A list capturing all background knowledge you might ever need for LW.
(Updated: 2010-10-08)
This list assumes a previous level of education above elementary schooling but less than secondary school. If you start with Khan Academy followed by BetterExplained then with the help of Google and Wikipedia you should be able to reach a level of education that allows you to start reading the LessWrong Sequences.
Nevertheless, before you start off you should read and memorize the Twelve Virtues of Rationality. Not only is scholarship just one virtue but you’ll also be given a list of important fields of knowledge that anyone who takes LessWrong seriously should study:
Programming knowledge is not mandatory for LessWrong but you should however be able to interpret the most basic pseudo code as you will come across various snippets of code in discussions and top-level posts outside of the main sequences.
Not essential but a good preliminary to reading LessWrong and in some cases mandatory to be able to make valuable contributions in the comments. Many of the concepts in the following works are often mentioned on LessWrong or the subject of frequent discussions.
A New Kind of Science (Cellular automaton) (Note: I was told to be careful about this book. Rather than reading it as an introduction to cellular automata you might just check out the Wikipedia page on Conway’s Game of Life)
Concepts and other fields of knowledge you should at least have a rough grasp of to be able to follow subsequent discussions in the comments on LessWrong.
A disclaimer on Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science: quite a few of the scientists who reviewed it weren’t particularly enthusiastic. See for example Cosma Shalizi’s review (of special interest to Less Wrong readers, perhaps, for the side comment on Jaynes towards the end! Edit: or maybe not; Shalizi’s linked arXiv paper is probably wrong as p4wnc6 explains below). This webpage collects a lot of other reviews of the book as well.
It seems Shalizi’s comments on Jaynes have been somewhat refuted. The paper claiming that subjective Bayes induces a backward arrow of time fails to account for the entropy generation inside the mind of the agent forming beliefs about the world. It requires energy to convert observations into states of belief, and hence increases entropy. Shalizi’s argument does not account for this and (like many puffed-up “rebuttals” of Jaynes) fails for an essentially trivial reason. Shalizi is a great writer and thoughtful researcher, but just got things very very wrong on that occasion.
Thanks, I read it does a good job on cellular automata. And since that topic is mentioned quite often on LW I thought it would be a good addition to a extensive list capturing all background knowledge you might ever need for LW.
I added a logic section now. For what I have no links is Game Theory. At least I don’t know of any introductory works, free or else...but do you really need that for LW? What I noticed that is missing from the OP is knowledge of complex numbers since you’ll need that to understand the The Quantum Physics Sequence.
A list capturing all background knowledge you might ever need for LW.
(Updated: 2010-10-08)
This list assumes a previous level of education above elementary schooling but less than secondary school. If you start with Khan Academy followed by BetterExplained then with the help of Google and Wikipedia you should be able to reach a level of education that allows you to start reading the LessWrong Sequences.
Nevertheless, before you start off you should read and memorize the Twelve Virtues of Rationality. Not only is scholarship just one virtue but you’ll also be given a list of important fields of knowledge that anyone who takes LessWrong seriously should study:
Mathematics:
Basics
The Khan Academy (World-class education for free (1800+ videos).)
Just Math Tutotrials (FREE math videos for the world!)
BetterExplained (There’s always a better way to explain a topic.)
Interactive Mathematics Miscellany and Puzzles
Free Mathematics eBooks
A Guide to Bayes’ Theorem – A few links (An extensive list of links to tutorials on Bayesian probability.)
Steven Strogatz on the Elements of Math (A very basic introduction to mathematics.)
http://math.stackexchange.com/ (Q&A for people studying math at any level)
http://www.wolframalpha.com (Check your math!)
Logic
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/03/mr_spock_is_not_logical_book_d.php
Introduction to Mathematical Logic
Gödel Without Tears
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propositional_calculus
An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic
First-Order Logic
Logical Labyrinths
Stephen Cook’s lecture notes in computability and logic
Game Theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
Foundations
Foundations of mathematics
The Mathematical Experience
What is Mathematics: Gödel’s Theorem and Around
Programming:
Programming knowledge is not mandatory for LessWrong but you should however be able to interpret the most basic pseudo code as you will come across various snippets of code in discussions and top-level posts outside of the main sequences.
