Ugh, you just HAD to make this a whole bunch of lesswrongers first impression of the show, didn’t you? I’ve been tiptoing around mentioning it for ages planing to make a certain post abaut (still planing to, so I wont spoil it here), figures someone was going to do somehting like that.
Will you at least put up an disclaimer at the top of the post explaining how the show is great and actually one of the most rationality-inspiring shows out there with a brilliant fun-theory-compliant eutopia as the setting etc. etc.?
More on topic:
The question about the rationality of the believing in pinkie sense is actually even more interesting than it seems as first, here’s somehting I wrote on another forum about it:
“we here have an enormous amount of extremely strong and general evidence that excludes huge areas of hypothesis space. This is the STRONGLY DOMINANT reason you shouldn’t believe certain kinds of things even if someone you trust sincerely tells you to. Things like “physical laws don’t have exceptions, no exceptions”, “there are no irreducibly mental (=supernatural) phenomena”, “Due to huge flaws in the way human brains work, billions of people CAN be wrong, and frequently are. You can’t even trust your own brain.”. We have no reason to believe Equestria and ponykind have similar overriding principles. ”
Or, in other words; most of the rationalist art that lesswrong is about does not necessarily translate to the ponyverse. It is specific to humans operating in a mathematical universe. If someone in OUR universe , their claim is extremely extraordinary for a bazilion reasons that evryone here knows all to well. However, in Equestria where magic is a very real phenomena used every day and somehting science is understanding a little better every day it’s just a black swan. The apropriate reference class is not the same as someone here claiming to have a power that lets them predict the future by supernarural means, it’s more akin to someone claiming to have a cognitive power that lets them predict what genre of music is on an LP by looking at it.
As for your actual question:
That somehting is happening does seem pretty clear. So is the fact that it’s happening in her brain even if it’s in a place not accessible to conciousness directly, that’s how many kinds of intuition works for most humans at least, read up on embodied cognition if you’re interested in this stuff. I’d focus on distinguishing between these two hypothesis:
1) information about PPs future cognition are sent back in time. In this scenario seeing a door slam up CAUSES her tail to twitch in the past.
2) She constantly have some ambiant magical sense that can see things outside the range of her normal senses. In this scenario she senses someone walking up to the door/their intention to open the door and subconsciously infers that the door is probably going to open, and her body reacts to this subconscious expectation.
actually one of the most rationality-inspiring shows
Look, I enjoy Friendship is Magic too, but I think you may be suffering from a halo effect. Rationality is great, and this cartoon is great, but that doesn’t mean the two have anything to do with each other.
I probably do suffer halo effects related to it, however I don’t think it’s connection to rationality is caused by that since it’s one of the main reasons I got interested in the show in the first place. Halo effects don’t tend to cause the MAIN thing you like about somehting since it’s a bleedover from such main things to more minor things.
The closest thing to what you describe that might be the case is halo effect from what it’s trying to teach to how pedagogically it teaches it, but I wouldn’t bet on that either.
I watched 3 episodes or so, and while it was amusing & better than expected, not once did I think ‘ooh that would make a good example for a LW article!’ Count me in on the halo effect explanation.
I suppose it was a subtle point but I did get to episode 15 before I started wanting to talk about the show on less wrong… Perhaps the implication that the show is awesome and of interest to lesswrongians should have been made explicit.
the show is great and actually one of the most rationality-inspiring shows out there
I started to watch it but the main thing I got from sampling the first episode was a reminder of the vast psychological divide that separates me from the pre-adolescent girls that the show appears to be aimed at, a divide even deeper and wider than the one that separates me from fans of Twilight. I have put the show on hold until someone, anyone, demonstrates that the repeated mentions of the show are for good reason. An example of such a demonstration would be a summary of one episode which makes an interesting, nontrivial point that is not about coloring or naming ponies, combing their hair, the magic of friendship, or other topics of interest to a limited audience, and that would sufficiently compensate for the cost of sitting through a little girl’s toy media tie in.
I have put the show on hold until someone, anyone, demonstrates that the repeated mentions of the show are for good reason.
Superstimulus? It’s ridiculously cute without crossing into saccharine. More cute than anything in real life can be.
Anyway, if you don’t understand the “why” of its popularity, shouldn’t that make you more interested in studying it and figuring out an explanation for your confusion?
