Tom_Talbot

• Tom_TalbotJun 1, 2009, 8:51 PM

  0 points

  on: Open Thread: June 2009

  What a critic might say about Less Wrong:

  1) The purpose of the pursuit of rationality is to increase an individual’s understanding of and power over their environment and the people in it.

  2) The only way to establish rational thinking in a group of people not otherwise disposed towards it* is to establish a group norm of praising rational thinkers and shaming the irrational, by an established standard of rationality.

  Therefore:

  Rationalists are power-seekers, and the pursuit of rationality is inherently elitist and exclusionary.

  *That is to say, the vast majority of people.

• Tom_TalbotJun 1, 2009, 8:02 PM

  3 points

  on: The Frontal Syndrome

  Interesting stuff. The fact that lobotomy was often used to treat schizophrenia—a catastrophic failure of rationality—is suggestive.

  I vaguely remember a neuroscience lecturer of mine saying that a possible factor in the bizarre nature of dreams was that frontal regions were inhibited during sleep, so the dreamer has no way of telling the difference between plausible and implausible scenarios among those they are perceiving. I can’t find any references to substantiate this though. Maybe I dreamt it.

• Tom_TalbotApr 29, 2009, 7:12 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: Cyan’s comment on: What is con­trol the­ory, and why do you need to know about it?

  Coincidentally, today I was reading an interesting paper about forward and inverse models in the cerebellum. Here’s a quote:

  Humans demonstrate a remarkable ability to generate accurate and appropriate motor behaviour under many different and often uncertain environmental conditions. Considering the number of objects and environments, and their possible combinations, that can influence the dynamics of the motor system, the controller must be capable of providing approximate motor commands for a multitude of distinct contexts, such as different tasks and interactions with objects, that are likely to be experienced. Given this multitude of contexts, there are two qualitatively distinct strategies to motor control and learning. The first is to use a single controller that uses all the contextual information in an attempt to produce an appropriate control signal. However, such a controller would require enormous complexity to allow for all possible scenarios. If this controller were unable to encapsulate all the contexts, it would need to adapt every time the context of the movement changed before it could produce approximate motor commands—this would produce transient and possibly large performance errors. Alternatively, a modular approach can be used in which multiple controllers co-exist, with each controller suitable for one or a small set of contexts. Depending on the current context, only those appropriate controllers would be active to generate the motor command. While forward and inverse models could be learned by a single module, there are three potential benefits to employing a modular approach. First, the world is essentially modular, in that we interact with multiple qualitatively different objects and environments. By using multiple inverse models, each of which might capture the motor commands necessary when acting with a particular object or within a particular environment, we could achieve an efficient coding of the world. In other words, the large set of environmental conditions in which we are required to generate movement requires multiple behaviours or sets of motor commands, each embodied within a module. Secondly, the use of a modular system allows individual modules to adapt through motor learning without affecting the motor behaviours already learned by other modules. Thirdly, many situations that we encounter are derived from combinations of previously experienced contexts, such as novel conjoints of previously manipulated objects and environments. By modulating the contribution to the final motor command of of the outputs of the inverse modules, an enormous repertoire of behaviours can be generated. With as few as 32 inverse models, in which the output of each model either contributes or does not contribute to the final motor command, we have 2^32 or 10^10 behaviours—sufficient for a new behaviour for every second of one’s life. Therefore, multiple internal models can be regarded conceptually as motor primitives, which are the building blocks used to construct intricate motor behaviours with an enormous vocabulary.

  What links here?

  • Without models by Richard_Kennaway (May 4, 2009, 11:31 AM; 23 points)

• Tom_TalbotApr 17, 2009, 1:32 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: mattnewport’s comment on: In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity is a Chimera

  Thankyou, Matt. This takes us to the heart of the matter.

  largely unconscious instrumental human rationality has already equipped me with a way to achieve my goal: apply butter to knife, apply buttered knife to toast.

  Isn’t this a completely ludicrous example of “rationality”? What does “rationality” signify in this case? Unconsious co-ordination and control of the senses and muscles? That is not what I, or any sane person, understands by the word “rationality”! Is “rationality” just a universal signifier for “doing stuff right”? The word has been stretched beyond all meaning! You may rationally believe that particular way of buttering the toast is the correct way, but this is an example of epistemic rationality. There is no need to invoke the non-concept of instrumental rationality.

  I’m achieving predictably (repeatable on many trials) suitable (meeting my goals satisfactorily) results relative to my desired level of utility (buttered toast in my belly is a small but detectable increase in utility)

  I’ll be honest with you, I have never detected utility in my belly. I know this is tangenital, but the concept of utility just does not seem at all useful. How do we calibrate this unit of measurement? Or is it simply an abstraction? I can see how that might be useful in an abstract discussion, but in this case why not refer directly to the actual feelings felt? Saying that you “increased utility” is pointless jargon, and its use contributes to the kind of confused word-salad which occasionally appears in these sorts of discussions.

