=================== | 48 michaelkeenan ------------------- "You know what they say the modern version of Pascal's Wager is? Sucking up to as many Transhumanists as possible, just in case one of them turns into God." - Julie from Crystal Nights by Greg Egan =================== | 42 RichardKennaway ------------------- From a BBC interview with a retiring Oxford Don: Don: "Up until the age of 25, I believed that 'invective' was a synonym for 'urine'." BBC: "Why ever would you have thought that?" Don: "During my childhood, I read many of the Edgar Rice Burroughs 'Tarzan' stories, and in those books, whenever a lion wandered into a clearing, the monkeys would leap into the trees and 'cast streams of invective upon the lion's head.'" BBC: long pause "But, surely sir, you now know the meaning of the word." Don: "Yes, but I do wonder under what other misapprehensions I continue to labour." =================== | 36 Yvain ------------------- On utility: culturejammer: you know what pennies are AWESOME for? culturejammer: throwing at cats culturejammer: it only costs a single penny culturejammer: and they'll either chase it, or get hit by it and look pissed off culturejammer: i now use that system to value prices of things culturejammer: for example, a thirty dollar game has to be at least as awesome as three thousand catpennies --bash.org =================== | 35 CronoDAS ------------------- The Patrician took a sip of his beer. "I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to its day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior." -- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals =================== | 34 Unnamed ------------------- "Sometimes men come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede; not because they have a hundred feet, but because most people cannot count above fourteen." -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg related: The Level Above Mine =================== | 34 Cyan ------------------- My genes done gone and tricked my brain By making fucking feel so great That's how the little creeps attain Their plan to fuckin' replicate But brain's got tricks itself, you see To get the bang but not the bite I got this here vasectomy My genes can fuck themselves tonight. —The r-selectors, Trunclade, quoted in Blindsight by Peter Watts =================== | 33 MichaelGR ------------------- John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. -Isaac Asimov, The Relativity of Wrong =================== | 32 knb ------------------- From Thomas Macaulay's 1848 History of England. [W]e are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveler in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of refreshing waters... A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilization. But if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when to have a clean shirt once a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gentry, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. ................................. We too shall in our turn be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with twenty shillings a week; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that laboring men may be as little used to dine without meat as they are now to eat rye bread; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or confined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty workingman. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendor of the rich. =================== | 32 MichaelGR ------------------- It has always appalled me that really bright scientists almost all work in the most competitive fields, the ones in which they are making the least difference. In other words, if they were hit by a truck, the same discovery would be made by somebody else about 10 minutes later. --Aubrey de Grey =================== | 30 cousin_it ------------------- However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -- Winston Churchill =================== | 30 MichaelHoward ------------------- The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair. -- Douglas Adams =================== | 29 gwern ------------------- "When will we realize that the fact that we can become accustomed to anything, however disgusting at first, makes it necessary to examine carefully everything we have become accustomed to?" --George Bernard Shaw, A Treatise on Parents and Children (1910) =================== | 29 RobinZ ------------------- I listen to all these complaints about rudeness and intemperateness, and the opinion that I come to is that there is no polite way of asking somebody: have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that’s a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it’s going to offend people. Tough. Daniel Dennett, interview for TPM: The Philosophers Magazine =================== | 29 James_Miller ------------------- You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people’s experience when you can. Warren Buffett =================== | 28 RobinZ ------------------- The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. -- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950) =================== | 28 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "People are mostly sane enough, of course, in the affairs of common life: the getting of food, shelter, and so on. But the moment they attempt any depth or generality of thought, they go mad almost infallibly. The vast majority, of course, adopt the local religious madness, as naturally as they adopt the local dress. But the more powerful minds will, equally infallibly, fall into the worship of some intelligent and dangerous lunatic, such as Plato, or Augustine, or Comte, or Hegel, or Marx." -- David Stove, What Is Wrong With Our Thoughts =================== | 26 sketerpot ------------------- He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense. -John McCarthy, on mainstream environmentalism. As someone who regularly gets into arguments about this, I can say that he's definitely right; you wouldn't believe the amount of nonsense that can be disposed of simply by looking up the relevant numbers and doing a minute's worth of easy arithmetic. For example, I've heard some people recently claiming that a combination of solar photovoltaics, electrolysis to produce hydrogen, and these new Bloom box fuel cells are cheaper than nuclear fission. Look up the costs of solar farms; about $3 per peak watt. Their average power output is less; we can very optimistically assume that they run at 20% of capacity on average. Efficiency losses from electrolysis and fuel cells are about 50%. Putting it all together, this would cost about $30 per watt of average power delivered. Not including the cost of the fuel cells. A little googling will show that the total cost of building two new AP1000 reactors in Georgia is about $14 billion, and they average at least 93% of their peak power, and transmission line losses bring their average power delivered to about 1000 MW each. So their cost is about $7 per watt of average power delivered, or about 23% the cost of solar. There's a lot of extremely harmful bullshit out there, and defeating most of it doesn't take any advanced techniques; it just takes a willingness to look up some relevant numbers and do a bit of arithmetic. =================== | 26 loqi ------------------- You say that your opponent lacks humanity. It's the oldest semantic weapon there is. Think of all the categories of people who've been classified as non-human, in various cultures, at various times. People from other tribes. People with other skin colors. Slaves. Women. The mentally ill. The deaf. Homosexuals. Jews. Bosnians, Croats, Serbs, Armenians, Kurds [...] But suppose you accuse me of 'lacking humanity.' What does that actually mean? What am I likely to have done? Murdered someone in cold blood? Drowned a puppy? Eaten meat? Failed to be moved by Beethoven's Fifth? Or just failed to have—or to seek—an emotional life identical to your own in every respect? Failed to share all your values and aspirations? The answers is: 'any one of the above.' Which is why it's so fucking lazy. Questioning someone's 'humanity' puts them in the company of serial killers—which saves you the trouble of having to claim anything intelligent about their views. — Greg Egan (as James Rourke), Distress =================== | 25 anonym ------------------- Education is a technology that tries to make up for what the human mind is innately bad at. Children don't have to go to school to learn how to walk, talk, recognize objects, or remember the personalities of their friends, even though these tasks are much harder than reading, adding, or remembering dates in history. They do have to go to school to learn written language, arithmetic, and science, because those bodies of knowledge and skill were invented too recently for any species-wide knack for them to have evolved. Steven Pinker -- The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature =================== | 24 Unnamed ------------------- "Most haystacks do not even have a needle." -- Lorenzo =================== | 24 SilasBarta ------------------- During the discussion of Pranknet on Slashdot about a month ago, I saw this comment. It reminded me of our discussions about Newcomb's problem and superrationality. I also disagree that our society is based on mutual trust. Volumes and volumes of laws backed up by lawyers, police, and jails show otherwise. That's called selection/observation bias. You're looking at only one side of the coin. I've lived in countries where there's a lot less trust than here. The notion of returning an opened product to a store and getting a full refund is based on trust (yes, there's a profit incentive, and some people do screw the retailers [and the retailers their customers -- SB], but the system works overall). In some countries I've been to, this would be unfeasible: Almost everyone will try to exploit such a retailer. When a storm knocks out the electricity and the traffic lights stop working, I've always seen everyone obeying the rules. I doubt it's because they're worried about cops. It's about trust that the other drivers will do likewise. Simply unworkable in other places I've lived in. I've had neighbors whom I don't know receive UPS/FedEx packages for me. Again, trust. I don't think they're afraid of me beating them up. There are loads of examples. Society, at least in the US, is fairly nice and a lot of that has to do with a common trust. Which is why someone exploiting that trust is a despised person. =================== | 24 RobinZ ------------------- My dad used to have an expression: "Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value." Joe Biden, remarks delivered in Saint Clair Shores, MI, Monday, September 15, 2008 =================== | 24 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Intuition only works in situations where neurology and evolution has pre-equipped us with a good set of basic-level categories. That works for dealing with other humans, and for throwing things, and for a bunch of other things that do not, unfortunately, include constructing viable philosophies." -- Eric S. Raymond =================== | 23 Rain ------------------- In the wake of such suffering, there is no way to adequately explain the tragedy. Yet the seemingly random nature of the mass deaths has made them even harder for the survivors to understand. "In a situation like this, it's only natural to want to assign blame," said Dr. Frederick MacDougal of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, who recently lost a third cousin to a degenerative nerve disorder. "But the disturbing thing about this case is that no one factor is at fault. People are dying for such a wide range of reasons--gunshot wounds, black-lung disease, falls down elevator shafts--that we have been unable to isolate any single element as the cause." "No one simple explanation can encompass the enormous scope of this problem," MacDougal added. "And that's very difficult for most people to process psychologically." [...] Meanwhile, as the world continues to grapple with this seemingly unstoppable threat, the deaths--and the sorrow, fear and pain they have wrought--continue. As Margaret Heller, a volunteer at a clinic in Baltimore put it, "We do everything we can. But for most of the people we try to help, the sad truth is it's only a matter of time." -- The Onion, Millions and Millions Dead Related: World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent =================== | 23 Nic_Smith ------------------- If you can't feel secure - and teach your children to feel secure - about 1-in-610,000 nightmare scenarios - the problem isn't the world. It's you. -- Bryan Caplan =================== | 23 Kutta ------------------- Many people equate tolerance with the attitude that every belief is equally true, and that we should all simply accept this fact and go our separate ways. But I view tolerance as the willingness to come together, to face one another in the same room and hack at each other with claw hammers until the truth finally trickles out from the blood and the tears. -- Raving Atheist, found via the Black Belt Bayesian blog (props to Steven) =================== | 23 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Just a few centuries ago, the smartest humans alive were dead wrong about damn near everything. They were wrong about gods. Wrong about astronomy. Wrong about disease. Wrong about heredity. Wrong about physics. Wrong about racism, sexism, nationalism, governance, and many other moral issues. Wrong about geology. Wrong about cosmology. Wrong about chemistry. Wrong about evolution. Wrong about nearly every subject imaginable. -- Luke Muehlhauser =================== | 23 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'. -- Randall Munroe =================== | 22 Yvain ------------------- "Voting in a democracy makes you feel powerful, much as playing the lottery makes you feel rich." -- Mencius Moldbug =================== | 22 RobinZ ------------------- [I]n my opinion nothing occurs contrary to nature except the impossible, and that never occurs. -- Sagredo, "Two New Sciences" (1914 translation), Galileo Galilei =================== | 22 RichardKennaway ------------------- "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite." Bertrand Russell, Free Thought and Official Propaganda, in "Sceptical Essays". =================== | 22 Oscar_Cunningham ------------------- On a similar theme: Fiction often mixes up logical with other concepts ... For one thing, authors sometimes say "illogical" when they mean "counter-intuitive." Correct logic is very often counter-intuitive, however, which is to be expected, as logic is meant to prevent errors caused by relying on intuition. TV Tropes =================== | 22 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- When I was young, I thought the act of getting older meant, year by year, getting more sophisticated, more hard, cool, and unpitying. Less innocent. Maybe that was a childish idea of what getting older was about. Maybe adults, mature adults, get more innocent with time, not less. Because the word "innocent" does not mean "naive," it means "not guilty." Children do small evils to each other, schoolyard fights and insults, not because their hearts are pure, but because their powers are small. Grown-ups have more power. Some of them do great evils with that power. But what about the ones who don't? Aren't they more innocent than children, not less? -- John C. Wright, Fugitives of Chaos =================== | 21 Vlad ------------------- "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens =================== | 21 RobinZ ------------------- It helps to stop worrying about what you are and concentrate on what you do. If you think of a poet as a person with some special qualifications that come by nature (or divine favor), you are likely to make one of two mistakes about yourself. If you think you've got what it takes, you may fail to learn what you need to know in order to use whatever qualities you may have. On the other hand, if you think you do not have what it takes, you may give up too easily, thinking it is useless to try. A poet is someone - you, me, anyone - who writes poems. That question out of the way, now we can learn to write poems better. Judson Jerome, The Poet's Handbook, Chap. 1 ("From Sighs and Groans to Art") =================== | 21 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- There is no real me! Don't try to find the real me! Don't try to find someone inside of me who isn't me! -- Princess Waltz Commentary: What's odd is not how many people think they contain other people. What's odd is how many of those people think the other person is the real one. =================== | 21 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "I have now reigned about 50 years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen." -- Abd Er-Rahman III of Spain, 960 AD. =================== | 20 wuwei ------------------- "Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson." -- Frank Herbert, Dune =================== | 20 arundelo ------------------- Numerical arithmetic should look to children like a simpler and faster way of doing things that they know how to do already, not a set of mysterious recipes for getting right answers to meaningless questions. John Holt, How Children Fail, p. 101 See also Paul Lockhart. =================== | 20 Rain ------------------- If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. -- Isaac Asimov =================== | 20 Peter_de_Blanc ------------------- Of course, to really see what someone values you'd have to see their budget profile across a wide range of wealth levels. =================== | 20 DaveInNYC ------------------- I have met people who exaggerate the differences [between the morality of different cultures], because they have not distinguished between differences of morality and differences of belief about facts. For example, one man said to me, "Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?" But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did-if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house. -C.S. Lewis =================== | 19 arundelo ------------------- On some pitch black mornings, hearing what I knew was a cold wind howling outside, I might think, "Well, it is certainly comfortable in this bed, and maybe it wouldn't hurt if I just skipped practicing to-day." But my response to this was not to draw on something called will power, to insult or threaten myself, but to take a longer look at my life, to extend my vision, to think about the whole of my experience, to reconnect present and future, and quite specifically, to ask myself, "Do you like playing the cello or not? Would you like to play it better or not?" When I put the matter this way I could see that I enjoyed playing the cello more than I enjoyed staying in bed. So I got up. If, as sometimes happened or happens, I do stay in bed, not sleeping, not really thinking, but just not getting up, it is not because will power is weak but because I have temporarily become disconnected, so to speak, from the wholeness of my life. I am living in that Now that some people pursue so frantically, that gets harder to find the harder we look for it. John Holt, Freedom and Beyond, p. 119 See also this comment by Z_M_Davis. =================== | 19 anonym ------------------- If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. -- Bertrand Russell =================== | 19 anonym ------------------- Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise. Bertrand Russell =================== | 19 Yvain ------------------- "Everyone thinks they've won the Magical Belief Lottery. Everyone thinks they more or less have a handle on things, that they, as opposed to the billions who disagree with them, have somehow lucked into the one true belief system." -- R Scott Bakker, Neuropath =================== | 19 Kutta ------------------- Forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today. Lawrence Krauss =================== | 18 wuwei ------------------- "Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do. ... Science advances whenever an Art becomes a Science. And the state of the Art advances too because people always leap into new territory once they have understood more about the old." -- Donald Knuth =================== | 18 saliency ------------------- "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." --Woody Allen =================== | 18 gjm ------------------- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle =================== | 18 djcb ------------------- Today, safe flight inside clouds is possible using gyroscopic instruments that report the airplane’s orientation without being misled by centrifugal effects. But the pilot’s spatial intuition is still active, and often contradicts the instruments. Pilots are explicitly, emphatically trained to trust the instruments and ignore intuition—precisely the opposite of the Star Wars advice—and those who fail to do so often perish. -- Gary Drescher "Good and Real" (I really like this quote as a counterweight to the ubiquitous cliche-advise to follow you intuition. Often, your intuition may be fooled. And, it cannot be repeated often enough, Good and Real is a must-read for LW-minded folks) =================== | 18 billswift ------------------- And when someone makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means. -- H Beam Piper, "Space Viking" =================== | 18 anonym ------------------- Thinking is skilled work. It is not true that we are naturally endowed with the ability to think clearly and logically--without learning how, or without practicing.... People with untrained minds should no more expect to think clearly and logically than people who have never learned and never practiced can expect to find themselves good carpenters, golfers, bridge-players, or pianists. Alfred Mander -- Logic for the Millions =================== | 18 anonym ------------------- In general, we are least aware of what our minds do best. — Marvin Minsky =================== | 18 Yvain ------------------- A great many years ago, a couple of Jehovah Witnesses bit off more than they could chew with my grandmother. During the unsolicited conversation one of them remarked, "Only God can make a rainbow". To which my grandmother-who was watering her plants at the time-said, "Nonsense!", and created her own rainbow with a spray of water from the hose. Family lore has it that was the end of the conversation. -- seen on Livejournal =================== | 18 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- When things are hard to understand, people who suspect they're nonsense generally keep quiet. -- Paul Graham =================== | 18 Rune ------------------- "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." -- H. L. Mencken =================== | 18 Rune ------------------- "As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." -- M. Cartmill =================== | 18 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Experiment and theory often show remarkable agreement when performed in the same laboratory." -- Daniel Bershader =================== | 18 Rain ------------------- One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.) I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am. -- Peters Evil Overlord List on how to be a less wrong fictional villain =================== | 18 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Your calendar never lies. All we have is our time. The way we spend our time is our priorities, is our "strategy." Your calendar knows what you really care about. Do you? -- Tom Peters, HT Ben Casnocha =================== | 18 BenAlbahari ------------------- I know that most men — not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic, problems — can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty — conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives. — Leo Tolstoy, 1896 (excerpt from "What Is Art?") =================== | 17 Yvain ------------------- If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. -- E. B. White =================== | 17 RichardKennaway ------------------- "There is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when men think to do best if they go furthest from the superstition formerly received." -- Francis Bacon =================== | 17 Rain ------------------- We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock. The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. -- Carl Sagan =================== | 17 Rain ------------------- The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. -- George Eliot =================== | 17 Rain ------------------- As we know, There are known knowns. There are things We know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know. -- Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing =================== | 17 MichaelGR ------------------- Science is the only news. When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness, and even the technology is predictable if you know the science. Human nature doesn’t change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly. --Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Discipline (2009), p 216 =================== | 17 Marcello ------------------- Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -- Voltaire =================== | 17 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- (In a thread where people were asked whether or not they had a religious experience of "feeling God"): I had something similar to feeling God, I suppose, except it was in essence the exact opposite. I was in a forest one summer, and I looked up at the sunlight shining through the leaves, and suddenly it felt like I could see each and every individual leaf in the forest and trace the path of each photon that poured through them, and I remember thinking over and over, in stunned amazement, "the world is sufficient. The world is sufficient." I'd never thought much about religion before that, but that experience made me realize that the material world was entire orders of magnitude more beautiful than any of the tawdry religious fantasies people came up with, and it felt unspeakably tragic that anyone would ever reject this, our most incredible universe, for spiritual pipe-dreams. In a way, you might say I felt the lack of god, and it felt like glory. -- Axiomatic =================== | 17 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- That had better be a long conversation, a very wise person, and one damned lost field you were studying for ten years. =================== | 16 gwern ------------------- "CAESAR (recovering his self-possession): Pardon him. Theodotus, he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature." --George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) =================== | 16 ata ------------------- "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire I've always found that useful to keep in mind when reading threads like this. =================== | 16 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space. It was thus that Plato left the world of the senses, as setting too narrow limits to the understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of the pure understanding. He did not observe that with all his efforts he made no advance—meeting no resistance that might, as it were, serve as a support upon which he could take a stand, to which he could apply his powers, and so set his understanding in motion. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (trans. Norman Kemp Smith), p. A5/B8. =================== | 16 Rune ------------------- Sheldon: "More wrong?" Wrong is an absolute state and not subject to gradation. Stuart: Of course it is. It's a little wrong to call a tomato a vegetable; it's very wrong to say it's a suspension bridge. -- The Big Bang Theory =================== | 16 RobinZ ------------------- You don't have to believe everything you think. Seen on bumper sticker, via ^zhurnaly. =================== | 16 RichardKennaway ------------------- When I look around and think that everything's completely and utterly fucked up and hopeless, my first thought is "Am I wearing completely and utterly fucked up and hopeless-colored glasses?" Crap Mariner (Lawrence Simon) =================== | 16 Rain ------------------- The word agnostic is actually used with the two distinct meanings of personal ignorance and intrinsic unknowability in the same context. They are distinguished when necessary with a qualifier. WEAK agnosticism: I have no fucking idea who fucked this shit up. STRONG agnosticism: Nobody has any fucking idea who fucked this shit up. There is a certain confusion with weak atheism which could (and frequently does) arise, but that is properly reserved for the category of theological noncognitivists, WEAK atheism: What the fuck do you mean with this God shit? STRONG atheism: Didn't take any God to fuck this shit up. which is different again from weak theism. WEAK theism: Somebody fucked this shit up. STRONG theism: God fucked this shit up. An interesting cross-categorical theological belief not easily represented above is DEISM: God set this shit up and it fucked itself. -- Snocone, in a Slashdot post =================== | 16 Rain ------------------- In an universe full of inanimate material, sentient beings are gods. -- spire3661, in a Slashdot post =================== | 16 Rain ------------------- Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it. -- Bruce Lee =================== | 16 MichaelGR ------------------- Politicians compete to bribe voters with their own money. --Adapted from something in The Economist (sorry, they don't have bylines) =================== | 16 MichaelGR ------------------- If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe. - Abraham Lincoln =================== | 16 Kevin ------------------- Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. -- Isaac Asimov via Salvor Hardin, Foundation =================== | 16 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- (posted in the right thread this time) People constantly ignore my good advice by contributing to the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, CARE, and public radio all in the same year--as if they were thinking, "OK, I think I've pretty much wrapped up the problem of heart disease; now let's see what I can do about cancer." --- Steven Landsburg (original link by dclayh) =================== | 16 Henrik_Jonsson ------------------- Once again, we are saddled with a Stone Age moral psychology that is appropriate to life in small, homogeneous communities in which all members share roughly the same moral outlook. Our minds trick us into thinking that we are absolutely right and that they are absolutely wrong because, once upon a time, this was a useful way to think. It is no more, though it remains natural as ever. We love our respective moral senses. They are as much a part of us as anything. But if we are to live together in the world we have created for ourselves, so unlike the one in which our ancestors evolved, we must know when to trust our moral senses and when to ignore them. --Joshua Greene =================== | 16 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Sounds like I'd better change that. =================== | 16 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Moral language persuades best when opinions are not yet formed, which is why writers of children’s literature can get away with saying things like, “Mr. Billings was an awful, horrible man with a heart of stone.” This sounds like a line from a children’s book because it employs persuasive methods that, though appropriate for children, would insult the intelligence of most adult readers. Most moral discourse is the conversational equivalent of children’s literature. Disputants speak to one another—or, rather, at one another—as if their interlocutors failed to pay adequate attention on the day elementary morality was explained. Unaware of the projective nature of value, they marvel at their opponents’ blindness, their utter failure to see what is so perfectly obvious. Not knowing what else to do, they scold their opponents as if they were children, and scold them as if they were belligerent children when they fail to respond the first time. What to do about this? Take a cue from good writers. Stick to the facts. Keep evaluative language to a minimum, and get rid of the most overtly judgmental, moralistic language. -- Joshua Greene, The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth About Morality And What To Do About It =================== | 16 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves. -- Karl Popper =================== | 16 CaptainOblivious2 ------------------- "All things end badly - or else they wouldn't end" Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise), Cocktail, 1988. He was referring to relationships, but it's actually a surprisingly general rule. =================== | 15 wuwei ------------------- "One can measure the importance of a scientific work by the number of earlier publications rendered superfluous by it." -- David Hilbert =================== | 15 loqi ------------------- Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning. -- Edsger Dijkstra =================== | 15 infotropism ------------------- "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." Charles Babbage =================== | 15 hegemonicon ------------------- Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it pisses on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper. So I keep trying to gently bring my mind back to what is really there to be seen, maybe to be seen and noted with a kind of reverence. Because if I don't learn to do this, I think I'll keep getting things wrong. -Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird =================== | 15 gwern ------------------- "It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest assured with that degree of precision that the nature of the subject admits, and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible." --Aristotle =================== | 15 dclayh ------------------- It's not really surprising, though, is it? Brilliant people want to have other brilliant people as their colleagues. (In fact, one mathematician of my acquaintance said that he once dabbled in circuit design, but when his first paper in the field was received as a major achievement, he left it immediately, concluding that if he could make such a large contribution so easily, the field must be unworthy of him.) =================== | 15 XFrequentist ------------------- "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." -- Richard Feynman =================== | 15 Tom_Talbot ------------------- "If the tool you have is a hammer, make the problem look like a nail." Steven W. Smith, The Scientist and Engineers Guide to Digital Signal Processing =================== | 15 Thomas ------------------- Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: 'My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.' The stranger is a theologian. Denis Diderot =================== | 15 RobinZ ------------------- No one has ever announced that because determinism is true thermostats do not control temperature. Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, qtd. in Daniel Dennett, Elbow Room =================== | 15 RobinZ ------------------- "My style" sure makes a great crutch for putting off learning how to draw better, doesn't it? Egypt "peganthyrus" Urnash, comment thread, a quick drawing lesson, July 17, 2008 =================== | 15 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Everything is open to questioning. That does not mean all answers are equally valid." -- Kelvin Throop =================== | 15 Rain ------------------- I've always believed that the mind is the best weapon. -- John Rambo, Rambo: First Blood Part II =================== | 15 Patrick ------------------- "Thus Aristotle laid it down that a heavy object falls faster than a light one does. The important thing about this idea is not that he was wrong, but that it never occurred to Aristotle to check it." Albert Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápolt, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. =================== | 15 MichaelGR ------------------- "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -- Clay Shirky =================== | 15 JenniferRM ------------------- The first person to come to mind for me was Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege who is famous for basically inventing symbolic logic (specifically, predicate logic with quantified variables). He spent an enormous amount of time working on the thesis that the results of mathematics flow rather directly from little more than the rules of logic plus set theory. He aimed to provide a constructive proof of this thesis. Bertrand Russell discovered a logical flaw (now called Russell's paradox) in Frege's first book containing the constructive proof when the second book in his series was already in press and communicated it to Frege. Russell wrote of Frege's reaction in a bit of text I recall reading in a textbook on symbolic logic but found duplicated in this document with more details from which I quote: As I think about acts of integrity and grace, I realise there is nothing in my knowledge to compare with Frege's dedication to truth. His entire life's work was on the verge of completion, much of his work had been ignored to the benefit of men infinitely less capable, his second volume was about to be published, and upon finding that his fundamental assumption was in error, he responded with intellectual pleasure clearly submerging any feelings of personal disappointment. It was almost superhuman and a telling indication of that of which men are capable if their dedication is to creative work and knowledge instead of cruder efforts to dominate and be known. I don't think science generally lives up to its own ideals... but as I grow older and more cynical I find myself admiring the mere fact that it has those ideals and that every so often I find examples of people living up to them :-) =================== | 15 Furcas ------------------- When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. -- Richard Dawkins =================== | 15 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Freedom is understood in contrast to its various opposites. I can be free as opposed to being presently coerced. I can be free as opposed to being under some other person's general control. I can be free as opposed to being subject to delusions or insanity. I can be free as opposed to being ruled by the state in denial of ordinary personal liberties. I can be free as opposed to being in jail or prison. I can be free as opposed to living under unusually heavy personal obligations. I can be free as opposed to being burdened by bias or prejudice. I can even be free (or free spirited) as opposed to being governed by ordinary social conventions. The question that needs to be asked, and which hardly ever is asked, is whether I can be free as opposed to being causally determined. Given that some kind of causal determinism is presupposed in the very concept of human action, it would be odd if this were so. Why does anyone think that it is? -- David Hill =================== | 15 Cyan ------------------- This conception of debate as combat is, in fact, probably the main reason why the Social Text editors fell for my parody. Acting not as intellectuals seeking the truth, but as self-appointed generals in the "Science Wars'', they apparently leapt at the chance to get a "real'' scientist on their "side''. Now, ruing their blunder, they must surely feel a kinship with the Trojans. But the military metaphor is a mistake; the Social Text editors are not my enemies. - Alan Sokal (hat tip) =================== | 14 wuwei ------------------- There is a mathematical style in which proofs are presented as strings of unmotivated tricks that miraculously do the job, but we found greater intellectual satisfaction in showing how each next step in the argument, if not actually forced, is at least something sweetly reasonable to try. Another reason for avoiding [pulling] rabbits [out of the magicians's hat] as much as possible was that we did not want to teach proofs, we wanted to teach proof design. Eventually, expelling rabbits became another joy of my professional life. -- Edsger Dijkstra Edit: Added context to "rabbits" in brackets. =================== | 14 roland ------------------- People often lack the discipline to adhere to a superior strategy that doesn't "feel" right. Reasoning in a way that sometimes "feels" wrong takes discipline. -- Michael Bishop, Epistemology and the psychology of human judgement =================== | 14 roland ------------------- ...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. -- Herbert Simon 1971 =================== | 14 Yvain ------------------- In our public medical personas, we often act as though morality consisted only in following society's conventions: we do this not so much out of laziness but because we recognize that it is better that the public think of doctors as old-fashioned or stupid, than that they should think us evil. -- The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine =================== | 14 Warrigal ------------------- "You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." --Randall Munroe, in the alt-text of xkcd 701 =================== | 14 Steve_Rayhawk ------------------- Practically anything can go faster than Disc light, which is lazy and tame, unlike ordinary light. The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles—kingons, or possibly queons—that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed. -- Terry Pratchett, Mort, on mind-projection fallacy intuitions (and/or on Jack Sarfatti's theories of superluminal signaling) =================== | 14 SilasBarta ------------------- Right on. I'm thinking about writing an "explain yourself" series that shows how you can overcome the supposed barriers to explaining your position if there's actual substance to it to begin with. ETA: 5 upvotes so far -- sounds like a vote of confidence for such an article. ETA2: Message heard loud and clear! I'm working on an article for submission, which may expand into a series. =================== | 14 Shalmanese ------------------- "In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it." GK Chesterton =================== | 14 RobinZ ------------------- It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Whitehead, Alfred North (1861 - 1947), An Introduction to Mathematics. =================== | 14 RichardKennaway ------------------- "The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency." -- Alhazen (Abū Alī al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haitham) =================== | 14 Rain ------------------- If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. -- Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts =================== | 14 Matt_Duing ------------------- "It is said that those who appreciate legislation and sausages should not see them being made. The same is true for human emotions." -- Steven Pinker =================== | 14 Lightwave ------------------- "The lottery is a tax on those incapable of basic math." -- Ambrose Bierce =================== | 14 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head. -- Terry Pratchett, 'Hogfather' =================== | 14 Jayson_Virissimo ------------------- Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods. -H. L. Mencken =================== | 14 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- You cannot improve the world just by being right. -- Confusion, Why functional programming doesnt catch on =================== | 14 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- How utterly selfish of him. =================== | 13 sparrowsfall ------------------- "From the inside, ideology usually looks like common sense." --John Quiggin http://crookedtimber.org/2009/04/22/the-ideology-that-dare-not-speak-its-name/ =================== | 13 khafra ------------------- I'm embarassed to bring this up again, because I seem to quote steven0461 too often--but, in something close to his words; "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains is likely more improbable than an error in one of your impossibility proofs." =================== | 13 gwern ------------------- That's not true. He had perfectly good reasons for atomism in his context. Parmenides's ontological arguments lead to extremely unpalatable, if not outright contradictory, conclusions. One of his key premises is that void cannot exist. Reject that premise and you are left with matter and void. How are matter and void distributed? Well, either matter can be indefinitely chopped up (continuous) or it must halt and be discrete at some point. The Pluralists like Anaxagoras take the former approach, but continuousness leads to its own issues with regard to change.* So to avoid issues with infinity, you must have discrete matter with size/divison limits - atoms. So, Democritus and Leucippus are led to Atomism as the one safe path through a thicket of paradoxes and problems. Describing it as wild conjecture is deeply unfair, and, I hope, ignorant. * One argument, if I remember it from Sextus Empiricus correctly, is that if matter really is infinitely divisible, then you should be able to divide it again and again, with void composing ever more of the original mass you started with; if you do division infinitely, then you must end up with nothing at all! That is a problem. Cantor dust would not have been acceptable to the ancient Greeks. =================== | 13 gregconen ------------------- More people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows you how good people are at evaluating risk. Bruce Schneier =================== | 13 gaffa ------------------- …it is fatally easy to read a pattern into stochastically generated data. -- John Maynard Smith (The Causes of Extinction, 1989) =================== | 13 dclayh ------------------- That is not dead which can eternal lie,/ And with strange aeons even Death may die. —H.P. Lovecraft, clearly talking about cryonic preservation =================== | 13 bogus ------------------- If [Ayn] Rand really wanted to build an individualist sub-culture, she would have done so in an evolutionarily informed way. If people naturally care about the opinions of others, jumping on people is a good way to get dishonest conformity, but a bad way to get an honest exchange of ideas. Instead, an individualist sub-culture must be built upon tolerance and honesty. I'd suggest three key norms: Don't think less of people who sincerely disagree. Do think less of people who insincerely agree. Do think less of people who think less of people who sincerely disagree. --Bryan Caplan Reference: Guardians of Ayn Rand =================== | 13 benthamite ------------------- I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. Bertrand Russell, ‘Introduction’, in Sceptical Essays, London, 1928 =================== | 13 anonym ------------------- Million-to-one odds happen eight times a day in New York. Penn Jillette =================== | 13 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 2 = 5, 5 - 2 =3, and 5 - 3 = 2 are not four facts, but four different ways of looking at one fact. Furthermore, that fact is not a fact of arithmetic, to be taken on faith and memorized like nonsense syllables. It is a fact of nature, which children can discover for themselves, and rediscover or verify for themselves as many times as they need or want to. The fact is this: ***** -- *** ** If you have before you a group of objects--coins or stones, for example---that looks like the group on the left, then you can make it into two groups that look like the ones on the right. Or--and this is what the two-way arrow means---if you have two groups that look like the ones on the right, you can make them into a group that looks like the one on the left. This is not a fact of arithmetic, but a fact of nature. It did not become true only when human beings invented arithmetic. It has nothing to do with human beings. It is true all over the universe. One doesn't have to know any arithmetic to discover or verify it. An infant playing with blocks or a dog pawing at sticks might do that operation, though probably neither of them would notice that he had done it; for them, the difference between ***** and *** ** would be a difference that didn't make any difference. Arithmetic began (and begins) when human beings began to notice and think about this and other numerical facts of nature. ----John Holt, Learning All the Time =================== | 13 Theist ------------------- "I accidentally changed my mind." my four-year-old =================== | 13 Sniffnoy ------------------- On parsimony: If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is. --John von Neumann, at the first national meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery =================== | 13 RobinZ ------------------- Blind alley, though. If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything. Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance =================== | 13 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Your superior intellects are no match for our puny weapons!" (Variously attributed. TV Tropes says the Simpsons.) Also variously interpreted. I take it as a caution against forgetting to actually win with one's towering genius. =================== | 13 RichardKennaway ------------------- "We can get very confused, because we think that words must have some secret meaning that we have to figure out. They don't. They are just noises or marks, and they mean whatever experience you have learned to mean by them. People tend to use similar words in similar situations, but unless you have specifically agreed on what the words will mean, in terms of underlying experiences, there's no way to know what another person understands when you use them. The experience you attach to a word when you say it isn't automatically the same as the experience another person attaches to the same word when hearing it." William T. Powers =================== | 13 RichardKennaway ------------------- "There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you." -- J.K. Rowling, Harvard commencement address. =================== | 13 MBlume ------------------- "I'm writing a book on magic," I explain, and I'm asked, "Real magic?" By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. "No," I answer. "Conjuring tricks, not real magic." Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic. -from Net of Magic, by Lee Siegel =================== | 13 KatjaGrace ------------------- If they are false they are small violations of truth and thus inconsequential. =================== | 13 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- As a rule, people judged themselves according to their intentions and others according to results. In study after study, individuals ranked themselves as more charitable, more compassionate, more conscientious than others, not because they in fact were - but because they wanted to be these things and were almost entirely blind to the fact that others wanted the same. Intentions were all important when it came to self-judgement, and pretty much irrelevant when it came to judging others. The only exceptions, it turned out, were loved ones. That was what it meant to be a 'significant' other: to be included in the circle of delusions that everyone used to exempt themselves. -- Scott Bakker, Neuropath =================== | 13 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- "You can safely say that you have made God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." -- Reverend Robert Cromey =================== | 13 CronoDAS ------------------- "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." - Peter Drucker =================== | 12 tommccabe ------------------- I don't buy a lot of that, at least if we're referring to the 18th century. The founders of America knew damn well that there were no such things as gods, at least not ones that actively intervened in any way we could detect. They were wrong about some details of astronomy, but they had most of the basic outlines right (Lagrange's works describe the celestial mechanics of the solar system in quite some detail). The theories of classical mechanics were known and well understood. Quantum mechanics and relativity weren't, of course, but I am hesitant to refer to this as people being wrong, as there were very few observations available to them which required these to be explained (the perihelion advance of Mercury, for instance, wasn't discovered until 1859). The 18th century view of cosmology was essentially ours, except that it lacked knowledge about how it was organized on a larger scale (galaxies within clusters within superclusters and all that) due to the lack of sufficiently powerful telescopes, and many supposed the universe to be infinite instead of beginning with the Big Bang. The structure of democratic government invented during this period works pretty darn well, by comparison with everything that came before. There have, for instance, been no wars in Western Europe for sixty years, something that has never happened before. Lavoisier and Lomonosov's theories of chemistry were, in fact, largely correct. The periodic table wasn't known, but there was no widely used wrong system of grouping the elements. The full theory of evolution was not known (people still believed in spontaneous generation, for instance), but the idea that groups of similar species arose from a common ancestor by descent with modification was widely known and accepted. The proper extrapolation from this is not "everything you know is wrong", but "there are lots of things you don't know, and lots of non-technical things you 'know' are wrong." =================== | 12 thomblake ------------------- You're thinking of Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness. AngryParsley was referring to Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness, neither of which should be confused with Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness. =================== | 12 steven0461 ------------------- The man who lies to others has merely hidden away the truth, but the man who lies to himself has forgotten where he put it. old Arab proverb, according to this page, which is itself interesting =================== | 12 komponisto ------------------- What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. -- Christopher Hitchens =================== | 12 hrishimittal ------------------- ...you have to make a conscious effort to keep your ideas about what you want from being contaminated by what seems possible.This is isomorphic to the principle that you should prevent your beliefs about how things are from being contaminated by how you wish they were. Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously. The continuing popularity of religion is the most visible index of that. -- pg =================== | 12 gjm ------------------- Most things are, in fact, slippery slopes. And if you start backing off from one thing because it's a slippery slope, who knows where you'll stop? Sean M Burke =================== | 12 dreeves ------------------- "Faced with the choice of changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." -- John Kenneth Galbraith =================== | 12 anonym ------------------- There will be some fundamental assumptions which adherents of all the variant systems within the epoch unconsciously presuppose. Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them. With these assumptions a certain limited number of types of philosophic systems are possible, and this group of systems constitutes the philosophy of the epoch. -- Alfred North Whitehead =================== | 12 Yvain ------------------- "Imagine a world where everything changes to match the state of your mind, where evidence never pushes back against your theories, where your every thought is correct simply because you think it so. Can there be any better definition of hell for a man of learning? " -- Bradeline, Fall From Heaven =================== | 12 SilasBarta ------------------- "An economic transaction is a solved political problem." --Abba Lerner =================== | 12 Seth_Goldin ------------------- There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty He seems to have understood that 0 and 1 are not probabilities. =================== | 12 RobinZ ------------------- There is an unfortunate optical illusion - a variant on the Doppler effect - that besets all frauds. It's unfortunate, because it has the effect of exacerbating the pecuniary losses that fraud victims endure, by unfairly leaving them, like many rape victims, irrationally ashamed of themselves. The Doppler principle we posit holds that as a victim approaches a swindler, he sees nothing but green lights. But as soon as he realizes that his money is gone, he spins around and beholds, as if by magic, bright red flags as far as the eye can see. -- Roger Parloff, senior editor, "More brazen than Madoff?", Fortune, 2009-03-31 =================== | 12 RichardKennaway ------------------- It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance. Charles Darwin, "The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals", ch.3. =================== | 12 RichardKennaway ------------------- "You cannot understand what a person is saying unless you understand who they are arguing with." -- Don Symons, quoted by Tooby and Cosmides. =================== | 12 Rain ------------------- also from bash.org (made as a reply since I'm already at my 5-quote limit): +kritical christin: you need to learn how to figure out stuff yourself.. +Christin1 how do i do that =================== | 12 Rain ------------------- O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. -- Mark Twain, excerpt from The War Prayer =================== | 12 Rain ------------------- I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and just because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. -Helen Keller =================== | 12 Rain ------------------- A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. -- Alexander Pope =================== | 12 NancyLebovitz ------------------- Discussion of how not to get lost in the woods Arg, this post is bringing back memories of all kinds of backcountry stupidity (including a fair amount of my own stupidity), so I can't resist adding a comment about GPS devices. Any navigation tool -- GPS device, map, compass, sextant, whatever -- only works if you are using the navigation tool to relate yourself to the surrounding landscape. And you should never trust maps, GPS devices, compasses, or any tool if it contradicts what you're seeing in the surrounding landscape. I own a top-notch brand of GPS device, I got a top-quality map to go inside it, and when I checked the map against a landscape I knew well, I found error after error (which is true with all maps, by the way; one of the reasons I like paper maps is that I can make notations on it when I find errors). =================== | 12 MichaelGR ------------------- "Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite." --Andrew S. Grove =================== | 12 KatjaGrace ------------------- "Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils; but present evils triumph over it." -- Francois de La Rochefoucauld =================== | 12 JustinShovelain ------------------- Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven. -- Edward de Bono =================== | 12 JoshuaZ ------------------- Were it possible to trace the succession of ideas in the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, during the time that he made his greatest discoveries, I make no doubt but our amazement at the extent of his genius would a little subside. But if, when a man publishes his discoveries, he either through a design, or through habit, omit the intermediary steps by which he himself arrived at them, it is no wonder that his speculations confound them, and that the generality of mankind stand amazed at his reach of thought. If a man ascend to the top of a building by the help of a common ladder, but cut away most of the steps after he has done with them, leaving only every ninth of tenth step, the view of the ladder, in the condition which he has pleased to exhibit it, gives us a prodigious, but unjust view of the man who could have made use of it. But if he had intended that any body should follow him, he should have left the ladder as he constructed it, or perhaps as he found it, for it might have been a mere accident that threw it in his way... I think that the interests of science have suffered by the excessive admiration and wonder with which several first rate philosophers are considered, and that an opinion of the greater equality of mankind, in point of genius, and power of understanding, would be of real service in the present age." - Joseph Priestly, The History and present State of Electricity The section where I've added an ellipsis is a section where he discusses Newton in more detail. That entire part of the text is worth reading. Priestly wrote the book before he did his work on the composition of air. The book is, as far as I am aware, the first attempt at actual history of science. (I'm meaning to read the whole thing at some point, but the occasionally archaic grammar makes for slow reading.) =================== | 12 Jack ------------------- They (Italians and other Europeans) still knew the Earth was round. Indeed, if you live near a sea port this is a very easy thing to figure out. The resistance Columbus faced was that everyone thought the world was much too big to get to the Indies in a reasonable period of time by sailing west. And of course everyone was right and Columbus had no idea what he was talking about. Edit: And actually I'm pretty sure the authorities cerca 1492 were basing their beliefs about the size of the Earth on work done by the ancient Greeks. =================== | 12 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I've asked this question before, but where the hell does the high-quality rationality on TV Tropes come from? =================== | 12 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Consequentialism: The belief that doing the right thing makes the world a better place. -- DanielLC =================== | 12 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened." -- Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense =================== | 12 CannibalSmith ------------------- Something is missing here, a fourth term: [..] the unknown knowns - things we don't know that we know. That's the unconscious! That's ideology! -- Slavoj Žižek @ Google =================== | 12 AlexMennen ------------------- An atheist walked into a bar, but seeing no bartender he revised his initial assumption and decided he only walked into a room. http://friendlyatheist.com/2008/02/29/complete-the-atheist-joke-1/ =================== | 12 ABranco ------------------- I will repeat this point again until I get hoarse: a mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point. —Nicholas Nassim Taleb =================== | 11 wedrifid ------------------- Lies! Blessed just gives you a +1 to attack while sight gives you 2 AC, half speed, -4 search, automatically failed spot checks and the 50% miss chance on every attack from total concealment! =================== | 11 thomblake ------------------- The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -Bertrand Russell =================== | 11 sketerpot ------------------- "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to misattribute it to Voltaire." -Voltaire (The phrase was written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall as a summary of Voltaire's attitude toward free speech. Since then, people started attributing it to Voltaire himself, and the myth has spread far and wide, as nobody really checks to see if he actually said that. Hearing something somewhere is plenty of evidence for most people, most of the time, and the conviction gets more solid over time. Which brings me to my second rationality quote, from Winston Churchill: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.") =================== | 11 roland ------------------- Conscious thought leads people to put disproportionate weight on attributes that are accessible, plausible and easy to verbalize, and therefore too little weight on other attributes. -- Ap Dijksterhuis =================== | 11 loqi ------------------- It's pretty depressing. Not too long ago, someone I know expressed the belief that red is more likely to come up on a roulette table if the last five spins landed on black. He holds a graduate degree in computer science. =================== | 11 gregconen ------------------- Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense. WIlliam Thomson, Lord Kelvin =================== | 11 djcb ------------------- The white line down the center of the road is a mediator, and very likely it can err substantially towards one side the other before the disadvantaged side finds advantage in denying its authority. Source: -- Schelling, Strategy of conflict, p144 [The book was mentioned a couple of times here on LW, and is a nice introduction to the use of game theory in geopolitics] =================== | 11 ciphergoth ------------------- It's worth including the whole sentence: For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled =================== | 11 ciphergoth ------------------- If you're doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal. -- William S Burroughs, Words of Advice for Young People =================== | 11 caiuscamargarus ------------------- Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Philip K. Dick =================== | 11 caiuscamargarus ------------------- Ludwig Wittgenstein: Why do people say that it was natural to think that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth turned on its axis? Elizabeth Anscombe: I suppose, because it looked as if the sun went round the earth. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Well what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis? =================== | 11 badger ------------------- Reason means truth, and those who are not governed by it take the chance that someday a sunken fact will rip the bottom out of their boat. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr =================== | 11 anonym ------------------- Reality is not optional. Thomas Sowell =================== | 11 ajayjetti ------------------- Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter." ~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland =================== | 11 XiXiDu ------------------- The introduction of suitable abstractions is our only mental aid to organize and master complexity. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra =================== | 11 Warrigal ------------------- Note to self: every day, eight million things happen in New York. =================== | 11 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- One disadvantage of having a little intelligence is that one can invent myths out of his own imagination, and come to believe them. Wild animals, lacking imagination, almost never do disastrously stupid things out of false perceptions of the world about them. But humans create artificial disasters for themselves when their ideology makes them unable to perceive where their own self-interest lies. -- E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory as Logic [pdf]. =================== | 11 Unnamed ------------------- "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" -- attributed to George Carlin =================== | 11 SilasBarta ------------------- What brazil84 said. Godin sounds like he's overextrapolating from personal experience. For his claim about "it's because you've been brainwashed" to work, he would need to show that people are taking circuitous routes to standard employment in preference to viable alternate means of making a living. Yes, there are ways to make the same money with less time or "taking orders" ... but they're hard and risky to work out. If people are wrong in these assessments, it takes a heck of a lot more than just realizing, "hey, there are other ways!" You have to know one of those other ways well enough to get it to work! To borrow from Eliezer Yudkowsky, "non-wage-slave is not an income plan". Furthermore, his claim is heavily penalized by it's assertion of conspiracy: he's saying all your teachers "needed" you to beleive this is the natural order of things, that every professor you had believed that, that all employers (not just the businesses but the hiring managers) believed that, etc. Yes, I'm aware of the history of public education (incl. Gatto's claims about it), but Godin is going further, and saying that these people need you to believe lies. Employers don't look for college grads because they're trying to enforce an oppressive system; they do it because the existence of the university degree option sorts applicants by ability in the most efficient, legal way. Teachers teach because of a combination of liking teaching and the benefits, not out of a deep-seated need to indoctrinate people into a 9-5 lifestyle. Don't tell me how bad it is to have a standard job; show me the viable option! Don't assume people aren't aware of the options; show that they're viable! With that said, Godin has a good point, but standard jobs are a bad example. A better one might be how people blur the concepts of "getting a steady income until dealth" and "not working" into the same term ("retirement"), when really they should think of them as distinct. =================== | 11 RobinZ ------------------- Edit: DUPLICATE "Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak. "Yes—and no," said Yama. "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span, and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape—then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect." "Oh? And what may that be?" "It is not a supernatural creature." "But it is all those other things?" "Yes." "Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not—so long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will." "Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy—it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool. I have no use for either." Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light. (h/t zhurnaly) =================== | 11 RichardKennaway ------------------- The Mathemagician nodded knowingly and stroked his chin several times. "You'll find," he remarked gently, "that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort." -- Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth =================== | 11 RichardKennaway ------------------- "People are not complicated. People are really very simple. What makes them appear complicated is our continual insistence on interpreting their behavior instead of discovering their goals." -- Bruce Gregory =================== | 11 Nic_Smith ------------------- I recall, for example, suggesting to a regular loser at a weekly poker game that he keep a record of his winnings and losses. His response was that he used to do so but had given up because it proved to be unlucky. - Ken Binmore, Rational Decisions A side note: All three of the quotes I've posted are from Binmore's Rational Decisions, which I'm about a third of the way through and have found very interesting. It makes a great companion to Less Wrong -- and it's also quite quotable in spots. =================== | 11 MrHen ------------------- She was talking to students at Harvard. =================== | 11 MichaelGR ------------------- This problem affects a question close to Frances Kamm’s work: what she calls the Problem of Distance in Morality (PDM). Kamm says that her intuition consistently finds that moral obligations attach to things that are close to us, but not to thinks that are far away. According to her, if we see a child drowning in a pond and there’s a machine nearby which, for a dollar, will scoop him out, we’re morally obligated to give the machine a dollar. But if the machine is here but the scoop and child are on the other side of the globe, we don’t have to put a dollar in the machine. --Aaron Swartz =================== | 11 Matt_Duing ------------------- "It's wonderful how much we suck compared to us ten years from now!" -- Michael Blume =================== | 11 Marcello ------------------- Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -- Albert Einstein =================== | 11 Jack ------------------- Except that actually isn't right. You miss exactly 0% of the shots you don't take. And I'm not just being pedantic. In basketball this attitude can cost teams games. Any game of possessions (of which basketball is one) is won with efficiency. Shooting the ball means there is some chance of scoring but also some chance of missing and the ball being rebounded by the other team. When the latter happens you've lost your opportunity to score and you will never get it back. So the key to winning is to take high efficiency shots-- this means shots that are likely to go in and shots that are worth a lot of points. Now not shooting does increase the likelihood of a turnover and one can't go on not shooting forever. Moreover, quick shots before the defense is ready can often be very efficient shots. But the key is that the game is not about scoring a lot of points-- it's about scoring a lot of points efficiently. And to get good at that means cultivating a skill of waiting for the best shot, creating a better shot or deferring to more efficient teammates. It might be that these aren't concerns in hockey: if all shots are more or less equally efficient or if a lot of points are scored of offensive rebounds "keep shooting it" might be a good message. I don't know a lot about the sport. But even hockey players aren't shooting from the other side of the rink. Outside sports there are occasions where 'missing' is worse than 'not shooting' and if the chances of 'missing' are high enough or the cost of 'missing' sufficiently high it can be a really bad idea to 'shoot'. =================== | 11 Houshalter ------------------- It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. Another Twain quote. =================== | 11 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to close it again on something solid. -- G.K. Chesterton =================== | 11 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Surely, to label a statement "vague" is a higher order of insult than to call it "wrong". Newton was wrong but at least he was not vague. =================== | 11 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I haven't taken this position just to be difficult. To look around, the world does appear to be flat, so I think it is incumbent on others to prove decisively that it isn't. And I don't think that burden of proof has been met yet. -- Daniel Shenton, President of the Flat Earth Society as of 2010 =================== | 11 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I don't know how many people I've met who hold beliefs like "in three card stud a four is more likely to come up after an eight than a six." What the fuck? Is the concept of random that hard to grasp? -- Alphadominance =================== | 11 CronoDAS ------------------- The wizard who reads a thousand books is powerful. The wizard who memorizes a thousand books is insane. =================== | 11 CronoDAS ------------------- Its now well known that if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything. =================== | 11 Bindbreaker ------------------- "One thousand five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat... and fifteen minutes ago, you knew people were alone on this planet. Think about what you'll know tomorrow." -- Agent K, "Men in Black" =================== | 11 AndySimpson ------------------- Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. --Aldous Huxley =================== | 11 AllanCrossman ------------------- Eliezer didn't say... oh sod it. =================== | 11 ABranco ------------------- Never underestimate the difficulty of changing false beliefs by facts. —Harvard economist Henry Rosovsky =================== | 11 ABranco ------------------- A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual" — find out how he feels about astrology. —Robert Heinlein =================== | 10 utilitymonster ------------------- Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey..., without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself. --Samuel Johnson =================== | 10 steven0461 ------------------- Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen. -- the Agnostic's Prayer, by Roger Zelazny =================== | 10 spriteless ------------------- Since all things related to akrasia and self motivation are relevant here: "As a final incentive before giving up a difficult task, try to imagine it successfully accomplished by someone you violently dislike." -K. Zenios =================== | 10 righteousreason ------------------- "But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil." - Robert Heinlein (SISL) =================== | 10 matt ------------------- Silas, you're making strong arguments but mixing in emotion that makes it harder for your interlocutor to change their mind. =================== | 10 loqi ------------------- That's a terrible quote. Being wrong is the best possible outcome of an argument, as it's the one with the highest expected knowledge gain (unless you're a hardcore altruist who doesn't value their own knowledge differently from anyone else's). =================== | 10 gregconen ------------------- I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses. Johannes Kepler =================== | 10 brian_jaress ------------------- Censure yourself, never another. Do not discuss right and wrong. -- Zengetsu When I first saw this, I had a negative gut reaction. The second sentence especially bothered me. Over time, I've come to like it more. I'm now at the point of wanting to follow it but usually failing to do so. Discussions here on [akrasia][] seem to focus on procrastination, but this is my own very close number two. =================== | 10 badger ------------------- The greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived, and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, pervasive, and unrealistic. -- John F. Kennedy (For those interested, I'm pulling most of these quotes from Rational Choice in an Uncertain World by Robyn Dawes, which I just began) =================== | 10 anonym ------------------- When I became convinced that the Universe is natural — that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world — not even in infinite space. I was free — free to think, to express my thoughts — free to live to my own ideal — free to live for myself and those I loved — free to use all my faculties, all my senses — free to spread imagination’s wings — free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope — free to judge and determine for myself — free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past — free from the popes and priests — free from all the “called” and “set apart” — free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies — free from the fear of eternal pain — free from the winged monsters of the night — free from devils, ghosts, and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought — no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings — no chains for my limbs — no lashes for my back — no fires for my flesh — no master’s frown or threat — no following another’s steps — no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave for the liberty of hand and brain — for the freedom of labor and thought — to those who fell in the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains — to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs — to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn — to those by fire consumed — to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still. — Robert G. Ingersoll =================== | 10 anonym ------------------- Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgment, which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable. -- John Stuart Mill =================== | 10 anonym ------------------- There’s no sense in being precise when you don’t even know what you’re talking about. John Von Neumann =================== | 10 anonym ------------------- Knowing that one may be subject to bias is one thing; being able to correct it is another. Jon Elster =================== | 10 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- 'Cause it's gonna be the future soon And I won't always be this way When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away --Jonothan Coulton =================== | 10 Rune ------------------- "Science is interesting and if you don't agree, you can fuck off." -- Richard Dawkins quoting a former editor of New Scientist magazine. =================== | 10 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Successful zealots don't argue to win. They argue to move the goalposts and to make it appear sane to do so." -- Seth Godin =================== | 10 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Death is the most terrible of all things; for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be any longer either good or bad for the dead." -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics The halt can manage a horse, the handless a flock, The deaf be a doughty fighter, To be blind is better than to burn on a pyre: There is nothing the dead can do. -- Havamal =================== | 10 Rain ------------------- Wisdom is not only to be acquired, but also to be utilized. -Marcus Tullius Cicero =================== | 10 Rain ------------------- Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson =================== | 10 Rain ------------------- Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan =================== | 10 Rain ------------------- He must be very ignorant; for he answers every question he is asked. -- Voltaire =================== | 10 PhilGoetz ------------------- A good point - but also note that, when Galileo argued against Artistotelian physics in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he set forth instead the idea of the inertial reference frame - but Galileo also never felt the need to perform an experiment to verify that his shipboard "experiments" would work as he predicted. Both the wrong conclusion, and the right conclusion, were arrived at via thought-experiment. And when Einstein took the next step by proposing the special theory of relativity, that too was a thought-experiment with no validation. =================== | 10 Oscar_Cunningham ------------------- ...Or you've just missed something. If all you're left with is improbable you notice that you are confused. I've always thought that quote was off. Then again, Sherlock never did miss anything. =================== | 10 MatthewB ------------------- People will torture their children with battery acid from time to time anyway -- and who among us hasn't wanted to kill and eat an albino? I sincerely hope that my "new atheist" colleagues are not so naive as to imagine that actual belief in magic might be the issue here. After all, it would be absurd to criticize witchcraft as unscientific, as this would ignore the primordial division between mythos and logos. Let me see if I have this straight: Belief in demons, the evil eye, and the medicinal value of a cannibal feast are perversions of the real witchcraft - -which is drenched with meaning, intrinsically wholesome, integral to our humanity, and here to stay. Do I have that right? Sam Harriss reply to Karen Armstrong =================== | 10 Furcas ------------------- To say that you're agnostic about something can mean two things: That you're not 100% certain, or that you're (approximately) 50% certain. If you're using the first meaning, nothing you've said is wrong... but it is extremely pedantic. It's true we can't be 100% certain that there is no God, but it's also true that we can't be 100% certain about any of our beliefs except perhaps mathematical truths. Would you go around saying you're agnostic about the possibility that Obama is Satan in disguise, or the possibility that the keyboard in front of you is actually a specimen of an as-of-yet undiscovered species of animals with keyboard-mimicry capabilities? Of course you wouldn't. So why would you bother mentioning your agnosticism about God? Of course, there are some people who really are agnostic about God, in the second sense of 'agnostic'. They're wrong, but at least they're not being pedantic. What annoys atheists like me is those who take advantage of the dual meaning of 'agnostic' to make us look like overconfident fools: They'll say that no one can know "with absolute certainty" that God doesn't exist and that it is therefore arrogant to believe that he doesn't exist. To someone who hasn't come to terms with the inherently probabilistic nature of knowledge, this can sound like a convincing argument, but to the rest of us it can be rather infuriating. =================== | 10 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- If you’ve never broken the bed, you’re not experimenting enough. -- Miss HT Psych =================== | 10 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I don't believe in the supernetural. There can be knowledge for which we do not possess the Google keywords, but to speak of knowledge that cannot be Googled even in principle is nonsense. =================== | 10 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I almost believe we are ghosts, all of us. It's not just what we inherit from our fathers and mothers that walks again in us - it's all sorts of dead old ideas and dead beliefs and things like that. They don't exactly live in us, but there they sit all the same and we can't get rid of them. All I have to do is pick up a newspaper, and I see ghosts lurking between the lines. I think there are ghosts everywhere you turn in this country - as many as there are grains of sand - and then there we all are, so abysmally afraid of the light. -- Ibsen, 1881 =================== | 10 ABranco ------------------- It does not matter how frequently something succeeds if failure is too costly to bear. —Nicholas Nassim Taleb (i.e.: don't forget to put, in your utility functions, the damn appropriate weight of those highly-improbable-but-high-negative-impact tragedies!) =================== | 9 wuwei ------------------- According to an old story, a lord of ancient China once asked his physician, a member of a family of healers, which of them was the most skilled in the art. The physician, whose reputation was such that his name became synonymous with medical science in China, replied, "My eldest brother sees the spirit of sickness and removes it before it takes shape and so his name does not get out of the house." "My elder brother cures sickness when it is still extremely minute, so his name does not get out of the neighborhood." "As for me, I puncture veins, prescribe potions, and massage skin, so from time to time my name gets out and is heard among the lords." -- Thomas Cleary, Introduction to The Art of War =================== | 9 wedrifid ------------------- That way of looking at it is attractive but I don't think it is accurate. Most of religion is the outcome of that extra 10% and definitely part of what we identify as 'person'. Rejecting religion, and other equivalent institutions is an act of rebellion of 2% against the other 8%. =================== | 9 sketerpot ------------------- Solar power requires heavy industry to build, and that has loads of externalities. It takes up a lot of space and affects local climate and ecology. And then there's the unreliability of the sun, which can have economic consequences. As for the nuclear externalities you mentioned, the evacuation planning and government safety things are paid for by power plant fees, and budgeted into the cost of building and operating the plants. Defending the plants is something you have to do with all forms of power generation, and I actually think you're miscalculating the risks by looking at the power plants themselves, which (in the case of nuclear) tend to be pretty beefy and well-guarded. Attacking the transmission lines would be much easier, and much harder to defend against. This goes double for wind and solar farms that are located far away from everything and have to use longer power lines. (And really, what are the odds you'll ever have to use those evacuation plans? I'd worry more about crossing the street. No water-moderated reactor has ever had an accident that made evacuating people nearby a good idea, even after all these decades of operating them, and there are good theoretical and practical reasons to believe that it never will.) And while we're looking at externalities, consider this: nuclear is the only option that's currently competitive with coal on a cost-per-kWh basis. Very cautious safety regulations, by holding nuclear power back, are responsible for a lot of coal emissions -- which are far more dangerous than anything people are talking about for nuclear plants. Paradoxically, our worries about nuclear safety have made us much less safe. What we have here is a widespread failure to shut up and multiply. I really like this as a test-case for rationality, because it's important and we really can look at it probabilistically for insight. =================== | 9 sketerpot ------------------- Rephrase that and it sounds nonsensical: "If you can't outperform the stock market, then how can you be sure of anything?" I think Carnegie was just looking for a glib rationalization for his advice to avoid contradicting people whom you want to like you. =================== | 9 scav ------------------- "The trouble with trying to be more stupid than you really are is that you very often succeed" - C.S.Lewis The Magician's Nephew =================== | 9 neq1 ------------------- Here is what he said prior to making the statement I quoted (to give you some context): Take historical analogies. I believe that historical analogies are always wrong. This a long discussion, but, to me, the most dangerous thing about Chamberlain’s capitulation to Hitler at Munich is not the fact that Munich happened and it led to further Nazi aggression and so on and so forth, but that the example of Munich has been used to support thousands upon thousands of bad policies and inappropriate decisions. LeMay called JFK’s recommendation for a “quarantine” (that is, a blockade) in the Cuban Missile Crisis “worse than Munich”. Would nuclear war have been a better alternative? But nuclear war was averted by Kennedy’s policies. And thirty years later the Soviet Union collapsed without the need for nuclear war. Was LeMay right? I don’t think so. But again, the example of Munich was invoked to justify the invasion of Iraq. Appeasing Saddam, appeasing Hitler. The use of the Munich analogy does not clarify, it obscures. =================== | 9 komponisto ------------------- Some people dream of great things. Others stay awake and do them. -Poster found in school classrooms (Anyone know the original source?) =================== | 9 jscn ------------------- It's a wonderful thing to be clever, and you should never think otherwise, and you should never stop being that way. But what you learn, as you get older, is that there are a few million other people in the world all trying to be clever at the same time, and whatever you do with your life will certainly be lost - swallowed up in the ocean - unless you are doing it with like-minded people who will remember your contributions and carry them forward. That is why the world is divided into tribes. -- Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age I neglected to record from which character the quote came. =================== | 9 gregconen ------------------- I always saw a close kinship between the needs of "pure" mathematics and a certain hero of Greek mythology, Antaeus. The son of Earth, he had to touch the ground every so often in order to reestablish contact with his Mother; otherwise his strength waned. To strangle him, Hercules simply held him off the ground. Back to mathematics. Separation from any down-to-earth input could safely be complete for long periods — but not forever. -Benoit Mandelbrot =================== | 9 gjm ------------------- Truth emerges much more readily from error than from confusion. Francis Bacon =================== | 9 djcb ------------------- There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero [ while in general I value philosophy, there is also much nonsense and, especially, little progress ] =================== | 9 djcb ------------------- Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain comes joy, delights, laughter, and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what are unsavory. ... And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us. ... All these things we endure from the brain. ...In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. -- Hippocrates, On the sacred disease (ca. 4th century BCE). [ In this and other of his writings, Hippocrates shows such an incredible early sense for rationality and against superstition that was only rarely seen in the next 2000 after that -- and in addition, he was not just a armchair philosopher, he actually put these things is practice. So, hats off for Hippocrates, even when his medicine was not without faults of course...] =================== | 9 ciphergoth ------------------- If people don't realise that the river is dirty and that's causing problems, changing that is valuable work by itself. =================== | 9 childofbaud ------------------- A formula is worth a thousand pictures. —Edsger Dijkstra =================== | 9 badger ------------------- We consider ourselves distinguished from the ape by the power of thought. We do not remember that it is like the power of walking in the one-year-old. We think, it is true, but we think so badly that I often feel it would be better if we did not. -- Bertrand Russell in Faith and Mountains =================== | 9 anonym ------------------- No artist tolerates reality. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche =================== | 9 aausch ------------------- 'Nash equilibrium strategy' is not necessarily synonymous to 'optimal play'. A Nash equilibrium can define an optimum, but only as a defensive strategy against stiff competition. More specifically: Nash equilibria are hardly ever maximally exploitive. A Nash equilibrium strategy guards against any possible competition including the fiercest, and thereby tends to fail taking advantage of sub-optimum strategies followed by competitors. Achieving maximally exploitive play generally requires deviating from the Nash strategy, and allowing for defensive leaks in ones own strategy. -- Johannes Koelman =================== | 9 Z_M_Davis ------------------- We all know many things about the world. What form or shape does our knowledge take? We may be able to say some of what we know, though in many people there is a deep and dangerous confusion between what they say and think they believe and what they really believe. But all of us know much more than we can say, and many times we cannot really put it into words at all. For example, if we have eaten them, we know what strawberries taste like. We have in us somewhere knowledge---a memory, many memories---of the taste of strawberries. Not just one berry either, but many, more or less ripe, or sweet, or tasty. But how can we really speak of the taste of a strawberry? When we bite into a berry, we are ready to taste a certain kind of taste; if we taste something very different, we are surprised. It is this---what we expect or what surprises us---that tells us best what we really know. We know many other things that we cannot say. We know what a friend looks like, so well that we may say, seeing him after some time, that he looks older or no older; heavier or thinner; worried or at peace, or happy. But our answers are usually so general that we could not give a description from which someone who had never seen our friend could recognize him. ---John Holt, What Do I Do Monday? =================== | 9 Yvain ------------------- [Mathematical methods of inference] literally have no content; long division can calculate miles per gallon, or it can calculate income per capita. The statistical tools of experimental psychology were borrowed from agronomy, where they were invented to gauge the effects of different fertilizers on crop yields. The tools work just fine in psychology, even though, as one psychological statistician wrote, "we do not deal in manure, at least not knowingly." -- Steven Pinker, How The Mind Works =================== | 9 XiXiDu ------------------- I'll start incorporating crazy counter-intuitive notions about the nature of the universe when the cold implacable hand of the universe starts shoving them down my throat, not before! -- PZ Myers =================== | 9 XFrequentist ------------------- Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there. -- Richard Feynman The Character of Physical Law =================== | 9 Tetronian ------------------- Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. Aldous Huxley =================== | 9 SoullessAutomaton ------------------- American flag manufacturers So... China? =================== | 9 ShardPhoenix ------------------- Presumably not per unit exposure, which is the relevant measure when you're near a pig or shark. If he's talking about abstract worry, then he might have a point. =================== | 9 Rune ------------------- "People will then often say, 'But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?' This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)" -- Douglas Adams =================== | 9 Rune ------------------- "If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time in airports." -- Umesh Vazirani (as quoted by Scott Aaronson) =================== | 9 RobinZ ------------------- Quotation - yes, but how differently persons quote! I am as much informed of your genius by what you select, as by what you originate. I read the quotation with your eyes, find a new fervent sense... For good quoting, then, there must be originality in the quoter - bent, bias, delight in the truth, only valuing the author in the measure of his agreement with the truth which we see, which he had the luck to see first. And originality, what is that? It is being; being somebody, being yourself, reporting accurately what you see are. If another's words describe your fact, use them as freely as you use the language the alphabet, whose use does not impair your originality. Neither will another's sentiment or distinction impugn your sufficiency. Yet in proportion to your reality of life perception, will be your difficulty of finding yourself expressed in others' words or deeds. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, Oct.-Nov. 1867 =================== | 9 RichardKennaway ------------------- In fewer words: we can imagine things that cannot exist. =================== | 9 RichardKennaway ------------------- Despite the fact that you arrived in this world with nothing but an unborn Buddha-mind, your partiality for yourselves now makes you want to have things move in your own way. You lose your temper, become contentious, and then you think, "I haven't lost my temper. That fellow won't listen to me. By being so unreasonable he has made me lose it." And so you fix belligerently on his words and end up transforming the valuable Buddha-mind into a fighting spirit. By stewing over this unimportant matter, making the thoughts churn over and over in your mind, you may finally get your way, but then you fail in your ignorance to realize that it was meaningless for you to concern yourself over such a matter. From The Dharma Talks of Zen Master Bankei, translated by Norman Waddell. Quoted by Torkel Franzén as a perfect description of Usenet flamewars. =================== | 9 RichardKennaway ------------------- A certain mother habitually rewards her small son with ice cream after he eats his spinach. What additional information would you need to be able to predict whether the child will: a. Come to love or hate spinach, b. Love or hate ice cream, or c. Love or hate Mother? -- Gregory Bateson, "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" =================== | 9 Rain ------------------- As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion? -- Ollie, The Mist, 2007 =================== | 9 Rain ------------------- A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought. -- Dorothy L. Sayers =================== | 9 Psychohistorian ------------------- I view it as the opposite. It seems to suggest figuring out what people are rather than throwing up our hands and calling them good/evil/crazy/etc. Kind of like this. YMMV. =================== | 9 Nominull ------------------- Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong. -- Unknown =================== | 9 Nic_Smith ------------------- [Discarding game] theory in favor of some notion of collective rationality makes no sense. One might as well propose abandoning arithmetic because two loaves and seven fish won't feed a multitude. -- Ken Binmore, Rational Decisions =================== | 9 Nic_Smith ------------------- "It is therefore highly illogical to speak of 'verifying' (3.8 [the Bernoulli urn equation]) by performing experiments with the urn; that would be like trying to verify a boy's love for his dog by performing experiments on the dog." - E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory =================== | 9 NancyLebovitz ------------------- From a href="http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/07/the_practical_limits_of_knowledge.php#more"Ta Nehisi Coates/a: blocikquoteBut I distrusted the whole game. Intuitively, I wonder about the honesty and proficiency of writers who opine on everything from Iran to education to drug policy to health care to cap and trade to race. Perhaps these people simply have more brains than me, but the catch-all nature of punditry, the need to speak on every policy topic as though one were an expert, is exactly what I hope to avoid./blockquote =================== | 9 Morendil ------------------- [...] Probability theory can tell us how our hypothesis fares relative to the alternatives that we have specified; it does not have the creative imagination to invent new hypotheses for us. -- E.T. Jaynes, Probability Theory =================== | 9 MichaelGR ------------------- I argue that people are primarily driven by envy as opposed to greed, so they are mindful of their relative, as opposed to absolute, position, and this leads to doing what others are doing as a mechanism of minimizing risk. --Eric Falkenstein =================== | 9 MichaelGR ------------------- By definition, all but the last doomsday prediction is false. Yet it does not follow, as many seem to think, that all doomsday predictions must be false; what follow is only that all such predictions but one are false. -Richard A. Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response, p. 13 =================== | 9 Matt_Duing ------------------- "Sanity is conforming your thoughts to reality. Conforming reality to your thoughts is creativity." -- Unknown =================== | 9 Kutta ------------------- „The hard part is actually being rational, which requires that you postpone the fun but currently irrelevant arguments until the pressing problem is solved, even perhaps with the full knowledge that you are actually probably giving them up entirely. Delaying gratification in this manner is not a unique difficulty faced by transhumanists. Anyone pursuing a long-term goal, such as a medical student or PhD candidate, does the same. The special difficulty that you will have to overcome is the difficulty of staying on track in the absence of social support or of appreciation of the problem, and the difficulty of overcoming your mind’s anti-religion defenses, which will be screaming at you to cut out the fantasy and go live a normal life, with the normal empty set of beliefs about the future and its potential.” – Michael Vassar =================== | 9 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- I forget if I've posted this before, but: "I've noticed that the press tends to be quite accurate, except when they're writing on a subject I know something about." -- Keith F. Lynch =================== | 9 HughRistik ------------------- It's easy to put down the shallow concerns of life, but in a way they are what life is about. Deeper concerns that don't connect in any way to economic wealth, social status, physical pleasure, etc., are not really deep but pointless. The shallow concerns all pertain to the lowest common denominator of human life because they really are the basic fabric of everyone's life. They're concerns that everyone shares and that everyone can easily understand. —Ben Kovitz, Shallowness =================== | 9 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Nobody wants to die. They just want the pain to stop. -- Tetragrammaton =================== | 9 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- My two worst business experiences have been with ostentatiously 'spiritual' people. It's not that they're insincere in their beliefs, it's just a lot easier for them to deceive themselves that the selfish things they do have justifications in them somewhere. -- PeteWarden =================== | 9 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I worry far more about the "promising" stock market, particularly the "safe" blue chip stocks, than I do about speculative ventures -- the former present invisible risks, the latter offer no surprises since you know how volatile they are and can limit your downside by investing smaller amounts... I am very aggressive when I can gain exposure to positive Black Swans -- when a failure would be of small moment -- and very conservative when I am under threat from a negative Black Swan. I am very aggressive when an error in a model can benefit me, and paranoid when an error can hurt. -- Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan =================== | 9 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Defects of empirical knowledge have less to do with the ways we go wrong in philosophy than defects of character do: such things as the simple inability to shut up; determination to be thought deep; hunger for power; fear, especially the fear of an indifferent universe. -- David Stove, What Is Wrong With Our Thoughts =================== | 9 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- And the Earth is slowly curving in its orbit, generating an apparent centrifugal force that decreases your weight at midnight, and increases your weight at noon. Except for a very tiny tidal correction, these two forces exactly cancel which is why the Earth stays in orbit in the first place. This argument would only be valid if the Earth were suspended motionless on two giant poles running through the axis or something. =================== | 9 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- All truth is not, indeed, of equal importance; but if little violations are allowed, every violation will in time be thought little. -- Samuel Johnson =================== | 9 Daniel_Burfoot ------------------- To a very great extent, the term science is reserved for fields that do progress in obvious ways. But does a field make progress because it is a science, or is it a science because it makes progress? -Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions =================== | 9 Cyan ------------------- Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion. -- Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620) =================== | 9 CronoDAS ------------------- Five hundred years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat... Not true! The ancient Greeks measured the circumference of the Earth to within 1%. =================== | 9 Benquo ------------------- This kind of sentiment pops up in Plato a lot, esp. in discussions of rhetoric, like here in Gorgias: "For I count being refuted a greater good, insofar as it is a greater good to be rid of the greatest evil from oneself than to rid someone else of it. I don't suppose that any evil for a man is as great as false belief about the things we're discussing right now." (458a, Zeyl Translation) =================== | 9 AndySimpson ------------------- ...natural selection built the brain to survive in the world and only incidentally to understand it at a depth greater than is needed to survive. The proper task of scientists is to diagnose and correct the misalignment. -E. O. Wilson =================== | 8 wnoise ------------------- No, currently we don't. If we want our values to survive, then we must win. If we want to win, we have nothing else to place our values on besides this "apparently barren soil". Think of it as the converse of the following Terry Pratchett dialog between Susan and Death in Hogfather: "All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." "REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE" "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little- " "YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES" "So we can believe the big ones?" "YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING" "They're not the same at all!" "YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET-- " Death waved a hand. "AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED" "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point---" "MY POINT EXACTLY" =================== | 8 thomblake ------------------- it can't be ineffable if you're effing it. -Vorpal =================== | 8 thomblake ------------------- To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them; this skill is most needed in times of stress and darkness. -Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness =================== | 8 steven0461 ------------------- There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear. --Daniel Dennett =================== | 8 roland ------------------- Prevent all problems and get nothing done, or accept an allowable level of small problems and focus on the big things. --Timothy Ferriss =================== | 8 newerspeak ------------------- It's a paraphrase of T.E. Lawrence: All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. =================== | 8 neq1 ------------------- "History is like the weather. Themes do repeat themselves, but never in the same way. And analogies became rhetorical flourishes and sad ex post facto justifications rather than explanations. In the end, they explain nothing." -Errol Morris =================== | 8 mattnewport ------------------- If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit. There's no use in being a damn fool about it. -- W. C. Fields =================== | 8 jimrandomh ------------------- What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. -- Christopher Hitchens Accuracy was sacrificed for a pleasant parallel construction. Anything can be so asserted. And, without supporting evidence, such assertions demonstrate nothing. The mere fact that an assertion has been made is, in fact, evidence. For example, I will now flip a coin five times, and assert that the outcome was THHTT. I will not provide any evidence other than that assertion, but that is sufficient to conclude that your estimate of the probability that it's true should be higher than 1/2^5. Most assertions don't come with evidence provided unless you go looking for it. If nothing else, most assertions have to be unsupported because they're evidence for other things and the process has to bottom out somewhere. Now, as a matter of policy we should encourage people to provide more evidence for their assertions wherever possible, but that is entirely separate from the questions of what is evidence, what evidence is needed, and what is demonstrated by an assertion having been made. =================== | 8 hegemonicon ------------------- "I am about to discuss the disease called 'sacred'. It is not, in my opinion, any more divine or more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause, and its supposed divine orgin is due to men's inexperience, and to their wonder at its peculiar character" --Hippocractic treatise on epilepsy =================== | 8 gwern ------------------- "One mark of a good officer... the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better." --Ringworld, Larry Niven =================== | 8 gaffa ------------------- It is better to have an approximate answer to the right question than an exact answer to the wrong question. -- John Tukey =================== | 8 epistememe ------------------- There are two different types of people in the world,those who want to know,and those who want to believe.--Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche =================== | 8 dreeves ------------------- "They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -- Carl Sagan =================== | 8 dclayh ------------------- I heard an interview with the guys who do South Park that for their 9/11 conspiracy episode they were considering making the real culprits the American flag manufacturers, because they clearly benefited the most. =================== | 8 davidr ------------------- "On the contrary, it's because someone knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance... so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about! " -- Richard Feynman =================== | 8 badger ------------------- The fundamental insight triggered by memetic studies is that a belief may spread without necessarily being true or helping the human being holding the belief in any way. -- Keith Stanovich, The Robots Rebellion (p. xii) =================== | 8 ata ------------------- Unless one of the toys in question is a cryostat. Then there's still hope. =================== | 8 anonym ------------------- The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions. Claude Lévi-Strauss =================== | 8 anonym ------------------- The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work. John Von Neumann =================== | 8 anonym ------------------- Memory belongs to the imagination. Human memory is not like a computer which records things; it is part of the imaginative process, on the same terms as invention. — Alain Robbe-Grillet =================== | 8 anonym ------------------- Mathematics is the only good metaphysics. Lord Kelvin =================== | 8 anonym ------------------- ... by natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous. — Henri Poincaré =================== | 8 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- Right, so Charlie Brown is frustrated with commercialism and asks if anyone knows what Christmas is all about, and Linus replies by quoting the Bible, reminding Charlie Brown about the religious significance of the day and thereby guarding against loss of purpose. (In our state of knowledge, we don't regard religious observance as a legitimate purpose, but conditioning on the premise that Christianity is true, it would be important to make sure your holidays remain being about Christ, rather than wandering off and becoming about gifts or something.) I like the indirectness of Linus's reminder (the scene would have been much less effective if Linus had just said, "Well, it's about Jesus"), which is why I referred to the Eliezer's "twelfth virtue" in my (apparently still too opaque) attempt at explanation above. Mere words can only be pointers; they don't in themselves contain the complexity of a thought. The thoughts that you can only invoke indirectly are important. ("You may try to name the highest principle with names such as 'the reason for the season,' 'the true spirit of Chirstmas,' or 'God's word,' but what if c.) I like the seeming incongruity of using a religious quote in a Rationality Quotes thread, which on a meta level illustrates that specific ideas can be accepted or rejected on their own merits. Of course Christianity is false, but if a religious quote also demonstrates something true or useful, the irrationality of the source doesnt matter. Maybe too subtle (judging by the downvotes), but I'm not so sure. =================== | 8 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- Mathematical folklore contains a story about how Acta Quandalia published a paper proving that all partially uniform k-quandles had the Cosell property, and then a few months later published another paper proving that no partially uniform k-quandles had the Cosell property. And in fact, goes the story, both theorems were quite true, which put a sudden end to the investigation of partially uniform k-quandles. -- Mark Jason Dominus =================== | 8 Z_M_Davis ------------------- [N]ot just our actions and reactions but our very perceptions, what we think we see, feel, smell, and so on, are deeply affected by our mental model, our assumptions and beliefs about the way things really are. In a great variety of experiments with perception, many people, many times over, have shown this to be true. Therefore it is not just fancy and tricky talk to say that each of us lives, not so much in an objective out-there world that is the same for all of us, but in his mental model of that world. It is this model of the world that he experiences. We are not, then starting an impossible contradiction, or using language carelessly, when we say that I live in my mental model of the world, and my mental model lives in me. ---John Holt, What Do I Do Monday? Compare "Where Recursive Justification Hits Bottom" =================== | 8 Yvain ------------------- Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion. -- Scott Adams =================== | 8 XiXiDu ------------------- I see this is being downvoted badly. I got it. Anyway, for those interested in the nature of reality, check out the discussion about the above quote here: http://www.thebigquestions.com/2009/12/17/non-simple-arithmetic/ I'd delete it here, but since there are comments referring to it, I won't. =================== | 8 XFrequentist ------------------- In the future, as science becomes more and more oriented to thinking in terms of information content, Godel's result will be seen as more of a platitude than a paradox. --E. T. Jaynes (on the infamous eponymous theorem) =================== | 8 Warrigal ------------------- It's possible, and not undesirable, to achieve perfection. For example, the majority of words I type are spelled perfectly, and the perfect answer to "what is two plus two?" is "four". It's just not possible or desirable to achieve it everywhere. =================== | 8 Tom_Talbot ------------------- The unwillingness to tolerate or respect any social forces which are not recognizable as the product of intelligent design, which is so important a cause of the present desire for comprehensive economic planning, is indeed only one aspect of a more general movement. We meet the same tendency in the field of morals and conventions, in the desire to substitute an artificial for the existing languages, and in the whole modern attitude toward processes which govern the growth of knowledge. The belief that only a synthetic system of morals, an artificial language, or even an artificial society can be justified in an age of science, as well as the increasing unwillingness to bow before any moral rules whose utility is not rationally demonstrated, or to conform with conventions whose rationale is not known, are all manifestations of the same basic view which wants all social activity to be recognizably part of a single coherent plan. They are the results of that same rationalistic "individualism" which wants to see in everything the product of conscious individual reason. Friedrich Hayek, Individualism: True and False =================== | 8 Tiiba ------------------- "Can't I do things without the results being guaranteed?" Yes; it's called ignorance. It's not called freedom. =================== | 8 Thomas ------------------- Science must have originated in the feeling that something was wrong. -Thomas Carlyle =================== | 8 Rune ------------------- "It’s hard to argue with a counter-example." -- Roger Brockett =================== | 8 Roko ------------------- "What's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and the trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem." Barack Obama =================== | 8 RobinZ ------------------- Only slightly less interesting in the same comment: I used to hike a fair amount in the White Mountains in northern New England, and I made a point of reading the accident reports in Appalachia, the annual mountaineering journal of the Appalachian Mountain Club (see www.outdoors.org/publications/appalachia/index.cfm). Every fatality of the year is presented as a case study, and analyzed in terms of what went wrong. Reading those accident reports helped me to learn that people die in the mountains at all times of the year. Knowing how to get out of the woods before hypothermia sets in could in fact save one's life. Appalachia is a great learning tool. This matter of case studies is intensely valuable. =================== | 8 RichardKennaway ------------------- When you interact with someone, you may think, I will do this, so that they will do that, or think such-and-such, or feel thus-and-so; but what is actually going on for them may bear no resemblance to the model of them that you have in your head. If your model is wrong at the meta-level -- you are wrong about how people work -- then you will either notice that you have difficulty dealing with people at all, or not notice that the problem is with you and get resentful at everyone else for not behaving as you expect them to. Here, Mrs. B.F. Skinner imagines that she is reinforcing the behaviour that she desires, of eating spinach, by providing the reinforcer, ice-cream. Or is she really punishing the consumption of ice-cream by associating it with spinach? Or associating herself with an unpleasant situation? Or any number of other possibilities. =================== | 8 RichardKennaway ------------------- Some people revel in complexity, and what's worse they have the brain power to deal with vast systems of arcane equations. This ability can be a handicap because it leads to overlooking simple solutions. William T. Powers =================== | 8 RichardKennaway ------------------- Ph.D. comics no.1173 The script: A grad student in humanities has been called before a hearing to justify his existence. Student: "It's hard to explain monetarily, but how can you put a price tag on the human soul?" Student: "The humanities help us appreciate beauty and grow as individuals." Student: "What good are science and technology if we don't ask ourselves the question, what does it mean to be a human being?" Chair: "So how's the answer coming along?" Student: "Oh no, we just ask the question, not actually answer it." =================== | 8 RichardKennaway ------------------- Galls Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system. John Gall, "Systemantics" =================== | 8 RichardKennaway ------------------- "To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." -- Robert A. Heinlein (to be precise, his character Lazarus Long, but I don't think there's much difference) =================== | 8 RichardKennaway ------------------- "This is the first test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible value to him." -- William Lyon Phelps =================== | 8 RichardKennaway ------------------- "If I were wrong, then one would have been enough." Einstein's reported response to the pamphlet One Hundred Authors Against Einstein. =================== | 8 Rain ------------------- There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. -- Han Solo =================== | 8 Rain ------------------- Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence, the concept around which it revolves, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all. -- Isaac Asimov =================== | 8 Rain ------------------- Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions. -- G. K. Chesterton =================== | 8 Proto ------------------- "I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this." - Emo Phillips =================== | 8 Piglet ------------------- "Face the facts. Then act on them. It's the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it's harder than you'd think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don't pray, don't wish, don't buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don't give in to your conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of... whatever. FACE THE FACTS. THEN act." --- Quellcrist Falconer, speech before the assault on Millsport. (Richard Morgan, Broken Angels) =================== | 8 PhilGoetz ------------------- The master mathematician sat in his private room and pushed the papers from him. His calculations were already finished. In a small white phial there still remained a little of the drug that had kept him awake and active for four long nights. Each day, serene, explicit, patient as ever, he had given his lecture to his students, and then had come back at once to this momentous calculation. His face was grave, a little drawn and hectic from his drugged activity. For some time he seemed lost in thought. Then he went to the window, and the blind went up with a click. Half way up the sky, over the clustering roofs, chimneys and steeples of the city, hung the star. He looked at it as one might look into the eyes of a brave enemy. "You may kill me," he said after a silence. "But I can hold you--and all the universe for that matter--in the grip of this little brain. I would not change. Even now." -- H.G. Wells, "The Star", 1897 =================== | 8 Oscar_Cunningham ------------------- Well, clearly we can assert anything we want, so the quote becomes: That without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. And we notice that evidence doesn't change depending on whether you're considering something for belief or dismissal, so the quote becomes: That without evidence can be dismissed. So Hitchens is really telling us that prior probabilities tend to be small, which is true since there are almost always many possible hypotheses that the probability mass is split between. =================== | 8 Oscar_Cunningham ------------------- Things are only tropes if they happen more often in fiction that in reality, so to detect them you need an accurate map. ETA: And everyone is already in hole-picking mood. So any cognitive biases showing up will be jumped on. ETA2: What does ETA stand for anyway? =================== | 8 Nominull ------------------- Only if you think violence is never justified ;) It's a warning to rationalists, especially Hollywood Mister Spock type rationalists, that even though promoting true beliefs is a charitable act on par with patching up someone's slashed tires, people will often take rather unkindly to it. =================== | 8 NihilCredo ------------------- And when he cannot answer and stares at you dumbfounded while drooling a little,then you tell him he's crazy :) =================== | 8 Nick_Tarleton ------------------- Well, bad enough weather in an agricultural society is murder. =================== | 8 NancyLebovitz ------------------- Are the winners the only ones actually writing the history? We need to disabuse ourselves of this habit of saying things because they sound good. ----- Ta-Nehisi Coates Coates runs a popular culture, black issues, and history blog with a very strong rationalist approach. =================== | 8 NancyLebovitz ------------------- "In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined." Thomas Szaz =================== | 8 NMJablonski ------------------- Evolved from both simpler winged aircraft and simpler rockets. All the base components that went into the space shuttle still existed on a line of technogical progress from the basic to the advanced. Actually, the space shuttle followed Gall's Law precisely. The lift mechanism was still vertically stacked chemical rockets of the sort that had already flown for decades. The shuttle unit was built from components perfected by the Gemini and Apollo programs, and packed into an aerodynamic form based on decades of aircraft design. Reducing technologically, the shuttle still depends on simple systems like airfoils, rockets and nozzles, gears, and other known quantities. =================== | 8 MichaelGR ------------------- Responsibility is a unique concept... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible. --Admiral Hyman G. Rickover =================== | 8 MichaelGR ------------------- In that same vein: Rank beliefs not according to their plausibility but by the harm they may cause. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan p.203 It does not matter how frequently something succeeds if failure is too costly to bear. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness =================== | 8 MichaelGR ------------------- "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." - Richard Dawkins =================== | 8 Matt_Duing ------------------- "Do not ask permission to understand. Do not wait for the word of authority. Seize reason in your own hand. With your own teeth savor the fruit." -"The Way of Analysis", Robert S. Strichartz =================== | 8 Kutta ------------------- I agree. But, as a slight tangent, I think that after we've dealt with basic problems of rationality - that cause much confusion when poetic language is mixed with science - there is still the fact that science has undeniable aesthetic and emotional effects on people familiar with it. Those things are part of the fun, apart from doing science strictly in order to win, which may have gave Eliezer the idea of weirdtopia with secretive science. Also, I think that being artistically refined and poignant about science differs greatly from plain mysticism. The latter is often a vacuous and cheap trick to invoke a warm fuzzy feeling. The real feat would be to be artistic with the purpose of making people feel emotions that fit the facts. =================== | 8 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- Not strictly a rationality quote, but screw it, it's beautiful anyway: I take it as a given that, during the course of my lifespan, there's always been television (not color to start with, but there was TV), that indoor plumbing and lights have always been around, flight is not only possible but commonplace and pretty much always has been, and the moon landing happened before I was born. A part of me regrets missing the introduction of all of those exciting technologies and innovations, because to me they are all background things that just are. They aren't wondrous, they just are. No matter where you live in history, there are always improvements that you'll appreciate, but there's always amazing stuff that was there before that you will only see as part of the world as it's always been, and will be even more amazing stuff that will come after you that would probably blow your mind if you ever had the chance to see it (or would be so far beyond your comprehension you couldn't appreciate it). You don't truly appreciate the amazing parts of an advance unless you've watched those parts happen. To me, computers (and video games, etc), color/stereo televisions, microwaves, mobile phones, digital wristwatches, and many of the things you no doubt take for granted are marvels. When I was a kid, they largely did not exist. Which is not to say they all of them were completely unavailable, but when I was growing up no one I knew owned any of them and they were brand new. I both envy my grandparents (now all dead) and my yet-to-be-born grandchildren the wonders of their lifetimes that I will never see they way they do. The wonders of my grandparents are my commonplace items. The wonders of my grandchildren are probably beyond my imagination. But that's just human nature. We want to see it all. And eventually we learn we'll never succeed. It's both heartening and saddening at the same time. -- natehoy =================== | 8 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do. -- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods =================== | 8 JenniferRM ------------------- If scientists do believe that they are ethically bound to improve the lot of ordinary people, or at least to decrease violence and increase possibilities for the pursuit of happiness, as I do, then perhaps the greatest challenge — and one that has been wholly overlooked here — is "how do we as scientists advance reason in an inherently unreasonable world?" This is a very difficult issue and one that cannot be seriously addressed by simply trying to muscle science and reason into everyday or momentous human affairs. I am privy to hostage negotiations, and be assured that simply telling hostage takers their beliefs are bullshit will get you the opposite of what you want, like the hostage's head delivered on a platter. Of course, that's an extreme case; but reason by backward induction towards the less extreme cases in the actual political and social conditions of our present world and you will find that the tactics proposed at the conference for an unlikely strategic shift in humankind's thinking will most probably blowback and backfire. And I almost thank God that even the best of our scientists are not prominent political negotiators or policymakers. -- Scott Atran =================== | 8 James_Miller ------------------- A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist. From the Yes, Minister TV show. =================== | 8 JamesCole ------------------- “If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be” -- Thomas Jefferson =================== | 8 Furcas ------------------- One of the things that keep religion alive in western society in the 21st century is the dogma, widespread even among atheists, that even if religious beliefs are false they're sane enough to deserve respect. In other words, most non-believers treat mainstream religious beliefs as if they were like the belief that the Washington Redskins are going to win the 2010 Superbowl rather than like the belief that Tom Cruise is the son of Xenu, Lord of the Galactic Confederacy. The first step towards a society in which ridiculous beliefs are acknowledged to be ridiculous, is to stop acting as if these beliefs aren't ridiculous. The point of ridicule is first to make those who hold ridiculous beliefs feel ashamed or at least uncomfortable, and second to help make rationalists feel the appropriate emotion when dealing with such extremes of irrationality. The end goal is a society in which people have the same attitude towards religious beliefs than they do towards belief in alien abductions. =================== | 8 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Yeah... I understand the sentiment, but as someone who delivers those pep talks, I do think, in all seriousness, that the guy's wrong. If we weren't made out of particles we'd be made out of something else. Particles is just the stuff that stuff turns out to be made of. Anyone who has a problem with this has misunderstood something, or their real problem is something else. For example, it is very depressing that people who die are gone forever. But this is not a matter of them being made out of particles. It would be just as bad if they were made out of freeplegrunge and then ceased to exist forever. =================== | 8 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- We learn about who someone is by the choices they make when the choice isn't obvious. -- Ben Casnocha =================== | 8 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Then if that qualifies, what would falsify Gall's Law? =================== | 8 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- It's amazing the things people would rather have than money. -- Garfield =================== | 8 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I've never seen a UFO. When I went to places that were rumored to be haunted, nothing showed up. Two hours of intense staring didn't make my pencil move a single millimeter, and glaring at my classmate's head didn't reveal his thoughts to me, either. I couldn't help but get depressed at how normal the laws of physics were. -- Kyon, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi =================== | 8 Cyan ------------------- "The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning. ... Perception is inference."