Zaine

Karma: 541

Zaine 8 Jul 2014 3:56 UTC
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on: Open thread, 7-14 July 2014
I have a friend on business in San Francisco with some free time Tuesday afternoon. Do any of you have a recommendation of how they should spend that time, outside of general suggestions as might be listed here?

Zaine 23 Jan 2014 18:31 UTC
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in reply to: Scott Garrabrant’s comment on: Polling Thread
“I believe that there is a biological variance in intelligence and insufficient information to allow for accurate qualitative analysis.”

Your null hypothesis of each question assumes the difference, if present, will favour males; regardless of the theory’s specifics, if you wish to gather fully rounded data on the opinions of your population, you must needs allow for that in the questions. If there’s a theory that blue is finest on a Winter’s day, and you wish to find out what people think of it, you must counter the inherent priming of the theory by including such options as, “Blue is finest on a Summer’s day,” and, “Blue is never the finest during day”; think of what the theory tries to answer. In these cases: the intersection of biology and intellectual variance between the sexes, and at what time is blue finest on Earth (you also may include, “Blue is finest on a Winter’s day in Greenland, but in Madagascar finest on a Fall’s day.”)

Zaine 23 Jan 2014 18:15 UTC
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in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Rationalists Are Less Credulous But Better At Taking Ideas Seriously
Ah, then the purpose for my question is rendered moot. If it was an original coining, I wished to know the thought process that went into deciding, “Yes, I shall prime thusly.”

Zaine 21 Jan 2014 19:05 UTC
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on: Rationalists Are Less Credulous But Better At Taking Ideas Seriously
For how long did you deliberate upon whether, or what did you think whilst deciding to go with ‘Gallant’ and ‘Goofus’?

Zaine 16 Jan 2014 16:51 UTC
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in reply to: CellBioGuy’s comment on: AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything
Intriguing, and thank you for the detailed reply. May I respond in the future should I have further queries?

Zaine 13 Jan 2014 19:59 UTC
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in reply to: Benquo’s comment on: I Will Pay $500 To Anyone Who Can Convince Me To Cancel My Cryonics Subscription
I considered that, but the words seemed too different to result from a typo; I’m interested to learn the fact of the matter.

I’ve edited the grandparent to accommodate your interpretation.

Zaine 13 Jan 2014 19:17 UTC
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in reply to: CellBioGuy’s comment on: AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything
What’s the current thinking on how to prevent physiological decay over time (id est ageing)? Figure a way to recover the bits of DNA cleaved in mitosis?

Zaine 13 Jan 2014 0:05 UTC
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in reply to: Mark_Friedenbach’s comment on: I Will Pay $500 To Anyone Who Can Convince Me To Cancel My Cryonics Subscription
We need to stop and (biologically) define life and death for a moment. A human can be cryogenically frozen before or after their brain shuts down; in either case, their metabolism will cease all function. This is typically a criterion of death. However if, when reanimated, the human carries on as they would from a wee kip, does this mean they have begun a new life? resumed their old life after a sojourn to the Underworld?

You see the quandary our scenario puts to this definition of life, for the waterbear does the exact above. They will suspend their metabolism, which can be considered death, reanimate when harsh environmental conditions subside, and go about their waterbearing ways. Again, do the waterbears live a subset of multiple lives within the set of one life? Quite confusing to think about, yes?

Now let’s redefine life.

A waterbear ceases all metabolic activity, resumes it, then lumbers away. In sleep, one’s state pre- and post-sleep will differ; one wakes up with changed neuronal connections, yet considers themselves the same person—or not, but let’s presume they do. Take, then, the scenario in which one’s state pre- and post-sleep does not differ; indeed, neurophysiologically speaking, it appears they’ve merely paused then recommenced their brain’s processes, just as the time 1:31:00 follows 1:30:59.

This suggests that biological life depends not on metabolic function, but on the presence of an organised system of (metabolic) processes. If the system maintains a pristine state, then it matters not how much time has passed since it last operated; the life of the system’s organism will end only when when that system becomes so corrupted as to lose the capacity for function. Sufficient corruption might amount to one specalated synapse; it might amount to a missing ganglion. Thus cyrogenics’ knottiness.

