trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Levels of Action
by alyssavance — 2011-04-14T00:18:46.695Z

One of the most useful concepts I have learned recently is the distinction between actions which directly improve the world, and actions which indirectly improve the world.

Suppose that you go onto Mechanical Turk, open an account, and spend a hundred hours transcribing audio. At current market rates, you'd get paid around $100 for your labor. By taking this action, you have made yourself $100 wealthier. This is an example of what I'd call a Level 1 or object-level action: something that directly moves the world from a less desirable state into a more desirable state.

On the other hand, suppose you take a typing class, which teaches you to type twice as fast. On the object level, this doesn't move the world into a better state- nothing about the world has changed, other than you. However, the typing class can still be very useful, because every Level 1 project you tackle later which involves typing will go better- you'll be able to do it more efficiently, and you'll get a higher return on your time. This is what I'd call a Level 2 or meta-level action, because it doesn't make the world better directly - it makes the world better indirectly, by improving the effectiveness of Level 1 actions. There are also Level 3 (meta-meta-level) actions, Level 4 (meta-meta-meta-level actions), and so on.

The most important difference between Level 1 and Level 2 actions is that Level 1 actions tend to be additive, while Level 2 actions tend to be multiplicative. If you do ten hours of work at McDonald's, you'll get paid ten times as much as if you did one hour; the benefits of the hours add together. However, if you take ten typing classes, each one of which improves your ability by 20%, you'll be 1.2^10 = 6.2 times better at the end than at the beginning: the benefits of the classes multiply (assuming independence).

One result is that spending time on Level 2 actions can have a much greater return than spending time on Level 1 actions. If your labor is worth $20 an hour, and you can't change that, then the amount of money you can earn in a year has a fairly hard upper bound- no matter how you slice it, there are only 168 hours in a week. If you spend that year trying to increase the value of your labor, on the other hand, the upper bound on your performance is both a lot higher (because you can then make more money every year for the next three decades), and a lot more fuzzy. ...
David Marr on two types of information-processing problems
by nhamann — 2011-04-13T23:56:42.000Z

I found an essay written by David Marr called Artificial Intelligence -- a personal view that I thought was fairly insightful. Marr first discusses how information processing problems are generally solved:

The solution to an information processing problem divides naturally into two parts. In the first, the underlying nature of a particular computation is characterized, and its basis in the physical world is understood. One can think of this part as an abstract formulation of what is being computed and why, and I shall refer to it as the "theory" of a computation. The second part consists of particular algorithms for implementing a computation, and so it specifies how.

This is reminiscent of Marr's three levels of analysis.

Next, Marr draws a distinction between a Type 1 information processing problem and a Type 2 problem. A Type 1 problem has a solution that naturally divides along lines mentioned above: first one can formulate the computational theory behind it, and then one devises an algorithm to implement the computation. Marr proposes, however, that there is a class of problems that doesn't fit this description:

The fly in the ointment is that while many problems of biological information processing have a Type 1 theory, there is no reason why they should all have. This can happen when a problem is solved by the simultaneous action of a considerable number of processes, whose interaction is its own simplest description, and I shall refer to such a situation as a Type 2 theory. One promising candidate for a Type 2 theory is the problem of predicting how a protein will fold. A large number of influences act on a large polypeptide chain as it flaps and flails in a medium. At each moment only a few of the possible interactions will be important, but the importance of those few is decisive. Attempts to construct a simplified theory must ignore some interactions; but if most interactions are crucial at some stage during the folding, a simplified theory will prove inadequate.

More discussion about Type 1 and Type 2 problems follows, but I'm not going to summarize it. It well-worth reading, however. I did think this critique of the GOFAI program was pretty sharp for having been formulated in 1977:

For very advanced problems like story-understanding, current resea

...
How not to be a Naïve Computationalist
by diegocaleiro — 2011-04-13T19:45:10.934Z

Meta-Proposal of which this entry is a subset:

The Shortcut Reading Series is a series of less wrong posts that should say what are the minimal readings, as opposed to the normal curriculum, that one ought to read to grasp most of the state of the art conceptions of humans about a particular topic. Time is finite, there is only so much one person can read and thus we need to find the geodesic path to epistemic enlightenment and show it to Less Wrong readers.

Exemplar:

“How not to be a Naïve Computationalist”, the Shortcut Reading Series post in philosophy of mind and language:

This post’s raison d’etre is to be a guide for the minimal amount of philosophy of language and mind necessary for someone who ends up thinking the world and the mind are computable (such as Tegmark, Yudkowsky, Hofstadter, Dennett and many of yourselves) The desired feature which they have achieved, and you soon will, is to be able to state reasons, debugg opponents and understand different paradigms, as opposed to just thinking that it’s 0 and 1’s all the way down and not being able to say why.

