Sonata Green

• Sonata GreenMay 10, 2021, 11:33 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: TheSimplestExplanation’s comment on: I’m from a par­allel Earth with much higher co­or­di­na­tion: AMA

  Found it.

• Sonata GreenFeb 26, 2021, 12:56 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: johnswentworth’s comment on: Utility Max­i­miza­tion = De­scrip­tion Length Minimization

  I don’t see how to do that, especially given that it’s not a matter of meeting some threshold, but rather of maximizing a value that can grow arbitrarily.

  Actually, you don’t even need the ways-to-arrange argument. Suppose I want to predict/​control the value of a particular nonnegative integer $n$ (the number of cubbyholes), with monotonically increasing utility, e.g. $U\left(n\right)=n$. Then the encoding length $E\left(n\right)$ of a given outcome must be longer than the code length for each greater outcome: $E\left(n\right)>E(n+k)$. However, code lengths must be a nonnegative integer number of code symbols in length, so for any given encoding $E\left(n\right)$ there are at most $E\left(n\right)$ shorter code lengths, so the encoding $E$ must fail no later than $n+E\left(n\right)+1$.

• Sonata GreenFeb 25, 2021, 8:38 AM

  3 points

  on: Utility Max­i­miza­tion = De­scrip­tion Length Minimization

  What if I want greebles?

  To misuse localdeity’s example, suppose I want to build a wall with as many cubbyholes as possible, so that I can store my pigeons in them. In comparison to a blank wall, each hole makes the wall more complex, since there are more ways to arrange $n+1$ holes than to arrange $n$ holes (assuming the wall can accommodate arbitrarily many holes).

• Sonata GreenJun 6, 2018, 2:46 AM

  1 point

  0

  on: Res­cu­ing the util­ity function

  (Edit: looks like I should have selected more anchor text.)

  Leif K-Brooks presented this general idea as follows (with intended application to ‘free will’ in particular):

  This image URL seems to be broken/​expired. Does someone have access to a copy that they could rehost somewhere more reliable?

• Sonata GreenDec 7, 2017, 3:55 AM

  1 point

  on: [unknown]

  Clicking the plus yields a popup menu, none of whose entries include the word “mark”. My best guess at the intended action was the “This is confusing” option, which appears not to offer me the option of describing my confusion.

• Sonata GreenDec 7, 2017, 3:49 AM

  1 point

  0

  on: Ar­bital comment

  I was unable to locate any such checkbox.

• Sonata GreenDec 7, 2017, 3:48 AM

  1 point

  on: [unknown]

  No such section seems to exist as of this writing.

• Sonata GreenDec 7, 2017, 3:38 AM

  1 point

  on: [unknown]

  Pages can also have comments, like this.