As to whether they experience verification, you’ll have to query a waterbear yourself. More seriously, for any questions on waterbear experience I refer you to a waterbear, or a waterbear philosopher. As to whether and to what degree they experience sensation when undergoing cryptobiosis, we can test to find out, but any results will be interpreted through layers of extrapolation: “Ganglion A was observed inhibiting Ganglion B via neurotransmitter D binding postsynaptic alpha receptors upon tickling the watebear’s belly; based on the conclusions of Researchers et. al., this suggests the waterbear experienced either mildly positive or extremely negative sensation.”

Zaine 12 Jan 2014 7:50 UTC
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in reply to: Mark_Friedenbach’s comment on: I Will Pay $500 To Anyone Who Can Convince Me To Cancel My Cryonics Subscription
We’d need to have a means of differentiating the subject waterbear’s behaviour from other waterbears; while not exhaustive, classically conditioning a modified reflexive reaction to stimuli (desensitisation, sensitisation) or inducing LTP or LTD on a synapse, then testing whether the adaptations were retained post-reanimation, would be a starting point.

The problem comes when you try to extrapolate success in the above experiment to mean potential for more complex organisms to survive the same procedure given x. Ideally you would image all of the subjects synapses pre-freeze or pre-cryobiosis (depending on what x turns out to be), then image them again post-reanimation, and have a program search for discrepancies. Unfortunately, the closest we are to whole-brain imaging is neuronal fluorescence imaging, which doesn’t light up every synapse. Perhaps it might if we use transcranial DC or magnetic stimulation to activate every cell in the brain; doing so may explode a bunch of cells, too. I’ve just about bent over the conjecture tree by this point.

Zaine 12 Jan 2014 0:25 UTC
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in reply to: V_V’s comment on: I Will Pay $500 To Anyone Who Can Convince Me To Cancel My Cryonics Subscription
To keep the information all in one place, I’ll reply here.

Cryogenic preservation exists in the proof of tardigrades—also called waterbears—which can reanimate from temperatures as low as 0.15 K, and have sufficient neurophysiological complexity to enable analysis of neuronal structural damage.

We don’t know if the identity of a given waterbear pre-cyrobiosis is preserved post-reanimation. For that we’d need a more complex organism. However, the waterbear is idiosyncratic in its capacity for preservation; while it proves the possibility for cyrogenic preservation exists, we ourselves do not have the traits of the waterbear that facilitate its capacity for preservation.

In the human brain, there are billions of synapses—to what neurones other neurones connect, we call the connectome: this informs who you are. According to our current theoretical and practical understanding of how memories work, if synapses degrade even the slightest amount your connectome will change dramatically, and will thus represent a different person—perhaps even a lesser human (fewer memories, etcetera).

Now, let’s assume uploading becomes commonplace and you mainly care about preserving your genetic self rather than your developed self (you without most of your memories and different thought processes vs. the person you’ve endeavoured to become), so any synaptic degradation of subsistence brain areas becomes irrelevant. What will the computer upload? Into what kind of person will your synapses reorganise? Even assuming they will reorganise might ask too much of the hypothetical.

Ask yourself who—or what—you would like to cyropreserve; the more particular your answer, the more science needed to accommodate the possibility.
What links here?
- NancyLebovitz's comment on Open Thread for January 8 − 16 2014 by tut (12 Jan 2014 0:53 UTC; 4 points)

Zaine 7 Jan 2014 9:06 UTC
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in reply to: Douglas_Knight’s comment on: [Link] Valproic acid, a drug for brain plasticity
Would this include humans less than four years of age?

Zaine 7 Jan 2014 8:51 UTC
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in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: What is the evidence in favor of paleo?
Thanks—that’s quite useful.

Zaine 6 Nov 2013 1:49 UTC
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in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Halloween thread—rationalist’s horrors.
Did your eyelids have a view of a lit clock?

Zaine 14 Oct 2013 19:15 UTC
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in reply to: octopocta’s comment on: Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school
Thank you! I’m curious what they do in their free time: do they have creative hobbies, how do they socialise, what do your kids and their friends think of your kids’ schooling, etc.