This post is not about Continental/Historical Philosophy, about that there have been recommendations in http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subject/

The order is designed.

What is sine qua non, absolutely necessary, is in bold and OR means you only have to read one, the second one being more awesome and complex.

Language and Mind:

37 Ways words can be Wrong - Yudkowsky

Darwin Dangerous Idea Chapters 3,5, 11, 12 and 14 - Daniel Dennett

On Denoting - Bertrand Russell

On What There Is - Quine

Two Dogmas of Empiricism - Quine

Namind and Necessity - Kripke OR Two Dimensional Semantics - David Chalmers

“Is Personal Identity What Matters?” - Derek Parfit

Breakdown of Will - Part Two (don’t read part 3) George Ainslie

Concepts of Consciousness 2003 - Ned Block

Attitudes de dicto and de se - David Lewis- Phil Papers 1

General Semantics - David Lewis - Phil Papers 1

The Stuff of Thought, Chapter 3 “Fifty Thousand Innate Concepts” - Steve Pinker

Beyond Belief - Daniel Dennett in Intentional Stance

The Content and Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief - David Chalmers

Quining Qualia OR I Am a Strange Loop OR Consciousness Explained - Dan & Doug

Intentionality - Pierre Jacob - Stanford Encyclopedia Phil

Philosophy in the Fl

...
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Podcast
by Eneasz — 2011-04-13T17:09:19.488Z

Have you ever thought “I’d love to read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, but I just don’t have the spare time. I wish it was available in audio format.” Fret no more! I present to you the HPMoR Podcast! First chapter out now, and another one added every Wednesday.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/harry-potter-methods-rationality/id431784580
Hunger can make you stupid
by Dorikka — 2011-04-13T16:17:49.897Z

When I originally wrote "When to scream 'Error!'", I was mainly thinking of bad patterns of thought or bad problem-solving strategies as being the source of the error. Since then, I've come to realize that my own most common source of stupidity is because I've neglected some comfort. I may be hungry without consciously paying attention to it, dehydrated because I've been living on coffee for too long, or simply have a headache and need to take an Ibuprofen -- as a result, I don't think well, get irritated at the fact that I'm not thinking well, and generally begin a death spiral if I don't realize why.

In hindsight, it feels obvious that I should take care of the physiological needs that I can because they're likely preventing me from thinking straight. However, I've failed to do this on numerous occasions and so thought it worth mentioning.

In summary: Whenever you're screaming "Error", I suggest you stop and figure out whether you're hungry, thirsty, tired, or hurting before trying to find a problem in your thinking itself, especially if you're not usually good at noticing such things.
Eight questions for computationalists
by dfranke — 2011-04-13T12:46:40.017Z

This post is a followup to "We are not living in a simulation" and intended to help me (and you) better understand the claims of those who took a computationalist position in that thread. The questions below are aimed at you if you think the following statement both a) makes sense, and b) is true:

"Consciousness is really just computation"

I've made it no secret that I think this statement is hogwash, but I've done my best to make these questions as non-leading as possible: you should be able to answer them without having to dismantle them first. Of course, I could be wrong, and "the question is confused" is always a valid answer. So is "I don't know".

As it is used in the sentence "consciousness is really just computation", is computation:
a) Something that an abstract machine does, as in "No oracle Turing machine can compute a decision to its own halting problem"?
b) Something that a concrete machine does, as in "My calculator computed 2+2"?
c) Or, is this distinction nonsensical or irrelevant?

If you answered "a" or "c" to question 1: is there any particular model, or particular class of models, of computation, such as Turing machines, register machines, lambda calculus, etc., that needs to be used in order to explain what makes us conscious? Or, is any Turing-equivalent model equally valid?

If you answered "b" or "c" to question 1: unpack what "the machine computed 2+2" means. What is that saying about the physical state of the machine before, during, and after the computation?

Are you able to make any sense of the concept of "computing red"? If so, what does this mean?

As far as consciousness goes, what matters in a computation: functions, or algorithms? That is, does any computation that give the same outputs for the same inputs feel the same from the inside (this is the "functions" answer), or do the intermediate steps matter (this is the "algorithms" answer)?

Would an axiomatization (as opposed to a complete exposition of the implications of these axioms) of a Theory of Everything that can explain consciousness include definitions of any computational devices, such as "and gate"?

Would an axiomatization of a Theory of Everything that can explain consciousness mention qualia?

Are all computations in some sense conscious, or only certain kinds?

