undercuts the message to “follow your playful impulses, even if they’re silly”
That’s a fine message, but it’s not the message of the post. The concept described in the post is playful thinking, not fun. It does use the word “fun” in a few places where the more specific phrase would arguably have been better, so the miscommunication is probably my fault.
are far less obviously applicable to working on alignment than the insights generated from studying physics
I literally don’t believe this, but even if it were true, the post doesn’t argue to do math because it’s useful for alignment. The reason that alignment is even mentioned, is that the phenomenon of throwing away your mind is so perverse that it should be obviously bad even for someone who only cares about alignment, or at least thinks they want to sacrifice their wellbeing for the sake of alignment; and because people around X-risk have a tendency to throw their mind away anyway. If someone tells me they decided not to take a 2 year surfing vacation because alignment is too urgent, then I might worry a bit about how that sits in them, but the decision makes sense to me and seems sane. If someone tells me they stopped thinking about stuff they’re really curious about because they don’t see how it helps alignment, I’m like “No, what the hell are you doing, who told you that was a good idea??”.
Thank you for clarifying your intended point. I agree with the argument that playful thinking is intrinsically valuable, but still hold that the point would have been better-reinforced by including some non-mathematical examples.
I literally don’t believe this
Here are two personal examples of playful thinking without obvious applications to working on alignment:
A half-remembered quote, originally attributed to the French comics artist Moebius: “There are two ways to impress your audience: do a good drawing, or pack your drawing full of so much detail that they can’t help but be impressed.” Are there cases where less detail is more impressive than more detail? Well, impressive drawings of beautiful girls frequently have the strikingly sparse detail on the face, see drawings by Junji Ito, John Singer Sargent, Studio Kyoto. Why are these drawings appealing? Maybe because the sparse detail, mostly concentrated in the eyes (though Sargent reduces the eyes to simplified block-shadows as well), implies smooth, flawless skin. Maybe because the sparsity allows the viewer to interpret the empty space to contain their own idealized image— the Junji Ito girl’s nasal bridge is left undefined, so you can imagine her having a straight or button nose according to preference. Maybe there’s something inherently appealing to leaving shapes implied— doesn’t that Junji Ito girl’s nasal bridge remind you of the Kanizsa Triangle? Are people intrinsically drawn to having the eye fooled by abstracted drawings?
A number of romantic Beatles songs have sinister undertones: the final verse of Norwegian Wood refers to committing arson, and even the sentimental Something has this bizarre protest “I don’t want to leave her now”— ok dude, then why are you bringing it up? Is this consistent through their discography? Is this something unique to the Beatles, or were sinister love songs a well-established pop genre at the time? Did these sinister implications go over the heads of audiences, or were they key to the masses’ enjoyment of the songs?
If you can think of ways that these lines of thought apply to alignment, please let me know. This isn’t a “gotcha”, if you actually came up with something it’d be pretty dope.
We might have different things in mind with “intellectual inquiry”; depth is important. The first one seems like a seed of something that could be interesting. Phenomenology is the best data we have about real minds.
But mainly I made that comment because I don’t see insights from physics being “obviously applicable to working on alignment”. (This is maybe a controversial take and I haven’t thought about it that much and it could be stupid. I might also do accounting different, labeling more things as being “really math, not physics”.)
See my comment on the parent.
That’s a fine message, but it’s not the message of the post. The concept described in the post is playful thinking, not fun. It does use the word “fun” in a few places where the more specific phrase would arguably have been better, so the miscommunication is probably my fault.
I literally don’t believe this, but even if it were true, the post doesn’t argue to do math because it’s useful for alignment. The reason that alignment is even mentioned, is that the phenomenon of throwing away your mind is so perverse that it should be obviously bad even for someone who only cares about alignment, or at least thinks they want to sacrifice their wellbeing for the sake of alignment; and because people around X-risk have a tendency to throw their mind away anyway. If someone tells me they decided not to take a 2 year surfing vacation because alignment is too urgent, then I might worry a bit about how that sits in them, but the decision makes sense to me and seems sane. If someone tells me they stopped thinking about stuff they’re really curious about because they don’t see how it helps alignment, I’m like “No, what the hell are you doing, who told you that was a good idea??”.
Thank you for clarifying your intended point. I agree with the argument that playful thinking is intrinsically valuable, but still hold that the point would have been better-reinforced by including some non-mathematical examples.
Here are two personal examples of playful thinking without obvious applications to working on alignment:
A half-remembered quote, originally attributed to the French comics artist Moebius: “There are two ways to impress your audience: do a good drawing, or pack your drawing full of so much detail that they can’t help but be impressed.” Are there cases where less detail is more impressive than more detail? Well, impressive drawings of beautiful girls frequently have the strikingly sparse detail on the face, see drawings by Junji Ito, John Singer Sargent, Studio Kyoto. Why are these drawings appealing? Maybe because the sparse detail, mostly concentrated in the eyes (though Sargent reduces the eyes to simplified block-shadows as well), implies smooth, flawless skin. Maybe because the sparsity allows the viewer to interpret the empty space to contain their own idealized image— the Junji Ito girl’s nasal bridge is left undefined, so you can imagine her having a straight or button nose according to preference. Maybe there’s something inherently appealing to leaving shapes implied— doesn’t that Junji Ito girl’s nasal bridge remind you of the Kanizsa Triangle? Are people intrinsically drawn to having the eye fooled by abstracted drawings?
A number of romantic Beatles songs have sinister undertones: the final verse of Norwegian Wood refers to committing arson, and even the sentimental Something has this bizarre protest “I don’t want to leave her now”— ok dude, then why are you bringing it up? Is this consistent through their discography? Is this something unique to the Beatles, or were sinister love songs a well-established pop genre at the time? Did these sinister implications go over the heads of audiences, or were they key to the masses’ enjoyment of the songs?
If you can think of ways that these lines of thought apply to alignment, please let me know. This isn’t a “gotcha”, if you actually came up with something it’d be pretty dope.
We might have different things in mind with “intellectual inquiry”; depth is important. The first one seems like a seed of something that could be interesting. Phenomenology is the best data we have about real minds.
But mainly I made that comment because I don’t see insights from physics being “obviously applicable to working on alignment”. (This is maybe a controversial take and I haven’t thought about it that much and it could be stupid. I might also do accounting different, labeling more things as being “really math, not physics”.)