g_pepper

Karma: 699

g_pepper 9 Feb 2018 15:30 UTC
7 points
on: Popular religions suggest extrapolated volition is non-existence and wireheading

There’s a type of person that feels this zest, and this type is not a majority. The median person on Earth is confused by the world. They believe in things like Jesus Christ, and they press on in hope that adhering to divine guidance while they attempt to survive the trials and tribulations of life will be rewarded with not having to do this again. To such a person, the sight of two metal meteors descending from the sky with loud sonic booms, igniting engines and landing in synchrony does not necessarily inspire awe or enthusiasm as much as confusion and terror.

Were there really a lot of people in whom the SpaceX launch and the landing of the boosters inspired confusion and terror? I have not seen any of that. The reactions that I have observed have ranged all the way from disinterest to (as you put it) a palpable zest, but I have not observed anyone who felt terror or confusion.

g_pepper 26 Dec 2017 23:08 UTC
0 points
in reply to: rkyeun’s comment on: Magical Categories

I would be very surprised to find that a universe whose particles are arranged to maximize objective good would also contain unpaired sadists and masochists.

The problem is that neither you nor BrianPansky has proposed a viable objective standard for goodness. BrianPansky said that good is that which satisfies desires, but proposed no objective method for mediating conflicting desires. And here you said “Do remember that your thoughts and preference on ethics are themselves an arrangement of particles to be solved” but proposed no way for resolving conflicts between different people’s ethical preferences. Even if satisfying desires were an otherwise reasonable standard for goodness, it is not an objective standard, since different people may have different desires. Similarly, different people may have different ethical preferences, so an individual’s ethical preference would not be an objective standard either, even if it were otherwise a reasonable standard.

You seem to be asking a question of the form, “But if we take all the evil out of the universe, what about evil?”

No, I am not asking that. I am pointing out that neither your standard nor BrianPansky’s standard is objective. Therefore neither can be used to determine what would constitute an objectively maximally good universe nor could either be used to take all evil out of the universe, nor even to objectively identify evil.

g_pepper 12 Dec 2017 14:39 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Dacyn’s comment on: The “Intuitions” Behind “Utilitarianism”

On the other hand, maybe you should force them to endure the guilt, because maybe then they will be motivated to research why the agent who made the decision chose TORTURE, and so the end result will be some people learning some decision theory / critical thinking...

The argument that 50 years of torture of one person is preferable to 3^^^3 people suffering dust specs presumes utilitarianism. A non-utilitarian will not necessarily prefer torture to dust specs even if his/her critical thinking skills are up to par.

g_pepper 3 Oct 2017 15:31 UTC
0 points
in reply to: RobQuesting’s comment on: Welcome to Less Wrong! (11th thread, January 2017) (Thread B)

There is no democracy in the US

No democracy, really? Or would it be more accurate to say that US democracy falls short of some sort theoretical ideal?

g_pepper 2 Oct 2017 21:10 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, September 25 - October 1, 2017
Yep, I agree. The second sentence of this comment’s grandparent was intended to support that conclusion, but my wording was sloppily ambiguous. I made a minor edit to it to (hopefully) remove the ambiguity.

g_pepper 2 Oct 2017 18:57 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, September 25 - October 1, 2017
Yep. This could be because Nick Bostrom’s original simulation argument focuses on ancestor simulations, which pretty much implies that the simulating and simulated worlds are similar. However here, in question 11, Bostrom explains why he focused on ancestor simulations and states that the argument could be generalized to include simulations of worlds that are very different from the simulating world.

g_pepper 2 Oct 2017 17:56 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Open thread, September 25 - October 1, 2017
Interesting paper. But, contrary to the popular summary in the first link, it really only shows that simulations of certain quantum phenomena are impossible using classical computers (specifically, using the Quantum Monte Carlo method). But this is not really surprising—one area where quantum computers show much promise is in simulating quantum systems that are too difficult to simulate classically.

So, if the authors are right, we might still be living in a computer simulation, but it would have to be one running on a quantum computer.

g_pepper 23 Sep 2017 2:36 UTC
0 points
in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Open thread, September 11 - September 17, 2017
Thanks—I enjoyed the story. It was short but prescient. The article that inspired it was interesting as well.

g_pepper 22 Sep 2017 1:47 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: A survey of polls on Newcomb’s problem
I’m a two-boxer. My rationale is:
1. As originally formulated by Nozick, Omega is not necessarily omniscient and does not necessarily have anything like divine foreknowledge. All that is said about this is that you have “enormous confidence” in Omega’s power to predict your choices, and that this being has “often correctly predicted your choices in the past (and has never, as far as you know made an incorrect prediction about your choices)”, and that the being has “often correctly predicted the choices of other people, many who are similar to you”. So, all I really know about Omega is that it has a really good track record.
2. So, nothing in Nozick rules out the possibility of the outcome “b” or “c” listed above.
3. At the time that you make your choice, Omega has already irrevocably either put $1M in box 2 or put nothing in box 2
4. If Omega has put $1M in box 2, your payoff will be $1M if you 1-box or 1.001M if you 2-box.
5. If Omega has put nothing in box 2, your payoff will be $0 if you 1-box or $1K if you 2-box.
6. So, whatever Omega has already done, you are better off 2-boxing. And, your choice now cannot change what Omega has already done.
7. So, you are better off 2-boxing.
So, basically, I agree with your assessment that “two-boxers believe that all 4 are possible” (or at least I believe that all 4 are possible). Why do I believe that all 4 are possible? Because nothing in the problem statement says otherwise.