ETA: By the way, I probably won't engage right away with individual commenters on this thread except...
Melbourne Meetup May 6th, 6pm
by Patrick — 2011-04-13T08:32:12.059Z

Where: 55 Walsh St, West Melbourne, Australia

When: Friday May 6th, 6pm

We'll be discussing hacks for improving one's intelligence and energy levels (e.g. meditation, nootropics, paleo diet). If you know any tricks, or would like to learn some, come to the meetup!
When is it ever rational to enter a sweepstakes where you may have a 1/10,000 chance of winning?
by InquilineKea — 2011-04-13T06:43:59.373Z

It may be free to enter the sweepstakes, but it costs time to enter the sweepstakes. So the time is the first part of the cost. Then you may also have monitoring costs as well (if you monitor the progress of the sweepstakes, which may also cost valuable time).

But at the same time, there are other sweepstakes where the time it takes to enter is virtually 0. This could result in additional time costs if it results in increased spam, however (which may not come with most sweepstakes, but which may come with some).

And, of course, you have to factor in the expected gain if you entered, say, 1000 sweepstakes in your life. Eventually, you get to the point where you may have a decent probability of winning something big by entering so many of them
Why death for oneself, suffering for others?
by KatjaGrace — 2011-04-13T02:59:15.000Z

Doctors in a study preferred treatments with more chance of death over those with more chance of suffering for themselves more often than for their patients. Robin hypothesises*:

Avoiding death is a primary goal of medicine. Avoiding side effects of treatment is a secondary goal. So it makes sense that in a far mode doctors emphasize avoiding death, but in nearer mode avoiding side effects matters more

An alternative hypothesis*: the vividness of death doesn’t increase as much as that of suffering in near mode because it is relatively hard to imagine in detail. It basically consists of you not being there, which is pretty nonspecific with regards to other details, and the details you can picture are not ones you have ever experienced or anticipate experiencing. Suffering on the other hand is a very familiar experience with details generally considered too vividly memorable. Particularly when the suffering is of a specific kind, such as the chronic diarrhea used in the study. I expect most people can picture chronic diarrhea in much more horrible detail than they can ceasing to exist.

How to tell between these hypotheses? I expect advisors make the same kinds of trade offs for themselves and others in situations where avoiding death and avoiding injury both seems like secondary goals, for instance in sports coaching and military tactics.

*Based on construal level theory – the idea that we think differently about things that are near and far from us. See more about how we think differently here. See also the potential relevance of this to cryonics, procrastination and euphemisms.
Best videos inspiring first interest in rationality or the singularity
by Academian — 2011-04-13T02:32:10.550Z

When faced with a decision that might be really important — if say, the life of a loved one may be at risk — many people, though unfortunately not all, are moved to a sense of responsibility whereby they suddenly care more about being right than about looking right, feeling right, or even feeling good. It's when we have something to protect that many of us are most motivated to transcend our usual desires to "win the debate", "uphold our beliefs", or "have faith", and instead actually try to become right ... to have the best shot we can at saving the day with the decisions we make.

The upcoming technological singularity — an event where the lives of all our loved ones may or may not hang in the balance — is for many people a great inspiration to become more rational. Also, most of us want to convince others to be more rational, and videos are a powerful way to reach people, so I want to know:

What do you think is the online video that best inspires a strong initial interest in rationality or the singularity?

Please upvote each comment that contains a video that you approve for this purpose, not just your favorite; I want to use approval voting here so we get a robust ordering on the videos. Also to this end, please post at most one video per comment.

If you don't already have a favorite but want one, a place to start looking is the Singularity Summit videos at vimeo.com. Vimeo allows you to like/dislike videos, so that's another way you can donate information.

Some things to consider when voting:

Public appeal --- is this a video you'd want sent out on a mailing list to a bunch of random but educated people? (We want people in positions of intellectual or political influence to promote rationality.)

First exposure --- if this is someone's first exposure to thinking about rationality or the singularity, will it keep their interest?

Video quality --- is the camerawork respectable, or does it make people want to stop watching?

Speaker personality --- will people be annoyed at the speaker and lose attention, or be inspired?

OMG factor --- does the video have enough punchlines that make people say "oh my gosh I want to be more rational"?

I will periodically update this post with a list of links and their ratings, so we all have an easily accessible source of high-quality presentations we can send to our friends and colleauges to inspire...
Occam's Razor, Complexity of Verbal Descriptions, and Core Concepts
by TCB — 2011-04-13T02:12:55.140Z

Occam's razor, as it is popularly known, states that "the simplest answer is most likely to be correct"1. It has been noted in other discussion threads that the phrase "simplest description" is somewhat misleading, and that it actually means something along the lines of "description that is easiest to express concisely using natural language". Occam's razor typically comes into play when we are trying to explain some observed phenomenon, or, in terms of model-building, when we are trying to come up with a model for our observations. The verbal complexity of a new model will depend on the models that already exist in the observer's mind, since, as humans, we express new ideas in terms of concepts with which we are already familiar.