[emphasis added] - Atul Gawande =================== | 8 CronoDAS ------------------- "Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms." - Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers =================== | 8 CronoDAS ------------------- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw =================== | 8 CronoDAS ------------------- "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer =================== | 8 CronoDAS ------------------- "Fifth Law of Decision Making: Decisions are justified by benefits to the organization; they are made by considering benefits to the decision makers." - Archibald Putt =================== | 8 Amanojack ------------------- This is more important than it looks. Most people's beliefs are just recorded memes that bubbled up from their subconscious when someone pressed them for their beliefs. They wonder what they believe, their mind regurgitates some chatter they heard somewhere, and they go, "Aha, that must be what I believe." Unless they take special countermeasures, humans are extremely suggestible. =================== | 8 ABranco ------------------- Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned. —Avicenna (980–1037 AD) =================== | 8 ABranco ------------------- A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. —Nietzsche =================== | 7 wedrifid ------------------- During a conversation with a Christian friend, during which my apostasy was challenged sincerely and politely but with the usual arguments and style... Christian: And the Bible tells us that if we have Faith as small as a mustard seed... Me: Yeah, we can move mountains. Matthew 17:20. So, tell me. Could God make an argument so circular that even He couldnt believe it? Christian: Of course! He's God, God can do anything. 'Made in His Image' seems to apply all too well. =================== | 7 steven0461 ------------------- All my life I've had one dream, to achieve my many goals. -- Homer Simpson =================== | 7 spuckblase ------------------- "I’m moved to laughter at the thought of how presumptuous it would be to reject mathematics for philosophical reasons. How would you like the job of telling the mathematicians that they must change their ways…now that philosophy has discovered that there are no classes? Can you tell them, with a straight face, to follow philosophical argument wherever it leads? If they challenge your credentials, will you boast of philosophy’s other great discoveries: that motion is impossible, that a Being than which no greater can be conceived cannot be conceived not to exist, that it is unthinkable that anything exists outside the mind, that time is unreal, that no theory has ever been made at all probable by evidence (but on the other hand that an empirically ideal theory cannot possibly be false), that it is a wide-open scientific question whether anyone has ever believed anything, and so on, and on, ad nauseam? Not me!" -- David Lewis, 'Parts of Classes' =================== | 7 smoofra ------------------- "I don't, I've come to believe, have to agree with you to like you, or respect you." --Anthony Bourdain. Never forget that your opponents are not evil mutants. They are the heroes of their own stories, and if you can't fathom why they do what they do, or why they believe what they believe, that's your failing not theirs. =================== | 7 seanlandis ------------------- "The formal study of complex systems is really, really hard." -David Colander =================== | 7 roland ------------------- Our minds are like inmates, captive to our biology, unless we manage a cunning escape. -- Nassim Taleb =================== | 7 roland ------------------- A behavioral policy based on an inside strategy permits the alcoholic to sit at the bar and rehearse the reasons to abstain. An outside strategy identifies a principle or rule of conduct that produces the most accurate or desirable available outcome, and sticks to that rule despite the subjective pull to abandon the principle. A behavioral policy based on an outside strategy recommends that you avoid the bar in the first place. -- Michael Bishop, 50 Years of Successful Predictive Modeling Should Be Enough: Lessons for Philosophy of Science =================== | 7 orangecat ------------------- I reject that entirely," said Dirk, sharply. "The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something which works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, `Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.'" Douglas Adams =================== | 7 jscn ------------------- It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. -- Mark Twain Clearly Dennett has his sources all mixed up. =================== | 7 infotropism ------------------- There will always be a large difference between those who'd ask themselves "why won't things work as they are meant to" and those asking themselves "how could I get them to work". For the moment being, the human world belongs to those who would ask "why". But the future belongs, necessarily, to those who'd ask themselves "how". Bernard Werber =================== | 7 infotropism ------------------- Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future evils. But present ones, prevail over it. Maxim 22 François de La Rochefoucauld =================== | 7 gwern ------------------- The point of a quote is usually obvious, but this one isn't. The original writers were simply laying down their sexist laws - but why are you quoting it? =================== | 7 gwern ------------------- "The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.' When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion." An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume =================== | 7 gwern ------------------- "A computer is like a violin. You can imagine a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren't flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it." Marvin Minsky, Why Programming Is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly-Understood and Sloppily-Formulated Ideas =================== | 7 gjm ------------------- He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense. John McCarthy =================== | 7 epistememe ------------------- "You can tell the truth but you better have a fast horse." - Rita Mae Brown =================== | 7 dfranke ------------------- As a rule of thumb, anything particularly ridiculous in an otherwise reasonable context is probably due to a law. -- "TheWama" on Reddit =================== | 7 dclayh ------------------- That quote seems silly. If there were hidden elements to 9/11 (or JFK, or anything) obvious enough for lone nuts to find, then it's reasonable to assume the government investigation would have found them also. Given that the government investigation didn't say anything about it, then, it's reasonable to assume it's because they have something to hide. =================== | 7 dclayh ------------------- Even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground (Self-promotion: this is the epigraph to the novella I'm working on, which is not really about rationality but is about what we're pleased to call "human nature", and which you may read the beginning of here if so inclined.) =================== | 7 ciphergoth ------------------- Believe me, breaking the bed is a bit more worrying when you're tied to it. =================== | 7 childofbaud ------------------- On a similar note, but from a different author: Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for. —Socrates =================== | 7 brian_jaress ------------------- People normally read only their own horoscope in the newspaper. If they forced themselves to read the other 11 they'd be far less impressed with the accuracy of their own. -- Richard Dawkins, "Unweaving the Rainbow" =================== | 7 beriukay ------------------- "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." ~William Kingdon Clifford This is the quote that got me thinking about rationality as something other than "a word you use to describe things you believe so that you can deride those who disagree with you." =================== | 7 astray ------------------- “Whether and when law is more effective than code is an empirical matter — something to be studied, and considered, not dismissed by banalities spruced up with italics.” - Lawrence Lessig =================== | 7 anonym ------------------- Your job as a scientist is to figure out how you’re fooling yourself. Saul Perlmutter =================== | 7 anonym ------------------- The whole of science consists of data that, at one time or another, were inexplicable. — Brendan O’Regan =================== | 7 anonym ------------------- Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience, it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason. — Leonardo da Vinci =================== | 7 aausch ------------------- Margaret Mead made a world-wide reputation for herself with her book Coming of Age in Samoa. After visiting the island of Samoa and talking to some teenage girls, she came away convinced that the Puritanism of the American sexual code was cultural artifact. In Samoa, by contrast, sex was freely practiced, with little attention to any niceties. Unfortunately, she was wrong about this, as we learned almost a half a century later, when Derek Freeman, who actually spoke Samoan, went to Samoa and interviewed the now grown women who had been interviewed by Margaret Mead many years earlier. He discovered that they had been putting her on. Decency and sexual restraint were as important to Samoans as to Americans. James Q. Wilson, Moral Intuitions =================== | 7 aausch ------------------- Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. -- Gautama Buddha =================== | 7 XiXiDu ------------------- A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. -- Groucho Marx =================== | 7 Warrigal ------------------- If you can't feel secure (and teach your children to feel secure) in nightmare scenarios with 1-in-610,000 odds, the problem isn't the world. It's you. =================== | 7 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- I sure wished I knew what the hell I was talking about, but I'd picked up enough terms and felt the importance attached to them, so that I could use them properly without knowing what they meant. But they felt right, so very right... -- Roger Zelazny, as Corwin ("Nine Princes in Amber"). =================== | 7 Unnamed ------------------- "The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted." -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg =================== | 7 Tom_Talbot ------------------- I won’t teach a man who is not eager to learn, nor will I explain to one incapable of forming his own ideas. Nor have I anything more to say to those who, after I have made clear one corner of the subject, cannot deduce the other three. Confucius =================== | 7 Tiiba ------------------- At the other end of the spectrum are the opponents of reductionism who are appalled by what they feel to be the bleakness of modern science. To whatever extent they and their world can be reduced to a matter of particles or fields and their interactions, they feel diminished by that knowledge....I would not try to answer these critics with a pep talk about the beauties of modern science. The reductionist worldview is chilling and impersonal. It has to be accepted as it is, not because we like it, but because that is the way the world works. --Steven Weinberg =================== | 7 Stefan_King ------------------- "Wisdom seems to come largely from curing childish qualities, and intelligence largely from cultivating them." --Paul Graham =================== | 7 Simulacra ------------------- Feedback phenomena and human intuition are uncomfortable bedfellows. When people dislike where an equilibrium argument takes them, it is therefore unsurprising that they invent simpler arguments that lead to more palatable conclusions. However, the first principle of rational thought is never to allow your preferences to influence your beliefs. Ken Binmore =================== | 7 SilasBarta ------------------- Maybe this detracts from my previous agreement with the quote, but there's a difference between explaining in person, vs. explaining in writing for a general audience. With the former, you can get immediate feedback as to which parts you're not explaining well and appropriately redirect your focus, while in the latter you have to cover all the possible confusions. This phenomenon was revealed most starkly in one of the articles in the quantum physics sequences, when I replied to the article by saying, So, decoherence is a valid scientific theory because it makes the same, correct predictions as the one involving collapse, but is simpler. There, that didn't take 2800 words, now, did it? And Eliezer Yudkowsky said in response: Silas: I've tried just saying that to people, it doesn't work. Doesn't work in academic physics either. Besides which, it may not be the last time the question comes up, and there's no reason why physicists shouldn't know the (epistemic) math. The fact that something can be explained simply doesn't deny the problem of inferential distance, in my view; it just means that each step is simple, not that there won't be many steps depending on how much of the listener's knowledge you can build on. =================== | 7 SilasBarta ------------------- Do you consider the law regarding car liability insurance to be a subsidy? It requires you to carry liability insurance up to a finite amount, despite the fact that you can do much more damage than that with your car, and then bankruptcy law will shield you from paying the full amount. This is the same kind of insurance nuclear plants have: they're require to have an insurance on up to $X of damages, and then "someone else" bears any cost beyond this. Nuclear plants can't be insured for the damages in a meltdown. Not because the risk is so huge that it should never be done, but because any jury award would be effectively infinite, irrespective of the actual damage. There's no point to buying insurance when the uncovered liability increases in lockstep with your insurance coverage. However, the actual meltdown risk is extremely small and even the required insurance is effectively overinsuring the plants. This nuclear plant "insurance" can't be compared to what FM/FM had because they are able to continue operation and making profits after a "meltdown", while a nuclear plant would be over and done with. If you don't like the kind of uncovered liability nuclear plants have, they're the least of your concerns -- you really should be advocating an end to driving, since no driver can meet the insurance standard you seem to expect out of nuclear plants. Now, with that said, you are correct that comparisons of green technologies to coal do conveniently leave off the damage that coal plants spill off onto other people and are therefore misleading. I've long railed against assessments of coal that ignore the cost of dumping toxic crap into people's lungs. Example. (ETA: Better example.) Still, that requires an objective accounting of environmental costs, not just (as is often the case) assuming they're infinite. =================== | 7 SarahC ------------------- This reminds me of something I read in C.S. Lewis which is quite rational: the purpose of curiosity is finding answers. It's not dithering for the sake of dithering, or debate for the sake of debate. The goal is to find out what the right answer is, as accurately as possible, not to eternally keep all the options open. That's how I understand the quote. Of course, real curiosity can look like dithering and endless debate because people are being very careful not to get things wrong. =================== | 7 RobinZ ------------------- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716): Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it. In J. R. Newman (ed.), The World of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956. =================== | 7 RobinZ ------------------- I don't know if I like this one. One ought to try some things, if for no other reason to learn which sources of information are reliable. =================== | 7 RichardKennaway ------------------- No man knows the state of another; it is always to some more or less imaginary man that the wisest and most honest adviser is speaking. -- Thomas Carlyle, Advice to Young Men =================== | 7 RichardKennaway ------------------- Don't forget, your mind only simulates logic. Used as .sig quote by Glen C. Perkins e.g. here. =================== | 7 RichardKennaway ------------------- "The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice that failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds." -- R.D. Laing, Knots =================== | 7 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Experience does not ever err, it is only your judgement that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments." Leonardo Da Vinci =================== | 7 Rain ------------------- You won't gain knowledge by drinking ink. -Arab proverb =================== | 7 Rain ------------------- Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has come, stop thinking and go in. -- Napoleon Bonaparte =================== | 7 Rain ------------------- No effect is ever the effect of a single cause, but only a combination of causes. -- Herbert Samuel =================== | 7 PeterS ------------------- Dear Meg, Please don't try to trisect the angle. . . It's not a matter of being clever. Ian Stewart, Letters to a Young Mathematician =================== | 7 Nominull ------------------- Being willing to die for a cause is being willing to kill for a cause, with the caveat that your devotion is so lukewarm that you limit yourself to killing at most one person. A true superhero would die or kill to save the world, as the situation dictated. =================== | 7 NancyLebovitz ------------------- Whats wrong with identifying with sports teams A very funny video comparing identifying with a team to assuming you were there in your favorite movies. =================== | 7 Mycroft65536 ------------------- Or at least of maintaining friendships with people who have cats. =================== | 7 Mycroft65536 ------------------- Doesn't catpenny cost less than a penny (in terms of dollars spent)? You can recover most, if not all, of the pennies. =================== | 7 Morendil ------------------- The reason you feel most comfortable with a job (unless, like me, you're in the minority - a job would destroy my psyche) is that you've been brainwashed by many years of school, socialization and practice. I pick the word brainwashed carefully, because it's more than training or acclimation. It's something that's been taught to you by people who needed you to believe it was the way things are supposed to be. -- Seth Godin =================== | 7 Morendil ------------------- Rewarding people for prompt attention to housekeeping tasks seems more appropriate than punishing them. =================== | 7 MichaelGR ------------------- "Torture the data long enough and they will confess to anything." --via The Economist, "a saying of statisticians". =================== | 7 MichaelGR ------------------- "A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it." -David Stevens =================== | 7 Matt_Duing ------------------- "Seeing is believing, but seeing isn't knowing." -- AronRa =================== | 7 Mardonius ------------------- speak for yourself Sir, I intend to live forever -Jonathan Frakes, as William T Riker =================== | 7 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people. -- Neil Gaiman Terry Pratchett, 'Good Omens' =================== | 7 JGWeissman ------------------- What if I am right 9 times out of 10 when I say I am 90% sure of something, but I am never or very rarely more than 50% sure of propositions of the form "This stock's price will go up/down, over a relevant time frame"? =================== | 7 HughRistik ------------------- In the King-on-the-Mountain style of conversation, one person (the King) makes a provocative statement, and requires that others refute it or admit to being wrong. The King is the judge of whether any attempted refutation is successful. [...] The King's behavior comes down to "you can't stop me". By the rules of his game, no one can make him back down. He treats conversation as a negotiation with his opponent. If his opponent wants him to back down, it's his opponent's responsibility to make him back down, not his responsibility to do something to help his opponent. He himself feels no responsibility to learn or understand or cultivate his mind. —Ben Kovitz, King on the Mountain =================== | 7 Henrik_Jonsson ------------------- We shall not cease from exploration and the end of our exploring shall be to return where we started and know the place for the first time. -- T.S. Eliot =================== | 7 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- You're always in a box. Being aware of the box can help you tremendously. It's when you think that you've left the box that's dangerous, because you're still in the box, but now you don't know it. -- Nazgulnarsil =================== | 7 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- When someone tells you that anything is possible, tell them to dribble a football. -- Anon =================== | 7 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- To take advantage of professional specialization, gains from trade, capital infrastructure, comparative advantage, and economies of scale, the way grownups do it when they actually care, I'd say that the activist is the one who pays someone else to clean up the river. =================== | 7 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Organizations don’t suffer pathologies; they are intrinsically pathological constructs. Idealized organizations are not perfect. They are perfectly pathological. -- http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ =================== | 7 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- It sounded blatantly false, so I looked up the paper; and it seems Taleb might be saying that the road is not simply reversible and that one direction is not just the same as the other. I hope. Because, I mean, really, what do you call a nuclear weapon if not a practical application of theoretical knowledge? Fission weapons did not exist in nature before they were envisioned based on abstract knowledge (by Leo Szilard, in his bathtub). =================== | 7 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "The people who are already born into money never know a real struggle, and for the others so often this struggle is so hard that it kills all pity. Our own painful struggle, that the selfish say we need, destroys our feelings for the misery we cause on our rise to become this so called success. I was forced back into a world of material insecurity, this fact has removed the curtain of this narrow minded and selfish world, and after reading, writing, searching, and questioning, that I may not have been able to do if distracted by the relentless pursuit of material wealth that seems to be the driving force in most people's lives, did I truly come to know humanity... "I don't know what is worse, intention to social misery or inattention to it. We see both everyday among those who have been favored in fortune by birth or luck, or those who have risen to it by their own efforts. Or else the snobs, or at times the tactless and obtrusive condescension of the social elite who apparently 'feel' for the people. In any case these people sin against moral justice farther than their narrow little minds and twisted hearts are probably even capable of understanding or feeling. Consequently and much to their amazement, the results of their pathetic social charity efforts is next to nil, frequently infact an indignant rebuf, though this is passed off by them as proof of the ingratitude of the 'lazy street bums', that they themselves are partly responsible for helping to create in the first place." -- Adolf Hitler =================== | 7 CronoDAS ------------------- Two comments: 1) Magic: the Gathering strategy was developed and refined almost entirely through the Internet. If you want to be a competitive Magic player, you need the Internet. 2) If you need narrow advice - "how to fix a broken faucet" is pretty narrow - than the Internet works pretty well. If you want to learn to be a plumber, yeah, the Internet kinda sucks, but if you have relatively limited needs, it works. =================== | 7 CannibalSmith ------------------- It is ridiculous, silly to watch and excruciatingly embarrassing to perform when sober. Fixed. =================== | 7 Alicorn ------------------- The quotes are, by and large, selected for their ability to be appreciated out of context, and so there's a low threshold of understanding: you don't have to read a lengthy top post or six layers of ancestor comments to understand a quote. =================== | 7 ABranco ------------------- You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. —Daniel Moyniham =================== | 7 ABranco ------------------- What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so. —Mark Twain =================== | 7 ABranco ------------------- A pair of the same species: The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. —Yeats The trouble with this world is that the ignorant are certain, and the intelligent are full of doubt. —George Bernard Shaw =================== | 6 wnoise ------------------- True Knowledge: Life is a process of breaking down and using other matter, and if need be, other life. Therefore, life is aggression, and successful life is successful aggression. Life is the scum of matter, and people are the scum of life. There is nothing but matter, forces, space and time, which together make power. Nothing matters, except what matters to you. Might makes right, and power makes freedom. You are free to do whatever is in your power, and if you want to survive and thrive you had better do whatever is in your interests. If your interests conflict with those of others, let the others pit their power against yours, everyone for theirselves. If your interests coincide with those of others, let them work together with you, and against the rest. We are what we eat, and we eat everything. All that you really value, and the goodness and truth and beauty of life, have their roots in this apparently barren soil. This is the true knowledge. We had founded our idealism on the most nihilistic implications of science, our socialism on crass self-interest, our peace on our capacity for mutual destruction, and our liberty on determinism. We had replaced morality with convention, bravery with safety, frugality with plenty, philosophy with science, stoicism with anesthetics and piety with immortality. The universal acid of the true knowledge had burned away a world of words, and exposed a universe of things. Things we could use. --Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division =================== | 6 wnoise ------------------- On the surface, yes. It's an anecdote that the "numinous" feelings that the religious sometimes cite as evidence of God can equally well be interpreted the opposite way. We can pull out Bayes' Theorem to show that these numinous feelings really don't make belief in God more rational. This isn't a hugely controversial point here, but I think what this says about seizing on how evidence supports one's side without considering the ramifications for the other is worth remembering. =================== | 6 uninverted ------------------- Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science —Charles Darwin =================== | 6 thomblake ------------------- The parent comment originally read, "pain chips", which was apparently more thought-provoking than intended. =================== | 6 thomblake ------------------- Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?" Mort thought for a moment. "No," he said eventually, "what?" There was silence. Then Albert straightened up and said, "Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right." -Terry Pratchett, Mort =================== | 6 spriteless ------------------- ...and then I came over here, and then I told you the story, and then it was now, and then I don't know what happened. -Fry of the show Futurama perceives the future well =================== | 6 sketerpot ------------------- You can make the calculation return any result you want, for example by including cost of millennia of nuclear waste storage in price of nuclear power; You can calculate arbitrarily high costs for anything if you try hard enough. What of it? We're not going to deal with nuclear waste by sticking it in Yucca Mountain and guarding it for thousands of years; that would be silly. Heres a summary of how to realistically deal with nuclear waste. We have more than enough money for this budgeted as part of every nuclear plant's operating and maintenance fees. another thing - nuclear power gets massive federal insurance subsidies Not true (PDF warning). The nuclear industry runs its own insurance pool, paid for out of their own pocket. The regulations requiring this do say that the federal government may help out in extreme circumstances (i.e. something on the scale of Chernobyl) but to date the feds haven't spent a dime on this. And I see no reason to believe that they ever will. If you know what result you want, you will be able to come up with it. If you're motivated to play games with the figures, consciously or not, then sure you can. But I try to avoid that sort of thing, and it tends to be pretty obvious. Note that I'm not accusing you of dishonesty -- but I'm guessing that you ultimately got those arguments from someone who was trying to make the numbers fit his position, rather than the other way around. =================== | 6 simplicio ------------------- You make a good case. I repudiate my previous statement. =================== | 6 saliency ------------------- “Still seems it strange, that thou shouldst live forever? Is it less strange, that thou shouldst live at all? This is a miracle; and that no more.” Edward Young =================== | 6 orthonormal ------------------- I voted it down because, among rationalists, the value of an idea shouldn't depend much on the author (although sometimes the author's identity sheds more light on the quote). I mean, hell, Eliezer found an interesting quote from Piers Anthony. It's a very bad habit to let your assessment of a person affect your valuations of isolated remarks to that degree. =================== | 6 matt ------------------- Does the length of his sequences imply that Eliezer doesn't understand their subject matter, or that the universe is sometimes actually complicated? =================== | 6 loqi ------------------- So if you are surprised to find a $20 bill in your couch, your disappointment at having lost $20 some time in the past is equal to your pleasure at now having $20 more than you did a moment ago? My current level of ignorance is a fact of life, I already know that there must be things that I'm wrong about. How is finding out something in particular that I am wrong about anything but a positive outcome? =================== | 6 jimrandomh ------------------- No, because it pulls you, your scale and the Earth all (very close to) equally. =================== | 6 gwern ------------------- "Whoso wishes to grasp God with his intellect becomes an atheist." --Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (M. Aug. Gottlieb Spangenbergs Apologetische Schluß-Schrift (Leipzig and Görlitz, 1752; http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/quotations/quotations_by_ib.html ) =================== | 6 gwern ------------------- "Stupidity is always a capital crime." --Larry Niven (N-Space) =================== | 6 gaffa ------------------- "Although the first solution is the one usually given, I prefer this second one because it reduces the need to think, replacing it by the automatic calculus. Thinking is hard, so only use it where essential." --Dennis Lindley, Understanding Uncertainty =================== | 6 epistememe ------------------- There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth…not going all the way, and not starting. Buddha =================== | 6 dreeves ------------------- "Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only specification is that it should run noiselessly." -- (unknown) =================== | 6 dreeves ------------------- "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." -- Wolfgang Pauli, on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague =================== | 6 dreeves ------------------- "I have no need of that hypothesis." -- Laplace to Napoleon =================== | 6 cousin_it ------------------- It doesn't qualify 100%, because there were little prototype shuttles. Still, you have a point. If we have good theories, we can build pretty big systems from scratch. Gall's law resonates especially strongly with programmers because much of programming doesn't have good theories, and large system-building endeavors fail all the time. =================== | 6 conchis ------------------- Depends what "it" is. If the alternatives are killing 10 people efficiently at a cost of $100 a head vs. killing ten people inefficiently at a cost of $1000 a head, then killing them inefficiently is worse: I've not only killed 10 people, I've wasted $9000 worth of resources that could have been used to do something actually useful. But if I've been given a $10,000 killing budget, then it's clearly better for the world if I spend this inefficiently and only manage to kill 10 people rather than 100. =================== | 6 clockbackward ------------------- "In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realities of the situation, the less clear-cut things become." Mary Roach - from her book Spook =================== | 6 ciphergoth ------------------- To look around, the world does appear to be flat Even this isn't true! =================== | 6 caiuscamargarus ------------------- The kind of epistemology that allows you to be that certain about something so false is immoral. To wit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5cFKpjRnXE=player_embedded =================== | 6 byrnema ------------------- I heard recently that when The Wizard of Oz came out, more people would have realized how dangerous it was when Dorothy fell in the pig pen. Today, we watch that movie and think it was just about her losing her balance, and maybe wonder why the farmer who saved her was so visibly upset about it. (I contacted my source and he said it was 'just common knowledge', and that pigs have since been domesticated from the wild boars they were, and that I should google, "pigs aggression".) =================== | 6 billswift ------------------- You need to be careful of supposed Chinese proverbs; I recently found that the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times" was actually created in the fifties by Eric Frank Russell. =================== | 6 billswift ------------------- Unfortunately the classic essay "Understanding Neurotypicality" is gone, the owner's web pages removed. But there are similar pages still available, for instance, this from Greg Egan I said, if autism is a lack of understanding of others... and healing the lesion would grant you that lost understanding -" Rourke broken in, "But how much is understanding, and how much is a delusion of understanding? Is intimacy a form of knowledge - or is it just a comforting false belief? Evolution is not interested in whether we grasp the truth, except in the most pragmatic sense. And their can be equally pragmatic falsehoods. If the brain needs to grant us exaggerated sense of our capacity for knowing each other - to make pair-bonding compatible with self-awareness - it will lie, shamelessly, as mush as it has to, in order to make the strategy succeed." In http://wlug.org.nz/GregEganOnNeurotypicalSyndrome And more indexed here: http://www.neurodiversity.com/neurotypical.html =================== | 6 bentarm ------------------- Euler is one of the few mathematicians who provide an exception to this rule. To quote Polya (Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning): Euler seems to me almost unique in one respect: he takes pains to present the relevant inductive evidence carefully, in detail, in good order. His presentation is "the candid exposition of the ideas that led him to those discoveries... Natural enough, he tries to impress his readers, but, as a really good author, he tries to impress his readers only by such things as have genuinely impressed himself. (the quoted passed in the text is apparently from Condorcet, although I don't know the initial source) Polya is, of course, one of the few other mathematicians who break this mould. Explicitly writing books about the process of discovery. =================== | 6 badger ------------------- We're descended from the indignant, passionate tellers of half truths who in order to convince others, simultaneously convinved themselves. Over generations success had winnowed us out, and with success came our defect, carved deep in the genes like ruts in a cart track—when it didn't suit us we couldn't agree on what was in front of us. Believing is seeing. That's why there are divorces, border disputes and wars, and why this statue of the Virgin Mary weeps blood and that one of Ganesh drinks milk. And that was why metaphysics and scince were such courageous enterprises, such startling inventions, bigger than the wheel, bigger than agriculture, human artifacts set right against the grain of human nature. -- Ian McEwan, Enduring Love (1998, p. 181) =================== | 6 ata ------------------- The derivation of (yes, incomplete, but useful) arithmetic from basic axioms, or the derivation (in another sense) of reasonably reliable arithmetic from our evolved intuition, is a perfect example of complexity arising from simplicity. There's no comparison. And in a more abstract sense — the transuniversal truth of arithmetic, not the practical discovery or application of it, nor any attempts to formalize it — there's nothing to "arise" at all. In any case, the "Therefore Dawkins and his opponents are equally wrong" sounds like a non-sequitur. A more understandable conclusion would be "I am wrong about the implications of the beliefs of Dawkins and his opponents." He basically says "If you believe in Intelligent Design, you must believe that God decided that 2+2 would equal 4. You don't believe that, therefore your belief system is inconsistent or you are a hypocrite. If you believe in evolution by natural selection, you must believe that 2+2 evolved to equal 4. You don't believe that, therefore your belief system is inconsistent or you are a hypocrite." He's just making up new beliefs, ascribing them to his opponents, and pointing out their ridiculousness. =================== | 6 ata ------------------- Its a shame the idea that "god" is a person with a personality has competed-out other ways of thinking of god. Is there a deep mystery that our own consciousness even exists? Are we connected in that mystery with the billions of other consciousnesses around us? In ignorance of what even consciousness is, are we sure it inheres in our bodies and not somewhere else? Read the Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions sequence and the Twelve Virtues (especially that of Curiosity). We can't be "connected in that mystery" because the feeling of mysteriousness is a type of ignorance, and ignorance of some phenomenon is a fact about our minds, not about the phenomenon. When something seems mysterious to us, the proper thing to do is to think about how to solve it, not to worship our ignorance. If god is the label for consciousness beyond your own consciousness, AND you admit the probability that god is not an angry-father-like personality that wants to help some people, hurt other people, and COULD fix everything if he wanted to, the world gets a lot more interesting. If God means all that, then you've just changed the definition so much that there's no point in calling it "God" anymore. To make sure you're not just sneaking in connotations, try describing whatever it is you're calling "God" but giving it a different label — say, "spruckel". "Spruckel is the consciousness beyond your own consciousness". Does that feel different to you than "God is the consciousness beyond your own consciousness"? If so, you need to consider what the word "God" is doing in your mind when you hear it, and specifically notice that it's something the word is doing rather than anything about what you claim to be defining it as. If not, then... well, then you won't mind henceforth using the word "spruckel" for this thing you're describing instead. =================== | 6 ata ------------------- A fun quote, but not an especially rational one, I think. Just as I can't stand people who try to recast mysticism in the language of science (Deepak Chopra, etc.), I think we should avoid recasting science in the language of mysticism. Who's going to better understand stars after hearing them compared to Jesus? It won't even increase people's appreciation of science; it'll increase their appreciation of some other unrelated thing that they'll learn to refer to by the word "science". =================== | 6 anonym ------------------- Science is not ’organized common sense'; at its most exciting, it reformulates our view of the world by imposing powerful theories against the ancient, anthropocentric prejudices that we call intuition. -- Stephen J. Gould =================== | 6 anonym ------------------- Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas. Alfred North Whitehead =================== | 6 Zubon ------------------- all arguments online seem to follow that format. It's like a giant straw man ate a radioactive non sequitor and began rampaging through downtown Tokyo. -- jman3030 =================== | 6 ZoneSeek ------------------- "You rationalize, Keeton. You defend. You reject unpalatable truths, and if you can't reject them outright you trivialize them. Incremental evidence is never enough for you. You hear rumors of Holocaust; you dismiss them. You see evidence of genocide; you insist it can't be so bad. Temperatures rise, glaciers melt—species die—and you blame sunspots and volcanoes. Everyone is like this, but you most of all. You and your Chinese Room. You turn incomprehension into mathematics, you reject the truth without even knowing what it is." --Jukka Sarasti, rationalist vampire in Peter Watts's Blindsight. Great book on neuroscience and map != territory. =================== | 6 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself. --- James Stephens =================== | 6 Z_M_Davis ------------------- Downvoted for improper use of quotation. The comic is successful because it effectively communicates its message by cleverly juxtaposing two panels that are identical except for the implied sex of one character, and one word in the other character's line. To simply quote the second panel out of context doesn't make any sense at all. Linking to the comic does not redeem this mistake---quotes are supposed to be able to stand on their own. Comics are a visual medium; sometimes, like in this case, they simply aren't quotable. =================== | 6 Yvain ------------------- "What's that saying?" he said, smiling crookedly. "When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever it is that remains--- " "--- however improbable, must be the truth. Yes, the problem is, the man who wrote that believed in faeries, and that he could photograph them." S. M. Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers =================== | 6 Waldheri ------------------- I highly recommend anyone interested in hard sci-fi to read Blindsight. =================== | 6 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- "A few intellectually rigorous killjoys argued that any explanation to which humans could relate was probably anthropomorphic nonsense, but nobody invited them onto talk shows." --Greg Egan, "Quarantine". =================== | 6 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- Unfortunately, she was wrong about this, as we learned almost a half a century later, when Derek Freeman, who actually spoke Samoan, went to Samoa and interviewed the now grown women who had been interviewed by Margaret Mead many years earlier. Freeman's case is not so clear-cut. From Skeptic Magazine: The Trashing of Margaret Mead: How Derek Freeman Fooled Us All on an Alleged Hoax =================== | 6 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- Richard didn't say otherwise. =================== | 6 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- I wasn't especially impressed by Aretae's reasoning. For example, Why would I not believe that the future will be different from the past? . . . This is silly. Bayes disposes of that rather rapidly. Unless one embraces radical skepticism (why should I believe in the past at all?), Bayesian statistics takes both theses (the future is different than/same as the past) and applies updating. What is left standing is the future resembles the past. You will not be able to perform this updating unless you have already assigned prior probabilities to propositions connecting the past to the future. That's why Bayesian updating will never get it right if you start out with the anti-induction prior. Hence, to address Hume's problem, you have to come up with a justification for preferring certain prior distributions. We may have good reasons for preferring those distributions that posit that the past is like the future, but, contra Aretae, those reasons are outside the scope of mere Bayesian updating. ETA: Better link on anti-induction. =================== | 6 Tom_Talbot ------------------- Besides porking (really) hot babes, flipping out, wailing on guitars, and cutting off heads, a ninja has to train. They have to meditate ALL THE TIME. But most importantly, each morning a ninja should think about going a little crazier than the day before. Beyond thinking about going berserk, a ninja must, by definition, actually go berserk. Robert Hamburger, REAL Ultimate Power, The Official Ninja Book =================== | 6 Thomas ------------------- Q: How much does the smoke weight? A: Subtract from the weight of the wood that was burned the weight of the ashes that remain, and you will have the weight of the smoke. --Immanuel Kant =================== | 6 Theist ------------------- When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them. So the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up. Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice. -- Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/ritualcat.html =================== | 6 Tetronian ------------------- O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous! --Voltaire =================== | 6 Technologos ------------------- If making a major contribution seemed so easy, and would be harder in some other field, it sure would suggest that his comparative advantage in the easy field is much greater; would not that suggest that he ought to devote his efforts there, since other people have proven relatively capable in the harder fields? =================== | 6 SilasBarta ------------------- Yet whenever I see that, I think "European Union". And when I first saw Star Wars fans talk about the OT, my first though was, "Old Testament". Actually, that's not far off, in a sense! (It's actually "Original Trilogy".) ETA: A "Jew" of Star Wars would, I guess, be someone who accepts the OT, but rejects everything thereafter. There seem to be many... =================== | 6 SilasBarta ------------------- In information theory, there's the concept of the surprisal, which is the logarithm of the inverse of the expected probability of an event. The lower the probability, the higher the surprise(al). The higher the surprisal, the greater the information content. (Intuitively, the less likely something is, the more you change your beliefs upon learning it.) So, yeah, it's pretty enshrined in information theory. Entropy is equivalent to the (oxymoronic) "expected surprisal". That is, given a discrete probability distribution over events, the probability-weighted average surprisal is the entropy. Incidentally, as part of a project to convert all of the laws of physics into information-theoretic form, I realized that the elastic energy of a deformable body tells you its probability of being in that state, and (by the above argument), it's information content. That means you can explain failure modes in terms of the component being forced to store more information than it's capable of. Well, it's interesting to me. =================== | 6 SilasBarta ------------------- If I'm not allowed to use real-life common sense, it's not clear how I would even understand the question, let alone solve it. Okay, what additional information do you think one should need? Why? Are you serious? The problem is to specify which "common sense" reasoning leads you to which conclusion! Yes, now that you've explained one reason why one outcome holds (even though it doesn't account for children who grow up recenting their mothers and so isn't even right on its own terms), you've given the kind of information the question is asking for. Stating which outcome your common sense tells you would result -- which is what you did -- is non-responsive. And even now, you haven't told what conditions determine the 27 possible outcomes - just one reason why one outcome would result. Black-box "common sense" reasoning is exactly how you stray from rationality. You should open the box, and see what's inside. =================== | 6 ShardPhoenix ------------------- Yeah, I used to post a fair bit on Space Battles years and years ago as a teenager, but in retrospect the vast majority of debates there (both the Star Trek vs. Star Wars type stuff and the political stuff) were about trying to "win" the argument high-school-debate style, rather than trying come to a reasonable conclusion or discover something new. It was fun until I realized that everyone was just arguing around in circles though :). ps Star Trek Star Wars 4 lyfe =================== | 6 Seth_Goldin ------------------- "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." Albert Einstein This relates well to my earlier frustration about the cop-out of vaguely appealing to life experience in an argument, without actually explaining anything. =================== | 6 Seth_Goldin ------------------- "As one shocked 42-year-old manager exclaimed in the middle of a self-reflective career planning exercise, 'Oh, no! I just realized I let a 20-year-old choose my wife and my career!'" -- Douglas T. Hall, Protean Careers of the 21st Century =================== | 6 Rune ------------------- "Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned." -- Avicenna, Medieval Philosopher =================== | 6 RolfAndreassen ------------------- In addition to NMJablonski's point, it is perhaps arguable just how well the Space Shuttle worked. In hindsight it seems that the same amount of orbital lift capacity could have been done rather more cheaply. =================== | 6 Roko ------------------- Reason is the press secretary of the emotions, the ex post facto spin doctor of beliefs we've arrived at through a largely intuitive process. =================== | 6 RobinZ ------------------- The fact of information being available does not make it known. Billions of people have never read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, despite it being freely available in most places around the world, for example. The use of spoilers is not to protect the copyright of the writers, but to protect the surprise of the readers when they discover what has been written. =================== | 6 RichardKennaway ------------------- You're never aware of your current point of view, only of previous ones. -- William T. Powers =================== | 6 RichardKennaway ------------------- You wouldn't believe how much time people spend looking for evidence that something couldn't possibly work for them. If they spent one-tenth the time looking for something that DID work, they'd have their problem solved almost immediately. -- Eric Pepke =================== | 6 RichardKennaway ------------------- Yes, it's a bit of a koan, and somewhat tangential. It's about the ineluctability of reality, saying that while you must win, you may not win, even if you do everything right. Even the ultimate in rationality is not a get out of jail free card, neither in the backcountry nor anywhere else. Maybe you can read Swahili. Maybe you are so familiar with hunting rifles you could assemble it blindfolded. Great -- today you get to win. Or maybe the tiger comes by RIGHT NOW. You lose. "You have before you the Alcor prospectus. In fifty years your body will wear out and die." =================== | 6 RichardKennaway ------------------- Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. -- St. Paul. (Phillipians 4:8) (Yes, yes, someone who had a major hand in creating Christianity. I know. As context, I first encountered these words in the 1999 "Doomwatch" pilot, where they are spoken at the funeral of Dr Quist, and then googled it.) =================== | 6 RichardKennaway ------------------- The value of a sword cannot be judged when the sword stands alone in a corner; only when it is wielded by an expert can one see its true worth. -- old Chinese saying =================== | 6 RichardKennaway ------------------- "With my eyes I can see you. With your eyes I can see myself." K. Bradford Brown =================== | 6 RichardKennaway ------------------- "A theory which cannot be mortally endangered cannot be alive." W. A. H. Rushton, quoted in J.R. Platt, Strong Inference, Science vol.146, n.3642, 1964. =================== | 6 Rain ------------------- The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question. -- Stephen Jay Gould =================== | 6 Rain ------------------- The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -- Alan Kay =================== | 6 Rain ------------------- The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river. -- H. Ross Perot =================== | 6 Rain ------------------- Phfft! Facts. You can use them to prove anything. -- Homer Simpson =================== | 6 Rain ------------------- Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. -- Democritus =================== | 6 Rain ------------------- Dedication, absolute dedication, is what keeps one ahead -- a sort of indomitable, obsessive dedication and the realization that there is no end or limit to this because life is simply an ever-growing process, an ever-renewing process. -- Bruce Lee =================== | 6 Psy-Kosh ------------------- What of Göögle's theorem? =================== | 6 PhilGoetz ------------------- Heh. Make that, "tell them to basketball-dribble an American football." People in the rest of the world dribble footballs all the time. Funny, when I was a kid I sometimes used to try to basketball-dribble a US football for fun. Never got it down very well. =================== | 6 PhilGoetz ------------------- "It is always disconcerting to disagree with Einstein." Nevertheless, I think I disagree with this; or at least believe it is vague enough to be abused. =================== | 6 Pfft ------------------- But blowing out the candle actually would make it easier to find your way (it ruins your night vision). =================== | 6 Peter_de_Blanc ------------------- The "inverse proposition" given is actually the contrapositive of (i.e. is equivalent to) the original statement. =================== | 6 NMJablonski ------------------- Further reply: I was contemplating this exchange and wondering whether Gall's Law has any value (constrains expected experience). I think it does. If an engineer today claimed to have successfully designed an Albucierre engine, I would probably execute an algorithm similar to Gall's Law and think: The technology does not yet exist to warp space to any degree, nor is there an existing power source which could meet the needs of this device. The engineer's claim to have developed a device which can be bound to a craft, controllably warp space, and move it faster than light is beyond existing technological capability. We are too many Gall Steps away for it to be probable. =================== | 6 MichaelGR ------------------- Lighthouses are more helpful than churches. -Benjamin Franklin =================== | 6 Mass_Driver ------------------- People who can see through the conventions of entertainment and who enjoy posting about those conventions for free are likely to be much more awake than usual. =================== | 6 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- True, but I had the feeling that some readers here would like it anyway. (I view this as more of a "quotes LW readers would like" thread than a literal "rationality quotes" thread.) Also, it does fit into the joy in the merely real ethos, which in turn makes it emotionally easier to accept rationalism and reductionism. =================== | 6 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- Matter flows from place to place And momentarily comes together to be you Some people find that thought disturbing I find the reality thrilling —Richard Dawkins quoted in Our Place in the Cosmos =================== | 6 Jens ------------------- Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it. -- Vaclav Havel =================== | 6 Jayson_Virissimo ------------------- Skeptic, n. One who doubts what he does not want to believe and believes what he does not want to doubt. -L. A. Rollins, Lucifer's Lexicon =================== | 6 Jack ------------------- Ok, but most people who are more worried about sharks than pigs are going on vacation to the beach and don't work on a swine farm. And I don't think those people are wrong to worry about sharks more than pigs. It is also quite likely that swine farmers do worry about pigs more than the rest of us. =================== | 6 JGWeissman ------------------- Can we have a norm of using the Custom Search bar to check if a quote has already been posted? =================== | 6 FAWS ------------------- "I once spent a whole day in thought, but it was not so valuable as a moment in study. I once stood on my tiptoes to look out into the distance, but it was not so effective as climbing up to a high place for a broader vista. Climbing to a height and waving your arm does not cause the arm's length to increase, but your wave can be seen farther away. Shouting downwind does not increase the tenseness of the sound, but it is heard more distinctly. A man who borrows a horse and carriage does not improve his feet, but he can extend his travels 1,000 li [~500km] A man who borrows a boat and paddles docs not gain any new ability in water, but he can cut across rivers and seas. The gentleman by birth is not different from other men; he is just good at "borrowing" the use of external things." -- Xunzi, An Exhortation to Learning (勸學) 4, translated by John Knoblock in "Xunzi: A Translation and study of the Complete Works" =================== | 6 Emily ------------------- I agree with you, but I don't think that makes it a terrible quote. I personally don't seem to be psychologically able to avoid that awful sinking feeling when I realise I'm wrong, and it does suck. But recognising that it sucks is an important part of allowing the sinking feeling to wash over you, not be personally offended by it, and realise that if you update on this piece of wrongness, you're slightly less likely to be wrong again next time. For me at least, if I just try to pretend the sinking feeling isn't happening, because "rationally" it shouldn't, it just means I'm pretending the wrongness itself isn't happening. And that's a bad idea. =================== | 6 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- True, it would be some kind of bland comfort if no one had any cause for which they would be willing to kill. It would be an unimaginable horror, though, if no one had a cause for which they were willing to die. -- Tailsteak =================== | 6 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Most of us, I suspect, would rather believe that the devil is running things than that no one is in charge, that our lives, our loves, World Series victories, hang on the whims of fate and chains of coincidences, on God throwing dice, as Einstein once referred to quantum randomness. I've had my moments of looking back with a kind of vertigo realizing how contingent on chance my life has been, how if I'd gotten to the art gallery earlier or later or if the friend I was supposed to have dinner with had showed up, I might not have met my wife that night, and our daughter would still be in an orphanage in Kazakhstan. -- Dennis Overbye =================== | 6 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- A competitive game, to me, is a debate. You argue your points with your opponent, and he argues his. “I think this series of moves is optimal,” you say, and he retorts, “Not when you take this into account.” Debates in real life are highly subjective, but in games we can be absolutely sure who the winner is. -- David Sirlin, Playing to Win =================== | 6 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "Isn't it pretty to think so." -- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun also Rises =================== | 6 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "In Life's name, and for Life's sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so---till Universe's end." -- The Wizard's Oath (from So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane) =================== | 6 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "Fierce battles are fought within the confines of our goal systems. Inside the closed walls the essence of right and wrong is at stake as the rebels engage the guards of the evolutionary past. After the violent confrontations, the old kings rejoice their triumph or get beheaded to become but ghosts of their former glory. And again and again our inner book of morals gets revised... — Nevertheless, whatever the outcome is, it is, by definition, good." -- Mika =================== | 6 Douglas_Knight ------------------- Being wrong is the best possible outcome of an argument, as it's the one with the highest expected knowledge gain No, that's backwards. Learning that you are wrong is good if and only if you are wrong. But it's only good because you were already wrong, which was bad - you were making bad decisions before. It's like saying that it is better to win the lottery than to be born rich. Roughly speaking, it doesn't matter when or where the money or knowledge comes from, only that you can use it. =================== | 6 DanielVarga ------------------- I imagine that if my friend finally came to the conclusion that he were a machine, he would be infinitely crestfallen. I think he would think: "My God! How Horrible! I am only a machine!" But if I should find out I were a machine, my attitude would be totally different. I would say: "How amazing! I never before realized that machines could be so marvelous!" (Raymond Smullyan) I have found it in an OB comment by Zubon, but it was never posted as a rationality quote. =================== | 6 Cyan ------------------- It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest assured with that degree of precision that the nature of the subject admits, and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible. -- Aristotle =================== | 6 Cyan ------------------- Humans are social animals. Inducing shame and discomfort might be useful if the believer is isolated away from other believers and cannot rely on them for emotional support. If not, he or she will likely relieve their shame by seeking the company of fellow believers, reinforcing the affiliation with the believing group. =================== | 6 Cyan ------------------- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth =================== | 6 CronoDAS ------------------- You got to have a dream, If you don't have a dream, How you gonna have a dream come true? Bloody Mary, South Pacific =================== | 6 CronoDAS ------------------- Well, I "dance" when sober, and I enjoy it! It's a socially acceptable