trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
[LINK] Forty Years of String Theory: Reflecting on the Foundations
by Shmi — 2012-12-23T19:22:41.904Z

Those of us interested in "fundamental physics" may find a few interesting tidbits in the latest issue of Springer's Foundations of Physics. It has contributions from the prominent figures in String Theory and related fields, such as the Nobel laureate Gerard 't Hooft, father of the anthropic landscape Leonard Susskind and one of the founders of the leading alternative to the String Theory, Loop Quantum Gravity, as well as the author of several popular books about fundamental physics Lee Smolin. Eric Verlinde, the author of the controversial Entropic gravity model, also contributed. A couple of philosophers of science added their two cents.

While Springer is not an open-access publisher, this volume is free, as are many others during December 2012.

A few quotes from the introduction, which seem relevant to the issues of truth, realism and rationality:

"He ['t Hooft] compares string theory to other theories and models which are not free of problems but we generally consider to be well-defined: celestial classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and QCD, and concludes that string theory is not in as good shape as any of these theories."

"Rickles develops a version of the “no-miracles argument” for scientific realism to the case of mathematically fruitful theories, thereby defending the rationality of those who pursue string theory in the absence of better alternatives, rather than making a statement about the truth of the theory."

"Susskind argues that developments in string theory are telling us that a narrow form of reductionism is wrong: “[I]f one listens carefully, string theory is telling us that in a deep way reductionism is wrong, at least beyond some point.” The reason is that various string dualities interchange what is fundamental and what is composite, large and small lengths scales, high-dimensional objects with lower-dimensional objects, and so on. According to Susskind, “In string theory this kind of ambiguity is the rule.” “Personally, I would bet that this kind of anti-reductionist behavior is true in any consistent synthesis of quantum mechanics and gravity.”"

If you were to read only one paper, make it the one by Michael Duff. Here is the abstract:

"Using as a springboard a three-way debate between theoret...
Ritual Report 2012: Life, Death, Light, Darkness, and Love.
by Raemon — 2012-12-23T18:56:58.179Z

One winter ago, twenty aspiring rationalists gathered in a room, ate some food, sang some songs, and lit some candles. We told some stories about why the universe is the way it is, and what kind of people we want to be.

I wrote some things about the experience. But here's a fairly succinct description:

Like most things, winter was once a mystery.
The world got cold, and dark. Life became fragile. People died. And they didn't know what was happening or understand why. They desperately threw festivals in honor of sun gods with all-too-human motivations, and prayed for the light's return.
It didn't help. Though we did discover that throwing parties in the middle of winter is an excellent idea.
But then something incredible and beautiful happened. We studied the sky. We invented astronomy, and other sciences. We began a long journey towards truly understanding our place in the universe. And we used that knowledge to plan for the future, and make our world better. Five thousand years later, the winter isn't so scary. But the symbol of the solstice - the departure and return of the sun - is still powerful. The work we have done to transform winter from a terrifying season of darkness into a modern festival of light deserves a reverence with all the weight of an ancient cultural cornerstone.

Last year, we had fun. A few people reported being emotionally affected. By and large, though, the dominant conclusion was “This was good first effort, but much, much more is possible.” In truth, I considered it a dress rehearsal, more a proof-of-concept than a finished product. I spent the last year working to do something better, but worried that I wouldn’t be able to. That maybe people don’t create holidays from scratch that actually latch on because it’s just damn hard to do and I wouldn’t be up to it.
And I was worried that either I wouldn’t be able to make the experience as grim and intense as I wanted, or that I’d succeed, but then not be able to lift people back out of it. This was a problem for some people last year, and last year I didn’t push things nearly as dark as I was planning to this time.
I worried that even if I succeeded at creating the experience for other people, I wouldn’t be able to experience it myself. A year ago, I didn’t feel like a participant. I felt like an anthropologist - clinically detached from the bonding ritual I had created.
But six months ago...
Thoughts on the Drake Equation and the Great Filter
by  — 2012-12-23T18:11:18.040Z

I was originally going to post this as a comment into the UFAI & great filter thread, but since I noticed that my comment didn't include a single word of AIs I thought about making an entire new discussion thread and I continued writing to improve the quality from comment to post. The essay is intended as thought-provoking and I don't have the required knowledge in the related fields and I mostly pieced this together by browsing wikipedia, but hopefully it gets you thinking!

