witzvo

Karma: 350

witzvo 22 Nov 2013 4:43 UTC
54 points
on: 2013 Less Wrong Census/Survey
Surveyed.

witzvo 10 Jun 2012 17:18 UTC
16 points
on: What was your biggest recent surprise?
I learned that I’m not crazy for having been confused by the double-speak I was taught in college about “observation” in Quantum Mechanics and that maybe there’s a community where I can get straight answers to things.

According to RolfAndreassen:

‘Observation’ is a shorthand (for historical reasons) for ‘interaction with a different system’, for example a detector or a human; but a rock will do as well. I would actually suggest you read the Quantum Mechanics Sequence on this point, Eliezer’s explanation is quite good.

According to Douglas_Knight,

I advocate in place of “many worlds interpretation” the phrase “no collapse interpretation.”

Thanks Less Wrong.

witzvo 27 Mar 2014 0:31 UTC
11 points
on: What legal ways do people make a profit that produce the largest net loss in utility?
One possibility is computer games, e.g. I’ve certainly lost a good chunk of hours to the game Diablo. Modern things like Farmville seem especially pernicious. [This is not to be construed as all gaming is bad, etc.]

witzvo 8 May 2014 5:11 UTC
9 points
on: Open Thread, May 5 − 11, 2014
Links: Young blood reverses age-related impairments in cognitive function and synaptic plasticity in mice (press release)(paper)

I think the radial arm water maze experiment’s results are particularly interesting; it measures learning and memory (see fig 2c which is visible even with the paywall). There’s a day one and day two of training and the old mice (18 months) improve somewhat during the first day and then more or less start over on the second day in terms of the errors they are making. This is also true if the old mice are treated with 8 injections of old blood over the course of 3 weeks (the new curves lie pretty much on top of the old curves in supplemental figure 7d). Young mice (3 months) perform better than the old mice (supplemental figure 5d) they learn faster on the first day and retain it when the second day starts (supp 7d).

However, if you give 8 injections of 100 micro liters of blood from 3 month old mice to 18 month old mice, the treated mice perform dramatically better than the old-blood treated old mice (2c) and much more like young mice (this comparison is less certain; I’m comparing one line from 2c to one line from supp. 7d, but that’s how it looks by eye).

One factor in the new blood that plays a role is GDF11. From another paper: “we show that GDF11 alone can improve the cerebral vasculature and enhance neurogenesis”

The New York Times gives an overview and other known effects of young blood such as rejuvenating the musculature / heart / vasculature of old mice with young blood. Young Blood May Hold Key to Reversing Aging, e.g. Restoring Systemic GDF11 Levels Reverses Age-Related Dysfunction in Mouse Skeletal Muscle

witzvo 22 Apr 2014 8:02 UTC
7 points
in reply to: april_flower’s comment on: Open thread, 21-27 April 2014

but a reaction to an environment in the broadest sense inherently unsuitable to humans.

So, can you say more about what aspect of your environment is bugging you? Captivity?? Do you want to try living somewhere more “outdoors”?

witzvo 26 Mar 2014 23:05 UTC
7 points
on: What legal ways do people make a profit that produce the largest net loss in utility?
Your question makes me think of what economists call negative externalities. Wikipedia has a list of them

witzvo 3 Dec 2013 8:20 UTC
7 points
in reply to: ialdabaoth’s comment on: Failing to update

[the might is right position I grew up under states:] the strong are morally justified—in a sense, morally compelled—to dominate and torment the weak, because they can. And the weak deserve every minute of it, because fuck them.

… it’s hard for me to imagine what you’ve been through. I’m sorry.

When you say that you operate under this belief system, I don’t quite believe you. You don’t seem to identify with it. Maybe you’ve updated out of it in some regards but not others? Maybe you apply it to the way you would let others treat you / how you treat yourself, but not to the way you treat others?

Also, I’m going to guess that you’re still punishing yourself for your mistakes of the day. I hope you can let them go. You’re obviously working through something painful. Have you given yourself credit for taking the bold step of making this post to try to find a way out?

As for your original question, the only approach I know of for failure, generally, is to try again the next day, possibly trying something different/smaller, possibly with help. Failure to act according to your “system 2”-intention happens to everyone, so I’d say the most important things are (1) not being to hard on yourself (2) setting things up for a new trial with a high success probability (3) recognizing small successes. E.g. set things up so you can avoid most of what your averse to, without completely avoiding all of it, and/or find ways to be less averse to it.

I hope this post isn’t too off-base. I wish you well.

witzvo 12 Jun 2012 18:06 UTC
7 points
on: Rationality Quotes June 2012

There was a time in my life when I couldn’t get anything done. …

Perfectionism, which was always a friend, turned into my worst enemy. …

I’ve heard that “perfect is the enemy of good enough” many times, but the repressed artist in me refused to accept this as truth. …

Eventually I lucked out. By accident (or was it an accident?) I stumbled on the fascinating Book of Tea which led me to the concept of Wabi-sabi—the Japanese art of imperfect beauty. …

Looking at Wabi-sabi objects was a breath of fresh air. Inability to achieve any lasting perfection is not fought, but embraced via lack of symmetry, respect for blemishes, and unsanitized simplicity. Imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness is incorporated directly into the design—a simple idea that cuts the disease of perfectionism at its core. …

Real artists ship.

