage after a brief but informative discussion with Anna Salamon, CFAR’s executive director (who was as kind as I was nervous).

  I’m working on finishing up a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and I plan on continuing to a doctorate in some branch of decision or control theory. I also study philosophy, fiction writing, and computer science.

  Since becoming aware of rationality in general, and Eliezer Yudkowsky’s way of making everything make sense, I’ve gotten pretty heavily into cognitive psychology and metacognition.

  To be frank, I understand that I’m a rank amateur in the field of rationality in general, but I’m looking forward to trying to get better. So if you’re downvoting me, or even upvoting me, explaining why in a comment or message would be extremely helpful, so I can take the time to reinforce my positive cognitive pathways, and prune my negative ones.

  See you in the threads!

• Sable 26 Apr 2015 1:35 UTC

  7 points

  in reply to: benjaminhaley’s comment on: 16 types of use­ful predictions

  I was reading your comment, and when I thought about always betting a dollar, my brain went, “That’s a good idea!”

  So I asked my brain, “What memory are you accessing that makes you think that’s a good idea?”

  And my brain replied, “Remember that CFAR reading list you’re going through? Yeah, that one.”

  So I went to my bookshelf, got out Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, and started paging through it.

  Professor Ariely had several insights that helped me understand why actually using money seemed like such a good idea:

  1. Interacting within market norms makes you do a cost-benefit analysis. Professor Ariely discusses the difference between social norms and market norms in chapter 4. Social norms govern interactions that don’t involve money (favors for a friend), and market norms govern interactions that do (costs and benefits). The professor did an experiment in which he had people drag circles into a square on a computer screen (judging their productivity by how many times they did this in a set period of time). He gave one group of such participants an explicitly stated “50-cent snickers bar” and the other a “five-dollar box of Godiva chocolates.” As it turns out, the results were identical to a previous experiment in which the same amounts of direct cash were used. Professor Ariely concludes, “These results show that for market norms to emerge, it is sufficient to mention money.” In other words, Professor Ariely’s research supports your first (4.) - “A dollar feels more important than it actually is...” This is the case because as soon as money enters the picture, so do market norms.

  2. Money makes us honest. In chapter 14, aptly titled “Why Dealing With Cash Makes Us More Honest,” Professor Ariely explains an experiment he conducted in the MIT cafeteria. Students were given a sheet of 20 math problems to solve in five minutes. The control group was to have their solutions checked, and then were given 50 cents per correct answer. A second group was instructed to tear their paper apart, and then tell the experimenter how many questions they got correct (allowing them to cheat). They were then paid 50 cents for every correct answer they claimed. Lastly, a third group was allowed to cheat similarly to the second group, except that when they gave one experimenter their score, they were given tokens, which were traded in immediately thereafter for cash through a second experimenter. The results: A) The control group solved an average of 3.5 questions correctly. B) The second group, who cheated for cash, claimed an average of 6.2 correct solutions. C) The third group, who cheated for tokens, claimed an average of 9.4 correct solutions. Simply put, when actual, physical money was removed from the subjects’ thought process by a token and a few seconds, the amount of cheating more than doubled, from 2.7 to 5.9.

  In short, using money to back a prediction a) forces us to think analytically, and b) keeps us honest.

  Thank you for the idea. Now I just need to find an ATM to get some ones...

• Sable 26 Apr 2015 21:53 UTC

  0 points

  on: A sim­ple ex­er­cise in ra­tio­nal­ity: rephrase an ob­jec­tive state­ment as sub­jec­tive and ex­plore the caveats

  This almost seems to be the grown-up form of the childhood game of Why?

  “Mom, why is ice cold?”

  “Because its temperature is lower than your skin temperature, love.”

  “Why?”

  “Because its molecules are moving slower than yours.”

  “Why?”

  And so on.

  I like the idea, but with our current imperfect understanding of the universe, such questions addressing facts must inevitably end with some variation of “Because there are turtles all the way down, love.”

  I’m not saying that this should be discouraging—rather, that it is good to know where your knowledge ends. Furthermore, each generation (and I use the word “generation” loosely) has succeeded in pushing the turtles down one level more. Maybe one day the game of Why? will actually come to an end...

• Sable 26 Apr 2015 22:50 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: shminux’s comment on: A sim­ple ex­er­cise in ra­tio­nal­ity: rephrase an ob­jec­tive state­ment as sub­jec­tive and ex­plore the caveats

  Why can’t it be both? I think that you’re right, the technique you describe is good for exploring your own maps, but I also think it seems to work for figuring out where the territory continues but your maps end.

  I also think I didn’t do a sufficient job of explaining that my “exploring the depths of knowledge” take pertains more to your “The sky is blue” example than your “This book is awful” example (i.e., one that can be answered with fact, rather than opinion.)

