trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
You'll be who you care about
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2011-09-20T17:52:44.113Z

Eliezer wonders about the thread of conscious experience: "I don't think that, if I were really selfish, I could jump off a cliff knowing smugly that a different person would experience the consequence of hitting the ground."

Instead of wondering whether we should be selfish towards our future selves, let's reverse the question. Let's define our future selves as agents that we can strongly influence, and that we strongly care about. There are other aspects that round out our intuitive idea of future selves (such as having the same name and possessions, and a thread of conscious experience), but this seems the most fundamental one.

In future, this may help clarify issues of personal identity once copying is widespread:

These two future copies, Mr. Jones, are they both 'you'? "Well yes, I care about both, and can influence them both."

Mr Jones Alpha, do you feel that Mr Jones Beta, the other current copy, is 'you'? "Well no, I only care a bit about him, and have little control over his actions."

Mr Evolutionary-Jones Alpha, do you feel that Mr Evolutionary-Jones Beta, the other current copy, is 'you'? "To some extent; I care strongly about him, but I only control his actions in an updateless way."

Mr Instant-Hedonist-Jones, how long have you lived? "Well, I don't care about myself in the past or in the future, beyond my current single conscious experience. So I'd say I've lived a few seconds, a minute at most. The other Mr Instant-Hedonist-Jones are strangers to me; do with them what you will. Though I can still influence them strongly, I suppose; tell you what, I'll sell my future self into slavery for a nice ice-cream. Delivered right now."
Meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup Wednesday Sept. 21, 7pm
by EvelynM — 2011-09-20T17:33:10.257Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup Wednesday Sept. 21, 7pm

WHEN:
21 September 2011 07:00:00AM (-0600)

WHERE:
Bean Cycle, 144 North College Avenue, Fort Collins, CO 80524

An opportunity to practice improving your thinking skills in a supportive group. And fun and games.

Discussion article for the meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup Wednesday Sept. 21, 7pm
Too many cooks
by PhilGoetz — 2011-09-20T16:14:36.271Z

I was in a game last weekend where, at one point, the players needed to solve an in-game problem. The mechanics for "solving" the problem were for us to assemble a 3D "jigsaw" puzzle. (One of those geometric shapes made by getting a lot of little shapes to fit together in just the right way.)

Three of us sat down to solve the puzzle together. Looking at the pieces, looking at the picture of the assembled figure, we made observations about what constraints we saw, what piece on the table might correspond to something in the picture, convinced whoever was holding the piece in question to put it in a particular place, and gradually assembled the puzzle cooperatively. We had an instruction sheet with pictures of the puzzle at 3 different stages of completion. It took us something under 10 minutes. (Several of those were taken up mutually deciding in which order to follow the pictures, as one person had started using the picture showing the first stage, one had started with the picture showing the last stage and was disassembling the semi-assembled first stage for parts, and one had no clear strategy.)

A few hours later, after the game ended, I sat at the table with the disassembled puzzle pieces, and put it together by myself, following the pictures from first stage to last. I was not aware of any memories of how it had been assembled the last time; and anyway, the instruction sheet was much more valuable than any memories I had. (It wasn't one of those symmetric 3D puzzles where there's a pattern or trick to it; it was a collection of oddly-shaped unique pieces assembled in three layers.) It took less than a minute.
Scientist vs. philosopher on conceptual analysis
by lukeprog — 2011-09-20T15:10:30.768Z

In Less Wrong Rationality and Mainstream Philosophy, Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory, and Pluralistic Moral Reductionism, I suggested that traditional philosophical conceptual analysis often fails to be valuable. Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran has recently made some of the points in a polite sparring with philosopher Colin McGinn over Ramachandran's new book The Tell-Tale Brain:

Early in any scientific enterprise, it is best to forge ahead and not get bogged down by semantic distinctions. But “forging ahead” is a concept alien to philosophers, even those as distinguished as McGinn. To a philosopher who demanded that he define consciousness before studying it scientifically, Francis Crick once responded, “My dear chap, there was never a time in the early years of molecular biology when we sat around the table with a bunch of philosophers saying ‘let us define life first.’ We just went out there and found out what it was: a double helix.” In the sciences, definitions often follow, rather than precede, conceptual advances.
A Rationality Click Moment
by NancyLebovitz — 2011-09-20T11:29:00.059Z

In an interview, Angel Harris, author of Kids Don't Want to Fail: Oppositional Culture and the Black-White Achievement Gap, who'd been in the bottom tenth of the students in high school, describes the moment in college when a professor talked about listing a child's behaviors and letting a listener draw their own conclusions, rather than just calling the child bad-- this level of empiricism was a revelation to Harris and permanently changed the way he thought. This starts about 3 minutes into the recording and only runs for about five minutes.