Thus, when applied to natural language, Occam's razor encourages descriptions that are most in line with the observer's existing worldview, and discourages descriptions that seem implausible given the observer's current worldview. Since our worldviews are typically very accurate2, this makes sense as a heuristic.

As an example, if a ship sank in the ocean, a simple explanation would be "a storm destroyed it", and a complicated explanation would be "a green scaly sea-dragon with three horns destroyed it". The first description is simple because we frequently experience storms, and so we have a word for them, whereas most of us never experience green scaly sea-dragons with three horns, and so we have to describe them explicitly. If the opposite were the case, we'd have some word for the dragons (maybe they'd be called "blicks"), and we would have to describe storms explicitly. Then the descriptions above could be reworded as "rain falling from the sky, accompanied by strong gusts of wind and possibly gigantic electrical discharges, destroyed the ship" and "a blick destroyed the ship", respectively.

What I'm getting at is that different explanations will have different complexities for different people; the complexity of a description to a person will depend on that person's collection of life-experiences, and everyone has a different set of life-experiences. This leads to an interesting question: are there universally easy-to-describe concepts? (By universally I mean cross-culturally.) It seems reasonable to claim that a concept C is easy-to-describe for a culture if that cultu...
Philip Zimbardo (Stanford Prison Experiment) answers questions on Reddit (Link)
by  — 2011-04-12T21:37:03.402Z

In March, a user on Reddit emailed psychologist Philip Zimbardo (leader of the Stanford Prison Experiment) to arrange an "IAmA" interview. Zimbardo agreed to answer the top 5 questions from this thread. Yesterday his answers were posted here.

The chosen questions touched on research ethics, what he originally expected to learn from the experiment, the role of psychoactive drugs in society, reading recommendations and more.

After responding, Zimbardo posed a question of his own to Reddit:

I ask you: Is it good that the Milgram and Zimbardo studies were done, or wrong? Should they be allowed to be replicated with interesting variations (such as female guards and prisoners) if institutional guidelines are imposed and followed? Or is it better for society not to know about the nature of the "dark side" of human nature?
Is Cryonics Possible for Theists?
by MinibearRex — 2011-04-12T21:24:46.417Z

I expect to have a conversation soon with my parents about cryonics. My parents are both professional scientists, but are vaguely religious. They certainly aren't fundamentalists; they are pro-choice, pro-gay rights, think "intelligent design" is nuts, etc. My father is less religious than my mother, the best description I can give is probably Deism. Doesn't believe in miracles, prayer, etc, but considers an afterlife likely. My mother is slightly more religious: in the past, she's prayed for help and things have worked out (positive bias). However, even she is far more skeptical than most theists. I remember one conversation as a kid in which she that she thought Jesus' resurrection was a metaphor. One one occasion, when I was in middle school, I asked her why she believed in God, and she replied that it was the only good explanation she could come up with for why there was good and evil in the world. She once quoted John Lennon, I think, talking about God as simply a personification of Good. She also believes in an afterlife.

Both of them I think would be very reluctant to engage in an open discussion about religion. In addition, both are intelligent enough, and have heard enough arguments, to make it enormously difficult to get them to change their minds, especially since the idea of an afterlife is a comforting thought for their own grandparents.

I would like to, if possible, avoid the discussion of religion, and instead simply persuade them to sign up for cryonics, without trying to force them to give up their belief in an afterlife. I've spent some time thinking about this, and have come up with some arguments. I do not want my parents to die. If there is any way I can be more persuasive, I have to find it, and I have to try it. So I am appealing to the collective brainstorming power of LW. If there is any argument you can think of that I can use, let me know.
Toronto Meetup, Apr 14 8pm
by Spencer_Sleep — 2011-04-12T21:16:05.906Z

When: Thursday, April 14th, 20:00

Where: The Bedford Academy, 36 Prince Arthur Avenue

Hi everyone,

Same plan as the last meetup. The reservation is under my name (Spencer Sleep) this time, as last time they put the name down as "Less Wrong" (first name and surname) and got angry at me when they found out that wasn't a real person (even though I told them it was a discussion group when making the reservation). We will hopefully be upstairs, as that was a nice quiet place last time, but there is a party of 100 people up there from 16:00 until an unspecified time, so our reservation is for "the quietest area of the bar".

We may do some rationality games/exercises if people are interested. I will prepare something small (probably along the lines of paranoid debating) and if it works out well, we can try something more involved in later meetups.

As always, newcomers are extremely welcome. All we ask for in someone at our meetups is that they be willing to listen and learn, and we're pretty lax about the former, and have no way of measuring the latter, so please feel free to join us, no matter your age/rationality experience/any other thing that would sway you to not do so.

See you there.