trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Gary Marcus vs Cortical Uniformity
by Steven Byrnes — 2020-06-28T18:18:54.650Z

Edited much later to add: WARNING I wrote this early on in my neuroscience self-education. It has a number of mistakes and confusions. Sorry. I’m keeping it posted as-is for historical interest only.

Background / context

I wrote about cortical uniformity last year in Human Instincts, Symbol Grounding, and the Blank Slate Neocortex. (Other lesswrong discussion includes Alex Zhu recently and Jacob Cannell in 2015.) Here was my description (lightly edited, and omitting several footnotes that were in the original):

Instead of saying that the human brain has a vision processing algorithm, motor control algorithm, language algorithm, planning algorithm, and so on, in "Common Cortical Algorithm" (CCA) theory we say that (to a first approximation) we have a massive amount of "general-purpose neocortical tissue", and if you dump visual information into that tissue, it does visual processing, and if you connect that tissue to motor control pathways, it does motor control, etc.

CCA theory, as I'm using the term, is a simplified model. There are almost definitely a couple caveats to it:

There are sorta "hyperparameters" on the generic learning algorithm which seem to be set differently in different parts of the neocortex. For example, some areas of the cortex have higher or lower density of particular neuron types. There are other examples too. I don't think this significantly undermines the usefulness or correctness of CCA theory, as long as these changes really are akin to hyperparameters, as opposed to specifying fundamentally different algorithms. So my reading of the evidence is that if you put, say, motor nerves coming out of visual cortex tissue, the tissue could do motor control, but it wouldn't do it quite as well as the motor cortex does.

There is almost definitely a gross wiring diagram hardcoded in the genome—i.e., set of connections between different neocortical regions and each other, and other parts of the brain. These connections later get refined and edited during learning. Again, we can ask how much the existence of this innate gross wiring diagram undermines CCA theory. How complicated is the wiring diagram? Is it millions of connections among thousands of tiny regions, or just tens of connections among a few regions? Would the brain work at all if you started with a random wiring diagram? I don't know for sure, but for various reasons, my current

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Self-sacrifice is a scarce resource
by mingyuan — 2020-06-28T05:08:05.010Z

“I just solved the trolley problem.... See, the trolley problem forces you to choose between two versions of letting other people die, but the actual solution is very simple. You sacrifice yourself.”

- The Good Place

High school: Naive morality

When I was a teenager, I had a very simple, naive view of morality. I thought that the right thing to do was to make others happy. I also had a naive view of how this was accomplished - I spent my time digging through trash cans to sort out the recyclables, picking up litter on the streets, reading the Communist Manifesto, going to protests, you know, high school kind of stuff. I also poured my heart into my dance group which was almost entirely comprised of disadvantaged students - mainly poor, developmentally disabled, or severely depressed, though we had all sorts. They were good people, for the most part, and I liked many of them simply as friends, but I probably also had some sort of intelligentsia savior complex going on with the amount of effort I put into that group.

The moment of reckoning for my naive morality came when I started dating a depressed, traumatized, and unbelievably pedantic boy with a superiority complex even bigger than his voice was loud. I didn’t like him. I think there was a time when I thought I loved him, but I always knew I didn’t like him. He was deeply unkind, and it was like there was nothing real inside of him. But my naive morality told me that dating him was the right thing to do, because he liked me, and because maybe if I gave enough of myself I could fix him, and then he would be kind to others like he was to me. Needless to say this did not work. I am much worse off for the choices I made at that time, with one effect being that I have trouble distinguishing between giving too much of myself and just giving basic human decency.

And even if it were true that pouring all of my love and goodness out for a broken person could make them whole again, what good would it be? There are millions of sad people in the world, and with that method I would only be able to save a few at most (or in reality, one, because of how badly pouring kindness into a black hole burns you out). If you really want to make people’s lives better, that is, if you really care about human flourishing, you can’t give your whole self to save one person. You only have one self to give.

Effective altruism, my earl

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A reply to Agnes Callard
by Vaniver — 2020-06-28T03:25:27.378Z

Agnes Callard says on Twitter:

Sincerely can't tell which threatens culture of free thought & expression more:

@nytimes de-anonymizing & destroying a (rightly) treasured blog for no good reason

@nytimes increasingly allowing external mobs (w/powerful members) influence over what it publishes

I believe that the arguments in this op-ed--about why philosophers shouldn't use petitions to adjudicate their disputes--also apply to those non-philosophers who, for independent reasons, are committed to the power of public reason. https://t.co/elZkZgBYPD?amp=1

[The link is to a NYT op-ed she wrote; which is now available for free.]