Slava Akhmechet see also Enso and the rest

witzvo 9 Mar 2014 22:39 UTC
6 points
on: Open Thread: March 4 − 10
A new study in mice (popular article) establishes that elevated levels of fatty tissue cause cognitive deficits in mice with potential significance for humans suffering from obesity or diabetes. They hypothesize that the mechanism of action involves the inflammatory cytokine interleukin 1 beta. Interventions that restored cognitive function included exercise, liposuction, and intra-hippocampal delivery of IL1 receptor antagonist (IL1ra).

witzvo 4 Nov 2013 19:01 UTC
6 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: Open Thread, November 1 − 7, 2013

… researchers isolated about 100 neurons from three people posthumously. The scientists took a high-level view of the entire genome—looking for large deletions and duplications of DNA called copy number variations or CNVs—and found that as many as 41 percent of neurons had at least one unique, massive CNV that arose spontaneously, meaning it wasn’t passed down from a parent. The CNVs are spread throughout the genome, the team found.

Edit: see the paper for more precise statements.

witzvo 15 Oct 2013 3:45 UTC
6 points
in reply to: MrMind’s comment on: Open Thread, October 13 − 19, 2013
As a rule I don’t think it’s productive to worry about karma too much, and I’m going to assume you agree and that you’re asking “what am I missing, here” which is a perfectly useful question.

Before I get into your question, here’s an example that was at −2 when I encountered it, but that I see has now risen to having +5, so there’s definitely some fluidity to the outcome (you might be interested in the larger discussion on that page anyway).

So the two examples that you mention at −2 presently are 1 and 2.

Part of the problem in those examples seems to be an issue of language, but I don’t think that’s all of it. For example, you offer to clarify that when you say “natural inclination” you mean an “innate impulse [that] is strongly present almost universally in humans” and give examples of things humans seek regularly (“eating, company, sex”). From my interpretation of the other posts, when they say “natural inclination” they mean “behavior that would be observed in a group of humans (of at least modest size) unless laws or circumstances specifically prevent it”. I suspect that the downvotes could be because your meaning was sufficiently unexpected that even when you wrote to clarify what it was, they couldn’t believe that that was what you meant. And, on balance, no, that doesn’t seem right to me since you were making an honest effort to clarify terms.

For what it’s worth, here’s why I’d object to your choice of terms, and this could explain some of the downvotes, since it’s obviously much less effort to just downvote than explain. I’d object because your definition inserts an implied “and the situation is normal” into the definition. For example, in normal situations a person would rather have an ice cream than kill someone. But if the situation is that you’re holding a knife and the man in front of you has just raped your sister and boasts about doing it again soon, maybe the situation is different enough that the typical innate impulse is different. Since what’s usually of interest is behavior over a long period of time, the dependency on the situation is problematic.

As for the second comment, I don’t understand it. Maybe I’m missing context. You seem to set up an unreasonable partition of the possibilities into 3 things.

Anyway, sometimes the negative votes can tell us what we’re doing wrong, sometimes they seem to just be a consequence of saying something that’s not mainstream for the site, but I don’t want to let myself get trapped into dismissing them all that way, so I usually take a minute to think about it when it happens.

Incidentally, I think it would be a big mistake to actively try to get maximum +karma on your comments. On the benign side you’d start trying hard to be the first poster on major articles. On the more negative side you’d have the incentive to approve of the prevailing argument with clever words. To exaggerate: “Be proud that you don’t have too much that was merely popular.” That said, some of the highly voted articles, at least, clearly deserve it.

witzvo 28 Jun 2014 8:49 UTC
5 points
on: Open thread, 23-29 June 2014
[LINK] Givewell discusses the progress of their thinking about the merits of funding efforts to ameliorate global existential risks.

witzvo 26 Nov 2013 8:39 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Lion’s comment on: 2013 Less Wrong Census/Survey

Am I still supposed to just say “I took it” and get more Karma without commenting anything more of value? Well, I took it.

Yup. Your points on the earlier comments were just the “ordinary” kind.

witzvo 28 Oct 2013 1:05 UTC
5 points
in reply to: shminux’s comment on: Open Thread, October 20 − 26, 2013
Did you see that Daenerys and NancyLebovitz experienced a similar problem? Seems likely someones doing it systematically to several accounts.

witzvo 15 Oct 2013 4:00 UTC
5 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, October 13 − 19, 2013
+1 for explaining why. I’m not sure I agree with the behavior particularly, since it could give a lot of credit for something relatively obvious. I probably wouldn’t do it if the question had more than +5 already unless I was really glad.

