trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Where do dualists go wrong?
by AlephNeil — 2011-03-31T08:56:27.796Z

The latest zombie debates have made me reflect on how a purely philosophical dispute may lack any resolution and yet be harmless as long as the consequences of a 'confused' position don't leak out into the world. Hence, I've brainstormed a short list of practical ways in which dualists may go wrong. (And yes, one or two of the 'dualist errors' are standard LW positions!)

Undue skepticism about the minds of artificial intelligences, leading to the possibility of prejudice. (Jaron Lanier assumes, as a matter of faith, that people are metaphysically special in a way that no AI could possibly be. His belief would have the potential to become ethically monstrous precisely at the point when AGI emerged.)

A desire to answer the misguided question: "What evolutionary benefit is conferred by phenomenal consciousness (as distinct from the merely 'functional' abilities to learn, represent the environment, introspect on one's own state etc)?"

A belief that the 'all or nothing' nature of consciousness is detectable somehow. That psychology is incomplete until it tracks down 'neural correlates of consciousness' that respect this 'all or nothingness', and can resolve all of Dennett's Orwellian vs Stalinesque disputes.

Grave skepticism about 'simulationism' leading to skewed ethics / decision theory. For instance, believing that it would be or might be catastrophic if the earth were replaced by a perfectly and reliably simulated earth.

Belief in transtemporal identity leading to skewed ethics / decision theory: Believing that one would 'die' in a teleporter. Vastly overestimating the value of cryonics. (Yes, I think these two are sides of the same coin.)

Belief in the existence of a duality between 'mental states' and the underlying physical state suggesting 'utilitarianism' in which all moral value is supervenient on mental states, irrespective of the wider universe.

Being under the mistaken impression that there is something meritorious, useful or valuable about the practice of discussing certain philosophical questions (e.g. those concerning the persistence of subjective identity, or whether/how we can know that physiologically normal people have minds, and have non-inverted qualia).

Inference from 'consciousness' to the necessity to wreck our best models of physics in some way. (Penrose seeking a non-algorithmic quantum gravity, Chalmers endorsing 'consciousness causes

...
Reading the Sequences before Starting to Post: Costs and Benefits
by Normal_Anomaly — 2011-03-31T02:01:56.175Z

This post arose from this discussion in the "Philosophy: a Diseased Discipline" post.

Current Practice

There have been several conversations lately about the costs and benefits of scholarship, the effort of reading the sequences, and attempts to repackage the sequence material in an easier form [1]. There also used to be a practice on LW of telling newbies who weren't producing good content to come back when they'd read the sequences. However, David Gerard, who has been paying more attention than me, has noticed that this practice has stopped. One plausible explanation is that the stoppage is due to a rising awareness of the effort that reading the sequences takes.

In an impromptu unscientific poll, 10 respondents said that they had read the sequences while still lurking on LW, 3 that they read them after creating accounts, and 8 that they had read them while they were still on OB. Nobody said that they still hadn't read the sequences [2]. So, assuming that this roughly represents the status quo, most LW posts/comments come from people who have read the sequences. The questions are: One, is this situation changing (are fewer people reading the sequences than in the past)? And two, should it change, and in what direction?

To answer this, one needs to look at the costs and benefits.

Costs

Length: The sequences comprise over a million words, not counting the comments. They cover material as diverse as semantics, quantum theory, cognitive science, metaethics, and how to write a good eutopia.

Interdependency: Each post in a sequence requires understanding of the previous posts in that sequence, and sometimes posts from earlier sequences. As well as being a source of intimidating and annoying tab explosions, this exacerbates the problem of length. It's hard to read the sequences except going through large chunks systematically, so they can't be broken up and read in a person's spare time.

Possible Memetic Hazard: Some of the ideas in the Sequences are controversial [3]. These points are often clearly marked in the posts and debated in the comments, so they won't sneak up on anyone; on the other hand, Memetic Hazard was used to describe controversial topics here, so at least someone thinks it's a problem. Some potential readers may not want to be exposed to treatments of controversial issues that argue for one side before they read balanced overviews. Also, dis...
Reflections on rationality a year out
by  — 2011-03-31T01:35:50.905Z

Edited for concreteness.

Exactly one year ago, LessWrong helped me change my mind about something important.

Since then, my life has been changing very rapidly, as a direct result of the rationalist community. I got in touch with other rationalists in person, which made my social life vastly more interesting (not to say surreal). My plans for the future have definitely shifted a bit. I began a deliberate habit of trying new things and learning new skills, and facing up to my flaws, often with advice from LessWrongers or IRL rationalist friends.