A friend linked to this on Facebook, and I replied with a Bible verse:

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.

But, in the spirit of public reason, let me explain my meaning.

Different people present different interfaces to the public. Philosophers want to receive and know how to handle reasoned arguments; politicians want to receive and know how to handle votes. Present a politician with a philosophical argument, and they might think it's very nice, but they won't consider it as relevant to their duties as a politican as polling data. "The voters aren't choosing me to think," they might say; "they're choosing me to represent their will."

This isn't to single out politicians as 'non-philosophers'; businesspeople have their own interface, where they want to receive and know how to handle money, and athletes have their own interface, and musicians, and so on and so on. This is part of the society-wide specialization of labor, and is overall a good thing.

Callard argues that philosophers shouldn't sign petitions, as philosophers--in my framing, that it corrupts the interface of 'philosophers' for them to both emit reasoned arguments and petitions, which are little more than counts of bodies and clout. If they want to sign petitions, or vote, or fight in wars on their own time, that's fine; but those political behaviors are not the business of philosophy, and they should do them as people instead of as philosophers.

Overall, this argument seems right to me, except I think it also makes sense for individuals, even those personally committed to public reason, to honor the other disciplines by engaging with ...
Don't Make Your Problems Hide
by orthonormal — 2020-06-27T20:24:53.408Z

I've seen a worrying trend in people who've learned introspection and self-improvement methods from CFAR, or analogous ones from CBT. They make better life decisions, they calm their emotions in the moment. But they still look just as stressed as ever. They stamp out every internal conflict they can see, but it seems like there are more of them beyond the horizon of their self-awareness.

(I may have experienced this myself.)

One reason for this is that there's a danger with learning how to consciously notice and interact with one's subconscious thoughts/feelings/desires/fears: the conscious mind may not like what it sees, and try to edit the subconscious mind into one that pleases it.

The conscious mind might try, that is, but the subconscious is stronger. So, what actually happens?

The subconscious develops defense mechanisms.

Suppressed desires disguise themselves as being about other things, or they just overwhelm the conscious mind's willpower every now and then (and maybe fulfill themselves in a less healthy way than could otherwise be managed).

Suppressed thoughts become stealthy biases; certain conscious ideas or narratives get reinforced until they are practically unquestionable. So too with fears; a suppressed social fear is a good way to get a loud alarm that never stops.

Suppressed feelings hide themselves more thoroughly from the searchlight, so that one never consciously notices their meaning anymore, one just feels sad or angry or scared "for no reason" in certain situations.

At its worst, the conscious mind tries ever-harder to push back against these, further burning its rapport with the subconscious. I think of pastors who suppress their gay desires so hard that they vigorously denounce homosexuality and then sneak out for gay sex. They'd have been living such a happier life if they'd given up and acknowledged who they are, and what they want, years ago.

Now, sometimes people do have a strong desire that can't be satisfied in any healthy way. And that's just a brutal kind of life to life. But they would still do better by acknowledging that desire openly to themselves, than by trying to quash it and only hiding it.

How can we become more integrated between conscious and unconscious parts, and undo any damage we've already caused?

In my talk about the elephant and rider, I suggested (or gestured at) a few relevant things:

Pursue basic happiness alo

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Mediators of History
by johnswentworth — 2020-06-27T19:55:48.485Z

Epistemic note: all of the examples in this post are very simplified for ease of consumption. The core idea applies just as well to the real systems in all their complicated glory, however.

When oil prices change, oil producers adjust in response - they drill more wells in response to higher prices, or fewer wells in response to lower prices. On the other side of the equation, oil prices adjust to production: when OPEC restricts output, prices rise, and when American shale wells expand, prices fall. We have a feedback loop, which makes it annoying to sort out cause and effect - do prices cause production, or does production cause prices?

The narrative: from roughly 2010-2014, OPEC successfully restricted their production enough to keep oil prices around $100/barrel. But at that price, American shale wells are extremely profitable, and they grew rapidly - the dots in the map below are each an oil/gas well in the Eagle Ford basin in Southern Texas, and the graph above shows American oil production in red. This situation was not sustainable; prices eventually dropped to around $50/barrel, which is roughly the marginal cost of American shale. Since then, prices rose above $50/barrel again around 2018, and American shale once again grew rapidly in response.

In this case, there is a useful sense in which production capacity causes prices, not the other way around - at least if we omit OPEC agreements.

Oil is a fairly liquid commodity. When there’s a shock in supply (e.g. OPEC agreeing to restrict output) or demand (e.g. lockdowns), the markets respond and prices rapidly adjust. Production capacity, on the other hand, adjusts slowly: drilling new wells and building new pipelines takes time, and once a well is built it rarely makes sense to shut it down before it runs dry. So (ignoring OPEC) prices right now are caused by production capacity right now, but production capacity right now is not caused by prices right now - it’s the result of prices over the past several years, when the wells were drilled.

