trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Fine-tuned for Interestingness vs. Ramsey's Theorem
by Alexandros — 2011-05-16T17:07:49.703Z

I had posted a while back on my proposed dissolution of the Fine Tuning argument. My main argument was as follows:

So the question posed to defenders of the FTA is 'why life'? Why focus on this particular fact? What is it that sets life apart from all the other propositions true about our universe but not other the other possible universes? The usual answer is that life stands out, being valuable in ways that galaxies, iPads, and all the other true propositions are not. It seems that this is an unstated premise of the FTA. But where does that premise come from? Physics gives us no instrument to measure value, so how did this concept get in what was supposed to be a cosmology-based argument?

I present the FTA here as an argument that while seemingly complex, simply evaporates in light of the Mind Projection Fallacy. Knowing that humans tend to confuse 'I see X as valuable' with 'x is valuable', the provenance of the hidden premise 'life is valuable' is laid bare, as is the identity of the agent who is doing the valuing, and it is us. With the mystery solved, explaining why humans find life valuable does not require us to go to the extreme lengths of introducing a non-naturalistic cause for the universe.

In the comments, Yvain came up with a response that I admit took me by surprise, if only because this is not the FTA that I had been exposed to (emphasis added):

The conditions necessary for life are also necessary for iPads: the argument hinges on things like the ability of subatomic particles to come together to form atoms, or the ability of stars to burn. It's not a question of one interesting type of complexity versus another, but of a vast selection space of universes in which there is nothing complex or interesting, versus a tiny space of universes in which there are many interesting things like iPads and life.

I admit this explanation lacks a rigorous definition of "interesting", but I think the least that can be said is that our universe is interesting in being a wild outlier in various physical and mathematical characteristics, and not just "interesting to beings with the same value system as ourselves".

I've been pondering how to process that response, and if the argument is salvageable, ever since. Do we really have to explain anthropics and the multiverse to diffuse the FTA?

Today I came across a great article with an elega...
[SEQ RERUN] Chronophone Motivations
by badger — 2011-05-16T16:29:25.640Z

Today's post, Chronophone Motivations was originally published on March 24, 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

If you want to really benefit humanity, do some original thinking, especially about areas of application, and directions of effort. The point of the chronophone dilemma is to make us think about what kind of cognitive policies are good to follow when you don't know your destination in advance.

This post is part of a series rerunning Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts so that those interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Archimedes's Chronophone, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
[LINK] Two articles on Bitcoin
by David_Gerard — 2011-05-16T14:36:00.762Z

Tangential, but a subject of some local interest:

Why Bitcoin will fail by Avery Pennarun. "The sky isn't red." Thesis:

The gold standard was a bad idea.

Even if it [Bitcoin] was a good idea, governments will squash it.

The whole technological basis (cryptosystem) is flawed.

It doesn't work offline.

I'm not sure I buy these and am not competent to evaluate his claims on 3., but would like others' critique.

L019: Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen by Jason Calacanis. A rather more enthusiastic viewpoint of the project:

Bitcoin is a technologically sound project.

Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.

Bitcoin is the most dangerous open-source project ever created.

Bitcoin may be the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.

Bitcoin is a political statement by technological libertarians.

Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.

The actual text contains many more caveats than the eye-catching selection of points above.
Future Filters [draft]
by snarles — 2011-05-16T12:42:02.466Z

See Katja Grace's article: http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/05/13/anthropic-principles-and-existential-risks/

There are two comments I want to make about the above article.

First: the resolution to God's Coin Toss seems fairly straightforward. I argue that the following scenario is formally equivalent to 'God's Coin Toss'

"Dr. Evil's Machine"

Dr. Evil has a factory for making clones. The factory has 1000 separate identical rooms. Every day, a clone is produced in each room at 9:00 AM. However, there is a 50% chance of malfunction, in which case 900 of the clones suddenly die by 9:30 AM, the remaining 100 are healthy and notice nothing. At the end of the day Dr. Evil ships off all the clones which were produced and restores the rooms to their original state.

You wake up at 10:00 AM and learn that you are one of the clones produced in Dr. Evil's factory, and your learn all of the information above. What is the probability that that the machine malfunctioned today?

