komponisto

If asked to define what an agent is, my usual answer -- one of them, anyway -- is “a worldline in Tegmark V”.

The Tegmark Level V Multiverse (the “V” here is a Roman numeral) is not defined by Max Tegmark (whose hierarchy goes only up to IV), but, as used in agent-foundations circles, it refers to the collection of not-necessarily-consistent mathematical universes, a.k.a. “impossible possible worlds”. It thus contains worlds in which 1+1 = 3, worlds in which triangles have four sides, and perhaps worlds with married bachelors -- in addition, of course, to all the more “ordinary” worlds in Tegmark Levels I-IV (and thus, in particular, us).

This definition of “agent”... (read 372 more words →)

Mathematical Mindset

I agree that optimization amplifies things. I also agree that a mathematical mindset is important for AI alignment. I don't, however, think that a "mathematical mindset" is the same as a "proof mindset". Rather, I think that the latter is closer to being a "programming mindset" -- or, indeed, a "security mindset". And that a "mathematical mindset" is largely missing from AI-alignment discourse at present.

Whereas others see a division between two clusters, of the form,

science/physics

vs.

mathematics/programming/logic

I, by contrast, see a hierarchical progression that looks something like:

science < programming < physics < mathematics < logic <...

where, in this context, these words have meanings along the following lines:

science: things being made of... (read 600 more words →)

It seems hard to envision a society wherein belonging and esteem could be satisfied via physical cognition

Not hard to envision at all; only hard, perhaps, to implement. It shouldn't take all that much imagination to summon the thought of a society in which people were better rewarded with status (and all its trappings) for things like solving mathematical problems, or composing complexly-structured music, as opposed to all the various generalized forms of pure politics that determine the lion's share of status in the world we know, than they actually are in the world we know.

In fact, we can look around and find historical examples of societies where that was the case.... (read more)

Like others, you seem to be interpreting my comments as if they were stating conclusions intended to be only one or two inferential steps away (from your current epistemic state). This is not at all necessarily the case!

In particular, when I state a proposition X, I expect readers not only to ask themselves whether they already think X is true (i.e. conditioned on all their knowledge before my statement), but also to ask themselves why I might believe X. To engage, in other words, in at least a cursory search for inferential chains leading to X -- resulting in either the discovery of an inferential chain that they themselves agree with (in... (read 971 more words →)

With no more context than your earlier comment where (so far as I know) you first used the term [...] I am just saying that it seems unreasonable to complain of someone "rounding off concepts" when you have made no apparent effort to clarify what you do mean

In my original comment, I linked to the essay that was the source of the concepts of "physical" and "social cognition" as I used them in that comment. Without the context of that essay, there is no reason to expect my remarks in this discussion to be intelligible.

The expected return from a reader doing something like that is way too low, even in a community like this one. Most new ideas are wrong, and if your idea is wrong then people trying to traverse the same inferential path will get nowhere

I disagree with these statements. (Even in the case of "most new ideas are wrong", I would ADBOC.)

You're basically just stating the view that "false positives are a bigger problem than false negatives", which I already disagreed with explicitly (as applied to this context) in my previous comment.

why shouldn't you write an good explanation

Because what constitutes a "good explanation" is strongly reader-dependent, and I don't have good enough models... (read more)

From the fourth paragraph:

These programs seem to have been disfavored by history's great scientific innovators, who tend to make statements like "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble..." or "What do you care what other people think", which sound like endorsements of physical over social cognition.   

As I said above,

populism seems anticorrelated with both good aesthetics and good science

Thus, by "a society that tied status more closely to such skills", I do not mean the typical conditions leading to, and resulting from, a peasant revolt.

Do you think you use the term physical cognition in the way it's used in the literature?

"The literature" that is relevant here consists of Michael Vassar's 2013 Edge essay.

I don't understand what "physical cognition" in this context points to

See here. (This was linked in the original comment...)

Musical setting of the Litany of Tarski

I do mean ballet and piano, and also the kind of "the kind of hacking background that Wei Dai has".

I did not expect this to be completely outside of your hypothesis space, in the way it appears to be. This is worth reflecting on.

