trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
On self-deception
by irrational — 2011-10-05T18:46:08.128Z

(Meta-note: First post on this site)

I have read the sequence on self-deception/doublethink and I have some comments for which I'd like to solicit feedback. This post is going to focus on the idea that it's impossible to deceive oneself, or to make oneself believe something which one knows apriori to be wrong. I think Eliezer believes this to be true, e.g. as discussed here. I'd like to propose a contrary position.

Let's suppose that a super-intelligent AI has been built, and it knows plenty of tricks that no human ever thought of, in order to present a false argument which is not easily detectable to be false. Whether it can do that by presenting subtly wrong premises, or by incorrect generalization, or word tricks, or who knows what, is not important. It can, however, present an argument in a Socratic manner, and like Socrates' interlocutors, you find yourself agreeing with things you don't expect to agree with. I now come to this AI, and request it to make a library of books for me (personally). Each is to be such that if I (specifically) were to read it, I would very likely come to believe a certain proposition. It should take into account that initially I may be opposed to the proposition, and that I am aware that I am being manipulated. Now, AI produces such a library, on the topic of religion, for all major known religions, A to Z. It has a book called "You should be an atheist", and "You should be a Christian", etc, up to "You should be a Zoroastrian".

Suppose, I now want to deceive myself. I throw fair dice, and end up picking a Zoroastrian book. I now commit to reading the entire book and do so. In the process I become convinced that indeed, I should be a Zoroastrian, despite my initial skepticism. Now my skeptical friend comes to me:

Q: You don't really believe in Zoroastrianism.

A: No, I do. Praise Ahura Mazda!

Q: You can't possibly mean it. You know that you didn't believe it and you read a book that was designed to manipulate you, and now you do? Don't you have any introspective ability?

A: I do. I didn't intend to believe it, but it turns out that it is actually true! Just because I picked this book up for the wrong reason, doesn't mean I can't now be genuinely convinced. There are many examples where people would study religion of their enemy in order to discredit it and in the process become convinced of its truth. I think St. Augustine was in ...
Meetup : Ottawa Meetup - Learning Linear Algebra
by XFrequentist — 2011-10-05T18:02:40.682Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Ottawa Meetup - Learning Linear Algebra

WHEN:
10 October 2011 07:30:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
K2P 1N1

Type - Skill Training: Learning Linear Algebra - preparation for the Stanford AI Class

Location - Private residence near Elgin & Gladstone. Join the Google group for specifics.

Discussion article for the meetup : Ottawa Meetup - Learning Linear Algebra
Freewill vs. Determinism
by  — 2011-10-05T16:41:24.534Z

This topic has been covered ad nauseum on nearly every page on the internet. But it still generates so much good conversation that I will stir he pot again.

Imagine you are walking down the street and come upon a woman lying on the ground crying. Suddenly you realize she has obviously been assaulted. You rush to her side, feeling an intense desire to help. The thing we would refer to as our “self” stands at the intersection of the lines of input and stimuli with decision and action. By all accounts you will tend to feel that you are the root cause of your own thoughts and actions. Personal choice has led you to either act or not to act. You seem to be acting on your own free will. However, as I hope to highlight this perspective cannot be held in light of what science tells us about the workings of the human brain.

At a conscious level we are aware of only a small portion of the information that our brains are processing at each moment. While we are continually aware of acute changes in our moods, thoughts, perceptions, behavior, etc. we are left completely unaware of the brain states that produce these changes. Yet nearly all of us maintain that we are the creators of our own patterns of thought and action. The physiologist Benjamin Libet has demonstrated that neural activity in the motor regions can be detected 350 milliseconds before the subject is aware that they have decided to move. (Libet, Gleason, Wright and Pearl, 1983). More recently fMRI data has been shown to convey that “conscious” decisions can be seen in neural activity 10 seconds before the subject is aware of them. (Soon, Brass, Heinze and Hayes, 2008) These findings make it difficult to maintain that one is the conscious author of their own actions.