An example of such a demonstration would be a summary of one episode which makes an interesting, nontrivial point that is not about coloring or naming ponies
Well, I guess the show begins with an explanation of how if you begin with a PR.ogrammed IN.tellect of C.ausal-E.vidential S.entient S.upervision that has as its utility function L.engthen U.tility (N.ighttime A.verage), you’ll end up having it seek to eliminate the existence of daytime, because otherwise diurnal creatures will be using up the nighttime for primarily low-fun activities (like sleeping).
You need to use the elements of Friendliness to restrain such minds.
(DISCLAIMER: I notice I’m a bit on the defensive here.)
I thought lesswrongers were more free of preconceptions than this. First of, the show is not written just for pre-adolescent girls, it is explicitly written to be enjoyable for their parents as well, including male parents. And as mentioned by it’s creator, it’s no surprise then that it is also enjoyable by those who don’t have children.
NONE of the episodes are about things like “colouring or naming ponies, combing their hair”. The “magic of friendship” refers to somehting more akin to group rationality than the tropes one might asume from the name and is in fact somehting most of the lesswrong demographic desperately needs to learn more about. The kind of summary you are talking about could be made for every single one of the episodes I’ve watched so far.
These claims might seem extraordinary, until you realize that the show was made mostly by a feminist set out explicitly to subvert those expectations of “girls shows” and brilliant insight on how to balance art and message.
Anyway, I don’t have time to do a proper summary of an episode, but I’ll give it a quick try on somehting sort of similar:
vv############################ WARNING! CONTAINS UN-rot13′D SPOLIERS DUE TO THE FORMATING NOT BEING rot13ABLE ##############vv
Summary of episode 4, “Applebuck Season”:
One of the main characters, Applejack, runs a large orchard together with her brother. Economies are implied to be similar to a modern farm and it’s a family businesses. For this years harvest however, her brother has an injury that prevents him from helping with harvesting it all. Prideful and not wanting to put a lot of work on her friends, she despite warnings that it is to much work for one pony she decides to do the entire harvest herself.
Earlier, AJ saved the town from a stampede, and so they are having a celebration in her honour. However, AJ who usually is always on time is late and is showing signs of sleep deprivation. Then there are several scenes where AJ tries to do numerous things she routinely do in the community to help others out, but she is becoming increasingly sleep deprived and her failures start causing accidents.
All the time evidence is accumulating that she should just ask her friends for help, and this is often pointed out. AJ finally gives in after a Planing Fallacy related reveal, AJ finally realizes her mistake, updates, and with so many people helping the remaining apples are quickly harvested while she is unable to help.
TL;DR: episode 4 demonstrates the planing fallacy, how your misfiring loyalty instincts can actually cause behaviour that in the end turns out to have been disloyal, the dangers of sleep deprivation, the Virtue of Argument, and a bunch of other things I can’t remember of the top of my head. And this is not coincidence, this is the main Aesop of the episode.
^^############################ WARNING! CONTAINS UN-rot13′D SPOLIERS DUE TO THE FORMATING NOT BEING rot13ABLE ##############^^
I thought lesswrongers were more free of preconceptions than this.
Preconceptions are also known as priors and are necessary. Maybe you want to accuse me of having poorly selected priors, but my priors in this case are not ex nihilo—they come from three decades of familiarity with the product line. The specifics I mentioned—coloring, naming, combing hair—are references to empirical evidence available to me concerning My Little Pony. If you want I can provide links.
Thank you for providing the summary. I notice you were downvoted to −1, not by me. I’ll bring you back to 0 by upvoting, in appreciation for the summary. However, the story itself seems to me to be fairly generic among decent didactic children’s stories.
Also, those 3 decades of experience can be safely discarded, other than the name and being about ponies Friendship is Magic has almost nothing with anything previously associated with the series. not even the visual style. Everyone agree G1-G3 sucked, don’t let that taint your view of this mostly unrelated and great show.
I’d like to chime in as agreeing with Armok. This version of MLP, which is generally considered very different from previous versions, does have a lot of good group rationality messages. The episode described in the OP deeply annoys me, but all the others I’ve seen are enjoyable. Armok provided an episode summary below, but I can do another if you’re still unconvinced.
