Rixie

Karma: 35

Rixie Apr 2, 2013, 4:33 PM
−3 points
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Qualitatively Confused
Well, theology isn’t science. If you do an experiment and the result goes against your hypothesis, your hypothosis is false, period. It’s not necissarily like that when people are arguing with logic instead of experiments. No one on either side would make an argument that wasn’t logically correct. I’ve read both Christian and Atheist material that make a lot of sense sense, although I realize now that I should probably review them because that was before I discovered Less Wrong. There are also plenty of intelligent people who have looked at all the evidence and gone both ways.

There is something very wrong here, from a rationalist’s point of view.

Are there people here that have gone from Christianity to Atheism or the other way around? Or for any other religion? Can I talk to you?

Rixie Mar 30, 2013, 9:33 AM
−3 points
in reply to: Nominull3’s comment on: Explaining vs. Explaining Away
I’m not sure if I’m right about this, but to me, calling Eliezer Yudkowsky “The Master” smacks of cult.

Yes it sounds cool and at first I was inclined to say that it was a good idea, but the reason it’s so appealing is that it would be something special that only us Less Wrong rationalists would do, it would strenghten our group identity and push everyone else that much further away.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/lv/every_cause_wants_to_be_a_cult/

Maybe we could call him Mr. Yudkowsky, although that just reminds me of a certain green monster from Monster’s Inc., for some reason.

He refers to himself as Eliezer, sometimes, but he’s obviously on a first name basis with himself.

Someone’s written something that he entitled Arguing With Eliezer ( http://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/03/arguing-with-eliezer-part-i.html ), so maybe he’s okay with the general public calling him by his first name.

Or, I guess, we could just ask him:

Eliezer Yudkowsky, what would you have us call you?

Rixie Mar 30, 2013, 9:18 AM
−4 points
on: Explaining vs. Explaining Away
Can someone tell me, or is there a list somewhere, “all the other things that rationalists are supposed to say on such occasions”?

I find that having bits that come to mind automatically in certain situations really helps me to go about thinking in the right way (or at least a way that’s less wrong.)

Rixie Mar 30, 2013, 8:40 AM
−2 points
in reply to: bigjeff5’s comment on: Zombie Responses
Sounds like zombies to me. Does the robot know he’s a robot?

Rixie Mar 29, 2013, 8:29 PM
−2 points
in reply to: pnrjulius’s comment on: Initiation Ceremony
Ha, I’m still reduced to drawing little stars on a piece of paper and circling them into different groups.

Man I need to work on this thing.

Rixie Mar 29, 2013, 8:19 PM
1 point
in reply to: Desrtopa’s comment on: Qualitatively Confused
I’m not sure how strict is strict, but maybe something that is trying to be unbiased. A lot of websites present both sides of the story, and then logically conclude that their side is the winner, 100 percent of the time.

And I used Atheism/Christianity because I was born a Christian and I think that Atheism is the only real, um, threat, let’s say, to my staying a Christian.

Although, I havn’t actually tried to research anything else, I realize.

Rixie Mar 29, 2013, 8:08 PM
2 points
on: Initiation Ceremony
Oh my gosh but I actually am stunned speechless.

I can’t even begin to express the way I feel right now, Eliezer Yudkowsky, my friend, you are in possesion of a rare and powerful gift!

Rixie Mar 29, 2013, 5:56 PM
2 points
on: Amazing Breakthrough Day: April 1st
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!

Be totally serious about this! Spread it around the internet! This is such an amazing idea! Next April Fool’s day is going to be the best one ever!

Gosh, I’m so ridiculously excited no one’s even going to take me seriously.

Rixie Mar 29, 2013, 5:24 PM
1 point
on: Reductionism
This website is doing amazing things to the way I think every day, as well as occasionally making me die of laughter.

Thank you, Eliezer!

Rixie Mar 29, 2013, 4:55 PM
1 point
in reply to: chanamessinger’s comment on: Qualitatively Confused
I can testify to that.

Say, does anyone know where I can find unbiased information on the whole Christianity/Atheism thing?

Rixie Mar 29, 2013, 4:20 PM
−5 points
−1
in reply to: conchis’s comment on: Universal Law
Hem hem.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ic/the_virtue_of_narrowness/

There’s a difference, I think. It’s just that we havn’t quite grasped it yet. I had it until I read your post, and then I lost it. It’s like in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality when Harry learns Partial Transfiguration.

In this Harry Potter universe, you can you magic to change things into other things, but you can’t change only part of a thing into another thing, for example you can change a wall into marshmallow in order to escape a room, but you would have to dispense the energy of changing the entire wall, and not just make yourself a little marshmallow hole.