Personally I think when considering the Drake Equation it's important to note that it actually took ridiculously long for intelligent life to evolve here and that we're on a finite timeline. The drake equation contains the rate of star formation, the number of planets in the stars, it even has a variable for the time it takes for life to evolve to the point of signaling detectably into outer space, etc. but it's also important to pay attention to that the average setup of the universe has changed.

On earth life has existed for almost 4 billion years and it has only been 43 years since our civilization first visited the moon and ~1½ centuries since the invention of radio? That is a very small time frame. Particularly if we consider that ~4 billion years is between a quarter and a third of the age of the universe itself.
When we consider the Great Filter we can at least propose that there have been several mass extinction events which failed to end all life on earth. I think it's a valid argument to say that for an example any powerful impact could have ended all life or reset the evolution of life some/any number of degrees - and it has been ~70 years since the initiation of the Manhattan project and already humanity has the potential to go through a thermonuclear war that could end human life on the planet, or rollback the game of life through nuclear winter. Mars could have been habitable. For an example there's no liquid water on Mars now, though there should've been earlier. The habitable zone as theoretized is considerably narrow - For an example: If at any point in the history of (life on) earth the average surface temperature had climbed to 200 celsius for whatever reason I'm pretty sure that would've made our planet like all the other planets observed - so far - in that they don't seem contain intelligent life. What I mean by this is that even though a vast nu...
Meetup : Moscow: Applied Rationality in a New Year
by Yuu — 2012-12-23T17:03:29.401Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow: Applied Rationality in a New Year

WHEN:
05 January 2013 04:00:00PM (+0400)

WHERE:
Rossiya, Moscow, ulitsa Ostozhenka 14/2

We will meet at “Subway” restaurant, entrance from Lopukhinskiy pereulok. Look for a table with “LW” banner, I will be there from 16:00 MSK.

Main topics:

Applied rationality: practice. We will improve our rationality skills.

Solving cases. Please prepare some problems for discussion.

Cognitive biases analysis. Here is the link to the list of biases we will work on (in Russian).

If you are going for the first time, please fill this one minute form (in Russian), to share your contact information. You can also use personal messages here, or drop a message at lw@lesswrong.ru to contact me for any reason.

N. B. Google shows incorrect location, please use Yandex maps.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow: Applied Rationality in a New Year
[SEQ RERUN] Disjunctions, Antipredictions, Etc.
by MinibearRex — 2012-12-23T02:09:19.534Z

Today's post, Disjunctions, Antipredictions, Etc. was originally published on 09 December 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

A few tricks Yudkowsky uses to think about the future.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was The Bad Guy Bias, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
So you think you understand Quantum Mechanics
by Shmi — 2012-12-22T21:16:27.350Z

This post is prompted by the multitude of posts and comments here using quantum this and that in an argument (quantum dice, quantum immortality, quantum many worlds...). But how does one know if they understand the concept they use? In school a student would have to write a test and get graded. It strikes me as a reasonable thing to do here, as well: let people test their understanding of the material so that they can calibrate their estimate of their knowledge of the topic. This is an attempt to do just that.

Let's look at one of the very first experiments demonstrating that in the microscopic world things are usually quantized: the Stern-Gerlach experiment, in which measured angular momentum is shown to take discrete values. The gist of the experiment is that in a varying magnetic field the tidal force on a magnet is not perfectly balanced and so the magnet moves toward or away from the denser field, depending on the orientation of its poles. This is intuitively clear to anyone who ever played with magnets: the degree of attraction or repulsion depends on the relative orientation of the magnets (North pole repels North pole etc.). It is less obvious that this effect is due to the spatially varying magnetic field density, but it is nonetheless the case.

In the experiment, one magnet is large (the S-G apparatus itself) and one is small (a silver atom injected into the magnetic field of the large magnet). The experiment shows that an unoriented atom suddenly becomes aligned either along or against the field, but not in any other direction. It's like a compass needle that would only be able to point North and South (and potentially in a few other directions) but not anywhere in between.

If necessary, please read through the more detailed description of the experiment on Wikipedia or in any other source before attempting the following questions (usually called meditations in the idiosyncratic language used on this forum).