His general point is that a lot of the gap between black and white students can be explained by teachers giving up on the black students-- he's got studies-- and that a lot of what looks like oppositional behavior is actually frustration from students who are being expected to learn things that they weren't given the prior education to understand.

I'd say his more general point is to have more respect for the idea that people are showing ordinary human reactions to their situations rather than there being something weird about them explaining what they're doing.
I hate TL;DR
by MarkusRamikin — 2011-09-20T09:23:39.305Z

It's a minor annoyance but perhaps I am not the only one who feels this way.

I dislike it when we summarize our posts and articles with a "tl;dr". There's a perfectly good English word for it, namely "summary".

"tl;dr", besides being an ugly internetism, seems to me to convey a certain additional meaning, over the neutral "summary". If, as happens on the rest of the web, a commenter responds to a post with "tl;dr", it expresses an expectation to be entertained without exercising the reader's attention span or making him think. It's also an easy and insulting way to respond to someone you disagree with, avoiding having to process their argument and maybe change your mind.

If an author uses it in their own article, it seems to me to be pandering to the same expectation, apologising for actually having something to say that takes a few paragraphs to explore properly. Less Wrong, a community consisting largely of above average people in terms of intelligence and ability to follow detailed arguments, is the last place I'd like or expect to see that attitude validated. If your post has substance and says something I didn't know/think before, of course it will take work - apparently even in the thermodynamic sense - to process it...

It's particularly jarring to see a tl;dr appended to posts that took me only a few seconds to read in full anyway.

Or maybe it's just me. I don't know.

/rant
[SEQ RERUN] No One Can Exempt You From Rationality's Laws
by MinibearRex — 2011-09-20T03:19:36.487Z

Today's post, No One Can Exempt You From Rationality's Laws was originally published on 07 October 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Traditional Rationality is phrased in terms of social rules, with violations interpretable as cheating - as defections from cooperative norms. But viewing rationality as a social obligation gives rise to some strange ideas. The laws of rationality are mathematics, and no social manoeuvring can exempt you.

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 Singlethink, 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.
Meetup : University of Maryland, Influence
by atucker — 2011-09-20T03:14:05.260Z

Discussion article for the meetup : University of Maryland, Influence

WHEN:
23 September 2011 06:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
University of Maryland, University of Maryland - College Park, STAMP

We're having another meetup!

Roger will be presenting on Influence, and we'll be discussing the final steps in becoming a club at UMD.

We're meeting in Terrapin Room B, in the Student Involvement Suite, kindly reserved by btrettel.

You can find the Student Involvement Suite on this map: http://www.stamp.umd.edu/visitor_information/stamp_map.html We have the room from 6 - 8 PM.

Discussion article for the meetup : University of Maryland, Influence
Can't Pursue the Art for its Own Sake? Really?
by Ronny Fernandez — 2011-09-20T02:09:49.470Z

Can anyone tell me why it is that if I use my rationality exclusively to improve my conception of rationality I fall into an infinite recursion? EY say's this in The Twelve Virtues and in Something to Protect, but I don't know what his argument is. He goes as far as to say that you must subordinate rationality to a higher value.

I understand that by committing yourself to your rationality you lose out on the chance to notice if your conception of rationality is wrong. But what if I use the reliability of win that a given conception of rationality offers me as the only guide to how correct that conception is. I can test reliability of win by taking a bunch of different problems with known answers that I don't know, solving them using my current conception of rationality and solving them using the alternative conception of rationality I want to test, then checking the answers I arrived at with each conception against the right answers. I could also take a bunch of unsolved problems and attack them from both conceptions of rationality, and see which one I get the most solutions with. If I solve a set of problems with one, that isn't a subset of the set of problems I solved with the other, then I'll see if I can somehow take the union of the two conceptions. And, though I'm still not sure enough about this method to use it, I suppose I could also figure out the relative reliability of two conceptions by making general arguments about the structures of those conceptions; if one conception is "do that which the great teacher says" and the other is "do that which has maximal expected utility", I would probably not have to solve problems using both conceptions to see which one most reliably leads to win.

And what if my goal is to become as epistimically rational as possible. Then I would just be looking for the conception of rationality that leads to truth most reliably. Testing truth by predictive power.

And if being rational for its own sake just doesn't seem like its valuable enough to motivate me to do all the hard work it requires, let's assume that I really really care about picking the best conception of rationality I know of, much more than I care about my own life.