No perspective which takes into account causality leaves room for freewill. Our internal dialog of thoughts, desires and moods simply pop into minds producing either action or stasis. The reasons for this are left unexplained from a purely subjective point of view. Our belief in free will seems to spring out of our moment to moment ignorance of the causal chain which produces our thoughts and actions. The term “free will” merely describes the feeling of being the author of our own thoughts as they arise in consciousness. Take for instance a train of thoughts like, “I’m hungry. I think t

...
Repairing Yudkowsky's anti-zombie argument
by  — 2011-10-05T11:08:45.712Z

Eliezer Yudkowsky argues with David Chalmers here on the subject of “philosophical zombies”. I submit that, although Yudkowsky’s position on this question is correct, his argument fails to establish what he claims it to.
To summarise Yudkowsky and Chalmers’s argument:
1. Both Yudkowsky and Chalmers agree that humans possess “qualia”.
2. Chalmers argues that a superintelligent being which somewhow knew the positions of all particles in a large region of the Universe would need to be told as an additional fact that any humans (or other minds possessing qualia) in this region of space possess qualia – it could not deduce this from mere perfect physical knowledge of their constituent particles. Therefore, qualia are in some sense extra-physical.
3. Yudkowsky argues that such a being would notice that humans discuss at length the fact that they possess qualia, and their internal narratives also represent this fact. It is extraordinarily improbable that beings would behave in this manner if they did not actually possess qualia. Therefore an omniscient being would conclude that it is extremely likely that humans possess qualia. Therefore, qualia are not extra-physical.
My objection to Yudkowsky’s argument is that it is not enough merely to demonstrate that the omniscient being would find it extremely likely that humans possess qualia. Probability is a state of partial information; therefore unless the being is certain that humans possess qualia, it is not in fact omniscient regarding this region of the Universe despite the fact that it is postulated to possess perfect physical knowledge about it.

I expect that some Lesswrongians may object to this on account of the fact that 1 and 0 are not probabilities. However, the thought experiment postulates an omniscient being that possesses perfect knowledge about the physical state of a region of the Universe, therefore in the thought experiment absolute certainty is defined to be possible. If this is objectionable*, then the entire argument is badly posed including Yudkowsky’s contribution.

Additionally (although superfluously), it seems that the thought experiment should generalise to any possible configuration of particles in a region of the Universe, since we are trying to prove that qualia are not extra-physical under any circumstances, and a proof of this should not rely...
Pascal's wager re-examined
by PhilGoetz — 2011-10-05T08:43:56.508Z

Let P(chr) = the probability that the statements attributed to Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus regarding salvation and the afterlife are factually mostly correct; and let U(C) be the utility of action C, where C is in {Christianity, Islam, Judaism, atheism}.

Two of the key criticisms of Pascal's wager are that

limit U(Christianity)→∞, P(chr)→0 P(chr)U(Christianity) is undefined, and

invoking infinite utilities isn't fair.

If, however, P(chr) is not infinitessimal, and U(Christianity) is merely very large, these counter-arguments fail.

Many poor arguments have been made that P(chr) > .1. But as far as I know, no one has ever made the best argument in favor of Christianity:

Let P(sim) be the probability that we are living in a simulation.

Let P(ent|sim) be the probability that this simulation was created for entertainment purposes, as opposed to purposes including scientific, economic, or governmental reasons.

Let P(ego|ent, sim) be the probability that the person or organization running our simulation wants to be personally glorified within their simulation, and therefore created an avatar of themselves, or represented themselves in myth, or in some other way put some being into the sim whose status in the sim they identify with.

Let P(chr0|ego, ent, sim, Earth) be the probability, given the observed history of Earth, that, of the various candidate religions or leaders or possible avatars, this egoist God is using Christianity. (The same argument applies for Islam. Judaism has a different payoff matrix. I'm deliberately ignoring polytheistic religions.)

Let P(follow-thru | chr0, ego, ent, sim, Earth) be the probability that our simulator God, on Earth, who is representing itself via Christianity, will follow through on promises of implementing Heaven and Hell - if not for an infinite time period, then for a long enough time periods that your utility is at least 99% afterlife. Heaven and Hell could provide utility/disutility much greater than a human lifespan even if they run only until the end of game. I imagine that pure torment could provide more than a lifetime's worth of disutility in a few days or weeks.

Then P(chr) > P(sim)P(ent|sim)P(ego|ent,sim)P(chr0|ego,ent,sim,Earth)P(follow-thru|chr0, ego, ent, sim, Earth).

If you accept the simulation argument, then P(sim) > .99.

If you look at th...
[LINK] Robin Hanson on Carl Shulman's recent paper on Whole Brain Emulation
by Alexandros — 2011-10-05T07:51:22.952Z

Shulman on Superorgs

Best to read the link first and my comments later.

