Zaine

Karma: 540

Zaine Aug 1, 2013, 1:24 AM
0 points
in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: More “Stupid” Questions
Now that I think on it, maybe it is for some people. If you consider the lyric “lose yourself to the music, the moment...” the instruction to ‘lose oneself’ implies the experience must be voluntary; much like hypnosis, if you don’t wish to succumb to the hypnotic flow of the hypnotist’s drone, you won’t.

Then again, music also passively affects brain waves. I can’t find a review article after searching for five minutes. The neuronal firing patterns—the frequency of firing, or brain waves—induced by heavy metal differ from jazz, which yet differs from classical, which further depends upon the composer and the piece.

Compare: this solo to this solo, and these ー pieces ー here。

Zaine Jul 31, 2013, 9:57 PM
2 points
in reply to: James_Miller’s comment on: More “Stupid” Questions
I’ve thought about this before. Here’s my go:

In regards to sound: If you take a tuning fork and smack it, it will vibrate. Vibration can be pleasurable. If the tuning fork is a brain, and the smack is music, then the result is a contented or slightly altered-from-the-norm feeling, that might be akin to the vibration of a tuning fork if tuning forks like vibrating.

In regards to lyrics: Singing along to things or singing by oneself can bring joy to one. This could have to do with the feeling of one’s voice reverberating through their body, psychological factors I won’t pretend to know, a combination of factors, or of course something I haven’t considered.

Let me know if that helps, doesn’t help, or causes confusion.

Zaine Jul 26, 2013, 12:02 AM
0 points
in reply to: lukeprog’s comment on: Open thread, July 23-29, 2013
Oh, I completely forgot inner windows exist! Sorry about that.

Zaine Jul 25, 2013, 10:21 PM
4 points
in reply to: lukeprog’s comment on: Open thread, July 23-29, 2013
For 6: if sunlight positively affects workplace productivity, drop down white backgrounds on windows would have adverse consequences.

Balancing suggestion: install a window on a wall.

Zaine Jul 25, 2013, 9:44 PM
0 points
in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: Why Eat Less Meat?
Naturally; we’re working from the same fabric.

Zaine Jul 24, 2013, 9:30 PM
0 points
in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: Why Eat Less Meat?
1) The question is whether they can experience the subjective realisation of, “Because of this situation, I am experiencing negative emotions. I dislike this situation, but there is no escape,” and thus increase their suffering by adding negative internal stimuli—appreciation and awareness of their existence—to already existing negative external stimuli. This is a stricter condition some may have for caring about other creatures to an inconvenient degree. For a fictional example, Methods!Harry refused to eat anything when he considered the possibility that all other life is sentient. To be charitable, assume he is aware that pinching a rabbit’s leg will trigger afferent nociceptive (pain) neurons, which will carry a signal to the brain, leading to the experience of pain. Your cited research demonstrates this. It does not demonstrate, however, whether the subject has the awareness to reflect upon the factors that contribute to their suffering, such that their reflection can contribute it by further adding negative stimuli, negative stimuli that is generated only by that organism’s selfsame reflection. Causing misery to a probably non-sentient creature did not give Methods!Harry hesitation, but causing misery to a probably sentient creature did; hopefully this helps elucidate the mindset of one ascribing to this stricter condition of care.

2) If a human considers that they themselves satisfy the above condition, then they will be more inclined to attribute more worth to fellow humans than other creatures of a dubious status. That said, they will still realise that misery is not a pleasant experience regardless of one’s capacity for self-reflection, and should be prevented and stopped if possible. One must thus argue to this person that it should behove their moral selves to exert effort towards mitigating or decreasing that misery, and that the exertion will not detriment this person’s endeavours to reduce the misery of humans.

This person cares more about optimising the good they can achieve while living, which leads them to take pains to live longer; the longer they live, the more good they can achieve. One must convince this person that either non-human animals have the capacity for self-reflection to the degree specified above, or that caring about the misery of non-human animals and acting upon that care does not adversely affect their net ability to introduce good to the world; id est, in the latter condition, acting upon that care must not adversely affect this person’s lifespan, quality of life, capacity to help humans, or must only do so by small enough margin to justify the sacrifice.

