Sqrt-1 — LessWrong

Exercise: Think of 2 examples for each type of problem.

I do agree that a lot of seqeunces pages would benefit a lot from having discussion of previous work or at least stating what these ideas are called in the mainstream, but I feel Yudkowskys neologisms are just... better. Among the examples of similar concepts you mentioned, I definitely felt Yudkowsky was hinting at them with the whole dimensions thing, but I think "thingspace" is still a useful word and not even that complicated; if it was said in a conversation with someone familiar with ANNs I feel they would get what it meant. (Unlike a lot of other Yudkowskisms usually parroted around here, however...)

Experiments as a Third Alternative

Sqrt-13y10

So... how did it go? Do you use the medications often now or not?

Conservation of Expected Evidence

Sqrt-13y-10

Criticism of this article was found at a talk page at RationalWiki.

The Sequences do not contain unique ideas, and they present the ideas they do contain in misleading ways using parochial language. The "Law of Conservation of Expected Confidence" essay, for instance, covers ideas that are often covered in introductory philosophical methods or critical thinking courses. There is no novelty either in the idea that your expected future credence must match your current credence (otherwise, why not update your credence now?), nor in the idea that if E is eviden

... (read more)

The Cluster Structure of Thingspace

Sqrt-13y10

I found some criticism of this post on a RationalWiki talk page.

For another example, "Clusters in Thingspace" has a number of issues. Most simply, it seriously undersells Aristotle's ability to handle a nine-fingered person. Certainly, if you make 'has ten fingers' part of the definition of human, then you will be able to infer that a person without ten fingers is not a human; nobody, though, has ever seriously put forward such a proposal. For Aristotle's part, he would simply say that having a certain number of fingers is not an essential property of bein

... (read more)

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply

I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup

Sqrt-13y20

Thought I should put this here to get more attention but this specific article of Scott Alexander's was criticised in a blog here.

https://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-beigeness-or-how-to-kill-people-with-bad-writing-the-scott-alexander-method

2023 Unofficial LessWrong Census/Survey

Sqrt-13y90

Completed my first LessWrong survey! I liked the several questions that tried to sort out all the lizardmen.

The Power of Reinforcement

Sqrt-13y10

What is LRS?

Chapter 107: The Truth, Pt 4

Sqrt-14y31

I wonder if protection from dementors is the only reason Voldemort brought Potter with him?

Chapter 106: The Truth, Pt 3

Sqrt-14y30

why does professor quirrell have a gun; like, doesn't he have a wand—

Chapter 8: Positive Bias

Sqrt-14y30

I believe that the test is hard because of the fact that the pattern involves increasing numbers, not decreasing. I feel that our brains are just primed for increasing numbers since childhood, like if the pattern was decreasing numbers, most people would say "1,2,3" and immediately solve it.