But surely an intro to systems biology (including topics of the simulation of biological systems) is relevant in a
group which frequently discusses the prospects for “uploading” as a path to AI, brain scanning as a path to
inferring preferences, and simulation as a technique for cryonic resuscitation.
Indeed; it’s quite relevant, yet a superficial glance at the site doesn’t show much sign it’s been touched on at all—biology does not seem to be a common field of expertise or even interest here (though that is merely an informal impression on my part); even the interest taken it around intelligence, cryonics, uploading and brain scanning appears to be of secondary importance to the interest in those topics themselves.
Your reaction to this post is not a comfortable one for the bulk of users here to contemplate, I suspect. If cryonics turned out to be overrated in the LW consensus, or brain uploading turned out to be infeasible (somewhat different from “impossible in principle”), it would dramatically constrain many of the scenarios and ideas that a large number of LW users are hoping to benefit from and/or contribute to.
It’s nearly impossible to discuss those topics meaningfully, however, without delving into the specifics of biology—and that apparent dearth of specific information may cause some users to overinflate (or underinflate!) their priors about various relevant issues.
biology does not seem to be a common field of expertise or even interest here
Evolution, evolutionary psychology, cognitive science (i.e. neurology), and diet seem to be significant interests. That is, I agree with you that it’s quite relevant and that we don’t seem to have much expertise here, but I think we have the interest.
nods True enough where those are concerned—I may be expressing this unclearly.
What I mean to indicate is that there’s some obvious interest in the bits of biology that bump up against rationality philosophy and this community’s aggregate, extrapolated desireable “FOOM” scenarios, but it comes across as very topical interest. Like focusing on the pretty flower, considering pretty flowers relevant to their interests, but ignoring the branch, and only dimly interested in the tree as the thing-that-holds-flowers.
Biology as its own field isn’t going to be of interest to everybody, of course, but it’s troubling to see that a lot of the discussion about biology that goes on around here seems, well, incomplete and backward. Relying heavily on pop-science and “celebrity” biologists to speak for the entire field (much of Eliezer’s writing about the topic), reasoning from first principles about stuff that’s too embedded in context for the resulting, logically-valid ideas to apply soundly to real biology, and a tendency to oversimplify the subject matter or just ignore relevant bits, either because of a lack of knowledge or a very limited one—and a tendency to reason forward from there, leading to what seem like GIGO issues in the resulting model.
(This is a long-winded way of agreeing with your statement that there’s interest but no expertise; I just think the distinction’s important enough to make between superficial interest in obvious, surface-level attractors and a deeper focus on the body of knowledge giving rise to them. It doesn’t fly here to talk like this about economics, logic, or philosophy—if your knowledge is that limited, you’ll be directed to the sequences.)
Indeed; it’s quite relevant, yet a superficial glance at the site doesn’t show much sign it’s been touched on at all—biology does not seem to be a common field of expertise or even interest here (though that is merely an informal impression on my part); even the interest taken it around intelligence, cryonics, uploading and brain scanning appears to be of secondary importance to the interest in those topics themselves.
Your reaction to this post is not a comfortable one for the bulk of users here to contemplate, I suspect. If cryonics turned out to be overrated in the LW consensus, or brain uploading turned out to be infeasible (somewhat different from “impossible in principle”), it would dramatically constrain many of the scenarios and ideas that a large number of LW users are hoping to benefit from and/or contribute to.
It’s nearly impossible to discuss those topics meaningfully, however, without delving into the specifics of biology—and that apparent dearth of specific information may cause some users to overinflate (or underinflate!) their priors about various relevant issues.
Evolution, evolutionary psychology, cognitive science (i.e. neurology), and diet seem to be significant interests. That is, I agree with you that it’s quite relevant and that we don’t seem to have much expertise here, but I think we have the interest.
nods True enough where those are concerned—I may be expressing this unclearly.
What I mean to indicate is that there’s some obvious interest in the bits of biology that bump up against rationality philosophy and this community’s aggregate, extrapolated desireable “FOOM” scenarios, but it comes across as very topical interest. Like focusing on the pretty flower, considering pretty flowers relevant to their interests, but ignoring the branch, and only dimly interested in the tree as the thing-that-holds-flowers.
Biology as its own field isn’t going to be of interest to everybody, of course, but it’s troubling to see that a lot of the discussion about biology that goes on around here seems, well, incomplete and backward. Relying heavily on pop-science and “celebrity” biologists to speak for the entire field (much of Eliezer’s writing about the topic), reasoning from first principles about stuff that’s too embedded in context for the resulting, logically-valid ideas to apply soundly to real biology, and a tendency to oversimplify the subject matter or just ignore relevant bits, either because of a lack of knowledge or a very limited one—and a tendency to reason forward from there, leading to what seem like GIGO issues in the resulting model.
(This is a long-winded way of agreeing with your statement that there’s interest but no expertise; I just think the distinction’s important enough to make between superficial interest in obvious, surface-level attractors and a deeper focus on the body of knowledge giving rise to them. It doesn’t fly here to talk like this about economics, logic, or philosophy—if your knowledge is that limited, you’ll be directed to the sequences.)