trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
The 'Why's of an International Auxiliary Language (IAL part 1)
by Long try — 2022-02-08T04:39:38.152Z

Background

This whole thing can be seen as either a post or a question asking for fellow forum members' opinions. I've been wanting to write this for a long time, but I was not sure of my ability to properly do it. Thankfully, some new posts on LW gave me the needed encouragement.
That said, I don't frequent LW enough, so my knowledge base and vocabulary regarding rationality is limited. Despite that, I've never doubted myself as a rational person.
I have this dream of co-creating a great IAL and helping to spread it to every corner of the world. However, I'm not exactly in a decent position to realize the dream, and I'm planning to change that. This change will be quite drastic and require me to take a lot of risks; therefore I want to make a final check with people on LW to ensure whether my big aspiration is really worthwhile to pursue (and sacrifice many things for).

The IAL scenario

Suppose that tomorrow, every single person on Earth wakes up and somehow knows at least 2 languages: a mother tongue and a particular "Z" - an IAL. Z can be any existing or imaginary language. How different is that future world, compared to what we had yesterday?

My imagination

Being able to communicate with everyone means we can travel and study and work anywhere.
It also means it’s easier relocate to the place of our heart’s desire. This level of social mobility is especially helpful to people with severe disadvantages in our "previous" world; for example, an Afghan woman could find a job in Brazil to support her three children, as she flees from the Taliban regime.
One of the aspects of the world that the IAL will radically change the most is education. One can go to their dream school(s) to study. In case people can’t travel, they can still learn online, now that the best courses are all available in a language they can understand. And even if some unfortunate souls in very underdeveloped countries don’t have access to neither the internet nor books, volunteers from the first world will face no linguistic problems in their noble work of teaching them and pulling them out from such dark, hopeless holes. Since education is the key for getting out of the malicious poverty cycle, this will bring fundamental change to a major portion of the world’s population.
Higher quality of life will inevitably lead to lower birth rate, so the IAL will help with the overpopulating

...
Meditation and Neuroscience, some odds and ends
by MarkL — 2022-02-08T01:47:49.727Z

[cross-posted to my blog]

[About me: I'm the meditationstuff guy and the "folding" guy. I have a PhD in bioengineering, during which I did work with human clinical EEG (and also audited neuroscience and machine learning classes), but I'm not a neuroscientist, and I didn't run this by any practicing researchers before hitting publish.]

As an introduction, I wanted to just mention up front that I'm not going to talk about predictive processing, artificial neural networks, GPT-N, neural annealing, the free energy principle, jhanas, amygdalae, cerebella, agent-based models of mind, and a bunch of other stuff. Good stuff, though!

What follows are a sprinkling of popular and academic neuroscience references that have been resonant to me as a long-term meditator and meditation writer/teacher. I don't write a lot about neuroscience because it's paradigmatically changing too fast. So, instead, in other places, I try to to talk about meditation in a contemporary-yet-timeless way, hopefully future-proofed (using philosophical, folk, and mathy language). But, in the conclusion, here, I talk a very tiny bit about my vision for meditation instructions that are rendered in a neuroscientific ontology "all the way down."

I think meditation is a bit contentious in parts of the LessWrong community, out of concern for individuals and the wider community. I personally don't recommend that most people meditate, but I would generally like people to know that (I personally believe that) "there's a there, there," in the spirit of truth-seeking and because, for some subset of people (I claim!), it's really valuable. In the conclusion, I warn against "naively operationalizing" neuroscientific writing about meditation, and I list a bunch of peer-reviewed studies on meditative risks. Finally, I've left out a few possible sections that I thought were particularly tempting to "operationalize."

Finally, I wrote this all in one go, so that it would definitely ship, and it becomes progressively less coherent through to the end (I think).

A meta-representational level of organization and computation

According to wikipedia, "somatotopy" is the point-for-point correspondence of an area of the body to a specific point on the central nervous system. We know that amputation or deafferentation changes an organism's somatotopy and that these changes progress over time. It's relatively uncontroversial that ...
Paradigm-building: Introduction
by Cameron Berg — 2022-02-08T00:06:28.771Z

John Wentworth has described the current phase of AGI safety research as preparadigmatic—that is (courtesy of the APA), “a science at a [very early] stage of development, before it has achieved a paradigm and established a consensus about the true nature of the subject matter and how to approach it.” Here is my attempt to sketch this a bit more systematically:

Here, I have divided the problem-solving space into three stages: (1) figuring out what phenomenon we actually want to understand, (2) figuring out what the right questions are to throw at the goal of understanding that phenomenon, and (3) figuring out what the right answers are to those questions. (I note that (3) probably also entails the implementation of new tools that help answer the relevant questions—for biology, the microscope; for astronomy, the telescope, and so on).