These are things I think a rational agent making a comfortable salary should think about, assuming they desire to optimise the quantity of good they effect in the world. To someone whose objective is convincing the masses to do the most good they possibly can, this doesn’t matter, as arguing for both vegetarianism and giving substantial sums to the AMF only have a potential conflict of interest to the party seeking optimal quality of life and greatest possible life-span.

Zaine Jul 24, 2013, 10:10 AM
0 points
in reply to: Larks’s comment on: Rationality Quotes July 2013
It’s a quote against which one can test their rationality, maybe?
- When someone died or when it was made has no relevance; only its merit in guiding a government is relevant.
- Their moral and political views don’t matter either, unless contained in the present US Constitution; this seems like argumentum ad hominem at first glance, but one needs to check the claim before evaluating its persuasiveness.
- One must argue that knowledge of modern America confers enough of a benefit to forming a working governmental body that scrapping and rewriting the entire U.S. Constitution is preferable to the amendment process.
In an effort to steelman: perhaps the Professor meant to indicate that with the advent of the internet, a representative democracy is no longer the most effective means of running a government by the people, for the people, and of the people. If he was feeling radical, he may have been hinting at how political science has developed as a discipline since the Enlightenment era when the principles founding the U.S. government were theorised; perhaps the best solution is a flexible one, able to adapt to the political system most effective at running an efficient government while still remaining resistant to tyranny. Exempli gratia a futarchy for four years, some form of crypto-direct democracy for eight years, a modified version of Finland’s government for ten years, etcetera.

Zaine Jul 24, 2013, 9:41 AM
0 points
in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: Why Eat Less Meat?
For item 1, that’s fine.

I’m only presenting an argument from the perspective of one who wants to live well and longer, but also wishes to leave a positive impact upon the world; my goal was to raise concerns someone from this mindset would like to see addressed, but ended up arguing (perhaps repugnantly) in favour of the mindset instead.
Let me know if that doesn’t help clear confusion.

Probably non-sentient lives are not limited to non-human animals, but marine and plant life, as well as human animals in extreme interpretations.

For item 2, sentience means self-awareness, and refers to the distinction between, for example, depression caused by mere neuro-adaptation of neurotransmitter signalling to external stimuli, and a depressive state furthered by the ability to reflect upon one’s depressive situation—internal stimuli.

You might have a typo in the latter-most statement.

Zaine Jul 24, 2013, 8:19 AM
0 points
in reply to: Zaine’s comment on: Why Eat Less Meat?
If optimal health requires strict consumption of only sea-vegetables and coconut oil, one must offset the resources required their sustainable, scalable harvesting. If optimal health requires eating meat procured from animals eating only their native food sources in their native habitat, killed while their hunter whispers sweet nothings and severs their vertebrae at the nape with a swift, sure, and gentle strike, one must offset the costs required making the operation sustainable, scalable, and global warming-friendly—perhaps by inventing meat-vats, solving global warming, or discovering a means of feasible space colonisation.

Zaine Jul 24, 2013, 8:14 AM
−3 points
on: Why Eat Less Meat?
Obtaining optimal health is an unsolved problem. With optimal health, a human will live longer. This human weights probably sentient life as worth more than probably non-sentient life. According to this human’s values, the amount of probably non-sentient life this human must consume in order to obtain optimal health does not justify consumption in and of itself. As a human will live longer with optimal health, this human also has more time they can devote to offsetting their consumption, in the end making their human life worth more in net than the cumulative probably non-sentient lives consumed in sustaining optimal health.

The more resources required optimal health, the greater the burden on the human to offset the negative externalities produced utilising those resources.

Zaine Jul 24, 2013, 6:51 AM
3 points
in reply to: RolfAndreassen’s comment on: Open thread, July 23-29, 2013
I think they recommended you join the London meet-up listserv and ask there for a greater quantity of responses.