What are your thoughts regarding languages, for both human and computer interaction?

Thank you again for sharing!

Zaine 12 Oct 2013 14:15 UTC
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in reply to: octopocta’s comment on: Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school
If you wouldn’t mind, please share either your curricula or the method used to design it—whichever is most generally applicable.

Zaine 11 Oct 2013 4:26 UTC
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in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school
Hope it helps! Does that mean he has access to Academy resources, and could attend should he wish it?

Zaine 11 Oct 2013 4:10 UTC
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in reply to: DanielLC’s comment on: The selfish reason to write something for Ada Lovelace Day
Never seriously, I hope. I have yet to stop laughing.

Zaine 11 Oct 2013 1:11 UTC
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in reply to: RolfAndreassen’s comment on: The selfish reason to write something for Ada Lovelace Day
I decided to delete the text of my first comment, as it dealt with what sex by rationalists would look like, rather than erotica fantasising rational decision making; the first is available upon request.

Minerva couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this nervous. She’d redone her hair knot at least twice now, and she still couldn’t tear herself away from the mirror. Half of her wanted to be convinced it was out of respect for the man. That half was a dirty liar. Almost as dirty as her thoughts of the last hour.

A knock came at the door.

“Enter, please.”

The way he derived partial transfiguration by extrapolating observable reality to its logical conclusions was just so sexy.

Zaine 10 Oct 2013 22:04 UTC
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in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school
I’ll brainstorm suggestions, then.
- Ask him if there’s a language he’d like to learn. If there is, provide him materials to learn the basics (grammar, alphabet, fundamentals) and promise to send him to a language school that immerses you for x months during a break.
- Ask him if he’d like tutored instruction in a subject; if he would, then, as others suggest, enslave a grad student.
- Gift him a “Learn X the Hard Way” book. Alternatives include Real Python; I don’t know what else they include.
- Ask him if he has any life goals. If they are scientific in origin, take the goals seriously, lay out some milestones that might help in achieving them, and utilise Davidson’s resources for all they’re worth (including people).
- Ask if he’d like to learn an instrument and/or how to sing, with instruction in music theory being another option. Accommodate.
- Ask if he’d like to learn a martial art, and if he has any preferences. You could ask him this after taking him to a demonstration of the Shaolin Monks. If he has an interest in oriental languages, instruction in the language he’s learning offers a practical immersive environment.
- Have family writing competitions—everyone writes a brief story together by candlelight for a set period of time. Comment on the stories afterwards, and everyone can vote on a favourite should they have one.
- Offer instruction in Go.
- See if you can work out a way to direct all his instruction in the classes that bore him towards producing something of value. In the humanities, this could amount to historical fiction set in the learnt time period, limericks about the mechanics of Linguistics, or analytical essays (should he like that sort of thing). In maths, challenge him to derive established proofs himself without telling him the proof beforehand, or teach with the frame of covering the knowledge necessary for solving a current problem in mathematics. In science, tell a story of the scientist who ran a particularly important experiment, or set of experiments; inform him what the scientist observed, and ask him to design an experiment testing that observation with varying aims. You could also just tell the story, if the one teaching is a good enough storyteller (exempli gratia Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe, by Spielberg and Anderson—although it doesn’t actually teach the subjects).
- Give him a yet-to-be assembled computer with a completely empty drive, books on how computers work, books on how software communicates with computers, and let him play.
- Teach him skills known by the people he’s studying, but not us, concurrent with his studies of those people: calligraphy, perspective art, court decorum, honorifics, hunting for sustenance, foraging, needlework, thread and wool weaving, soap creation, candle creation, paper manufacture, eyeglass manufacture, architecture, sailing, letter-writing, mercury ingestion, plague avoidance, honour, swordsmanship, fear of the inquisition, etc.
I’m curious—Davidson markets itself as solving boring instruction; what about it does he find uninteresting?

Zaine 9 Oct 2013 23:16 UTC
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on: Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school
There’s the Davidson Academy.

If he hasn’t learned algebra yet, get him DragonBox; I’d be curious to learn whether he prefers explicit instruction.