  [...] In either case the basic principles of rationality could be brought to bear to improve my results, if my estimate was that the time investment of attempting improvements would be justified by my expected increase in utility.

  Here’s the crux of it. Your improvements will make use of the standard tools of epistemic rationality, the scientific method and all the rest of it. There is no seperate world of instrumental rationality. At best “instrumental rationality” may be defined as epistemic rationality applied to the problem of choosing among methods for achieving a goal, a rather weak and pointless category. The actual methods themselves are emphatically not a form of rationality.

• Tom_TalbotApr 17, 2009, 12:51 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity is a Chimera

  Humans want buttered toast and knowledge of particle physics. Other than that I cannot think of anything else they have in common. If we are discussing beliefs about toast and particles then we are in the realm of epistemic rationality.

• Tom_TalbotApr 17, 2009, 12:44 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: MrHen’s comment on: In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity is a Chimera

  I said something in the other thread along the lines of, “women are more likely to have friends and men are more likely to be nerdy loners” but yes, I was really just using the gender imbalance thing as a jumping off point.

• Tom_TalbotApr 17, 2009, 12:41 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity is a Chimera

  A belief that galaxies exist is a rational belief, but has no instrumental value. It is simply true.

• Tom_TalbotApr 17, 2009, 12:39 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: MrHen’s comment on: In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity is a Chimera

  There is a rational way to butter toast but it has nothing to do with the rational way to conduct particle physics experiments.

• Tom_TalbotApr 17, 2009, 12:29 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: jimrandomh’s comment on: In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity is a Chimera

  Less Wrong is only a blog. The only thing it can ever hope to achieve is to produce some good essays. The people who read those essays may go on to achieve things, but those only reflect on them personally, not on Less Wrong.

  Don’t you have a sense that more is possible?

  No, that is expressly disavowed by the site’s title. All progress is incremental; it isn’t possible to be completely right, only to be less wrong, or less often wrong.

  Well alright, I was exaggerating for rhetorical purposes. But still, the point stands that “instrumental rationality” does not correspond to anything that anyone can actually do. It is a meaningless label.

• Tom_TalbotApr 17, 2009, 12:25 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: pjeby’s comment on: In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity is a Chimera

  the rational way is the way that produces predictably suitable results relative to your desired level of utility and/​or investment for that result.

  I apologise, but is there some simpler way for you to express this? I do not understand what it means. If you stated it in terms of real-life thoughts, actions and problems I might grasp it better.

  the procedures you use will be defined by testing according to some predefined criteria, after being generated through creative and/​or problem-solving processes.

  Again, is there some simpler way to express this? Who generated the procedures? Was it me or someone else? How are the procedures defined by the testing criteria? Surely a procedure is a sequence of steps toward some goal, and does not have a definition.

  And that, more or less, is the skillset (or at least the rough scope of such a skillset) of instrumental rationality.

  I remain hopelessly unenlightened.

  What are these, exactly?

  Logical fallacies, bayes theorem, working knowledge of the scientific method and knowledge of heuristics and biases.

In­stru­men­tal Ra­tion­al­ity is a Chimera

• Tom_TalbotApr 16, 2009, 4:49 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: MBlume’s comment on: Of Gen­der and Rationality

  I think the answer to your question may be no. I’ve thought on my original post some more and realised that I made a mistake in number (8), one cannot signal poor social skills since signalling is a social skill (it serves no other purpose), a person who cannot signal optimally is a person with poor social skills.

  So if a tendency towards telling the truth disrupts a person’s ability to signal optimally, then rationality and popularity must forever remain opposed, since in order to be rational you must give up your ability to signal popular, false beliefs. Even if we say that “rationalism” is only believing the truth—you can lie if you want to—your ability to signal is still disrupted, since the most effective way to signal is to sincerely believe what you’re saying

• Tom_TalbotApr 16, 2009, 4:03 PM

  19 points

  on: Of Gen­der and Rationality

  I have some conjectures.

  1) People tend to hold beliefs for social reasons. For example, belief in theism allows membership of the theist community, the actual existence of a deity is largely irrelevant.

  2) For most people, in order to maintain close social relationships it is necessary to maintain harmonious beliefs with nearby members of your social network. Changing your beliefs may harm your social ties.

  3) The larger your social network, the more you have to lose by changing your beliefs.

  4) Less Wrong encourages questioning and changing of beliefs.

  5) On average, women have larger social networks than men.

  6) Less Wrong encourages the adoption of strange and boring beliefs, largely based in maths and science.

  7) Advocating strange and boring beliefs does not signal high status, rather it signals a misunderstanding of widely accepted social norms, and therefore poor social skills.

  8) Much of a woman’s percieved value as a human being is tied to her ability to navigate the social world, men may be forgiven for making the occasional faux pas, women are not. Women are therefore strongly averse to signalling poor social skills.