way to be close to, and touch, attractive members of the appropriate sex. Furthermore, the physical arousal caused by vigorous exercise tends to promote sexual arousal as well. Not to mention that watching people writhe to suggestive music is also extremely popular. Then again, from a certain point of view, almost every kind of sexual activity is extremely ridiculous. I mean, you put the what in the where? That's disgusting! Who would want to do something like that? =================== | 6 CronoDAS ------------------- At least we have the Internet, so we are better able to find directions on how to do something we've never done by ourselves before. =================== | 6 Bongo ------------------- So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for every thing one has a mind to do. -- Benjamin Franklin =================== | 6 ArjenD ------------------- Mathematics is rational, not reasonable. -- Terry Padden, in "Ultimately, in Physics the Rational shall become Reasonable!" =================== | 6 ArjenD ------------------- I checked Aristotle's 'On the Heavens' and 'Physics'. Nowhere could I find him saying that a heavy object falls faster than a light one. Aren't it the Aristotelian scholars who said that and who are to blame? Aristotle distinguished relative weight (our mass) and absolute weight (our mass density) and gives practical examples to check that denser objects move faster downwards in water than less dense objects, if the objects have the same shape. =================== | 6 AndySimpson ------------------- Life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth. --Arthur Schopenhauer =================== | 6 Amanojack ------------------- We originally want or desire an object not because it is agreeable or good, but we call it agreeable or good because we want or desire it. -- Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics =================== | 5 wedrifid ------------------- Well, at least Buddha started. If he'd gone a bit further along that particular road he may have added: Going the wrong way. Making sacrifices to further a journey along the road to truth that do not give commensurate reward. Trying to go further or faster than you are able and damaging your existing progress in the process. Building (and continuing to build) your model of truth on inefficient foundations. Spending resources (time, money, attention) on truth seeking now when such resources could have been used to generate far more resources for truth production later on. Learning low value truth before higher relevance truth. Assuming that it is possible to go all the way on the road to truth. Apart from the potential for ever more precision, every moment that passes allows matter to slip out of the reach of your future light cone. So if you manage to grab all the truth in one direction you're probably never going to get the chance to build an accurate model of the other extreme. =================== | 5 wedrifid ------------------- Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Or maybe that is just what a lonely man might think so he can feel deep. Like a high status emo. =================== | 5 wedrifid ------------------- It's not really surprising, though, is it? No, just appalling. =================== | 5 wedrifid ------------------- I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone, are guilty of the war. Oh no, the little man is just as guilty, otherwise the peoples of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! Rising in revolt tends to mean civil war. Perhaps if she thought that through a little more she would find at least one answer. One reason to stop other crazy people destroying things you value is to kill them. =================== | 5 wedrifid ------------------- Excuse the cameo. I hope the extra context doesn't distract you too much from the SMBC quote or the reply. =================== | 5 taw ------------------- We have no evidence and reasoning about morality that doesn't depend on morality in the first place, is-ought problem which I won't repeat here. Empirically, everyone derives their morality from society's norm developed in messy historical processes. Why one messy historical process is better than other by any objective standard is not clear. By some standards we have less suffering than past times, but we're also vastly wealthier. It's not clear at all to me that wealth-adjusted suffering now is lower than historically - modern moral standards say its fine to let 1.5 million children a year die of diarrhea because they happen to be born in a wrong country. I can imagine some of the past moral systems would be less happy about it than we are. =================== | 5 taa21 ------------------- Substituting "has perpetuated" for "has settled" in that quote results in a statement of essentially the same veracity. =================== | 5 steven0461 ------------------- “Do as I say, not as I do:” this is considered the very motto of hypocrisy. But does anyone believe that having a good character is as easy as wanting it? If virtue is as difficult as other excellences, there must be few or none who are perfectly virtuous. If the rest of us are not even to talk about virtue or express admiration for it, how shall anyone improve? A hypocrite is one who claims virtue beyond what he possesses, not one who recommends virtue beyond what he claims. If a man’s principles are no better than his character, it is less likely to be a sign of an exemplary character than a sign of debased principles. -- Mark Thompson =================== | 5 staircasewit ------------------- "If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well." -Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam I desire to know which interpretation of this quote was intended by the author, but I know which one I prefer. =================== | 5 spuckblase ------------------- "The reader in search of knock-down arguments in favor of my theories will go away disappointed. Whether or not it would be nice to knock disagreeing philosophers down by sheer force of argument, it cannot be done. Philosophical theories are never refuted conclusively. (or hardly ever. Gödel and Gettier may have done it.) The theory survives its refutation - at a price. Perhaps that is something we can settle more or less conclusively. But when all is said and done, and all the tricky arguments and distinctions and counterexamples have been discovered, presumably we will still face the question which prices are worth paying, which theories are on balance credible, which are the unacceptably counterintuitive consequences and which are the acceptably counterintuitive ones. On this question we may still differ. And if all is indeed said and done, there will be no hope of discovering still further arguments to settle our differences." -- David Lewis (thousand-year-old vampire) =================== | 5 sketerpot ------------------- talking to an author more insightful than reading the 200 page thesis, Find the right books, and it'll probably be far more rewarding than talking to an author, simply because of the information density and better organization that you can get in written form. An hour of reading Hennessy and Pattersons excellent book on CPU design will teach you a hell of a lot more than six hours of classes. I speak from recent quantitative experience here, which is where I got those specific numbers. The exceptions to this rule are local: particularly hard-to-understand concepts like the Tomasulo algorithm are a lot easier to wrap your head around if you have someone to walk you through them. But for the most part, a well-written textbook can teach you better than a person talking with you. One problem is that most textbooks just aren't written that well. Often they're too concerned with signaling academic status, and they forget to make the book something that people will want to read. Just because an author can go off on a tangent about graph isomorphisms doesn't mean they should. Other times they get bogged down in obscure details up front, killing off people's interest. There are other failure modes, too depressing to list here. By the way, I think that one reason why wikis are so easy to learn from is because you can skip past the boring stuff until you need it. This makes reading a wiki more fun, and also leads to tab explosions, keeping you hooked. I figure that this could significantly improve on the traditional textbook model, despite all those nice things I said about it earlier in the post. (In honor of the tab explosion, I've stuck in a bunch of links to pages that might be interesting.) =================== | 5 sketerpot ------------------- I never said that they're incapable of doing the math, just that they don't. For whatever reason. No further condescension is intended; just a really helpful suggestion. =================== | 5 simplicio ------------------- That article is full of goodies. The most common mistake is to assume that logic and emotion are somehow naturally opposed and that employing one means you can't have the other. Excluding emotion doesn't make your reasoning logical, however, and it certainly doesn't cause your answer to be automatically true. Likewise, an emotional response doesn't preclude logical thinking — although it may prevent you from thinking in the first place — and if an emotional plan is successful, that doesn't make logic somehow wrong. For a plan to be reasonable or sensible, it just has to get you in the direction you want to go by avoiding the stuff you don't want to happen. The rational plan, in the strictest sense of "rational", is the one that best achieves this. It is therefore by definition impossible for the plan with the best chance of working to be irrational, no matter how crazy it sounds when you first hear it. =================== | 5 simplicio ------------------- I love Piet Hein :) For many system shoppers it's a good-for-nothing system that classifies as opposites stupidity and wisdom. Because by logic-choppers it's accepted with avidity: stupidity's true opposite's the opposite stupidity. or Wisdom is the booby prize given when you've been unwise. =================== | 5 roland ------------------- Develop the habit of asking yourself, "Will I definitely use this information for something immediate and important?" -- Timothy Ferriss - The 4 Hour Workweek =================== | 5 roland ------------------- But the sense of understanding no more means that you have knowledge of the world than caressing your own shoulder means that someone loves you. -- Michael Bishop(50 Years of Successful Predictive Modeling Should Be Enough: Lessons for Philosophy of Science). =================== | 5 pangloss ------------------- "Even in the games of children there are things to interest the greatest mathematician." G.W. Leibniz =================== | 5 orthonormal ------------------- Without context, I'm afraid I don't understand what this is supposed to signify regarding rationality. =================== | 5 orthonormal ------------------- This is not to say that M. Legrandin was anything but sincere when he inveighed against snobs. He could not (from his own knowledge, at least) be aware that he himself was one, since it is only with the passions of others that we are ever really familiar, and what we come to discover about our own can only be learned from them. Upon ourselves they react only indirectly, through our imagination, which substitutes for our primary motives other, auxiliary motives, less stark and therefore more seemly. Never had Legrandin's snobbishness prompted him to make a habit of visiting a duchess as such. Instead, it would encourage his imagination to make the duchess appear, in his eyes, endowed with all the graces. He would gain acquaintance with the duchess, assuring himself that he was yielding to the attractions of mind and heart which the vile race of snobs could never understand. Only his fellow-snobs knew that he was of their number, for, owing to their inability to appreciate the intervening efforts of his imagination, they saw in close juxtaposition the social activity of Legrandin and its primary cause. -- Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time =================== | 5 neq1 ------------------- ""Not evil, but longing for that which is better, more often directs the steps of the erring" Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie =================== | 5 mattnewport ------------------- What is -William Easterly attempting to establish with -William Easterly's claim? He is attempting to establish that William Easterly and other mainstream academic economists do not suck at their jobs and that modern macroeconomics has not been thoroughly discredited by the recent (ongoing) financial crisis. He attempts to do this by claiming that their failure to predict anything correctly is not an indictment of their intellectually bankrupt field but rather a ringing endorsement. In so doing he conveniently ignores those economists and investors who correctly predicted the crisis and explained in detail what was going to happen and why it was going to happen in the years before the crisis. =================== | 5 mattnewport ------------------- Was there anyone who predicted the crisis based on reliable methods that we could use to predict another crisis? The Greatest Trade Ever describes how John Paulson's hedge fund identified the coming sub-prime collapse and made $15 billion betting on it. It also covers several other investors who identified the same issues and made money, though most were not as lucky/smart with their timing as Paulson. The crisis also looks a lot like a classic example of a credit crunch as described by Austrian business cycle theory. Peter Schiff is one of the best known commentators who predicted the broad outlines of the crisis before it really hit. Now, I'm not saying that Austrian economists have all the answers or that there isn't some element of 'even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day' with the predictions of disaster panning out but there were people out there telling a coherent story about why the economy faced major problems and how the crisis would play out. Some of them were quite accurate on the timing as well. You wouldn't know it from the pronouncements of most economists, bankers and politicians because they look much better if they can proclaim that 'nobody' saw or could have seen the problems coming. I'm a lot more impressed with the likes of Andrew Lahde bowing out with a 'f*ck you' and millions of dollars in profits from betting on disaster and being right than by William Easterly smugly proclaiming vindication of mainstream economics when his profession largely failed at making predictions or even understanding what was going on in the real economy. =================== | 5 mattnewport ------------------- I prefer Yeats' phrasing: The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. =================== | 5 lavalamp ------------------- Maybe I'm weird, but I don't use or interpret quotes that way (as an appeal to authority). I use quotes that express an idea succinctly or cleverly, and the point for me is the language, not the source. I'm careful not to accidentally imply that the wording is mine, but other than that quotes are pretty independent of their originators in my mind. (But I do frequently introduce a quote by saying "as someone said" to avoid derailing the conversation to be about that person) =================== | 5 komponisto ------------------- The last part deserves extra emphasis: Correct logic is very often counter-intuitive, however, which is to be expected, as logic is meant to prevent errors caused by relying on intuition. See also here. =================== | 5 hrishimittal ------------------- It reminds me very much of this quote attributed to Gautam Buddha: "Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide." =================== | 5 haig ------------------- "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into." (Jonathan Swift ) =================== | 5 h-H ------------------- up-voted, but I don't think it's simple arithmetic that they're missing, there's a lot of ideological baggage preventing the masses from seeing nuclear as the better alternative. I'd caution against such under estimation of people's mental capacities, if only they knew how to add and subtract almost entirely misses the point-and is too condescending, not good PR. politics is the mind killer seems to be relevant here. =================== | 5 gwern ------------------- I'm not entirely sure what your criticism is. I'll take it as meaning 'isn't it just an arbitrary accident that the vampires happen to be more rational than humans, and not an intrinsic part of those characters?' No. It isn't. If you remember, one of the running suggestions in Blindsight is that consciousness is a useless spandrel that sucks up tons of brainpower, and which can/will be discarded with much benefit. The vampires may be rationally superior to humans because they are p-zombies, and they evolved that way in order to effectively predict human actions and hunt them. The arbitrary accident was the cross glitch - otherwise the vampires would have won rather than died out. If the vampires could as well have been less-rational-than-humans p-zombies, that would undo that major theme. =================== | 5 gwern ------------------- "Those who are free from common prejudices acquire others." --Napoleon Bonaparte; quoted by his secretary in Memoirs of Napoleon (1829-1831) =================== | 5 gwern ------------------- "If we were bees, ants, or Lacedaemonian warriors, to whom personal fear does not exist and cowardice is the most shameful thing in the world, warring would go on forever. But luckily we are only men - and cowards." --Erwin Schrodinger, Mind and Matter =================== | 5 gwern ------------------- "Anything you don't understand is dangerous until you do understand it." Larry Niven, "Flatlander" (1967) =================== | 5 gregconen ------------------- Suppose a hyperintelligent alien race did build a space shuttle equivalent as their first space-capable craft, and then went on to build interplanetary and interstellar craft. Alien 1: The [interstellar craft, driven by multiple methods of propulsion and myriad components] disproves Gall's Law. Alien 2: Not at all. [Craft] is a simple extension of well-developed principles like the space shuttle and the light sail. You can simply define a "working simple system" as whatever you can make work, making that a pure tautology. =================== | 5 gaffa ------------------- He thought he knew that there was no point in heading any further in that direction, and, as Socrates never tired of pointing out, thinking that you know when you don't is the main cause of philosophical paralysis. -- Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea =================== | 5 epistememe ------------------- The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands. -Oscar Wilde =================== | 5 cousin_it ------------------- I would note that orthodox statistics and the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory are just two different manifestations of a single intellectual disease, closely related to logical positivism, which has debilitated every area of theoretical science in this century. The symptoms of this disease are the loss of conceptual discrimination; i.e., the inability to distinguish between probability and frequency, between reality and our knowledge of reality, between meaning and method of testing, etc. -- E.T. Jaynes, summarizing all of Eliezer's posts =================== | 5 cousin_it ------------------- Hate spinach, love ice cream, love mother. What's so difficult? =================== | 5 cousin_it ------------------- Do stuff, read stuff, think and make up your mind. Have you actually selected an entity which you think of as "objective"? This is like having a slave port in your brain. -- yosefk =================== | 5 ciphergoth ------------------- The more I read this quote the more I hate it. It is an anti-rationality quote. It says, if you are not rich enough to run as an independent Presidential candidate, if you're not in a position to make a difference by yourself, if all the power you have is your voice, then shut up; leave action to the rich and powerful, without criticism. That your voice has power is part of the point of democracy, and it's not hard to see why a man like Perot might prefer to make that sound less legitimate. =================== | 5 brian_jaress ------------------- Your friend must be pretty hungry by now. =================== | 5 brian_jaress ------------------- What is it about us, the public, and what is it about conformity itself that causes us all to require it of our neighbors and of our artists and then, with consummate fickleness, to forget those who fall into line and eternally celebrate those who do not? -- Ben Shahn, "The Shape of Content" =================== | 5 brian_jaress ------------------- It's great to be able to stop When you've planned a thing that's wrong, And be able to do something else instead -- Fred M. Rogers, "What Do You Do?" =================== | 5 brazil84 ------------------- What do you envision as the alternative to having a job? Running your own business? Being unemployed? Being a hunter-gatherer? Living off of a trust fund? Sustenance farming? Living in your mother's basement? =================== | 5 billswift ------------------- If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can't be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong? Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People =================== | 5 ata ------------------- "Simply" doesn't necessarily mean "concisely" (outside of mathematical formalizations of Occam's Razor). Conciseness is preferable when possible, but being too terse can start impacting comprehensibility. (Think of three programs that all do the same thing: a 1000-line C program, a 100-line Python program, and a 20-line Perl program. The length decreases with each one, but readability probably peaks with the Python program.) The quote says "If you can't explain it simply", not "If you don't explain it simply". In this case, even if we do switch to "concisely" I think it checks out. Indeed, most of the major points Eliezer makes in the sequences could be stated much more briefly, but I get the sense that his goal in writing them is more than just transmitting his conclusions and his reasoning. No, it seems he's writing with the goal of making his points not just intellectually comprehensible but obvious, intuitive, and second-nature. (Of course any intuition-pumpery, analogies, and anecdotes are used to complement good reasoning, not to replace it.) But I have little doubt that, if he really wanted to, he could he boil them down to their essential points, at the potential cost of much of the richness of his style of explanation. (In any case, I'm not convinced that this quote is specific enough to serve as a usable norm. How simple? How much is "well enough"? Everyone will automatically assign their own preferred values to those variables, but then you're just putting words in Einstein's mouth, or rather, putting meanings in his words; you're taking whatever rule you already follow and projecting it onto him. Fittingly, this is a case where a longer explanation would have been simpler (i.e. more understandable).) Edit: I think I remember Eliezer once writing something like "Generally, half of all the words I write are superfluous. Unfortunately, each reader finds that it's a different half." That seems relevant as well. (Anyone remember the source of that?) =================== | 5 arundelo ------------------- If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. G.K. Chesterton =================== | 5 anonym ------------------- The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all the other things we know. That's why it's almost always wrong to seek the "real meaning" of anything. A thing with just one meaning has scarcely any meaning at all. Marvin Minsky -- The Society of Mind =================== | 5 anonym ------------------- The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. John Maynard Keynes =================== | 5 alexflint ------------------- The terrible truth is that postmodernism is what happens when somebody who believes what he reads, reads the Philosophy canon. -- Quee Nelson, The Slightest Philosophy =================== | 5 akshatrathi ------------------- I believe that scientists can change fields easily and sometimes make bigger impact in the new fields they enter. I think it’s because people who move do not look at the same problem from the traditional point-of-view. This enables us to come up with unique solutions. We are not trapped by dogma and if we are bold we can rise quickly. -- Aubrey de Grey =================== | 5 aausch ------------------- You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand. Leonardo da Vinci =================== | 5 Z_M_Davis ------------------- if you can't fathom why they do what they do, or why they believe what they believe, that's your failing not theirs. Interestingly though, by accepting this symmetry between you and your enemy, you potentially thereby break it. If you can understand why they believe what they believe, but they don't understand why you believe what you do, then you can justifiably consider yourself in a superior epistemic position. =================== | 5 Yvain ------------------- It is luck in a sense - every way that your opinion differs from someone else, you believe that factors outside of your control (your intelligence, your education, et cetera) have blessed you in such a way that your mind has done better than that poor person's. It's just that it's not a problem. Lottery winners got richer than everyone else by luck, but that doesn't mean they're deluded in believing that they're rich. But someone who had only weak evidence ze won the lottery should be very skeptical. The real point of this quote is that being much less wrong than average is an improbable state, and you need correspondingly strong evidence to support the possibility. I think many of the people on this site probably do have some of that evidence (things like higher than average IQ scores would be decent signs of higher than normal probability of being right) but it's still something worth worrying about. =================== | 5 Yvain ------------------- I counter with: Many things do not happen as they should, and most things do not happen at all. It is the duty of the conscientious historian to correct these defects. -- Herodotus =================== | 5 Wei_Dai ------------------- The way I would put it is that it is difficult and unnatural to be an entrepreneur, or to work under someone's direction in a management hierarchy. An efficient economy requires both kinds of people, and it's arguable that our current educational system overemphasizes the latter at the expense of the former. But rather than conspiracy, I think a more reasonable explanation for this is inertia: rapid technological change means we need more entrepreneurs than we used to, but the educational system hasn't kept up. For those wondering about viable alternatives to being a wage slave, here's something that worked for me. About ten years ago, I took a one-year break from my regular job, and used the time to write a piece of software that I saw a market niche for. While I went back to work, I found a partner to continue its development and to sell it over the Internet. It hasn't made me rich, but eventually I got enough income from it to to quit my job and spend most of my time working on whatever interests me. =================== | 5 Tiiba ------------------- "And what is it about selfishness exactly that is so bad?" It's fine and dandy in me, but I tend to discourage it in other people. I find that I get what I want faster that way. Now give me some cash. =================== | 5 Thomas ------------------- No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking. --Voltaire =================== | 5 SilasBarta ------------------- It means that you had a deep understanding for a few seconds, and then lost it. Or that you got trapped in the same confusion as the author, absorbed what made it seem appealing, and then "corrected away" the confusion. To determine which one happened, try the following: reading it again rephrasing it in your own words as many different ways as you can seeing how the thesis connects to other topics, and if that connection can be independently verified Eventually, you should be able to either gain the understanding, or recognize where the error is. =================== | 5 SilasBarta ------------------- I downvoted you because you're either completely missing the point of the quote, or you're unsuccessfully trying to be funny. In case it's not the latter: Yes, since you already know the answer, it's easy to "infer" the result from the givens. But the question is, what additional information are you using that constrains your answer to that? That's what you need to say to solve it, not just repeat back from the answer key. Furthermore, it's not at all clear that children get the result you claim. =================== | 5 SilasBarta ------------------- Can't find the link to this Dilbert strip, but I saved it a while ago to my computer. Dogbert is running for office: Dogbert: Vote for me or the terrorists will use your skulls for salad bowls. Dogbert: I promise to take money from the people who don't vote for me and give it to the people that do. Dogbert: Pollution has vitamins! Person in audience: I like how he makes me feel. ETA: Uploaded it here. Now accepting pledges for my copyright infringement legal defense fund. =================== | 5 SilasBarta ------------------- 8 possible outcomes, not 27 27 if you allow for "no effect", which you should. If all such questions are effective in making you open your eyes, question your assumptions and upvote away, well, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about the nature of "rationality". It's true that you can construct similar questions in other domains. But the questions you posed are different from that in the quote because it refers to a: -more common situation with a -more common inference that is -more often poorly grounded and hinges on complex aspects of human sociality, which are -more relevant to our everyday lives because of the -more frequent occurrence of similar situations. See also Richard's further remarks. The rationality issue involved in the quote is one of how you come to a conclusion, and I think it's fair to say you might have missed some of the factors that come into play regarding manipulation of children, which Richard explains. There's a difference between a) "What does your gut tell you would happen?", and b) "What information should you use to justifiably reach a conclusion about what would happen?" You were answering a), while the question was asking b). =================== | 5 ShardPhoenix ------------------- I find this (the unspoken and un-agreed-upon array of connotations behind a word) is a major source of disagreement even on this site. =================== | 5 Seth_Goldin ------------------- This sounds very Foucauldian, almost straight out of Discipline and Punish. I'm not Seth Godin, by the way. =================== | 5 RolfAndreassen ------------------- He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, drew old lessons to his mind. “What is, is. No loss is made better by dwelling on it; no pain is cured by the mind’s eye regarding it. Accept the casualties. Assess your capabilities. Continue the mission.” The recitation made him feel a little better; a cold clarity came to him. And Rumours of War, time-travel story on the Ynglinga Saga blog. =================== | 5 RobinZ ------------------- Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. Winston Churchill, 29 October 1941 =================== | 5 RobinHanson ------------------- Both these quotes sound nice, but do we have evidence for them? =================== | 5 RichardKennaway ------------------- The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities. Edsger W. Dijkstra, "Selected Writings on Computing" =================== | 5 RichardKennaway ------------------- At this point I reveal myself in my true colours as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years. And in consequence, we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves. Sir Kenneth Clarke, "Civilisation" (Excerpt on YouTube.) =================== | 5 RichardKennaway ------------------- "You pride yourself on freedom of choice. Let me tell you that this very freedom is one of the factors that most confuse and undermine you. It gives you full play for your neuroses, your surface reactions and your aberrations. What you should aim for is freedom from choice! Faced with two possibilities, you spend time and effort to decide which to accept. You review the whole spectrum of political, emotional, social, physical, psychological and physiological conditioning before coming up with the answer which, more often than not, does not even satisfy you then. Do you know, can you comprehend, what freedom it gives you if you have no choice? Do you know what it means to be able to choose so swiftly and surely that to all intents and purposes you have no choice? The choice that you make, your decision, is based on such positive knowledge that the second alternative may as well not exist." -- Rafael Lefort, "The Teachers of Gurdjieff", ch. XIV =================== | 5 Rain ------------------- We see things as we are, not as they are. -Leo Rosten =================== | 5 Rain ------------------- Maybe I should have posted it like this: As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion? =================== | 5 Rain ------------------- Many receive advice; few profit by it. -- Publius Syrus =================== | 5 Rain ------------------- As you can easily imagine we often ask ourselves here despairingly: "What, oh, what is the use of the war? Why can't people live peacefully together? Why all this destruction?" The question is very understandable, but no one has found a satisfactory answer to it so far. Yes, why do they make still more gigantic planes, still heavier bombs and, at the same time, prefabricated houses for reconstruction? Why should millions be spent daily on the war and yet there's not a penny available for medical services, artists, or for poor people? Why do some people have to starve, while there are surpluses rotting in other parts of the world? Oh, why are people so crazy? I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone, are guilty of the war. Oh no, the little man is just as guilty, otherwise the peoples of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There's in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again. -- Anne Frank, 3 May 1944, aged 14 =================== | 5 Rain ------------------- A person's greatest virtue is his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new person of himself. -Wang Yang-Ming =================== | 5 PhilGoetz ------------------- Like Marcus Aurelius, Beethoven, Schopenhauer, or Nietzsche? =================== | 5 Nic_Smith ------------------- Since a gene is just a molecule, it can't choose to maximize its fitness, but evolution makes it seem as though it had.... Why, for example, do songbirds sing in the early spring? The proximate cause is long and difficult. This molecule knocked against that molecule. This chemical reaction is catalyzed by that enzyme. But the ultimate cause is that birds are signalling territorial claims to each other in order to avoid unnecessary conflict. They just do what they do. But the net effect of an immensely complicated evolutionary process is that songbirds behave as though they had rationally chosen to maximize their fitness. Laboratory experiments on pigeons show that they sometimes honor various consistency requirements of rational choice theory better than humans (Kagel, Battalio, and Green 1995). We don't know the proximate explanation. Who knows what goes on inside the mind of a pigeon? Who knows what goes on in the minds of stockbrokers for that matter? -- Ken Binmore, Rational Decisions =================== | 5 Nic_Smith ------------------- Looked it up in Google Books and found this gem as a chapter lead-in: "Without logic, reason is useless. With it, you can win arguments and alienate multitudes." I'll have to get a copy sometime. =================== | 5 NancyLebovitz ------------------- From a different angle, an employer solves a set of problems for employees-- smoothing out the income stream, and doing a bunch of logistical details associated with finding work, having what's needed to do the work, and getting paid. This is apparently so valuable that free-lancers get paid between 2 and 3 times as much per hour as employees. =================== | 5 Mulciber ------------------- "Dear is Plato, dearer still is truth." -Aristotle =================== | 5 Morendil ------------------- Our actions generally satisfy us: we recognize that they are in the main coherent, and that they make appropriate, well-timed contributions to our projects as we understand them. So we safely assume them to be the product of processes that are reliably sensitive to ends and means. That is, they are rational, in one sense of that word. But that does not mean they are rational in a narrower sense: the product of serial reasoning. -- Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained =================== | 5 Morendil ------------------- Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement / Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément -- Nicolas Boileau Rough translation: "What is well understood can be told clearly, and words to express it should come easily." ETA: it is worth pondering the converse; just because something rolls off the tongue doesn't mean it's well understood. It could be that it's only well-rehearsed. What the quote is aimed at is work of a supposedly high intellectual caliber, which just so happens to be couched in impenetrable jargon. Far more often, that is in fact evidence of muddled thought, not that the material is "beyond me". =================== | 5 MichaelHoward ------------------- Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. -- William Ernest Henley (1875) =================== | 5 MichaelGR ------------------- Protein engineering is often approached as if it were part of biology. Imagine approaching aerospace engineering as if it were part of ornithology: Although the pioneers of human flight learned a lot about wings from birds, if they had waited for success in making artificial feathers and artificial muscle, we’d still be on the ground. --K. Eric Drexler =================== | 5 MichaelAnissimov ------------------- "Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 239–251 =================== | 5 Matt_Duing ------------------- "If it works for you, it works because of you." -- Mark Greenway on marriage =================== | 5 MBlume ------------------- You must engage in these internal dialogues all the time, and you must let yourself lose the arguments gracefully. Writing may be a game of solitaire, but it isn’t a game at which you can cheat. -Theodore Cheney, Getting the Words Right =================== | 5 Kevin ------------------- For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy =================== | 5 Kazuo_Thow ------------------- [...] but we have no guarantee at all that our formal system contains the full empirical or quasi-empirical stuff in which we are really interested and with which we dealt in the informal theory. There is no formal criterion as to the correctness of formalization. -- Imre Lakatos, What Does a Mathematical Proof Prove? ETA: When I first read this remark, I couldn't decide whether it was terrifying, or just a very abstract specification of a deep technical problem. I currently think it's both of those things. =================== | 5 Kazuo_Thow ------------------- Google Books is your friend. =================== | 5 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- ...look at 9/11 tower destruction theories. They want to believe something other than the planes caused the buildings to collapse. OK fine, let them bark up that tree if they want, but why must they leap to bizarre stories about government agents and secret operations? None of that is necessitated by the idea that another mechanism was fully or partially responsible. Why don't they suspect that Al-Quaeda planted a bomb in the basement in order to hasten the building's collapse, as a secondary part of their operation? Why leap to the US government as the culprit? Why not suspect that there was a flaw in the building construction, and that the blueprints don't reflect it because the building contractor covered it up? Why not suspect Martians? They create an incredibly open-ended doubt into which you could plug anything, and then they fill this void with (you guessed it) a story, with completely arbitrary elements. -- Mike Wong =================== | 5 JustinShovelain ------------------- In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better. -- Edward de Bono =================== | 5 JulianMorrison ------------------- Fear invasion from Mars! =================== | 5 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy, but they were listening in gibberish. -- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods =================== | 5 JenniferRM ------------------- You can’t prescribe decently for something you hate. It will always come out wrong. You can’t prescribe decently for something you despair in. If you despair of humankind, you’re not going to have good policies for nurturing human beings. I think people ought to give prescriptions who have ideas for improving things, ought to concentrate on the things that they love and that they want to nurture. Jane Jacobs =================== | 5 JenniferRM ------------------- Scientists spend an extraordinary amount of time worrying about being wrong and take great pains to prove others so. In fact, science is the one area of discourse in which a person can win considerable prestige by proving himself wrong. -- Sam Harris (emphasis in original) =================== | 5 James_Miller ------------------- The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless. From the Yes, Minister TV show. =================== | 5 James_K ------------------- There is a perception among the people who are in charge of this monkey that if you just turn the rankings over to a computer, the computer will figure those things out. The reality is that it can't. It is very difficult to objectively measure anything if you don't know what it is you are measuring. ~ Bill James =================== | 5 Jack ------------------- The mere fact that an assertion has been made is, in fact, evidence. Well the evidence here isn't really "the fact that it has been asserted" but "the fact that it has been asserted in a context where truthfulness and authority are usually assumed". The assertion itself doesn't carry the weight. If we're playing poker and in the middle of a big hand I tell you "I have the best hand possible, you should fold." that isn't evidence of anything since it has been asserted in a context where assumptions about truthfulness have been flung out the window. =================== | 5 HughRistik ------------------- We at the Church of Google believe the search engine Google is the closest humankind has ever come to directly experiencing an actual God (as typically defined). We believe there is much more evidence in favour of Google's divinity than there is for the divinity of other more traditional gods. We reject supernatural gods on the notion they are not scientifically provable. Thus, Googlists believe Google should rightfully be given the title of "God", as She exhibits a great many of the characteristics traditionally associated with such Deities in a scientifically provable manner. -- The Church of Google (Moved from the LW/OB Rationality Quotes thread, where is was previously posted by accident) =================== | 5 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Yeah, let me do it. =================== | 5 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Why is it believed that what pictures you can make in your head, and what is true or necessarily true, are terribly well connected? If there is not a substantial connection between the (necessarily) true and your conception of the (necessarily) true, then Hume's argument goes up in smoke. -- Aretae =================== | 5 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Speak to us more of this book. =================== | 5 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Polemic—persuasive writing—only works when it doesn't feel like propaganda. The audience must feel that you're being absolutely fair to people on the other side. -- Orson Scott Card, "Characters and Viewpoint" =================== | 5 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Okay, I'm over my quota, but I really have to reproduce this from an ensuing discussion between myself and Michael Vassar, in which Michael Vassar commented that Galileo seemed to have accomplished his feats through character traits other than ultra-high-g: "Wait, I just called myself 'not that smart, like Galileo'. What does that do to my Crackpot Index?!" -- Michael Vassar =================== | 5 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Karl Marx's writings glorifying communism (though Western capitalists regard it as grim and joyless) may well have reflected merely his alienation from society due to a lifelong series of excruciatingly painful boils, according to a recent British Journal of Dermatology article. In an 1867 letter, Marx wrote, "The bourgeoisie will remember my carbuncles until their dying day." [Reuters, 10-30-07] -- News of the Weird (relevance) =================== | 5 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I think this should go at the top of all monthly Rationality Quotes posts as an epigraph. =================== | 5 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Counterexample: Space shuttle. =================== | 5 Douglas_Knight ------------------- believed in faeries, and that he could photograph them. Better than fairies he couldn't photograph. =================== | 5 Divide ------------------- But five hundred years ago ancient Greeks hadn't lived for centuries already. =================== | 5 DanArmak ------------------- There have, for instance, been no wars in Western Europe for sixty years, something that has never happened before. That has almost nothing to do with democracy, and everything to do with the new world order after WW2. Half of Europe was inside the Soviet Union. The other half was mostly being used as an American front against the Soviets and didn't dare to have internal wars. Later, EU precursor organizations cemented the Western European alliances among the more important countries. Of course all this hasn't stopped the Western European countries from having wars outside Europe, and there have been plenty of those in the last 60 years. Today, European politics are such that multinational business industry organizations, and private international alliances, are vastly more powerful than any hypothetical nationalistic power. So we can't have an internal European war. This is unrelated to democracy, and would work just as well in any other well integrated pan-European system. =================== | 5 Cyan ------------------- Using language that is appropriate in one linguistic framework in a different linguistic framework is what causes philosophical confusion and pseudo puzzles, also known as the history of philosophy. -- Thomas Cathcart Daniel Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar... : Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes =================== | 5 Cyan ------------------- Just out of curiosity, who is being discussed, and what direction did he discount? =================== | 5 CronoDAS ------------------- MY mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun Coral is far more red than her lips’ red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound: I grant I never saw a goddess go,— My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. -Shakespeare, Sonnet 130 (Incidentally, I find it annoying that I can't post properly formatted poetry or song lyrics in comments. I can't use a single carriage return, and am instead forced to choose between putting a blank line in between every line of the quote, or putting everything on one line.) Edit: Thank you! Now, is there a way to add spaces to the beginning of a line? HTML has a tendency to ignore whitespace; does the code block override that? =================== | 5 CronoDAS ------------------- He left out the weight of the air... =================== | 5 CronoDAS ------------------- "[T]he purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity." - Calvin, Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes" =================== | 5 CronoDAS ------------------- "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair =================== | 5 CannibalSmith ------------------- That world is called dreams, and we visit it every night. =================== | 5 Bindbreaker ------------------- "My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there." Charles F. Kettering =================== | 5 BenAlbahari ------------------- ...it would be a mistake to suppose that the difficulty of the case [for gender equality] must lie in the insufficiency or obscurity of the grounds of reason on which my convictions rests. The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which there is a mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old. And there are so many causes tending to make the feelings connected with this subject the most intense and most deeply-rooted of those which gather round and protect old institutions and custom, that we need not wonder to find them as yet less undermined and loosened than any of the rest by the progress the great modern spiritual and social transition; nor suppose that the barbarisms to which men cling longest must be less barbarisms than those which they earlier shake off. — John Stuart Mill, 1869 =================== | 5 AllanCrossman ------------------- Reading through it now. There are two relevant words in Roko's description, only one of which is obvious from the outset. Still I'm not sure I fully agree with LW's spoiler policy. I wouldn't be reading this piece at all if not for Roko's description of it. When the spoiler is that the text is relevant to an issue that's actually discussed on Less Wrong (rather than mere story details, e.g. C3PO is R2D2's father) then telling people about the spoiler is necessary... =================== | 5 AlanCrowe ------------------- Over on Hacker News mechanical_fish explains science I don't believe anything which hasn't been replicated by a skeptic, because people are too trusting and hopeful and are blind to their own mistakes. Frankly, your equipment is probably broken and your students are probably ignorant; I only trust myself. And, come to think of it, I don't even trust me very much -- I should convince my skeptics to replicate my results so that I can believe me. =================== | 5 ABranco ------------------- Objectivity must be operationally defined as fair treatment of data, not absence of preference. —Stephen Jay Gould =================== | 5 ABranco ------------------- Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first. —Mark Twain =================== | 4 wuwei ------------------- Testing shows the presence, not the absence of bugs. -- Edsger Dijkstra =================== | 4 woodside ------------------- "Most people are more complicated than they seem, but less complicated than they think" BS =================== | 4 wnoise ------------------- I wind up empathizing with both characters. You're supposed to, or at least I did. Both are right. What is the converse of a dialogue? The converse of a logical statement is another statement with the antecedent and consequent swapped. I was using it metaphorically for "another similar take on the same subject". Both these quotes emphasize that there is no morality inherent in the universe. If we want a moral universe, we have to build it ourselves. The Cassini Division quote actually to me seems rather cheerful. Even from cynicism that deep we can build a good life full of all the things we cherish. I think part of what bothers me about your Cassini quote is that the claims in the first paragraph are overstated, especially coming from a character who is (presumably) a metaethical nihilist/egoist. I think that's because they're not coming from a unitary viewpoint. They're bridging between something approximating normal morality, and utter amorality. life is the scum of matter, and people are the scum of life. Why, is it so wrong to eat things? The point is not "it's wrong to eat things". The point is that life is what's survived, and it does anything it can to survive. People much the same, though they're better at it. If I firmly estimate that other minds exist, does the existence of those minds depend upon my estimation? Of course not. If other minds exist, why should what matters to them be irrelevant? First ask why should what matters to them be relevant? Well, because: 1. You want to live under conditions such that they are. 2. They're useful to you, and you to them, and cooperation can make you both better off than a bitter fight to the death. But neither of these is fundamental. What does it even mean to say that "might makes right" except that I plan to ignore the concept of "right"? It means that the concept of right is not fundamental, is not baked into the fabric of the universe. Right only means something relative to the minds that hold it. And they can only enforce that with might. Try reading it as "might effects right". When, in the course of human events, has the power to ignore morality left people truly free? Well, the simplest answer is when people have the power to ignore morality forced upon them by others that they don't agree with. If a gay man is free to ignore the moral judgements of an Imam in a Sharia country, he is freer to have sex with whom he pleases, how he pleases. A slave that has the power to escape is freer. A person is freer when they can do something that pleases them rather than the high-paying stressful job that their parents tell them is what they should do. if you want to survive and thrive you had better do whatever is in your interests. Really? All the time? All the time. can spend some of the resulting surplus on frivolous pursuits; The "frivolous pursuits" are both the thriving and what is in your interests. You interests include both accumulating the surplus and spending it on what matters to you. The times where it is survival on the line, rather than thriving, can be much rarer. =================== | 4 wedrifid ------------------- It really isn't. Hatred and infatuation are both further away from understanding than admiration is. So, I expect, is indifference. Then there's the state of 'incomprehension'... Apart from being technically absurd the quote also gives a message that I don't particularly like. I'll cynical it up with the best of them but I reserve the right to admire things that I understand. In fact, I've discovered that my taste in music largely consists of admiring songs that convey insight that I understand and empathise with. This holds even when confessing to liking Hillary Duff and Pink sends all the wrong signals of affiliation. =================== | 4 tut ------------------- "Love God?" you're in an abusive relationship. DLC, commenter at Pharyngula. =================== | 4 toto ------------------- When it comes to proving such obvious things, one will invariably fail to convince. Montesquieu, "The Spirit of the Laws", book XXV, chapter XIII. (Link to the book, Original French) =================== | 4 toto ------------------- I don't know, to me he's just stating that the brain is the seat of sensation and reasoning. Aristotle thought it was the heart. Both had arguments for their respective positions. Aristotle studied animals a lot and over-interpreted the evidence he had accumulated: to the naked eye the brain appears bloodless and unconnected to the organs; it is also insensitive, and can sustain some non-fatal damage; the heart, by contrast, reacts to emotions, is obviously connected to the entire body (through the circulatory system), and any damage to it leads to immediate death. Also, in embryos the brain is typically formed much later than the heart. This is important if, like Aristotle, you spent too much time thinking about "the soul" (that mysterious folk concept which was at the same time the source of life and of sensation) and thus believed that the source of "life" was also necessarily the source of sensation, since both were functions of "the soul". Hippocrates studied people more than animals, did not theorize too much about "the soul", and got it right. But it would be a bit harsh to cast that as a triumph of rationality against superstition. =================== | 4 topynate ------------------- He absolutely gave her something to use against him by being sarcastic in a public forum, but I think he made a rational decision that an interesting dialogue in which he could be called snide would catch much more attention than the dull one in which he makes a polite, logically airtight case and receives a shorter reply full of nothing much. Edit: Oh, I was going to add: and I now know a lot more about Armstrong than I would otherwise, namely, that her argumentative approach is deceitful and based on manipulating her audience's moral feelings. =================== | 4 thomblake ------------------- This was a nice exercise in generating a host of just-so stories. =================== | 4 taw ------------------- You can make the calculation return any result you want, for example by including cost of millennia of nuclear waste storage in price of nuclear power; another thing - nuclear power gets massive federal insurance subsidies (but then coal gets free license to kill people by pollution etc., so it's not exclusively nuclear problem). If you know what result you want, you will be able to come up with it. =================== | 4 taw ------------------- Wrong about racism, sexism, nationalism, governance, and many other moral issues. That's an interesting thing to claim - and one I'm pretty sure they wouldn't agree about back then. =================== | 4 spencerth ------------------- If they raped you, starved you/fed you paint chips, beat you to the point of brain injury, tortured you? How about being born in a place where the pollution is so bad that you're likely to get sick/die from with a very high probability? Places that are completely ravaged with drought or famine? Places where genocide is fairly regular? Where your parents are so destitute that they are forced to feed you the absolute worst food (or even non-"food") so that your brain/body never develops properly? Of course, for people/places where rape/forced childbirth is prevalent or the knowledge of how pregnancy occurs is still non-existent, it's understandable. For places where the former isn't and the latter is, there really should be no statute of limitations on blame. The quote is good, but should be understood to apply only in certain contexts (i.e., to people who weren't born into horrific conditions and who live(d) in a place with something resemble equality of opportunity.) Not understanding this perpetuates the idea that "everything that happens to you is your own fault" that appears in some popular strains of political thought today, when it clearly cannot be universally applied. =================== | 4 soreff ------------------- We live in an age of uncertainty, complexity, and paranoia. Uncertainty because, for the past few centuries, there has simply been far too much knowledge out there for any one human being to get their brains around; we are all ignorant, if you dig far enough. Complexity multiplies because our areas of ignorance and our blind spots intersect in unpredictable ways - the most benign projects have unforseen side effects. And paranoia is the emergent spawn of those side effects; the world is not as it seems, and indeed we may never be able to comprehend the world-as-it-is, without the comforting filter lenses of our preconceptions and our mass media. -- Charles Stross (Afterword: Inside the Fear Factory) =================== | 4 simplicio ------------------- One thing is for sure, Coca-Cola corp is definitely losing the overall fermion market to more streamlined business models. =================== | 4 simplicio ------------------- Alas, rigorous truth is the constant enemy of the aphorism. =================== | 4 roland ------------------- The method-oriented man is shackled: the problem-oriented man is at least reaching freely toward what is most important. --John R. Platt =================== | 4 quanticle ------------------- A theory, however elegant and economical, must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. -- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice =================== | 4 pjeby ------------------- it seems Taleb might be saying that the road is not simply reversible and that one direction is not just the same as the other. Right, as he says later: Yet the strange thing is that it is very hard to realize that knowledge cannot travel equally in both directions. In context, the quote is more about verbal overshadowing and related biases, wherein having a map can blind one to the territory, and the excesses of academic tail-chasing and status-bound disdain for the merely practical. In other words, it's rather a lot of things lumped together, each one of which has been an OB or LW post topic at one time or another. (Which is why I thought it appropriate to link to the whole thing, rather than just giving one out-of-context quote.) Because, I mean, really, what do you call a nuclear weapon if not a practical application of theoretical knowledge? Wasn't the effort involved in generating the practical knowledge of how to build a nuclear weapon at least a couple of orders of magnitude greater than the effort involved in coming up with the idea, even if you count all of the physicists in a direct line from Newton to Szilard? Part of Taleb's point is that even if you have a promising theory, you are really only just getting started -- and then only if you don't have a model that blinds you to the real thing. And for a great many things (especially those where fast feedback is possible), you will get better results sooner by building your map from the territory than trying to come up with a theoretical model from scratch. One reason why knowledge doesn't flow equally in both directions is that theory is a more compact, "lossier" form of information that is necessarily included in practice. Another reason is that human brains are better at building intuitive models from experience than from principles. (i.e., better at extracting principles from experience than generating experience from principles.) =================== | 4 orthonormal ------------------- This has been discussed here before. The problem is that Marken's models don't actually have predictive power; he just fits a function to the data using as many free parameters as he has data points, and marvels at the perfect fit thus derived. One doesn't need to think highly of the current state of psychology to realize that Marken is a crank, and that any recognition Marken has in the PCT community is a sign that they are bereft of actual experimental support if not basic scientific reasoning skills. =================== | 4 novalis ------------------- How could you distinguish a repeating process consisting of the entire universe, from that process happening only once? =================== | 4 komponisto ------------------- In fact, one can go further, because Aristotle's conclusion was presumably arrived at in the first place through observation of everyday experience (indeed, it almost seems wrong to attribute it specifically to Aristotle since it is simply the "common sense" view of most of humanity, before and since). So here we arguably have an example of a thought experiment successfully refuting an empirically-derived hypothesis. =================== | 4 haig ------------------- "People are not base animals, but people, about 90% animal and 10% something new and different. Religion can be looked on as an act of rebellion by the 90% animal against the 10% new and different (most often within the same person)." Paul Lutus =================== | 4 gwern ------------------- Voted up for striking very home for me - I just finished watching His and Her Circumstances, which had far too much adolescent wangst about 'real me's. =================== | 4 gwern ------------------- '102. One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.' --Alan Perlis =================== | 4 gwern ------------------- "This achievement is often praised as a sign of the great superiority of modern civilization over the many faded and lost civilizations of the ancients. While our great skill lies in finding patterns of repetition under the apparent play of accident and chance, less successful civilizations dealt by appealing to supernatural powers for protection. But the voices of the gods proved ignorant and false; they have been silenced by the truth." --James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games =================== | 4 gwern ------------------- "I waste many hours each day being efficient." --Emanuel Derman =================== | 4 gwern ------------------- "Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth." --Lillian Hellman, The Little Foxes (1939) =================== | 4 edolet ------------------- "Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves. They always think of their own case as soon as any remark is made, and their whole attention is engrossed and absorbed by the merest chance reference to anything which affects them personally, be it never so remote: with the result that they have no power left for forming an objective view of things, should the conversation take that turn; neither can they admit any validity in arguments which tell against their interest or their vanity." Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) =================== | 4 cousin_it ------------------- Who stops you from inventing waterproof gunpowder? -- Kozma Prutkov =================== | 4 cousin_it ------------------- Upvoted because it echoes my attitude towards your and Eliezer's ideas on decision theory, except I don't keep quiet. =================== | 4 conchis ------------------- FWIW, the exact quote (from pp.13-14 of this article) is: Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than the exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise. [Emphasis in original] Your paraphrase is snappier though (as well as being less ambiguous; it's hard to tell in the original whether Tukey intends the adjectives "vague" and "precise" to apply to the questions or the answers). =================== | 4 clay ------------------- Monroe Fieldbinder sees psychologist to bounce ideas off him. One of Fieldbinder's ideas is that the phenomenon of modern party-dance is incompatible with self-consciousness, makes for staggeringly unpleasant situations (obvious resource: Amherst/Mt. Holyoke mixer '68) for the all self-conscious person. Modern party-dance is simply writhing to suggestive music. It is ridiculous, silly to watch and excruciatingly embarrassing to perform. It is ridiculous, and yet absolutely everyone does it, so that it is the person who does not want to do the ridiculous thing who feels out of place and uncomfortable and self-conscious . . . in a word, ridiculous. David Foster Wallace (The Broom Of The System, pg. 158) =================== | 4 ciphergoth ------------------- You're quoting yourself! =================== | 4 ciphergoth ------------------- So for example, it would make sense for me to try and personally swoop in and free Chinese political prisoners, but if I'm not prepared to do that, I shouldn't protest their incarceration. I don't think this rule leads to the right kind of behavour. =================== | 4 ciphergoth ------------------- Many quotes are widely attributed to Einstein. Please provide chapter and verse on when and where he said this. =================== | 4 ciphergoth ------------------- Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate that. =================== | 4 ciphergoth ------------------- Armstrong's reply is nothing but chiding Harris for being rude, and waffle. Returning to the "niceness" discussion, it strikes me that if Harris had made the same points with a straight face and without sarcasm, Armstrong would have been left with nothing but waffle. =================== | 4 childofbaud ------------------- "A proverb is much matter distilled into few words." —R. Buckminster Fuller =================== | 4 benthamite ------------------- The man of science, whatever his hopes may be, must lay them aside while he studies nature; and the philosopher, if he is to achieve truth, must do the same. Ethical considerations can only legitimately appear when the truth has been ascertained: they can and should appear as determining our feeling towards the truth, and our manner of ordering our lives in view of the truth, but not as themselves dictating what the truth is to be. Bertrand Russell, ‘Mysticism and Logic’, in John G. Slater (ed.), The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, London, 1986, vol. 8, p. 33 =================== | 4 benthamite ------------------- In science there are no “depths”; there is surface everywhere[.] Otto Neurath, ‘The Scientific Conception of the World: the Vienna Circle’, in Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen (eds.), Otto Neurath: Empiricism and Sociology, Dordrecht, 1973, p. 306 =================== | 4 bentarm ------------------- by "have a norm of" you mean "mention explicitly in the monthly threads that this is a norm", right? As, as far as I can see, this norm pretty much seems to exist already. =================== | 4 ata ------------------- It's not presented in terms of information warfare, and it doesn't explicitly cover "insist[ing] it's the victim's obligation to repair the damage", but the original article on Dark Side Epistemology (now known as "anti-epistemology", I hear) sounds similar to what you're getting at. Specifically, the point that to deny one scientific fact, you need to deny a massive network of principles and implications, to the point that your entire epistemology ends up either contradictory or useless. =================== | 4 ata ------------------- As the mind learns to understand more complicated combinations of ideas, simpler formulae soon reduce their complexity; so truths that were discovered only by great effort, that could at first only be understood by men capable of profound thought, are soon developed and proved by methods that are not beyond the reach of common intelligence. Marquis de Condorcet, 1794 =================== | 4 ariel ------------------- beceause... “Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.” ~Oscar Wilde =================== | 4 anonym ------------------- The right answer is seldom as important as the right question. Kip Thorne =================== | 4 anonym ------------------- The great advances in science usually result from new tools rather than from new doctrines. Freeman Dyson =================== | 4 anonym ------------------- Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. William James =================== | 4 anonym ------------------- Philosophers who reject God, Cartesian dualism, souls, noumenal selves, and even objective morality cannot bring themselves to do the same for the concepts of free will and moral responsibility. The question is: Why? Tamnor Sommers — Distributed Cognition and the Will: Individual Volition and Social Context, “The Illusion of Freedom Evolves”, p. 62, MIT Press, 2007 =================== | 4 ajayjetti ------------------- Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. ~Andre Gide =================== | 4 Zubon ------------------- I could be wrong, but I'd like to see some evidence. --- Mark Liberman =================== | 4 Yvain ------------------- "Train yourself to get suspicious every time you see simplicity. Any claim that the root of a problem is simple should be treated the same as a claim that the root of a problem is Bigfoot. Simplicity and Bigfoot are found in the real world with about the same frequency." -- David Wong =================== | 4 XFrequentist ------------------- Such sad statistical situations suggest that the marriage of science and math may be desperately in need of counseling. Perhaps it could be provided by the Rev. Thomas Bayes. Tom Siegfried, Odds Are, Its Wrong, on the many failings of traditional statistics in modern science. =================== | 4 Will_Euler ------------------- We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own. --Harold Bloom =================== | 4 Wei_Dai ------------------- [This is not a quote, but a meta discussion.] I find it curious that the quotes posted here have higher votes on average than the usual discussion comments, and it makes me think that I have a below-average appreciation for quotations. Why do people value them, I wonder? =================== | 4 Wei_Dai ------------------- Learn to criticize ideas, especially your own. Most new ideas are wrong or inadequate. If you don't reject most of your ideas promptly, then you're almost surely fooling yourself, and if you also spread them, you're almost surely polluting the intellectual world. But if an idea really seems to stand up under testing, try filling in more details, and criticizing it again. — K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation 2.0: Advice To Aspiring Nanotechnologists =================== | 4 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- This particular idea seems straightforward, at least in non-technical sense: "infinity" should only appear from "traces" of finite dynamical processes, as a way of talking about their dynamics. Infinite objects are artifacts of objectifying time, and any infinite object can as well be regarded as a statement about a finite dynamical system. I liked this remark as a self-contained way of thinking about infinity (on informal level, apart from the specific axiomatizations). (For example: think of the process of normalization as the dynamic on a term not in a normal form; whether it'll terminate is undecidable, and a priori the normal form can't be considered as another term (finitely encoded), yet we may reason about this output as another term, considering how it'll reduce in interactions with other terms, etc.) =================== | 4 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- The citation is taken from "Brinkmanship in Business"[pdf]. The cited assertion is actually a mistake, as it presupposes that the right thing to do in the Ultimatum game is to accept any amount offered to you, and never punish the unfair dealer. The whole document is a lesson in Dark Arts. =================== | 4 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Maybe they also think they understand you. You can't get intelligence from simple asymmetry. =================== | 4 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Loyalty mods don't whisper propaganda in your skull. They don't bombard you with images of the object of devotion while stimulating the pleasure centres of your brain, or cripple you with pain and nausea if you stray from correct thought. They don't cloud your mind with blissful euphoria, or feverish zealotry; nor do they trick you into accepting some flawed but elegant piece of casuistry. No brainwashing, no conditioning, no persuasion. A loyalty mod isn't an agent of change; it's the end product, a fait accompli. Not a cause for belief, but belief itself, belief made flesh - or rather, flesh made into belief. --Greg Egan, "Quarantine". =================== | 4 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Doing it efficiently turns you into a dangerous paperclip monster, while doing it inefficiently makes you a mere harmless rock. =================== | 4 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- He is assuming that there will be a doomsday - also known as begging the question No, I don't think so. He is making a claim about what implications follow from a certain fact. That fact is the definition of "a doomsday prediction". All that follows from that definition is that all but one will be false. Of course, even that last one (so to speak) might be false, but, even if this is so, it doesn't follow from the definition. This is not a case of begging the question. It is just being clear about what implies what. =================== | 4 Tiiba ------------------- Perfecting my warrior robot race, Building them one laser gun at a time. I will do my best to teach them About life and what it's worth, I just hope that I can keep them From destroying the Earth! --SIAI =================== | 4 Tiiba ------------------- I would question that this is a rationality quote. It's a quote about how atheism is better for aesthetic reasons. =================== | 4 Thomas ------------------- I agree, of course. But don't be too harsh on Immanuel Kant, who had no knowledge of modern chemistry but was able to understand, that Aristotle was essentially wrong in his views about "natural places of light things up on the sky and heavy things down here on Earth". =================== | 4 Theist ------------------- "I can't see it, so you must be wrong." my four-year-old =================== | 4 Tetronian ------------------- Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome. Stephen Jay Gould =================== | 4 SoullessAutomaton ------------------- Linus replies by quoting the Bible, reminding Charlie Brown about the religious significance of the day and thereby guarding against loss of purpose. Loss of purpose indeed. Charlie Brown: Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? Linus: Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please? Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. -- Jeremiah 10:1-4 Linus: It's a pagan holiday, Charlie Brown. =================== | 4 SoullessAutomaton ------------------- Due to not being an appropriately-credentialed expert, I expect. The article does mention that he got a very negative reaction from a doctor. =================== | 4 SilasBarta ------------------- What do you envision as the alternative to having a job? Running your own business? ... Living off of a trust fund? That list makes a decent starting point. "Let them eat cake", thy name is Morendil! Again, the issue not whether the functions accomplished by a job can be broken down into their consitutent components. Of course they can. But Godin's claim goes further, into saying that people are fundamentally ignorant of alternate ways to accomplish these functions. Does he really not think that people are aware that if you have enough money, you don't need to work to earn an income? Also, this is another tenuous division of conceptspace: Another is taking orders, vs giving orders, vs neither. And so on. Why is one taking orders, while another isn't? One way or another, you usually have to do something other people want to get their money. Grocery stores are taking my orders to bring them food. Employers are only giving me orders in the sense that, "if you want this money, you will perform this act. If you don't like that tradeoff, we can go our separate ways." The identification of employment as "taking orders" is hardly a natural category for it, and certainly not one people are ignorant for not making. =================== | 4 SilasBarta ------------------- That doesn't sound like an activist. That sounds like "sucker doing other people's work for free", which doesn't sound like an effective plan for bringing about positive change -- those people tend to "weed themselves out" over the long run. I'm not saying you shouldn't do things to make the world a better place, like: not litter, drive courteously, etc. (Although you should be careful about which things actually accomplish a net good.) "Be the change you want in the world" (attr. Ghandi) is a good motto to keep. I'm just saying that you shouldn't expect major problems to get solved by Someone Else at no cost to you, nor complain about someone pointing out the dirty river instead of immediately cleaning it up. =================== | 4 SilasBarta ------------------- My point is that we have words because they call out a useful, albeit fuzzy, blob of conceptspace. We may try to claim that two words mean the same thing, but if there are different words, there's probably a reason -- because we want to reference different concepts ("connotations") in someone's mind. It's important to distinguish between the concepts we are trying to reference, vs. some objective equivalence we think exists in the territory. The territory actually includes minds that think different thoughts on hearing "unmarried" vs. "bachelor". ETA: My point regarding Kant was this: He should have seen statements like "All bachelors are unmarried" as evidence regarding how humans decide to use words, not as evidence for the existence of certain categories in reality's most fundamental ontology. =================== | 4 SilasBarta ------------------- In Bayes/Pearl terminology, knowledge of an effect destroys the causes' independence (d-connects them), and ruling out a cause shifts probability onto the remaining causes. =================== | 4 Rune ------------------- "If you understand something in only one way, then you do not really understand it at all." -- Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind =================== | 4 RolfAndreassen ------------------- That is, indeed, the idiomatic form. But it should properly be "Not all that glitters is gold", because gold does, in fact, glitter, and therefore some things which glitter are indeed gold. And, of course, some are diamond. =================== | 4 RolfAndreassen ------------------- How can that be the case? You apparently have 'exceptions' forming most of the population! More generally, being able to talk to the author after reading the thesis is hugely valuable, because whatever was unclear in the thesis can be cleared up. But talking to the author without reading his work is fairly worthless; you won't know what questions to ask, unless of course you're already knowledgeable in the field. =================== | 4 RobinZ ------------------- I thought about med school again, the anatomy class I had told Jason about. Candice Boone, my one-time almost-fiancée, had shared that class with me. She had been stoic during the dissection but not afterward. A human body, she said, ought to contain love, hate, courage, cowardice, soul, spirit ... not this slimy assortment of blue and red imponderables. Yes. And we ought not to be dragged unwilling into a harsh and deadly future. But the world is what it is and won't be bargained with. I said as much to Candice. She told me I was "cold". But it was still the closest thing to wisdom I had ever been able to muster. Robert Charles Wilson, Spin =================== | 4 Robin ------------------- Three ways to increase your intelligence Continually expand the scope, source, intensity of the information you receive. Constantly revise your reality maps, and seek new metaphors about the future to understand what's happening now. Develop external networks for increasing intelligence. In particular, spend all your time with people as smart or smarter than you. I'll give an upvote to whoever knows the source of that. =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- it's not found in any Buddhist primary source What is a Buddhist primary source? None of the discourses were written down until some centuries after the Buddha's time. The discourses that we have do themselves exist and whatever their provenance before the earliest extant documents, they are part of the canon of Buddhism. The canon has accreted layers over the centuries, but the Kalama Sutta is part of the earliest layer, the Tripitaka. I've heard it might be You've heard? That it might be? :-) It is readily available online in English translation. It attributes these words directly to the Buddha: Come Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias toward a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, "The monk is our teacher." Kalamas, when you yourselves know: "These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill," abandon them. and in another translation: Now, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted carried out, lead to welfare to happiness' — then you should enter remain in them. If I had the time, I'd be tempted to annotate the passage with LessWrong links. ETA: For the second translation, the corresponding paragraph is actually the one preceding the one I quoted. The sutta in fact contains three paragraphs listing these ten faulty sources of knowledge. Buddhist scriptures are full of repetitions and lists, probably to assist memorisation. ETA2: Rationalist version: Do not rest on weak Bayesian evidence, but go forth and collect strong. =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- Touché. =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- The quote is good, but should be understood to apply only in certain contexts All advice is relative to a certain context. =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- The original cartoon. =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- Nothing greater can happen to men than the perfection of their mental functions. Leibniz (quoted in Maat, "Philosophical languages in the Seventeenth Century: Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz") =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man. --Goethe =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- A final goal of any scientific theory must be the derivation of numbers. Theories stand or fall, ultimately, upon numbers. Richard Bellman, Eye of the Hurricane =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Who are you?" "Who am I? I'm not quite sure." "I admire an open mind. My own is closed upon the conviction that I am Shardovan, the librarian of Castrovalva." -- Doctor Who =================== | 4 RichardKennaway ------------------- "I'd rather do what I want to do than what would give me the most happiness, even if I knew for a fact exactly what actions would lead to the latter." Keith Lynch, rec.arts.sf.fandom, hhbk90$hu5$3@reader1.panix.com =================== | 4 Rational77 ------------------- Studies of patients with split brains have allowed us to begin to understand the functions and relative roles of different parts of our thinking organ. The left hemisphere, usually referred to as the "rational" side, is actually the rationalizing one, what neurobiologists call "the left interpreter." It is in charge of holding onto one person's current paradigm and worldview, no matter what the evidence. The left brain will distort facts if they conflict with the current held viewpoint. We like to think of ourselves as rational animals, but perhaps it would be more accurate to describe ourselves as rationalizing animals. However reasonable a view may be, it’s possible that we have acquired it for wholly irrational reasons and are now simply rationalizing it in order to maintain our self-image as consistent, rational, and moral. It’s not just a question of rationalization, either — we appear capable of making up complete falsehoods as part of this. Massimo Pigliucci continues in the Summer 2003 issue of Free Inquiry: In fact, the left brain can literally make up stories if the evidence is scarce or contradictory. A typical experiment was with a patient characterized by a complete severance of the corpus callosum (which connects the two hemispheres in normal individuals). He was shown a chicken leg to the right half of the visual field (which is controlled by the left brain) and was asked to pick a corresponding object. Logically enough, he picked a chicken head. The subject was then shown a house with snow to the left field (controlled by the right brain) and, also logically, chose a shovel. The individual was then asked to explain why he picked a chicken head and a shovel. Notice that there was no communication between the two hemispheres, and that the only hemisphere that can respond verbally is the left one. Astonishingly, the left hemisphere made up a story to explain the facts while being ignorant of half of them: the shovel was necessary to clean the chicken excrement! I never cease to be amazed at the sorts of things that these experiments on cognition and brain function reveal. I’m sure that the average person would not have thought the above situation to be likely, but it clearly happened: a person made a choice for entirely sensible reasons, but because their brain was unable to understand or articulate them, it made up entirely new reasons and created a story around them. Simply amazing — and all the more so because the belief being rationalized here was so obviously reasonable and appropriate in the first place. It’s bad enough that a person might rationalize bad beliefs, but apparently we rationalize good beliefs as well. How often do you suppose this happens? How many of our beliefs, especially the very good ones, are rationaliized rather than rational? Should be perhaps change our beliefs about qualifies as “rational”? If we did, wouldn’t that be a rationalization as well? =================== | 4 Rain ------------------- If the point is to get them to answer or reason about the topic, then I think we should reject the statement that "there is no polite way of asking." We should find a way of asking politely, such as teaching them to process our questions instead of answering with cached thoughts. Being offensive doesn't win. I also think it's a poorly phrased question, since it's easily brushed off with "yes/no", avoiding any of the deeper implications in an apparent effort to make it catchy and instantly polarizing. If the point is to upset people, to feel righteous, or to signal tribal affiliation, then go right ahead. =================== | 4 Rain ------------------- I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can understand it. -- Queen Juliana =================== | 4 Rain ------------------- Alternatively, "Put down the RSS feed and go learn something." =================== | 4 Psychohistorian ------------------- It's more so a terrible quote because it is unwise to have a significant emotional attitude towards finding out you're wrong, because this will tend to reinforce irrational defense mechanisms ("Let's agree to disagree!"). The purpose of argument is, I hope, to improve your understanding of the world, so even if you shouldn't be thrilled to find yourself wrong, you shouldn't be afraid of doing so. =================== | 4 Psychohistorian ------------------- CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. That what you were thinking of? =================== | 4 Proto ------------------- "We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld =================== | 4 PhilGoetz ------------------- There's a sample bias - People are likely to try appeasement when they are powerless, which makes appeasement unlikely to work. =================== | 4 PhilGoetz ------------------- I've had 2 Japanese cars. They're reliable; but when something does break, it's often hidden deep inside the engine so you need to have a mechanic pull the engine out and charge you $700 to replace a $10 part. =================== | 4 Peter_de_Blanc ------------------- I've run across that argument a couple times, and my reply has been that all economies are planned. Some are planned by a small number of dumb humans with inadequate data, and others are planned by a very large number of dumb humans with more data, and the latter are called market economies. =================== | 4 Nominull ------------------- What's interesting from a rationalist point of view is the surprising extent to which this is not actually the case. =================== | 4 Nic_Smith ------------------- "Psychologists tell us everyone automatically gravitates toward that which is pleasurable and pulls away from that which is painful. For many people, thinking is painful." - Leil Lowndes, How to Talk to Anyone (Given the context, perhaps a bit of a Dark Arts view.) =================== | 4 Nic_Smith ------------------- "Admiration is the state furthest from understanding." - Sosuke Aizen, Bleach =================== | 4 Morendil ------------------- That list makes a decent starting point. My recommendation would be more along the lines of "deconstruct the notion of a job into its component options, list several alternatives to each of these options, figure out what you want, then build up from the list of preferred alternatives the kind of life you'd like to live". One of the most important distinctions is active vs passive income. Another is taking orders, vs giving orders, vs neither. And so on. Something in the way you're asking suggests you might not really want answers. I'd be delighted to find out I'm wrong... =================== | 4 Morendil ------------------- I would love to agree with the sentiment in that quote, but offhand, I can't think of any examples. Certainly the day-to-day job of the scientist is to prove himself or herself wrong in as many ways as possible, so as not to leave that job to others. But what eventually yields prestige is being right. One possible counter-example I can think of is the Michelson-Morley experiment, the "most celebrated null experiment in the history of science" to quote one short-breathed biographer. But by several accounts I have read it only became "the most celebrated" thirty-odd years later, once the significance of Einstein's work had sunk in. Before that it seems to have been possible at least to regard it as an anomaly to explain away, for instance via "ether drag" theories. So even this attempt to prove myself wrong doesn't reach as far as I should hope. =================== | 4 Morendil ------------------- "non-wage-slave is not an income plan". Agreed. Shorter version of Godin's point: how many different income plans have you typically become familiar with by the time you exit the education system? =================== | 4 MichaelGR ------------------- There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh it's hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything." and an optimist who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out fine anyways. Either way, nothing happens. --Yvon Chouinard =================== | 4 MichaelGR ------------------- For an idea to have survived so long across so many cycles is indicative of its relative fitness. Noise, at least some noise, was filtered out. Mathematically, progress means that some new information is better than past information, not that the average of new information will supplant past information, which means that it is optimal for someone, when in doubt, to systematically reject the new idea, information, or method. Clearly and shockingly, always. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness p.52 =================== | 4 Matt_Duing ------------------- "There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." -- Isaac Asimov =================== | 4 MattPrather ------------------- "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell =================== | 4 MBlume ------------------- The new CEO of Coca-Cola in the 1980s had a problem with his senior vice-presidents who thought the company was doing well because they had 45 percent of the soft drink market. He asked them, "What proportion of the liquid market - not just the soft drink market - do we have?" That turned out to be only two percent. The resulting change in the world view of the company led Coca-Cola to increase sales revenue by thirty-five times in just over ten years. --Review of The Art of Choosing, by Sheena Iyengar =================== | 4 LucasSloan ------------------- Average Number of Deaths per Year in the U.S Bee/Wasp 53 Dogs 31 Spider 6.5 Rattlesnake 5.5 Mountain lion 1 Shark 1 Alligator 0.3 Bear 0.5 Scorpion 0.5 Centipede 0.5 Elephant 0.25 Wolf 0.1 Horse 20 Bull 3 Here Not entirely sure of the accuracy of these, but still. I think 31x as many killed by dogs as by sharks is a much more important figure than deaths from pigs. =================== | 4 Karl_Smith ------------------- It doesn't. My though process was too silly to even bother explaining. =================== | 4 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- talking to an author more insightful than reading the 200 page thesis Only if he were an exceptionally bad writer. 200 pages contains a lot more information than you can fit into most conversations. Not to mention being more logically structured. Of course, a conversation is more interactive and lets you ask about the things that were left unclear, as well as clear up misunderstandings... but I don't think that anywhere near compensates. What you could argue is that talking to the author is time more efficiently spent, as it gives you a better idea of whether her thesis is worth reading. =================== | 4 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- Not exactly a quote, but close enough - http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1993-02-07/ =================== | 4 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- If it were true that every innate predisposition of an organism were the result of some selectional pressure, then I would have to conclude that my dog has been selected for chasing tennis balls. -- John Searle =================== | 4 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- I'm dubious of militant atheism, as it seems counter-productive. Promoting atheism is closely related to promoting science. Aggressively promoting science and proclaiming it to be in direct conflict with religion will polarize society as religious groups will in turn attack science. On the other hand, if you just quietly taught science to everyone and not mention anything about a conflict, religious people would just compartmentalize their beliefs so that they didn't interfere with the things science teaches. You'd basically get people who were technically religious, but close to none of the negative sides. This has pretty much already happened in my country (Finland). The majority still belongs to a religious domination, but religion is considered a private thing and actually arguing in favor of something "because of the Bible" will get you strange looks and likely branded as a fanatic. Yes, there is still a Christian political party in parliament, but they're a minor player, fielding 7 representatives out of 200. There has traditionally been practically no public debate about any sort of conflict between science and religion, though that's possibly changing as parts of the populace have began to express a fear of Islam. Judging from past evidence, that is probably just going to make any clash of cultures worse. That article is also a good example of the results you'll get when the debate gets polarized, as it shows people who might otherwise have been moderates become extremists. And yes, we should regardless still continue to provide some critique of religion and the fallacies involved, to shift the social consensus even further into the "religion is just a private way you look at the world, not something you can base real-world decisions on" camp. But one can do that without being overly aggressive. =================== | 4 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- And, it cannot be repeated often enough, Good and Real is a must-read for LW-minded folks By the way, what's so special about it? I got it off Amazon a while ago and read it up to around page 100, but none of the content up to that seemed too special. This might be because I'd already internalized many of those points off OB/LW, of course, but still. Large chunks of the remaining book seem to mostly be about physics and ethics. I'm hesitant to spend time reading any popular physics, as I don't know the actual math behind it and am likely to just get a distorted image. Formal ethical systems are mainly just rationalizations for existing intuitions, so that doesn't seem too interesting, either. Where are the good bits? =================== | 4 Jonnan ------------------- Don't . . . get any of that on me please. Ick. =================== | 4 John_Maxwell_IV ------------------- I'll bet that a survey of lottery players would reveal that more than 50% know they lose money on average by playing the lottery. If not, a survey of people at slot machines would be even more likely to produce this result. Gambling is about thrill. =================== | 4 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right. –xkcd =================== | 4 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- From comp.lang.c++.moderated: This is just a simple example to illustrate the mechanics of the problem. The actual system is far more complex. For the sake of argument suppose that f passes the Handle to a different thread context that destroys the Handle during one of three distinct timeframes depending on the runtime environment. Either (1) before the constructor returns; (2) after the constructor returns and before the assigned handle is destroyed; or (3) after the assigned handle is destroyed. The problem occurs in case 1. -Andrew. That doesn't make it any less flawed; it just demonstrates that it's flawed in a complex manner. Kevin P. Barry =================== | 4 JenniferRM ------------------- Social scientists are experts at having an explanation for the results, no matter how they come out, so long as they are statistically significant. It is easy to turn the statistical crank. With sufficiently powerful statistical tools, you can find a significant statistical relationship between just about anything and anything else. Psychologists see no real problem with the current dogma. They are used to getting messy results that can be dealt with only by statistics. In fact, I have now detected a positive suspicion of quality results amongst psychologists. In my experiments I get relationships between variables that are predictable to within 1 percent accuracy. The response to this level of perfection has been that the results must be trivial! It was even suggested to me that I use procedures that would reduce the quality of the results, the implication being that noisier data would mean more. After some recovery period I realized that this attitude is to be expected from anyone trying to see the failure of the input-output model as a success. Social scientists are used to accounting for perhaps 80% (at most) of the variance in their data. They then look for other variables that will account for more variance. This is what gives them future research studies. The premise is that behavior is caused by many variables. If I account for all the variance with just one variable, it’s no fun and seems trivial. If psychologists had been around at the time that physics was getting started, we’d still be Aristotelian, or worse. There would be many studies looking for relationships between one physical variable and another—e.g., between ball color and rate of fall, or between type of surface and the amount of snow in the driveway. Some of these relationships would prove statistically significant. Then when some guy comes along and shows that there is a nearly perfect linear relationship between distance traveled and acceleration, there would be a big heave of “trivial” or “too limited”—what does this have to do with the problems we have keeping snow out of the driveway? Few psychologists recognize that, whatever their theory, it is based on the open-loop input-output model. There is no realization that the very methods by which data are collected imply that you are dealing with an open-loop system. To most psychologists, the methods of doing research are simply the scientific method—the only alternative is superstition. There is certainly no realization that the input-output model is testable and could be shown to be false. In fact, the methods are borrowed, in caricature, from the natural sciences, where the open-loop model works very well, thank you. Progress in the natural sciences began dramatically when it was realized that the inanimate world is not purposive. Psychologists have mistakenly applied this model of the inanimate world to the animate world, where it simply does not apply. This was a forgivable mistake in the days before control theory, because before 1948 there was no understanding of how purposive behavior could work. Now we know, but the social sciences have their feet sunk in conceptual concrete. They simply won’t give up what, to them, simply means science. Richard Marken in a May 15, 1985 lecture titled "Teaching Dogma in Psychology" The author was transformed by reading "Behavior: The Control of Perception"(1973) and began a research program whose early years(?) seem to have been summarized in "Mind Readings: Experimental Studies of Purpose"(1992) =================== | 4 Jayson_Virissimo ------------------- Many of the arguments on LW remind me of this quote: "for the obscurity of the distinctions and of the principles that they use is the reason why they talk about everything as confidently as if they knew about it, and defend everything they say about it against the most subtle and knowledgeable, without leaving any room to convince them of their mistake. In doing this they seem to me to resemble a blind person who, in order to fight without any disadvantage against a sighted person, would bring them into the depths of a very dark celar." -Rene Descartes from the Discourse on Method =================== | 4 James_K ------------------- Not if the forest is sufficiently dark that your night vision doesn't have enough light to work with. =================== | 4 JamesPfeiffer ------------------- Evolving a threat response over a half-million years on the African savannah hasn't really left me with any good mechanisms for dealing with a threatening number. PartiallyClips =================== | 4 Jack ------------------- Relevant anecdotal evidence: I have a cousin who was really in to astrology a few years ago: so obviously my sister and I insisted she partake in an experiment. We had her do three specific readings (not just with signs but with the mercury rising nonsense for which she needed exact birth-dates and birth locations): for me, my sister and my brother who wasn't there. She read them to us without indicating who they belonged to and we tried to see if we could tell which ones referred to us. The second one she read was just shocking to hear. It described me perfectly. I was in awe for about 10 minutes until the experiment finished and I learned that the reading that described me perfectly belonged to my sister. =================== | 4 Jack ------------------- It's also the kind of thing that gets forgotten when it works but remembered forever when it fails. See Appeasement in international politics. =================== | 4 HughRistik ------------------- This is actually an anti-rationality quote. Enigmas of the world are not harmless. Just try fighting "harmless enigmas" like diseases before germ theory. The mysteries of the world are not made terrible by our attempts to interpret them as though it had an underlying truth. I interpret this quote to suggest that mysteries are harmless, and that trying to understand the world is what is harmful. The vast majority of the time, this view is backwards; it is falsified by the history of science. I really hope this isn't what the quote means in context, because otherwise, it is mystery mongering, and I can't even begin to fathom what is wrong with the thought process that led to it. What we don't know can hurt us. Attempting to understand the world based on an underlying structure is at least instrumentally rational, and it might even be true, also. I'm curious about the context of the quote, and what NihilCredo thinks it has to do with rationality. =================== | 4 Gavin ------------------- Most "doomsday predictions" do not actually predict the total annihilation of the human race. It might be postulated that we don't have records of most correct doomsday predictions because the predictor and anyone listening met with doom. =================== | 4 Furcas ------------------- In other words, let's replace an attempt to understand human history as a result of the moral axioms of its actors with an extremely vague and lazy tautology. I hear this kind of nonsense all the time when discussing the negative effects of religion. "Oh, it's not because of their religious beliefs that Muslims are more likely to be terrorists than any other religious group, it's because they're people." It's a refusal to try and figure out why people act as they do. =================== | 4 Emile ------------------- I would say that Gall's Law is about the design capacities of human beings (like Dunbar's Number), or is something like "there's a threshold to how much new complexity you can design and expect to work", with the amount of complexity being different for humans, superintelligent aliens, chimps, or Mother Nature. (the limit is particularly low fo Mother Nature - she makes smaller steps, but got to make much more of them) =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- http://home.netcom.com/~rogermw2/force_skeptics.html This page persuaded me, by the way - I am now a Force Skeptic with respect to the Star Wars universe. =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Who am I to judge myself? -- Karp =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- That, I think, is part of the nature of beliefs about justice—they are absolute, bright edged, in a way in which preferences are not. The point is summed up in the Latin phrase Fiat justicia, ruat coelum—let justice be done though the sky falls. Those whose bumper stickers read "If you want peace, work for justice" simply take it for granted that there is no question what is just; if you want to find out, just ask them. The problem with the world as they see it is merely that other people are insufficiently virtuous to act accordingly. -- David D. Friedman, If you want war, work for justice =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Short is good. =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Never? Always? Hogwash. Aside from that, yes. =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- If you think of losing as “not winning,” then when you try to work out why you’ve lost, or (God forbid) why you’re a loser, you’ll tend to focus on the things you didn’t do and the qualities you don’t have. So it goes with any “negative” concept, one that is defined by what it isn’t (think of how “background” = “everything but the foreground” or how valleys are made by the mountains around them). I think it’s worthwhile to occasionally invert the picture, to see “being a winner” as “not being a loser.” That way you attend to those habits of mind that are hurting you, instead of the ones that might be helping. -- Jsomers.net, How to be a loser (Relevance) =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- If you haven't grown up in a Christian household or something, this completely fails. It doesn't sound like a reminder of purpose. Just a fail. =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I've decided to spend today abstractly worrying about sharks. =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- (For example, in the Americas a couple centuries ago, it was widely believed that black people were not capable of being successful and happy without supervision of white people, and it was consequently meet to own such people in the same way as livestock is owned.) As much as I keep citing this as an example myself, I don't think we're literally talking about sole prior cause and posterior effect here. =================== | 4 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "No matter how the next forty-seven thousand years turn out, whether they are ages of liberty or tyranny, happiness or misery, by the time two hundred thousand million years are passed, the civilization that rules the sevagram will occupy basically the same area of the local galactic supercluster, and achieve roughly the same height of enlightenment and technical advancement. You are wasting my time with trifles." -- John C. Wright, Null-A Continuum =================== | 4 Douglas_Knight ------------------- It's more so a terrible quote because it is unwise to have a significant emotional attitude towards finding out you're wrong, because this will tend to reinforce irrational defense mechanisms Yes, it is unwise to have such emotional attitudes, but you don't get rid of them by saying that they are bad. Honestly acknowledging their existence, as in the original quote, is probably a better route to their elimination than an emotionless assertion that losing arguments is good. The quote, on its own, probably doesn't do much good, and perhaps does some harm, but I think it is probably a better step to accomplishing loqi's goal than his phrasing. =================== | 4 DaveInNYC ------------------- I suspect it is because the main post refers to quotes being "voted up/down separately," i.e. it puts it in people's minds that they are supposed to vote on the quotes. I do find it funny that I got 12 karma points for cutting/pasting a quote; C.S. Lewis deserves the karma points, not me (as evidenced by the fact that I have gotten a grand total of 1 point from my own original posts). If one wanted to game the karma system, posting pithy quotes is the way to go. =================== | 4 Cyan ------------------- "Cayley Landsburg Fair Play" is enough, though. =================== | 4 CronoDAS ------------------- http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/princess_ida/webop/pi_06.html =================== | 4 CronoDAS ------------------- In context: FOUR LAWS OF ADVICE Learning to give good advice is so important to technologists that special laws of advice have been developed. The first of these is often stated as follows: "The correct advice is the desired advice." However, this form of the law leaves ambiguous whether the recipient wants correct advice or whether the desired advice is by definition the correct advice. A much clearer and completely unambiguous statement is provided by the following version of the First Law of Advice: The correct advice to give is the advice that is desired. A classic example of good advice was given to the mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1920. A major city highway, built on the side of a hill, began sliding, a piece at a time, onto railroad tracks below. With every heavy rain, more mud and parts of the road washed down, causing many of the railroad tracks to be unusable. Efforts to remove the mud to keep all tracks operable had been too slow following some of the more massive mud slides. Several solutions were offered by local engineering and construction firms and by concerned citizens. One was to pave the entire side of the hill to prevent erosion. Another was to build a metal structure to support the road and protect the tracks. All the suggestions would have been quite expensive, causing thoughtful people to wonder how or if the city could pay for the necessary work. Furthermore, no one knew if any of the proposed ideas would solve the problem. AN EXPERT IS CALLED The mayor knew he needed good advice. Ultimately, he hired G. W. Goethals as a consultant. Goethals had served as chief engineer for the Panama Canal and had considerable experience with landslides. His expertise was evident not only in his experience, but also in his consulting fee of $1,000 per day - an extraordinary sum at that time. After only one day of study, Goethals was prepared with his advice and with his bill. His advice to the city was simple: "Let it slide." The opposition party and one of the newspapers made sport of the city administration for paying so much for this advice. The mayor rightly argued that it was a small price to pay to learn that none of the more expensive proposals would work. The mayor chose to follow this most economical advice and permitted the hill to slide. Whether technically right or wrong, the consultant's advice was the desired advice. It did not involve construction expenses. Furthermore, any other solution would have been under constant attack from engineering and construction firms whose "solutions" had been rejected in favor of the winning contractor. The desired advice was clearly the correct advice. This classic example also stands up well in terms of the Second Law of Advice: The desired advice is revealed by the structure of the organization, not by the structure of the technology. And it also agrees with the Third Law of Advice: Simple advice is the best advice. Another classic example of advice that obeys all three laws was the advice given to the vice president of a petroleum company during the 1920s. The company had discovered a major oil deposit of high quality that could be refined economically into gasoline and other products. There was only one problem. The resultant gasoline had a greenish tint. Because all gasoline at that time was clear, like water, the marketing group believed there would be considerable customer resistance to an impure-looking gasoline. The production manager submitted his proposal for solving the problem. It called for modernization of the refinery. The company's chief chemist objected on the grounds that there was no proof that refinery modifications would result in a better product. Removing the greenish tint was a difficult chemical problem that had defied every attempt at a solution. The chief chemist, therefore, recommended an expanded research program. FOR ADVICE, GO OUTSIDE Rather than adopting either solution, the vice president wisely turned to an outside consultant for advice. The consultant was a chemical engineer of good reputation in academic circles, who had consulted before in the petroleum industry. He listened to the proposal of the chief chemist and then to that of the production manager. He talked to engineers and managers at the refinery and to chemists in the laboratory. Then he returned to the university for further study. If he were to recommend more experimental work, the chief chemist would be pleased. On the other hand, a recommendation to modernize the refinery was the desired advice of the production manager. The important thing for the consultant, however, was to determine what advice was desired by the vice president. The vice president did not want to be responsible for choosing either of the proposals already presented. He wanted to avoid responsibility for any decision that would appear to favor either of his subordinates. If such a decision had to be made, it would be best to attribute the decision to an outsider. This, the consultant discerned, was the real reason why he was hired. Even better for the vice president would be a totally different solution that played no favorites. After several weeks of additional work, the consultant was ready with a uniquely neutral recommendation - one that required neither research work nor modernization of the refinery. His advice to the vice president was simple: "Advertise the color." The marketing success of the greenish gasoline and the fact that most gasoline is now artificially colored demonstrate once again that the advice found by studying the structure of the organization - not the structure of technology - is the desired advice. It also substantiates the Third Law. Indeed, simple advice is the best advice. (The rest of the chapter is not relevant.) =================== | 4 CronoDAS ------------------- I've played some Settlers of Catan myself, and it took me a while to realize what you were talking about. (If I understand correctly, you chose not to build a settlement next to a tile that produces resources when a 6 is rolled, and by chance, the settlement wouldn't have produced any resources this turn because a 6 wasn't rolled. Therefore, waiting a turn to build the settlement didn't actually hurt you, but it could have.) I see similar situations all the time when playing Magic. Similarly, even if you do win the lottery, buying a negative expected value ticket was still a mistake. =================== | 4 CronoDAS ------------------- "First Law of Communication: The purpose of communication is to advance the communicator." - Putt's Law and the Successful Technocrat =================== | 4 Clippy ------------------- What about a scale that tells us how much a work of fiction deals with paperclip manufacturing and resource harvesting?... wouldn't you be interested in in fictional explorations of possible future ways of manufacturing paperclips? And wouldn't you want to know which of those explorations was the least fantasy and most based on reasonable extrapolations from current knowledge? In theory, yes. In practice, humans have very little to offer in terms of the ultra-efficient methods of paperclip production I normally use. I don't expect any book to be rated higher than 1, if you compare to what I already have. Surely you need some way of communicating the traditions and norms of paperclip creating to your youth. What are you talking about? I don't have to do biological self-replication (or sexual semi-replication at the genetic level) like humans do. I just make a perfect copy of myself. It already has all my knowledge and values. =================== | 4 Christian_Szegedy ------------------- I would roughly divide philosophies into two categories, "crazy" and "sensible". Of the two, I definitely prefer the former. Sensible philosophies are noted for their sobriety, propriety, rationality, analytic skill and other things. One definite advantage they have is that they are usually quite sensible. Crazy philosophies are characterized by their madness, spontaneity, sense of humor, total freedom from the most basic conventions of thought, amorality, beauty, divinity, naturalness, poesy, absolute honesty, freedom from inhibitions, contrariness, paradoxicalness, lack of discipline and general yum-yummyness. ... SNIP ... In general I would say that psychologist, psychiatrist, economists, sociologists and political scientists tend towards the "sensible", whereas artists, poets, musicians and (to my great delight!) chemists, theoretical physicists, mathematicians - especially mathematical logicians - tend towards what I call "crazy". Raymond M. Smullyan, The Tao Is Silent =================== | 4 ChrisHibbert ------------------- If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance: let us ask, "Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?" No. "Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?" No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. --- David Hume (quoted in Beyond AI by JoSH Hall) =================== | 4 CannibalSmith ------------------- The analysis fails to take into account the cost of buying and raising of cats. =================== | 4 Bo102010 ------------------- It shoehorns the use of giggle-inducing curse words into an explanation of religious views. Someone who has only ever been exposed to Beavis and Butthead cartons, and has never heard about "agnosticism," might be able to learn from this type of explanation. =================== | 4 Autodidact ------------------- Information wants to be anthropomorphized. ~ Anonymous =================== | 4 AngryParsley ------------------- The book is similar to Eliezer's posts in content, but with different examples and a focus more towards refuting non-materialism. If there's something you don't understand from reading LW, it's probably explained differently in Good and Real. The different arguments and examples may or may not be more enlightening. You should probably buy Good and Real if any of the following are true: You dislike Eliezer's attitude or writing style. You are often distracted by other things while reading on your computer. You prefer the structured organization of a book to the Wiki-link effect of blog posts. You like to show how smart you are by having shelves of books with important-sounding titles. OK, that last one might have been a joke. =================== | 4 AngryParsley ------------------- Ditto. On the Mohs scale of sci-fi hardness, Blindsight is aggregated diamond nanorod. =================== | 4 AndyWood ------------------- This seems impossible. If you respect those who "can be of no possible value" to you, and this causes others to hold you in higher regard, and if the esteem of others confers any value to you, then those you respected were valuable to you in that way. =================== | 4 Amanojack ------------------- I think Mises's point is rather that concepts like "good," "bad," "evil," "right," "wrong," "ought to" and "rights" all reduce back down to variations on "I desire it"/"It brings me pleasure" and the opposite. In other words, all ethical systems are dressed up (subjective) consequentialism and they only appear otherwise due to semantic confusion. =================== | 4 Alicorn ------------------- You say "the sexist implication" like that's the only one there. Anyway, drawing attention to a sexist implication doesn't increase the extent to which it's present - only the extent to which it's consciously noticed. The quote would carry on being exactly as sexist as it is without the lampshade. With more conscious noticing, there is both more offense taken and less chance for the statement to have insidious subconscious influence (on which level most -isms operate). Without the lampshade, it could feasibly pass without notice, and join a host of similar statements in the back of the brain that combine to form dispositions that yield more sexist statement. With the lampshade, conscious effort can go into de-sexismifying the statement, or rejecting it whole-cloth, and reduce its long-term effect, even if it makes it more unpleasant to hear in the short term. =================== | 4 AlanCrowe ------------------- That quote touches a sore spot on me due to the recent death of Erik Naggum. He was a controversial figure, and I find myself struggling to refrain from discussing whether he was right or wrong; discussions that are certain to turn into time consuming quarrels. It seems like an important struggle because his premature death emphasises that life is too short for quarrelling on the internet. =================== | 4 AlanCrowe ------------------- I read the quote from Lazarus Long in the original post as an olive branch to his opponents and a rebuke to his friends and allies. There is a concern underlying it that loqi's rebuke completely misses. First Lazarus Long offers a test of humanity that is open to all. The deaf, the homosexual, the Jew, etc, all may pass Long's test. Read between the lines to find the implicit advice: Learn to cope with mathematics. It is good advice, good enough that it is a dangerous gift to give to ones enemies. There is a saying in military circles that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. An enemy that holds mathematics in contempt will blow off the logistical calculations behind his military campaigns. How many bullets do we need? How long will the march take? How much food do we need? Who cares, let us run at the enemy screaming! An enemy that cannot cope with mathematics is seldom much of a threat; a friend or ally who cannot cope with mathematics is more dangerous. Simply moving the selector from single shot to fully automatic will let the innumerate comrade shoot off the expeditions ammunition in a matter of minutes, dooming the entire party. Since the quote is from Lazarus Long we should think space opera. The ship has broken down and rescue is months away. Calculate the rations that let the crew survive. No doubt they are uncomfortably meagre. If too many cannot cope with mathmatics, refuse the unwelcome results of the calculation and insist on too large a ration, all will perish. This dilemma is a modern setting for a dilemma that was common in history. When the crops fail, meagre stocks must be nursed through a hungry winter. The sums are the same. Bryan Caplan captures the modern form of the problem. Lazarus Long does not fear defeat by subhuman opponents. Why should he? He is sincerely believes that they are inferior. No. He fears being dragged down by his own side, most of who are no better. =================== | 4 AlanCrowe ------------------- I got nothing from my tracking system until I used it as a source of critical perspective, not on my performance but on my assumptions about what was important to track. -- Gary Wolf =================== | 4 AdeleneDawner ------------------- Expanded universe. =================== | 4 Adaptive ------------------- Go is a game of big moves and little moves. One problem we will examine here is what may look big now can, in the final analysis, be small, and vice versa. The ability to see what is and what is not territory and potential territory is to see the truth on the board. – Peter Shotwell, Go: More than a game =================== | 4 ABranco ------------------- The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. —Nietzsche =================== | 4 ABranco ------------------- The absence of alternatives clarifies your mind marvelously. —Kissinger =================== | 4 ABranco ------------------- Love consists of overestimating the differences between one woman and another. —George Bernard Shaw (OK, it's sexist. I admit it.) =================== | 4 ABranco ------------------- I love this last analysis. After all, this whole discussion on how the lampshading would be perceived turned out to be much more amusing and instructive than the quote itself, which makes me glad that I risked adding it. Actually, it was more like an act of superego-driven risk-aversion, so I'm twice as glad. More precisely, the lampshading was fruit of spotlight effect of my part, as I quickly fantasized that a great deal of politically correct readers would be outraged by the sexism. But it was more like when you say "Hello, get in, make yourself at home; please don't notice the mess.". =================== | 3 zero_call ------------------- Except technology isn't really that predictable, even with the science. That's what engineering's for. =================== | 3 xamdam ------------------- In spirit of full disclosure, not all religions were possessed by tawdry fantasies. Some embraced the regularity and beauty physical law as a sign of Bog's greatness. Unfortunately this little glitch contributed to me getting stuck thinking that Judaism is actually was rational for 20 years. I stopped thinking too early. "R. Simeon b. Pazzi said in the name of R. Joshua b. Levi on the authority of Bar Kappara: He who knows how to calculate the cycles and planetary courses, but does not, of him Scripture saith, but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither have they considered the operation of his hands." (Babylonian Talmud, Sabbath 75, about 1700 years back) =================== | 3 xamdam ------------------- Got Bog from Heinlein. I nice positive side effect of shedding mental handcuffs is that I restarted my sci-fi reading career, and being out for 20 years left me with a huge green pasture ;) I also think my own break with religion started with an emotional experience, or perhaps the experience just broke the dam of all the mental incoherence I have piled up under the carpet. I saw pics from Haiti of medical workers piling up children's bodies; I 'knew' then that if god exists he does not give a crap about things I care about; I was never 'religious' enough to think that me and my children are any 'better' than what I saw in front of me. The rest was a trivial exercise in comparison (mostly historical research and some logic). In general the problem with religion that it's a web of beliefs, and people cannot extricate themselves one strand at a time, the strands simply tend to regrow (though weaker, I think). You need a powerful emotional experience to pull enough threads all at once. Incidentally, this is a big benefit on the something to protect emphasis here. =================== | 3 wuwei ------------------- Take the thoughts of such an one, used for many years to one tract, out of that narrow compass he has been all his life confined to, you will find him no more capable of reasoning than almost a perfect natural. Some one or two rules on which their conclusions immediately depend you will find in most men have governed all their thoughts; these, true or false, have been the maxims they have been guided by. Take these from them, and they are perfectly at a loss, their compass and polestar then are gone and their understanding is perfectly at a nonplus; and therefore they either immediately return to their old maxims again as the foundations of all truth to them, notwithstanding all that can be said to show their weakness, or, if they give them up to their reasons, they with them give up all truth and further enquiry and think there is no such thing as certainty. -- John Locke, Of the Conduct of Understanding =================== | 3 wedrifid ------------------- That page sounded like banal propaganda. Yes, any magic is indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology but it sounds to me like the author has a strong preference to blaming evidence on an invisible robotic dragon in his garage rather than uncover the actual explanation whatever it may be. This is a world where you can hear sound in space and of light is more of a guideline than an actual rule. Your real world preconceptions just don't apply. Once there is any evidence whatsoever that Jedi are unwilling to subject the force to any scientific scrutiny then such skepticism beings to gain credibility. As things stand, however, I would expect the Jedi to be willing participants in Force research. I would, naturally, engage in such research myself. Partly out of a desire to understand the laws of the universe but