trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Consistent extrapolated beliefs about math?
by cousin_it — 2014-09-04T11:32:06.282Z

My beliefs about the integers are a little fuzzy. I believe the things that ZFC can prove about the integers, but there seems to be more than that. In particular, I intuitively believe that "my beliefs about the integers are consistent, because the integers exist". That's an uncomfortable situation to be in, because we know that a consistent theory can't assert its own consistency.

Should I conclude that my beliefs about the integers can't be covered by any single formal theory? That's a tempting line of thought, but it reminds me of all these people claiming that the human mind is uncomputable, or that humans will always be smarter than machines. It feels like being on the wrong side of history.

It's also dangerous to believe that "the integers exist" due to my having clear intuitions about them, because humans sometimes make mistakes. Before Russell's paradox, someone could be forgiven for thinking that the objects of naive set theory "exist" because they have clear intuitions about sets, but they would be wrong nonetheless.

Let's explore the other direction instead. What if there was some way to extrapolate my fuzzy beliefs about the integers? In full generality, the outcome of such a process should be a Turing machine that prints sentences about integers which I believe in. Such a machine would encode some effectively generated theory about the integers, which we know cannot assert its own consistency and be consistent at the same time.

So it seems that in the process of extracting my "consistent extrapolated beliefs", something has to give. At some point, my belief in my own consistency has to go, if I want the final result to be consistent.

But if I already know that much about the outcome, it might make sense for me to change my beliefs now, and end up with something like this: "All my beliefs about the integers follow from some specific formal theory that I don't know yet. In particular, I don't believe that my beliefs about the integers are consistent."

I'm not sure if there are gaps in the above reasoning, and I don't know if using probabilistic reflection changes the conclusions any. What do you think?
LessWrong in Brisbane, Australia
by TRManderson — 2014-09-04T05:20:27.980Z

At present, the LessWrong presence in Brisbane is essentially non-existent. We have Brisbane Skeptics in the Pub, and that's the closest you can get. During the most recent Australia-wide LessWrong hangout, Nick Wolf of Melbourne and Eliot Redelman of Sydney persuaded me to create a Facebook group for LessWrong in Brisbane. This post is solely to announce that.

The group can be found here.

Ideally a meetup will occur once more than the small handful currently on the group have joined.
What steep learning curve do you wish you'd climbed sooner?
by Stabilizer — 2014-09-04T00:03:33.664Z

This is the question asked by John Cook on Twitter. He lists responses from different people:

R

Version control

Linear algebra

Advanced math

Bayesian statistics

Category theory

Foreign languages

How to not waste time

Women

Mine are: quantum mechanics, Python, cooking, the language of philosophy.

What learning curve do you wish you'd climbed sooner? Give reasons and stories if you feel like it. Do you think other people should climb the same curves?
The Octopus, the Dolphin and Us: a Great Filter tale
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2014-09-03T21:37:49.834Z

Is intelligence hard to evolve? Well, we're intelligent, so it must be easy... except that only an intelligent species would be able to ask that question, so we run straight into the problem of anthropics. Any being that asked that question would have to be intelligent, so this can't tell us anything about its difficulty (a similar mistake would be to ask "is most of the universe hospitable to life?", and then looking around and noting that everything seems pretty hospitable at first glance...).

Instead, one could point at the great apes, note their high intelligence, see that intelligence arises separately, and hence that it can't be too hard to evolve.

One could do that... but one would be wrong. The key test is not whether intelligence can arise separately, but whether it can arise independently. Chimpanzees, Bonobos and Gorillas and such are all "on our line": they are close to common ancestors of ours, which we would expect to be intelligent because we are intelligent. Intelligent species tend to have intelligent relatives. So they don't provide any extra information about the ease or difficulty of evolving intelligence.

To get independent intelligence, we need to go far from our line. Enter the smart and cute icon on many student posters: the dolphin.

Dolphins are certainly intelligent. And they are certainly far from our line. It seems hard to find a definite answer, but it seems that the last common ancestor of humans and dolphins was a small mammal existing during the reign of the dinosaurs. Humans and dolphins have been indicated by red rectangles, and their last common ancestor with a red circle.