• Sable 3 May 2015 20:09 UTC

  2 points

  on: When does tech­nolog­i­cal en­hance­ment feel nat­u­ral and ac­cept­able?

  I’m no expert in the field, but I’d like to bring up neuroplasticity. Our brains are constantly rewiring themselves as they process input, and they gradually adjust to change. My point is that I believe any enhancement could come to feel natural (although some would certainly have a higher learning curve).

  Other thoughts:

  • Ever read Uglies, Pretties, and Specials by Scott Westerfield? It’s set in a utopia/​dystopia where massive plastic surgery is the norm—at 16, everyone chooses what they will look like (going from “Ugly” to “Pretty”) and similar changes occur at middle age, and so on. One of the points made is that there will always be something to envy—if it stops being looks it’ll become something else.

  • I’d take some kind of physical enhancement that removes most bodily needs—sleeping, bathroom, eating, etc. - although this is a symptom of the more general “anything that gives me more free time is good” heuristic.

  • I can imagine some kind of gene sequencing becoming a regular medical practice—stripping people of bad genes, or enhancing good ones.

• Sable 6 May 2015 12:21 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: Username’s comment on: Guidelines for Upvot­ing and Down­vot­ing?

  I’ve mostly tried to avoid upvoting so far, and I’ve completely avoided downvoting.

  My model for upvoting right now is:

  • If I’ve commented on a post, I should upvote it, because if it was good enough to comment on, then it was good enough to upvote.

  • If a post or comment is particularly well thought-out, well-reasoned, or otherwise showing an understandable mastery of the issue at hand, it’s worth considering upvoting it.

  • Don’t upvote unless I’m absolutely confident, because I don’t want to go skewing the statistics here, and I’m also pretty new at this.

  My model for downvoting has been:

  • Don’t do it until you know why other people do it (hence this post).

  I’ve also been trying to understand why posts get comments and up/​downvotes, but the two don’t seem to correlate well. So are there different rules for upvoting comments versus posts?

• Sable 11 May 2015 22:35 UTC

  0 points

  on: The File Drawer Effect and Con­for­mity Bias (Elec­tion Edi­tion)

  I wonder if there’s some element of cause and effect at work here.

  Let’s say that I’m a British citizen who supported the Labour party before the election. As I watch BBC, I see that all the polls show that the Labour party will do well.

  Does this effect my choice in whether or not to vote?

  Personally, I live in a (very) democratic state in the US, to the point where I don’t even bother voting for state officials. The “one person can make a difference” argument doesn’t seem to hold up for me in the voting booth.

  In short: how much do what the polls say effect the actual voting? Is there some way to measure this?

• Sable 20 May 2015 2:55 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: What Would You Do If You Only Had Six Months To Live?

  Yeah, paperwork isn’t what life is about.

  Caring for and supporting the people who you love and who love you, on the other hand, is a large part of what life is about. At least for most people.

• Sable 20 May 2015 2:59 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Manfred’s comment on: What Would You Do If You Only Had Six Months To Live?

  I think one of the points I didn’t quite manage to make is that, in this situation, there isn’t really a cure (and you can’t find one in six months). I’m reminded of Bean from Ender’s Shadow, who finds out that he’s only going to live to about 20. The medical team researching him wishes that he could help, genius that he is, but Bean was taught warfare, not biology.

  You raise a good point, though, that if you are really good at something, you should probably keep doing it—much like Bean helps Peter Wiggin wage his war.

• Sable 20 May 2015 21:58 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: gjm’s comment on: What Would You Do If You Only Had Six Months To Live?

  I think you’ve mostly got it right, although I didn’t do the best job of communicating it. At first I was just pondering the idea that utilitarianism seems to support martyrdom if you’re going to die anyway, but I realized that the theory actually applies to any finite lifespan. If we lived forever, the marginal utility of our lives would theoretically increase ad infinitum—we could bring more and more learning and experience to each problem we face.

  However, until that happy day when nobody has to die anymore, thinking of death as an act (something you can use) instead of an act of god (something you take out insurance for) might help altruistic causes. This also might be a good attitude for soldiers to take (or one they already take, but not being a soldier, I wouldn’t know).

  It also, I think, helps me as a person to think of dying as something I do—it makes me feel more in control of my life, rather than just living with a scythe over my head that may come falling down at any moment.

• Sable 20 May 2015 22:01 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Sabiola’s comment on: What Would You Do If You Only Had Six Months To Live?

  All utilitarian calculations, to my knowledge, have to start with an examination of one’s goals. If your primary goal is to enjoy life (nothing wrong with that), then that approach is fine. If your goal is to help the world, then I’m arguing there are things you can do in your six months that others can’t or won’t because the behaviors are too dangerous.

• Sable 20 May 2015 22:07 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: What Would You Do If You Only Had Six Months To Live?