Or, to put it differently: production capacity mediates the effects of historical prices on current prices. It’s a “mediator of history” - a variable which changes slowly enough that it carries information about the past. Other variables equilibrate more quickly, so they depend on far-past values only via the mediators of history.

(Incorporating OPEC into this view is an e

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Five Ways To Prioritize Better
by lynettebye — 2020-06-27T18:40:26.600Z

This piece is cross-posted on my blog here.

I’m going to let you in on a secret of productivity.

Those people you admire, the ones who make you wonder how on earth they accomplish so much? Those people might work more hours than you or be more talented or more passionate. Or they might not.

But they probably work on better things, in better ways.

Now, before you protest that that’s the same thing as being talented or smart or hardworking, let me unpack that claim. Working on better things means they carefully choose what’s worth caring about, and what they won’t give a fuck about. Working in better ways means they carefully choose to do the most important actions to accomplish those goals.

In short, working on better things, in better ways is … prioritization. Prioritizing well is the common thread behind successful people.

Because prioritizing well is so freaking important. Cumulative good choices can multiply your impact tens or hundreds of times. You can’t work tens or hundreds as many hours in a day. You can choose what to do and how to do it most effectively.

But prioritization isn’t just following through on the actions you already know you should do -- though that’s important too. Knowing what you should do is actually hard. There’s a long gap between wanting to make the world brighter and knowing how to do it. I want to acknowledge that.

So, bear with me a bit. This post is longer than usual because I’m trying to give you a bunch of examples to really get a taste of what prioritizing feels like. I think every one of the examples will help you understand better, but, if you have a hard time focusing for 14 pages, maybe read one tool now and come back another time for others?

I’ve organized the examples around five specific concepts that you can use to help apply the mindset more effectively: Theory of Change, Lean Tests, Bottlenecks, Ballpark Estimates, and the 80/20 Rule. I’ll start each section with some concrete stories before summarizing the concept and how it helps you prioritize.

Note: The following vignettes, apart from the ones about me and the interview with Tara, are fictional. However, they are inspired by multiple real conversations I've had. If you find yourself thinking "this could never hap...
Have general decomposers been formalized? 
by Quinn — 2020-06-27T18:09:06.411Z

Hi, I'm working on a response to ML projects on IDA focusing on a specific decomposer, and I don't know if someone's formalized what a decomposer is in the general case.

Intuitively, a system is a decomposer if it can take a thing and break it down into sub-things with a specific vision about how the sub-things recombine.
Why are all these domains called from Less Wrong?
by Viliam — 2020-06-27T13:46:05.857Z

When I visit a Less Wrong page, the browser also attempts to load content from the following domains:

* algolia.net
* algolianet.com
* cloudflare.com
* cloudinary.com
* dl.drop
* dropbox.com
* dropboxusercontent.com
* google.com
* googleapis.com
* googletagmanager.com
* intercom.io
* jsdelivr.net
* lr-ingest.io
* typekit.net

Why is it so? I don't want to advertise to half of internet (and specifically to Google) the fact that I read Less Wrong. What happens if I simply block all these domains? What service do they provide if I don't block them?
Life at Three Tails of the Bell Curve
by lsusr — 2020-06-27T08:49:02.751Z

If you assume other people are the same as you along every dimension then you will over-estimate other people exactly as much as you underestimate them. It is a good first-order approximation to assume other people are like yourself.

Most people are in the middle of any given bell curve. You are probably in the middle of any given bell curve too. It is a good second-order approximation to assume other people are like yourself.

But…if you assume you are statistically normal when you are not then you will have problems. I have made this mistake many, many times because my personality is extremized in three big ways.

Natural Amphetamines

I once heard a friend, upon his first use of modafinil, wonder aloud if the way they felt on that stimulant was the way Elon Musk felt all the time. That tied a lot of things together for me, gave me an intuitive understanding of what it might “feel like from the inside” to be Elon Musk. And it gave me a good tool to discuss biological variation with. Most of us agree that people on stimulants can perform in ways it’s difficult for people off stimulants to match. Most of us agree that there’s nothing magical about stimulants, just changes to the levels of dopamine, histamine, norepinephrine et cetera in the brain. And most of us agree there’s a lot of natural variation in these chemicals anyway. So “me on stimulants is that guy’s normal” seems like a good way of cutting through some of the philosophical difficulties around this issue.