A few examples: I improved my diet (paleo), tried yoga, took up cognitive behavioral therapy to work on some chronic insecurities, moved Python from the "wish I knew" box to the "have a detailed plan to learn" box, dared to publish some popular-science articles under my real name, learned to do Fermi calculations in my head. I also noticed that my habits of thought have been changing: for one thing, I'm getting better calibrated about probabilities -- I'm better at estimating how I did on schoolwork. For another thing, I'm getting better at not reflexively dismissing non-standard ideas: the first time someone mentioned me that a good statistician could make a lot of money in car insurance by finding new correlations to monetize, I thought "Car insurance? Hmph, low status." The second time I heard that suggestion, about five months later, I thought "Hey, that's a decent idea." Some of these changes have begun to show results -- the time-management habits* I came up with have started to improve my academic performance, and I notice I'm far less inhibited about taking the initiative to work on projects (I have a couple of interesting balls in the air now, including a business idea and some volunteer work for SIAI, whereas I used to be very reluctant to volunteer for things.) I've become much more open to cold-emailing people who work on interesting things (on one occasion I got a job offer out of an AI researcher); I'm more comfortable viewing myself as a junior member of the Interesting-People Club. I made a unilateral decision to be happier, and though I hate to jinx it, I think it's working.

I say this just to offer evidence that something about "rationality" works. I'm not sure what it is; many of the components of LessWrong-style rationality exist ...
Guilt: Another Gift Nobody Wants
by Scott Alexander — 2011-03-31T00:27:15.271Z

Evolutionary psychology has made impressive progress in understanding the origins of morality. Along with the many posts about these origins on Less Wrong I recommend Robert Wright's The Moral Animal for an excellent introduction to the subject.
Guilt does not naturally fall out of these explanations. One can imagine a mind design that although often behaving morally for the same reasons we do, sometimes decides a selfish approach is best and pursues that approach without compunction. In fact, this design would have advantages; it would remove a potentially crippling psychological burden, prevent loss of status from admission of wrongdoing, and allow more rational calculation of when moral actions are or are not advantageous. So why guilt?
In one of the few existing writings I could find on the subject, Tooby and Cosmides theorize that "guilt functions as an emotion mode specialized for recalibration of regulatory variables that control trade-offs in welfare between self and other."
If I understand their meaning, they are saying that when an action results in a bad outcome, guilt is a byproduct of updating your mental processes so that it doesn't happen again. In their example, if you don't share food with your sister, and your sister starves and becomes sick, your brain gives you a strong burst of negative emotion around the event so that you reconsider your decision not to share. It is generally a bad idea to disagree with Tooby and Cosmides, but this explanation doesn't satisfy me for several reasons.
First, guilt is just as associated with good outcomes as bad outcomes. If I kill my brother so I can inherit the throne, then even if everything goes according to plan and I become king, I may still feel guilt. But why should I recalibrate here? My original assumptions - that fratricide would be easy and useful - were entirely correct. But I am still likely to feel bad about it. In fact, some criminals report feeling "relieved" when caught, as if a negative outcome decreased their feelings of guilt instead of exacerbating them.
Second, guilt is not only an emotion, but an entire complex of behaviors. Our modern word self-flagellation comes from the old practice of literally whipping one's self out of feelings of guilt or unworthiness. We may not literally self-flagellate anymore, but when I feel guilty I am less likely to do activities I enjoy and more likely t...
Size of the smallest recursively self-improving AI?
by Alex Flint — 2011-03-30T23:31:52.022Z

For no reason in particular I'm wondering about the size of the smallest program that would constitute a starting point of a recursively self-improving AI.

The analysis of FOOM as a self-amplifying process would seem to indicate that in principle one could get it started from a relatively modest starting point -- perhaps just a few bytes of the right code could begin the process. Or could it? I wonder whether any other considerations give tighter lower-bounds.

One consideration is that FOOM hasn't already happened -- at least not here on Earth. If the smallest FOOM seed were very small (like a few hundred bytes) then we would expect evolution to have already bumped into it at some point. Although evolution is under no specific pressure to produce a FOOM, it has probably produced over the last few billion years all the interesting computations up to some minor level of complexity, and if there were a FOOM seed among those then we would see the results about us.

Then there is the more speculative analysis of what minimal expertise the algorithm constituting the FOOM seed would actually need.

Then there is the fact that any algorithm that naively enumerates some space of algorithms qualifies in some sense as a FOOM seed as it will eventually hit on some recursively self-improving AI. But that could take gigayears so is really not FOOM in the usual sense.

I wonder also whether the fact that mainstream AI hasn't yet produced FOOM could lower-bound the complexity of doing so.

Note that here I'm referring to recursively self-improving AI in general -- I'd be interested if the answers to these questions change substantially for the special case of friendly AIs.