mostly because I intended to harness the force to my own ends. =================== | 3 wedrifid ------------------- So if you are surprised to find a $20 bill in your couch, your disappointment at having lost $20 some time in the past is equal to your pleasure at now having $20 more than you did a moment ago? That depends rather a lot on my dopamine levels and thought patterns. I gain much more pleasure from finding cash than I am disappointed at losing it. Hang on... Excuse me. Going for a walk around my house with my wallet open. =================== | 3 wedrifid ------------------- If one wanted to game the karma system, posting pithy quotes is the way to go. No, creating multiple accounts with whatever level of investment of effort is sufficient to avoid detection is the way to go. And also too easy to be worth bothering with for a reward of no external value. There are systems to game that pay off in dollars. =================== | 3 wedrifid ------------------- I read ironic sincerity. =================== | 3 wedrifid ------------------- A quote that means something completely different coming from you than from Nietzsche! =================== | 3 wedrifid ------------------- (Agree, and add that) It is often more frustrating when I realise I am not wrong, can reliably reverse engineer the other's thought process, know that they will jump back to this error whenever an even tangentially related topic is discussed and I must now choose between rapport and reason. The death cry of mutual respect. =================== | 3 uninverted ------------------- Guess what happens when you're holding an apple and let go of it. You're probably right. =================== | 3 tut ------------------- •The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants – Albert Camus =================== | 3 tommccabe ------------------- "The other half was mostly being used as an American front against the Soviets and didn't dare to have internal wars." Really? Suppose the German invasion of 1941 was more successful, the Soviet Union was heavily weakened, and the demarcation line between the two was on the Vistula instead of the Elbe. Which European countries would have fought each other? "Of course all this hasn't stopped the Western European countries from having wars outside Europe, and there have been plenty of those in the last 60 years." Between two Western European powers? Which ones? "Today, European politics are such that multinational business industry organizations, and private international alliances, are vastly more powerful than any hypothetical nationalistic power." Evidence? Spain, Italy, France, the UK, and Germany have gross revenues of more than $1T each, more than three times those of the largest corporations. =================== | 3 thomblake ------------------- Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. -Mark Twain =================== | 3 thomblake ------------------- Well it may be technically false that the human mind has this inability, but on the other hand the human mind has a remarkable ability to avoid correlating many of its contents. "Belief is not closed under implication!" =================== | 3 thomblake ------------------- In certain contexts, I take ceteris paribus to serve the same social function as "IMHO" I've never heard of that, and I have no idea why you would want to do that. Does anyone else actually use ceteris paribus to mean something like "IMHO"? =================== | 3 thomblake ------------------- Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. -Buddha =================== | 3 thomblake ------------------- A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do. -Ralph Waldo Emerson =================== | 3 steven0461 ------------------- Is this really different from the mentality that says people permanently dying is a good thing because it's a feature of atheism, which is a good belief system because it's true? =================== | 3 steven0461 ------------------- Agreed, but saying a medium-sized violation of truth is a small violation of truth is only a small violation of truth and thus inconsequential. =================== | 3 spuckblase ------------------- I have written letters that are failures, but I have written few, I think, that are lies. Trying to reach a person means asking the same question over and again: Is this the truth, or not? I begin this letter to you, then, in the western tradition. If I understand it, the western tradition is: Put your cards on the table. -- Amy Hempel, 'Tumble Home' =================== | 3 spuckblase ------------------- All rested, eventually. Their technology climbed to some complacent asymptote, and stopped—and so they do not stand before you now. Now even my creators grow fat and slow. Their environment mastered, their enemies broken, they can afford more pacifist luxuries. Their machines softened the universe for them, their own contentment robs them of incentive. They forget that hostility and technology climb the cultural ladder together, they forget that it's not enough to be smart. You also have to be mean. -- Peter Watts, 'Ambassador' =================== | 3 spriteless ------------------- Timothy Leary's Intelligence Agents, quoting Aleister Crowley, supposedly. =================== | 3 sorentmd ------------------- “He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher...or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.” =================== | 3 sketerpot ------------------- It would be more interesting to hear how someone justifies believing in astrology. Typically it's a long string of horrifying nonsense that tells you quite a bit more about a person than just asking "Do you believe in astrology? [Y/N]" =================== | 3 sixes_and_sevens ------------------- What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. -- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri =================== | 3 sixes_and_sevens ------------------- The opposite of rose-tinted spectacles: shit-tinted shades. =================== | 3 simplicio ------------------- Got Bog from Heinlein. You probably know this, but Bog is the Russian (similar in other Slavic languages) word for God. =================== | 3 roundsquare ------------------- I think it makes sense, as a poke at atheists. Think about it this way. You walk into a bar, and you see no bartender. In your mind, you say "anything that is a bar will have a bartender. No bar tender, not a bar." Of course, the best thing to do before revising your assumptions is to wait for a bar tender. Maybe he/she is in the bathroom. Similarly, if you claim there is no evidence of god that I've seen in my lifetime, you are using the wrong measure. Why should god (if there is one) make itself obvious during the short period that is a human lifetime. This is almost an "irrationality quote" instead of a rationality quote, but still enlightening. =================== | 3 roland ------------------- You quoted: of his genius would little subside But I just read the original and it is written: of his genius would a little subside Now it makes more sense to me, the 'a' makes all the difference. =================== | 3 roland ------------------- Yes and no. You are right about a lot of biases originating from the unconscious. But the other way is also possible, the smart human who does something stupid because he has a good theory of how it should be done. Or choosing a picture because of some salient verbalizable reason instead of just taking the one you like the most without necessarily being able to explain why, etc... There is more on this topic in "The rational unconscious: Conscious versus unconscious thought in complex consumer choice" by Ap Dijksterhuis and in Jonah Lehrer "How we decide". =================== | 3 roland ------------------- Scientific thinking,which is analytic and objective, goes against the grain of traditional human thinking, which is associative and subjective. Far from being a natural part of human development, science arose from unique historical factors. -- Allan Cromer =================== | 3 roland ------------------- Interesting, but the quote seems untrue for me. =================== | 3 roland ------------------- I don't blame him, it's a fairly common mistake if you don't actively think it through. =================== | 3 roland ------------------- Add to that Eliezers admonishment to not worry about scientific controversies. =================== | 3 roland ------------------- "Expert" claims originating in subjective evaluation can be safely ignored for what they are: sentimental autobiography. -- Michael Bishop(50 Years of Successful Predictive Modeling Should Be Enough: Lessons for Philosophy of Science). =================== | 3 pricetheoryeconomist ------------------- Is Samuel Johnson's quote a valid or true statement? I understand your central thrust--the inability to do something personally (such as control one's sexual urges) and the disposition to encourage others to overcome that inability are not necessarily contradictory--indeed, they may fall together naturally. However, in Samuel Johnson's world, and the world in which this "issue" comes up the most, politics, we might imagine that there exist two types of people: sociopathic individuals hungry for power, and individuals who are sincere. If sociopathic individuals hungry for power are more often hypocrites, then we might, as an efficient rule of thumb (not being able to distinguish the two save through their observable actions!) condemn hypocrites because they are likely to be power-hungry individuals. As a bayesian update, in the world of politics, we expect that hypocrites are more likely to be power hungry or sociopathic. I see Samuel Johnson's quote as potentially true, but ignoring a world of imperfect information and signaling. =================== | 3 phaedrus ------------------- Thanks RobinZ, The full quote is "Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise, and everything precise is so remote from everything that we normally think, that you cannot for a moment suppose that is what we really mean when we say what we think." But the partial quote is much more crisp. =================== | 3 outlawpoet ------------------- In a manner which matches the fortuity, if not the consequence, of Archimedes' bath and Newton's apple, the [3.6 million year old] fossil footprints were eventually noticed one evening in September 1976 by the paleontologist Andrew Hill, who fell while avoiding a ball of elephant dung hurled at him by the ecologist David Western. ~John Reader, Missing Links: The Hunt for Earliest Man =================== | 3 orthonormal ------------------- Given the story of his encounter with the psychologist (also in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!), I'd say he thought so, and ditto with the other fields he mentioned. I believe he was criticizing acceptable social conversation (at the Nobel Prize banquet, I believe!) as being restricted to topics on which nobody sufficiently facile with words could be conclusively shown to be wrong. =================== | 3 nhamann ------------------- Whenever I'm reading things that I want to actually learn and retain, I read with pencil and notebook and write down all the important points in my own words. I've found this to be helpful because it forces me to slow down and think about what I'm reading and how each new piece of information relates to everything that came before it. I've also found that having pencil and paper close at hand encourages picture drawing, which is often helpful when learning something (though it depends on what you're reading). =================== | 3 loqi ------------------- Upvoted with gusto. Most work boils down to solving some problem or another. An employee solves problems within the constraints imposed by their company. An entrepreneur solves problems within the constraints imposed by their customers. The former are really just an indirect representation of the latter. =================== | 3 kpreid ------------------- FYI, Less Wrong accepts Markdown syntax in comments. =================== | 3 komponisto ------------------- Likewise there's the story about the Princeton student defending his thesis on the set of real functions that satisfy the Lipschitz condition for every positive constant C, and being asked by an examiner to compute the derivative of such a function... My point having been, of course, that the k-quandle story is not (necessarily) of this type. =================== | 3 kaiokan12 ------------------- Rambo Hell yeah. =================== | 3 jimmy ------------------- If you still get thrill out of slot machines, it just means that you don't get it at a deeper level. Almost everyone understands that they will get old and die (and that dying is bad), but relatively few see aging as the most important disease to fight. =================== | 3 infotropism ------------------- "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." God (presumably), Revelation 3:16 =================== | 3 imaxwell ------------------- I would prefer to say that conforming your thoughts to reality is science, and conforming reality to your thoughts is engineering... =================== | 3 gwillen ------------------- I think the key insight here is that you get a limited number of bits, in design space, to bridge between things that have already been shown to work, and things that have yet to be shown to do so. For purposes of Gall's law, we are interested in the number of bits of design that went into the space shuttle without ever having been previously shown to work. So you have to subtract off the complexity of "the idea of an airplane", which we already had, and of the solid fuel booster rockets, which we already knew how to build; and also of any subassembly which got built and tested successfully in a lab first -- but perhaps leaving some bits or fraction of a bit to account for the unknown environment when using them on the real shuttle, versus in the lab. =================== | 3 gwern ------------------- "[T]he rule is irrational; for it involves the assumption that wherever A's scribes made a mistake they produced an impossible reading. Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and 3 minutes is a long time." --A.E Housman, Juvenal (1905), xi =================== | 3 gwern ------------------- "Student: How can one realize his Self-nature? I know so little about the subject. Yasutani: First of all, you must be convinced you can do so. The conviction creates determination, and the determination zeal. But if you lack conviction, if you think 'maybe I can get it, maybe I can't', or even worse, 'This is beyond me!' - you won't awaken no matter how much you do zazen." pg 126, The Three Pillars of Zen, ISBN 8070-5979-7 When I came across this quote, I was struck by its relevance to one of Eliezer's beisutsukai posts about finding the successor to quantum mechanics (The Failures of Eld Science; on a side note, are there any 'internal'/wikilinks to LW articles for us to use, instead of hardwiring lesswrong.com URLs?). I meant to write a post on how interesting it is that we intellectually know that many of our current theories must be wrong, and even have pretty good ideas as to which ones, but we still cannot psychologically tackle them with the same energy as if we had some anomaly or paradox to explain, or have the benefit of hindsight. The students in Eliezer's story know that quantum mechanics is wrong; someone with a well-verified observation contradicting quantum mechanics knows that it is wrong (replace 'quantum' with 'classical' as you wish). They will achieve better results than a battalion of conventional QMists. But nothing quite gelled. =================== | 3 gwern ------------------- "She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit." --W. Somerset Maughan, "The Creative Impulse" (1926) =================== | 3 gwern ------------------- "It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims." --Aristotle =================== | 3 gregconen ------------------- I find 3 pig related occupational fatalities in the US from 1992-1997, and total US deaths at 4 from all marine animals, 2 of which were venomous from 1991 to 2001. So it looks like pigs have it, though it's not like the difference is statistically significant. =================== | 3 gregconen ------------------- But what's the unit exposure? Does the exposure related to ocean swimming match the exposure of camping in Michigan wilderness? You have a point, though. Of course, most people should worry about neither pig nor shark attacks. =================== | 3 gjm ------------------- On the other hand, precise statements that are somewhere in the vicinity of the truth can be dangerous, because people tend to mistake precision for accuracy, and because modes of reasoning (e.g., formal logic) adapted to precise statements tend to be brittle -- one can deduce very wrong conclusions from slightly wrong premises. A charitable reading of Smullyan would be that when a precise statement is made, he likes to examine it as closely as its precision allows, to avoid such dangers; and that a vague statement, so far as it's vague, is not worth the trouble of criticizing. (For the avoidance of doubt: I think such a reading would probably be too charitable, and I upvoted Eliezer's comment.) =================== | 3 gaffa ------------------- "We have tried to do this in a hypothesis-independent manner because there is nothing more dangerous in life than a good hypothesis." --Kári Stefánsson, deCODE Genetics =================== | 3 eirenicon ------------------- Also, in general, the quote is accurate. While it is intellectually useful to be proven wrong, it is not really a pleasant feeling, because it's much nicer to have already been right. This is especially true if you are heavily invested in what you are wrong about, eg. a scientist who realizes his research was based on an erroneous premise will be happy to stop wasting time but will also feel pretty crappy about the time he's already wasted. It's not in our nature to be purely cerebral about such a devastating thing as being wrong can be. =================== | 3 djcb ------------------- "It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master." ~ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged [ I'm actually not too fond of objectivism, but this quote is spot-on ] =================== | 3 dclayh ------------------- In fact it's almost exactly the mirror image of Eliezer's Gung Nyvra Zrffntr, which is pretty awesome. =================== | 3 cupholder ------------------- Later amended by David Foster Wallace to 'The truth will set you free, but not until it's done with you.' =================== | 3 cousin_it ------------------- Wrong about racism, sexism, nationalism, governance, and many other moral issues. And even today, many smart people outside the USA are still wrong about these pressing moral issues! =================== | 3 cousin_it ------------------- Of course you can trisect some angles, just not all of them. For example, you can't trisect the angle of an equilateral triangle (60 degrees). =================== | 3 cousin_it ------------------- I'm a big fan of Ken Binmore, and this quote captures a lot of my dissatisfaction with LW's directions of inquiry. For example, it's more or less taken for granted here that future superintelligent AIs should cooperate on the Prisoner's Dilemma, so some of us set out to create a general theory of "superintelligent AIs" (including ones built by aliens, etc.) that would give us the answer we like. =================== | 3 ciphergoth ------------------- The motto of this book on sustainable energy is Every BIG helps =================== | 3 ciphergoth ------------------- No, curiosity seeks to annihilate itself. =================== | 3 ciphergoth ------------------- In the UK to dribble a football means to keep it close to your feet as you move along the pitch - is that the meaning you refer to here? If so I can't make sense of the quote, because it's perfectly possible. =================== | 3 childofbaud ------------------- On a similar note, from the same author: Breaking out of bad habits, rather than acquiring new ones, is the toughest aspect of learning. —Edsger Dijkstra (EWD1036) =================== | 3 brian_jaress ------------------- You've made essentially this argument yourself, and I've been wondering: How is causal determinism "presupposed in the concept of human action"? Can't I do things without the results being guaranteed? =================== | 3 baiter ------------------- "A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life." -Baruch Spinoza =================== | 3 ata ------------------- Better: Rank beliefs according to their plausibility multiplied by the harm they may cause. =================== | 3 arundelo ------------------- Perhaps he thinks that philosophy is the creation of a man, a book like the Iliad or Orlando Furioso, in which the least important thing is whether what is written in them is true. -- Galileo Galilei, The Assayer =================== | 3 arundelo ------------------- I haven't read it, but I have read quite a bit of other things by John Holt. He is known mainly as a theorist of education (the title of the above-quoted book may be a reference to a teacher trying to plan class activities) but he would probably say that he was interested in learning, and interested in education only inasmuch as it helps or hinders learning. He is the primary initiator of the unschooling philosophy of homeschooling. I have posted some other John Holt quotes elsewhere in this post's thread. =================== | 3 anonym ------------------- The future is already here; it’s just unevenly distributed. William Gibson — National Public Radio: “Fresh Air”, Aug. 31, 1993 =================== | 3 anonym ------------------- It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature. Niels Bohr =================== | 3 anonym ------------------- It is theory that decides what can be observed. Albert Einstein =================== | 3 anonym ------------------- A mathematician is a person who can find analogies between theorems; a better mathematician is one who can see analogies between proofs and the best mathematician can notice analogies between theories. One can imagine that the ultimate mathematician is one who can see analogies between analogies. Stefan Banach =================== | 3 akshatrathi ------------------- So few of us really think. What we do is rearrange our prejudices. -- George Vincent =================== | 3 abigailgem ------------------- "Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them" - Mr Gradgrind, Hard Times (Dickens) An anti-rationalist quote. Dickens believes there is more to life than rationality. Does his satire upon us here have any basis in reality? =================== | 3 aausch ------------------- I don't think his measure of difference is comprehensive: The higher chance of finding smart collaborators increases chances of increased productivity A larger chance of making very significant improvement (a highly competitive field is probably much closer to a field-wide, world changing epiphany - while in a less competitive field, much time must be wasted laying down the groundwork) A longer productive life-span (much likelier to find smart assistants/students to teach at maximum ability all life long) A higher utility to society - the field is likely competitive because of large public attention, which in turns signals large groups of people funding research, in turn showing that smaller improvements are considered much more valuable than in other fields A wider selection of interesting work. It's much more likely that relatively minor or mundante results/problems in the competitive field are going to be immediately useful/used =================== | 3 Zubon ------------------- Given yesterdays xkcd, I note that Google has no hits for "strip catpennies." =================== | 3 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- You've been wrong about every single thing you've ever done, including this thing. You're not smart. You're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a full-time employee. Where did your life go so wrong? ---Portal (emph. mine) Relevance: rationalists should win, importance of saying Oops =================== | 3 Yorick_Newsome ------------------- I think he was being sarcastic and trying to suggest that the original quote failed to take note that everyone thinks they are immune from those problems, including the person who decided the past was 'wrong' about them. I'm also pretty sure cousin_it is Russian, if that's relevant. The USA thing was just a tasteful addition, the way I see it. I laughed. (His use of an exclamation point and a look at the top contributors list on the right also indicate sarcasm.) Edit: I agree with Nick below. It was just a joke. Which I enjoyed. =================== | 3 Warrigal ------------------- Usually, sentences of the form "all that glitters is not gold" mean "not (all that glitters is gold)". "All is not lost" does not mean that nothing got any worse. While it may seem weird for "not" to semantically modify the entire sentence while it syntactically modifies only "gold", we do this all the time using other words: "we ate nothing" does not mean "we ate X" for X equal to "nothing"; it means "for all X, not (we ate X)". For fun, see Wikipedia. To imitate a friend of mine, how dare you try to make English make more sense. =================== | 3 Warrigal ------------------- There is no evidence that is so strong that it will justify a statement no matter how improbable you initially considered it. Thus, as Oscar points out, this quote is off. =================== | 3 Warrigal ------------------- On an advertisement for a fitness product: "WHAT'S STRONGER? YOU, or YOUR EXCUSES?" =================== | 3 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Right, so Charlie Brown is frustrated with commercialism and asks if anyone knows what Christmas is all about, and Linus replies by quoting the Bible, reminding Charlie Brown about the religious significance of the day and thereby guarding against loss of purpose. This context is absent in the quote, which makes it impenetrably confusing (and as such, a bad quote). =================== | 3 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Prior can't be judged. It's not assumed to be "correct". It's just the way you happen to process new info and make decisions, and there is no procedure to change the way it is from inside the system. =================== | 3 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Infinite is an undirect way to speak of the finite; more precisely infinity is about finite dynamical processes. -- Jean-Yves Girard =================== | 3 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- I don’t want to be human. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly, because I have to — I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I’m a machine, and I can know much more, I could experience so much more, but I’m trapped in this absurd body. -- John Cavil (Battlestar Galactica character) =================== | 3 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Distinguish formal preference and likes. Formal preference is like prior: both current beliefs and procedure for updating the beliefs; beliefs change, but not the procedure. Likes are like beliefs: they change all the time, according to formal preference, in response to observations and reflection. Of course, we might consider jumping to a meta level, where the procedure for updating beliefs is itself subject to revision; this doesn't really change the game, you've just named some of the beliefs changing according to fixed prior "object-level priors", and named the process of revising those beliefs according to the fixed prior "process of changing object-level prior". When formal preference changes, it by definition means that it changed not according to (former) formal preference, that is something undesirable happened. Humans are not able to hold their preference fixed, which means that their preferences do change, what I call "value drift". You are locked in in some preference in normative sense, not factual. This means that value drift does change your preference, but it is actually desirable (for you) for your formal preference to never change. =================== | 3 Vladimir_Golovin ------------------- "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -- Wayne Gretzky (but I've seen it attributed to Michael Jordan and Joe Ledbetter, HS coach) =================== | 3 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- To "point out" means to induce others to see what you see. Do you think that Harris's approach reliably induces people who don't already agree with him to see the ridiculousness that he sees? I suspect that he accomplishes little more than signaling his tribal loyalties, while exacerbating antipathy towards his tribe by non-tribe-members. =================== | 3 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- The humor of asking the student to compute the derivative is that one imagines the student confidently starting to answer the question, until a dawning horror rises on the student's face as the implications of the answer become evident. =================== | 3 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- Like thomblake, I'm surprised that someone would read "Ceteris paribus" this way. It is a preemptive way to ward off criticism, yes, but not by expressing humilty, at least not in any use I recall seeing. Besides, whatever impressions one might give by saying "Ceteris paribus", humility is not one of them. First of all, one is more likely to come across as pompous for using Latin when the English "All else being equal" works just as well. Second, even saying "All else being equal" signals that you've analyzed the phenomenon into many potentially independent parameters. That is, it's a way to claim deeper understanding, which, ceteris paribus, does not signal humility. fixed spelling =================== | 3 Thomas ------------------- What I cannot build, I do not understand. — Richard Feynman =================== | 3 Thomas ------------------- There are strange flowers of reason to match each error of the senses. -Louis Aragon =================== | 3 Theist ------------------- It's bad luck to be superstitious. =================== | 3 Tehom ------------------- The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to close it again on something solid G. K. Chesterton =================== | 3 Technologos ------------------- My understanding is that the quote is meant to invert the way we normally think of consequentialism (that making the world a better place is doing the right thing). The quote simply puts the logic in causal order, such that we can naturally say "I am doing the right thing if (and only if?) it makes the world a better place." =================== | 3 Strange7 ------------------- The first development of the electronic circuit would have been a case of a complex technological system that worked, but was not based fundamentally upon existing simpler machines. Electroplating and electrolysis of water both involve a circuit, but aren't overwhelmingly complex. Samuel Thomas von Sommering's electrochemical telegraph was based on electrolysis. It's not like someone pulled doped silicon semiconductors straight out of the lightning-struck sand. =================== | 3 Strange7 ------------------- And, without supporting evidence, such assertions demonstrate nothing. =================== | 3 Sticky ------------------- Someone just threw you off the Golden Gate Bridge. There's one problem thinking won't much help with. But then again, to make that point I had to reach for a problem nothing could be done about. =================== | 3 Sly ------------------- "He remembered the pride filled glow that had swamped Gyoko's face and he wondered again at the bewildering gullibility of people. How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces and they were on their knees slitting their bellies or cutting their throats, or cast out into the freezing world, they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals—anything or anyone—but never themselves." -Shogun =================== | 3 SilasBarta ------------------- Yes, a good point. There's the famous argument that naturalism is self-defeating because e.g., "why should I trust a monkey brain?" But in order to get to where you are today, each organism in your ancestry must have had enough harmony with nature's laws so as to harness them for its sustenance and reproduction. So there has to be some connection between the two. =================== | 3 SilasBarta ------------------- What's so difficult? For you, understanding what was asked. The question is not, "what will happen?" The question is, "What information do you need in order to know which outcome will happen?" Can someone explain why the parent is upvoted? Is everyone just assuming that the Bateson quote is just a sarcastic, roundabout way of asking what will happen? ETA: In case you weren't aware, cousin_it is not joking with his comment. =================== | 3 SilasBarta ------------------- What's even worse is trying to get that message to happen. I confess, in my early internet days, I thought I figured out how to trisect an angle, and sent a sketch of it to a random math prof in Canada, asking for a prompt reply. And you know what? I didn't get one! Probably the most polite reply one could reasonably expect. =================== | 3 SilasBarta ------------------- Well, you can't quite know if a skyward light is something flying near earth until you've identified it, can you? :-) =================== | 3 SilasBarta ------------------- Wait, C. S. Lewis didn't believe in witches, i.e. that there could be people who "sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers" to hurt others? Color me surprised. In any case, he certainly didn't do much to repudiate the part of his intellectual pedigree that was responsible for belief in witches in an attempt to avoid such errors in the future. =================== | 3 SilasBarta ------------------- That's not "one better". That's hardly different from telling me, "Find out what you want, and pursue that." Duh? I'm perfectly capable of doing the excercise you outlined, I've done it regularly, and I'm still not living off interest. I'm sure you made the leap one time yourself; but you did it with a lot more insight and resources than you provided in your answer to brazil84. How about this: 1) Earn $1 million as quickly as you can. 2) Live off the interest. Anyone feel like they learned something there? =================== | 3 SilasBarta ------------------- Sure thing. For me, it was the sudden realization that I had made assumptions from the very start of reading it, and that I had ranked certain outcomes far lower than the problem -- taken in isolation -- would justify. When I read it, I immediately thought, "Okay, rewarding a kid for eating spinach, same ol' same ol' ..."; then when I got to the end, I -- very quickly -- absorbed the insight that, in order for the process not to result in the child hating the mother, certain conditions have to hold, which are probably worthy of probing in depth. I know all of this may sound obvious, but I really had an aha!/gotcha! moment on that one. =================== | 3 SilasBarta ------------------- Hm, what about being constipated with hemorrhoids? ETA: No wait, how about this: same as above, but, assuming you're a male, with the intestines so full that they press against the prostate (basically the "core" of your pleasure/pain generator) and keep you from being able to urinate. Then, top it off with a severe hangover headache. Who would prefer being proven wrong to all of that? Me. =================== | 3 SarahC ------------------- There have been martyrs for conscience, though. That's a better model than stars, which, not to press a point, are inanimate. =================== | 3 Rune ------------------- "Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe =================== | 3 RolfAndreassen ------------------- The conversation took place in 1965; if Feynman believed that, as is likely, he was very probably correct. On the other hand, a lot of people probably thought they knew something about psychology; it was a popular subject at the time. =================== | 3 RolfAndreassen ------------------- Don't forget to adjust your calculations for not being on the equator, and to take into account that 'nighttime' is not equivalent to 'the Sun pulls you directly towards the center of the Earth'. Both tend to make the effect smaller. =================== | 3 RolfAndreassen ------------------- As you stand on the equator, with the Sun directly overhead, its gravity is pulling you away from the Earth's center. On the other side of the Earth, the Sun's gravity pulls you in towards its center. Consequently you weigh slightly less at noon than at midnight. However, since the force of the Sun's gravity on a 100-kg mass 1 AU distant is about 0.006 Newton, an average bathroom scale is not going to notice. =================== | 3 Roko ------------------- Can someone get Yvain to photoshop up a "Fallacyzilla!" =================== | 3 Roko ------------------- Also Crystal nights is a good story about [CENSORED] from [CENSORED]. =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- Upvoted for getting it. =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- The way TV Tropes is set up, technologically and culturally, it seems relatively easy for a rational person to contribute an insight that persists - is there some systemic pattern that this effect cannot account for? =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- The quote dismisses argument by analogy, not rationality. Weather forecasts are not made by metaphor. =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- One: See above. Two: The very fact that you can say: modern moral standards say it's fine to let 1.5 million children a year die of diarrhea because they happen to be born in a wrong country. ...and expect me to draw your implied conclusion refutes the very claim itself. What do you think makes me appalled that children are dying of diarrhea, aesthetics? That we haven't yet fixed a problem doesn't prove that it meets our approval - after all, people still die everywhere. =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- One request I must make of my reader, which is, that in judging these poems he would decide by his own feelings genuinely, and not by reflection upon what will probably be the judgment of others. How common is it to hear a person say, I myself do not object to this style of composition, or this or that expression, but to such and such classes of people it will appear mean or ludicrous! This mode of criticism, so destructive of all sound unadulterated judgment, is almost universal: let the reader then abide, independently, by his own feelings, and, if he finds himself affected, let him not suffer such conjectures to interfere with his pleasure. - Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads, qtd. in Forms of Verse by Sara DeFord and Clarinda H. Lott, pg. 36 =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- I read the remark as a cynical retort against the idea of the One True Love, which would make the implication you point out hyperbole, not misogyny. Barring that interpretation, though, I'll grant that's the worse one. =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- He noticed the blatantly missing corner in the field of possibilities and replied to it intelligibly. I have no idea what a continental philosopher is, much less who Zizek is, but the quote is appropriate. =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- ...yeah, it's not a brilliant rationality quote, but there's a bit of a good point in it nonetheless: this is a case in which precommitment is necessary, because despite the fact that you would prefer not to be subject to the assault of an enemy, you don't want to establish that every threat will be profitable, however imaginary. Naive calculations neglect the effect of your decision method on the actions of others. (It's like in cryptography - your strategy has to work even if other people know the function.) =================== | 3 RobinZ ------------------- (For the record, Wikiquote suggests W. Somerset Maugham, in the 1926 short story The Creative Impulse - the exact quote listed being "She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit".) =================== | 3 RobinHanson ------------------- Some say a political transaction is a solved economic problem, that politics is about finding and fixing market failures. If there can be market failures, then economic transactions can create political problems that need to be solved. =================== | 3 RobinHanson ------------------- But is it true? Do young folks have more of an ability to unlearn falsehoods than old folks? =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- Unfortunately the classic essay "Understanding Neurotypicality" is gone, the owner's web pages removed. Copy here. =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- There is a similar story -- whether true or not I don't know -- told at Oxford about Cambridge and at Cambridge about Oxford. Someone wrote a thesis on anti-metric spaces, which are like metric spaces, except that the triangle inequality is the other way round. He proved all sorts of interesting facts about them, but at the viva, the external examiner pointed out that there are only two anti-metric spaces: the empty set and the one-point set. It is recounted that the student passed, but his supervisor was criticised for not having picked up on this earlier. =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- I quoted this in another comment, but I think it deserves to be in here as well. It used to be in the rec.backcountry FAQ. "You have before you the disassembled parts of a high-powered hunting rifle, and the instructions written in Swahili. In five minutes an angry Bengal tiger will walk into the room." -- Eugene Miya =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- Fifth and last. Don't learn tricks, learn juggling. -- Anon =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- A fine intention. But until we make the technology, we are still, after all, only mortal. "Had we but world enough and time But we don't So let's get on with it." -- Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress" (abridged) =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- "The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others." -- William Lyon Phelps =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Nature cannot be fooled." --Richard Feynman =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- "If a man could understand all the horror of the lives of ordinary people who are turning around in a circle of insignificant interests and insignificant aims, if he could understand what they are losing, he would understand that there can be only one thing that is serious for him---to escape from the general law, to be free. What can be serious for a man in prison who is condemned to death? Only one thing: How to save himself, how to escape: nothing else is serious." P.D. Ouspensky, "In Search of the Miraculous", ch.17 =================== | 3 RichardKennaway ------------------- "I don't believe important statements just because someone makes them. Even if I make them." -- William T. Powers =================== | 3 Rain ------------------- While hilarious, and I upvoted it, I doubt economists would agree with the stated cost of the catpenny game, nor with its comparability to other forms of entertainment. ETA: and catpenny seems likely to be subject to drastically diminishing returns. =================== | 3 Rain ------------------- When Eliezer appears to you in a clown suit, will you laugh and turn away? Taken in the context of a general probe attack, this attempt at humor seems out of place. Probe attack... yes, that's one reason I find quite a few of the questioning responses here agitating or frustrating. Just like a port scan, they have all the patterns of an attack, are used to discover weaknesses and flaws, and can be generally invasive and exhaustingly thorough, even though they're part of the standard toolkit and even more often used for troubleshooting. Enlightenment++ =================== | 3 Rain ------------------- Personally, I'm very good at discovering what's wrong with a process or situation. I can detect flaws easily and accurately. What I've found I need is someone who, after I've done my analysis, will look me in the eye and say, "OK. So how do we fix it?" Without that simple question, I find that far too often I stop at the identification step, shaking my head at the deplorable state of affairs. =================== | 3 Rain ------------------- Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while. -- Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle, 1863 =================== | 3 Rain ------------------- Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression. -- Amos Bronson Alcott =================== | 3 Psychohistorian ------------------- Cynic. n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees the world the way it is, instead of the way it is supposed to be. -Ambrose Bierce =================== | 3 Psychohistorian ------------------- "Agnostic," as used here and as criticized by Adams, is most often a weasel word used by atheists who believe atheism necessarily requires a god-hating, Hitchens-esque attitude towards religion and do not identify with that, or who are afraid to admit to their atheism for social reasons, or out of fear that they are wrong and god will punish them (and that calling themselves "agnostics" instead of "atheists" will somehow prevent god from punishing them, the absurdity of which is Adam's point, obviously. Interestingly, this is not the original meaning of agnostic. A "gnostic" believes that the question "Is there a god?" is discoverable or knowable. An "agnostic" believes that it is unknowable or undiscoverable. Thus, an agnostic atheist is one who does not believe there is a god and believes we can never (fundamentally, not just practically) know if there is one or not. The person you would describe is just an atheist, and probably a gnostic one. I think the vast majority of the atheists in this community believe they could be wrong, they just assign a very, very low probability to it, particularly with respect to certain specifications of god. =================== | 3 Psy-Kosh ------------------- Okay, that one's funny! :) =================== | 3 Proto ------------------- "The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments." - Friedrich Nietzsche =================== | 3 Proto ------------------- "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." - Robert Frost =================== | 3 PhilGoetz ------------------- I have a brother-in-law who used to manage a Christian rock band. He told me that Christian organizations were the worst about paying for performances, because they assumed that the musicians were in it for service to God, not for the money. But it could also be that the Christian organizations just had less money. =================== | 3 PhilGoetz ------------------- I disagree with this one. Listening to yourself is not as good a way to have new insights as listening to other people. He says, We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and concludes that the alternative is to get news by listening to yourself. Actually, newspapers and neighbors are better sources of new information than yourself; and observing the external world can be even better. The notion is not that information "from yourself" has useful content, but that it has some special spiritual value attached to it. This could be parsed out in a meaningful way to be talking about maintaining personality integrity (say, just for instance, by reducing conflicts between your beliefs). But I have a prior around .95 that says that when you hear someone talking about your "inward life", they're talking religion. =================== | 3 PhilGoetz ------------------- "Now I'll never know if I was right." -- final words of Adric, in Dr. Who, "Earthshock", on realizing that he's about to crash into the Earth =================== | 3 PhilGoetz ------------------- "A few" means at least 3. You would never say "a few" when you meant "two". So the quote refers to the 17th century at the latest. =================== | 3 PeterS ------------------- Sentient? =================== | 3 Oscar_Cunningham ------------------- Care to explain to me what you got out of it? I think I might be missing the point of this quote. =================== | 3 Nominull ------------------- Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it. -G. K. Chesterton =================== | 3 Nic_Smith ------------------- Mattalast: I learned the truth about this world. Hamyutz: Yeah? How does that make you feel? Mattalast: It's just as I thought. The world is pointless and irrational. Hamyutz: That's great! Your prediction was right on the money. -The Book of Bantorra, Episode 12 =================== | 3 NancyLebovitz ------------------- What many people believe to be concentration is merely the act of thinking about concentration. A student who is told to concentrate probably will instinctively express a serious countenance and then reflect on the need to concentrate. --Eliot Z. Cohen, The Four Emotions of Tai Chi, The Ultimate Guide to Tai Chi. =================== | 3 NancyLebovitz ------------------- We must be careful who we let define what is sustainable. Jason Stoddard in Shine, an anthology of near-future optimistic science fiction. =================== | 3 NancyLebovitz ------------------- Isn't it interesting how many of us will spend a lot of money on clothes (or for that matter, other valued possessions) we rarely use-- that beautiful cocktail dress or sharp looking shirt. But in our every day, we much prefer to wear clothes that are years old, beat up, and probably cost little when we bought them. Yes, the comfort factor plays heavily into this, but recently when I came home wearing a very nice suit and tie and couldn't WAIT to tear them off and change into some old jeans and a ten year old sweatshirt, I suddenly thought something's odd about this. An expensive suit, or a fountain pen you only use to write your name occasionally, a new car you're often worried about driving because someone might scratch it, the crazy-expensive shoes you never wear in bad weather, the fabulously delicate silk lingerie you haven't worn since buying it six months ago... the list is surprisingly long. In other words for many, we continue to pay lots of money for things that make us uncomfortable, worried, wary or worse. Jonathan Carroll =================== | 3 Nanani ------------------- This quote is so utterly alien to me that I must ask why it was selected. =================== | 3 Nanani ------------------- Great quote, though it took me a minute to parse. I think it's the dashes that did it. Wouldn't this read a lot better with commas instead? =================== | 3 NMJablonski ------------------- Even if there hadn't been prototype shuttles, the shuttle is still reducible to simpler components. Gall Law just articulates that before you can successfully design something like the space shuttle you have to understand how all of its simpler components work. If an engineer (or even transhuman AI) had sat down and started trying to design the space shuttle, without knowledge of rocketry, aerodynamics, circuits, springs, or screws, it would be pulling from a poorly constrained section of the space of possible designs, and is unlikely to get something that works. The way this problem is solved is to work backwards until you get to simple components. The shuttle designer realizes his shuttle will need wings, so starts to design the wing, realizes the wing has a materials requirement, so starts to develop the material. He continues to work back until he gets to the screws and rivets that hold the wing together, and other simple machines. In engineering, once you place the first atom in your design, you have already made a choice about atomic mass and charge. Complex patterns of atoms like space shuttles will include many subdivisions (components) that must be designed, and Gall's Law illustrates that they must be designed and understood before the designer has a decent chance of the space shuttle working. =================== | 3 Mycroft65536 ------------------- I've always thought you can have more fun in New York than splashing around in the water. But I'm not a dolphin. =================== | 3 Morendil ------------------- Which are you claiming: a) that I don't understand the quote, or b) that my rough translation is unclear? Are you perhaps supposing that "rough" and "clear" are antonyms? I think the translation is clear enough; what makes it "rough" is that a perfect translation would feel like it was a literal translation, all the while keeping the exact nuance of the original. If you will, it is the fact of its being a translation which makes it rough. For more on the subtleties of translation, I'll direct you to Hofstadter's excellent Le Ton Beau de Marot. =================== | 3 Morendil ------------------- Well, if it turns out to be so hard to extend the list of "ways people make a living" beyond the two items {entrepreneur, worker under management hierarchy} that would constitute support for the "brainwashing" hypothesis (overstated as the term may seem). When I was younger I wanted to become a novelist and make a living that way. That seems different enough from entrepreneurship; it's one of the passive income categories. (My parents discouraged that - "you need a real job".) Another classic one is to be a landlord. Silas mentioned investment income earlier, that could be considered a separate category. You could also consider as a different category someone whose intellectual or artistic output doesn't generate royalties but who is supported by patronage. To maintain that "the educational system hasn't kept up" we would have to believe in the first place that it was at one point designed to turn out a then-optimal balance of people trained in one or another way of supporting themselves. I'm not sure we have good reason to think that. =================== | 3 Morendil ------------------- Reasoning is generally seen as a mean to improve knowledge and make better decisions. Much evidence, however, shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests rethinking the function of reasoning. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. -- Hugo Mercier Dan Sperber, Why do humans reason? (PDF) (Further comment on the paper turned into a full post) =================== | 3 MineCanary ------------------- "But if today is really in honor of a hundred children murdered in war," he said, "is today a day for a thrilling show?" "The answer is yes, on one condition: that we, the celebrants, are working consciously and tirelessly to reduce the stupidity and viciousness of ourselves and of all mankind." --Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut =================== | 3 MichaelVassar ------------------- You can. Just think about the details of the pain rather than the pain itself. Rest your attention on what the pain draws your attention towards and the pain goes away. =================== | 3 MichaelHoward ------------------- Unfortunately, some audiences have rather interesting ideas about what passes for fairness to the other side. =================== | 3 Mardonius ------------------- Perhaps it's due to the fact that TV Tropes' mission is essentially to perform inference on the entire body of human fiction, and create generalised models (tropes or trope complexes) from that data. In many ways, it's science applied to things that are made up! =================== | 3 MBlume ------------------- Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. -Patrick Henry =================== | 3 Lojban ------------------- Information wants to be anonymous. --Anonymous =================== | 3 Liron ------------------- Sounds like a traditional-rationality precursor to "hypotheses are expectation-constrainers". =================== | 3 Lightwave ------------------- One thing that bugs me about this quote is that it isn't strong enough. It might give people the impression that it's up to the reader's opinion or personal preference to decide what to believe or not believe. They're allowed to believe in something they have no evidence for, you're allowed to dismiss it, everyone's happy. =================== | 3 Kutta ------------------- „Someone willing to embrace unreasonable arguments for his group shows a willingness to continue supporting them no matter which way the argument winds blow." – Robin Hanson =================== | 3 Kutta ------------------- That page sounded like banal propaganda. Rather, it sounds exactly like a humorous, ironic fan-written piece, with no intention to truthfully explain in-universe things... =================== | 3 Kevin ------------------- Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism. --Hunter S. Thompson =================== | 3 KatjaGrace ------------------- Observing that we nobly analyse distant things, and in the present do whatever the hell we want. =================== | 3 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- The reasonable man adapts himself to his environment while the unreasonable man adapts his environment to himself. All progress is therefore dependent upon the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw =================== | 3 JustinShovelain ------------------- Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- Albert Einstein =================== | 3 JustinShovelain ------------------- I do not agree with all interpretations of the quote but primed by: That's not right. It's not even wrong. -- Wolfgang Pauli I interpreted it charitably with "critical" loosely implying "worth thinking about" in contrast to vague ideas that are not even wrong. Furthermore, from thefreedictionary.com definition of critical, "1. Inclined to judge severely and find fault.", vague statements may be considered useless and so judged severely but much of the time they are also slippery in that they must be broken down into precise disjoint "meaning sets" where faults can be found. So vague ideas cannot necessarily be criticized directly in the fault finding sense. (Wide concepts that have useful delimitations in contrast to arbitrary ill-formed vague ones can be useful and are a powerful tool in generalization. In informal contexts these two meanings of vague overlap). =================== | 3 JulianMorrison ------------------- Representativeness heuristic. It's what humans have as a hardwired probability estimator, unless they learn counter-intuitive maths. =================== | 3 JoshuaZ ------------------- Uh, what does this have to do with rationality at all? =================== | 3 John_Maxwell_IV ------------------- Is it really true that playing the lottery makes you feel rich? Can someone who has played the lottery corroborate on this? =================== | 3 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- There is no concept of "evil" or "crazy" in objective reality, but there is a concept of "people". The quote reminds us that understanding human behaviour begins by accepting that people do what they do exactly because they are people -- that is, instances of a very specific mental architecture forged by blind evolution in very specific circumstances on this specific planet. =================== | 3 Jens ------------------- In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. -- Henry David Thoreau, Walden =================== | 3 JenniferRM ------------------- The interaction you linked to was interesting. I didn't realize there was already a back story within this community with positions staked out and such. I offered the quote because it seemed like a beautifully mathematical objection to existing work that was "up this community's alley" but I haven't worked into the actual mathematics or experiments themselves. For example, I hadn't purchased either of the books that I linked to, not have I studied them - I simply assigned them high EV given the quality of the author's text. Your comments, in the interaction you linked to, seem like a good arguments against Marken's theory (specifically the claim that his work involves more free parameters than data points appears to be a good argument against the theory, if true). However, in all of that back and forth, I noticed many links to "lesswrong heuristics" but I didn't notice any outside links to an actual research papers detailing methodology. I'm substantially more ignorant on the subject than either you or your previous interlocutor and it took me a while to even understand that "PCT" was the theory Marken supports, that you two were taking the pro and con towards it, that your text was mostly between each other with a substantial amount of knowledge assumed. I wish you had both linked more, because it would have been educational. That said, I'd like to see such links if you know of any. If I can swiftly dismiss Marken's work without further thought, that would be a very efficient use of time. Can you direct me to the links showing an example of his experimental work so I can verify that his research program is crippled by mathematical overfitting? The best I could find was Perceptual organization of behavior: A hierarchical control model of coordinated action but it was pay-walled so I can't access it now to look into it myself. =================== | 3 JenniferRM ------------------- Thanks Robin! I have read this paper now, but it still doesn't seem to address the arguments that orthonormal linked to :-/ The 1986 study appeared to me to be basically well done, offering a fascinating paradigm that could be extended in many directions for further research with a reasonably strong result by itself. It basically confirmed the positive claims of Marken that hierarchical arrangements of negative feedback loop systems (designed, with a handful of optimized parameters, and then left alone) can roughly reproduce trained human behavior in a variety of dynamically changing toy domains, supporting the contention that whatever is operating in the human nervous system after a period of training is doing roughly the same effective computations as the model. In the text, Merken addresses the "motor control literature" as making claims whose refutation was partly the purpose of his experiments. It required a little more googling to figure out the claims he was trying to reject... but basically he seems to be objecting to the claim that mammals work as open loop controllers (that is, generating action signals based on an internal model of the world that are sent into the world with no verification loop or secondary corrections). This claim appears to have been founded mostly on things called "deafferentiation experiments"... which turned out to be aesthetically horrifying and also turned out to not actually prove the general case of "open loop" claims. The most infamous of these experiments, (warning - kind of disturbing pictures) was basically: a psychologist, who had cut afferent ganglia that supplied sensation to the brain from their arms and legs, then used restraint, electric shock, and withholding of food to force [the monkeys] to use the limbs they could not feel. The ability of monkeys mutilated in this fashion to (eventually?) move around purposively was taken as evidence that there was not a hierarchically arranged set of negative feedback motor control systems implemented in their nervous system. In practice (after the scientist was arrested for animal cruelty, PETA's request for custody was denied, and the monkeys were brainscanned, euthanized, and autopsied) it turned out that the monkey's brains had been massively re-wired by the experience. The practical upshot of the experiments seem to have primarily been to serve as dramatic evidence of adult primate brain plasticity (which they didn't believe in, back then?) rather than as confirmation of a negative feedback theory of motor control. (Probably there's more to it than that, but this is my first draft understanding.) Merken dismisses these experiments in part by pointing out the difficulty of preventing negative feedback control processes if there are many sub controllers that can use measurements partially correlated to the measure being optimized and concludes with falsification examples and criteria for the general theory and the particular model that are not subject to this objection: Control theory does not rule out the possibility that some of the behavior produced by organisms is open loop. If a behavior is open loop then the effects of disturbances will not be resisted by system outputs. There is evidence, for example, that the saccadic eye positioning system is open loop. However, open-loop behavior is likely to be exceptionally rare ...The two-level model could be tested by other means. One suggestion is to look for differences in the time to react to disturbances applied to controlled variables that are presumed to be at different levels—the higher the level of the variable, the slower the response to the effect of a disturbance. Another approach would be to trace out the required connections anatomically. The present study shows only that the two-level model is sufficient, not that it is necessary. In short, I'm still impressed by Merken. His reasoning seems clean, his experiment, robust, his criticisms of motor-control and trait-theory, well reasoned. My very broad impression is that there may be a over-arching background argument here between "accurate model in the head producing aim and fire success" versus "incremental goal accomplishment via well tuned reflexes and continuous effort"? If that back story is operative then I guess my posterior probability was just pushed a little more in the direction of "reflexes and effort" over "models and plans". If there is some trick still lurking here, Orthonormal, that you could point me to and spell out in detail rather than by reference to assertions and hand-waving rationality heuristics, that would be appreciated. The more time I spend on Merken's work, the more I find to appreciate. At this point, I've spend a day or two on this and I think the burden of proof is on you. If you take it up successfully I would be in your debt for rubbing a bit of sand out of my eyes :-) =================== | 3 JenniferRM ------------------- An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field. Niels Henrik David Bohr (1885-1962) =================== | 3 JamesAndrix ------------------- Obviously, removing the 'signs' makes them indistinguishable. I wonder if this is true. There is a personality attached to 'Aquarian' even within the generalism of horoscopes. If I've been reading a horoscope for many years that encourages me to act like an Aquarian, and think like and Aquarian, Then perhaps I just won't identify with the advice that