trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Deconstructing the riddle of experience vs. memory
by michael_b — 2015-02-17T15:36:26.697Z

I don't think I understand the riddle of experience vs. memory. I would daresay that means the concept is half-baked.

Within the TED talk, Daniel Kahneman poses the probably familiar philosophical quandary: if you could take a beautiful vacation and afterwards your memory and photo album was completely erased, would you still do it? Whether you would still do it illustrates whether you live in service of the experiencing self instead of the remembering self.

Part of what prevents me from understanding the riddle is that I believe vacations are worth more than the memories and photos: vacations change you.

Maybe you could argue that this change is also a form of memory in service to the remembering self, but I'm not sure that's what he meant. In his thought experiment on vacations he asks if you would still take a vacation if, at the end of it, you forgot the whole thing and all of your photos were deleted.

As if your memory is just a brain version of your photo album.

What about the rest of these features of typical vacations where you may go somewhere photo worthy?

a chance to unwind from not having to work

a chance to heal, because you break normal patterns of repetitive stress (e.g. not sitting at a desk all day for a week or two)

a chance to work out every day in a different way

developing your "worldliness"; e.g. opening your mind a bit, because you've likely met new and different people

come back with a sweet tan

come back with more Facebook friends

come back with extra dives in your SCUBA log book

new delicious condiments in your kitchen

flashes of insight you get from having some time to consider a 30,000 foot view of your life

surprisingly large dip in your bank account balance (so much personal development awaits)

if you're lucky (or maybe unlucky), you discover new modalities of being and abandon your current way of life

Are all of these potential features and possible changes to your personality/lifestyle reverted too?

Don't get me wrong, beautiful memories and photographs are great, but if you're going on vacation just to have a nice mental photo album by the end of it I think the opportunity is basically wasted. It seems like such a fantastic waste I would posit that most people don't go on vacation solely to have a nice mental and actual photo album at the end of it.

So, the vacation thought experiment b

...
Oracle machines for automated philosophy
by Nisan — 2015-02-17T15:10:04.000Z

This article describes an idea of Paul Christiano's. Paul described it to Benja Fallenstein and Benja described it to me. It's a way to use reflective oracle machines as an aid in answering philosophical questions.

Edit, 7am Pacific Time, 17 February 2015: Made a major correction.

Recall that a reflective oracle machine is a pair (M,O), where M is a probabilistic Turing machine with an advance-only output tape and the ability to make calls to the external oracle function O. O is a function M×B<ω×Q→Δ(B) satisfying certain properties. It takes as input a representation of any such Turing machine N, a finite bitstring ¯¯¯x, and a rational number q. It outputs a 0 or 1 depending on whether q is greater than or less than the probability that N's output begins with ¯¯¯x. If the probability is exactly q then O(N,¯¯¯x,q) is random. If N fails to write an infinite sequence of bits, the oracle is allowed to pretend that it does. See Benja's post for details.

#Solomonoff induction

Benja's post also mentions that we can make a Solomonoff inductor out of a reflective oracle machine: Write a program that simply iterates over all M and uses O to determine what the output of each M is. This program will be able to update a universal prior on observations and sample predictions from the posterior. The program will be very slow; call it C. We can write another program that calls O on C and get our answer very fast.

Suppose we had such an inductor. If we feed it enough real-world data, it will be able to make very good predictions, assuming a version of the Church-Turing thesis that admits the existence of stochastic phenomena and the existence of reflective oracle machines.

We will suppose our inductor is implemented as a software object with two callable methods, observe() and query(). observe(x) appends the bitstring x plus a reserved end-of-message code to an internal list of observations. query(x) returns the message y maximizing
P((o,x,y) | (o,x))
subject to the constraint that y must be terminated by the end-of-message code, where o is the internal list of observations and ( ,) indicates concatenation. In other words, it conditions on x and returns the maximum-likelihood message following x. An alternative approach would be to condition on x and sample y from the posterior.

