KyriakosCH — LessWrong

LESSWRONG
LW

Machine language is a known lower level; neurons aren't; perhaps in the future there will be more microscopic building blocks examined; maybe there is no end to the division itself.

In a computer it would indeed make no sense for a programmer to examine something below machine language, since you are compiling or otherwise acting upon it. But it's not a known isomorphism to the mind.

If you'd like a parallel to the above, from the history of philosophy, you might be interested in comparing dialectic reasoning and Aristotelian logic. It's not by accident that Aristotle explicitly argued that for any system to include the means to prove something (proof isn't there in dialectics,... (read more)

How memories are stored certainly matters, it is too much of an assumption that levels are sealed off. Such an assumption may be implicitly negated in a model, but obviously this doesn't mean something has changed; the nature of material systems has this issue, unlike mathematical ones.

Another poignant property of material systems is that at times there is a special status of observer for them. In the case of the mind, you have the consciousness of the person and while certainly it can be juxtaposed to other instances of it, it is a different relation from the one which would allow carefree use of the term "anecdote". Notice "special", which in no... (read more)

Going by practice, it does seem likely that intertwined (nominally separate, as over-categories) memories will be far easier to recall at will, than any loosely related (by stream of consciousness) collection of declarative memories. However it is not known if the stored memories (of either type) actually are stored individually or not; they are many competing models for how a memory is stored and recalled, up to the lowest/"lowest" -for there may be no lowest in reality - level of neurons.

That said, I was only asking about other people's intuitive sense of what works better. It isn't possible to answer using a definitive model, due to the number of unknowns.

I mean more cost-effective, so to speak. My sense is that while procedural is easier to sustain (for years, or even for the entirety of your life), it really is more suitable for focused projects instead of random/general knowledge accumulation. Then again it is highly likely that procedural memories help with better organization overall, acting as a more elegant system. In that, declarative memories are more like axioms, with procedural being either rules or just application of rules, with far fewer axioms needed.

I agree. Although my question was not whether 3d is real/independent of the observer. I was wondering why for us it had to be specifically 3d instead of something else.

For all we know, maybe "3d" isn't 3d either, in that any way of viewing things would end up seeming to be 3d. In a set system, with known axioms, examined from the outside, 3d just follows 2d. But if as an observer you are 3d-based, it doesn't have to follow that this is a progression from 2d at all and it might just be a different system.

You are confusing "reason to choose" (which is obviously not there; optimal strategy is trivial to find) with "happens to be chosen". Ie you are looking at what is said from an angle which isn't crucial to the point.

Everyone is aware that scissors is not be chosen at any time if the player has correctly evaluated the dynamic. Try asking a non-sentence in a formal logic system to stop existing cause it evaluated the dynamic, and you'll get why your point is not sensible.

Thank you, I will have a look!

My own interest in recollecting this variation (an actual thing, from my childhood years) is that intuitively it seems to me that this type of limited setting may be enough so that the inherent dynamic of 'new player will go for the less than optimal strategy', and the periodic ripple effect it creates, can (be made to) mimic some elements of a formal logic system, namely the interactions of non-sentences with sentences.

So I posted this as a possible trigger for more reflection, not for establishing the trivial (optimal strategy in this corrupted variation of the game) ^_^

Please read my edited reply to lsusr.

Edit (I rewrote this reply, cause it was too vague in the original :) )

Very correct in regards to every player actually having identified this (indeed, if all players are aware of the new balance, they will pick up that glue is a better type of scissors so scissors should not be picked). But imagine a player comes in and hasn't picked up this identity, while (for different reasons) they have picked up an aversion to choose rock from previous players. Then scissors still has a chance to win (against paper), and effectively rock is largely out, so the triplet scissors-paper-glue has glue as the permanent winner. This in turn (after a couple of games) is picked up and stabilizes the game as having three options for all (scissors no longer chosen), until a new player who is unaware joins.

Essentially the dynamic of the 4-choice game allows for periodic returns to a 3-choice, which is what can be used to trigger ongoing corrections to other systems.