Meetup : Washington DC Kennedy Center Meetup with Michael Vassar

About a year ago, I made a setting of the Litany of Tarski for four-part a cappella (i.e. unaccompanied) chorus.

More recently, in the process of experimenting with MuseScore for potential use in explaining musical matters on the internet (it makes online sharing of playback-able scores very easy), the thought occurred to me that perhaps the Tarski piece might be of interest to some LW readers (if no one else!), so I went ahead and re-typeset it in MuseScore for your delectation.

Here it is (properly notated :-)).

Here it is (alternate version designed to avoid freaking out those who aren't quite the fanatical enthusiasts of musical notation that I am).

13y

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC Kennedy Center Meetup with Michael Vassar

WHEN: 18 April 2013 12:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20566.

(This is very short notice -- 11 hours from posting -- so apologies!)

This meetup will have two "sessions"; people are welcome to attend either or both:

12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

and

3:30 pm - 7:30 pm

(Michael is attending an event with press at 2, hence the break.)

We'll plan to meet in the area with tables and chairs outside the KC café, which is on the upper ("Terrace") level of the Kennedy Center. I'll try to bring a Less Wrong sign.

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC Kennedy Center Meetup with Michael Vassar

MIT Challenge complete

Daniel Kahneman on Charlie Rose [video]

13y

Followup to: MIT Challenge: blogger to attempt CS curriculum on own

A year after he announced it, productivity blogger Scott Young has successfully completed his "MIT Challenge", an attempt to work through that institution's undergraduate computer science curriculum independently, using the large selection of online material that it has made available.

His three pieces of advice for independent learners are worth noting:

Create an exciting, but specific, mission. I couldn’t have learned the content of this challenge if I hadn’t wrapped it into a compelling mission. Even calling it the “MIT Challenge” helped me make the goal more specific and real. Too many self-education quests begin as vague ideas and fall apart without any constraints.

Build

... (read more)

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12185

14y

Daniel Kahneman (of Tversky and Kahneman fame) was interviewed on PBS's Charlie Rose last night, discussing his book Thinking, Fast and Slow (reviewed here by lukeprog):

Video: Skepticon talks

14y

The talks from Skepticon IV are being posted to YouTube.

So far we have:

Richard Carrier on Bayes (my favorite)
Julia Galef on the Straw Vulcan
Greta Christina on angry atheists
Hermant Mehta on math education
David Fitzgerald on Mormonism
J.T. Eberhard on mental illness (a dramatic end to the conference)
an "atheist revival" by Sam Singleton (on the lighter side)

ADDED:

"Death Panel" featuring Julia Galef, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Greta Christina, and James Croft
Darrel Ray on secularism and sex
Eliezer Yudkowsky on heuristics and biases (really more like a crash course in the core LW sequences)
Joe Nickell on paranormal investigations (I missed this at the conference; and even more regrettably, missed the chance to ask Joe Nickell what he thinks of many-worlds.)
Jen McCreight on "skeptical

Skepticon IV meetup: planning

14y

Discussion article for the meetup : Skepticon IV meetup: Saturday night

WHEN: 19 November 2011 09:30:00PM (-0600)

WHERE: University Plaza Hotel, 333 S John Q. Hammons Parkway, Springfield, Missouri 65806

Following the last talk on Saturday, we'll meet up in the lobby of the University Plaza Hotel (where most conference participants are staying), and decide what to do and where (if anywhere) to go from there! Time is listed as 9:30 pm, to allow time to get from the conference location to the hotel. I will provide a "Less Wrong" sign.

Discussion article for the meetup : Skepticon IV meetup: Saturday night

14y

If any members of the Less Wrong community are planning to attend Skepticon IV this weekend (Nov. 18-20) in Springfield, Missouri (USA), it might be nice to see if we can arrange a meetup.

Feel free to comment and say "I'll be there!". (At least one prominent Less Wronger is even among the speakers.) Suggestions regarding locations, etc. from folks familiar with the local area are particularly encouraged.

Attractions this year include (besides what was mentioned above): a panel on "How Should Rationalists Approach Death?"; and a talk by Richard Carrier entitled "Bayes' Theorem: Key to the Universe" (and subtitled: that's right, I'm teaching you math, bitches!).

Knox and Sollecito freed