Under this framing, I think that claiming that the field of AGI safety is preparadigmatic means that the field finds itself in a ‘pre-(3)’ stage of development—i.e., AGI safety researchers are still figuring out (1) the nature of the problem, (2) the right questions to ask, (2), or both. Accordingly, my goal in creating this sequence is to propose what I think (1) and (2) should be. In other words, my aim here is to attempt to nail (at least some of) what the right questions are for AGI safety research rather than offer any thoughts about right answers. We need the former before we have any hope of ever securing the latter.

For new and seasoned researchers alike, I hope that this sequence might serve as complementary to Richard Ngo’s extensively-read AGI safety from first principles. Richard’s sequence works from first principles towards a compelling account of why the development of AGI might pose an existential threat (i.e., what the problem is and why it is important; more like (1), above). By contrast, my goal in this sequence is to move from first principles towards a general framework for actually conducting AGI safety research (i.e., what questions we should attempt to answer in order to solve the problem; more like (2), above). Lots of good work has already been done on some of the framing problems I will discuss, but I definitely still think that creating a sequence devoted exclusively to paradigm-building is a necessary and useful addition to the AGI safety toolkit.

I was motivated to write this bi...
Reverse engineering of the simulation
by Jan Betley — 2022-02-07T21:36:35.874Z

Let's say you decided a best way to achieve some goal is to create a simulation. You'll almost certainly have to balance:

The accuracy of the simulation, i.e. how well it describes some "real" conditions you intend to model.

The cost of preparing and running the simulation, e.g. the necessary computing resources.

Note that this is true regardless of the purpose and complexity of the simulation - be it weather modelling, or a civ-like computer game.

Consider a following assumption:

We live in a simulation created by some entities who had the dilemma described above and they decided perfect accuracy is not necessary.

This gives us a sort-of-an-answer to the question "what is behind the laws of physics?": they are approximations of some other laws that would be harder to compute. Therefore, maybe we could try to devise:

the "true" laws that govern the thing our world is modelling

the "accuracy metric" for the simulation

and observe how they together lead to the laws of physics we see?

I know and understand how speculative this is. Nevertheless, I find this really interesting. So, the question: is there any literature approaching the simulation hypothesis from this direction? Anything I could read?

EDIT:
The meaning of the "simulation" in this context differs - I think - from the default. In this POV, the world we live in is the "hardware" built with a purpose of simulating something even more complex. In other words, there is no question e.g. "how they simulate our quantum mechanics" but rather "why implement quantum mechanics the way they did".
A Solution to the Desire-Action Conundrum
by ship_shlap — 2022-02-07T18:00:30.953Z

Note: This post will contain a good amount of philosophical ideas. It has been sectioned for ease.

What is the desire-action conundrum? Let's begin by looking at Buddhism's Four Noble Truths:

The truth of suffering. Life will almost always contain suffering
The truth of the origin of suffering. Desire, attachment and cravings cause suffering
The truth of the cessation of suffering. Removing desire, attachment and cravings will get rid our suffering
The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering. This includes acts of meditation, living ethically and the deepening of wisdom to achieve enlightenment.

2. Let's look at a Stoic point of view for desires. A rudimentary understanding of Stoicism is that it is all about focusing on what you can control in life (for example, for an exam you can't control the exam questions that you receive, but you can control how you study for it), and it states that your feelings should be based on how well you are focused on things you can control in life. An ideal Stoic is always only focused on what they can control, so by that logic, they will always feel content. A focus on things you can't control, such as the satisfaction of a desire (for example, a farmer desires great crop yield, but the weather is out of his control) then you will feel angry, annoyed, unhappy and unsatisfied when your desire can't get fulfilled. One of the founders of Stoicism wrote:

The faculty of desire purports to aim at securing what you want…If you fail in your desire, you are unfortunate, if you experience what you would rather avoid you are unhappy…For desire, suspend it completely for now

-Epictetus, Enchiridion, 2.1-2

3. Taoism has many interesting ideas, and one is Wu Wei. Wu Wei means non-action. It refers more towards the desires underlying our action/improvement. But at many times in it's book called the Tao Te Ching, it also hints at literal non-action; you don't need to improve. After understanding the concept of desires under Buddhism, Stoicism, and Taoism, it makes sense that desires are flawed. They may work for now, but in the long run, they can be mentally damaging.

The general model of desire that these three philosophies try to explain is shown below:

Figure 1: The general model of desires. The post will assume this model is true.