This red circle is well before the K-T boundary (indicated by the dotted line), hence represents a mammal living in the literal shadow of the dinosaurs.

We can apply a convergent evolution argument to this common ancestor. Thus, assuming that subsequent evolution was somewhat independent, getting from that common ancestor to dolphin level of intelligence is something that can happen relatively easily.

Can we go further? Well, what if we applied the argument twice? Let's bring in the most alien looking of the high-intelligence animals: the octopus.

Let's make the further assumption that our common ancestor with dolphins was dumber than the modern octopus. This doesn't seem a stretch seeing how intelligent the modern octopus can be, how minor in terms of ecolo...
Rationality Quotes September 2014
by jaime2000 — 2014-09-03T21:36:30.032Z

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)

Do not quote yourself.

Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.

No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
Bayesianism for humans: prosaic priors
by BT_Uytya — 2014-09-02T21:45:05.432Z

(followup to What Bayesianism has taught me? and Bayesianism for Humans, relevant to Boring Advice Repository )

There are two insights from Bayesianism which occurred to me and which I hadn't seen anywhere else before.
I like lists in the two posts linked above, so for the sake of completeness, I'm going to add my two cents to a public domain. This post is about the second penny, the first one is here.

Prosaic Priors

The second insight can be formulated as «the dull explanations are more likely to be correct because they tend to have high prior probability.»

Why is that?

1) Almost by definition! Some property X is 'banal' if X applies to a lot of people in an disappointingly mundane way, not having any redeeming features which would make it more rare (and, hence, interesting).

In the other words, X is banal iff base rate of X is high. Or, you can say, prior probability of X is high.

1.5) Because of Occam's Razor and burdensome details. One way to make something boring more exciting is to add interesting details: some special features which will make sure that this explanation is about you as opposed to 'about almost anybody'.

This could work the other way around: sometimes the explanation feels unsatisfying exactly because it was shaved of any unnecessary and (ultimately) burdensome details.

2) Often, the alternative of a mundane explanation is something unique and custom made to fit the case you are interested in. And anybody familiar with overfitting and conjunction fallacy (and the fact that people tend to love coherent stories with blinding passion1) should be very suspicious about such things. So, there could be a strong bias against stale explanations, which should be countered.

* * *

I fully grokked this when being in process of CBT-induced soul-searching; usage in this context still looks the most natural to me, but I believe that the area of application of this heuristic is wider.

Examples

1) I'm fairly confident that I'm an introvert. Still, sometimes I can behave like an extrovert. I was interested in the causes of this "extroversion activation", as I called it2. I suspected that I really had two modes of functioning (with "introversion" being the default one), and some events — for example, mutual interest (when I am interested in a person I was talking to, and xe is interested in me) or feeling

...
Bayesianism for humans: "probable enough"
by BT_Uytya — 2014-09-02T21:44:54.965Z

(followup to What Bayesianism has taught me? and Bayesianism for Humans)

There are two insights from Bayesianism which occurred to me and which I hadn't seen anywhere else before.
I like lists in the two posts linked above, so for the sake of completeness, I'm going to add my two cents to a public domain. Second penny is here.

"Probable enough"

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains is often more improbable than your having made a mistake in one of your impossibility proofs.

Steven Kaas

Bayesian way of thinking introduced me to the idea of "hypothesis which is probably isn't true, but probable enough to rise to the level of conscious attention" — in other words, to the situation when P(H) is notable but less than 50%.

Looking back, I think that the notion of taking seriously something which you don't think is true was alien to me. Hence, everything was either probably true or probably false; things from the former category were over-confidently certain, and things from the latter category were barely worth thinking about.

This model was correct, but only in a formal sense.

Suppose you are living in Gotham, the city famous because of it's crime rate and it's masked (and well-funded) vigilante, Batman. Recently you had read The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker, and according to some theories described here, Batman isn't good for Gotham at all.

Now you know, for example, the theory of Donald Black that "crime is, from the point of view of the perpetrator, the pursuit of justice". You know about idea that in order for crime rate to drop, people should perceive their law system as legitimate. You suspect that criminals beaten by Bats don't perceive the act as a fair and regular punishment for something bad, or an attempt to defend them from injustice; instead the act is perceived as a round of bad luck. So, the criminals are busy plotting their revenge, not internalizing civil norms.