In the second reformulation, the answer is clear from Bayes' rule. Let P(M) be the probability of malfunction, and P(S) be the probability that you are alive at 10:00 AM. From the information given, we have

P(M) = 1/2

P(~M) = 1/2

P(S|M) = 1/10

P(S|~M) = 1

Therefore,

P(S) = P(S|M) P(M) + P(S|~M)P(~M) = (1/2)(1/10) + (1/2)(1) = 11/20

P(M|S) = P(S|M) P(M)/P(S) = (1/20)/(11/20) = 1/11

That is, given the information you have, you should conclude that the probability that the machine malfunctioned is 1/11.

The second comment concerns Grace's reasoning about future filters.

I will assume that the following model is a fair representation of Grace's argument about relative probabilities for the first and second filters.

Future Filter Model I

Given: universe with N planets, T time steps. Intelligent life can arise on a planet at most once.

At each time step:

each surviving intelligent species becomes permanently visible to all other species with probability c (the third filter probability)

each surviving intelligent species self-destructs with probability b (the second filter probability)

each virgin planet produces an intelligent species with probability a (the first filter probability)

Suppose N=one billion, T=one million. Put uniform priors on a, b, c, and the current time t (an integer between 1 and T).

Your species appeared on your planet at unknown tim...
Bangalore Meetup: 28th May
by  — 2011-05-16T06:36:41.406Z

Bangalore hopefully has enough LessWrongers to have its own meet up. I suggest having one in the afternoon on Saturday, 28th May at Cubbon Park Bandstand. (Behind the high court in Cubbon park).

I commit to be there from 4 pm-7 pm with a LW meetup sign and a book (can't commit to which book I'll be reading two weeks hence, so will edit that in later. I'll be wearing a red kurta though). Since I don't know any Bangaloreans here and have never stood around in a public park holding up a sign before, comments showing interest will be much appreciated as morale-boosters. :)

I'm open to suggestions regarding both time and place.
Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
by lukeprog — 2011-05-16T06:28:37.021Z

Part of the sequence: No-Nonsense Metaethics. Also see: A Human's Guide to Words.

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Albert: "Of course it does. What kind of silly question is that? Every time I've listened to a tree fall, it made a sound, so I'll guess that other trees falling also make sounds. I don't believe the world changes around when I'm not looking."

Barry: "Wait a minute. If no one hears it, how can it be a sound?"

Albert and Barry are not arguing about facts, but about definitions:

...the first person is speaking as if 'sound' means acoustic vibrations in the air; the second person is speaking as if 'sound' means an auditory experience in a brain. If you ask "Are there acoustic vibrations?" or "Are there auditory experiences?", the answer is at once obvious. And so the argument is really about the definition of the word 'sound'.

Of course, Albert and Barry could argue back and forth about which definition best fits their intuitions about the meaning of the word. Albert could offer this argument in favor of using his definition of sound:

My computer's microphone can record a sound without anyone being around to hear it, store it as a file, and it's called a 'sound file'. And what's stored in the file is the pattern of vibrations in air, not the pattern of neural firings in anyone's brain. 'Sound' means a pattern of vibrations.

Barry might retort:

Imagine some aliens on a distant planet. They haven't evolved any organ that translates vibrations into neural signals, but they still hear sounds inside their own head (as an evolutionary biproduct of some other evolved cognitive mechanism). If these creatures seem metaphysically possible to you, then this shows that our concept of 'sound' is not dependent on patterns of vibrations.

If their debate seems silly to you, I have sad news. A large chunk of moral philosophy looks like this. What Albert and Barry are doing is what philosophers call conceptual analysis.1

The trouble with conceptual analysis

I won't argue that everything that has ever been called 'conceptual analysis' is misguided.2 Instead, I'll give examples of common kinds of conceptual analysis that corrupt discussions of morality and other subj...
Houston Hackerspace Meetup: Sunday May 22, 5:00PM
by Cog — 2011-05-16T04:23:39.390Z

Sunday May 22, 5:00PM

TX/RX Hackerspace

2010 Commerce St

Houston, TX 77002

Goals:

In general, to become more awesome. In specific, to learn about cognitive biases as a group, figure out how to become less wrong, and have fun while doing it. We also may experiment with integrating a hackerspace, which already has several lesswrongians, into the group. The first meeting will mostly be a meet and greet to establish future directions, with perhaps a video lecture and discussion on cognitive biases depending on the time constraints of the people who come. The door to the building will have a sign marked Less Wrong, and the nearby empty lot can be used for parking.

Dvorak, a thus far much more active member in the community, will be providing me with support in organizing the group.

Edit:

There will be pizza. Also, a pictoral view

This is the set of buildings that the hackerspace is in. It's difficult to see our front from this angle - unfortunately google maps decided to map everything but our little section of commerce street. It's near where the white truck and red motorcycle are.