#Automated philosophy

Suppose we want to solve a philosophical problem, Q, in a month.

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Meetup : Canberra: Technology to help achieve goals
by DanielFilan — 2015-02-17T09:37:41.334Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Canberra: Technology to help achieve goals

WHEN:
27 February 2015 06:00:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
108 North Road, Acton, ACT

Often we come across various pieces of technology - such as a neat app or website - that help us accomplish goals that we are trying to achieve. In this meetup, we will discuss any such tools that we have come across (so if you can, please come prepared with a few in mind), and see if others have ideas that we might find useful. As always, vegan snacks will be provided.

General meetup info:

If you use Facebook, please join our group.

Structured meetups are (usually) held on the second Saturday and fourth Friday of each month from 6 pm until late in the CSIT building, room N101.

Discussion article for the meetup : Canberra: Technology to help achieve goals
The Value of a Life
by So8res — 2015-02-17T08:00:00.000Z
Link: http://mindingourway.com/the-value-of-a-life/

This post is cross-posted from MindingOurWay. It's about some of my reasons for being an effective altruist. It's targeted more towards people who aren't EAs or who haven't heard of effective altruism, but some people here may also find it inspiring.

If you have money and want to save lives, you had better put a price on life. Scott Alexander explains it better than I can.

But don't mix up the price of a life with the value of a life. I see this happen all too frequently. To correct this mistake, I'm going to tell a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a village of peaceful immortal humans. They did not age past their primes, but they could still die from starvation or injury. But perhaps because their lives were so long and full, they all valued each other very highly and lived in peace. Indeed, there were no lengths to which the villagers would not go in order to save one of their fellows from unwanted annihilation.

Or, at least, that's how life was before the dragon came.

Dragons desire two things from people, as I'm sure you know: gold, and flesh. And this dragon, woe be upon the villagers, was powerful indeed — nigh invincible, with a cunning to match. The dragon, easily capable of killing the entire village outright, gave a grim ultimatum:

Each person in this village must pay a tax of gold, every year, in proportion to that person's age. Anyone who cannot pay the tax will be eaten.

The villagers begged and pleaded, they wept and raged, but the dragon was unmoved. It merely showed them a few heaps of rock that looked likely to make good gold mines, and told them to get to work.

The villagers tried their best. They really did. They were not miners, but they were fast learners. They worked themselves ragged, throwing aside stones, digging at the earth with their bare hands until their fingers bled, hunting and gathering as little as possible, letting their shelters deteriorate — yet still, they could not make the dragon's tax. At the end of a year, the dragon returned, and took all the gold they had, and ten of the oldest villagers (for giving up the eldest villagers was the way to save the most lives).

Distraught, the villagers resolved to try harder next time. They pushed themselves to their limits and beyond. They raced against time. They grew gaunt and ragged. Their eyes sank, their skin grew sallow, their arms thinned. They pushed themselves too ha...
Superintelligence 23: Coherent extrapolated volition
by KatjaGrace — 2015-02-17T02:00:20.030Z

This is part of a weekly reading group on Nick Bostrom's book, Superintelligence. For more information about the group, and an index of posts so far see the announcement post. For the schedule of future topics, see MIRI's reading guide.

Welcome. This week we discuss the twenty-third section in the reading guide: Coherent extrapolated volition.

This post summarizes the section, and offers a few relevant notes, and ideas for further investigation. Some of my own thoughts and questions for discussion are in the comments.

There is no need to proceed in order through this post, or to look at everything. Feel free to jump straight to the discussion. Where applicable and I remember, page numbers indicate the rough part of the chapter that is most related (not necessarily that the chapter is being cited for the specific claim).

Reading: “The need for...” and “Coherent extrapolated volition” from Chapter 13

Summary

Problem: we are morally and epistemologically flawed, and we would like to make an AI without locking in our own flaws forever. How can we do this?