You believe that if you send your copy of book (with key passages highlighted) to the person connected to Batman, Batman will change his ways and Gotham will become much more nice in terms of homicide rate.

So you are trying to find out Batman's secret identity, and there are 17 possible suspects. Derek Powers looks like a good candidate: he is wealthy, and has a long history of secretly del

...
Meetup : Moscow Meetup: Codename Felix
by Alexander230 — 2014-09-02T18:21:14.923Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow Meetup: Codename Felix

WHEN:
14 September 2014 02:00:00PM (+0400)

WHERE:
Russia, Moscow, ulitsa L'va Tolstogo 16

Here's our plan:

A talk about Gollwitzer, Implementation intentions and Rubicon model.

Calibration excercise.

Debates on Popper's protocol.

"Fallacymania" game on afterparty.

"Contact" game on afterparty.

Details and schedule:

https://lesswrong-ru.hackpad.com/-14--kxLrEaIY6wr

Yudcoins, positive reinforcement and pizza will all be present. If you've been to our meetups, you know what I'm talking about, and if you didn't, the best way to find out is to come and see for yourself.

Info for newcomers: We gather in the Yandex office, you need the first revolving door under the archway. Here is a guide how to get there:

http://company.yandex.ru/contacts/redrose/

Call Slava at +7(926)313-96-42 if you're late. We start at 14:00 and stay until at least 19-20. Please pay attention that we only gather near the entrance and then come inside.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow Meetup: Codename Felix
Meetup : Prediction Markets and Futarchy
by Anders_H — 2014-09-02T14:13:33.018Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Prediction Markets and Futarchy

WHEN:
07 September 2014 03:30:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
98 Elm St Apt 1, Somerville, MA

I will give a talk about prediction markets and futarchy. The talk is intended as a basic introduction for people who are new to the concept. After my slides, I hope to have a discussion about whether futarchy is feasible.

Cambridge/Boston-area Less Wrong meetups start at 3:30pm, and have an alternating location:

1st Sunday meetups are at Citadel in Porter Sq, at 98 Elm St, apt 1, Somerville.

3rd Sunday meetups are in MIT's building 66 at 25 Ames St, room 156. Room number subject to change based on availability; signs will be posted with the actual room number.

(We also have last Wednesday meetups at Citadel at 7pm.)

Our default schedule is as follows:

—Phase 1: Arrival, greetings, unstructured conversation.

—Phase 2: The headline event. This starts promptly at 4pm, and lasts 30-60 minutes.

—Phase 3: Further discussion. We'll explore the ideas raised in phase 2, often in smaller groups.

—Phase 4: Dinner.

Discussion article for the meetup : Prediction Markets and Futarchy
Meetup : Nick Bostrom Talk on Superintelligence
by Anders_H — 2014-09-02T14:09:43.925Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Nick Bostrom Talk on Superintelligence

WHEN:
04 September 2014 08:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Emerson 105, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? In his new book - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies - Professor Bostrom explores these questions, laying the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life. Q&A will follow the talk.

http://harvardea.org/event/2014/09/04/bostrom/

(This event is organized by Harvard Effective Altruism. It is not technically a Less Wrong Meetup, but the topic is highly relevant and most of the Boston area rationalist community will be there)

Discussion article for the meetup : Nick Bostrom Talk on Superintelligence
Overly convenient clusters, or: Beware sour grapes
by KnaveOfAllTrades — 2014-09-02T04:04:14.656Z

Related to: Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided

There is a well-known fable which runs thus:

“Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves.”

This gives rise to the common expression ‘sour grapes’, referring to a situation in which one incorrectly claims to not care about something to save face or feel better after being unable to get it.

This seems to be related to a general phenomenon, in which motivated cognition leads one to flinch away from the prospect of an action that is inconvenient or painful in the short term by concluding that a less-painful option strictly dominates the more-painful one.