ETA:

Also, I agree with your assessment that “one-boxers do not believe b and c are possible because Omega is cheating or a perfect predictor (same thing)”. But, in thinking this way, one-boxers are reading something into the problem beyond what is actually stated or implied by Nozick.

g_pepper 21 Sep 2017 13:56 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Elo’s comment on: HPMOR and Sartre’s “The Flies”
Yep.

And, in the Maps of Meaning lecture series, Peterson gives a shout-out to Rowling’s Harry Potter series as being an excellent example of a retelling of an archetypal myth. So, it was a good choice of material for Yudkowsky to use as he did.

g_pepper 21 Sep 2017 13:36 UTC
0 points
on: HPMOR and Sartre’s “The Flies”
Using mythology to illustrate philosophical points has a lengthy tradition prior to Sartre. Achilles would have been a mythological figure by the time Zeno of Elea demonstrated the impossibility of motion by imagining a race between Achilles and a tortoise. And, in Phaedrus, Plato imagines a conversation between Thoth (from Egyptian mythology) and the Egyptian king Thamus to make a point about literacy.

g_pepper 18 Sep 2017 3:18 UTC
0 points
in reply to: polymathwannabe’s comment on: Open thread, September 11 - September 17, 2017
Congratulations!

Which story is yours? (The link just points to the home page.)

g_pepper 13 Sep 2017 22:30 UTC
29 points
in reply to: pepe_prime’s comment on: 2017 LessWrong Survey
I have taken the survey.

g_pepper 3 Sep 2017 22:39 UTC
0 points
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: P: 0 ⇐ P ⇐ 1
Which of Rossin’s statements was your “Cotard delusion” link intended to address? It does seem to rebut the statement that “nothing I could experience could convince me that I do not exist”, since experiencing the psychiatric condition mentioned in the link could presumably cause Rossin to believe that he/she does not exist.

However, the link does nothing to counter the overall message of Rossin’s post which is (it seems to me) that “I think, therefore I am” is a compelling argument for one’s own existence.

BTW, I agree with the general notion that from a Bayesian standpoint, one should not assign p=1 to anything, not even to “I exist”. However, the fact of a mental condition like the one described in your link does nothing (IMO) to reduce the effectiveness of the “I think, therefore I am” argument.

g_pepper 24 Aug 2017 14:19 UTC
1 point
in reply to: MaryCh’s comment on: Open thread, August 21 - August 27, 2017
Well, I guess I won’t be complaining about my neighbor’s lawn flamingos any more after reading that!

g_pepper 21 Aug 2017 22:38 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Thomas’s comment on: Open thread, August 21 - August 27, 2017
Much smaller numbers, popular now, still demands huge melting we don’t see really

Perhaps, but:
1. If the global temperature continues to rise over the next century, then the rate of melting will be higher at the end of the 100 year period than it is now
2. In addition to Antarctica, Greenland has a significant (~ 2,850,000 km3) ice sheet. Melting of the Greenland ice sheet will also contribute to sea level increases

g_pepper 21 Aug 2017 16:10 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Thomas’s comment on: Open thread, August 21 - August 27, 2017
OK, noted, and thanks. I haven’t actually read An Inconvenient Truth.

But, I think most current scientific estimates are lower, so “reigning supreme above all the sciences” still seems a bit hyperbolic.

g_pepper 21 Aug 2017 15:32 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Thomas’s comment on: Open thread, August 21 - August 27, 2017

But mostly, I love how the arithmetic is reigning supreme above all the sciences.

This was a good puzzle, but I don’t see how it follows from the puzzle that arithmetic is “reigning supreme” above all the sciences. For one thing, I thought that most scientific estimates of sea level rise over the next 100 years were a lot lower than 6 meters. Do you have any links to projections of 6 meters?

g_pepper 10 Aug 2017 4:14 UTC
0 points
in reply to: alicey’s comment on: Open thread, July 31 - August 6, 2017
The definition of “blather” that I find is:

“talk long-windedly without making very much sense”, which does not sound like Thomas’s comment.

What definition are you using?

g_pepper 2 Aug 2017 3:07 UTC
2 points
in reply to: alicey’s comment on: Open thread, July 31 - August 6, 2017
Thomas’s comment seems quite sensible to me.

It seems to me that Dyson’s argument was that as temperature falls, so does the energy required for computing. So, the point in time when we run out of available energy to compute diverges. But, Thomas reasonably points out (I think—correct me if I am misrepresenting you Thomas) that as temperature falls and the energy used for computing falls, so does the speed of computation, and so the amount of computation that can be performed converges, even if we were to compute forever.

Also, isn’t Thomas correct that Planck’s constant puts an absolute minimum on the amount of energy required for computation?

These seem like perfectly reasonable responses to Dyson’s comments. What am I missing?