Belief is pretty unambiguous—being sure of (100% probability, like cogito ergo sum), or a strong trust (not nearly 90% probability is not belief). So it seems we are in agreement, you don’t believe in it, and neither do most less wrong readers. I agree that based on that argument, whether the probability is 10^-1000 or 75%, is still up for debate.
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I think only a tiny minority of lesswrong readers, believe in cryopreservation. If people genuinely believed in it then they would not wait until they were dying to preserve themselves, since the cumulative risk of death or serious mental debilitation before cryopreservation would be significant, the consequence is loss of (almost) eternal life, while by early cryopreservation all they have to lose is their current, finite life, in the “unlikely” event that they are not successfully reanimated. If people were actually trying to preserve themselves early then there would be a legal debate. There is none (unless I’m mistaken).
Further evidence against this argument is the tiny sums that people are willing to pay. How much would you pay for eternal life? More or less than $8,219 (which is the present value of an annual payment of $300 in perpetuity?). Sounds too cheap to be genuine, too expensive to waste my money on. If I genuinely believed in cryopreservation I would be spending my net worth, which for most americans over 75 years old is > $150k. For less wrong readers, I would guess the median net worth at age 75 would be > $1m.
What is the real probability? I think given the lack of success of humans in making long term predictions suggests that we should admit we simply don’t know. Cryopreservation might work. I wouldn’t stake my life, or my money on it, and I think there are more important jobs to do first.
I agree FAI should certainly be able to outclass human scientists in the creation of scientific theories and new technologies. This in itself has great value (at the very least we could spend happy years trying to follow the proofs).
I think my issue is that I think it will be insanely difficult to produce an AI and I do not believe it will produce a utopian “singularity”—where people would actually be happy. The same could be said of the industrial revolution. Regardless, my original post is borked. I concede the point.
Yeah I can see that applies much better to intelligence than to processing speed—one might think that a super-genius intelligence could achieve things that a human intelligence could not. Gladwell’s Outliers (embarrassing source) seems to refute this—his analysis seemed to show that IQ in excess of 130 did not contribute to success. Geoffrey Miller hypothesised that intelligence is actually an evolutionary signal of biological fitness—in this case, intellect is simply a sexual display. So my view is that a basic level of intelligence is useful, but excess intelligence is usually wasted.
To directly address your point—what I mean is if you have 1 computer that you never use, with 200MHz processor, I’d think twice about buying a 1.6GHz computer, especially if the 200MHz machine is suffering from depression due to it’s feeling of low status and worthlessness.
I probably stole from The Economist too.
Yes—thank you for the cite.
There is already a vast surplus of unused intelligence in the human race, so working on generalized AI is a waste of time (90%)
Edit: “waste of time” is careless, wrong and a bit rude. I just mean a working generalized AI would not make a major positive impact on humankind’s well-being. The research would be fun, so it’s not wasted time. Level of disagreement should be higher too—say ~95%.
Yes—this is exactly the point I was about to make. Another way of putting it is that an argument from authority is not going to cut mustard in a dialog (i.e. in a scientific paper, you will be laughed at if your evidence for a theory is another scientist’s say so) but as a personal heuristic it can work extremely well. While people sometimes “don’t notice” the 900 pound gorilla in the room (the Catholic sex abuse scandal being a nice example), 99% of the things that I hear this argument used for turn out to be total tosh (e.g. Santill’s Roswell Alien Autopsy film, Rhine’s ESP experiments). As Feynman probably didn’t say, “Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out”.
jhuffman’s point made me think of the following devil’s advocacy: If someone is very confident of cryonics, say more than 99% confident, then they should have themselves preserved before death. They should really have themselves preserved immediately—otherwise there is a higher risk that they will die in a way that causes the destruction of their mind, than there is that cryonics will fail. The amount that they will be willing to pay would also be irrelevant—they won’t need the money until after they are preserved. I appreciate that there are probably laws against preserving healthy adults, so this is strictly a thought experiment.
