Never trust another computational agent unless you can see its source code?
xamdam
Karma: 921
Learning math (repost from reddit)
Suggestion: upon seeing a topic of interest, tag the person you’d like to write about it, if someone comes to mind.
What about the nails scattered around here http://lesswrong.com/lw/oh/righting_a_wrong_question/ ?
Essentialism also seems very prominent in human pleasure, per “how pleasure works” book.
As far as supernatural theories, I am in an interesting position as far as taking some meditation training from a martial arts teacher; on one hand I (surely hope!) am not “aligning meridians of the body” while doing the breathing exercises, on the other hand I don’t want to dismiss this incorrect “model” too early as it might be of further usefulness, given that these systems tend to be very ancient.
Yep, got that one right (it was a no-brainer)
Here is the direct link to Vassar’s talk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFkK1O8cuto&feature=player_embedded
-men and women: men aren’t supposed to dress like women and vice versa.
agreed, support your theory
-fish and mammals
yes, probably wrong way to phrase it, but I agree about the essentialism of “fish with scales” being “fishy fish”—that’s a very sharp observation, actually.
I believe certain investors used some sentiment as counter-indicators. Jim Cramer comes to mind.
wool and flax—Yes
men and women—Huh?
fish and mammals—Sort of (some people do not eat milk and fish with same utensils, but it’s not from the Bible as far as I can tell) Additionally -
mixing plant species (via grafting) - Yes, a major support for your point
-- your local ex-rabbinical student :)
I suspect it’s also difficult for Julian (or pretty much anybody) to estimate these things; I guess intelligent people will just have to make best guesses about this type of stuff. In this specific case a rationalist would be very cautious of “having an agenda”, as there is significant opportunity to do harm either way.
To be fair, I think the parent of the downvoted comment also has status implications:
I think you’re nitpicking to dodge the question
It’s a serious accusation hurled at the wrong type of guy IMO—Vladimir probably takes the objectivity award on this forum. I think his response was justified and objective, as usual.
whether the decision is correct (has better expected consequences than the available alternatives), not whether it conflicts with freedom of speech.
Sounds like a good argument for WikiLeaks dilemma (which is of course confused by the possibility the government is lying their asses off about potential harm)
I suspect it’s for the same reason I occasionally litter by accident and not pick it up; it’s a negative externality but the cost of self monitoring all the time is greater. I’d get worried if it goes over a (small) threshold. People like the communication for non-informational reasons and occasionally speech-litter.
[5] Thus, to extend this conjecturally toward our original question: when someone asks “Is the physical world ‘real’?” they may, in part, be asking whether their predictive models of the physical world will give accurate predictions in a very robust manner, or whether they are merely local approximations. The latter would hold if e.g. the person: is a brain in a vat; is dreaming; or is being simulated and can potentially be affected by entities outside the simulation.
Hmm. Let’s say we live in a multiverse where there are infinitely many universes with laws we cannot compute, so our laws are very much local (but not necessarily approximations). Would it make the world as we know it less real? I would not feel that.
On the other hand living in a simulation would feel unreal, though it might be based on a fantasy that you can ‘break out’ somehow.
Another use of the term is authenticity; e.g. I’d be proud to own a book signed by Churchill, but ashamed if it was a fake. (Physical laws to not dictate either way—it could have been authentic). This last example makes me think that it’s going to be hard to disentangle the term from its psychological connotations.
Wonder who is going to be there...
China is planning to sequence the full genome of 1000 of its brightest kids
Terrance Tao, run and hide!
Also on Google Books (has downloadable PDF version)
I think historically, the phenomenon described must have played some role in the evolution of intelligence. So why should I retract it?
I do not think the article suggests any non-toy scenario where such situations might have reasonably arisen.
My personal favorite reason for “why are we not more intelligent species” is that the smart ones don’t breed enough :)
Not to trivialize this, but Phillip Fry helps me think about it, by going back in time and being his own grandfather:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_That_Ends_Well
for him, whether he was prior to his father is an unanswerable question, but the story is causally consistent.