the same astrologer would give to 'Scorpio'. =================== | 3 Jack ------------------- What about a scale that tells us how much a work of fiction deals with paperclip manufacturing and resource harvesting? Surely you need some way of communicating the traditions and norms of paperclip creating to your youth. Edit: and come to think of it wouldn't you be interested in in fictional explorations of possible future ways of manufacturing paperclips? And wouldn't you want to know which of those explorations was the least fantasy and most based on reasonable extrapolations from current knowledge? =================== | 3 Jack ------------------- The terrible truth is that postmodernism is what happens when somebody who believes what he reads, misreads the Philosophy canon, sleeps through Intro to Logic and never studies any hard science. I really think my version is less wrong. =================== | 3 Jack ------------------- I seriously can't decide if catpennies have diminishing marginal utility or not! =================== | 3 HughRistik ------------------- I agree. Many of the sentences in this essay have something horribly wrong with the thought process behind them, but I can't even begin to describe what it is. There is a similar problem with the Umberto Eco quote below. The above quote begins with this: According to Heisenberg and the Second Law of Thermodynamics any attempt to do so in the real world will expose uncertainty and generate disorder. Taken together, these three notions support the idea that any inward-oriented and continued effort to improve the match-up of concept with observed reality will only increase the degree of mismatch I am pretty sure that Boyd is badly mangling Heisenberg, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, or his extrapolations are way off. In fact, someone mentioning Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem all in one place, triggers my Bayesian epistemic spam filter. Some people's minds seem to be infected with a strange solipsistic and skeptical epistemic disease where they think that trying to understand reality is futile, and will lead to either increasing mismatch of the map to the territory (in the case of this quote), or some other "terrible" results (in the case of the Eco quote). How the hell do people come with ideas like these?? =================== | 3 Furcas ------------------- The benefit is to help other non-believers (and perhaps a few believers) realize that Armstrong's article (and defense of religion in general) doesn't fit into the category of "Respectable beliefs I disagree with", it fits into the category of "Intellectually dishonest nonsense that should be scorned and ridiculed". It's a benefit closely related to breaking the taboo that protects religious beliefs and raising the sanity waterline. =================== | 3 FAWS ------------------- People yes. Paperclip maximizers/office assistants no. =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Your original quote asserts a definite fate, not a fate which would occur if some particular technology were to remain uninvented. That is not dead which can eternal lie And with strange aeons even death may die -- H. P. Lovecraft =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- You can do things without the results being guaranteed. But you cannot do anything, be responsible for any action, without causality. =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- This is the moment that matters, and I refuse to look back on this day and say "maybe if I hadn't..." -- Hybrid Theory =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Sure, if you believe everything you see in the movies, but that seems like obvious Rebel propaganda to me. =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- In volunteer organizations, when someone was allowed to fail to teach them a lesson about their responsibilities, I do not ever remember them learning that lesson. -- Matt Arnold =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I try not to downvote people when they are right. =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I think I agree with that: There's nothing necessarily delusive about believing you got lucky, but it should generally require (at least) an amount of evidence proportional to the amount of purported luck. =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I suspect that people are not distinguishing between the concept of endorsing a statement as a judgment and endorsing its interestingness as a quote. Either that, or myself and the downvoter just find different things interesting, I guess. =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Gary Drescher's "Good and Real" is an example of this sort of Deep Book done right. Landsburg seems to make a lot more errors - like he tried to write Good and Real but failed. =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Expected utility. It's more powerful than the Force. =================== | 3 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- But that still doesn't need to be luck. I got my priors offa evolution and they are capable of noticing when something works or doesn't work a hundred times in a row. True, if I had a different prior, I wouldn't care about that either. But even so, that I have this prior is not a question of luck. =================== | 3 Douglas_Knight ------------------- “Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.” ~Oscar Wilde Wilde: I wish I'd said that Whistler: You will, Oscar, you will! =================== | 3 Douglas_Knight ------------------- I would have been able to read that sentence correctly without context if it had a comma: "allowed to fail, to teach them a lesson." =================== | 3 Douglas_Knight ------------------- I find it curious that the quotes posted here have higher votes on average than the usual discussion comments...Why do people value them, I wonder? I do not conclude that they value them. I think people vote for top-level posts and other stand-alone situations, such as quotations, based on whether they like them, while they vote for comments in on-going discussions based on trying to push them to a particular score, which is usually positive but low. I'm not entirely sure what puts people in different voting modes. Alicorn's comment is surely true, but I'm not sure whether it's an independent effect or a cause of the different voting mode. =================== | 3 DanielVarga ------------------- How is anthropic reasoning affected by the existence of a conscious stone that nobody and nothing can ever communicate with, even in principle? If it is indeed affected, then this says bad things about anthropic reasoning. But I don't think it is: Some smart LW poster once noted (I can't find the link now) that for anthropics all is needed is an agent that can do a Bayesian update conditioned on its own existence. An agent that can do this does not necessarily have consciousness under any reasonable definition of consciousness. =================== | 3 DanielVarga ------------------- "Construing a rock as conscious via a joke interpretation is paradoxical only insofar as it seems to suggest that we should therefore respect and care about rocks. Resolving the paradox requires a theory of what we are obligated to respect or care about, and why." - Gary Drescher =================== | 3 DanArmak ------------------- I can imagine a super giant mega list of situations where love is a bad thing, too. Like when people kill themselves or others. That doesn't mean its default connotations should be negative. The reason "selfishness" has negative connotations are at least partly due to Western culture (with Christian antecedents in "man is fundamentally evil" and "seek not pleasure in this life"). They're not objectively valid. =================== | 3 DanArmak ------------------- How does that work? Life grows almost exclusively at the expense of other life. =================== | 3 CronoDAS ------------------- Two very similar quotes: "It would not be a bad definition of math to call it the study of terms that have precise meanings." - Paul Graham "Mathematics is the study of precisely defined objects." - Norman Gottlieb =================== | 3 CronoDAS ------------------- Leadership skills are quite different from management skills. When you "manage," by definition, you're trying to distribute resources where they will do the company the most good. When you "lead," by definition, you're trying to get those resources distributed to yourself. Obviously, leadership is a better way to go. It's easier too. -- Scott Adams, Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook =================== | 3 CronoDAS ------------------- If all I knew was that the last five spins landed on black, if I had to bet red or black, I'd bet black. There could be a bias in the wheel, although roulette wheels in today's casinos are pretty much free from biases. (I'd still prefer not to bet on roulette at all, though, at least not given the standard casino payouts.) =================== | 3 CronoDAS ------------------- I was mostly thinking about mulligans. If you kept a one land hand and go on to win because you drew three lands in a row, that doesn't mean keeping it was the right decision. Conversely, if you do mulligan your 7 card hand and then end up with completely unplayable 6 card and 5 card hands, that doesn't mean that you should have kept your original hand. =================== | 3 CronoDAS ------------------- "The First Law of Innovation Management: Management by objectives is no better than the objectives." - Archibald Putt =================== | 3 Clippy ------------------- I understand metaphors. I just don't understand why there would be a need for scale for science fiction writing. It's much more important to be able to look up material properties. =================== | 3 ChristianKl ------------------- Science involves confronting our ‘absolute stupidity’. That kind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our efforts to push our way into the unknown. Martin A. Schwartz =================== | 3 BrandonReinhart ------------------- I recently watched your second bloggingheads debate with Adam Frank and the point you make above is one I think you should have stated clearly in that debate. Mr (Prof?) Frank based part of his argument on the feeling of fulfillment that one receives being in a relationship and believing that there is a metaphysical element to the relationship (and similar situations). Yet he does not actually believe that metaphysical element exists...only that the belief has some kind of psychological benefit. The way you addressed your position made it sound like the reductionist view is one in which feelings of fulfillment and "meaning" (a term that I think is fairly weakly defined in these discussions) cannot exist or exist differently. I know this was not your point. Someone who has a fuzzy warm feeling from a metaphysical belief is still getting warm and fuzzy in a physical world in which their belief is wrong. There is nothing inherent about the nature of the world or knowing things about the nature of the world that precludes feeling satisfied, happy, warm, complete, or fulfilled. Those feelings exist within the substrate of physical material that makes up the world already. As you have pointed out before, those feelings would be all the more genuine and meaningful if they were founded on beliefs that more closely matched the actual working world. I think in that debate you were approaching this topic somewhat from the side of things. "I read the book of Job last night, I don't think God comes out well in it." - Virginia Woolf =================== | 3 AngryParsley ------------------- American football, basketball dribble. Edit: Aww, I lose alphabetically and chronologically. =================== | 3 AngryParsley ------------------- According to V. S. Ramachandran, schizophrenics lack the ability to understand or create metaphors. I didn't want to link to the massive time vacuum that is TV tropes, but I figured people would understand the metaphor even if they hadn't run in to it before. =================== | 3 AndySimpson ------------------- Before we study Zen, the mountains are mountains and the rivers are rivers. While we are studying Zen, however, the mountains are no longer mountains and the rivers are no longer rivers. But then, when our study of Zen is completed, the mountains are once again mountains and the rivers once again rivers. -- Buddhist saying =================== | 3 AllanCrossman ------------------- "We have both a lottery and a justice system. We punish the guilty, and reward the randomly chosen people." -- The League Against Tedium =================== | 3 Alicorn ------------------- While the number of downvotes one can give is capped by one's karma score, upvotes aren't limited in that way. So if you're Username1 (under which alias you've made 50 comments), and you create account Username2, you can (under guise Username2) upvote all fifty comments by Username1. Instant fifty point boost for Username1. Username2 need never post a word. =================== | 3 Alicorn ------------------- One can reject the "One True Love" idea without thinking that the members of the relevant sex(es) are pretty much all alike. cf. the excellent Tim Minchin. =================== | 3 Alicorn ------------------- Lampshading it doesn't make it go away. But the quote would work just exactly as well in the other direction, and so it's not so bad IMO. =================== | 3 Alexandros ------------------- “They must find it difficult… Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.” – Gerald Massey =================== | 3 AlexMennen ------------------- Many atheists were formerly theists. Still, I suppose it might have been better as "A scientist walked into what he thought was a bar, but seeing no bartender, barstools, or drinks, he revised his initial assumption and decided he only walked into a room." =================== | 3 AlanCrowe ------------------- This reminds me of B. F. Skinner's criticism of William James A long time ago William James corrected a prevailing view of the relation between feelings and action by asserting, for example, that we do not run away because we are afraid but are afraid becase we run away. In other words, what we feel when we feel afraid is our behaviour -- the very behaviour which in the traditional view expresses the feeling and is explained by it. But how many of those who have considered James's argument have noted that no antecedent event has in fact been pointed out? Neither 'because' should be taken seriously. No explanation has been given as to why we run away and feel afraid. Before he can add something of substance to the discussion of the epistemological problems of economics, Ludwig von Mises must look back in time, to previous events, and offer them as the explanation of why we want or desire things and why we also call those things agreeable or good. =================== | 3 ABranco ------------------- Emotions are the lubricants of reason. —Nicholas Nassim Taleb =================== | 2 zaph ------------------- It's a line from a play called Love for Love. The quote is voiced by a character; so the presentation here lacks that context. The play was satirical, and I wouldn't take the quote at face value. I think Congreve was voicing what had become the standard social games of his time - say like Barney on How I Met Your Mother. =================== | 2 xamdam ------------------- Funny, of course I know it - Russian was my first language, but somehow I parsed it as being a whimsical made up word; I knew I was out of practice, but not this much! =================== | 2 wuwei ------------------- I like some of the imagery but I wouldn't say whatever the outcome is, it is by definition good. To continue with the analogy, sometimes our inner book of morals really says one thing while a momentary upset prevents what is written in that book from successfully governing. =================== | 2 wnoise ------------------- Not to dispute your point, but solar photovoltaics should hopefully soon become much cheaper: http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/13325 =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. For bad weather? As in... 3^^^3 days of sleet is worse than 50 years of torture? =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- What to do about this? Take a cue from good writers. Stick to the facts. Keep evaluative language to a minimum, and get rid of the most overtly judgmental, moralistic language. More to the point, stick to the right facts, ask the right questions and use subtly judgemental language in a way that avoids the rudimentary defences against manipulation that most adults have. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- There can be patterns in stochastically generated data. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- The message tempts me, but I have to remind myself that no matter how creative I am with my positive interpretations... sometimes bullshit is just better left as bullshit. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- The italicized premise seems bogus to me. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- Or, if fixed width poetry isn't to your taste: MY mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun Coral is far more red than her lips’ red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound: I grant I never saw a goddess go,— My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. -Shakespeare, Sonnet 130 (To end a line without ending a paragraph type in two spaces at the end of the line before the enter.) =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- MY mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun Coral is far more red than her lips’ red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound: I grant I never saw a goddess go,— My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. -Shakespeare, Sonnet 130 (4 spaces at the start of a line indicates a code block.) =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- Life is a process of breaking down and using other matter, and if need be, other life. Therefore, life is aggression, and successful life is successful aggression. Life is the scum of matter, and people are the scum of life. 'True Knowledge'? Only if you include the capital 'T' and 'K'! This is not 'the universal acid of the true knowledge burning away a world of words'. It's just a world of words. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- It's a good quote. But I say combining the latter two gives the first. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- I would be surprised if anyone did. As I said, there are systems to game give more tangible rewards. The only foray I've had to multiple accounts consists of deleting my original account when I realised that using my real name means either constraining my posting to signalling or risking biting my future self in the arse through a residual trail of honesty. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- I just feel confused. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- Does pure recreational enjoyment count? =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- ... and those that do happen to answer the question are excommunicated for heresy. =================== | 2 wedrifid ------------------- (Or any other creative work around you happen to dream up. I think the two spaces at the end thing was the answer you were looking for.) =================== | 2 tommccabe ------------------- "Do you really mean to tell me that back in Berlin you've got a plan for war against France and one for war against France and England and one for war against France and England and Russia and one for-" "Aber naturlich," [But naturally] Schlieffen broke in. "And we think of also Austria-Hungary and Italy, though they are now our friend. And we remember Holland and Belgium and Denmark and Sweden and Turkey and-" The general-in-chief of the United States stared at him. "Jesus Christ, you do mean it," Rosecrans said slowly. "What do they do in that General Staff of yours, Colonel, sit around all say studying maps and timetables and lists of regiments and God knows what all else?" "Yes," Schlieffen answered, surprised yet again that Rosecrans should be surprised at the idea of military planning. "We believe that, if war comes, we should as little to chance leave as we can." Harry Turtledove, How Few Remain =================== | 2 thomblake ------------------- trying to understand reality is futile, and will lead to either increasing mismatch of the map to the territory How the hell do people come with ideas like these?? That's actually a position of reasonable people who engage in non-greedy reductionism, mostly replying to greedy reductionists (to use Dennett's terminology). To give an example, suppose you're trying to get better at playing chess on a chess program running on a computer. Further suppose that the computer you're using is a Turing machine being implemented in Conway's Game of Life. Does understanding the behavior of a turing machine, or gliders and spaceships, or the basic rules of the Game of Life, increase your understanding of how to get better at chess? Will focusing on such things make you better or worse at playing chess? That said, I agree with you about the above quote. =================== | 2 thomblake ------------------- the whole point of a quote is that it is unique, therefore all other things won't ever be equal... Original quotes are rarely quotes and never original -The quotable Thom Blake =================== | 2 thomblake ------------------- This quote is amusing, but it has always made me wonder... if this is a good translation, then did Avicenna really not understand the law of non-contradiction? Because one who denies that p^~p is a contradiction does not necessarily assert that p and ~p are the same. =================== | 2 thomblake ------------------- That a perfect, instant translation of a well-crafted quote by a talented French Enlightenment philosopher doesn't just roll off my fingertips in English shouldn't compromise the message. Weird. I thought you'd posted it this way to be ironic. Anyway... It compromises the message for precisely that reason. If you agree with the quote, then if you understand what it means, then it should be easy to express it clearly. =================== | 2 thomblake ------------------- In my view, Eco wasn't referring to things in the world like diseases, but rather the world itself. Trying to answer questions like "what is the meaning of life" or "why does anything exist rather than not exist" can drive you mad, and it's a pointless exercise. The takeaway: accept that life has no 'meaning' beyond what we give it, and move on. =================== | 2 thomblake ------------------- If you don't have much experience with philosophy, I would not recommend starting with anything postmodernist, or anything along those lines. Before bothering to try to understand what those folks are up to (not much, in my opinion) you might as well look at more worthwhile stuff, like: Logic. Learn sentential (propositional), predicate, and modal logic. Learn how the recursion theorem guarantees a function to exist which maps freely-generated syntax to semantics. Ancient. Read some (Socrates) Plato / Aristotle. "The trial and death of Socrates" plus the Republic is a good package of Plato, and Nicomachean Ethics is enough Aristotle. American. Read everything by Emerson, and some Peirce and James. Also Wittgenstein - he counts. Contemporary. Dennett is always a good read. Also probably some other stuff. Existentialists. I'm not quite sure what they're doing, but it's weirdly thought-provoking. Read whatever Nietzsche you'd like (other than Will to Power), some Sartre, and whatever else falls off the shelf. Now you're getting dangerously close to postmodernism, so expect a lot of it to not make any sense. Utter nonsense. If you're serious about taking postmodernism seriously, you need to read a lot of their forerunners. Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger are particularly bad examples. You can skip Marx, since practically everything he said about economics was wrong, and everything he said about anything else was already said better by Hegel. Postmodernism. Feel free to complete the descent into madness by reading actual postmodernism, or just read whatever shows up here. Also consider looking in the dark places of the world, invoking the True Name of one of the elder gods, and ripping the skin off your flesh with your fingernails while blood eyeballs leak from the ceiling ichor Nyogtha permeates my face =================== | 2 thomblake ------------------- I can't find a reference, but I'm pretty sure this is actually false. Someone who reads a horoscope with his 'sign' attached tends to think the horoscope applied particularly well to himself (even amongst skeptics). Obviously, removing the 'signs' makes them indistinguishable. =================== | 2 steven0461 ------------------- [God] lives on pain. And He must be starved to death. -- http://www.necronomi.com/projects/amor/ =================== | 2 steven0461 ------------------- The word “philosopher” has its origins in the Greek, where its root is a “lover of wisdom.” There is no assurance that a lover of wisdom has any, just as an anglophile is not assured to have an Englishman locked in the basement. John D. Norton =================== | 2 steven0461 ------------------- Reposting from the Open Thread: From the Profit by "Kehlog Albran": What lives longer? A Mayfly or a Cyprus tree? If you answer a Mayfly then you are very perceptive: you realize that in time and space, time is relative and the short life of the Mayfly could be mysteriously longer than the life of the mighty Cyprus. If you answered a Cyprus then you are unimaginative, but correct. =================== | 2 steven0461 ------------------- Being skeptical about skepticism about skepticism? =================== | 2 spuckblase ------------------- Lewis held that our common-sense-beliefs have greater initial plausibility than every philosophical argument against them, be it in mathematics ("there are numbers") or metaphysics ("there is time"), philosophy of mind ("there are beliefs"), ethics, etc. Philosophy can help to find a realiser - a best candidate - for the role of numbers, beliefs, etc., but the price for "losing our moorings" (after g.e. moore), i.e., denying common-sense propositions, is almost always too high. There is at least one case, of course, where Lewis was willing to pay: modal realism. =================== | 2 soreff ------------------- A co-worker of mine regularly responds to counterexamples of software designs, examples which show where the design breaks, with "Show me an example from a real user case". :-( =================== | 2 smoofra ------------------- Yea, but then it wouldn't be a quote anymore! =================== | 2 sketerpot ------------------- Very cool, although it needs to become a lot cheaper if it's going to be competitive. I see a viable niche for solar in places like California, where the air conditioning needs in the summer cause the peak power to come at a time when the sun is shining brightest. This is rough on the power grid. Solar panels could be very useful for smoothing out the peaks there, if it can be made cheap enough. Meanwhile, nuclear has a new wave of modular reactors coming. It's going to get quite a bit cheaper, too, and it's still nowhere near its full potential, as the LFTR folks can attest. Anyway, nerding out aside, my point remains that simple arithmetic is necessary and often sufficient to discuss this sort of thing like grown-ups. =================== | 2 sketerpot ------------------- I really dislike the nature versus nurture false dichotomy. It grates on me to see it still taken seriously, even after the premise that our actions are shaped entirely by one or the other has been as scientifically discredited as phlogiston. =================== | 2 sixes_and_sevens ------------------- I think the implication is that, by default, the input is already your master, and this is an undesirable state of affairs. =================== | 2 simplyeric ------------------- As a point withiin the greater whole, I don't think that the security requirements of photovoltaics are the same as those for a nuclear reactor. Also, security difference between "spent" photovoltaic cells v. spent nuclear fuels? In any case, the overarching point: "you wouldn't believe the amount of nonsense that can be disposed of simply by looking up the relevant numbers and doing a minute's worth of easy arithmetic." turns out to not be so simple, because there are a lot of issues involved. There's the issue of disposal, which you show a link to, but you don't seem to have incorporated those numbers. There's the issue of how much taxpayer money goes into scrambling jets near Indian Point each time alerts are raised, etc. The calculation clearly isn't easy in the present, and also does not incorporate the cost/benefits analysis of focusing on photvoltaics because ultimately they will almost certainly be more efficient (your efficiency/production rates for existing infrastructure doesn't reflect changes and advances in technology, of which there are many). In short, "easy arithmetic" isn't always so easy. =================== | 2 simplyeric ------------------- Another thing to calculate on the cost of nuclear power: photovoltaics don't have evacuation plans, labled evacuation routes, large government monitoring safety boards, or National Guard/Air Force aerial defense concerns. It's hard to look up data on so-called "externalities" like that. =================== | 2 simplicio ------------------- The quote is good but I can't help but be bothered by the source, and wonder if rationality is really on display here. Democritus may have had an atomic theory, but his reasons for having it were no better than those for the "earth, wind, fire and water" theory; i.e., wild conjecture. =================== | 2 scav ------------------- voted up for "wangst". =================== | 2 saliency ------------------- Scrapheap Transhumanism: "I’m sort of inured to pain by this point. Anesthetic is illegal for people like me, so we learn to live without it; I’ve made scalpel incisions in my hands, pushed five-millimeter diameter needles through my skin, and once used a vegetable knife to carve a cavity into the tip of my index finger. I’m an idiot, but I’m an idiot working in the name of progress: I’m Lepht Anonym, scrapheap transhumanist. I work with what I can get." Here is more: http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/enhanced/scrapheap-transhumanism HT:Tyler Cowen =================== | 2 roland ------------------- I think you meant this link: http://ben.casnocha.com/2008/01/your-calendar-n.html =================== | 2 righteousreason ------------------- And this is a great follow up: "Very recently - in just the last few decades - the human species has acquired a great deal of new knowledge about human rationality. The most salient example would be the heuristics and biases program in experimental psychology. There is also the Bayesian systematization of probability theory and statistics; evolutionary psychology; social psychology. Experimental investigations of empirical human psychology; and theoretical probability theory to interpret what our experiments tell us; and evolutionary theory to explain the conclusions. These fields give us new focusing lenses through which to view the landscape of our own minds. With their aid, we may be able to see more clearly the muscles of our brains, the fingers of thought as they move. We have a shared vocabulary in which to describe problems and solutions. Humanity may finally be ready to synthesize the martial art of mind: to refine, share, systematize, and pass on techniques of personal rationality." -- Eliezer Yudkowsky =================== | 2 rhollerith_dot_com ------------------- There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money. -- Samuel Johnson =================== | 2 rhollerith_dot_com ------------------- Awesome! I didn't know you could think away chronic pain! You can. Just think about the details of the pain rather than the pain itself. Rest your attention on what the pain draws your attention towards and the pain goes away. I am interested enough in this suggestion to start tentatively practicing it. How many years have you been practicing it, Mike? Has anyone else with whom you have a personal relationship been practicing it for more than a year? Have you ever tried it on unwanted feeling states other than pain? =================== | 2 pjeby ------------------- Words that are used to describe psychological phenomena are almost all informal layman's terms that have negative scientific meaning: they imply the existence of things that don't exist, like "intelligence" or "aggressiveness" or "altruism." Or "conditioning" or "habits" or "aptitudes" or -- see the literature. -- William T. Powers =================== | 2 pjeby ------------------- I'm not entirely sure what your criticism is. I'll take it as meaning 'isn't it just an arbitrary accident that the vampires happen to be more rational than humans, and not an intrinsic part of those characters? I actually meant that "rationalist" is a label that doesn't make sense when applied to an entity that's already rational, but I'll admit my phrasing was confusing... probably because my attention was mainly focused on trying to make a joke about p-zombie vampires. ;-) =================== | 2 phaedrus ------------------- "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it." George Bernard Shaw, "Man and Superman" =================== | 2 pangloss ------------------- That is an interesting contrast with Spinoza's view that all ideas enter the mind as beliefs, and that mere apprehension is achieved by diminishing something about the idea believed. =================== | 2 pangloss ------------------- "Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason." - David Hume Note about the selection of this quote: While I am not inclined towards the position that reason is (and ought to be) slave to the passions, I considered this a good quote on the topic of rationality because it concisely presents one of the most fundamental challenges for rationalism as such. =================== | 2 orthonormal ------------------- The paper discussed in that interaction can be found here without a paywall. As stated then (the conversation can be taken up from about here if not earlier), I think it's quite likely that simple control circuits can be found in facets of motor response; but Powers, Marken and Eby had been talking about control theory in cognitive domains (like akrasia) as if they could isolate simple circuits there, and my search for any kind of evidence turned up only this sort of embarrassing tripe. And really, the math here is important— it's not a matter of disagreeing with interpretation, it's the plain fact that a generic model with 4 free parameters can be tweaked to precisely fit 4 data points, and it's clear from the paper that this is what Marken did. You simply need more data points than free parameters in order to generate any evidence in favor of a model; the fact that he never mentioned this, and instead crowed about the impressive fit of his model to the data, indicate either gross ignorance of how mathematical models work, or outright intent to mislead (coupled with an utterly incompetent peer review process.) The gauntlet remains thrown, if anyone wants to point to an experimental study which demonstrates a discernible control circuit in a cognitive task (apart from tasks, like tracking a dot, which have an obvious motor component— in these, I do expect control circuits to be a good model for certain behavior). I would be surprised, but it would suffice to give credence to the theory in my eyes. =================== | 2 orthonormal ------------------- Reading Lovecraft: You're doing it wrong. =================== | 2 orthonormal ------------------- Basically, Landsburg is positing the existence of a Platonic realm of math that is always "out-there", existing. This is a major map-territory confusion, and should be a warning to rationalists. I agree; but interestingly, that doesn't imply that mathematical Platonism is false. I'm becoming more and more convinced that the universe is a relatively simple mathematical object, and that this universe existing is a special case of all mathematical objects existing. =================== | 2 orthonormal ------------------- "My powerful brain has come up with a topic for my paper." "Great." "I'll write about the debate over Tyrannosaurs. Were they fearsome predators or disgusting scavengers?" "Which side will you defend?" "Oh, I believe they were fearsome predators, definitely." "How come?" "They're so much cooler that way." Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (via Pharyngula) =================== | 2 olimay ------------------- I guess it implies the extra cost of optimizing the useless task. Mostly agreed, though. =================== | 2 neq1 ------------------- If someone was locked in to a belief, then they'd use a point mass prior. All other priors express some uncertainty. =================== | 2 nazgulnarsil ------------------- why is this being downvoted? do people really not understand how true this is in our sex obsessed yet hypocritically puritan society? women have to put up with all the pathos of sex. =================== | 2 mitechka ------------------- I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Most often two of these qualities come together. The officers who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Those who are stupid and lazy make up around 90% of every army in the world, and they can be used for routine work. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately! Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord =================== | 2 mattnewport ------------------- In context, the closing paragraphs of the article are also relevant: Freeman went to great lengths to convince a broad audience that Mead had been hoaxed. But the “hoaxing” argument was implausible because the interviews that Freeman used did not support his hypothesis. It is also unnecessary, for Mead’s interpretation of Samoa as a sexually permissive society was not due to her alleged “hoaxing” by Fa’apua’a and Fofoa, but rather the data that she collected from Samoan adolescent girls and from other Samoan men and women, her comparison of Samoa and America in the mid-1920s, and the social agenda that she advocated given her own personal background and interests. =================== | 2 mattnewport ------------------- I'm quite comfortable to ballpark 5%. =================== | 2 magfrump ------------------- Does this work better for you?: "The rationalist is not the man who complains about biases. The rationalist is the man who works to understand his biases." (coin-flipped for male) =================== | 2 loqi ------------------- The scope of the Einstein quote is "anyone", and claims that we can infer distrust based on "minor" transgressions. I'd say this is a fairly significant claim, and would be more than just a "small" violation of truth were it found to be false. =================== | 2 loqi ------------------- The most basic law of economics is that prices are determined by supply and demand. Another basic law of economics is that wealth can be created by specialization. An employee on the other hand imposes on himself a limit of one customer. He artificially limits his market and thereby reduces the price he can get for his skills. A firm dealing exclusively in government contracts, on the other hand, imposes on itself a limit of one customer. It artificially limits its market and thereby... ? So why would anybody choose employment over self employment? It is because most people lack the fundamental skill to market their own skills and a market of one customer is still better than zero. So why would anyone hire a programmer instead of just writing the code themselves? It is because most lack the fundamental skill of crystallizing their requirements into machine-readable form. The important question now is why people lack this skill. =================== | 2 loqi ------------------- If you still get thrill out of slot machines, it just means that you don't get it at a deeper level. I don't think that follows. Do you have a general theory of the causes of thrills in human brains? =================== | 2 loqi ------------------- I was calling the circuits "a deeper level of 'you'", and you seem to want to call it "not me, just part of my body". This sure sounds like an issue with semantics to me. No, that's not my point of contention. Your use of the phrase "you just don't get it" implies missing knowledge, a lack of understanding. If you really just meant "your sense of happiness isn't serving its evolutionary purpose", why use such roundabout terminology? Would you also claim that people who use birth control and still enjoy sex "just don't get it at a deeper level"? You don't have any problems with paying money to run in circles, but I do. No, actually I do have problems with this, and find no thrill in gambling. The difference is that I'm not applying my preferences to others as a way to see them as defective versions of myself, and I'm not selectively employing an evolutionary justification for the subset of my preferences that have clear genetic benefits. =================== | 2 kpreid ------------------- I think Google pays close attention to anything with a feed (maybe "Anything Google Reader users have subscribed to", since they're necessarily processing the data anyway?). Whenever I post to my own blog, not particularly notable in an absolute sense, the post shows up nearly instantly in Google Alerts. =================== | 2 komponisto ------------------- That may be. And yet it's still a tax on those (perhaps a minority) who don't understand the math. =================== | 2 komponisto ------------------- So which of the two characters exemplifies rationalist virtues? It seems to me we've got one who's trying to use clichés to "break through" to the other, and one who's just stubbornly wrong. =================== | 2 komponisto ------------------- Related: But allow me to recall Michael Scriven's words: "If we want to know why things are as they are..., then the only sense in which there are alternatives to the methods of science is the sense in which we can if we wish abandon our interest in correct answers." As theorists, scholars, teachers, and informed humans, we do want "'to know why things are as they are," and we are interested "'in correct answers". And although I have no wish to confuse "knowing that'" with "knowing how" or the "context of justification" with "the context of discovery," neither am I so timorous or conciliatory or presumptuous as to pronounce that such knowledge will not, can not, or should not "feed back" into [musical] composition. -- Milton Babbitt (from "Contemporary Music Composition and Music Theory as Contemporary Intellectual History", 1972) =================== | 2 komponisto ------------------- In a similar spirit: Excellent! Three cheers for Shenton! As long as people are prepared to take on unpalatable ideas, and really push to see if they have merit, then we might just make significant NEW discoveries, instead of the slow and detailed clarification of what we already know. It really doesn't matter if the Earth proves not to be flat. :-) There are other, equally crazy, ideas out there, and a few of them are true! THEY are the ones we want to find, if we can. As Richard Feynman (the pre-eminent scientist of the modern era, in my opinion) said: "If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain. ... In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar." -- PatternChaser0, commenting on the story about Daniel Shenton. =================== | 2 jimrandomh ------------------- If you start with the assumption that the "official story" is wrong the government would be the next most plausible culprit. Which government? Almost all the major world powers have spy agencies that could've pulled it off. Russia would do it because of ex-Soviets holding a grudge. China would do it to strengthen their relative economic power. Israel would do it to ensure the US would continue backing their military. Most of the countries in the middle east, and half the countries in Latin America have grievances against us. Lots of people acted strangely that day, but trustworthy information is hard to come by. More than anything else, 9/11 reminds me of the story of Alexander Litvinenko, which was in the news in 2006: Spy poisoned, accuses spy agency, spy agency denies it and accuses different spy agency, radioactive trail painted to someone's door, and you might as well roll a die to decide who to accuse, because very skilled agents have already destroyed the evidence. =================== | 2 hirvinen ------------------- (approximate, my translation) Blessed are those who believe without seeing. Who wants to be blessed when they could see. -- Esa Lappi, my high school math teacher when showing us the proof of some theorem. =================== | 2 hegemonicon ------------------- Truth is our home Anne Lamott =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- “The Japanese seem to the rest of us to live several measurable clicks down the time line. The Japanese are the ultimate Early Adopters, and the sort of fiction I write behooves me to pay serious heed to that. If you believe, as I do, that all cultural change is essentially technologically driven, you pay attention to the Japanese. They’ve been doing it for more than a century now, and they really do have a head start on the rest of us, if only in terms of what we used to call ‘future shock’ (but which is now simply the one constant in all our lives).” Gibson, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/apr/01/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.features =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- pg 293, according to my ebook; the speaker seems to be Miss Matheson instructing the protagonist and her chums (while they are still in the Vicky schools). =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- I read it twice, and I'd summarize it as: for a longtime OB/LW reader, the only interesting parts are the treatment of Quantum Mechanics and the Newcomb's Dilemma chapters*. Those, incidentally, are past page 100. * I assume that the person taking the advice is like me and has not understood very much of the 'timeless decision theory' stuff that's been flying around for months, which Drescher takes seriously (he's a user here after all), and which seem to be similar to or better to what he advocates. =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- From an EU perspective, that page is quite wrong, especially with assertions like The Force supposedly cannot be detected by any device that has yet been built anywhere in the Galaxy. Furthermore, the only people who can detect the Force are those few "gifted" individuals who are "sensitive" to it. (EU introduced Force-detecting devices left over from the Jedi purges.) or If the Jedi ability to "see" the Remote with their eyes covered and only the Force to guide them is so central to the Jedi's repertoire, then why do Jedi engaged in combat against opponents with real blasters always deflect the bolts with their eyes open? (I think Lucas himself wrote in a blind Jedi or two.) =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure." --Dr. Samuel Johnson =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- "The ways we miss our lives are life." --Randall Jarrell, "A Girl in a Library," line 92; The Seven-League Crutches (1951) =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living." --Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- "Layer upon layer, past times preserve themselves in the city until life itself is finally threatened with suffocation; then, in sheer defense, modern man invents the museum." --Lewis Mumford, quoted in The Clock of the Long Now =================== | 2 gwern ------------------- "Could man be drunk forever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning And lief lie down of nights. But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts." --A.E. Housman, Last Poems 10 =================== | 2 gregconen ------------------- If you have no mathematical techniques, you don't know how to think about your empirical evidence. If you have no empirical evidence, you have nothing to use your mathematical techniques on. You need both. =================== | 2 gregconen ------------------- Deleated as a repeat. =================== | 2 goldfishlaser ------------------- Rational thought is an interpretation according to a scheme we cannot escape. -Frederich Nietzsche =================== | 2 gjm ------------------- Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. Alan Perlis (concerning computer programs, but I think the same is commonly true elsewhere) =================== | 2 gjm ------------------- I don't think it's a contrast. The point is that it takes practice to do the necessary diminishing. Spinoza was ahead of his time: there's more recent psychological research confirming that when you hear a statement -- even if the context makes it clear that no one is seriously telling you it's true -- the effect is to make you believe it more; and that this effect is stronger if you're having to use more of your brain for some other task at the same time. I forget all the details, but I think there was some discussion of this on Overcoming Bias 6-18 months ago (90% confidence interval). =================== | 2 eirenicon ------------------- It isn't that winning the lottery is better than being born rich, it's that winning the lottery is better than not winning the lottery. Even if you're already rich, winning the lottery is good. Presumably you weren't born right about everything, which means it's more useful to lose arguments than win them. After all, if you never lose an argument, what's more likely: that you are right about everything, that you're the best arguer ever, or that you simply don't argue things you're wrong about? =================== | 2 dreeves ------------------- Mea culpa! Apparently I'm blind. I deleted all but the 5 highest voted quotes I had added. =================== | 2 djcb ------------------- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -- Carl Sagan (I know this quote is very much a cliche -- but, as a realized a long time after seeing it, it is not only a nice heuristic, but it also emphasizes the bayesian, probabilistic view of knowledge over the popperian one.) =================== | 2 dclayh ------------------- Is it perhaps time for another round of Eliezer Yudkowsky Facts? =================== | 2 davidr ------------------- My interpretation is Aurelius' quote was an earlier verision of "it all adds up to normality" =================== | 2 cousin_it ------------------- you are already locked in in some preference anyway What makes you say that? It's not true. My preferences have changed many times. =================== | 2 cousin_it ------------------- Thanks - point taken. =================== | 2 cousin_it ------------------- I think you completely miss the point of Gall's law. It's not about understanding individual components. Big software projects still fail, even though we understand if-statements and for-loops pretty well. =================== | 2 cousin_it ------------------- Formal preference is like prior: both current beliefs and procedure for updating the beliefs; beliefs change, but not the procedure. I object to your talking about "formal preference" without having a formal definition. Until you invent one, please let's talk about what normal humans mean by "preference" instead. =================== | 2 ciphergoth ------------------- Wikiquote has this as: They must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth. =================== | 2 ciphergoth ------------------- The world is neither fair nor unfair The idea is just a way for us to understand But the world is neither fair nor unfair So one survives The others die And you always want a reason why -- The Cure, "Where The Birds Always Sing" =================== | 2 ciphergoth ------------------- Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling... Yeats, on what he'll do when no longer "fastened to a dying animal". =================== | 2 brian_jaress ------------------- Great thinkers build their edifices with subtle consistency. We do our intellectual forebears an enormous disservice when we dismember their visions and scan their systems in order to extract a few disembodied “gems”—thoughts or claims still accepted as true. These disarticulated pieces then become the entire legacy of our ancestors, and we lose the beauty and coherence of older systems that might enlighten us by their unfamiliarity—and their consequent challenge—in our fallible (and complacent) modern world. -- Stephen Jay Gould =================== | 2 brian_jaress ------------------- Elpinice was skeptical. She likes evidence. That means a well-made argument. For Greeks, the only evidence that matters is words. They are masters of making the fantastic sound plausible. -- Gore Vidal, "Creation" (narrator Cyrus Spitama) =================== | 2 bogus ------------------- I leave the room. ;) It is pitch dark. You're likely to be eaten by a grue. =================== | 2 blandestk ------------------- "Sometimes to feel like a man you have to dress like a woman." =================== | 2 billswift ------------------- The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure. - - Dr Laurence J Peter =================== | 2 billswift ------------------- Quoting myself, but since this is a reply maybe I can get away with it. I left this as a comment several months ago about a danger in the current recession that most commentators seem to miss: You can see the same kinds of problems with people being unable to do basic home repair, like fixing a faucet or a porch railing. I remember in the late 1970s there were a lot of people doing their own remodeling and stuff, partially because of the sucky economy at the time. If the economy doesn't really start to improve, we could be looking at a situation worse than the Great Depression, even if none of the financial indicators get as bad, simply because people are much more dependent on buying services through the economy and less able to do for themselves than any previous "hard times". =================== | 2 billswift ------------------- Or that you are right about everything that you believe in strongly enough to argue about. In other words, avoid believing strongly in the absence of evidence. And don't argue where you don't have the facts on your side. =================== | 2 billswift ------------------- He is assuming that there will be a doomsday - also known as begging the question (http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#begging). It is also quite possible that no doomsday predictions are true. This is one of my gripes with existential risk theories, all I have read depend on the assumption that eventually there will be an end. =================== | 2 billswift ------------------- Emotions help anchor new knowledge. That horrible sinking feeling helps you to remember your screw up, so you don't do it again. I suspect people that keep making the same mistakes are those who try to hide their mistakes from themselves and avoid that feeling. =================== | 2 benthamite ------------------- Give to any hypothesis which is worth your while to consider just that degree of credence which the evidence warrants. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, New York, 1945, p. 816 =================== | 2 bentarm ------------------- "Dad, the reason I like to shop and buy things is to get rid of my money" 8 year old Cayley Landsburg, quoted in Fair Play edit. Link added to disambiguate citation... =================== | 2 ata ------------------- I like to point out that spreading this quote is an example of violating it: Buddha never said that. I'm not sure who did originally write it, but it's not found in any Buddhist primary source. "Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many!" I've heard it might be a rough paraphrase of a quote from the Kalama Sutta, but in its original form, it would not qualify as a "rationality quote"; it's more a defense of belief in belief, advising people to accept things as true based on whether believing it is true tends to increase one's happiness. =================== | 2 ata ------------------- How is that related to rationality? =================== | 2 ata ------------------- But it is not only the alibi of tyrants. =================== | 2 arundelo ------------------- My interpretation: "As a woman, you are stuck with not being allowed to speak what you think, but there is a workaround for this." =================== | 2 arundelo ------------------- Good quote, but it looks like it got posted multiple times. =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- This painting — which we call human life and experience — evolved gradually, and is indeed still in process of evolving — and should not therefore be regarded as a fixed quantity…. We have, through millennia, gazed into the world with blind inclinations, passions, and fears; with moral, religious, or aesthetic demands; and have so wallowed in the bad manners of illogical thought that the world has become amazingly variegated, fearsome, rich in spirit and meaning. It has acquired color, but we were the colorists. The human intellect has allowed the world of appearance to appear, and exported its erroneous presuppositions into reality. — Nietzsche =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- The study of mathematics cannot be replaced by any other activity that will train and develop man’s purely logical faculties to the same level of rationality. Cletus O. Oakley =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- The rationality of our universe is best suggested by the fact that we can discover more about it from any starting point, as if it were a fabric that will unravel from any thread. George Zebrowski =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a “pet” notion and we rise to its defense and stop our eyes and ears to anything different. -- John Dewey =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. -- P. C. Hodgell =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. Albert Einstein =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- On the same theme: O monks, just as a goldsmith tests his gold by melting, cutting and rubbing, sages accept my teachings after full examination, and not just out of devotion. -- Buddha, Tattvasamgraha =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- It really is a nice theory. The only defect I think it has is probably common to all philosophical theories. It’s wrong. Saul Kripke =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- It omits a crucial part of the quote that results in a completely different meaning. Leaving out an adjective that it is integral to the meaning is different than omitting some minor context. =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- It is the distillation part -- the extraordinary degree of compression of experience -- that is most important, not the "few words" part. =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active. Francis Bacon =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- Isn't this obvious and also arguing against only a straw-man position with respect to intelligence and intellectual skill -- namely that intellectual skill is a function of one variable (intelligence) and that all other factors (such as industriousness creativity) have no impact on intellectual skill? It's phrased as if it conveys some deep wisdom, when the reality is that almost all reasonably intelligent people already believe this. =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- Except that language is a living, breathing thing, and words are constantly being invented, falling out of favor, taking on new meanings and losing old ones. =================== | 2 anonym ------------------- As are many smart people within the USA, obviously, or were you being sarcastic and trying to suggest that the original quote somehow implies a belief that the USA is immune from those problems? =================== | 2 akshatrathi ------------------- The second advantage claimed for naturalism is that it is equivalent to rationality, because it assumes a model of reality in which all events are in principle accessible to scientific investigation. -- Phillip E. Johnson =================== | 2 akshatrathi ------------------- I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change. -- A. R. Ammons =================== | 2 ajayjetti ------------------- “To rationalize their lies, people -- and the governments, churches, or terrorist cells they compose -- are apt to regard their private interests and desires as just.” --Wendy Kaminer (A woman social activist) =================== | 2 Zubon ------------------- Almost all relationships end in unhappiness or death. Or unhappiness leading to death. =================== | 2 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- Logical positivism was the most valiant concerted effort ever mounted by modern philosophers. Its failure, or put more generously, its shortcoming, was caused by ignorance of how the brain works. That in my opinion is the whole story. No one, philosopher or scientist, could explain the physical acts of observation and reasoning in other than highly subjective terms. [...] The canonical definition of objective scientific knowledge avidly sought by the logical positivists is not a philosophical problem nor can it be attained, as they hopes, by logical and semantic analysis. It is an empirical question that can be answered only by a continuing probe of the physical basis of the thought process itself. The most fruitful procedures will almost certainly include the use of artificial intelligence, aided in time by the still embryonic field of artificial emotion, to simulate complex mental operations. --- Edward O. Wilson, Consilience =================== | 2 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, I will have thousands of globes and all time. --- Walt Whitman, "Song of Joys" =================== | 2 Yorick_Newsome ------------------- Point taken, I just think that it's normally not good. I also think that maybe, for instance, libertarians and liberals have different conceptions of selfishness that lead the former to go 'yay, selfishness!' and the latter to go 'boo, selfishness!'