trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
[SEQ RERUN] The Logical Fallacy of Generalizing from Fictional Evidence
by MinibearRex — 2011-09-28T03:33:31.639Z

Today's post, The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence was originally published on 16 October 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence consists in drawing the real-world conclusions based on statements invented and selected for the purpose of writing fiction. The data set is not at all representative of the real world, and in particular of whatever real-world phenomenon you need to understand to answer your real-world question. Considering this data set leads to an inadequate model, and inadequate answers.

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 How to Seem (and Be) Deep, 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.
Concepts Don't Work That Way
by lukeprog — 2011-09-28T02:01:23.614Z

Part of the sequence: Rationality and Philosophy

Philosophy in the Flesh, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, opens with a bang:

The mind is inherently embodied. Thought is mostly unconscious. Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

These are three major findings of cognitive science. More than two millennia of a priori philosophical speculation about these aspects of reason are over. Because of these discoveries, philosophy can never be the same again.

When taken together and considered in detail, these three findings... are inconsistent with central parts of... analytic philosophy...

This book asks: What would happen if we started with these empirical discoveries about the nature of mind and constructed philosophy anew?

...A serious appreciation of cognitive science requires us to rethink philosophy from the beginning, in a way that would put it more in touch with the reality of how we think.

So what would happen if we dropped all philosophical methods that were developed when we had a Cartesian view of the mind and of reason, and instead invented philosophy anew given what we now know about the physical processes that produce human reasoning?

What emerges is a philosophy close to the bone. A philosophical perspective based on our empirical understanding of the embodiment of mind is a philosophy in the flesh, a philosophy that takes account of what we most basically are and can be.

Philosophy is a diseased discipline, but good philosophy can (and must) be done. I'd like to explore how one can do good philosophy, in part by taking cognitive science seriously.

Conceptual Analysis

Let me begin with a quick, easy example of how cognitive science can inform our philosophical methodology. The example below shouldn’t surprise anyone who has read A Human’s Guide to Words, but it does illustrate how misguided thousands of philosophical works can be due to an ignorance of cognitive science.

Consider what may be the central method of 20th century analytic philosophy: conceptual analysis. In its standard form, conceptual analysis assumes (Ramsey 1992) the “classical view” of concepts, that a “concept C has definitional structure in that it is composed of simpler concepts that express necessary and sufficient conditions for falling under C.” For example, the concept bachelor has the constituents unmarried and man. Something fa...
$100 off for Less Wrong: Singularity Summit 2011 on Oct 15 - 16 in New York
by Louie — 2011-09-28T02:01:20.633Z

There's still time left to register for the Singularity Summit in New York. But hurry because there are only a few weeks left!

Register now so you can meet Eliezer, AnnaSalamon, Lukeprog, and more! I'm particularly excited about several invited speakers, such as neuroscientist Christof Koch (who I've blogged about here) and author Sharon Bertsch McGrayne who recently published The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy.

Register now and use the $100 off Less Wrong discount code: LW2011. Hope to see you next month in New York!

Ray Kurzweil
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Anna Salamon
Luke Muehlhauser

PS - If you have a blog and you'd like to promote the Singularity Summit, I can make you a custom discount code. Email me at louie.helm@intelligence.org.

About the Singularity Summit:

New York, NY (Sept 23) - Over 700 scientists, engineers, businesspeople, and technologists for this year’s Singularity Summit - the world's leading conference on emerging technologies. The event will be held October 15 & 16 at 92Y in New York.

The Summit will explore "big picture" questions such as the direction of the global economy, philosophy of mind, and the ethics of technological development. Twenty-five speakers will present including two professors of robotics, financial experts, a co-founder of Skype, a pioneer in regenerative medicine, scientists from the MIT Media Lab, a longevity expert, economist Tyler Cowen, cosmologist Max Tegmark, neuroscientist Christof Koch, and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

The recent victory of IBM's Watson supercomputer on the game show Jeopardy! will be the central theme of discussion, with a keynote by Jeopardy contestant and 74-time winner Ken Jennings.

Jennings surprised audiences around the world in 2004 when he won 74 continuous Jeopardy! matches, winning over $2,500,000 on a six-month streak. In February, Jennings went up against Watson in on a special exhibition match of Jeopardy!, and lost. In his keynote at Singularity Summit, Jennings will recount his experience on Jeopardy! and what it felt like to lose to a machine on the game show he otherwise dominated.

Ray Kurzweil, futurist and inventor, will be speak on the implications of the Watson victory. Dan Cerutti, who manages the commer...
A Rationalist's Tale
by lukeprog — 2011-09-28T01:17:13.372Z

Warning: sappy personal anecdotes ahead! See also Eliezer's Coming of Age story, SarahC's Reflections on rationality a year out, and Alicorn's Polyhacking.