As people get older their risk of death or brain damage increases. This means that as someone gets older the confidence level at which they should seek early preservation will decrease. Also as someone gets older their expected “natural” survival time decreases, by definition. This means the payoff for not seeking early preservation is reducing all the time. This seems to bring some force to the argument—if there is a 10% probability that cryonics will succeed, then I really can’t see why anyone would let themselves get within 6 years of likely death—they are putting a second lifetime at risk for 6 years of less and less healthy life.
Finally the confidence level relates to cost. If people can be shown to have a low level of confidence in cryonics, then their willingness to pay money should be lower. The figures I’ve seen quoted require a sum of $150,000. (Whether this is paid in life insurance or not is irrelevant—you must pay for it in the premium since, if you’re going to keep the insurance until you die, the probability of the insurer paying out is 100%). If the probability of Cryonics working is 10%, then the average cost for a successful re-animation is $1.5 million. This is a pretty conservative cost I think—doubtless for some who read this blog it is small change. Not for me sadly though :)
I think I disagree with the fundamental premise of this post—that “evidence” is a basis for survival of memes. I think that memes survive because they are useful, fun or interesting. Religion may not have a strong basis in hard direct evidence, but it does seem to explain a lot of things that science fails at—Why does the universe exist? Why am I here? What should I do? How can I get along with people? How can I make the world a better place? To non-specialists these might be thought of as more important questions than what tiny pieces of matter are made of. It also seems true that there is a bias even within science towards the useful, over the evidential (see the Oil drop experiment and cargo cult science.
I accuse Atheists in general (and more specifically this argument) of selectively quoting religious thought and choosing only to attack the easy, and largely irrelevant parts of religion. Typical talking points among atheists are abortion, masturbation, the miracles, contraception, hell, exactly what god is, intelligent design. Typical talking points (sermon topics) among Christians seem to be self improvement, finding strength, belief in others, giving to others, love, etc. If you are eager to learn, why not ask about the areas of Christian belief which are likely to challenge your ideas, and less easy to attack, rather than picking easy and less relevant targets?
If you want evidence of whether religion exists, why not ask a representative sample of Christians whether Jesus has changed their lives? Why not ask them how? And can you explain what is so contemptible about Religion, but not the concept of “romantic love” (to take one of millions of hard to justify human pursuits)? How many millions of dollars, suicides, hours are wasted by teenagers and other people who are “in love”? How much fighting and misery is caused by this concept—and what evidence is there that it has any more meaning than religion?
Just to put this on a more positive footing—I’d ask not “how can people believe this tosh” but instead “why do people believe this seeming tosh”. Just to give you an idea, I agree that god probably doesn’t exist, but I also believe that a way of life that focuses on what you don’t have (e.g. what shoes to buy, how hot some female stranger looks = avarice and lust) or a way of life that focuses on how you have what others don’t (e.g. my porsche, my house, my wife, my tan = pride and vanity) lead to a state of constant dissatisfaction (i.e. hell, or pergatory). I think that people are also happier believing that there is something far more rational, wise and right than themselves—I think this blog agrees that people are very often wrong and irrational.
The concept of constant rebirth in buddhism is also a very useful metaphor to bear in mind—almost all relationships, possessions, projects have a birth, a life and a death. When I am dealing with an exciting new project or idea it’s a rush—but it’s helpful to know that will end, and I think a partial divorce from this constant beginning and ending (i.e. transition from samsara to nirvana) is a good thing.
That’s what I would do. If one person is almost certain (say 1/(10^10^10)) then the strength of their view would be represented. Of course if anyone gives an irrationally low or high answer, or puts <=0 or >=1, then it overweights their views/blows up.
Komponisto makes a strange assertion. The prior is not the reference that “someone would commit murder”—there is a body. A more appropriate prior is “someone who lives with someone who was murdered committed that murder”—I’m guessing that base probability is of the order of 0.1. Once we take into account that AK and MK aren’t in a relationship, AK is female, and there is very strong evidence that someone else committed the murder then I’d agree that the probability drops, but these pieces of evidence don’t cancel out leaving us with the original prior—the final probability may be higher or lower.