In the fox’s case, the allegedly-dominating option is believing (or professing) that he did not want the grapes. This spares him the pain of feeling impotent in face of his initial failure, or the embarrassment of others thinking him to have failed. If he can’t get the grapes anyway, then he might as well erase the fact that he ever wanted them, right? The problem is that considering this line of reasoning will make it more tempting to conclude that the option really was dominating—that he really couldn’t have gotten the grapes. But maybe he could’ve gotten the grapes with a bit more work—by getting a ladder, or making a hook, or Doing More Squats in order to Improve His Vert.

The fable of the fox and the grapes doesn’t feel like a perfect fit, though, because the fox doesn’t engage in any conscious deliberation before giving up on sour grapes; the whole thing takes place subconsciously. Here are some other examples that more closely illustrate the idea of conscious rationalization by use of overly convenient partitions:

The Seating Fallacy:

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

This advice is neither good in full generality nor bad in full generality. Clearly there are some situations where some person is worrying too much about other people judging them, or is anxious about inconveniencing oth

...
Group Rationality Diary, September 1-15
by therufs — 2014-09-02T02:47:42.730Z

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for September 1-15.

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.

Next diary: September 16-30

Previous diary: August 16-31

Rationality diaries archive
Truth and the Liar Paradox
by casebash — 2014-09-02T02:05:26.189Z

Related: The map is not the territory, Unresolved questions in philosophy part 1: The Liar paradox

A well-known brainteaser asks about the truth of the statement "this statement is false". If the statement is true, then the sentence must be false, but if it false then the sentence must be true. This paradox, far from being just a game, illustrates a question fundamental to understanding the nature of truth itself.

A number of different solutions have been proposed to this paradox (and the closely related Epimenides paradox, Pinocchio paradox). One approach is to reject the principal of bivalence - that every proposition must be true or false - and argue that this statement is neither true nor false. Unfortunately, this approach fails to resolve the truth of "this statement is not true". A second approach called Dialetheism is to argue that it should be both true and false, but this fails on "this statement is only false".

Arthur Prior's resolution it to claim that each statement implicitly asserts its own truth, so that "this statement is false" becomes "this statement is false and this statement is true". This later statement is clearly false. There do appear to be some advantages to constructing a system where each statement asserts its own truth, but the normative claim that truth should always be constructed in this manner seems to be hard to justify.

Another solution (non-cognitivism) is to deny that these statement have any truth content at all, similar to meaningless statements ("Are you a?") or non-propositional statements like commands ("Get me some milk?"). If we take this approach, then a natural question is "Which statements are meaningless?" One answer is to exclude all statements that are self referential. However, there are a few paradoxes that complicate this. One is the Card paradox where the front says that the sentence on the back is true and the back says that the sentence on the front is false. Another is Quine's paradox - ""Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation" yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation". One other common example is: "The statement on the blackboard in Carslaw Room 201 is false". The Card paradox and blackboard paradox are interesting in that if we declare the Liar paradox to be meaningless, these paradoxes are meaningless or meaningful depending on the state of the world.

T...
September 2014 Media Thread
by ArisKatsaris — 2014-09-01T17:05:53.382Z

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.

If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.

Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.

Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.

Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.
Open thread, Sept. 1-7, 2014
by polymathwannabe — 2014-09-01T12:18:56.648Z

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.

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

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
[link] Large Social Networks can be Targeted for Viral Marketing with Small Seed Sets
by Gunnar_Zarncke — 2014-09-01T10:03:05.770Z

Large Social Networks can be Targeted for Viral Marketing with Small Seed Sets

It shows how easy a population can be influenced if control over a small sub-set exists.

A key problem for viral marketers is to determine an initial "seed" set [<1% of total size] in a network such that if given a property then the entire network adopts the behavior. Here we introduce a method for quickly finding seed sets that scales to very large networks. Our approach finds a set of nodes that guarantees spreading to the entire network under the tipping model. After experimentally evaluating 31 real-world networks, we found that our approach often finds such sets that are several orders of magnitude smaller than the population size. Our approach also scales well - on a Friendster social network consisting of 5.6 million nodes and 28 million edges we found a seed sets in under 3.6 hours. We also find that highly clustered local neighborhoods and dense network-wide community structure together suppress the ability of a trend to spread under the tipping model.

This is relevant for LW because

a) Rational agents should hedge against this.

b) An UFAI could exploit this.

c) It gives hints to proof systems against this 'exploit'.