Ugh, you just HAD to make this a whole bunch of lesswrongers first impression of the show, didn’t you? I’ve been tiptoing around mentioning it for ages planing to make a certain post abaut (still planing to, so I wont spoil it here), figures someone was going to do somehting like that.
Will you at least put up an disclaimer at the top of the post explaining how the show is great and actually one of the most rationality-inspiring shows out there with a brilliant fun-theory-compliant eutopia as the setting etc. etc.?
More on topic:
The question about the rationality of the believing in pinkie sense is actually even more interesting than it seems as first, here’s somehting I wrote on another forum about it: “we here have an enormous amount of extremely strong and general evidence that excludes huge areas of hypothesis space. This is the STRONGLY DOMINANT reason you shouldn’t believe certain kinds of things even if someone you trust sincerely tells you to. Things like “physical laws don’t have exceptions, no exceptions”, “there are no irreducibly mental (=supernatural) phenomena”, “Due to huge flaws in the way human brains work, billions of people CAN be wrong, and frequently are. You can’t even trust your own brain.”. We have no reason to believe Equestria and ponykind have similar overriding principles. ”
Or, in other words; most of the rationalist art that lesswrong is about does not necessarily translate to the ponyverse. It is specific to humans operating in a mathematical universe. If someone in OUR universe , their claim is extremely extraordinary for a bazilion reasons that evryone here knows all to well. However, in Equestria where magic is a very real phenomena used every day and somehting science is understanding a little better every day it’s just a black swan. The apropriate reference class is not the same as someone here claiming to have a power that lets them predict the future by supernarural means, it’s more akin to someone claiming to have a cognitive power that lets them predict what genre of music is on an LP by looking at it.
As for your actual question:
That somehting is happening does seem pretty clear. So is the fact that it’s happening in her brain even if it’s in a place not accessible to conciousness directly, that’s how many kinds of intuition works for most humans at least, read up on embodied cognition if you’re interested in this stuff. I’d focus on distinguishing between these two hypothesis: 1) information about PPs future cognition are sent back in time. In this scenario seeing a door slam up CAUSES her tail to twitch in the past. 2) She constantly have some ambiant magical sense that can see things outside the range of her normal senses. In this scenario she senses someone walking up to the door/their intention to open the door and subconsciously infers that the door is probably going to open, and her body reacts to this subconscious expectation.
Look, I enjoy Friendship is Magic too, but I think you may be suffering from a halo effect. Rationality is great, and this cartoon is great, but that doesn’t mean the two have anything to do with each other.
Can we rename the Halo Effect to the Pony Effect?
And when someone exhibits this behavior toward something we can refer to that thing as their Little Pony?
I probably do suffer halo effects related to it, however I don’t think it’s connection to rationality is caused by that since it’s one of the main reasons I got interested in the show in the first place. Halo effects don’t tend to cause the MAIN thing you like about somehting since it’s a bleedover from such main things to more minor things.
The closest thing to what you describe that might be the case is halo effect from what it’s trying to teach to how pedagogically it teaches it, but I wouldn’t bet on that either.
I watched 3 episodes or so, and while it was amusing & better than expected, not once did I think ‘ooh that would make a good example for a LW article!’ Count me in on the halo effect explanation.
I suppose it was a subtle point but I did get to episode 15 before I started wanting to talk about the show on less wrong… Perhaps the implication that the show is awesome and of interest to lesswrongians should have been made explicit.
it should. You can edit posts.
I started to watch it but the main thing I got from sampling the first episode was a reminder of the vast psychological divide that separates me from the pre-adolescent girls that the show appears to be aimed at, a divide even deeper and wider than the one that separates me from fans of Twilight. I have put the show on hold until someone, anyone, demonstrates that the repeated mentions of the show are for good reason. An example of such a demonstration would be a summary of one episode which makes an interesting, nontrivial point that is not about coloring or naming ponies, combing their hair, the magic of friendship, or other topics of interest to a limited audience, and that would sufficiently compensate for the cost of sitting through a little girl’s toy media tie in.
Superstimulus? It’s ridiculously cute without crossing into saccharine. More cute than anything in real life can be.
Anyway, if you don’t understand the “why” of its popularity, shouldn’t that make you more interested in studying it and figuring out an explanation for your confusion?