Python
http://python.org/
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/home (Free)
A Byte of Python (Free)
Python for Software Design
Learning Python, 3rd Edition
Haskell
http://www.haskell.org/
http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Learn_Haskell_in_10_minutes
http://learnyouahaskell.com/chapters
The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming
General
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
How to Design Programs (An Introduction to Computing and Programming)
http://projecteuler.net/ (Learn programming and math by solving problems)
The FTP Site (Functional Programming)
Computer sciences (General Introduction):
One of the fundamental premises on LessWrong is that a universal computing device can simulate every physical process and that we therefore should be able to reverse engineer the human brain as it is fundamentally computable. That is, intelligence and consciousness are substrate independent.
Marvin Minsky, Computation Finite and Infinite Machines
Michael Sipser, Introduction to the Theory of Computation
Charles Petzold, The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
Michael L. Scott, Programming Language Pragmatics
Machine Learning:
Not essential but an valuable addition for anyone who’s more than superficially interested in AI and machine learning.
Good Freely Available Textbooks on Machine Learning
Learning About Statistical Learning
Learning about Machine Learning, 2nd Ed.
Miscellaneous:
Not essential but a good preliminary to reading LessWrong and in some cases mandatory to be able to make valuable contributions in the comments. Many of the concepts in the following works are often mentioned on LessWrong or the subject of frequent discussions.
An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications
Bayesian Reasoning and Machine Learning (Free)
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett (Evolution)
The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker (Linguistics)
The Road to Reality (Physics)
Good and Real (Rationality & Decision Theory)
A New Kind of Science (Cellular automaton) (Note: I was told to be careful about this book. Rather than reading it as an introduction to cellular automata you might just check out the Wikipedia page on Conway’s Game of Life)
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Keywords:
Concepts and other fields of knowledge you should at least have a rough grasp of to be able to follow subsequent discussions in the comments on LessWrong.
Cognitive biases, common misconceptions, and fallacies.
Kolmogorov complexity
Solomonoff induction
Utility theory
Utilitarianism
Decision Theory (Timeless Decision Theory)
Bayesian Probability Theory (Bayesian approach) vs. Frequentist Probability Theory (Frequentist approach)
AI-Foom Debate
Paperclip maximizer
Catastrophic risks from artificial intelligence
Coherent Extrapolated Volition (CEV)
Simulation Argument
Anthropic Principle
The Quantum Physics Sequence
Complex Numbers:
http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-intuitive-guide-to-imaginary-numbers/
http://betterexplained.com/articles/intuitive-arithmetic-with-complex-numbers/
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/finding-your-roots/
http://uncw.edu/courses/mat111hb/izs/complex/complex.html
Complex Numbers @ Khan Academy:
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/i-and-imaginary-numbers?playlist=Algebra
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/complex-numbers—part-1?playlist=Algebra
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/complex-numbers—part-2?playlist=Algebra
Note: This list is a work in progress. I will try to constantly update and refine it.
A disclaimer on Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science: quite a few of the scientists who reviewed it weren’t particularly enthusiastic. See for example Cosma Shalizi’s review (of special interest to Less Wrong readers, perhaps, for the side comment on Jaynes towards the end! Edit: or maybe not; Shalizi’s linked arXiv paper is probably wrong as p4wnc6 explains below). This webpage collects a lot of other reviews of the book as well.
It seems Shalizi’s comments on Jaynes have been somewhat refuted. The paper claiming that subjective Bayes induces a backward arrow of time fails to account for the entropy generation inside the mind of the agent forming beliefs about the world. It requires energy to convert observations into states of belief, and hence increases entropy. Shalizi’s argument does not account for this and (like many puffed-up “rebuttals” of Jaynes) fails for an essentially trivial reason. Shalizi is a great writer and thoughtful researcher, but just got things very very wrong on that occasion.
Thanks, I read it does a good job on cellular automata. And since that topic is mentioned quite often on LW I thought it would be a good addition to a extensive list capturing all background knowledge you might ever need for LW.
ETA Updated
Add a backslash before the closing paren in the last link, Markdown choked on it. I’ll delete my comment afterward.
I added a logic section now. For what I have no links is Game Theory. At least I don’t know of any introductory works, free or else...but do you really need that for LW? What I noticed that is missing from the OP is knowledge of complex numbers since you’ll need that to understand the The Quantum Physics Sequence.
Complex Numbers:
http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-intuitive-guide-to-imaginary-numbers/
http://betterexplained.com/articles/intuitive-arithmetic-with-complex-numbers/
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/finding-your-roots/
http://uncw.edu/courses/mat111hb/izs/complex/complex.html
Complex Numbers @ Khan Academy:
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/i-and-imaginary-numbers?playlist=Algebra
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/complex-numbers—part-1?playlist=Algebra
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/complex-numbers—part-2?playlist=Algebra