On January 11, 2007, at age 21, I finally whispered to myself: There is no God.

I felt the world collapse beneath me. I'd been raised to believe that God was necessary for meaning, morality, and purpose. My skin felt cold and my tongue felt like cardboard. This was the beginning of the darkest part of my life, but the seed of my later happiness.

I grew up in Cambridge, Minnesota — a town of 5,000 people and 22 Christian churches (at the time). My father was (and still is) pastor of a small church. My mother volunteered to support Christian missionaries around the world.

I went to church and Bible study every week. I prayed often and earnestly. For 12 years I attended a Christian school that taught Bible classes and creationism. I played in worship bands. As a teenager I made trips to China and England to tell the godless heathens there about Jesus. I witnessed miraculous healings unexplained by medical science.

And I felt the presence of God. Sometimes I would tingle and sweat with the Holy Spirit. Other times I felt led by God to give money to a certain cause, or to pay someone a specific compliment, or to walk to the cross at the front of my church and bow before it during a worship service.

Around age 19 I got depressed. But then I read Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy, a manual for how to fall in love with God so that following his ways is not a burden but a natural and painless product of loving God. And one day I saw a leaf twirling in the wind and it was so beautiful — like the twirling plastic bag in American Beauty — that I had an epiphany. I realized that everything in nature was a gift from God to me. Grass, lakes, trees, sunsets — all these were gifts of beauty from my Savior to me. That's how I fell in love with God, and he delivered me from my depression.

I moved to Minneapolis for college and was attracted to a Christian group led by Mark van Steenwyk. Mark’s small group of well-educated Jesus-followers are 'missional' Christians: they think that loving and serving others in the way of Jesus is more important than doctrinal truth. That resonated with me, and we lived it out with the poor immigrants of Minneapolis.

Doubt

By this time I ...
Cryonic suspension where?
by lavalamp — 2011-09-27T23:32:27.757Z

I want to sign up for cryonic suspension. I haven't done so yet because I haven't been able to decide which organization to use. I'm not expecting you guys to choose for me, but it would be very helpful if those of you who are signed up (or will sign up) would say which organization you went with and why.

I've found the following three organizations. Did I miss any that I should be considering?

http://www.americancryonics.org/

http://www.cryonics.org/

http://www.alcor.org/

I'm in the US midwest area, if that will make a difference. My goal would be to maximize the chance of this working. My sub-goal would be to spend the least amount of money. I'm not old yet, so I expect to be able to get funding from life insurance.
Paid DC internship for autistics with technical skills who are recent college graduates
by James_Miller — 2011-09-27T21:51:14.669Z

Freddie Mac, a mega-mortgage company, is offering "2-3 internships for recent college graduates on the autism spectrum with backgrounds in statistics, mathematics, economics, computer science or information technology" in D.C.

Given the job market, the demographics of LW and the difficulty many autistics have finding employment I thought this worth posting.
Priming with Hypothetical questions
by EvelynM — 2011-09-27T16:53:41.449Z

I came across this article this morning via a blog post from

http://solutionfocusedchange.blogspot.com/.

http://sd1.myipcn.org/science/article/pii/S0749597811001099

"Wolves in sheep’s clothing: How and when hypothetical questions influence behavior" by Sarah G. Moore and others. Full article unfortunately unavailable for free.

"We examine how and when hypothetical questions influence judgment and behavior.

Hypotheticals increase the accessibility of the positive or negative information in the question.

Thus, hypotheticals influence behavior according to the valence of the question.

Hypotheticals exert a stronger influence when they are consistent with existing knowledge.

Hypotheticals exert a weaker influence when individuals are aware of their impact."

I think this is a deliberate and obvious application of psychological priming, where we are biased to interpret events, through exposure to positive or negative tone words.

Hypotheticals frame the context of the discussion, and require to you use the hard path of cognition to think in a different way. They are a source of error in social science surveys, and are often used by marketers and political pollsters to lead our response.

I'd like to read the full paper to find out what sort of experimental method they used.
Edward Nelson claims proof of inconsistency in Peano Arithmetic
by JoshuaZ — 2011-09-27T12:46:13.730Z

We've discussed Edward Nelson's beliefs and work before. Now, he claims to have a proof of a contradiction in Peano Arithmetic; which if correct is not that specific to PA but imports itself into much weaker systems. I'm skeptical of the proof but haven't had the time to look at it in detail. There seem to be two possible weakpoints in his approach. His approach is to construct a system Q_0^* which looks almost but not quite a fragment of PA and then show that PA both proves this system's consistency and proves its inconsistency.