Meditation 1. When exactly does the atom align itself? As soon as it enters the field? At some random moment as it travels through the field? The instance it hits the screen behind the field? In other words, in the MWI picture, when does the world split into two, one with the atom aligned and one with the atom anti-aligned? In the Copenhagen picture, does the magnetic field measure the atom spin, and if so, when, or does the s...
Education via Cell Phone in Africa
by  — 2012-12-22T17:47:58.174Z

The World Bank reports that between 2007 and 2012, Africa exceeded the number of cell phone subscribers found in the European Union and in the United States. Africa has 650 million cell phone subscribers. [1] At the same time, Africa has profound infrastructure gaps that the World Bank identifies as gaps able to be closed by "human capital." [2] Ritva Reinikka (World Bank Director for Human Development in Africa) suggests school / vocation / university buildings led by teachers and attended by students are a way to build human capital. [2]

By choice, force, chance or some combination, Africa has not invested in traditional schools and has invested in cell phones. Philanthropy to Africa might be more successful if it occurs over the telephone instead of (or in addition to) in traditional school buildings. Education, training and health advice are not optimally delivered exclusively by telephone. But they may be more successful than traditional schools housed in buildings where teachers are typically absent and students attend only two hours a day, where only one-quarter of teachers know how to divide one fraction by another, and where roads to arrive at a school building are often lacking. [2]

In October 2012 Entertainment Weekly included a free working Android smart phone in one thousand copies of their magazine. [3] In December 2012 a single dumb cell phones can be had for less than US$30 and a single smart phone can be had for less than US$100. [4] Bulk purchases are likely to make cell phones cost less. Nokia offers lessons in mathematics via cell phone. [5] Google offers many of their services via sms. [6]

Philanthropic building of roads and school buildings should not end. But here is a case of a very mobile mountain able to meet Mohammed, by way of increased taking advantage of Africa's own commitment to cell phones.

- -

[1] "ICTs Delivering Home-Grown Development Solutions in Africa." The World Bank, 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 22 Dec. 2012. http://go.worldbank.org/L20948QYZ0

[2] Reinikka, Ritva. "Why Should Africa Invest in People Now?" The World Bank. ND. Web. 22 Dec. 2012. http://go.worldbank.org/CLSQ439QV0

[3] Trel, Michael. "Magazine Crams in Working Android Cellphone for Video Ad." DVICE. N.p., 3 Oct. 2012. Web. 22 Dec. 2012. http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/crazy-video-mag.php

[4] In ...
Meetup : Berlin Meetup: Bayes
by blob — 2012-12-22T14:43:14.377Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Berlin Meetup: Bayes

WHEN:
09 January 2013 07:30:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
MingDynastie, Brückenstraße 6, 10179 Berlin

It's the first meetup in 2013 and apart from the inevitable talk about the new year celebrations, there'll be:

An introduction to Bayes rule: an explanation of what people mean when they say they updated on some evidence - with lots of exercises

Space reserved for public commitments and predictions

New people are always welcome! There'll be a sign saying "LessWrong" on our table.

Discussion article for the meetup : Berlin Meetup: Bayes
UFAI cannot be the Great Filter
by Thrasymachus — 2012-12-22T11:26:41.010Z

[Summary: The fact we do not observe (and have not been wiped out by) an UFAI suggests the main component of the 'great filter' cannot be civilizations like ours being wiped out by UFAI. Gentle introduction (assuming no knowledge) and links to much better discussion below.]

Introduction

The Great Filter is the idea that although there is lots of matter, we observe no "expanding, lasting life", like space-faring intelligences. So there is some filter through which almost all matter gets stuck before becoming expanding, lasting life. One question for those interested in the future of humankind is whether we have already 'passed' the bulk of the filter, or does it still lie ahead? For example, is it very unlikely matter will be able to form self-replicating units, but once it clears that hurdle becoming intelligent and going across the stars is highly likely; or is it getting to a humankind level of development is not that unlikely, but very few of those civilizations progress to expanding across the stars. If the latter, that motivates a concern for working out what the forthcoming filter(s) are, and trying to get past them.

One concern is that advancing technology gives the possibility of civilizations wiping themselves out, and it is this that is the main component of the Great Filter - one we are going to be approaching soon. There are several candidates for which technology will be an existential threat (nanotechnology/'Grey goo', nuclear holocaust, runaway climate change), but one that looms large is Artificial intelligence (AI), and trying to understand and mitigate the existential threat from AI is the main role of the Singularity Institute, and I guess Luke, Eliezer (and lots of folks on LW) consider AI the main existential threat.

The concern with AI is something like this:

AI will soon greatly surpass us in intelligence in all domains.