Indirect normativity: offload cognitive work to the superintelligence, by specifying our values indirectly and having it transform them into a more usable form.

Principle of epistemic deference: a superintelligence is more likely to be correct than we are on most topics, most of the time. Therefore, we should defer to the superintelligence where feasible.

Coherent extrapolated volition (CEV): a goal of fulfilling what humanity would agree that they want, if given much longer to think about it, in more ideal circumstances. CEV is popular proposal for what we should design an AI to do.

Virtues of CEV:

It avoids the perils of specification: it is very hard to specify explicitly what we want, without causing unintended and undesirable consequences. CEV specifies the source of our values, instead of what we think they are, which appears to be easier.

It encapsulates moral growth: there are reasons to believe that our current moral beliefs are not the best (by our own lights) and we would revise some of them, if we thought about it. Specifying our values now risks locking in wrong values, whereas CEV effectively gives us longer to think about our values.

It avoids 'hijacking the destiny of humankind': it allows the responsibility for the future of manki

...
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapters 105-107
by b_sen — 2015-02-17T01:17:07.195Z

Two new short chapters! Since the next one is coming tomorrow and we know it'll be short, let's use one thread for both.

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 105 (and chapter 106, once it comes out tomorrow). EDIT: based on Alsadius' comment about thread creation for MOR chapters, let's also use this thread for chapter 107 (and future chapters until this nears 500 comments) unless someone objects to doing so. Given that this is the final arc we're talking about, thread titles should be updated to indicate chapters covered.

There is 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.)

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.
Making a Rationality-promoting blog post more effective and shareable
by Gleb_Tsipursky — 2015-02-16T19:09:32.150Z

I wrote a blog post that popularizes the "false consensus effect" and the debiasing strategy of "imagining the opposite" and "avoiding failing at other minds." Thoughts on where the post works and where it can be improved would be super-helpful for improving our content and my writing style. Especially useful would be feedback on how to make this post more shareable on Facebook and other social media, as we'd like people to be motivated to share these posts with their friends. For example, what would make you more likely to share it? What would make others you know more likely to share it?

For a bit of context, the blog post is part of the efforts of Intentional Insights to promote rational thinking to a broad audience and thus raise the sanity waterline, as described here. The target audience for the blog post is reason-minded youth and young adults who are either not engaged with rationality or are at the beginning stage of becoming aspiring rationalists. Our goal is to get such people interested in exploring rationality more broadly, eventually getting them turned on to more advanced rationality, such as found on Less Wrong itself, in CFAR workshops, etc. The blog post is written in a style aimed to create cognitive ease, with a combination of personal stories and an engaging narrative, along with citations of relevant research and descriptions of strategies to manage one’s mind more effectively. This is part of our broader practice of asking for feedback from fellow Less Wrongers on our content (this post for example). We are eager to hear from you and revise our drafts (and even published content offerings) based on your thoughtful comments, and we did so previously, as you see in the Edit to this post. Any and all suggestions are welcomed, and thanks for taking the time to engage with us and give your feedback – much appreciated!
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: Book Swap (Postponed Due to Weather)
by RobinZ — 2015-02-16T18:39:24.733Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Book Swap (Postponed Due to Weather)

WHEN:
22 February 2015 03:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
Reynolds Center

Due to the inclement weather last weekend, meetups are being pushed back a week.

We will be meeting in the Kogod Courtyard of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture (8th and F Sts or 8th and G Sts NW, go straight past the information desk from either entrance) to lend, borrow, and discuss books brought by attendees. As usual, we will congregate between 3:00 and 3:30 and begin at 3:30; when everyone is done talking books, the meetup will revert to unstructured discussion.

As before, a couple notes:

There is no obligation to lend, borrow, or return books at book swap meetups. You are not required to bring any given book, or any books at all; you are not required to lend the books that you do bring; if you wish to lend out a given book, you are not required to lend it out to the first person to ask (or to the next person to ask, or to anyone at all); you are not required to borrow a book that is offered to you; and if you have already borrowed a book, you are not required to return it at this meetup. This is a Schelling point for book swaps, nothing more.

