Perhaps I'm off on this but wanted to just ask. How much of that term being a contradiction is driven by the lack of a good underlying model of something. I'll use the house temperature example here.

We have a very good model (by assumption here) of energy transmission from the exterior to the interior. We have a controller (thermostat) that only measures external features, say outside temp and maybe light and a time duration for when and how long to run either the air conditioner or heating. With a good model (and probably a good initialization at installation) that regulator seems like it would do a good job of hitting the defined internal temp target without needing to monitor the internal temp.

That certainly fails the GRT on the grounds it's a lot more complicated than it needs to be as measuring the internal temp and then activating the AC or heating is pretty simple and straightforward. But having a good model seems to fit well with the Shannon entropy aspects - the model itself tells us what is needed about the internal temp so monitoring/sampling that variable is not necessary.

Is the complicated regulation no an open loop control case? Or is it still something of a contradiction in terms in your view?

It's an interesting post and on some levels seems both correct and, to me at least, somewhat common sense.

Still I have a small tingle in the back of my head asking "is this magic really from intelligence or something else?" Or perhaps intelligence (perhaps not all that exceptional) and something else. It seems like in a number of the cases we're presented a somewhat narrow frame of the situation. If the magic is not highly correlated with, or better a function largely of, intelligence I wonder exactly how meaningful this is regarding ASI.

Perhaps this is a bit of mirror image but accepted even just being myself actually included not opening up about some things so feeling safe not being vulnerable. 

I'm not sure I'm understanding your claim here. I don't think you're suggesting a "if you build it they will come" type result from being in a dominant position. But I also don't quite get why being in a dominant position in one space has much (other that deep pockets) really impacts the success in doing things others are not doing -- or leading a group in doing things others are not leading that group. 

Probably not the type of reference you were thinking about regarding reprogramming and impact on aging issues but I suspect it's in the area you were thinking. I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned here on LW before in other posts/comments. Interesting idea but implementation is problematic to say the least -- but really hoping someone can figure it out.

Since a lot of this is way beyond my skill sets and knowledge, when you're looking at the dynamic interplay aspect, is that purely internal to the cell or do you also look at the extra-cellular "communications"? If so, are you familiar with the Conboy's plasma dilution experiments?

Yes, I agree. But actions that make people dislike you less may have no impact on people liking you or may have a positive impact (increase you likeability). How does one go about choosing which element from the action set to put in your model to produce the results you present?

I suppose a better way to put my take here is that you're presenting a limited/narrow model but the rhetoric implies some type of general model. I think that is a bit dangerous to people trying to both understand their social anxiety and do something if they are looking to change it (which seems a bit implied by the use of anxiety rather than just saying introverted).

I like the general thrust of the post here but not sure I agree with some of the assumptions and conclusions that seem to follow from assumptions. I think you're correct that there as some real asymmetries that get lost when confusing avoiding dis-like with getting more liked. But I think that comes from disliked and liked not being different ends of a common spectrum. I suspect they are somewhat orthogonal to one another. 

So the distribution you draw is imposed on a projection of the dislike vector and the like vector which can allow shifting from the insecure to the secure distribution producing no change in the like number in the tail, or arguably no change in the dislike number, with an increase in the like.

I would add best literature survey piece for the given subject area as another type of reference material people should submit.

My sympathies to you and your family. This is one of life's sadness that we all experience at some point. While I don't think this will help easy anything (what could I say to do so?) I have to say when may father died it was too soon -- or felt that way. He lived a long life, died from aging (at nearly 102) and lasted a few days after the pain got too much for him that morphine was regularly administered by the hospice nurse. It was time, and expected. When it happened it was still too soon. 

It was easier for me when my mother died about 6 months later but I didn't not have the same sense of loss, being lost, wishing there was more I had done, regrets regarding the relationship and more. And in her case there was even a bit of your experience of an initial mis-assessment (in our case be a sybling) that was the final straw with my mother dying a couple of weeks later. 

I hope your father is taking it well (that sounds bad because I know it's nothing but pain, but I cannot think of any better way to say) and has other reasons to view life as worth living rather than feeling that same deep too soon loss and a lack of interest in what life offers.

Perhaps a more general way to approach the question would be can one identify the existing  comparative advantages related to the wizard power related task to be performed.

If you only want parts which are easy to clearly describe, you can hire someone to CAD them up... or you could describe them to an LLM and have it emit files that you can convert to your CAD of choice.

Don't know if this is still the case but 15 years ago something very similar existed with CAD/CAM production. The CAD design could be passed through a processor to generate the G-code (instructions the CAM processor reads and follows) and then some machinist would review and "fix" tool path or order to make the code more efficient for production.