If this happens, AI will rapidly supplant humans as the dominant force on planet earth.

Almost all AIs, even ones we create with the intent to be benevolent, will probably be unfriendly to human flourishing.

Or, as summarized by Luke:

... AI leads to intelligence explosion, and, because we don’t know how to give an AI benevolent goals, by default an intelligence explosion will optimize the world for accidentally disastrous ends. A controlled intelligence explosion, on the other hand, could optimize th...
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87
by Alsadius — 2012-12-22T07:55:08.205Z

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 87. The previous thread has passed 500 comments.

There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.
No apparent Dunning-Kruger effect for LW participation
by John_Maxwell — 2012-12-22T04:39:29.271Z

Precommitted to publishing this in Discussion to fight publication bias. It looks like intelligence (as measured by IQ, SAT scores, etc.) isn't meaningfully related to how much one posts to LW. Probably in the ideal case, they would be related and higher-IQ people would post more, but that doesn't appear to be going on either.

How well-educated you are doesn't seem to be much related to participation either. I'm not controlling for hours spent on LW for any of this, though.

Script output:

Correlation between "IQ" and "KarmaScore": 0.0343

Correlation between "SATscoresoutof1600" and "KarmaScore": 0.0517

Correlation between "SATscoresoutof2400" and "KarmaScore": 0.1000

Correlation between "TimeinCommunity" and "KarmaScore": 0.1770

Breakdown of average "IQ" by "LessWrongUse":
137.2500 "I lurk, but never registered an account"
139.3659 "I've registered an account, but never posted"
138.8491 "I've posted a comment, but never a top-level post"
137.8182 "I've posted in Discussion, but not Main"
138.9394 "I've posted in Main"

Breakdown of average "SATscoresoutof1600" by "LessWrongUse":
1469.5495 "I lurk, but never registered an account"
1462.1429 "I've registered an account, but never posted"
1488.0000 "I've posted a comment, but never a top-level post"
1510.2941 "I've posted in Discussion, but not Main"
1515.1515 "I've posted in Main"

Breakdown of average "SATscoresoutof2400" by "LessWrongUse":
2202.9848 "I lurk, but never registered an account"
2242.7273 &n

...
Meetup : Washington DC meetup- new sequence?
by rocurley — 2012-12-21T23:18:00.649Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC meetup- new sequence?

WHEN:
23 December 2012 03:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
National Portrait Gallery Plaza, Washington, DC 20001, USA

Topic is tentative.

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC meetup- new sequence?
Implications of an infinite versus a finite universe
by Kawoomba — 2012-12-21T17:12:59.979Z

Hi gang,

for the last several months, I've intermittently been wondering about a curious fact I learned.

You see, I was under the impression that the universe (as opposed to just the currently observable universe or our Hubble volume) must be finite in its spa[t|c]ial dimensions. I figured that starting with a finite area of space, expanding with a finite (even if accelerating) expansion rate, could only yield a finitely sized volume of space (from any reference frame), a fraction of which constitutes our little Hubble bubble.

Turns out - honi soit qui mal y pense - my layman's understanding was wrong: "This [WMAP data] suggests that the Universe is infinite in extent (...)"

Now, most (non-computer-scientist) people I've bothered with that answered along the lines of "well, it's really big alright? (geez)".

However, going from any finite amount of matter/energy to an actual infinite amount (even when looking at just e.g. baryonic matter from the infinite amount of galaxies) still seems like a game-changer for all sorts of contemplations:

For example, any event with any non-zero probability of happening, no matter how large the negative exponent, would be assured of actually happening an infinite amount of times somewhere in the our very own universe (follows straightforwardly from induction over the law of large numbers).

Such as a planet turning into a giant petunia for a moment, before turning back.

The universe being infinite doesn't make that event any more likely in our observable universe, of course, but would the knowledge that given our laws of physics, there is an infinite amount of Hubble spaces governed by any sorts of "weird" occurrences - e.g. ruled by your evil twin brother - trouble you? Do we need to qualify "there probably is no Christian-type/FSM god" with "... in our Hubble volume. Elsewhere, yes."?

The difference, if you allow me a final rephrase, would be in going from a MWI-style "there may be another version - if the MWI interpretation is correct - that I cannot causally interact with" to a "in our own universe, just separated by space, there is an infinite amount of actual planets turning into actual petuniae (albeit all of which I also cannot interact with)".