Tiiba2

Karma: 340

Tiiba2 22 Aug 2007 20:08 UTC
3 points
on: Guessing the Teacher’s Password
On the other hand, if techers make first-graders intuitively predict what 2+2 equals, they’ll never get around to making them anticipate who it was that discovered America. There are a lot of passwords. Plus, the kids just won’t work that hard.

Tiiba2 27 Aug 2007 2:45 UTC
7 points
on: The Futility of Emergence
I’m getting the feeling that Eliezer is starting to get overly eager to attack semantic stopsigns. I recommend magic oil in the evening and emergent phenomena in the morning.

My impression of “emergence” was that it’s closely related to pattern recognition. You have atoms A, B..ZZZZZZZZZZ, and you recognize that these atoms form a certain pattern. So you say that a supercluster of galaxies/bar stool/intelligence “emerges” from a bunch of atoms.

I once had a prolonged debate with an anticognitivist. He, as usual, argued that no matter what kind of AI you build, if you take it apart, it’s just “switches flipping”. In that debate, I maintained that intelligence does not require anything else—it emerges from switches flipping the same way that Firefox emerges from switches flipping. Both are just human names for patterns that arise in a sea of subatomic particles.

[That was one frustrating debate… Both of us were equally bewildered that the other refuses to get it.]

Tiiba2 27 Aug 2007 6:06 UTC
1 point
on: The Futility of Emergence
I want to say that I like Jadagul’s reply

Tiiba2 27 Aug 2007 21:50 UTC
5 points
on: The Futility of Emergence
Eliezer: “Don’t y’all find it a little suspicious that so many people think “emergence” is a useful concept, yet have different definitions of what it is?”

That’s a non sequitur. Different people define intelligence differently, so what? The fact that they don’t understand intelligence doesn’t mean that it isn’t a useful concept.

When people actually can’t agree on the meaning of a word, the signnal to noise ratio drops from using it. But in that case, instead of discarding the word, people just need to standardize it.

Tiiba2 28 Aug 2007 22:33 UTC
0 points
on: Positive Bias: Look Into the Dark
I just want to summarize what I learned in this thread in order to ensure that I understand it. As I understand, the steps for determining the rule should be something like this:
1. See sequence.
2. What relations do the elements share? All are numbers, integers, even, differ by two, and are in ascending order. The rule is likelier to contain each (but not all) of these as a clause than not to.
3. If any relation you thought of belongs to a larger class, add that class.
4. Try to disconfirm each relation by creating sequences that violate only this relation (as well as its descendents, necessarily). Test general attributes first, since if they fail, the descendents can be considered impossible.
5. Create a candidate rule which consists of all relations that were not disconfirmed.
6. Offer the rule to the examiner.
Quite a bit more laborious than blurting out “n[i] = n[i-1]+2”, I have to admit.

Tiiba2 4 Sep 2007 1:00 UTC
1 point
on: “Science” as Curiosity-Stopper
I would like your posts to include concrete real-world examples, rather than parables. For example, a major curiosity stopper in the real world is “studies show”: studies show that you use 10% of your brain… Now, THAT is a curiosity stopper that’s common and dangerous. I suggest it as a post topic.

On the other hand, I can’t recall any examples of anyone using science, complexity or emergence as curiocity stoppers or passwords. It might just be me, I might be stupid, but this has been bothering me.

Also, one reason why I might stop caring about light bulbs after learning that somebody understands them is that this knowledge suggests that 1) they don’t hold countless unforeseeable dangers, and 2) if a light bulb breaks, I can rely on “somebody else” to supply me with another.

If scientists tell me that a mini black hole will not consume the earth, that’s all I need to know to sleep at night. Now, if they can’t say that with certainty, that’s a problem for everyone who plans to outlive the launch of the LHC.

Tiiba2 4 Sep 2007 1:37 UTC
2 points
on: “Science” as Curiosity-Stopper
“Anyone who uses that curiosity-stopper is lying or mistaken; no such studies exist.”

That’s the point.

Tiiba2 4 Sep 2007 1:49 UTC
0 points
0
on: “Science” as Curiosity-Stopper
Also, I mentioned “studies show” because it has been a curiosity stopper for me in the past. I read in a middle-school textbook that smoking a cigarette removes [x] days from your life expectancy. I took this as gospel, not caring WHICH studies show this, how they did their math, or whether there are other studies that show something else.

I still haven’t researched this… But at least I realize that the question exists.

There, a REAL real-world example.

Tiiba2 4 Sep 2007 3:53 UTC
−2 points
on: “Science” as Curiosity-Stopper
I’m lost for words.

Now, you think it’s fair that you’re practicing “speed” while I, as a result, am lost for words? It’s a small world. Don’t be greedy.

And if that’s your goal, shouldn’t you write actual fiction instead of pumping out intentionally under-researched bullshit?

(No offense)

Tiiba2 4 Sep 2007 4:21 UTC
3 points
on: “Science” as Curiosity-Stopper
“”“I apologize if I’ve been unfair to you, Tiiba. I was just trying to point out that I was giving parables for the same reason that you said, correctly and validly, “studies show that we use only 10% of our brains”, as an example, instead of actually spending an hour looking it up on Google. I’m not sure how else I might have offended you.”””

You didn’t get it. :(

I don’t ask that you spend an hour looking for twenty-year studies of the way the word “complexity” is used. All I want to know is “what brought this on?” The vaguest paraphrase of someone using “Science!” as a curiosity stopper would satisfy me. Who, when—I’ll trust you.

Tiiba2 14 Sep 2007 21:11 UTC
0 points
on: Human Evil and Muddled Thinking
How come this blog won’t remember my info? I keep clicking that damn checkbox to no effect.