― The Parable of the Talents by Scott Alexander

According to drugabuse.com, amphetamines have the following short-term effects:

Quicker reaction times.

Feelings of energy/wakefulness.

Excitement.

Increased attentiveness and concentration.

Feelings of euphoria.

These characteristics describe my baseline state. I feel like I am on stimulants[1] all the time. Natural amphetamines have advantages. I am energetic. I concentrate well. I get lots of work done.

They have disadvantages too. Amphetamines are associated with headaches, appetite suppression, severe anxiety and obsessive behavior all of which also describe me. The headaches are ignorable because I cannot remember ever not having a headache. The appetite suppression is survivable because I live in a civilization full of convenient calories. The obsessive behavior is a double-edge sword. On the one hand it makes me bad at small talk. On the othe...
Map Errors: The Good, The Bad, and The Territory
by orthonormal — 2020-06-27T05:22:58.674Z

What happens when your map doesn't match the territory?

There's one aspect of this that's potentially very helpful to becoming a rationalist, and one aspect that's very dangerous. The good outcome is that you could understand map errors more deeply; the dangerous outcome is that you could wind up stuck somewhere awful, with no easy way out.

The first version, where you notice that the map is wrong, comes when the map is undeniably locally wrong. The map says the path continues here, but instead there's a cliff. (Your beliefs strongly predict something, and the opposite happens.)

The ordinary result is that you scratch out and redraw that part of the map – or discard it and pick up an entirely different map – and continue along the new path that looks best. (You decide you were wrong on that one point without questioning any related beliefs, or you convert to a completely different belief system which was correct on that point.)

The really valuable possibility is that you realize that there are probably other errors besides the one you've seen, and probably unseen errors on the other available maps as well; you start to become more careful about trusting your maps so completely, and you pay a bit more attention to the territory around you.

This is a really important formative experience for many rationalists:

Take ideas seriously enough to notice and care if they fail
Get smacked in the face with an Obvious But False Belief: your past self couldn't have imagined you were wrong about this, and yet here we are.
Deeply internalize that one's sense of obviousness cannot be trusted, and that one has to find ways of being way more reliable where it matters.

(For me the Obvious But False Belief was about religion; for others it was politics, or an academic field, or even their own identity.)

Now, the dangerous outcome – getting trapped in a dismal swamp, with escape very difficult – comes when you've not seen an undeniable local map failure, so that you never notice (or never have to admit) that the map isn't matching up very well with the territory, until it's too late.

(I'm thinking of making major life decisions badly, where you don't notice or admit the problem until you're trapped in a situation where every option is a disaster of some sort.)

Sometimes you really do need to make bold plans based on your beliefs; how can you do so without taking a big risk of ending u...
Negotiating With Yourself
by orthonormal — 2020-06-26T23:55:15.638Z

(Talk given on Sunday 21st June, over a zoom call with 40 attendees. orthonormal is responsible for the talk, jacobjacob is responsible for the transcription)

Talk

orthonormal: So, I'm doing a generalisation of

the post that was curated

and this post is sort of an elaboration of

what Vaniver talked about

. If you notice that there are differences between your private intuitions, and what you can publicly acknowledge, this is a system fast versus system slow thing-

orthonormal: This is a question of negotiating with yourself. I'm going to present a model and talk about some consequences, but I’ll start with a question: why do people in our sphere tend to burn out or go nuts?

orthonormal: This is a pretty important question. I’ll use an analogy many of us have heard before — the elephant and the rider. The conscious mind is the rider and the elephant is the unconscious mind. The rider wants to get somewhere, but the elephant has its own preferences about what happens.

orthonormal: Some features of this analogy I think are true and useful for minds, for humans, is that the elephant has these immediate preferences and some longer term needs, just like we have subconscious desires and subconscious needs. The rider has their own preferences and some carrots and sticks, but the real advantage is having a map. The elephant can just completely ignore the rider if its preferences are strong enough. So how this connects to being human is that our subconscious has these desires and needs and fears, and our consciousness may have a little bit of willpower but what it really has is strategy and planning, the ability to pick out a path so that the elephant won't want to deviate from it too much. If you go right by a river, the elephant is going to want to drink. So, if you don't want to stop for that, don't go by the river right now.

orthonormal: Finally, the subconscious, the elephant, can just overwhelm you in two ways: one of which is it controls your motivation, so it can burn you out or get you depressed if you're trying to defy it too much. And the second is, it can induce bias.

orthonormal: This is the subject of The Elephant in the Brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler, claiming that a lot of motivated reasoning comes when the elephant wants something, the rider doesn't, and the elephant changes the rider's cognition to make the rider feel like it wants that thing (for no...