Tom_Talbot

Karma: 483

Tom_Talbot Mar 30, 2009, 12:34 AM
8 points
on: Deliberate and spontaneous creativity
Have you seen this paper, Heilman, Nadeau, Beversdorf. “Creative Innovation: Possible Brain Mechanisms” Neurocase (2003)?

There’s a real kicker in the abstract:

“The observation that [creative innovation] occurs during levels of low arousal and that many people with depression are creative suggests that alterations of neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine might be important in [creative innovation]. High levels of norepinephrine, produced by high rates of locus coeruleus firing, restrict the breadth of concept representations and increase the signal to noise ratio, but low levels of norepinephrine shift the brain toward intrinsic neuronal activation with an increase in the size of distributed concept representations and co-activation across modular networks.”

Speculative, of course. But we like speculative. Suggested exercise: close the curtains, put on some melancholy music, think grim thoughts, then have a go at a hard problem and see if it’s any easier.

Edit: a hard problem requiring creativity, that is.

Tom_Talbot Mar 28, 2009, 5:27 PM
25 points
0
on: Church vs. Taskforce
Re: incremental implementability—if we ever do organise LessWrong meetups, we should organise rationalist book clubs. How many people here have actually read Judgement under Uncertainty? I confess I never got around to it, though I meant to, but knowing fellow readers might motivate me.

And another thing, when are we going to get a LessWrong wiki? The glut of information here and on OB is unmanageable and we ought to force some kind of order on it—a rationalist curriculum or cheat sheet or something. Having “previously in series” at the top of new posts leads to an impenetrable expanding tree of long blog posts, discouraging new members and confusing lazy and forgetful individuals such as myself.
What links here?
- Jack's comment on Open Thread June 2010, Part 2 by komponisto (Jun 9, 2010, 7:38 AM; 2 points)

Tom_Talbot Mar 27, 2009, 9:24 PM
4 points
in reply to: MBlume’s comment on: Can Humanism Match Religion’s Output?
Or start a LessWrong group on Facebook.
What links here?
- Less Wrong Facebook Page by MBlume (Mar 27, 2009, 10:35 PM; 10 points)

Tom_Talbot Mar 27, 2009, 8:42 PM
2 points
on: Crowley on Religious Experience
This seems like the right thread to add some info about zen meditation (“zazen”) for those who are interested in trying it. These are some pages from an american zen master’s website: how to sit zazen and stretches to get to the lotus position.

What I find interesting about zazen is that the emphasis is entirely on posture, with nothing that the practitioner is supposed to think or do, and this is said to have a “balancing” effect on the mind. Having tried it for about a week I can say that it does seem to induce a state of somewhat relaxed alertness, but that the effect varies widely depending on how you were feeling before you did the zazen. Also, it’s extremely difficult to maintain motivation to do it every day as recommended, because of the boredom and discomfort of sitting in lotus, staring at the wall.

As to whether this has any applications to rationality, I’m unsure. According to practitioners it may help in avoiding being overcome by emotion, and increasing concentration, but these claims may be a dishonest attempt at proselytisation by buddhists (“join our religion and gain these benefits”) and I’m having trouble tracking down any satisfactory references. If anyone else has any experience with this I’d be interested to hear about it.

Tom_Talbot Mar 19, 2009, 3:12 PM
0 points
on: Rationalist Fiction
It seems unlikely that there are going to be very many examples of fiction containing characters using an interesting technique of rationality since—as far as I know—the idea of a real-life “rationality technique” analogous to a martial art technique is original to you, Eliezer. An author might write a story about some group or individual achieving great things and tell us that this group or person studies rationality, but they won’t be able to describe rationality techniques in detail because the concept of rationality techniques didn’t exist before the establishment of Overcoming Bias. All they’re going to be able to do is talk vaguely about monasteries and Grand Master Rationalists. We ought to be careful about interpreting stories to suit our agenda because it would be so easy to fall into the trap of generalising from fictional evidence. Perhaps learning rationality in a monastery under the tutelage of a Grand Master is a terrible way to learn to Think Better, but if we’ve spent all our time discussing books that contain this trope, we might have trouble rejecting it as a bad idea.

(Stiegler has another novel called Earthweb which is about using prediction markets to defend the Earth from invading aliens, which was my introduction to the concept of prediction markets.)

Would it be rational to use prediction markets to defend the Earth from aliens? Using Rationality Tools in an irrational way turns them into Irrationality Tools. The writer is just presenting an idea, he has no way of knowing if that technique would work in that scenario, it might even make the situation worse (does that make it Irrationalist Fiction?)

Tom_Talbot Mar 19, 2009, 1:43 AM
5 points
on: On Juvenile Fiction
I loved Sherlock Holmes stories from about the age of seven, and liked Jonathon Creek when I was a teenager. These days I like House. The idea of super-rationalists solving problems no normal human can solve is fun and I guess, vaguely inspiring. It’s also entertaining to try to guess the solution before the end, and criticise that solution when it comes.

Tom_Talbot Mar 17, 2009, 5:05 PM
2 points
in reply to: vizikahn’s comment on: 3 Levels of Rationality Verification
Perhaps the notion of an ‘art of rationality’ is completely misguided. Why are we relying on the skills of individual people who evolved to be irrational when systems can be built for the purpose of giving rational answers? Why walk to the answer when you can drive?

Tom_Talbot Mar 1, 2009, 4:24 PM
7 points
on: Test Your Rationality
This almost seems too obvious to mention in one of Robin’s threads, but I’ll go ahead anyway: success on prediction markets would seem to be an indicator of rationality and/or luck. Your degree of success in a game like HubDub may give some indication as to the accuracy of your beliefs, and so (one would hope) the effectiveness of your belief-formation process.
What links here?
- cousin_it's comment on Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute by John_Maxwell (Sep 7, 2012, 8:22 AM; 1 point)