And this is the empty lot that you can park in.

For more reference:

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=2010+Commerce+St.+Houston,+Tx+77002&oe=utf-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x8640bed8ed95625d:0x4c9af214d2032035,2010+Commerce+St,+Houston,+TX+77002&gl=us&ei=C9LRTYHvE8fL0QGu8OjlCw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ8gEwAA
Probability updating question - 99.9999% chance of tails, heads on first flip
by nuckingfutz — 2011-05-16T00:58:33.790Z

This isn't intended as a full discussion, I'm just a little fuzzy on how a Bayesian update or any other kind of probability update would work in this situation.

You have a coin with a 99.9999% chance of coming up tails, and a 100% chance of coming up either tails or heads.

You've deduced these odds by studying the weight of the coin. You are 99% confident of your results. You have not yet flipped it.

You have no other information before flipping the coin.

You flip the coin once. It comes up heads.

How would you update your probability estimates?

(this isn't a homework assignment; rather I was discussing with someone how strong the anthropic principle is. Unfortunately my mathematic abilities can't quite comprehend how to assemble this into any form I can work with.)
Coercion is far
by saliency — 2011-05-16T00:37:51.786Z

I was in the subway about a month ago when saw an advert for a new show The Bourgeoisie. While waiting for my train I thought about the families patriarch and the control he probably exerted over family members. I imagined the cliché of the daughter forced into a marriage for political advantage. I thought about the sacrifice for the greater good of the family that she would be coerced into making and thought how it is easier to force others to sacrifice then to sacrifice yourself. I thought that coercion may be one of the mechanisms that have enabled humans to engage and execute long term plans. If the immediate short-term costs are what most often repress long-term action then those not saddled with the short-term costs of their long-term actions will be prone to engage in more long-term action. Coercion is far.
Group of Latter Day Roleplayers
by Cyan — 2011-05-15T21:31:46.969Z

The Society for Creative Anachronism started as a backyard graduation party for a medieval studies student and grew to 32,000 members as of 2008. Does anyone have any insight into how that happened? Of particular interest would be any intersection between the SCA's mode of growth and the usual modes of growth of religions (keeping in mind that not every intersection would be worth incorporating into a strategy for raising the sanity waterline by spreading LW-style ideas and approaches).
Recovering Insufferable Genius (working title)
by Raw_Power — 2011-05-15T19:27:50.929Z

So, I was on TV Tropes creating an article, and I thought maybe you guys could help me add fictional as well as notable Real Life examples to the trope. Here's a copy of the description:

Some kids who are more intelligent than other kids the same age might grow up acting their intellectual age, forsaking interaction with other children their age which they deem to be boring and unfulfilling, if not outright painful or worse. This can be especially bad if they make a habit of pointing out to other kids what they think they are doing wrong, asking uncomfortable questions, or acting smug and superior. Instead, they prefer the company of books which can either efficiently and consistenty entertain them either by allowing them to escape the dreary world they think they live in or by actually answering their questions, or that of adults who can actually teach them stuff and provide an interesting feedback.

When those kids grow up they might end up being very disappointed by those adult figures they used to respect enough to discuss stuff with. If they have outgrown the Insufferable Genius phase they might go through a backlash face where they undertake Man Child activities as they rediscover (oftentimes with the aid of scientific material) how to interact with the vast majority of mankind as well as their peers[[hottip:*:these characters tend to be as different from each other as they are from the mainstream, connecting through each other through common interests, often of a geeky nature, or through work]]. Having no practice, no natural social skills, they can still become fascinated with societal behavior, and actively strive to learn a lot about them, in a quest to feel "together" with everyone else and to be loved and appreciated for who they are. Cognitive Sciences are a very favoured way for them to understand how people behave in ways that don't seem to make any sense, and learn some humility on the way. Evolutionary Psychology helps them understand that there is a perfectly good reason these systematic errors were hardwired into the human brain. Pick Up Arts are they way they try to apply that knowledge to succeed in their romantic lives, or at least to understand exactly why they don't and others do. There's also other fields of psychology and sociology, political sciences, economics, graphology, neurolinguistic programming, body language.., However, it's...
[SEQ RERUN] Archimedes's Chronophone
by badger — 2011-05-15T13:04:39.613Z

Today's post, Archimedes's Chronophone was originally published on March 23, 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Imagine that Archimedes of Syracuse invented a device that allows you to talk to him. Imagine the possibilities for improving history! Unfortunately, the device will not literally transmit your words - it transmits cognitive strategies. If you advise giving women the vote, it comes out as advising finding a wise tyrant, the Greek ideal of political discourse. Under such restrictions, what do you say to Archimedes? In other words, how can you communicate general thinking patterns which will lead to right answers, as opposed to cached content?