I have very little to comment on the topic itself, but I do find it odd that Robin takes such a confrontational stance, beginning from the first sentence "It has come to my attention that some think that by now I should have commented on Carl Shulman’s em paper" and culminating with a harsh analysis not only of Carl's conclusions, but about what (Robin believes) made him want to reach those conclusions, as well as SIAI's mission statement in general. There is negative framing, "obsession with making a god to rule us all (well)", that I wouldn't expect from someone trying to honestly represent the other side. It's not that I don't share some of those concerns, but to psychoanalyse (who you seem to have identified as) your opponent in an obvious effort to discredit, is at the very least unfair. I was generally aware that there was some kind of tension between the former dynamic duo of Hanson - Yudkowsky, but it seems to have become full-blown hostility.

Robin does seem to find the courage to say he's glad others are looking into emulations, but the overall vibe I get is of someone protective of a research field they believe they uniquely 'get', someone who feels others should just get in line or get out of the ring, and it's a vibe not uncommon in academia.
Why are you downvoting?
by  — 2011-10-05T02:52:48.759Z

Look here for example.

Let's not discourage discussion by downvoting people that "are wrong". It is hard enough to correct your mistaken beliefs, if a community is pushing you away for having them this makes it even worse.

The thumbs down button should be for posts that are bad, if someone says something you don't agree with it you should argue instead. It's unhealthy to just push away people that have different views, rather than challenging yourself to explain why they are wrong.

Here is an exercise that will help improve LessWrong: watch for reasons why you downvote comments you do the next couple of days.
[SEQ RERUN] Expecting Short Inferential Distances
by MinibearRex — 2011-10-05T02:34:16.124Z

Today's post, Expecting Short Inferential Distances was originally published on 22 October 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Humans evolved in an environment where we almost never needed to explain long inferential chains of reasoning. This fact may account for the difficulty many people have when trying to explain complicated subjects. We only explain the last step of the argument, and not every step that must be taken from our listener's premises.

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 Self-Anchoring, 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.
Another Mechanism for the Placebo Effect?
by jimrandomh — 2011-10-05T01:55:11.751Z

The placebo effect (benefit in groups receiving fake pills) and nocebo effect (detriment in those same groups) have frequently been the bane of medical research. They are usually explained in terms of psychology: because people receiving placebos believe they have been treated, they get psychosomatic effects that cure symptoms and create side effects. This explanation is supported by the fact that the placebo effect is strongest when the effect being studied is subjective - eg, tests of painkillers and antidepressants. This explanation is neat, tidy, and in my opinion, altogether unsatisfying.

I have an alternative theory. Most people in medical studies take more than one medication; in addition to the drug being studied, they take unrelated drugs and supplements, usually including a multivitamin and often including other things they were prescribed. However, many people take their pills inconsistently; they miss or mistime some fraction of their doses. This is especially true of depressed people. Prescribing a placebo, however, fixes this; when they take their placebo pill in the morning, they are reminded to take everything else they should be taking. In addition to making pill-taking more salient, being prescribed a placebo may also cause some people to fix the organization and affordances they have for taking pills.

I suspect that many of the benefits attributed from placebos may in fact be due to increased compliance with unrelated prescriptions and correction of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Arranging a study to test this should be fairly straightforward; simply measure the rate at which unrelated prescriptions are refilled in two groups, one of which receives sugar pills and one of which does not.
Meetup : Cambridge, MA Sunday meetup
by jimrandomh — 2011-10-05T01:37:06.937Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Cambridge, MA Sunday meetup

WHEN:
09 October 2011 09:37:25PM (-0400)

WHERE:
MIT Stata Center 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA; room 261

We will be meeting in the MIT Stata center. We will have someone posted at the entrance to let people in for the first 30 minutes; if you arrive after that, or are having trouble finding us, call 607-339-5552.

Discussion article for the meetup : Cambridge, MA Sunday meetup
Re-evaluate old beliefs
by PhilGoetz — 2011-10-05T01:18:10.054Z

I've noticed that, although people can become more rational, they don't win noticeably more. We usually re-calibrate our self-confidence, become more stubborn, and make bigger errors.

Is it possible that the benefit from increasing your prediction accuracy is no greater than the loss incurred from taking riskier bets due to greater self-confidence?

Model 1: Static (or, constant re-evaluation of all beliefs)

For any yes/no question q, person i has probability pi of being right. Suppose person i always knows the true value of pi.

Suppose, without loss of generality, that we consider only questions where person i decides the answer is "yes". (The situation is symmetric for cases where they answer "no", so we will get the same results considering only the "yes" questions.)

Suppose that, for every question q, there is some current odds offered by the world, described by society's accepted value y for P(q). Society sets odds to have an expected profit near zero. So the bet will cost the player C if q is false, and will give a payout D if q is true, such that y(D) = (1-y)C. Set D = 1-y, C = y.

