I don’t really see how the argument for feasibility of H+ has much to do with the size of the design space for life (and AI, and nanotech,...) as long as its non-empty. After all, there’s a huge design space for impossibilities as well. Or am I misunderstanding the argument?
There are some rather mundane improvements (at least compared to the design space) that would be enough (if realized) to show the feasibility—say, intelligence augmentation, brain-computer hybrids.
Dave Grossman—On Killing
After reading quite a few books relating to military matters (including some which glorify the whole business a bit—say, “No easy day” or “American sniper”), it seemed good to look a bit deeper into the minds of soldiers—“On Killing” is all about what goes through the heads of men whose job it is to kill.
An interesting fact seems to be that at most 20% or so of American WW2 soldiers fired at the enemy; and this number seems to be consistent with other armies / history (there is no hard evidence, but some indications). Reason for this seems to be a mental barrier most people have against killing. Another interesting observation is that Skinnerian operant conditioning has raised that number to ~ 90% in the Vietnam war. Useful for the war effort, but, as the book suggests, killing comes back to haunt the killer after the war (and esp. in the Vietnam conflict it was made worse by the way the troops returned—this explains many of the psychological problems veterans face).
Interesting read—the last part about violent movies / video games seemed a bit redundant, and it’d be interesting to see an update on this ’95 book.
Read Frans de Waal’s Our inner ape
Frans de Waal looks at primates (primarily, chimpanzees and bonobos) at some of human nature—in particular, sex, violence and morality.
The stories about ape behavior are really fascinating, and may tell us a bit about our own behavior. De Waal suggests that some of our behavior has counterparts in chimpanzees and bonobos, the latter being more aggressive (even violent, cruel) and competitive, and the second being more social.
I didn’t like De Waal’s extrapolations into human politics and society, or his snide remarks towards Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, apparently mostly because he did not like the title. And the circular reasoning, “Morality needs emotions, because Mr. Spocks’s pure-logic morality doesn’t feel right”.
So, in summary—Overall, an enjoyable read, and De Waal is best when he discusses apes.
(Note: primates such as bonobos, chimpanzees and gorilla’s are apes, they get annoyed when you call them monkeys)
Ah, thanks to your recommendation I picked up Beevor’s Stalingrad, and I really liked the book. The writer tries hard to be balanced and correct (with a lot of sources from different sides); yet the story never ceases to captivate the reader, and never loses the overall view of the horrors of the battle.
Indeed these books seem to be engineered for effect (Gladwell is an absolute master at that). Slightly ‘unexpected’ conclusions that go well with the readers’ cherished beliefs, and optimized for short attention spans.
I wouldn’t say Taleb is part of the MGSoW though. Taleb has some good points, the biggest obstacle I have with enjoying his books is the author’s pretentiousness.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking - Susan Cain
A book on introverts in a world where extroversion is the norm, how introverts can better deal with that world, and how extroverts should make better use of the special qualities that introverts possess.
Sadly, the book is typical example of the Malcolm Gladwell school of writing, with a mix of some research, wide extrapolations and the author’s ideas all mixed up. And descriptions of how the researchers look—really?!
I actually think the book /has/ a point, and I think some of the ‘findings’ make sense; but perhaps a magazine article would be enough for this?
Good calories, bad calories is a good read and it makes a rather compelling argument for limiting carb consumption; however, mainstream nutrition science does not unanimously agree with this view. Hard to say who’s right.
Indeed, it’s sad (from my armchair-observer perspective...) that something as important as nutrition science seems unable to say something conclusive about low-carb vs high-carb diets.
I have no weight problems, but low-carb seemed to correlate somewhat with loosing weight; I can’t say I’m convinced though. I just make sure to excercise so much that I don’t have to worry too much about dietary details. After all, physical excercise is as much a ‘paleo’ thing as the diet.
Maybe you should try it with a few students first? Of course, I don’t know your students, but I could imagine that some students would find using a text involving spells, magic etc. a bit hard to take serious.
Oh, thanks a lot for the information! I’ll check those out!
I haven’t read any of his other books—is there any you could recommend? Maybe one of the recent ones, like Embassy Town and Railsee?
Great! Thanks a lot for this!
One has to commend Searle though from coming up with such a clear example of what he thinks is wrong with the then-current model of AI. I wish all people could formulate their phylosophical ideas, right or wrong, in such a fashion. Even when they are wrong, they can be quite fruitful, as can be seen in the many papers (example still referring to Searle and his Chinese Room, or even more famously in the EPR paradox paper.
I like the Rationality Quotes, but it seems it is dominated by fairly long entries, rather than the small gems that I prefer. Now, obviously some people like those longer entries, but it’d be great if I those could be filtered out in some way. Is there a way to do that?
The most famous proponent of this “those are mere programs” view may be John Searle and his Chinese Room. I wouldn’t call that the weakest argument against AI, although I think his argument is flawed.
That’s a much better advice than Godin’s near-tautology.
Perhaps in the introduction (or title?) it should be mentioned that AI in the context of the article means human-level AI.
That argument is primarily about what the word AI means, rather than an argument against AI as a phenomenon.
I think the textbook-list was a nice idea, but in the ended didn’t really work that well, since too few people were involved, and, as you say, it’s only textbooks—not my normal digest of books.
So as my own little contribution, I’ll try to add a few books every time the Media Thread comes up; hopefully more people will do that. Let’s fight against Sturgeon’s Law!
What do people think about Jaynes’ (the other one) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind ?
I just read it, and while I enjoyed the book, I’m rather sceptical about the book’s main point—that consciousness (in the way the book describes) only arrived ~ 1000 BCE. The evidence provided by the Jaynes Society doesn’t really convince me either.
Jaynes is not a crackpot in the Von Däniken/Hancock school, but I found his evidence lacking for his extraordinary claim. What do you think?