"Ignorance is a state of mind, stored in neurons, not the environment. The red ball does not know that we are ignorant of it. A probability is a way of quantifying a state of mind. Our ignorance then obeys useful mathematical properties—Bayesian probability theory—allowing us to systematically reduce our ignorance through observation. How would you go about reducing ignorance if there were no way to measure ignorance? What, indeed, is the advantage of not quantifying our ignorance, once we understand that quantifying ignorance reflects a choice about how to think effectively, and not a physical property of red and white balls?"
I want to propose a short note for this priceless observation. Maybe I'm overreacting, and it's not as significant as I see it. Apologies if that is so.
Your conjecture presupposes a unidirectional linear, absolute, and static structure of knowledge - a minimal perspective or not generally applicable. It seems as if you have forgotten about the phenomenon, "a fresh pair of eyes." Literally meaning employing someone who has not gone the same road as you did (a person "more" ignorant of the problem at hand than you) to help you get out of your informational dead-end.
You have fallen into the same trap as the philosophers who believed that there is a formula to ultimate and absolute knowledge and ultimate state of mind, who prophesized that if only we find and follow this formula, everyone will attain eternal happiness. I'm personally skeptical about measuring the quality, quantity, and practical applicability of knowledge or ignorance. Let alone the questions about what really matters and their mutual interaction. But, unfortunately, your mode of thinking will most likely lead to the same premises and methods found in totalitarian regimes, and ultimately to inability to adapt and to intellectual stagnation. If I were to choose one argument against measuring knowledge, it would be that this will preclude the invention of the "ultimate" knowledge elixir and, as a result, will retain random factors in knowledge-seeking.
But to indulge your theory a little further, let me mention a few other predictions. For example, the fabric of knowledge is probably not linear or unidirectional, and it probably has local limits (dead-ends). And probably our perception of truths depends on time and our condition. And also, moving in one direction may increase ignorance in the opposite, so to speak. Of this, we have countless accounts.
When I think about epistemology, I sometimes remember Little Gidding. I think it has a very peculiar relationship with your discovery:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Psychotropic substances are substances that noticeably affect how people think. This tag is intended primarily for substances that cause short-term experiences that (used responsibly) can have long-term positive or net-neutral effects on one'one's intellectual, emotional, and "spiritual""spiritual" growth. This includes psychedelics such as Psilocybin and LSD as central examples, as well as MDMA and Cannabis as less-central examples
Contrast with the tags Psychiatry and Nootropics, which also pertain to substances which affect people'people's cognition
Hmm, I currently don't think this should be a tag, unless you are really planning to write a lot of posts with this format :P
My guess is we can reevaluate this tag when there are like 5 posts that fit this description, but for now, I don't think this makes a ton of sense.
The economic consequences of artificial general intelligence and whole brain emulation arise from their fundamentally new properties compared to the human brains currently driving the economy. Once such digital minds become generally intelligent enough to perform a wide range of economic functions, they are likely to bring radical changes, creating great wealth, but also displacing humans out of more and more types of job.
Marking for deletion.
-Has almost no posts
-"Posts that are stubs" does not seem like a category that people would be interested in or merits a tag.
Futarchy is a proposed government system in which decisions are made based on betting markets. It was originally proposed by Robin Hanson, who gave the motto "Vote on Values, But Bet on Beliefs".
The old LessWrong wiki was a companion wiki site to LessWrong 1.0, it was built on MediaWiki software. As of September 2020, the LessWrong 2.0 team is migrating the contents of the old wiki to LessWrong 2.0's new tag/wiki system.The wiki import is complete.
I think this should probably be merged with cognitive reduction, which is more general and (I think?) encompasses this one
The basic intuition for the pomodoro technique is that:
By setting an actual, physical timer (for work time as well as for breaks), people are more likely to work effectively. Traditionally, this is set for 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of time, though for some tasks other lengths may be appropriate. Experimentation is encouraged.
The 'full' pomodoro technique consists of 6 steps (from wikipedia):
- Decide on the task to be done.
- Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).[1]
- Work on the task.
- End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.[5]
- If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes) and then return to step 2; otherwise continue to step 6.
- After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.
Some who use the technique also encourage focussing on a single task for each pomodoro, or reviewing the work of the previous pomodoro for the first few minutes of each (a type of spaced repetition).
Several tools are available to manage pomodoro timers. Pomofocus is a good, simple, online option. Flow (Mac/iPhone/iPad) and Pomodoro Flow (windows) are some examples of downloadable ones.
It gets its name from a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato (pomodoro(pomodoro in Spanish)Italian).
The Litany of Hodgell: That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
The Litany of Jai: Almost No One is Evil. Almost Everything is Broken.
The Pomodoro Technique is a productivity technique where you alternate between 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break time.
It gets its name from a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato (pomodoro in Spanish).
The Pomodoro Technique is a productivity technique where you alternate between 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break time.
It gets its name from a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato (pomodoro in Italian).
...
The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis claims that neural networks used in machine learning get most of their performance from sub-networks that are already present at initialization that approximate the final policy ("lotterywinning tickets"). The training process would, under this model, work by increasing weight on the lottery ticket sub-network and reducing weight on the rest of the network.
The hypothesis was proposed in a paper by Jonathan Frankle and Micheal Carbin of MIT CSAIL.
The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis claims that neural networks used in machine learning get most of their performance from sub-networks that are already present at initialization that approximate the final policy ("lottery tickets"). The training process would, under this model, work by increasing weight on the lottery ticket sub-network and reducing weight on the rest of the network.
Indeed deleted.