Well Harry learns to violate this rule with science, because nothing in the world is really connected, it’s just an illusion in our heads. So Harry can now transfigure only part of a rubber eraser into steel, if he wants to. This is all making perfect sense, right?

But Proffesor MacGonagall is skeptical:

“Harry’s idea stemmed from simple ignorance, nothing more. If you changed half of a metal ball into glass, the whole ball had a different Form. To change the part was to change the whole, and that meant removing the whole Form and replacing it with a different one. What would it even mean to Transfigure only half of a metal ball? That the metal ball as a whole had the same Form as before, but half that ball now had a different Form?”

See, that makes sense too. And now everyone is confused. But partial transfiguration does exist (well, in the story) and the difference is that Harry could change a spot on the metal ball to glass in five minutes, instead of the thirty minutes it would have taken him to change the entire metal ball into a metal ball with a glass spot.

There’s probably a distinction between laws with exceptions and new laws that you and I just don’t know about yet.

Anyone care to enlighten us?

Rixie Mar 28, 2013, 3:11 PM
6 points
in reply to: handoflixue’s comment on: Guessing the Teacher’s Password
Actually, when I learned these I learned them all at once, with the “older model” tag attached to them, and then I was given a “current model” that I was told that I wouldn’t understand yet, and so we worked with the planetary system thing.

That’s progress?

(You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 711 milliseconds. This website really values accuracy.)

Rixie Mar 28, 2013, 3:01 PM
−2 points
in reply to: Rixie’s comment on: Guessing the Teacher’s Password
Not that that’s what this article meant, I just though that this may amuse or interest one or two people . . .

Rixie Mar 28, 2013, 2:51 PM
−2 points
on: Guessing the Teacher’s Password
This is kind of like in the (fantastic) (children’s) book The Myserious Benedict Society. In the book, a bad person invents a machine that uses TV and radio broadcasts to control people’s minds. They project words into every broadcast, so that people are subliminally affected. The good guy builds a machine that allows him to hear the words directly. He gets gibberish. Things like, “poison apples, poison worms.” He sends in a group of four children to investigate. They are to go to the school set up by the bad person and attempt to gather more knowledge about the machine. While at the school, they excel at their studies through, um, various means, because they heard that the best students get hooked up to the machine. While they are being hooked up to the machine, the bad guy asks them what they think of when he says the phrase, “Poison apples, poison worms.” Immediately, the lesson on how corrupt the govournment was, the lesson that was entitled “Poison apples, poison worms” comes back to them. And it’s like this that the bad guy can control peoples’ minds with gibberish, the words mean something to the children that he uses. What counts is what’s going on inside the children’s minds, not the actual broadcasted words at all.

Rixie Jan 30, 2013, 2:38 AM
−7 points
in reply to: Rixie’s comment on: The Least Convenient Possible World
SIGH!!!

Nooooooo, we do not vote up comments like this. We vote up comments that make good points on the subject we are all trying to learn more about.

Rixie Jan 30, 2013, 2:36 AM
−15 points
in reply to: Rixie’s comment on: Semantic Stopsigns
NO!!

You did not just vote that stupid comment up! Someone vote it down Right Now!!!

People, on Less Wrong, you do not vote up silly comments on the topic of bird breeding. You vote up serious comments on the topic of rationality.

Got it?

Rixie Jan 27, 2013, 10:32 PM
1 point
on: Truly Part Of You
Sometimes it’s good to learn things by rote, too, as long as you understand it later. For example, while I was reading the Intuitive guide to Bayesian Reasoning, I sometimes wished that there was something that I could memorize, instead of having to understand the concept, and then fiqure out how to apply it, and then understand what the answer meant.

Rixie Jan 25, 2013, 4:36 AM
−8 points
in reply to: jopt2’s comment on: Semantic Stopsigns
I know that this doesn’t actually contribute in any way, but chickens were bred into exsistance by humans, so, one female bird was bred with a different male bird and the resulting eggs were chickens. Therefore, the egg came before the chicken.

Rixie Jan 25, 2013, 4:34 AM
−5 points
in reply to: Doug_S.’s comment on: Semantic Stopsigns
Yes, this is extremely funny, and yes, we all get the reference, and yes, we all feel patriotic when we vote it up, but really? This is not rationality, it is a joke. It’s awesome, but does it really deserve 31 votes up?

Rixie Jan 25, 2013, 4:16 AM
−1 points
in reply to: Strange7’s comment on: The Least Convenient Possible World
Why thank you!