Books belong to their owners - keep any book you borrow in good condition, and return it in a timely fashion when you finish reading it or when the owner asks for it back.

In the past, the owners of some books have given permission for borrowers to lend them directly to anyone at the meetup who is interested. If you do not have permission from the owner of the book, do not do this.

As always, anyone not interested in the official topic is allowed and encouraged to start side conversations.

Bethesda Station will be closed due to an escalator installation; no other rail advisories have been announced as of February 16th. The Verizon Center schedule for February 22 has a concert starting at 7:30 p.m., with doors open at 6:30.

Upcoming meetups:

Mar. 1: What-If Scenario (discuss one or more interesting hypotheticals)

Mar. 8: Fun & Games (w/Nomic) (bring games, play games, converse, socialize, or any combination thereof)

Mar. 15: Mini Talks (short lectures on random subjects by random attendees)

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.:

...
An alarming fact about the anti-aging community
by diegocaleiro — 2015-02-16T17:49:28.384Z

Past and Present

Ten years ago teenager me was hopeful. And stupid.

The world neglected aging as a disease, Aubrey had barely started spreading memes, to the point it was worth it for him to let me work remotely to help with Metuselah foundation. They had not even received that initial 1,000,000 donation from an anonymous donor. The Metuselah prize was running for less than 400,000 if I remember well. Still, I was a believer.

Now we live in the age of Larry Page's Calico, 100,000,000 dollars trying to tackle the problem, besides many other amazing initiatives, from the research paid for by Life Extension Foundation and Bill Faloon, to scholars in top universities like Steve Garan and Kenneth Hayworth fixing things from our models of aging to plastination techniques. Yet, I am much more skeptical now.

Individual risk

I am skeptical because I could not find a single individual who already used a simple technique that could certainly save you many years of healthy life. I could not even find a single individual who looked into it and decided it wasn't worth it, or was too pricy, or something of that sort.

That technique is freezing some of your cells now.

Freezing cells is not a far future hope, this is something that already exists, and has been possible for decades. The reason you would want to freeze them, in case you haven't thought of it, is that they are getting older every day, so the ones you have now are the youngest ones you'll ever be able to use.

Using these cells to create new organs is not something that may help you if medicine and technology continue progressing according to the law of accelerating returns in 10 or 30 years. We already know how to make organs out of your cells. Right now. Some organs live longer, some shorter, but it can be done - for instance to bladders - and is being done.

Hope versus Reason

Now, you'd think if there was an almost non-invasive technique already shown to work in humans that can preserve many years of your life and involves only a few trivial inconveniences - compared to changing diet or exercising for instance- the whole longevist/immortalist crowd would be lining up for it and keeping back up tissue samples all over the place.

Well I've asked them. I've asked some of the adamant researchers, and I've asked the superwealthy; I've asked the cryonicists and supplement gorgers; I've asked those who work on this 8 hour ...
Effectiveness of different supplement brands?
by NancyLebovitz — 2015-02-16T16:22:36.380Z

A friend of mine told me she got very good results from Vitamin World melatonin, and little or no effect from Natrol melatonin, and that reminded me of recent news that many herbal supplements don't have any herbal content.

Does anyone have information, whether based in personal experience or from studies, about which brands are more reliable about their contents?
Open thread, Feb. 16 - Feb. 22, 2015
by MrMind — 2015-02-16T07:56:15.915Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
Group Rationality Diary, February 15-28
by therufs — 2015-02-16T04:40:12.397Z

This is the public group rationality diary for February 15-28. Once you've downvoted it, if you're so inclined, please identify and explain yourself.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Previous diary: February 1-14

Rationality diaries archive
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 104
by b_sen — 2015-02-16T01:24:02.319Z

New chapter!

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 104.

There is 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.)

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.