Also the “complexity penalty on the prosecution’s theory of the crime is enormous”—that may mean the case was flawed, but it’s not evidence she didn’t kill MK unless you are willing to give some weight to the conviction (at <0.001, I assume you are not). Or to put it another way, even if the prosecution is completely wrong you cannot set the probability of guilt to 0. This is like assuming AK is guilty because her parents criticized the Italian legal system.
Overall I hope I am a bit more cautious about my abilities than you. In the first half you explain why you, as a human being, cannot be trusted to be rational. Then you set out your case. Why should I trust your rationality, but not others’?
Horrible. If you can get access to it—use Betfair. It’s probably blocked in the states though.
I’d be careful about generalising from the south of Italy (Sicily) to the north—there’s a famous division between the two parts of the country, to the extent that many believe in formally splitting the country. And I’m certainly not interested in which system is superior, American or Italian—the answer is clearly Canadian.
What I think is interesting about this is that the decision comes down to whose judgement you trust least:
My judgement is clouded by lack of access to evidence and a lack of access to unbiased evidence. I feel I am unbiased because I have no axe to grind, but these websites expose me to every form of prejudice—I am sure it has an effect.
The jury convicted Amanda—a jury is only supposed to convict where guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt. The jury has access to the evidence and hours to examine it. However juries do sometimes give incorrect verdicts where the victim is an attractive woman (e.g. the Jill Dando case in the UK).
The police worked hard to collect a lot of evidence. However the prosecutor appears to have a sexual obsession, and the police failed to record interviews with suspects.
The existence of a group like Friends of Amanda suggests that many people think the case is not robust. However Amanda is an attractive female, being tried in a foreign country. And of course mothers never think their children are guilty.
Meredith’s parents and the British press are strongly against Amanda. The British Tabloids are not worth the paper they’re written on.
All in all, I think that I have no chance of making an unbiased and accurate judgement on the first hand evidence. Based on the fact that she was found guilty in a court of law, in northern Italy, and given that there was so much evidence, much of it from Amanda herself, I think she is probably guilty. However even with 99% probability I still wouldn’t convict − 1 in 100 is a reasonable doubt.
Check out Amanda’s note by the way: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570225/Transcript-of-Amanda-Knoxs-note.html
I’ve looked at this twice—first after reading the friends of amanda blog, wikipedia, and scanning the justice for meredith blog.
My initial probabilities were: P(AK=guilty) = .55, P(RS=guilty)=.5, P(RG=guilty)=.999, P(views coincide)=.5. Having read a few comments I initially revised the first two probabilities down—I realised I was guilty of having given a lot of weight to the rape story, and not given weight to the improbability of the “weird sex” story.
Having read more I find it hard to be sure of anything—it seems to be next to impossible to get any unbiased information on this (wikipedia contradicts friends of amanda, e.g. on the washing machine and the cleaning operation which are crucial). I would also be astonished if the Italian legal system could encourage such a high-profile miscarriage to take place. Italy is one of the most developed countries in the world. While they do have a mad president, some might say the same about some American presidents. And I have seen clear one-sided bias against the Italian legal system (e.g. the sashes worn by the jury—standard dress for jurists in Italy)
EDIT: Looked at this again. I’ve got to revise them to .99, .99, .999, .9 Some excerpts from the evidence on this blog—the evidence that FoA discounts looks very real to me. The only thing I find really weird is how the three could have got together. http://boards.insessiontrials.com/showpost.php?p=13695224&postcount=718
“The main weakness comes from the fact that almost every single two-bit futurist feels a need to make predictions, almost every single one of which goes for narrative plausibility and thus has massive issues with burdensome details and the conjunction fallacy.”—no. The most intelligent and able forecasters are incapable of making predictions (many of them worked in the field of AI). Your argument about updating my probability upwards because I don’t understand the future is fascinating. Can you explain why I can’t use the precise same argument to say there is a 50% chance that Arizona will be destroyed by a super-bomb on January 1st 2018?