Thanks, I loathe ‘tl;dr’.
jasonmcdowell
Karma: 335
me too.
My favorite large CGoL object is the MetaPixel. It is a life object implementing a life unit cell, which actually looks like a life unit cell when zoomed out. A copy of it and some meta-simulations come with Golly.
I wish there was no illness, I don’t care if an old doctor starves.
Loā Hô, a Taiwanese physician and poet.
C is the only answer where the line segment is touching the same spots indicated on the both objects. Point A is on the point of the star, point B is near the little box on the rectangle thing.
The rectangle thing is flipped vertically though (as if in 3D), rather than being rotated in the plane of the 2D drawing.
I don’t look at Chinese politics and immediately think rational. I don’t see or expect much rationality from Chinese leaders with respect to Taiwan for instance. But why are so many of China’s top leaders educated as engineers? I don’t know what process they go through to gain political power in China, but it sure seems to lead to different demographics than for US politicians.
One piece of Chinese policy that seems pretty smart/rational is their long term infrastructure projects. Even if keeping the Chinese Communist Party in power is their first priority, long term thinking is a high priority for them. From the news of big infrastructure projects I’ve read about, China has much clearer thinking on infrastructure than the US.
For the types of policy that aren’t tabooed, China is more likely to be able to experiment than the US—if for no other reason than that they don’t care about hurting people for the ‘greater good’ (not necessarily a good thing). Also, they are less accountable to local people for their actions, so “Not in my backyard” is much less of a constraint.
I enjoyed the story, thanks.
And again, your statement is well reasoned and well justified. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written in particular. My point was weak, I don’t hold it strongly, and I largely only wrote something in order to write something. To form a habit of participation.
Your statements are a perfect example of the epistemic hygiene I wish to cultivate. But the perfect can be the enemy of the good.
You were right, I am reasoning that because they are further from the truth on contemporary issues (in facts, but especially in truth-gathering methods) they are further from the truth (and knowingly lying) about historical issues. I am no expert in US history and of the apparent topics in the book, I have only read at length about Jefferson. Having considered my fallacious reasoning, I see now how my conclusion was unfair. And yet I still doubt I’m wrong.
Gauche Gratuitously Googled Grounds for those that would-be: Would-be-theocrats. The would-be theocrats are a faction of the Christian right in the US, though they are not the largest or the most powerful.
I’ve wondered how I found Overcoming Bias. I’ve determined the approximate date I found it from a facebook post I made, but I don’t remember how I found it. It could have been from Bad Science.
I put the randomized-trials-for-policy thing on facebook earlier today. I love that idea. It is one of those obvious-to-me ideas that I once I had it, I couldn’t believe that we weren’t doing it routinely. As if people weren’t thinking or something. You want to know whether something works? Try it and find out.
I had a similar feeling when I found out about homosexuality in ancient greece. When I was a kid: Many cultures are weird about homosexuality? Oh, it must be a new thing. What? It has been a well-known, standard minority fraction of human sexuality for thousands of years?
Other points that tickle my mind:
The uniqueness of a calculation matters. Running the same program twice doesn’t give you a new result.
Does cause and effect (and representation of state) really matter that much? (Dust theory). My answer: still confused.
As a whole, a pattern of behavior of matter/energy can be called a calculation when State 1 causes State 2. When this happens, we can at least point to the calculation. With dust, states do not cause other states, and states can have different representations.
Right now (for at least the next minute) I don’t think calculations exist. There must be some kind of illusion here. Related stuff: timeless physics, static states, causality, consciousness, memory. Memory is static. Consciousness is dynamic. Flipbook pages are static. Calculations are dynamic.
What you’ve said makes sense to me, that the flipbooks do not constitute a calculation. However, it feels like there is a fuzzy boundary somewhere nearby, similar to the fuzzy boundary of what constitutes life. Maybe there is a information theory explanation which relates the two.
If the flipbooks contain enough information to continue the calculation then they are the same as a backup. Ok, so a flipbook is a series of closely spaced backups. What constitutes a calculation? I’ve read about these things, but I’ve never tried to work it out for myself before.
A backup is a static result of a calculation. Static results are static. They don’t count as alive, they don’t count as a calculation.
What counts as a calculation? I’m getting stuck. Let’s say we do the calculation as a state machine. You have static states that are updated according certain rules. State 1 determines/causes state 2. The calculation is implemented somewhere. So there are patterns of matter/energy that represent the states and represent the arithmetic needed to change states. I guess the calculation is here?
I’m reminded of a story in Orion’s Arm where a super intelligence is simulated with pencil and paper. This depiction isn’t a flipbook of course. In the story, a bunch of volunteer baseline human carried out the algorithm of a super intelligence doing the arithmetic by hand on pieces of paper. They did it as a hobby.
After searching for a while, I found the story.
I’d say the torture happened once. Even if you make more flipbooks and it changes the measure of the subjective experience, there is only one unique experience. The experience doesn’t know if it happened before.
Once the system is closed, I’d think it is morally same for the experience to be simulated once or many times.
You’re no more torturing them again than you are killing them again and again when the flipbook finishes its calculation.
I praise you for your right action. Not only does your action have recursive beauty, but it also, like a socio-volitional whirlpool, a decision-theoretic attractor, guides me by example.
Edit: Ah, so that’s what you meant by duplicate.
A rational, appropriately meta, abstract deconstruction of the probable biases, trustworthiness, and relevance of the top post. Pure and clean and correct.
But the opposing sides of the argument aren’t equal. The weight of bias isn’t symmetrical. One side is much more wrong than the other. The obvious next criticism is ‘reversed stupidity isn’t intelligence’. Of course we’d like all sides to be less wrong! But the propaganda isn’t symmetrical. The would-be theocrats have to distort more to make their case, because the truth isn’t on their side.
There probably is value in the book. I doubt it is perfectly clean or fair. But I doubt it is worthless.
Yes, consciously being friendly is a feature not a bug. There are different types of communities. Read and writing here is high self-selvective and only appeals to certain types of people. There are many other types of people who are compatible with a rational worldview, who are not compatible with Less Wrong. Maybe they need more (literal) hand holding.
I think a big fraction of ‘normal people’ are compatible with a rational, or ‘not obviously insane’ culture. But that hypothetical mainstreamed rational culture (not existing now) is not Less Wrong culture. There are pieces missing.
Doing something to spread a more-compatible, more virulent, rational culture doesn’t have to water down what has been established here at Less Wrong. This is about eventually Raising The Sanity Waterline, sustainably.
Said much better and more technically by Kutta above, your writing elsewhere:
driven by positive affect, social reinforcement, fuzzy feelings, motivated cognition, and characterized by a profound lack of truth-seeking.
I assume you’re using software to collect references as you research / write? And then you have the software disgorge your collection of references at the end? What software are you using?