It seems to me that if this is how I do rationality for its own sake — always looking for the conception of goal-oriented rationality which leads to win most reliably, and the conception of epi...
Review article on Bayesian inference in physics
by dvasya — 2011-09-19T23:45:29.389Z

A nice article just appeared in Reviews of Modern Physics. It offers a brief coverage of the fundamentals of Bayesian probability theory, the practical numerical techniques, a diverse collection of real-world examples of applications of Bayesian methods to data analysis, and even a section on Bayesian experimental design. The PDF is available here.

The abstract:

Rev. Mod. Phys. 83, 943–999 (2011)

Bayesian inference in physics

Udo von Toussaint*
Max-Planck-Institute for Plasmaphysics, Boltzmannstrasse 2, 85748 Garching, Germany

Received 8 December 2009; published 19 September 2011

Bayesian inference provides a consistent method for the extraction of information from physics experiments even in ill-conditioned circumstances. The approach provides a unified rationale for data analysis, which both justifies many of the commonly used analysis procedures and reveals some of the implicit underlying assumptions. This review summarizes the general ideas of the Bayesian probability theory with emphasis on the application to the evaluation of experimental data. As case studies for Bayesian parameter estimation techniques examples ranging from extra-solar planet detection to the deconvolution of the apparatus functions for improving the energy resolution and change point estimation in time series are discussed. Special attention is paid to the numerical techniques suited for Bayesian analysis, with a focus on recent developments of Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for high-dimensional integration problems. Bayesian model comparison, the quantitative ranking of models for the explanation of a given data set, is illustrated with examples collected from cosmology, mass spectroscopy, and surface physics, covering problems such as background subtraction and automated outlier detection. Additionally the Bayesian inference techniques for the design and optimization of future experiments are introduced. Experiments, instead of being merely passive recording devices, can now be designed to adapt to measured data and to change the measurement strategy on the fly to maximize the information of an experiment. The applied key concepts and necessary numerical tools which provide the means of designing such inference chains and the crucial aspects of data fusion are summarized and some of the expected implications are highlighted.

© 2011 American Ph

...
Gameplay Art
by ac3raven — 2011-09-19T21:30:35.877Z

This post is about the development of our game based on Eliezer Yudkowsky's "The Twelve Virtues of Rationality".

Are games art?

It's an interesting question, but it seems that most people who answer that question in the affirmative are--intentionally or not--subscribing to the "hybrid art" view. That is, that games are art because they combine story-telling, music, and visual style; interaction with the system of the game is in service to the storyline, music, and visual style.

I don't like that. Here is why:

"Art" in general is creative expression through a medium. The hybrid-art view treats gameplay as the icing on the narrative-musical-visual cake. When it should be that gameplay is the cake, and everything else is the icing.

Gameplay, or interaction with the system of the game, is a medium for artistic expression, just like paint is for paintings. I don't think anyone can deny that interaction with a gun during a hostile situation reeks havoc on our emotions, or that interaction with a loved one can run the emotional gamut. Interaction is powerful.

Games can take advantage of the power of interaction to be expressive. The art of the storyline, music, and visuals ought to be secondary to the art of the gameplay.

Twelve Virtues

I believe that gameplay is a very powerful way to learn, and so the single most important design principle for our current project is expression through gameplay. We want to convey the meaning of each virtue through gameplay. The player should be able examine the method by which they interact with the game to learn the meaning behind the virtue.

For example:

In our Curiosity level which is where the game starts, the player must follow a mysterious cat that appears. Very early in the level, the player is faced with a "point of no return". If they jump down to the ground, they can't ever go back to the starting area. They must choose to follow the cat, or stay in their "comfort zone" so to speak. They must embrace their curiosity, or ignore it. If they choose to follow the cat, they will eventually discover a much larger area full of mysteries to be solved.
Reasons for Persons
by KatjaGrace — 2011-09-19T20:59:38.000Z

Suppose you are replicated on Mars, and the copy of you on Earth is killed ten minutes later. Most people feel like there is some definite answer to whether the Martian is they or someone else. Not an answer got from merely defining ‘me’ to exclude alien clones or not, but some real me-ness which persists or doesn’t, even if they don’t know which. In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues that there is no such thing. Personal identity consists of physical facts such as how well I remember being a ten year old and how much my personality is similar to that girl’s. There is nothing more to say about whether we are the same person than things like this, plus pragmatic definitional judgements, such as that a label should only apply to one person at a given time. He claims that such continuity of memories and other psychological features is what matters to us, so as long as that continuity exists it shouldn’t matter whether we decide to call someone ‘me’ or ‘my clone’.