Anyway, just idle thoughts, do add yours.
Software for Critical Thinking, Prof. Geoff Cumming
by Mike Bishop — 2011-03-30T17:13:07.976Z

Prof. Geoff Cumming has done some interesting work. Of particular relevance to the LW community, he has studied software for enhancing critical thinking.

My past research: I worked on Computer tools for enhancing critical thinking, with Tim van Gelder. We studied argument mapping, and Tim’s wonderful Reason!Able software for critical thinking. This has proved very effective in university and school classrooms as the basis for effective enhancement of critical thinking. In an ARC-funded project we evaluated the software and Tim’s related educational materials. We found evidence that a one semester critical thinking course, based on Reason!Able, gives a very substantial increase—considerably greater than reported in previous evaluations of critical thinking courses—in performance on standardised tests.

Tim’s software has been further developed by his company Austhink Software, and is now available commercially as Rationale and bCisive: both are fabulous! http://www.austhink.org/ http://bcisive.austhink.com/
Advice in fighting depression?
by N_R — 2011-03-30T09:09:29.865Z

My girlfriend suffers serious depression. She has sleep disorder, anorexia, chronic pain, problems to concentrate, low selfesteem, daily low mood, listlessness and is very indecisive. On the other side she considers herself very happy apart from the "depression periods" and we have a great time together. We already consulted a psychotherapist, but there is waiting time about one month. I buyed her fishoil capsules, because she eats no fish and there is mild evidence that it helps treating depression (I don't think this will affect her depression greatly, but fishoil seems like an overall good idea). We often go on walks to catch some sunlight and get her some exercise.

She says she never want's to take antidepressants because she fears to get dependent from them. I think she might change her mind if there are very good arguments in favour of them. She is quite rational in spite of not knowing the LW-stuff. Does anybody of you know if there is any information of the succes rate of medicamentous (and psycho therapeutic) treatment available?

I highly appreciate any advice.

Furthermore i want to call attention to the topic of depression. A huge share of the population suffers at least once in their lifetime under depression (~20% in Germany). Sadly it's often not taken serious and a big taboo to speak about. Many people see it as self-inflicted. My girlfriend's mother doesn't believe in depression as a disease (see diseased thinking). It's a paradigm of irrationality that hurts people.
San Francisco Meetup 4/4 7:00 PM
by bisserlis — 2011-03-30T03:56:54.948Z

Monday April 4th at 7:00 PM

Green Papaya

825 Mission Street (4th and Mission)

San Francisco, CA 94103

Announcing the creation of a third Bay Area LW meetup, San Francisco! The first meeting of the San Francisco group will be this coming Monday, April 4th, from 7:00-9:00 at Green Papaya near 4th and Mission. We'll be introducing ourselves, talking about what about rationality interests each of us, and having fun! Please join us! If you have urgent questions regarding this meetup (need directions, at the location but can't find the group, &c) please call Ben Isserlis at *edit: elided*.

If you've never been to a LessWrong meetup before and feel awkward just showing up, or if you think you haven't read enough of the Sequences and won't fit in, stop thinking that! All weekly meetings of SF Bay LessWrong groups are newcomer-friendly, and many people who come are in the same boat.

If you want to stay informed about upcoming events in the Bay Area, join the Bay Area LessWrong Google Group! Not all events or meetups will be posted to LessWrong, so stay on top of local events and discussions by subscribing.

See you soon!
Mental Metadata
by Alicorn — 2011-03-30T03:07:08.057Z

Once when I was probably eleven-ish, I asked a friend of my family who had just gotten a new car, "What kind of car is it?" He began to tell me the make and model and the interesting features of this particular vehicle.

I interrupted him, and said, "I meant, what color is it?"

This is just a mildly cute story about how little I knew or cared about cars at age eleven-ish, but it uncovers a communication issue that applies to people who are not eleven-ish anymore. I should have just asked in the first place what color the car was, since that was what I wanted to know. Asking what kind it was allowed a misunderstanding to creep into the interaction, since "kind" doesn't have a fixed meaning as regards cars and my interlocutor attached his own understanding of the question when he interpreted it. I didn't correctly pin down the metadata of my question, so he didn't know what kind of answer I was looking for.

Garbled or missing metadata can cost time and cause fights, so I have developed a number of techniques to mitigate or eliminate it, both incoming and outgoing. They're pretty simple to apply, and bringing them to bear early is very instrumentally useful both for social and informational reasons.

Ask yourself what kind of answer you're looking for, then ask a question that calls for that kind of answer, or give an example of what would constitute a good answer to the person you're asking. Examples of extensions/replacements for the question "What kind of house are you going to build?"

"Will it be, like, a cute suburban place with azaleas out front?"