I read Orwell’s essay last night. Quite impressive, but I didn’t immediately understand some of his criticisms. I did later on, and would like to share.

One thing that I had a revelation about is this pair of equivalent passages:

“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

“Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.”

At first, I didn’t understand why Orwell thought that the second passage conveys only part of the meaning of the first. But later, I imagined each of them read by someone. The Bible quote was read with feeling by a beautiful woman. The modern pretentious BS was read by Microsoft Dave. The first evoked images of an army defeated because of bad luck and a wiseman who died poor because his ideas fell on deaf ears. The second didn’t evoke any images or emotions.

And I realized that such abstract writing is dangerous because of this quality: it transmits all the information, and may make perfect sense, but creates no emotions. You can describe cities being burned to the ground like this, and people will react to this description as “somebody else’s problem” or “necessary sacrifice”.

But concrete imagery is not a cure-all:

“All the “best people” from the gentlemen’s clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.”

Lots of imagery here, and it does provoke emotions. But the problem is that 90% of it is trite slogans. They already have a predetermined value: revolution good, bourgeoise ungood. If you avoid triteness and invent your own metaphors, people will actually have to decide whether your metaphor resembles what you’re describing.

Also, I think that the word “clarity”, if it was meant to convey what I wrote above, ironically doesn’t do so very clearly. It suggests that you’re fine as long as your words are easy to parse.

Tiiba2 14 Sep 2007 22:19 UTC
0 points
on: Doublethink (Choosing to be Biased)
This thing about depressed people being unbiased makes no sense to me. Maybe they’re not overconfident, but aren’t they underconfident instead? I’d find it pretty surprising if a mental illness was correlated with common sense.

Anyway, perhaps the key to being rational and happy is suppressing not facts, but fear of them. No, you can’t have a pony. Get over it.

Tiiba2 15 Sep 2007 15:58 UTC
4 points
on: Doublethink (Choosing to be Biased)
Forgive me, Master Eliezer, for I have sinned.

I have come to realize that inside my mind is not merely self-delusion, but a full-blown case of doublethink. There are two mutually exclusive statements that I simutaneously hold to be unquestionably true. Here they are:

1) I should not cause suffering to others. 2) Only my own happiness really matters.

I can even explain this doublethink. I am naturally selfish, but society makes me be good. I could try to believe that only I matter, and do good things only for the show, but that strategy doesn’t work for most people. Being good is too complex.

This doublethink creates intresting effects. When I read about context insensitivity, I wondered if that’s really a bias, or just apathy masquerading as concern. I’d probably give the same amount to save five birds as I would to save Atlantis from sinking. Both are social acts.

I also wonder about coherent extrapolated volition. What will it find when it extrapolates us? That we all want the whole pie? That we would gladly exterminate everyone else if we could get away with it?

Tiiba2 15 Sep 2007 17:38 UTC
0 points
on: Doublethink (Choosing to be Biased)
“When I read about context insensitivity, I wondered if that’s really a bias, or just apathy masquerading as concern. I’d probably give the same amount to save five birds as I would to save Atlantis from sinking. Both are social acts.”

I want to clarify. I do believe in context insensitivity, but think indifference was also a factor in the donation case.

Tiiba2 5 Oct 2007 5:25 UTC
12 points
on: Avoiding Your Belief’s Real Weak Points
I know it’s not entirely on topic, but biblical physics seems like a more important test of the Bible’s truth than God’s morality. If God does not follow the arbitrary laws of human society, what does that prove? Nor does the Bible wrongly saying that God is merciful mean much—what would you do if you were God and had to write a book? But if the Bible accurately states the age of the Universe, that’s something. In the end, the only important issue is whether you’re going to hell or heaven.

I actually think it’s rather irrational for someone to think that God’s cruelty is an argument against His existence, and this seems a common opinion among atheists. I mean, I believe in Stalin, who also claimed to be a milkmaid’s best friend while executing anyone who looked at him funny.

Tiiba2 7 Oct 2007 20:58 UTC
3 points
on: No One Can Exempt You From Rationality’s Laws
Between appeal to valid authority and guilt by association, I choose argumentum ad logicam.

Tiiba2 14 Oct 2007 18:31 UTC
6 points
on: Original Seeing
Was the girl trying to say something about the US, or say something that nobody said before?

A I understand, narrowness is very useful in the latter case, because it gives you a topic about which others haven’t already said everything. And Antony van Leeuwenhoek would agree that you could find details that are otherwise hidden.

Still, school essays rarely require you to write something truly original. I could write 500 words about “the United States” right now. So I feel that this is a sort of a bad example.

There’s your disagreement. Get to analyzing.

Tiiba2 16 Oct 2007 2:24 UTC
4 points
on: How to Seem (and Be) Deep
“”″For your expected lifespan value to diverge to +infinity, it is necessary to place only

.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

probability on your chance of living forever, and I don’t think you can realistically defend assigning a probability lower than that.”″”

I can assign a nonzero probability to any number less than infinity, but in infinite time, the probability that even a godlike being will earn a Darwin is 1, no matter how unlikely it is n the next year.

Tiiba2 16 Oct 2007 2:24 UTC
−2 points
on: How to Seem (and Be) Deep
“”″For your expected lifespan value to diverge to +infinity, it is necessary to place only

.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

probability on your chance of living forever, and I don’t think you can realistically defend assigning a probability lower than that.”″”

I can assign a nonzero probability to any number less than infinity, but in infinite time, the probability that even a godlike being will earn a Darwin is 1, no matter how unlikely it is n the next year.

Tiiba2 19 Oct 2007 5:23 UTC
2 points
on: Congratulations to Paris Hilton
SIAI welcomes its new Director of Sex Appeal.