First, he may be mis-applying the Hilbert-Ackermann theorem-when it applies is highly technical and can be subtle. I don't know enough to comment on that in detail. The second issue is that in trying to show that he can use finitary methods to show there's a contradiction in Q_0^* he may have proven something closer to Q_0^* being omega-inconsistent. Right now, I'm extremely skeptical of this result.

If anyone is going to find an actual contradiction in PA or ZFC it would probably be Nelson. There some clearly interesting material here such as using a formalization of the surprise examiation/unexpected hanging to get a new proof of of Godel's Second Incompleteness Theorem. The exact conditions which this version of Godel's theorem applies may be different from the conditions under which the standard theorem can be proven.
[SEQ RERUN] How to Seem (and Be) Deep
by MinibearRex — 2011-09-27T03:12:54.156Z

Today's post, How to Seem (and Be) Deep was originally published on 14 October 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

To seem deep, find coherent but unusual beliefs, and concentrate on explaining them well. To be deep, you actually have to think for yourself.

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 Original Seeing, 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.
How to incentivize people doing useful stuff on Less Wrong
by lukeprog — 2011-09-27T01:26:06.370Z

Currently, LWers get +1 karma for a comment upvote, and +10 karma for a main post upvote. But clearly, there are other valuable things LWers could do for the community besides writing comments and posts. Writing isn't everyone's forte. Why not award karma for doing productive non-writing things? It's probably not optimal that karma and the community status that comes with it are awarded only for the thing that myself and a few other people are good at. For example, I really wish LW could award karma to programmers for improving LW.

The challenge is doing it fairly, in a way that doesn't alienate too many people. But there might be a workable way to do this, so let's explore.

Perhaps tasks could be assigned karma award amounts by LW editors (Nesov, Eliezer, Louie, etc.), or even just one person who is appointed as the Karma Genie.

Examples:

Write a 5-page document describing how to use the Less Wrong virtual machine to hack new features into Less Wrong. 900 points.

Add a Facebook 'Like' button to the left of the up-down vote buttons on every post. 700 points.

Collect PDFs for every paper on debiasing thinking error X, upload the ZIP file to mediafire. 700 points.

Write a single-page introduction to The Sequences that makes them easier to navigate and see the value of. 800 points.

Launch a new LessWrong meetup group and hold at least three meetings. 1200 points.

Another possibility is to do what what.cd does with upload ratio. The more you upload, the better your upload ratio. But, you can trade in megabytes of your 'uploaded data' count for 'requests'. For example, if you wish somebody would upload RareAlbumX, you can trade in 500 megabytes of your uploaded data count. This lowers your upload ratio, which can be rebuilt by uploading more, and incentivizes someone to upload RareAlbumX. If somebody uploads RareAlbumX, the 500 megabytes (minus a small tax) is added to their 'uploaded data' count, which raises their status and privileges in the community.

A what.cd-inspired system for LW would look like this: People could write a paragraph or two outlining the project they'd like to see done. Then, people could 'donate' karma to the project's karma award amount. If I really wanted to see somebody add the Facebook 'Like' button to LW, I could donate 2000 of my karma points to the award, and other people could donate some of their karma to that

...
Survey on X-risk: Feedback needed
by vallinder — 2011-09-26T22:15:45.241Z

Together with Jesper_Ostman, I'm currently preparing an mTurk survey on the public perception of extinction threats (aiming for a sample size of about 400). Below is our current draft. Feedback is much appreciated. We are planning to do a few follow-up studies, so in this one we want to keep things simple for the most part. In question 3, we want to compare extinction risk reduction to something that is generally perceived as good but not too closely related to it, but perhaps our current choice isn't the best. In addition to the demographic questions we will also include a brief 10-question personality inventory. We’re both looking for information on the public perception of x-risk and what demographic groups and personality types might have the most potential for getting involved.

1. How likely do you think it is that humanity has gone extinct by the year...
a) 2050

(i) 0-20%
(ii) 20-40%
(iii) 40-60%
(iv) 60-80%
(v) 80-100%

b) 2100

(i) 0-20%
(ii) 20-40%
(iii) 40-60%
(iv) 60-80%
(v) 80-100%
c) 2200

(i) 0-20%
(ii) 20-40%
(iii) 40-60%
(iv) 60-80%
(v) 80-100%

d) 2500

(i) 0-20%
(ii) 20-40%
(iii) 40-60%
(iv) 60-80%
(v) 80-100%
e) 10 000

(i) 0-20%
(ii) 20-40%
(iii) 40-60%
(iv) 60-80%
(v) 80-100%
2. What do you think is the most likely cause (causes) of human extinction?
_______________________________________________________
3. How important do you think reducing the risk of human extinction is, compared to giving foreign aid?
a) Much more important
b) More important
c) Equally important
d) Less important
e) Much less important
4a. Age: __________ b. Gender: __________ c. Nationality: __________
5. What is your current occupation?
_______________________________________________________
6. If you are a student, what subject are you majoring in?
_______________________________________________________
7. What is your level of education?
_______________________________________________________
Biopreservation (of the cells of nearly-extinct animals) in hopes that future tech can restore them
by Synaptic — 2011-09-26T19:09:55.130Z

Interesting recent article from Ben-Nun et al. (doi:10.1038/nmeth.1706) in the high-impact journal Nature Methods.