"I bet you're going with a brick facade, am I right?"

"What square footage are you looking at, ballpark?"

For numerical inquiries that your interlocutor cannot seem to answer, pick one or more threshold numbers (surprisingly often, people who have "no idea" how to answer a numerical question can tell you whether the answer is greater or lesser than an arbitrary quantity). Explain why you need the information. Or ask for a related more-concrete detail that will give you an adequate estimate. Examples of extensions/replacements for the question "How many people are coming to the party?"

"Is it more, or fewer, than 40 guests?"

"I'm just trying to figure out how many boxes of plastic forks to buy - they come in 50ct boxes, and it'd be better to have extra than to fall

...
Timescales Matter
by paulfchristiano — 2011-03-30T02:50:36.129Z

In an interview with John Baez, Eliezer responds:

I’ll try to answer the question about timescales, but first let me explain in some detail why I don’t think the decision should be dominated by that question.

He was in part addressing the tradeoff between environmental work and work on technology related to AGI or other existential risks. In this context I agree with his position.

But more broadly, as a person setting out into the wold and deciding what I should do with each moment, the question about timescales is one of the most important issues bearing on my decision and my uncertainty about it (coupled with the difficulty of acquiring evidence) is almost physically painful.

If AGI is likely in the next couple of decades (I am rather skeptical) then long-term activism or outreach are probably pointless. If AGI is not likely within this century (which also seems unlikely) then working on AGI is probably pointless.

I believe it is quite possible that I am smart enough to have a significant effect on the course of whatever field I participate in. I also believe I could have a significant impact on the number of altruistic rationalists in the world. It seems likely that one of these options is way better than the other, and spending some time figuring out which one (and answering related, more specific questions) seems important. One of the most important ingredients in that calculation is a question of timescales. I don't trust the opinion of anyone involved with the SIAI. I don't trust the opinion of anyone in the mainstream. (In both cases I am happy to update on evidence they provide.) I don't have any good ideas on how to improve my estimate, but it feels like I should be able to.

I encounter relatively smart people giving estimates completely out of line with mine which would radically alter my behavior if I believed them. What argument have I not thought through? What evidence have I not seen? I like to believe that smart, rational people don't disagree too dramatically about questions of fact that they have huge stakes in. General confusion about AI was fine when I had it walled off in a corner of my brain with other abstruse speculation, but now that the question matters to me my uncertainty seems more dire.
Towards an Algorithm for (Human) Self-Modification
by moridinamael — 2011-03-29T23:40:26.774Z

LessWrong is wonderful. Life-changing. Best thing that ever happened to me.

But it's not really enough to make one a rationalist, is it? I don't assimilate or even remember all of the knowledge contained in what I read, and I certainly don't dynamically incorporate it into my life-strategy.

Say you want your computer to be able to open Microsoft Word files. In order to do this, you do not upload a PDF which contains a description of how Microsoft Word works. No, you install the program and then you run the program.

Over several months of reading LessWrong I found myself wishing I had (a) computer program(s) that could train me to be a rationalist instead of a website that told me about how to be a rationalist. I would read an article with a tremendous sense of excitement, thinking to myself, "This is it, I have to implement this insight into my life. This is a change that I must realize." But I would inevitably hit a mental wall when I saw that just knowing that something was a good idea didn't actually rewire my brain toward better cognitive habits.

I wanted a rationality installer.

I found myself in the midst of a personal crisis. I came to suspect that the reason for my unhappiness and akrasia was that my goals and my actions had become decoupled - I just couldn't figure out where, or how.

So I set out to make a program that would help me organize what my actual terminal goals and values are, and then help me causally connect my day-to-day activities with these goals and values. The idea was to create a kind of tree with end-goals at the parents and daily tasks as the children. The resulting application was not very user-friendly, but it still worked.

With the help of my program, I saw that a year ago, I was very happy with my life because all the activities I pursued on a daily basis were very high-utility and directly connected to the achievement of my goals. I saw that I had recently formed a new long-term goal, the existence of which altered my utility function, but I had not altered my life to sufficiently accommodate this new goal. I made some changes in my life which I thought were going to be painful sacrifices, but ended up feeling exactly right once I crossed the threshold. It shocked me how quickly I felt better, how completely I returned to "normal."

And I t...
Audio from Eliezer's talk at the Oxford Transhumanists
by Alex Flint — 2011-03-29T21:31:35.562Z

In January we hosted Eliezer at an Oxford Transhumanists meeting. He spoke about why AI is such an incredibly consequential consideration, over and above other technologies. This will not be new material for regular lesswrong readers. The recordings from Eliezer's talk, along with previous talks, are available at http://groupspaces.com/oxfordtranshumanists/pages/past-talks.