Well, I guess the show begins with an explanation of how if you begin with a PR.ogrammed IN.tellect of C.ausal-E.vidential S.entient S.upervision that has as its utility function L.engthen U.tility (N.ighttime A.verage), you’ll end up having it seek to eliminate the existence of daytime, because otherwise diurnal creatures will be using up the nighttime for primarily low-fun activities (like sleeping).
You need to use the elements of Friendliness to restrain such minds.
That’s a bit non-obvious to the average viewer.
(DISCLAIMER: I notice I’m a bit on the defensive here.)
I thought lesswrongers were more free of preconceptions than this. First of, the show is not written just for pre-adolescent girls, it is explicitly written to be enjoyable for their parents as well, including male parents. And as mentioned by it’s creator, it’s no surprise then that it is also enjoyable by those who don’t have children.
NONE of the episodes are about things like “colouring or naming ponies, combing their hair”. The “magic of friendship” refers to somehting more akin to group rationality than the tropes one might asume from the name and is in fact somehting most of the lesswrong demographic desperately needs to learn more about. The kind of summary you are talking about could be made for every single one of the episodes I’ve watched so far.
These claims might seem extraordinary, until you realize that the show was made mostly by a feminist set out explicitly to subvert those expectations of “girls shows” and brilliant insight on how to balance art and message.
Anyway, I don’t have time to do a proper summary of an episode, but I’ll give it a quick try on somehting sort of similar:
vv############################ WARNING! CONTAINS UN-rot13′D SPOLIERS DUE TO THE FORMATING NOT BEING rot13ABLE ##############vv
Summary of episode 4, “Applebuck Season”: One of the main characters, Applejack, runs a large orchard together with her brother. Economies are implied to be similar to a modern farm and it’s a family businesses. For this years harvest however, her brother has an injury that prevents him from helping with harvesting it all. Prideful and not wanting to put a lot of work on her friends, she despite warnings that it is to much work for one pony she decides to do the entire harvest herself.
Earlier, AJ saved the town from a stampede, and so they are having a celebration in her honour. However, AJ who usually is always on time is late and is showing signs of sleep deprivation. Then there are several scenes where AJ tries to do numerous things she routinely do in the community to help others out, but she is becoming increasingly sleep deprived and her failures start causing accidents.
All the time evidence is accumulating that she should just ask her friends for help, and this is often pointed out. AJ finally gives in after a Planing Fallacy related reveal, AJ finally realizes her mistake, updates, and with so many people helping the remaining apples are quickly harvested while she is unable to help.
Ok, this summary kinda sucks, for a better summary look here: http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Applebuck_Season Link to the episode: http://www.youtube.com/user/MenloMarseilles#p/c/F44B36D569D8C463/3/zxzbSLAx2rI
TL;DR: episode 4 demonstrates the planing fallacy, how your misfiring loyalty instincts can actually cause behaviour that in the end turns out to have been disloyal, the dangers of sleep deprivation, the Virtue of Argument, and a bunch of other things I can’t remember of the top of my head. And this is not coincidence, this is the main Aesop of the episode.
^^############################ WARNING! CONTAINS UN-rot13′D SPOLIERS DUE TO THE FORMATING NOT BEING rot13ABLE ##############^^
Preconceptions are also known as priors and are necessary. Maybe you want to accuse me of having poorly selected priors, but my priors in this case are not ex nihilo—they come from three decades of familiarity with the product line. The specifics I mentioned—coloring, naming, combing hair—are references to empirical evidence available to me concerning My Little Pony. If you want I can provide links.
Thank you for providing the summary. I notice you were downvoted to −1, not by me. I’ll bring you back to 0 by upvoting, in appreciation for the summary. However, the story itself seems to me to be fairly generic among decent didactic children’s stories.
Well, i explained it poorly.
Also, those 3 decades of experience can be safely discarded, other than the name and being about ponies Friendship is Magic has almost nothing with anything previously associated with the series. not even the visual style. Everyone agree G1-G3 sucked, don’t let that taint your view of this mostly unrelated and great show.
I’d like to chime in as agreeing with Armok. This version of MLP, which is generally considered very different from previous versions, does have a lot of good group rationality messages. The episode described in the OP deeply annoys me, but all the others I’ve seen are enjoyable. Armok provided an episode summary below, but I can do another if you’re still unconvinced.
I don’t really think I did a good job with mine, so that’d probably be useful yea.