4. However, improvement and action are inherent parts of human nature, and to be motivated fo...
Building cars we don’t understand
by pchvykov — 2022-02-07T16:55:03.222Z

Alright, so in the last post I was talking about growing cars (yes, I’m pretending this is a talk-show). I tried to argue that the difference between growing cars or building them is really just a matter of perspective. In my personal experience, having never worked at or even come close to a car factory, both apples and cars magically appear in stores, and both are happy to be mine if I am willing to part with some money. In contrast, a hobbyist trying to build their own car is extremely aware that cars don’t just grown on trees. So what exactly would we like to achieve by somehow engineering a “car tree”?

Perhaps the key point is how much human involvement goes into the production process. However, with ever-increasing levels of automation, we can imagine a car factory run entirely by robots (like Tesla is trying to be). Still, such scenario seems materially distinct from the idea of actually growing cars. To me, this distinction seems to be not in what humans do to produce cars, but rather in what humans know — in other words, it’s about information! In an autonomous car-factory, we have still designed every bit of the production process in full detail, and also spent quite a lot of effort to make the robots working there. In contrast, an apple tree grows apples without us even understanding how (morphogenesis is murky business, still). Worse yet, neither do we understand how an apple seed grows into a tree. Nor how apple seeds develop (ok, we understand a bit, but not at the level we understand cars).

So we seem to have arrived at the conclusion that if we really want to “grow cars,” we must find a way to do this without ever knowing how we are doing it (else it would still really be “build”). That seems a bit paradoxical — how do we create something we inherently don’t understand? Well, notoriously, neural networks seem to be just that: we have no clue how they work even though we build them, and yet they seem to be quite good at what they do. So “growing cars” could, in some sense, also realize some black-box learning algorithm — but now directly in the physical world. The learning would then be what makes the “fruits” act like cars: we could optimize some set of desired criteria, like speed and comfort. This way all the information about design would be somehow generated by the learning algorithm, rather then by engineers.

Alright, does this seem to be g...
The case for "mental strength"
by VipulNaik — 2022-02-07T15:43:20.191Z

Recently, I was thinking about the differences between physical health
and physical fitness, and wondering if there is an analogous
distinction on the mental side. Googling, I found that the term
"mental strength" is often used for the mental counterpart to physical
fitness; "mental fitness" is tied too heavily to a narrower conception
focused on intelligence and cognition.

I found this Verywell Mind
article
to be a good overview (and I recommend reading it though I don't
assume it as a prerequisite). It identifies three broad components to
mental strength: cognitive (thinking), emotional (feeling), and
behavioral (acting).

I expect that most of the rest of what I write will be fairly obvious
to many LessWrong readers, though I am not absolutely sure. I am still
going to say them, for reasons Grognor
articulated.

The post makes the most sense when read sequentially, but you can skim
it or read whatever parts interest you based on the table of
contents. The first section provides a few angles from which to think
about mental strength. In the second section, I talk a little more
about what I like about the "mental strength" concept and some of its
implications. The third section talks about the relationship between
mental strength and the LessWrong/rationality cluster.

Relation between mental strength and other concepts

Mental strength versus mental health

The Verywell Mind
article
includes a good comparison of the two concepts that I recommend
reading. I will try to summarize it in my own words, with slightly
different emphases.

Mental health is about your current mental state, or your average
mental state over time. For instance, do you often feel stress and
anxiety? Do you feel uncontrollable anger? Do you have depressive
thought patterns? Or are you generally satisfied and content with
yourself? Are you able to focus on the tasks that are important to
you?

Mental strength is about the inner capacity and resilience you have
developed (cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally) to be mentally
healthy across a range of life circumstances. Two people with the same
mental strength might have different levels of mental health based on
the circumstances they are in. However, on average, for people in
similar circumstances, greater mental strength is likely to lead to
greater mental health. (This is a bit of a simplification as neither
mental health nor mental strengt...
Decreasing Isolation Further
by jefftk — 2022-02-07T14:00:05.244Z

The timing of the omicron spike was hard on everyone, but I felt
especially bad about how it impacted Lily (7y) and Anna (5y). For
months we had been telling them that while they couldn't do various
things they would be able to do them once they were fully vaccinated,
and then two weeks—almost to the day—after their second
shots Omicron hit our area. So, with the Omicron spike past us, it
was really nice for them to be able to have their first indoor
playdate with classmates yesterday.

We, and their classmates parents, were ok with it because of how covid
has progressed here:

Statewide Cases (MA
DPH):

Boston Wastwater Data (MWRA):

The trend is a bit clearer on a log scale, where you can tell that
levels are continuing to fall quickly:

Since Covid has been seasonal, similar diseases are also seasonal, and
the pattern makes some
sense, I expect levels will continue their decline, and stay low
until next fall.