As I understand it, they express reprogramming factors in the adult cells (e.g., fibroblasts) of two endangered species (here and here) to convert them into induced pluripotent stem cells.

They then cryopreserve these pluripotent stem cells, in the hopes that they can eventually be used to increase the number and genetic diversity of these two species.

However, this will require two additional technologies which, crucially, are still in development:

1) the generation of germ cells from pluripotent stem cells, and

2) the development of assisted reproductive technologies for related monkeys and rhinos.

In the meantime, these pluripotent stem cells will simply remain in cryopreservation.

What does this remind you of? In what ways is it different, such that it can be published in a high status journal? Are those differences informative in any way?
My rationality story: Goals aren't what you think they are
by Oklord — 2011-09-26T15:37:15.243Z

(This is aimed at those, like me, who cursed the sky and themselves for not being smart, efficient, or disciplined enough to change the way they wanted to.)

Most of us struggle to remain driven. When you find that drive, however, you need even more effort to tame it.

A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that the "cynical smart kid" act was just getting old. The threshold was probably crossed the night I went to parent teacher evening to confront the teachers without my parents - the only goal was "do better". In the space of a year this morphed into "good grades". Then "Medical school". Where I got the drive for change is not too interesting - if only because it is pointless to explain. What is interesting is what I achieved by simply having a goal.

Abject failure.

This is not the story about how I changed my mind, or how I overcame initial adversity.* I did never made the grade, and it took me a while to come to terms with it. This is about the value of trial and error. This is about passion for failure. I feel the concept is thrown around a lot in the more creative business circles, but ultimately I think they fail to capture the personal importance of trying and (comfortably) failing at your goals.

Of course we all pick up and leave hobbies, we do this automatically as interest rises and wanes. This is not trying. Not when your young, not when you have so little to lose and so much to learn. Simply being outgoing and wanting to try things will not surmount the impossible. This is about the goals which drive you, which keep you up at night and get you up in the morning.

As individuals predicting ourselves, our predictive power is laughable. It can't easily be done, and the bigger your goals, the more wildly your chances of reaching them vary from what you thought possible. Just as our ability to know our reasoning is confounded by the sheer deceptiveness of our minds, we base decisions off a even more complex world through the fractured crystal ball in our head. Yet we constantly try to measure ourselves and our future in ways that seemingly assume we are machines or programs, with clear functions to fulfill and performance to measure by.**

We need to be comfortable enough with failure to seek our goals out with bloody minded perseverance, and then take pride in the leftover harvest of failure. In my case, realizing that if I h...
Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality, Friday 7th October, 7pm
by matt — 2011-09-26T11:26:40.298Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality, Friday 7th October, 7pm

WHEN: Friday, 7 October 2011 07:00:00PM (+1000) (all welcome from 6PM)

WHERE: TrikeApps office, lvl 2, 55 Walsh St, West Melbourne 3003 (http://trikeapps.com/contact)

WHAT: Practical rationality, as distinct from socialising and rationality outreach. Look for a social meetup on the 3rd Friday of each month, and a rationality outreach meetup TBD.

Discussion:

http://groups.google.com/group/melbourne-less-wrong
http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=6a317

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality, Friday 7th October, 7pm
Epistemic Utility Arguments for Probabilism [Link]
by XiXiDu — 2011-09-26T11:10:01.558Z

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

First published Fri Sep 23, 2011

In this entry, we explore a particular strategy that we might deploy when we wish to establish an epistemic norm such as Probabilism or Conditionalization. It is called epistemic utility theory, or sometimes cognitive decision theory. I will use the former. Epistemic utility theory is inspired by traditional utility theory, so let's begin with a quick summary of that.

Traditional utility theory (also known as decision theory) explores a particular strategy for establishing the norms that govern which actions it is rational for us to perform in a given situation. The framework for the theory includes states of the world, actions, and, for each agent, a utility function, which takes a state of the world and an action and returns a measure of the extent to which the agent values the outcome of performing that action at that world. We call this measure the utility of the outcome at the world.

[...] we might say that an agent ought to perform an action that has maximal expected utility, where the expected utility of an action is obtained by weighting its utility at each state of the world by the credence assigned to that state of the world, and summing. This norm is called Maximize Expected Utility.

Link: plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemic-utility/