This post is a followup report to this. On Friday's lecture, I was able to briefly cover several topics as an introduction. They centred around rationality (what it is), truth (what it is and why we should pursue it), and Newcomb's Paradox. The turnout was as expected (6 out of...
Just recently at my high school, a group of classmates and I started a science club. A major component of this is listening and giving peer lectures on topics of physics, math, computer science, etc. I picked a topic a bit off to the side: philosophy and decision making. Naturally,...
Is this more or less the same thing as Cached Thoughts?
To be honest, I didn't. I let them talk it out and the issue of free will never came up.
They just accepted the "god" used to phrase the problem as a perfect predictor. Most of the debate/discussion was centred around the fact whether or not it was more "logical" to choose both boxes (no debate on its definition, thankfully). The one-boxer's main argument was that given the god is a perfect predictor, the best choice was to one-box, as it would be impossible for two-boxing to yield $1,001,000.
This post is a followup report to this.
On Friday's lecture, I was able to briefly cover several topics as an introduction. They centred around rationality (what it is), truth (what it is and why we should pursue it), and Newcomb's Paradox.
The turnout was as expected (6 out of a total 7 group members, with 1 having other obligations that day). Throughout the talk I would ask for some proposed definitions before giving them. It is unfortunate when I asked what "truth" is, mysterious answers such as "truth is the meaning of life", and "truth is the pursuit of truth". When asked what they meant by their answers, they either rephrased what they... (read 158 more words →)
Just recently at my high school, a group of classmates and I started a science club. A major component of this is listening and giving peer lectures on topics of physics, math, computer science, etc. I picked a topic a bit off to the side: philosophy and decision making. Naturally, this includes rationality. My plan is to start with something based off the sequences, specifically "How to Actually Change Your Mind" and "A Human's Guide to Words".
I was hoping the Less Wrong community could give me some suggestions, tips, or even alternative ways to approach this. There is no end goal, we just want to learn more and think better. All our... (read more)
Knowing is always better than not knowing
--Gregory House, M.D. - S02E11 "Need to Know"
The Center for Better Reasoning
Option to sort by judged/unjudged predictions.
I remember back in elementary school, all the teachers would so "there's no such thing as a stupid question. They even had posters of that on the doors.
Ironically, most of my class (IIRC) never bothered to ask questions or clear up confusion during class. They preferred to ask peers. If they went to ask the teacher during some other time, I wouldn't know. I was a frequent go-to person for math and science; this covered my other poor grades (social studies, art) via Halo Effect and made me appear "smart".
I took to Google for Social Studies.
Somewhere between that and now (Junior year) I figured out that nobody actually remembers when someone asks a stupid question in class. Generally, anyway; every now and then there's something ridiculously funny.
My point being is that if one is truly smart, they most likely appear to be too.
There's not much Utility in only seeming smart, anyways.
Can Gifto gift better versions of Gifto?
The link to the Chess Question solution is the same as that of the Space Complexity Question Solution video.
Thanks for doing this once again Yvain.
Edit: survey taken.