My name is Eliezer Yudkowsky… okay, that may not sound very promising, but I’ve been repeatedly told that my name “sounds just like a scientist’s name”.
I think that’s more like the confounders they try to eliminate: Eliezer Yudkowsky is a very Eastern European / Jewish sounding name, and both Eastern Europeans and Jews are perceived as commonly being scientists.
The -sky ending also calls to mind Lobachevsky, Minsky, Korzybski, Tsiolkovsky, Tarski, and other really smart people.
Data point: after I first happened upon your old writings (Hanson’s “critical discussion”), I had a strong mental image of you as a 60-year-old with a meter-long white beard.
Interesting. I had always wanted to ask you whether you had run into people who inferred from your name that you were devoutly religious. (Not that it would have taken them very long to be disabused of this idea, of course!)
You know there are actual experiments centered around showing how much harder that sort of thing is for other people to get, than we think when we sing it in our heads.
*blinks* I’m not surprised that it would be harder to get than we would think, but I didn’t realize anyone actually had done an actual study on specifically that.
For some reason, the fact that this was systematically studied makes me happy.
Anyways, got a link/reference/info on that? Thanks.
Prob’ly it varies from person to person. It would be harder for me to read thiswithout singing it in my head (and I hadn’t read its grandparent when I read it).
My name is Eliezer Yudkowsky… okay, that may not sound very promising, but I’ve been repeatedly told that my name “sounds just like a scientist’s name”.
I think that’s more like the confounders they try to eliminate: Eliezer Yudkowsky is a very Eastern European / Jewish sounding name, and both Eastern Europeans and Jews are perceived as commonly being scientists.
The -sky ending also calls to mind Lobachevsky, Minsky, Korzybski, Tsiolkovsky, Tarski, and other really smart people.
Data point: after I first happened upon your old writings (Hanson’s “critical discussion”), I had a strong mental image of you as a 60-year-old with a meter-long white beard.
Interesting. I had always wanted to ask you whether you had run into people who inferred from your name that you were devoutly religious. (Not that it would have taken them very long to be disabused of this idea, of course!)
Hrm… but given that your Jewish upbringing, I can reasonably assume you’ve heard a certain song/tune/chant multiple times in the past, so.....
“Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Eliezer
a Machiiiine been developing”
(couldn’t resist :))
Actually I don’t get this one, sorry.
sing it to the tune of “eliyahu hanavi”
You know there are actual experiments centered around showing how much harder that sort of thing is for other people to get, than we think when we sing it in our heads.
*blinks* I’m not surprised that it would be harder to get than we would think, but I didn’t realize anyone actually had done an actual study on specifically that.
For some reason, the fact that this was systematically studied makes me happy.
Anyways, got a link/reference/info on that? Thanks.
The Illusion of Transparency from the You Are Not So Smart blog. Better late than never :-)
Prob’ly it varies from person to person. It would be harder for me to read this without singing it in my head (and I hadn’t read its grandparent when I read it).