  Some predictions:

  1) Willingness to join Less Wrong is inversely proportional to the size of your social network.

  2) The exceptions to this rule (Less Wrong members who have large social networks) will be members of fringe groups, where challenges to group beliefs are normal and do not lead to reductions in social status.

  3) Less Wrong will never be popular among people with large, mainstream social networks, as long as it advocates self-examination and questioning of recieved beliefs, and promotes discussion of strange and boring beliefs. It will never be popular among women, and the women who do post here are unusual in some way.

  ETA: for the sake of complete accuracy, let “fringe belief” be defined as one that is held by <0.1% of the population of the host nation.

• Tom_TalbotApr 5, 2009, 2:51 AM

  8 points

  in reply to: AlexU’s comment on: In­cre­men­tal Progress and the Valley

  We really need to have a discussion about the polite way to downvote people. I say that the top-level comment shows the right way to moderate, with discussion about the decision to downvote, while this post above mine has been moderated badly. The comment above seems to have undergone some drive-by moderation, with no one saying what he did wrong. One line would do, “This comment downvoted because it is vapid/​nonsensical/​mistaken” or something. What would be really nice would be if you, anonymous moderators, would set people straight when they made a mistake (as has been done at the top-level) so that we can discuss it in public and avoid it in future. I’m not saying you should explain every downvote, but if you’re hammering someone into the negatives, at least have the guts to say why. Was the post above downvoted because it was bad or because he agreed with the bad post of the top-level commenter? If so, a simple “Your post downvoted for reasons I gave above” would have sufficed.

  Downvoting without explanation smacks of laziness or vindictiveness, and degrades the quality of the discussion. If you cannot be bothered to provide an explanation for your downvote, I do not think you should be moderating at all.

• Tom_TalbotApr 5, 2009, 2:19 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: anonym’s comment on: In­cre­men­tal Progress and the Valley

  “Influences” is vague, but I take it you mean:

  [my life can be better] produces [positive outlook] and [positive outlook] is another way of saying [life (ie the lives of humans in general) is good]

  or: “If I believe that my life can be better, then I believe that life-of-humans-in-general is good.”

  I’m not implying that you actually believe this, just that this is what you were saying “positive outlook” meant. Am I right? From this perspective a positive outlook seems like a non-sequitur, since the future quality of my life may not provide much information about the lives of other people. Not to mention the fact that some people have good lives with bright futures and some have bad, hopeless ones, so the notion of life-in-general seems meaningless. From this I conclude that I do not have a positive outlook.

• Tom_TalbotApr 5, 2009, 12:45 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: anonym’s comment on: In­cre­men­tal Progress and the Valley

  By life in general do you mean the lives of humans in general, or just your own life, extended in time?

• Tom_TalbotApr 3, 2009, 6:04 PM

  2 points

  on: Win­ning is Hard

  Can humans solve these kinds of problems, if so how do we do it?

  You could run an experiment. Dose a bunch of lab animals to determine the LD50, or run Ames Tests and that sort of thing. Pork is demonstrably safe, fugu may not be.

• Tom_TalbotApr 1, 2009, 12:20 AM

  4 points

  in reply to: whpearson’s comment on: De­grees of Rad­i­cal Honesty

  I agree. The wise ought to recognise when you were forced into telling a lie because you valued something more highly than your reputation, and that, in an oddly self-nullifying way, should enhance your reputation. At least among the wise.

  EDIT: Gods! I just noticed the accidental similarity to Newcomb’s problem (omega (“the wise”) is allocating reputation instead of money). I’ve been reading Yudkowsky for too long.

• Tom_TalbotMar 31, 2009, 3:17 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: AlexU’s comment on: The Benefits of Ra­tion­al­ity?

  Why should our emotions always rule our reason? There ought to be a rational way to deal with urges, fatigue and so on. I think the methods currently under discussion are Pjeby’s motivation techniques, cognitive behavioural therapy and possibly meditation. If these lines of inquiry bear fruit, then that should make it possible for people here to muster the willpower to do whatever it is they want to do. At that point we’ll be able to say that any Less Wrong reader who wants to lose weight or whatever and can’t, is failing to be sufficiently rational.

• Tom_TalbotMar 31, 2009, 1:44 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: cousin_it’s comment on: The Benefits of Ra­tion­al­ity?

  Hah! When I read the top post I immediately thought of my own everyday struggle with irrationality along the lines of, “I want to get fit and live longer. This requires rationally alloting a certain amount of time to exercise. It’s hard to get motivated to exercise, due to akrasia (laziness). I want to solve the problem of akrasia, so I’ll go to Less Wrong and see what others are saying about it.”

  The point is that rationality may have no direct benefits whatsoever, but it is still useful since it helps you choose between, and stick to, behaviours that do have direct benefits.

  A classic controversial example: should rationalists go to church?