  Apparently, retiring professors traditionally give a lecture entitled, “The Last Lecture,” during which they talk about what wisdom they want to leave behind. This particular book is the lecture Randy Pausch gave after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

• Sable 20 May 2015 22:16 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Ishaan’s comment on: What Would You Do If You Only Had Six Months To Live?

  Out of curiosity, can you name any such activities? The first thing I thought of was donating your organs (whichever ones were healthy enough to donate). Especially if you could arrange to have them all taken at once when you die, and then put the money into a college fund for your kids or whatever.

  To be honest, if I’d know one of my parent’s kidneys had gone into paying for my chemistry class, I probably would have attended more.

• Sable 21 May 2015 2:10 UTC

  11 points

  on: Brain­storm­ing new senses

  Being able to “feel” electric/​magnetic fields with your hands would be great. Not dissimilar to wifi sensing, but enough to be able to intuit what a circuit is doing just by observing/​feeling it.

  I also don’t think that anyone’s mentioned having a true internal clock. Some people can already wake up at a specific time of day just by wanting to—that’d be useful. Also for the ability to time things.

  Lastly, while being able to detect neurotransmitter levels in your own brain would be great, being able to detect them in the brains of others would be even better. Kind of a toned-down empathic ability—you could tell who was stressed, who was happy, and so on by the amount of cortisol or dopamine in their brain.

• Sable 22 May 2015 1:46 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: calef’s comment on: Leav­ing LessWrong for a more ra­tio­nal life

  Isn’t using a laptop as a metaphor exactly an example of

  Most often reasoning by analogy?

  I think one of the points trying to be made was that because we have this uncertainty about how a superintelligence would work, we can’t accurately predict anything without more data.

  So maybe the next step in AI should be to create an “Aquarium,” a self-contained network with no actuators and no way to access the internet, but enough processing power to support a superintelligence. We then observe what that superintelligence does in the aquarium before deciding how to resolve further uncertainties.

• Sable 22 May 2015 1:55 UTC

  6 points

  0

  on: Leav­ing LessWrong for a more ra­tio­nal life

  I’m relatively new here, so I have trouble seeing the same kinds of problems you do.

  However, I can say that LessWrong does help me remember to apply the principles of rationality I’ve been trying to learn.

  I’d also like to add that—much like writing a novel—the first draft rarely addresses all of the possible faults. LessWrong is one of (if not the first) community blogs devoted to “refining the art of human rationality.” Of course we’re going to get some things wrong.

  What I really admire about this site, though, is that contrarian viewpoints end up being some of the most highly upvoted—people admire and discourse with dissenters here. So if you truly believe that LessWrong isn’t the best use of your time, then I wish you the best with whatever efforts you pursue. But I think if you wrote a bit more on this subject and found a way to add it to the sequences, everyone would only thank you.

• Sable 22 May 2015 18:31 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: Which ideas from LW would you most like to see spread?

  An idea that I think would be very helpful to people—and relatively simple to grasp—is the idea of tribalism, and how much it really motivates us, even to this day. Not just that politics is the mindkiller, but why. I think if more people were able to take a step back every once in a while and think, “Hey, I don’t even care about or like this idea...why am I defending it? Because it’s an idea that I think a group I consider myself a part of holds, and by attacking one idea of my tribe, it seems like you’re attacking every idea of my tribe? Does this make sense?” then the world would be a much more friendly place, at least.

• Sable 22 May 2015 18:32 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Adam Zerner’s comment on: Which ideas from LW would you most like to see spread?

  I think if you go to CFAR’s webpage, and (I think) look at one of Michael Smith’s interviews, he says that that’s the one thing he wants people to take away from CFAR.

• Sable 15 Jul 2015 20:25 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Recom­mended Read­ing for Evolu­tion?

  I’ll try to summarize:

  1) I want to know enough about the low-level mechanics of gene transfer to be able to model it accurately enough (not necessarily for a scientific paper) with mathematics. This has to have been done before—links to how would be appreciated, or I could start from scratch.

  2) I want to know enough about how it works on the macro level to simulate that too, perhaps with the lower level mechanics working behind the scenes.

  3) I am very interested in how evolution started—Dawkins references a soup of chemicals, and then the creation of the first replicator mainly by chance over a very long period of time. Is that accurate?

  How did evolution work in the beginning? Dawkins mentioned that there were other explanations than the one he gave—what are they? How do I find them?

  My training is in engineering/​programming, and my genetics knowledge doesn’t much exceed anything taught at the high school level. I am, however, prepared to read college-level textbooks on the subject.

  Thanks.

• Sable 15 Jul 2015 21:00 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: AlexSchell’s comment on: Recom­mended Read­ing for Evolu­tion?

  I’m looking it up on Amazon now. Thanks.