Replying toReply to Paul Christiano on Inaccessible Information

KyriakosCH6y

Reply to Paul Christiano on Inaccessible Information

" Presumably the machine learning model has in some sense discovered Newtonian mechanics using the training data we fed it, since this is surely the most compact way to predict the position of the planets far into the future. "

To me, this seems to be an entirely unrealistic presumption (also true for any of its parallels; not just when it is strictly about the position of planets). Even the claim that NM is "surely the most compact [...]" is questionable, given that obviously we know from history that there had been models able to predict just the position of stars since ancient times, and in this hypothetical situation where... (read more)

Regarding Archimedes (a philosophy of math anecdote)

KyriakosCH

Regarding tales told of Archimedes, other than those about his enthusiasm when he managed to conceive of the law of flotation, his contempt for the Roman soldier who demanded he would cease his calculations on those circles he had drawn on sand and the epigram on his tomb where his discovery of the relation between the volumes of a sphere, a cone and a cylinder was accounted for, there is one other worth of mentioning:

He once met, in a beach near Syracuse, a young boy and a slightly older and much taller youth. It was a warm day and those two were wearing white himatia without chitons underneath, as was usual for... (read 341 more words →)

On Freud's examination of the Uncanny in Literature

KyriakosCH

It is often mentioned that Freud’s Psychoanalytical theory has influenced literature very considerably. Regarding stories that aspire to cause dread, his article on the Uncanny in Literature provides good insight – particularly his interpretation of “The Sandman”, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s bleak and magical story of fiery circles, monsters and doppelgangers, is worth mentioning...

The Sandman, the eponymous fiend of this story, is both a magical entity (a flying beaked demon that abducts little children and uses their eyes so as to feed his own offspring) and a dyad of mysterious men: an ominously looking old lawyer, Coppelius, and a merchant of eyeglasses, called Giuseppe Coppola. Both names etymologically are derived from the Italian word... (read 808 more words →)

The Outsider and the Onlooker (on esoteric meaning in fiction)

KyriakosCH

“Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and vine-encumbered trees that silently wave twisted branches far aloft. Such a lot the gods gave to me—to me, the dazed, the disappointed; the barren, the broken. And yet I am strangely content, and cling desperately to those sere memories, when my mind momentarily threatens to reach beyond to the other. ” H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider

The Outsider is, in many ways, the most remarkable short... (read 649 more words →)

On why mathematics appear to be non-cosmic

KyriakosCH

Preface

I do fear that perhaps this post of mine (my fourth here) may cause a few negative reactions. I do try to approach this from a philosophical viewpoint, as befits my studies. It goes without saying that I may be wrong, and would very much like to read your views and even more so any reasons that my own position may be identified as untenable. I can only assure you that to me it currently seems that mathematics are not cosmic but anthropic.

There are so many quotes about mathematics, from celebrated mathematicians, philosophers, even artists; some are witty yet too polemical to identify as useful in a treatise that aspires to discuss... (read 1139 more words →)

In Defense of Those Reclusive Authors

KyriakosCH

Notable Authors of the 20th Century Who Were Introverted

Writing fiction is usually a solitary profession. Among those individuals who end up producing art to express themselves, one can logically assume that there will be many who like to keep their distance from society. While there have always been writers who are sociable, a few of the greats were largely solitary and lonely, socially awkward, or even reclusive individuals.

Apart from the 20th century’s very famous cases of this type of creator—the Argentinian writer J.L. Borges, the Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa and the Czech-Jewish allegorist Franz Kafka—reclusive attitudes and highly introverted interests can be easily identified in a number of notable artists who merely... (read 712 more words →)

Word-Idols (or an examination of ties between philosophy and horror literature)

KyriakosCH

An examination of any ties between Philosophy and horror literature is, indeed, quite rare an undertaking... There are many reasons for the scarcity of articles on this topic, ranging from a reluctance to acknowledge horror literature as serious (literary) fiction, to Philosophy itself being dismissed as overrated, superfluous or obsolete. As with most cases of categorical nullification of entire genres or orders, this one as well can largely be attributed to lack of familiarity with the essential subjects they encompass.

It can be argued that there indeed are grounds to assert a link between Philosophy and Horror literature. Socrates himself, while pondering a... (read 1131 more words →)

Two labyrinths - where would you rather be?

KyriakosCH

Two Kings and two Labyrinths is a very short story, written by J.L. Borges. It barely manages to fill the space of a single page; and yet there is enough in it to allow for an interesting dissertation.

The actual story is about a rivalry between two kings: The King of Babylon had once invited the King of Arabia to his capital, and there got him to enter a labyrinth made of intricate passages, surrounded by tall walls. The King of Arabia only managed to find his way out after imploring his God for help. The experience terrified him, and he swore that in the future he would repay the Babylonian in kind,... (read 943 more words →)