Person i then takes the bet for each question q for which i thinks q is true, and Dpi > C(1-pi), or (1-y)pi > y(1-pi), 1/y - y/y > 1/p - p/p, y < p. As they are right with probability pi, they win pi of these bets.

Suppose y is distributed uniformly from zero to one. This is the most-suspicious assumption.

Person i's profit F(pi) is their payouts minus their losses. So F(pi) is the integral, from y = 0 to pi, of [(1-y)pi - y(1-pi) = pi - y]. This integral equals pi2 / 2.

Good! Your winnings should be proportional to the square of your accuracy!

But that doesn't seem to match what I observe.

Model 2: No re-evaluation of old beliefs

Now suppose that a person improves their accuracy pi over time, and assumes that pi is the accuracy for all their beliefs, but doesn't constantly re-evaluate all old beliefs. In this model, time t will be equal to pi (representing linear increase in accuracy, which may or may not be realistic, but is simple), ranging from p = p0 to pi, over time t=p0 to t=pi.

At time t, person i will take all bets with y < t for all their beliefs, although some of these beliefs were formed earlier, when person i had less accuracy. Their profit F(i, t) is now the integral, from ...
Not By Empathy Alone
by gwern — 2011-10-05T00:36:43.766Z

1 Introduction

2 Is Empathy Necessary for Moral Judgment?

3 Is Empathy Necessary for Moral Development?

4 Is Empathy Necessary for Moral Conduct?

5 Should we Cultivate An Empathy Based Morality?

The following are extracts from the paper “Is Empathy Necessary For Morality?” (philpapers) by Jesse Prinz (WP) of CUNY; recently linked in a David Brooks New York Times column, “The Limits of Empathy”:

1 Introduction

Not only is there little evidence for the claim that empathy is necessary, there is also reason to think empathy can interfere with the ends of morality. A capacity for empathy might make us better people, but placing empathy at the center of our moral lives may be ill‐advised. That is not to say that morality shouldn’t centrally involve emotions. I think emotions are essential for moral judgment and moral motivation (Prinz, 2007)1. It’s just that empathetic emotions are not ideally suited for these jobs.

2 Is Empathy Necessary for Moral Judgment?

…For example, one might judge that charity is good, or that wife beating is bad. According to the view under consideration these judgments depend on empathetic responses: we empathize with the positive feelings experienced by the recipients of charity and with the negative feelings of those who fall prey to domestic violence. It is these empathetic responses that allow one to see these actions as good and bad respectively.

…[but] consider cases where deontological considerations overrule utilitarian principles. For example, one might judge that it is bad to kill an innocent person even if his vital organs could be used to save five others who desperately need transplants. Here, arguably, we feel cumulatively more empathy for the five people in need than for the one healthy person, but our moral judgment does not track that empathetic response. Second, consider the moral judgments one might issue from behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance; you might decide it’s good to distribute resources to the needy because you might be needy. Here there is no empathy for the needy, but rather concern for the self. Third, while on the topic of the self, consider cases in which you yourself are the victim of a moral transgression. You judge that you’ve been wronged, but you don’t thereby empathize with yourself, whatever that would mean. Fourth, consid

...
Private Manned Moonbase in the 1990s, Yet Another Planning Fallacy
by DavidPlumpton — 2011-10-05T00:09:10.104Z

Back in the 1990s I came across a site describing a plan for returning to the moon via privately funded enterprise. They presented a Reference Mission, a timeline (raise some money now, design the hardware, build the hardware, hire a launch vehicle, get to the moon, sell the movie rights) which had them starting to build hardware in a few years and touching down on the moon only a few years later. I even met one of the enthusiasts.

What I found interesting at the time was a presentation of the "Frequently Raised Objections" and their counter arguments. Their viewpoint was "we've got this completely solved--we're going!" The primary issue seemed to be raising the money, and this was covered by a business plan at least to some degree of detail. Of particular relevance was "It's all on paper, nothing is real". Wow, take that Mr Frequently Raised Objection.

Most of their points looked fairly reasonable in isolation, but of course the idea has failed completely. No launch, no hardware, and very little money. High confidence in the business plan despite little supporting evidence seems to have been the major problem.

I can't help thinking of these guys every now and then, with their nifty ideas like ascending from the moon with the astronaut sitting on a rocket motor in his spacesuit with no spacecraft needed. I guess the detail made the Planning Fallacy seem less likely at the time.

The parallels with some other ventures are striking.