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Useless Medical Disclaimers, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Liars for Jesus
by Swimmy — 2011-05-15T12:41:00.881Z

This should be of interest to a few members of this forum: Chris Rodda has made her book, Liars for Jesus, available for free online (pdf). The book is a debunking of modern revisionist histories written by authors like David Barton and Gary DeMar. Topics range from the obvious (no, Jefferson was not an evangelical Christian) to the less obvious (no, the Northwest Ordinance was not widely used to encourage religious teaching in public schools). It's a useful resource for those who, like me, are not well-educated in history. It also works as a case study of confirmation bias: chapter after chapter shows that the evidence for many of the revisionist claims is based on passages taken out of both literary and historical context, thus ignoring relevant counterevidence.
Rationalists don't care about the future
by PhilGoetz — 2011-05-15T07:48:06.108Z

Related to Exterminating life is rational.

ADDED: Standard assumptions about utility maximization and time-discounting imply that we shouldn't care about the future. I will lay out the problem in the hopes that someone can find a convincing way around it. This is the sort of problem we should think about carefully, rather than grasping for the nearest apparent solution. (In particular, the solutions "If you think you care about the future, then you care about the future", and, "So don't use exponential time-discounting," are easily-grasped, but vacuous; see bullet points at end.)

The math is a tedious proof that exponential time discounting trumps geometric expansion into space. If you already understand that, you can skip ahead to the end. I have fixed the point raised by Dreaded_Anomaly. It doesn't change my conclusion.

Suppose that we have Planck technology such that we can utilize all our local resources optimally to maximize our utility, nearly instantaneously.

Suppose that we colonize the universe at light speed, starting from the center of our galaxy (we aren't in the center of our galaxy; but it makes the computations easier, and our assumptions more conservative, since starting from the center is more favorable to worrying about the future, as it lets us grab lots of utility quickly near our starting point).

Suppose our galaxy is a disc, so we can consider it two-dimensional. (The number of star systems expanded into per unit time is well-modeled in 2D, because the galaxy's thickness is small compared to its diameter.)

The Milky Way is approx. 100,000 light-years in diameter, with perhaps 100 billion stars. These stars are denser at its center. Suppose density changes linearly (which Wikipedia says is roughly true), from x stars/sq. light year at its center, to 0 at 50K light-years out, so that the density at radius r light-years is x(50,000-r). We then have that the integral over r = 0 to 50K of 2πrx(50000-r)dr = 100 billion, 2πx(50000∫rdr - ∫r2dr) = 100 billion, x = 100 billion / 2π(50000∫rdr - ∫r2dr) = 100 billion / π[(50000r2 - 2r3/3) from r=0 to 50K = π(50000(50000)2 - 2(50000)3/3) = 500003π(1 - 2/3)] = 100 billion / 130900 billion = .0007639.

We expand from the center at light speed, so our radius at time t (in years) is t light-years. The additional a...
What we're losing
by PhilGoetz — 2011-05-15T03:34:40.718Z

More and more, LessWrong's posts are meta-rationality posts, about how to be rational, how to avoid akrasia, in general, without any specific application. This is probably the intended purpose of the site. But they're starting to bore me.

What drew me to LessWrong is that it's a place where I can put rationality into practice, discussing specific questions of philosophy, value, and possible futures, with the goal of finding a good path through the Singularity. Many of these topics have no other place where rational discussion of them is possible, online or off. Such applied topics have almost all moved to Discussion now, and may be declining in frequency.

This isn't entirely new. Applied discussions have always suffered bad karma on LW (statistically; please do not respond with anecdotal data). I thought this was because people downvote a post if they find anything in it that they disagree with. But perhaps a lot of people would rather talk about rationality than use it.

Does anyone else have this perception? Or am I just becoming a LW old geezer?

At the same time, LW is taking off in terms of meetups and number of posts. Is it finding its true self? Does the discussion of rationality techniques have a larger market than debates over Sleeping Beauty (I'm even beginning to miss those!) Is the old concern with values, artificial intelligence, and the Singularity something for LW to grow out of?

(ADDED: Some rationality posts are good. I am also a lukeprog fan.)