Zaine Jul 22, 2013, 1:51 AM
1 point
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Valuable economics knowledge available, ironically, for free
Should one skip right to graduate level macroeconomics, then? Or are there companion resources one might want to consume concurrently with learning undergraduate level macro? A previous poster recommended learning undergrad with a healthy dose of scepticism; if that scepticism were applied to half-truths taught in undergrad macro, would the supposed activity of ‘learning about economics’ become an exercise in comparing maps to their charted territory?

Zaine Jul 19, 2013, 5:30 PM
1 point
in reply to: bogdanb’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87
Glad to hear your emotional state is now positive! Thank you!

Zaine Jun 19, 2013, 8:51 AM
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Open Thread, June 16-30, 2013
What you suggest has the benefit of improving one’s eloquence and accuracy in conveying experience.

What you suggest can turn the unproductive to the refreshingly inspired productive.

These suggestions need no philosophical support, lest another challenge the assumption they are inherently desirable. Simplicity of expression carries with it persuasion, for the reader can decide themselves whether they want the effects; pre-emptive arguments can turn them away.

Zaine Jun 19, 2013, 7:09 AM
1 point
in reply to: marchdown’s comment on: Group Rationality Diary, June 1-30
I don’t, actually. I ran a year long informal experiment on myself, trying to measure my metabolic rate / caloric need per hour, and have a recollection of reading that ingesting a banana before a workout should provide enough glucose for an hour (I don’t think it specified for what activity; I found that the banana lasted for the first forty-five minutes of a treadmill 10k run at a pace fluctuating between ~4:30 and ~6:00 minutes per kilometre*) - both probably inform that 15-30 minute figure. Your metabolic speed will vary, and not necessarily within that range.

*By “last”, I mean a subjective sense of being energized and having enough fuel. I realise now that may not be a reliable indicator.
What links here?
- Zaine's comment on Group Rationality Diary, June 1-30 by therufs (Jun 18, 2013, 7:57 PM; 0 points)

Zaine Jun 19, 2013, 12:27 AM
0 points
on: Is our continued existence evidence that Mutually Assured Destruction worked?
MAD didn’t work; we were simply lucky: http://cornerstone.gmu.edu/articles/4198

Zaine Jun 18, 2013, 8:34 PM
0 points
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: How can I strategically write a complex bestseller? (4HS001)
Are best-sellers purely determined by number of copies sold; revenue isn’t a factor? Hohoho, behold.

Zaine Jun 18, 2013, 7:57 PM
0 points
in reply to: MalcolmOcean’s comment on: Group Rationality Diary, June 1-30
The caveat mainly targets those on some low-carb dietary regimen. If you were to break a fast (can’t give a specific fast length, sorry) with exercise then maybe have a banana 15-30 minutes or so before starting, depending upon your metabolic speed.

Does this apply to you? If a highly confident no, then have at it at your own liability!

Zaine Jun 18, 2013, 7:06 AM
0 points
in reply to: gyokuro’s comment on: Group Rationality Diary, June 1-30
High Intensity Interval Training (H.I.T.T.) may have the same benefits as running and is a more efficient use of time: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-minute-workout/

Read the linked journal article.

Don’t do HITT with low available glucose (blood and liver); your body will eat through what’s present quickly, won’t have enough time to prepare more, and will break down skeletal muscles for energy instead. I doubt this should prove problematic, but omitting this caveat is simply irresponsible.
What links here?
- Gunnar_Zarncke's comment on Group Rationality Diary, August 1-15 by therufs (Aug 7, 2014, 9:08 PM; 3 points)

Zaine Jun 14, 2013, 5:34 AM
2 points
on: After critical event W happens, they still won’t believe you
I wonder how a prolonged event Y, something with enough marketability to capture the public’s eye for some time, might change opinions on the truth of proposition X. Something along the lines of the calculus, Gutenberg’s printing press, the advent of manoeuvrable cannons, flintlocks, quantum mechanics, electric stoves (harnessed electricity), the concept of a national debt, etcetera.

I’d be interested in what if any effects the American National Security Agency scandal, or a worldwide marketing campaign by Finland advertising their healthcare system will or would have to this end.