Oh, I will give extra +1′s when the context made me think it would be hard for the person to ask the question they asked, e.g. because it challenges something they’d been assuming.

witzvo 10 Jun 2012 17:39 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Paul Crowley’s comment on: What was your biggest recent surprise?
These are the best references I know:
- Calculus on Manifolds
- Boothby
As for topological dimension, roughly, if you consider a neighborhood of a point in the space, what does space look like from there? Locally it’s Euclidean if you’re “on” a manifold. The rigorous definition involves charts. See also Lebesgue covering dimension.

witzvo 10 Jun 2012 1:40 UTC
5 points
in reply to: VincentYu’s comment on: Proposal: Show up and down votes separately
Thanks! That discussion also mentioned the issues list. So now I can at least get a peek at what’s needed to effect a change. Would submitting a patch do it? Well, now I know more about where to look.

I also found this comment interesting:

I want to vote for and against the same post sometimes. Not too useful, but might help for ordering by controversial.

I agree with the sentiment. I think the useful low hanging fruit would be to allow you to select a section of a post with your cursor and up/down vote that section. This, and other good proposals, certainly complicate the UI, though. Another proposal there was to require a comment with a vote. This is simpler to implement but adds user-friction and clutter, so I’m not sure about the tradeoff.

Is there more I’m missing? I tried some searches but couldn’t find the right phrases.

witzvo 9 Jun 2012 19:39 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Daniel_Burfoot’s comment on: Are the bacteria/parasites in your gut affecting your thinking?
There could be a whole new continent of health improvements achievable by managing the body’s bacterial ecosystem in the way a professional gardener manages a botanical garden.

Is eating an effective way to do that? In the world’s cultures there’s a wide variety of pro-biotic fermented foods. Do these exist merely because people like the taste? Surely they partly exist as a coping strategy for rotten food, but is that all? I doubt it. In some cultures they’re eaten regularly. Let’s list some:
- yogurt / cheese / cottage cheese / sour cream / kefir / etc.
- sauerkraut / kim chee / pickled vegetables
- fermented tofu (e.g. stinky tofu)
- fermented rice
- kombucha
Diet generally can dramatically affect which bacteria thrive in the gut (e.g. I recall evidence about sugar consumption, but can’t find it). [I don’t list bread or wine because as far as I know the agents are mostly dead before we eat them. For that matter, I’m not sure how much is alive in commercially available cheese.][Hygiene practices vary substantially too which probably has an important effect.]

witzvo 27 May 2012 0:17 UTC
5 points
on: Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012)
You can call me Witzvo. My determination of whether I’m a “rationalist” is waiting on data to be supplied by your responses. I found HPMOR hilarious and insightful (I was hooked from the first chapter which so beautifully juxtaposed a rationalist child with all-too-realistic adults), and lurked some for a while. I have one previous post which I doubt ever got read. To be critical, my general impression of the discussions here is that they are self-congratulatory, smarter than they are wise, and sometimes obsessed with philosophically meaningful but not terribly urgent debates. However, I do value the criteria by which karma is obtained. And I saw some evidence of responses being actually based on the merits of an argument presented, which is commendable. Also, Eliezer should be commended for sticking his neck out so far and so often.

I was born into a sect of Christianity that is heretical in various ways, but notably in that they believe that God is operating all for the (eventual) good of mankind, and that we will all be saved (e.g. no eternal Hell). I remain agnostic. Talk about non-falsifiability and Occam’s razor all you like, but a Bayesian doesn’t abandon the possibilities to which he assigns prior mass without evidence, and even then the posterior mass generally just drops towards 0, not all the way. Still, my life is basically secular; I don’t think there’s an important observable difference in how I live my life from how an atheist lives, and that’s pretty much the end of the matter for me. Oh, perhaps I have times of weakness, but who doesn’t?

I have formal training in statistics. I am very sympathetic to the Savage / de Finetti schools of subjective Bayesianism, but if I had to name my philosophy of science I’d call it Boxian, after George Box (c.f. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2982063; I highly recommend this paper AND the discussion. Sorry about the pay walls).

I find the Solomonoff/Kolmogorov/AIXI ideas fascinating and inspiring. I aspire to compute for example, (a computationally bounded approximation to) the normal forms of (a finite subsequence of) a countable sequence of de Bruijn lambda terms and go from there. I do not see any lurking existential crisis in doing so.

In fact, maybe I’ve missed something, but I have not yet identified an actionable issue regarding one of the much-discussed existential crises. I do not participate much in the political system of my country or even see how that would help particularly except and unless through actual rational discussion and other action.

I find far more profit in exploring ideas, such as say, Inventing on Principle (http://vimeo.com/36579366), or Incremental Learning in Inductive Programming (http://www.cogsys.wiai.uni-bamberg.de/aaip09/aaip09_submissions/incremental.pdf), either of which I would be happy to discuss.

I am also intellectually lonely.

That’s probably more than enough. Go on and tell me something less wrong.

witzvo 27 Oct 2014 5:07 UTC
4 points
on: Anthropic signature: strange anti-correlations
Interesting. Something’s a bit odd, though. If the events are rare, then it’s hard to know what the correlations are with any precision. If the events are common, then, yes, we should be able to see the anti-correlation, but this would be a really bad sign—there’d be no reason to think that the disastrous event where both co-occur isn’t right around the corner.

ETA: I exaggerate a bit. There’d be no reason if the independence model was true. If, in reality, there was some circumstance specially protecting us somehow the situation wouldn’t have to be dire.