In addition to indoor playdates, here are some other things we're doing
differently:

Hosting indoor gatherings: we're hosting an EA dinner
next
weekend (2/13). (We also hosted one just just
before the Omicron spike, but we're not doing rapid tests this
time.)

Organizing contra dances: the first BIDA contra dance since 2020 is
in two weeks (2/20).

Planning international travel: we're going to the UK in late April.

On the other hand, we are still making some covid-related changes to
our behavior, beyond what's required:

Nora (7m) is still quite young, in addition to being
unvaccinated. While she's past the most vulnerable period and at this
point her risks from getting sick are low, they will likely be even
lower soon and levels are still falling quickly. We're not generally
taking her indoors places if it's avoidable; for example, we wouldn't
bring her along to go shopping.

Only vaccinated guests. We aren't having anyone over unless
they are fully vaccinated (or too young to be),
and we also wouldn't go over to a friend's house unless the people
there were too.

Masks for large gatherings. For a dance like BIDA this is a
local regulation, but for the EA dinner we could have chosen not to.
This is a combination of trying to reduce risk and let more cautious
people attend.

Not going to restaurants. This wasn't something we did very
often pre-covid anyway, but since takeout is an option (and

...
Soup design: Everyone likes it, but few know how
by tomdekan — 2022-02-07T11:32:48.559Z

Soup design: Everyone likes it, but few know how

Everyone likes good design. But I think that people generally underestimate its importance. Most people don't know how to design, just like most people don't know how to cook.

Design blindness

The key point is that many people have "design blindness". They benefit from good design and suffer from bad design. But they don't realise that: a) design sense is very important (design affects every aspect of your life), b) they don't have a design sense.

This situation makes me think of someone dining at a fine Japanese restaurant. This person can tell that he likes the soup's presentation and taste. But the person has no idea about: a) how to make the food, or b) why he likes the food. If asked why he likes it, the person would say the food "tastes great", or "has a salty flavour".

Regarding interior design, I am currently sitting in a room in a house on the coast of England that I designed over several months. After my changes, I would say that the room had a sense of ordered minimalism. There were few broken visual lines, symmetries, with an emphasis on solid wood and fabric. The room was ordered, uncluttered, and calm.

My family members really liked how the room was after I changed it. Yet that didn't stop them from accidentally making the room into a cluttered mess. Perhaps attracted by the free space, they added items that grate against the room and its furniture. This includes a rectangular, shiny plastic floor mat, which they placed over the ornate, fine red carpet with the aim of "stopping the carpet from wearing out".1 They added a pile of cardboard, which now blocks an mahogany bookshelf's carved wooden branches. And a bulbous plastic printer now sits on what was a uncluttered pine table top, with paper boxes splayed around it.

This design-blindness again reminds me of cooking. Just like an enthusiastic novice chef, a person can keep adding more and more ingredients until the dish's balance is skewed and the soup is much worse than before.

People appreciated the room's design. But, lacking design ability, they changed the room to something that they like less. Everyone appreciates good and bad design. But not everyone can design.

(Cross-posted from my blog: https://www.tomdekan.com/design-blindness)
Predictions for 2050?
by FinalFormal2 — 2022-02-06T20:33:06.637Z

I recently came across this funny site: https://2050.earth/

A lot of the predictions are pretty outlandish, and some of them are actually impossible, like photosynthetic implants that replace food, but all of them are fairly interesting, and the art is pretty well done.

Obviously that far out, there's pretty high uncertainty, but do you have any predictions for what factors could be the most influential?
Misleading Boiler Error Message
by jefftk — 2022-02-06T19:50:04.600Z

This morning we woke up to a cold house and a sad furnace:

The furnace is a Burnham Alpine 150 (ALP150BW-4T02) that we installed
in Fall 2015, not long after we bought the house. No issues before
this. It had a diagnostic ("Limit String Status") where it explained
why it was refusing to start:

This initially looks like two faults: one with the Condensate Float
Switch (ours doesn't have Thermal Link or Burner Door sensors) and
then one with the Gas Press Switch / Low Water Cutoff / Flow Switch /
External Hi Limit. But checking the manual it says:

Interlock input limit items are wired in series.
Items down stream of the open limit will also appear as
"open" (measure zero volts). When the first item in the
string is resolved (repaired, or fixed) the down stream
items will also be fixed.

There's also a diagram to illustrate:

This tells us there is one thing wrong, and it is in the condensate
system, right? Unfortunately, no. After getting a plumber out, it
turned out that the problem was actually with the previous sensor, the
Auto Reset Hi Limit. I'm not sure how a sensor fails in a way that
the fault appeared to be at the next sensor in the string, but that's
apparently what happened.

While I'm frustrated with the diagnostic, I'm glad we have heat again!

Comment via: facebook