I agree with him for the most part. But he is claiming that most people are very wrong about something they are very familiar with. So the big question must be why everyone is so wrong, and why they feel so sure of it. I have had many a discussion where my conversational partner insists that if they were frozen and revived, or a perfect replica were made of them, or whatever, it would not be them.

To be clear, what exactly is this fallacious notion of personal identity that people have?

– each human has one and only one, which lasts with them their entire life

– If you cease to have it you are dead, because you are it

– it doesn’t wax or wane, it can only be present or absent.

– it is undetectable (except arguably from the inside)

– two people can’t have the same one, even if they both split from the same previous person somehow.

– They are unique even if they have the same characteristics – if I were you and you were me, our identities would be the other way around from how they are, and that would be different from the present situation.

So basically, they are like unique labels for each human which label all parts of that human and distinguish it from all other humans. Except they are not labels, they are really there, characterising each creature as a particular person.

I suspect ...
Decision Fatigue, Rationality, and Akrasia.
by Alexandros — 2011-09-19T15:37:26.534Z

I was reading the NY Times article on Decision Fatigue, when I came upon a hypothesis I would like everyone's feedback on.

I take as a premise that there seems to be a high prevalence of akrasia in the lesswrong community.

I also take as a premise that the sequences give us a more-than-usual detailed model of the world, one that presents us with more possible trade-offs we could be making in every day life.

So the conjecture that by trying to reduce bias and perform a lot of cognitive calculation, we effectively spend large parts of our days in a decision fatigued state, leading to akrasia problems.

Does this sound (un)reasonable? Why? How would you go about turning this into a testable proposition?

UPDATE: Anna Salamon has put up a detailed poll here that may shed some light on the situation. Please take some time to fill it in.
Questions for a Friendly AI FAQ 
by lukeprog — 2011-09-19T08:28:21.075Z

I've begun work (with a few others) on a somewhat comprehensive Friendly AI F.A.Q. The answers will be much longer and more detailed than in the Singularity FAQ. I'd appreciate feedback on which questions should be added.

1. Friendly AI: History and Concepts

1. What is Friendly AI?

2. What is the Singularity? [w/ explanation of all three types]

3. What is the history of the Friendly AI Concept?

4. What is nanotechnology?

5. What is biological cognitive enhancement?

6. What are brain-computer interfaces?

7. What is whole brain emulation?

8. What is general intelligence? [w/ explanation of why 'optimization power' may less confusing than 'intelligence', which tempts anthropomorphic bias]

9. What is greater-than-human intelligence?

10. What is superintelligence, and what powers might it have?

2. The Need for Friendly AI

1. What are the paths to an intelligence explosion?

2. When might an intelligence explosion occur?

3. What are AI takeoff scenarios?

4. What are the likely consequences of an intelligence explosion? [survey of possible effects, good and bad]

5. Can we just keep the machine superintelligence in a box, with no access to the internet?

6. Can we just create an Oracle AI that informs us but doesn't do anything?

7. Can we just program machines not to harm us?

8. Can we program a machine superintelligence to maximize human pleasure or desire satisfaction?

9. Can we teach a machine superintelligence a moral code with machine learning?

10. Won’t some other sophisticated system constrain AGI behavior?

3. Coherent Extrapolated Volition

1. What is Coherent Extrapolated Volition (CEV)?

2. ...

4. Alternatives to CEV

1. ...

5. Open Problems in Friendly AI Research

1. What is reflective decision theory?

2. What is timeless decision theory?

3. How can an AI preserve its utility function throughout ontological shifts?

4. How can an AI have pre...
Consolidated link thread, September 2011
by Kaj_Sotala — 2011-09-19T07:04:12.079Z

Recently the Discussion section has been full of link threads, most of them with a pretty low karma score and few if any comments. While many of them are interesting, I'd prefer to have less of them around. Right now they clutter up the discussion section so that it's getting hard to find the threads with actual discussion going on.
Therefore I'd suggest having regular link threads, in the same manner as rationality quotes and open threads. If you're only posting a link together with a brief description or excerpt, and it isn't something really really interesting, please post it as a comment in a link thread.
Anti-technology terrorists cite computer science and nanotechnology as main offenders
by  — 2011-09-19T02:07:07.738Z

This article depicts a recent attack on a computer scientist. If anyone who reads LessWrong happens to be involved with this, please stop. Sending letter bombs and hurting people is not the answer.
Quoting this post: " And it is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever. "
This applies equally well to research that you don't approve of.
Note: I don't mean to imply that average LessWrong readers would be involved in this or sympathize with it... however, their arguments about A.I. and nanotech seem specific enough that it's not unreasonable to believe they might read this post.