. Are they talking about the same thing? Are we talking about the same thing? In my personal experience, selfishness has always been demanding half of the pie when fairness is one-third, leading to conflict and bad experiences that could have been avoided. We might just have different conceptions of selfishness. =================== | 2 Yorick_Newsome ------------------- "the quality of being selfish, the condition of habitually putting one's own interests before those of others" - wiktionary I can imagine a super giant mega list of situations where that would be bad, even if selfishness is often a good thing. There's a reason 'selfishness' has negative connotations. =================== | 2 XiXiDu ------------------- But there's one one thing about Star Trek for which I'll never forgive Gene Roddenberry or Star Trek: "Logic". As in, Mr. Spock saying "But that would not be logical.". The reason that this bugs me so much is because it's taught a huge number of people that "logical" means the same thing as "reasonable". Almost every time I hear anyone say that something is logical, they don't mean that it's logical - in fact, they mean something almost exactly opposite - that it seems correct based on intuition and common sense. If you're being strict about the definition, then saying that something is logical by itself is an almost meaningless statement. Because what it means for some statement to be logical is really that that statement is inferable from a set of axioms in some formal reasoning system. If you don't know what formal system, and you don't know what axioms, then the statement that something is logical is absolutely meaningless. And even if you do know what system and what axioms you're talking about, the things that people often call "logical" are not things that are actually inferable from the axioms. -- Mr. Spock is Not Logical =================== | 2 Will_Euler ------------------- I recommend the "Prologue: Why Read?" from Bloom's book How to Read and Why. http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Why-Harold-Bloom/dp/product-description/0684859076 =================== | 2 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- simply saying that you've talked about a weakness doesn't erradicate it. Presence of discussion about the problem doesn't make the problem go away. But it is what makes your assertion about the presence of the problem useless: it's known, it's acknowledged, it's discussed, nothing to be gained by rehashing the issue without making progress. =================== | 2 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Control and knowledge don't care about scale. One can learn stuff about whole galaxies by observing them. When you want to "manage" an AI, the complexity of your concern is restricted to the complexity of your wish. =================== | 2 Unnamed ------------------- Similarly, We think utility, or happiness, much too complex and indefinite an end to be sought except through the medium of various secondary ends ... [T]he attempt to make the bearings of actions upon the ultimate end more evident than they can be made by referring them to the intermediate ends, and to estimate their value by a direct reference to human happiness, generally terminates in attaching most importance, not to those effects which are really the greatest, but to those which can most easily be pointed to and individually identified. -- John Stuart Mill Unfortunately Mill gets wordy in the middle, instead of just saying "... various secondary ends. Attempting to focus directly on happiness generally terminates in..." =================== | 2 UnholySmoke ------------------- ...said Achilles to his friend Mr Tortoise. =================== | 2 UnholySmoke ------------------- 'The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.' Thomas Jefferson I had recourse to use this one recently. Quoting XKCD for cheap points Eliezer - I'll have to pull one of those out next month! =================== | 2 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- What is the source of this quote? Googling it turns up only this thread. I searched for the word "historian" in the works of Herodotus available at Gutenberg.org, but with no luck. =================== | 2 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- The first step towards a society in which ridiculous beliefs are acknowledged to be ridiculous, is to stop acting as if these beliefs aren't ridiculous. The point of ridicule is first to make those who hold ridiculous beliefs feel ashamed or at least uncomfortable, and second to help make rationalists feel the appropriate emotion when dealing with such extremes of irrationality. Perhaps it seems tautologous that ridicule is the best way to deal with the ridiculous. So I'm tabooing the word "ridiculous". What do you mean by it? Does it just mean "crazy" in the sense in which Eliezer uses it? Then, for what reason do you believe that ridicule (e.g., sarcasm and contemptuous scorn) is the best way to achieve your end goal? If I read "crazy" where you wrote "ridiculous", then your claim is that the first step towards a society in which crazy beliefs are acknowledged to be crazy is to heap scorn and contempt on them. But this is far from obvious. How do you make this argument without relying on the verbal similarity between the words "ridiculous" and "ridicule"? =================== | 2 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- The benefit is to help other non-believers (and perhaps a few believers) realize that Armstrong's article (and defense of religion in general) doesn't fit into the category of "Respectable beliefs I disagree with", it fits into the category of "Intellectually dishonest nonsense that should be scorned and ridiculed". If the benefit of scorn and ridicule is just to inform others about what to scorn and ridicule, then I don't see the point. Scorn and ridicule aren't terminal values. It's a benefit closely related to breaking the taboo that protects religious beliefs and raising the sanity waterline. That would be true if the ability to deride were a reliable signal of sanity. But derision is cheap; it's a tool that is equally available to the insane. =================== | 2 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- I'm not sure. Isn't the first rocket or airplane also built on simple technologies? I'm not saying that the first rocket and first airplane falsified Gall's Law. I'm saying that, had the space shuttle, in the form in which it was actually built, been the first rocket or the first airplane, it would have falsified Gall's Law. =================== | 2 Tordmor ------------------- The following is only a sketch of the complete argument since that would take pages to write and time I don't have. The most basic law of economics is that prices are determined by supply and demand. An entrepreneur naturally chooses to provide goods or services to a market niche where a high potential demand faces a low supply so that he can sell his goods/services at high prices. An employee on the other hand imposes on himself a limit of one customer. He artificially limits his market and thereby reduces the price he can get for his skills. Although he can potentially quit his job and work for someone else this is associated with additional transaction costs in comparison to self employment. That the company indirectly markets the employee's skills to a larger market does not alleviate this price reduction since it's not the companies interest to maximize employee's salaries. So why would anybody choose employment over self employment? It is because most people lack the fundamental skill to market their own skills and a market of one customer is still better than zero. The important question now is why people lack this skill. That is a complex thing, but one factor is that our culture does not encourage risk taking, sales talk and other important entrepreneurial skills. There is still a strong bias of preferring a "honest worker" over a "capitalist pig" which simply prevents most people from developing their marketing skills. And that is what is meant by the original quote. Imagination is based on culture and our culture cripples people's potential to imagine what it would be like if they were entrepreneurs instead of workers. =================== | 2 Tiiba ------------------- While I understand, judging people's intelligence by comparing their beliefs to yours should be done with care. =================== | 2 Tiiba ------------------- My dad has a Bachelor's degree. =================== | 2 Tiiba ------------------- If you mean quantum fluctuations, that's also something you're ignorant of. It doesn't make you free, though. It's just randomness. Freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4. Or that 2+2=goldfish, if that's what floats your boat. The important thing is that your words are determined by your goals. Basically, free will is will that happens to be free. If the freedom you seek is freedom to change your GOALS (like bad habits), well, I guess we are restricted to a degree. I like to think of such goals as not really mine, but those of a beast that lives in my body. I am free. =================== | 2 Tiiba ------------------- ..for being all talk. I can see how you might have come to your conclusion, but saying it's "explicit" is just not true. =================== | 2 Thomas ------------------- The thinking how to fall to get a minimal possible damage is still a potential way out. At least, the thinking increases your odds to survive in any situation you are thrown into. How many people died needlessly of chocking, when they could invent the auto Heimlich - but they failed to do so? =================== | 2 Tetronian ------------------- The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed. --Robert A. Heinlein Sad, but true. =================== | 2 Tehom ------------------- Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Phillip K. Dick =================== | 2 Technologos ------------------- I think the point is that people attach a feeling of truth to their own horoscope, without considering whether other horoscopes could feel similarly true. =================== | 2 Strange7 ------------------- If I let everyone I thought was an idiot die, there wouldn't be many people left. -Gilgamesh Wulfenbach =================== | 2 Steve_Rayhawk ------------------- Link to a related claim of mine: "If you have to predict other peoples' judgments a lot, your brain starts to count their predictive categories as "natural". The effect can be viral . . ." =================== | 2 Steve_Rayhawk ------------------- Also: if mathematics in contact only with mathematics becomes "less mathematical" than mathematics in contact with praxis, then how can praxis in contact with mathematics become more practical than praxis out of contact with mathematics? =================== | 2 Stefan_King ------------------- When in doubt on spelling the name, google it. =================== | 2 SoullessAutomaton ------------------- Also, there's the obvious, cynical "cui bono?" point. The government is one of the few entities that could reasonably be said to have benefitted from the attacks (expanded power, pretense for war, c.), so if you start with the assumption that the "official story" is wrong the government would be the next most plausible culprit. The argument used is much more applicable to creationist arguments of the form "evolution has this flaw, ergo god exists". =================== | 2 SirBacon ------------------- "Society begins to appear much less unreasonable when one realizes its true function. It is there to help everyone to keep their minds off reality." Celia Green, The Human Evasion. http://deoxy.org/evasion/4.htm =================== | 2 SilasBarta ------------------- Too bad the same thesis also makes poor inferences from poorly-designed studies of human moral reasoning. =================== | 2 SilasBarta ------------------- Tom and Sue, acquaintances through friends of theirs, got legally married, with no ceremony, in order for Tom to avoid being drafted to fight in a war. They barely know each other. They have not spoken to each other in a long time and (obviously) have no children. Neither wears a wedding ring. They plan to void the marriage as soon as the laws allow, with no further transfer of property between them. Tom is a married bachelor. There's a reason the term "bachelor" exists, and it's not to make Kant right. =================== | 2 SilasBarta ------------------- This is horribly, horribly wrong, and I talked about it on an Open Thread here. I continued my critique on my blog, which drew Landsburg out of the workwork and had a back-and-forth with him, which continued onto his blog. He did follow-up posts here and here, but I haven't replied much further on those, because I was really starting to get caught up in "someone is wrong on the internet" syndrome. Anyway, here's what's wrong (if you don't want to read the links): there is no consistent definition of terms that makes Landsburg right. After a lot of critique, the error turns out to hinge on the meaning of "exist". Put simply, math doesn't exist -- not in the same sense that e.g. biological organisms exist, which meaning Dawkins is using there. Basically, Landsburg is positing the existence of a Platonic realm of math that is always "out-there", existing. This is a major map-territory confusion, and should be a warning to rationalists. It's a confusion of human use of math, with the things that can be described in the language of math. The only way he supports this position is by rhetorical bullying: "come on, you don't really think the numbers didn't exist before humans, do you?" And leads him into deeper confusions, like believing that we "directly perceive" mathematical truths and that they can tell us -- by themselves -- useful things about the world. (The latter is false because you always require the additional knowledge "and this phenomenon behaves in way isomorphic to these mathematical expressions", which requires interacting with the phenomenon, not just Platonic symbol manipulation.) (Note that everything he claims is true and special about math, theists claim about God, but this post is already too long to elaborate.) The only sense Landsburg is right is this: it has always been the case that if-counterfactually someone set up a physical system with an isomorphism to the laws of math, performed operations, and then re-interpreted according that same isomorphism, it would match up with that that follows from the rules and axioms of math. But Dawkins's claim doesn't deny that at all; he's claiming that populations of organisms evolved, not that "the counterfactual mathematical expression of evolution's working" evolved, the latter of which would indeed be in contradition of the previous paragraph. =================== | 2 SilasBarta ------------------- I've never seen a UFO. Wow! He's been able to identify every flying object he's ever seen? Must be a boring fellow when stargazing! I think he means he's never seen an alien spaceship... =================== | 2 SilasBarta ------------------- Heh, it's funny that you first put it in the LW/OB quotes section, because that's actually kind of similar to an out-of-context quote I excerpted from Eliezer Yudkowsky here. the dream couldn't be evidence because ... only actual sensory impressions of Google results could form the base of a legitimate chain of inferences. Yeah, I can see why you're worried people might quote you without permission! I mean, I thought I'd seen the worst Google fanboys, but never before did I see anyone claim that Google was the genesis of all valid inferences! =================== | 2 SilasBarta ------------------- Awesome! I didn't know you could think away chronic pain! =================== | 2 SilasBarta ------------------- Ah, yes, Latin for "On nobody's say-so." (Slang translation) =================== | 2 SarahC ------------------- Right, and this is what I was used to as well, though I wasn't familiar with that quote. ("Bog" is handy. I like that.) As for the "glory" -- yes, I've felt it too. Exactly, exactly the same way. "The world is sufficient." But that sense of joy can't be enough to keep you going, because sometimes the world is horrible, and it is not sufficient, not for me, not as long as I have the capacity to love people and worry for them. Joy is there, but it's not the whole story. =================== | 2 Ruffnekk ------------------- You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. — Malcolm X (By Any Means Necessary) =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- Sagredo: [I]n my opinion nothing occurs contrary to nature except the impossible, and that never occurs. - "Two New Sciences" (1914 translation), Galileo Galilei =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- Note: phaedrus has provided a citation to The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, noting that this quote is only part of the sentence. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- I'm not sure your (or his) argument actually addresses popular beliefs. Two points: Reductionism has been proposed not (merely) because it is intuitive, but because it is supported by the evidence. Starting with particle physics, you really can infer chemistry, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, heat transfer, and so on - and you can make correct predictions about when the assumptions used in the latter will break down. (For example: when the channels of fluid flow are comparable in size to the particles.) This is just as would be the case in a reductionistic universe. Eliminativism is no more implied by reductionism than amorality. If you think that rainbows don't exist once they've been unweaved, you're making a mistake that has nothing to do with science. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- I was with you up until the "similarly". After that you start privileging the hypothesis - you should expect a god to make itself obvious during a human lifetime, by any description of a god ever proposed in history. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- I noticed that - I believe it is a classic case of (warning: TV Tropes) the Rhetorical Question Blunder. (In my defense, I tried to make mine testable.) =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- For anyone else who went rushing to the search bar: it's been quoted in posts, but not in quote posts. Upvoted. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- Duplicate. It's wise to make a habit of hitting the search bar before posting quotes. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB. -- Rationality quotes: June 2010. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- But ... "they thought they were right" isn't an argument. Compare how they derived their bottom lines to how we have. Compare their evidence and reasoning to ours, and compare both to the kinds of evidence and reasoning that works (literally does good work) elsewhere, and the answer will probably be straightaway obvious which is the more reliable. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- Being offensive doesn't win. This is not universally true, but I would support trying to create nonoffensive ways to deliver the message - the combination of direct and conciliatory methods is probably more powerful than either alone. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- And, tracing back from the filename, the strip in question. =================== | 2 RobinZ ------------------- A repeat, but a good one. =================== | 2 RobinHanson ------------------- Yes, humans try to present themselves as simple, so that others can understand and trust them. But humans really are quite complex. Hence an inevitable divergence between what we are and how we appear must be managed. Hence others can reasonably wonder of how we appear is how we really are. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- The obvious place to look is the context of the quote, Seth Godin's blog. For example: I don't believe that everyone should be an entrepreneur or a freelancer, that everyone should quit their job and go work for themselves. I do believe this: The less a project or task or opportunity at work feels like the sort of thing you would do if this is just a job, the more you should do it. and Why do you need to feel like something in order to do the work? They call it work because it's difficult, not because it's something you need to feel like. and in a video interview I saw, he distinguished "the job" from "the work". He hadn't (he said) "done his job" for at least ten years, he did "the work", which is the stuff you do because it fires you with passion, because you can't not do it. He isn't giving detailed recipes. That's what schools and training courses do. If you need one, that just means you aren't who he's addressing. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- That's a pretty strong claim. Is there a proof? Or did you just mean that consistency checking is in NP? It's worse than that, consistency checking is undecidable. This is implied by Gödel's second incompleteness theorem. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- Sometimes exhausted from toil and endeavour I wish I could sleep for ever and ever But then this assertion my thinking allays I shall be doing that one of these days. -- Piet Hein =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- Quotes are selected for their penetrating insight and importance. Comments, not necessarily. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- Piet Hein is definitely dead. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- On Google Books (limited online availability, but search for "habitually"). If you Google the title, you'll find the full text on a Brazilian website; whether legally or not I don't know. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- Mens cujusque is est quisque. ("What a man's mind is, that is what he is.") Cicero, De Re Publica =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- It would certainly be more interesting if there really was a connection to rationality, but I suspect this is just a random drive-by. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- It isn't, at least, not in the sense of being a story whose punchline is "...naq vg jnf nyy n fvzhyngvba". You would already be foreseeing what Roko has mentioned by the end of the second screenful (and crying out, "Ab! Ab! Lbh znq sbbyf, unir V gnhtug lbh abguvat?"). =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- Ironic sincerity? Edited to amplify: I have never seen the term previous to this thread. Google doesn't turn up much beyond the quoted quip. Is ironic sincerity when you pretend to pretend not to believe what you're saying and then everyone pretends to pretend you didn't believe it so that no-one need be put to the trouble of thinking about it and deciding whether it actually made sense or not? Or not? =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- If you get it, it will be in spite of any method you use. You must have a method. -- K. Bradford Brown =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- I take your point about a "probe attack" and now I find what I wrote unsatisfactory. I'll try again: Blueberry loves the idea that we're all insane homicidal maniacs, and doesn't like the other ideas, apparently on the grounds that the latter appear in a religious context. This looks like a classic example of judging the truth by the clothes it appears in. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- I second RobinZ's request for an elaboration. I know a little (a very little) about the technical topics of that paper, but I find Girard's philosophising here and elsewhere (for example) impenetrable. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- I have many questions. Would you have balked at the idea that we are all, metaphorically, in prison and must seek above all else to escape, if I had quoted a known rationalist? Do you rate any differently the idea that the task is to understand things so completely that the single right course of action is unmistakable, now that Yvain has quoted Eliezer to that same effect? Do you think the context of a horror story confers a better aura of rationality on Rain's quote? Why do you love the idea that we are all insane homicidal maniacs, and dislike the idea that there is a way to follow, whether we like it or not, and that the fundamental question in life is whether one makes the only possible choice, or turns away from it? Is your response entangled with whether these things are true or false? When Eliezer appears to you in a clown suit, will you laugh and turn away? =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- As this got voted down, perhaps some commentary is in order. This quote is from a juggling forum a long time ago, and is in fact about juggling. But I also read it as a parallel of the twelfth virtue of rationality. The juggler's task is to entertain his audience, and if he fails, it is futile for him to protest that he can do many tricks. It is not enough to master many techniques. They must be used to achieve the result that the techniques aim at. =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- "One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Supose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say." Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, in C.S. Lewis "The Silver Chair". =================== | 2 RichardKennaway ------------------- "Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house." -- Robert Heinlein (as Lazarus Long) ETA: If I could downvote my own postings, I'd downvote this one. I won't delete it, to leave the context for loqi's response. Dammit, I've read Distress and I know without looking exactly the context of the Egan quote. I was practically cheering for Rourke in that chapter. But there's a big gap between encountering an idea and finding it good, and actually applying it after closing the book. =================== | 2 Rain ------------------- So long as one of your values is to improve your value function, you should be okay. =================== | 2 Rain ------------------- Maybe it needs further explanation? Ink being the object with which books are created, and knowledge put down for others to use, you must be careful to avoid using that object directly and believing you have gained knowledge from it. The blog post itself isn't the great insight, nor is the Reddit software it's running on, or the comment system, or the upvoting and downvoting. Insight can only come from the mind, and understanding the words and how they all link together into the idea being presented. The idea isn't in the text; it's an abstraction of the human mind. Perhaps better summarized as, "Don't just read: think." =================== | 2 Rain ------------------- Mastication is only one form of eating. As a Westerner, I consume a large portion of our world's resources in the form of energy, household goods, large appliances, transportation, gadgets, taxes to fund war efforts, etc. As for imposing our will upon life, just look at factory farms, algae farms, dead zones in the sea, global warming, and war. Might is truly the final arbiter, and unless part of what we care about is the other, then we show a good track record of trampling them for our own uses. Our present (relative) peace was brought about by people who felt the rights of others mattered, and had the might to back it up and impose it on those who felt differently. =================== | 2 Rain ------------------- I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I'm introduced to one, I wish I thought "What Jolly Fun!" ~Sir Walter A Raleigh =================== | 2 Rain ------------------- I thought values were arational? =================== | 2 Rain ------------------- I debated whether to post this, considering the likelihood he was talking about mystic goodness of self, but I feel the core content is important, regardless of its "hidden meanings." We did have an entire series on luminosity (contrast with "inward life"), many other articles on self-examination techniques, and we shy away from gossip and politics, which most certainly were the news articles of the day to which he referred. =================== | 2 Rain ------------------- Defense is necessary, I agree. But perhaps the revolt she was looking for was one of peaceful protest on both sides. The leaders can't do much damage without followers and supporters, armies and engineers. This site has already covered many of the biases which would lead one to support war, regardless of cause. The other side seems to agree: What luck for rulers that men do not think. -- Adolf Hitler =================== | 2 Psychohistorian ------------------- Removing the second and either the third or fourth clauses would make this a much stronger quote, i.e. I don't have to agree with you to respect you. =================== | 2 Psychohistorian ------------------- 'people' or 'evil' or 'crazy', but the last two adjectives are more precise descriptors. More precise? Yes. More accurate? No. Inaccurate? Yes. =================== | 2 Psychohistorian ------------------- "There are no married bachelors." =================== | 2 PhilGoetz ------------------- Yes - but the original quote said "of no possible value", not "of no possible use". :) =================== | 2 PhilGoetz ------------------- Therefore, gentlemen are irrational. QED. =================== | 2 PhilGoetz ------------------- The quote is good; but I have a knee-jerk reaction against all rationality quotes by Chesterton, who cleverly confused social conservatism with rationality in the minds of so many people. =================== | 2 PhilGoetz ------------------- Reminds me of something Jesus said: "The truth will set you free." By which I think he actually meant something very Buddhist, and sinister: Stop being attached to people and things. =================== | 2 PhilGoetz ------------------- Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity. -- unknown =================== | 2 PhilGoetz ------------------- Is that meant to be an anti-rational quote? =================== | 2 PeterS ------------------- If it were truly repeating, you couldn't. Unless you were a KPAXian and the screenwriters wrote it to be so. =================== | 2 Nominull ------------------- Surely it's at least as useless to do it inefficiently? =================== | 2 Nominull ------------------- Are you aware of the anthropic principle? =================== | 2 Nick_Tarleton ------------------- source =================== | 2 Nic_Smith ------------------- Shamisen deserves an honorable mention. Although he only has one speech, he's a good enough philosopher that upon being introduced he manages to sidetrack the brigade members into a debate over the nature of conversation and away from the fact that, you know, he's a talking cat. - TV Tropes, The Philosopher [Connections to rationality: Focus, taking action, and conversation style.] =================== | 2 NancyLebovitz ------------------- What about the moment when you realize you've made a significant practical mistake? =================== | 2 NancyLebovitz ------------------- It leads to a contemplative moment for me-- I suspect accidentally changing one's mind happens relatively often. =================== | 2 NancyLebovitz ------------------- I was offering a different angle, not saying that employment can be fully explained either by employer or employee motivations. There are circumstances where a government forces matters in one direction or the other. In Slavery by Another Name, it's explained that after the Civil War, there were laws requiring black people to get permission from their employers to get a job with someone else, and also vagrancy laws against being unemployed. On the employee's side, there can be laws (France, the Soviet Union) or customary contracts (tenure) which make it impossible or almost impossible to fire them. In general, I'd frame it as employees and employers are hoping that the other will solve problems for them, and the hope is frequently more or less realized. =================== | 2 NancyLebovitz ------------------- From memory of recently seeing excerpts from The Polymath: The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman: Delany spent a while living in a hotel which mostly catered to transsexuals, and he found it unnerving to not know what gender the person he was taking to was. He speculated that wanting to be sure about gender was hard-wired. After about five weeks, he realized he'd taken elevator rides with people of non-obvious gender, and it didn't bother him at all. =================== | 2 NancyLebovitz ------------------- CEV needs to be added. I'm not doing it myself because I'm not sure what would be a good description of it to link to. =================== | 2 NancyLebovitz ------------------- An older version: A lie is halfway round the world before the truth can get its boots on. =================== | 2 Nanani ------------------- Where I live, ETC stands for Electronic Toll Collection and is posted at the entry ramp of toll-roads equipped appropriately. What's wrong with just using "Edit: additional note goes here" =================== | 2 Nanani ------------------- Rational Tropers. QED. =================== | 2 Nanani ------------------- Don't forget to consider the negative utility of an angry cat attacking the catpenny player, which will surely happen after x catpennies. Anyone going to go looking for x? It would of course have to be statistical distribution, varying with cat age, breed, and so on. =================== | 2 Nanani ------------------- ...until they saw the result and realized -why- it is hell. Assuming they didn't all explode from each other's wishes of mutual annhilation. =================== | 2 NMJablonski ------------------- The first development of the electronic circuit would have been a case of a complex technological system that worked, but was not based fundamentally upon existing simpler machines. The first use of chemical propulsion - gunpowder / rocketry - might have been a similar case. (EDIT: Upon further consideration, chemical propulsion is based upon the simpler technologies of airtight confinement and incendiary materials. However, I still think the electronic circuit was effectively the rise of a new fundamental device with complex behavior unconnected to more basic technologies. If anyone thinks they can reduce the circuit to simpler working devices I would be fascinated to explore that.) It's a good question. I'm turning over various possibilities in my mind. Do you still hold that the space shuttle falsifies it? If so, I'd be interesting in hearing your reasoning, and other examples you consider similar. =================== | 2 NMJablonski ------------------- I agree. All of these concepts are imprecisely connected to the real world. Does anyone have an idea for how we could more precisely define Gall's Law to more ably discuss real expected experience? I'm considering a definition which might include the phrase: "Reducible to previously understood components" =================== | 2 Morendil ------------------- the world does appear to be flat, so I think it is incumbent on others to prove decisively that it isn't. I haven't yet tracked down a good quote on this type of "asymmetric intellectual warfare", where one advances some outlandish claim that lays waste to large portions of a consistent belief network, and then insists it's the victim's obligation to repair the damage. I'm pretty sure the idea has been around for a while, perhaps not in terms of that military metaphor. Is that topic covered somewhere in the Sequences? =================== | 2 Morendil ------------------- Um. This quote from Seth Godin (from Brainwashed) just caused me to lower my regard for his ideas a notch. (Consider this a mini-oops.) Do you remember learning to factor quadrilateral equations? x2 -32x +12? Why were you taught this? Why did they spend hours drilling you on such clearly useless content? On balance, I still think he's on to something. But the lesson here is, stick to what you truly know, and if you ever start talking with authority about something you clearly don't understand, shut up, fast. =================== | 2 Morendil ------------------- There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome return of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. -- Mark Twain =================== | 2 Morendil ------------------- The only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it. -- Daniel Dennett Interestingly, my memory of the quote was corrupted, until I retrieved it to post here; I thought he'd said "harshest efforts"; perhaps owing to contamination from the quote That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. =================== | 2 Morendil ------------------- I think I'd eventually come to hate ice cream in that kid's situation. A treat is no longer a treat when it's systematically used to manipulate you into eating something you hate. =================== | 2 Morendil ------------------- Googled it too. You need to expand "pigs" to include "wild boar". Still this "six times as many death from pigs as from sharks" sounds suspiciously like an urban legend, the precise multiplier implies that there should be a well known source and not finding it is a hint. The numbers are small enough that the ratio should be all over the map. =================== | 2 Morendil ------------------- An efficient economy requires both kinds of people What other kinds besides these two could we think of? =================== | 2 MichaelVassar ------------------- Death by Lob's Theorem to this quote. =================== | 2 MichaelHoward ------------------- Here's some context... The quote's from Mostly Harmless, the fifth book in the Hitchhikers Trilogy. Buy here, read online here. "All mechanical or electrical or quantum-mechanical or hydraulic or even wind, steam or piston-driven devices, are now required to have a certain legend emblazoned on them somewhere. It doesn't matter how small the object is, the designers of the object have got to find a way of squeezing the legend in somewhere, because it is their attention which is being drawn to it rather than necessarily that of the user's." Considering the source, I was surprised and a little disturbed when I noticed this legend didn't seem to be well known in the Singularitarian community. =================== | 2 MichaelBishop ------------------- Sure, for a certain definition of "something" and "doing right." But people often use an unhelpful definition of "doing right." I have over-invested in many projects. For example, I used to spend hours organizing my music collection. =================== | 2 MatthewB ------------------- It is essentially what Harris did in the article. He replaced the noun objects of Armstrong's point with other, analogous/isomorphic objects to illustrate that the point being made did not have the merit that Armstrong thought it did. I'll see about looking up the term as it applies to Propositional Logic. It's a more widely recognized term (at least here). =================== | 2 MatthewB ------------------- Armstrong's reply was not up when I first read the article. I am glad you brought that to my attention. I am stunned at her reply. She completely missed the point that Harris was making (not surprising, I have known some pretty smart people who were caught flat-footed by the philosophical tool of object replacement). That she did not catch the comparison of witchcraft in Africa as a form of religious practice is... well, stunning. Yes, Karen, what we need to do with Theologists such as William Lane Craig, who whole-heartedly defends the genocidal acts of his God in the old testament, is to have their theology enriched by rationalizing of those atrocities rather than have them understand why they do not stand up to a rational criticism. =================== | 2 Matt_Simpson ------------------- It seems thus impossible that any question about the nature or character of particular sensory qualities should ever arise which is not a question about the differences from (or relations to) other sensory qualities; and the extent to which the effects of its occurrence differ from the effects of the occurrence of any other qualities determines the whole of its character. To ask beyond this for the explanation of some absolute attribute of sensory qualities seems to be to ask for something which by definition cannot manifest itself in any differences in the consequences which will follow because this rather than any other quality has occurred. Such a factor, however, could by definition not be of relevance to any scientific problem. The 'absolute' quality seems to be unexplainable because there is nothing to explain, because absolute, if it has any meaning at all, can only mean that the attribute which is so described has no scientific significance. --F. A. Hayek, The Sensory Order (never terse) =================== | 2 Matt_Duing ------------------- "In madness all sounds become articulate." -- "Language of the Shadows", Nile =================== | 2 Mass_Driver ------------------- I enjoyed the Pratchett dialogue, but I am not sure I learned from it -- I wind up empathizing with both characters. Are you agreeing with me? Disagreeing with me? What is the converse of a dialogue? I'm confused. I think part of what bothers me about your Cassini quote is that the claims in the first paragraph are overstated, especially coming from a character who is (presumably) a metaethical nihilist/egoist. Life is the scum of matter, and people are the scum of life. Why, is it so wrong to eat things? Eating seems normal and natural to me; an activity to be celebrated. "Scum" is a kind of life that prevents our usual foods from being healthy for us -- it is thus an odd insult for a carnivore. Nothing matters, except what matters to you. Might makes right, and power makes freedom. Why? If I firmly estimate that other minds exist, does the existence of those minds depend upon my estimation? If other minds exist, why should what matters to them be irrelevant? What does it even mean to say that "might makes right" except that I plan to ignore the concept of "right"? When, in the course of human events, has the power to ignore morality left people truly free? You are free to do whatever is in your power, and if you want to survive and thrive you had better do whatever is in your interests. Really? All the time? Is the world so grim that I must spend all my time eating or face extinction? Surely species and individuals with a significant advantage can spend some of the resulting surplus on frivolous pursuits; what evidence is there that the fate of the world hangs by a razor-thin thread? =================== | 2 Madbadger ------------------- If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. Abraham Maslow For many years I had a slight variant of this in my sig: "When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails" =================== | 2 MBlume ------------------- Is he? I actually didn't get that impression. =================== | 2 LucasSloan ------------------- Why is this interesting? Money isn't inherently useful. Why say "than money" when "It's amazing the things people like" will serve? =================== | 2 LucasSloan ------------------- We should test this! Anyone got a cat? I've got 9 pennies I don't want. =================== | 2 Lightwave ------------------- I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four, A Scandal in Bohemia =================== | 2 Larks ------------------- Also, how hard you've managed to hit it with the pennies. I think you have to try to maximise the damage:irateness ration. =================== | 2 Kutta ------------------- „Most people become uninsurable at some point in their lives. It therefore makes sense to find out how affordable it can be to fund your (cryonic) suspension with the incredible financial leverage that only life insurance provides. It the case of cryonicists, the policy can truly become LIFE insurance-- not DEATH insurance.” – Rudi Hoffman =================== | 2 Kevin ------------------- Full context here: there are different levels, but I think it was meant in the most literal sense -- really bad things can happen to people when you publish the absolute truth. =================== | 2 Kazuo_Thow ------------------- Page 136 (in Chapter 5 - "Queer Uses for Probability Theory"), in the first full paragraph. =================== | 2 KatjaGrace ------------------- It could be of course that you are limited by other features of your psychology, and fail to notice because noticing such things doesn't lead to useful or sexy behavior. Such discriminating failure to notice things can't be mere random stupidity. =================== | 2 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- This quote always reminds me of another choice one: "I want to live forever, or die trying". =================== | 2 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- ETA: It would seem that rationality quotes are no longer desired. After several days this thread stands voted into the negatives. Wolud whoever chose to to downvote this below 0 would care to express their disapproval of the regular quotes tradition more explicitly? For the record, I didn't downvote this below zero, but it did at one point downvote this back to zero (and did the same for the Open Thread). Not because I'd disagree with the tradition in any way, but because I don't think the first person to get around posting the month's thread should get tens of points of karma for simply being quick. =================== | 2 JustinShovelain ------------------- Some people are always critical of vague statements. I tend rather to be critical of precise statements; they are the only ones which can correctly be labeled 'wrong'. -- Raymond Smullyan =================== | 2 JulianMorrison ------------------- The person I think of as "me", the person the world sees, and the person that could be figured out by a very detailed examination of my actions would probably each barely resemble the other. Also, they would shift over quite short timescales as bits of personality are triggered and demoted by context. I can't really claim to be a unitary person, only a unitary brain. So "the real me" is a terribly messy question. Or 1.5 kg of grey goop, depending how it's asked. =================== | 2 JulianMorrison ------------------- It works for a job it isn't used for: launching into a polar orbit to emplace secret military satellites, and gliding a very long distance back to base without a need for a splashdown recovery that might risk its secrecy. That's what gave it the wings, and once you have the wings the rest of the design follows. =================== | 2 JoshuaZ ------------------- A man jumps off a 100 foot tall bridge. What additional information do you need to determine if he'll die? Within what degree of confidence? He could have a parachute of some form, or a bungee cord or there could be some form of trampoline to break the fall. Moreover, you miss the point of the original quote. The question relies on standard assumptions about how humans learn and absorb values. Since humans are very complicated entities, understanding explicitly what assumptions we make about them can be helpful. =================== | 2 JoshuaZ ------------------- 575 and 576 in the edition on Google Books. =================== | 2 Jonathan_Graehl ------------------- That quote is valued for more than its objectively shoddy analogy. Its larger point is plausible and potentially useful. However, I'd like to see some experimental evidence that shows how well mocking+shaming people with dumb beliefs works; polite persuasion is definitely pretty ineffective. Also, on average, more people read and vote on a parent comment than its reply. Without seeing the number of total (approximate) views and downvotes, you can't be sure what people think of it. Furcas is right: the only way in which the hostage-takers are an extreme case is: suppose they have especially irrational beliefs, and that your goal is to make them more rational with high-rudeness persuasion/shaming; then they are more likely to become extremely angry (decapitating a hostage) than to be persuaded. If that's what Atran intended, he communicated it unclearly. Likely, it's just illogical emotional rhetoric. It's definitely obvious upon weighing that the "extreme case" analogy is flawed; still, Furcas could have saved the world (but not himself) time by laying out the case before being challenged. =================== | 2 JohannesDahlstrom ------------------- Oops. I do feel a bit embarrassed for just assuming that the strip in question was recent enough not to have been posted to last month's thread. Voted in favor of the proposed norm. =================== | 2 Joe ------------------- We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. -Vonnegut Seems apropos to recent posts on honesty, as well. =================== | 2 James_Miller ------------------- "Hypocrisy and dissimulation are what keeps social systems strong; it is intellectual honesty that destroys them." Theodore Dalrymple- The New Vichy Syndrome p. 26. =================== | 2 Jack ------------------- This just looks like an instance of using contradictory language to indicate that Tom fits the the conventional definitions of neither a bachelor or a married man. You could also say Tom is a single spouse. Bachelor happens to have connotations of referring to lifestyle rather than legal status which makes your meaning plainer. The fact that language is flexible enough to get around logic doesn't mean married bachelor isn't a logical contradiction or that Kant is wrong. =================== | 2 Jack ------------------- The occasional duplication is probably not worth everyone writing down where they find interesting quotes. Though maybe you have other reasons. If it becomes more common we can request that everyone search for their quote on less wrong before they post it. =================== | 2 Jack ------------------- The Will to Power is a posthumous publication of some of Nietzsche's notes ordered, selected and occasionally revised by his nationalistic and anti-semitic sister. It's widely thought to be not at all representative of anything he believed. =================== | 2 Jack ------------------- I wouldn't defend postmodernism but the treatment of modern philosophy, particularly Humean phenomenalism, is pretty bogus. Just putting the two in the same camp is a mistake as far as I'm concerned. I've only skimmed the book (and of course I can't see parts of it) but it looks like she is systematically misunderstanding skeptical arguments (to the point where I really do doubt she has read Descartes closely) and then falling back on G.E. Moore type Here is a hand! idiocy. I do wish I could see her treatment of the burden of proof issue, though, since so much of her discussion relies on it. Part of the problem is that she is conflating around two dozen distinct positions. No real person would ever defend every single one of the positions this "Professor" defends! And every time the Professor just gives in after the Student refuses to accept one or more obvious premises. It's actually pretty frustrating to read. I probably don't accept more than a handful of the positions attributed to the professor though, so it's hard for me to tell if this is the case with all the arguments. =================== | 2 Jack ------------------- I would quite like to be better informed about what the various postmodern positions actually are. Everyone feels this way, including postmodernists. Or is it simply too broad a subject to ever get a reasonable birds-eye view? Maybe. Can you give me a better idea of A) what the debate is about exactly and B) what your background is with philosophy? =================== | 2 Jack ------------------- Does anyone know the origin of this notion (that being wrong is the best outcome of an argument?). It strikes me as basically a founding principle of rationality and I'd like to know the earliest public reference to/ discussion of it. Alternately, is this sentiment summarized in any good quotes? It is hugely important for Hegel but he isn't, you know, pithy. =================== | 2 HughRistik ------------------- It's clearly an abuse of the concept of the Burden of Proof. Along with some motivated skepticism. =================== | 2 Houshalter ------------------- "All generalizations are false, including this one." -Mark Twain =================== | 2 Furcas ------------------- There's no point in asking for things we can't have; we can only look for the best way to fight with the things we do have, for our entire life. -- Hiruma Yoichi, Eyeshield 21 =================== | 2 Furcas ------------------- I am privy to hostage negotiations, and be assured that simply telling hostage takers their beliefs are bullshit will get you the opposite of what you want, like the hostage's head delivered on a platter. Of course, that's an extreme case; That's not an 'extreme' case, it's a misleading one. What kind of idiot tries to make a point about the means used to achieve the goal of "Advancing reason" by pointing out that the same means won't work for rescuing a hostage? =================== | 2 FAWS ------------------- Though the earthworm has neither the advantage of claws and teeth nor the strength of muscles and bones, it can eat dust and dirt above ground and drink from the waters of the Yellow Springs below, because its mind is fixed on a constant end. The crab has eight legs and two claws; still if there is no hole made by an eel or snake, it will have no safe place to live, because its mind moves in every direction at once. For these reasons, if there is no dark obscurity in purpose*, there will be no reputation for brilliance; if there is no hidden secretiveness in the performance of duties, there will be no awe-inspiring majesty in achievements. If you attempt to travel both forks of a road, you will arrive nowhere, and if you attempt to serve two masters, you will please neither. -- Xunzi, An Exhortation to Learning (勸學) 1.6, translated by John Knoblock in "Xunzi: A Translation and study of the Complete Works" *Knoblock gives "If there is no ardor and enthusiasm in purpose" as an alternative, personally I would translate it as "if there is no one who deeply wills it" and similarly the next passage as "if there is no one who singlemindedly labors for it" (Knoblock doesn't give any alternative there). =================== | 2 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Why is this being voted down? I'm pretty sure Nominull didn't post the quote in order to endorse it as a normative sentiment. There's an ick reaction so you hit "Vote down"? But that's not what decides whether a quote is a good thing to have read! =================== | 2 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- The difficult thing here is not, to dig down to the ground; no, it is to recognize the ground that lies before us as the ground. -- Wittgenstein =================== | 2 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Quick look didn't find it, but I don't see why this follows (and at a wild guess, I'm guessing it doesn't). Can you link? =================== | 2 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- In even fewer words: we can imagine the illogical. =================== | 2 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- "A person is best defined by the nature of his evil." -- Piers Anthony, "On a Pale Horse" =================== | 2 Drawbacks ------------------- "We are what we repeatedly do." -- Russ Roberts, quoting some sports guy on the radio =================== | 2 Douglas_Knight ------------------- That seems like the perfect condemnation for his book on quantum mechanics. This is also the guy who said "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." Wikipedia says that what the young man didn't understand is the method of characteristics, which sounds like it should be understood, from what little I know about it. Do you have a source or context for this quote? =================== | 2 Douglas_Knight ------------------- I can't speak for Rune, but I think it's interesting because it's awfully specific. It's an example of the conjunction fallacy that someone thought this important enough to be a rule. To my common-law mind, it would be more sensible if it were something like "...even if it's to save her husband." And maybe it did mean that, since conjunctions are a common place for miscommunication. =================== | 2 Daniel_Burfoot ------------------- The carting of manure had to begin earlier, so that everything would be finished before the early mowing. The far field had to be ploughed continually, so as to keep it fallow. The hay was to be got in, not on half shares with the peasants, but by hired workers. The steward listened attentively and obviously made an effort to approve of the master's suggestions; but all the same he had that hopeless and glum look, so familiar to Levin and always so irritating to him. This look said: "That's all very well, but it's as God grants." Nothing so upset Levin as this tone. But it was a tone common to all stewards, as many of them as he had employed. They all had the same attitude toward his proposals, and therefore he now no longer got angry, but became upset and felt himself still more roused to fight this somehow elemental force for which he could find no other name than "as God grants", and which was continually opposed to him. -- Leo Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina" =================== | 2 Daniel_Burfoot ------------------- Go as far as you can see; when you get there you'll be able to see farther. -- Thomas Carlyle =================== | 2 DanielVarga ------------------- The latter. On the other hand, the sequences could greatly benefit from some ruthless editing. EDIT: 5 minutes after I wrote this comment, I googled a part of it, because I was not sure about my English. (I'm Hungarian.) This comment was already indexed by google. =================== | 2 DanielVarga ------------------- I think it is a combination of the Digg engine's Recent Posts feature directly interfaced by Google, and LW's high page rank. =================== | 2 DanArmak ------------------- Well said :-) =================== | 2 Cyan ------------------- Yup, that's way worse. ... TMI? =================== | 2 Cyan ------------------- I hope this is what Eco means in context. The novel is a satire on conspiracy theories. The entire book can be read as a polemic against the mind projection fallacy and confirmation bias. =================== | 2 Cyan ------------------- Fake Jedi sharks, no doubt. =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- There is no mutually exclusive distinction between "is" and "ought". There is only a distinction between "is" and "is not". If "ought" cannot find a home in what "is", then "ought" is something that "is not". -- Alonzo Fyfe =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- Some more context, from the link: I consider the claim that 'ought' cannot be derived from 'is' to be a very remarkable claim. It suggests that there something . . . 'oughtness' . . . that is totally distinct and separate from things that exist in the real world . . . 'isness' . . . yet is supposed to have relevance in the real world. It is referred to as a part of the real-world explanations for the movement of real matter through space-time. Yet, we are told, this 'ought' or 'should' that we are making a reference to and that has these owers is something distinct and separate from anything in the world of 'is'. [...] My position is that 'ought' is relevant in the real world because 'ought' is a species of 'is', and there is no mystery as to how 'is' can be relevant in the real world. So, when I put you cannot derive 'ought' from 'is' up against 'ought' can interact with 'is' because it is a species of 'is', and I realize that one of them must be mistaken, it seems far more likely that we will find the error in the first proposition rather than the second. I would be far less surprised by a discovery that 'ought' is relevant to 'is' because 'ought' is a subset of 'is' than that there is a realm of 'ought' separate and distinct from 'is' but still relevant in the world of 'is'. =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- Indeed. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence. =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- I like Pink... =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- For me, the answer is invariably "no". I never do anything important. Therefore this procedure doesn't help me very much. =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. -- Dylan Thomas =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- And now we've managed to completely confuse all the non-gamers here. ;) =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- "Wars do not end when they are won, but when those who want to fight to the death find their wish has been granted." - Spengler =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- "The future already happened. We just haven't reached it yet." - Sarda the Sage Brian Clevinger, 8-Bit Theater =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- "Preferences" are also facts about minds. =================== | 2 CronoDAS ------------------- "First Law of Advice: The correct advice to give is the advice that is desired." - Archibald Putt =================== | 2 Clippy ------------------- How is that better? That doesn't make sense. Predicting that you won't be able to predict something is equivalent to a maximum entropy probability distribution over the outcome. That's a state of zero knowledge. What is -William Easterly attempting to establish with -William Easterly's claim? Also, what crisis? =================== | 2 ChristianKl ------------------- You can't run cars with power that comes directly through the power line. You ignore the running cost of the nuclear reactors. You don't price risk from blowups and you don't price long term storage costs. Risk from peak uranium http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24414 is also unpriced. If the word "average" would be meaningful in this context than you would simply compare solar cell productivity + transmission line losses to nuclear plant costs + transmission line losses. Of course you can do simply arithmetic but that doesn't mean that you are right when it's not clear that you are using the right numbers. =================== | 2 ChrisHibbert ------------------- I routinely use "a couple" and "a few" to indicate vague quantities. A few is bigger than a couple, but they overlap. I know that not everyone does this (my S.O., in particular, thinks I'm wrong) but I also know that I'm not nearly alone in this habit. Yes, certainly, there are circumstances in which "a couple" means exactly two. If I'm talking about some friends, and refer to them as "a couple" rather than "a couple of people", you'd be justified to think I meant exactly two people with some relationship. But if I say "I'm going to read a couple more pages", I think you'd be making a mistake to be upset as long as it was between 1.5 and 4 pages. When I say "a few" it might range from 1.7 to 5 or 6 depending on whether we're talking about potatoes or french fries. So, to my ears, it could be the 16th century or the mid-18th century, and giving the benefit of the doubt, it's a reasonable statement. =================== | 2 CannibalSmith ------------------- I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am. Hear, hear! :D =================== | 2 CannibalSmith ------------------- But we do - in the same sense that racing sims contain cars. =================== | 2 Bugle ------------------- Incidentally, the Spanish inquisition did not believe in witches either, dismissing the whole thing as "female humours" =================== | 2 Blueberry ------------------- It looked like a joke along the lines of: Q (on discovering a pile of eggs in a strange place): Where did these eggs come from? A: Chickens. =================== | 2 AngryParsley ------------------- Interesting article, but that guy could have avoided some suffering if he knew about ways to lessen pain without anesthetic. A common technique used by body piercers is to numb the area with ice beforehand. Really though, most of the benefits of those things don't require any cutting. Why not wear the RFID tag in a bracelet? Why not temporarily glue rare earth magnets to his fingertips? If that guy ever needs an MRI, he'll have to get the magnets removed from his body. If he's in an accident and the doctors don't know about his magnets, the MRI could injure him or damage the scanner. Edit: Oh, he has a blog. It's umm... interesting. =================== | 2 AllanCrossman ------------------- I suppose. The comment could be: "Also Crystal nights is a good story about a topic of some interest to the futurist/transhumanist element on LW, namely rfpncr sebz n fvzhyngvba." =================== | 2 Alicorn ------------------- Why is anesthetic illegal for "people like him"? =================== | 2 Alicorn ------------------- Before anything, ask yourself, "What do I want to have happen?" James Lee Stanley =================== | 2 AdeleneDawner ------------------- He almost certainly meant an American football, and dribbling as in basketball, which is done by bouncing it off the ground repeatedly. =================== | 1 wuwei ------------------- Thanks for the explanations. =================== | 1 wnoise ------------------- All of the strips can be found online at http://www.dilbert.com/strips/ =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. I don't tend to yield to force or overwhelming might of what counts as my enemy. I do not consider this trait to be 'good sense'. Damn propaganda. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- Why do people value them, I wonder? Appreciation and repetition of sound bites is an awesome way of gaining status. When it comes to 'new' thoughts we can often get more status by engaging with them to prove our intellectual prowess. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- We lost the documentation on quantum mechanics. You'll have to decode the regexes for yourself. -- The Gods, XKCD =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- Two hours of intense staring didn't make my pencil move a single millimetre Well of course not, you read far too many books for that to still work! =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- This is something I actively remind myself whenever my intuition starts feeling vindication over lucky reprieves or mourning low probability misfortunes. "It's ok, a six wasn't rolled anyway. I made a mistake. It would have been better to trade the wood and build a settlement. I want to become stronger." (The hyperlink is included instead of the phrase. The inner dialog doesn't like wordiness!) =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- The question analogous to to the Perot quote would be "So why don't you fix it?". =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- That's what my government told me when I discovered the phone tap. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- That is insightful and all, but now falls under: Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB. ;) =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- That is about my impression too. I'm less sure about the 'worst'. I'd go with up to a third but perhaps symmetry is intended. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- Really wish Friedrich used more paragraphs and less commas. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- Reading the phrase again, I can see that there may be cause for objection saying that the "protection" has only a single use. Is this what you find bogus? Yes, the 'no other object' part I find most bogus. I would still disagree if the claim was 'the main object' or even 'a significant object' although such relative judgements require more reasoning and background to evaluate than the banal absolute. Now, isn't "a mere protection for society with no other object but the reproducing of that same society" a good phrase for boxing up that fascination and making it wonderfully palpable? I find it abhorrent. It has enough 'wonderfully palpability' that many people will hesitate to actually parse the meaning and realise that, trying to describe it without an expletive, what little content it contains lacks factual merit. Marriage is not merely, primarily or even credibly understood to be a protection for society with the object of reproducing of that same society. I would much prefer Octavio put his ability to turn phrase into something harmless like, say, and 'Ode to Blue'. If he wants to keep up the airs of intellectual sophistication he can perhaps work some qualia into the mix. That would tie in nicely with the whole poignant solitude, sublime experience of the human condition vibe. Then if he wants to raise the intellectual bar another notch he can include "da ba dee dah be daa" as a refrain. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- Or maybe it's what a genius would say after emerging from the "existential labyrinth," the main theme The Labyrinth of Solitude. "Lonely" - "senstationalise the experience so I sound deep" - "gain status as a poet and author" - "get laid". That ranks well above "cutting" as far as plans go. I do not respect wallowing in existential angst and definitely don't consider it rational. More importantly I do not allow my brain to reward itself with a sense of smug superiority when it generates such trains of thought for me. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- Lampshading it doesn't make it go away. Seems to make it worse . =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- I tend to vote such threads to around a couple of karma myself. 0 isn't unreasonable. 0 is quite peculiar. But my confusion was resolved in this instance. Someone messaged me and explained that he was trying to work out why the votes were fluctuating so much (4 - 0 in an hour) so was testing what would happen if he put down one more to -1. As a side effect to these posts going up and down I've now started paying attention to only the last digit of the score. The 10s are mostly noise! =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- I have never seen the term previous to this thread. It is two terms. Just 'sincerity' that happens to also be ironic. Or perhaps irony that just so happens to be expressed through sincere. It's like saying something 'tongue in cheek' but when the point you are making is something you clearly really mean it even though you know it may be surprising to the audience at first glance. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- I do not agree. Without the lampshading the sexist implication (that is, "women are more worthy recipients of love than men are") is negligible. Claiming that the quote is sexist while saying it increases the extent that this implication is present and so gives men more cause to feel slighted. I don't take offence at the possible slight but do find the lamp-shading distasteful. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- I agree with you (and Tim). I could benefit from reducing my information diet and giving my brain it's dopamine in a different manner. =================== | 1 wedrifid ------------------- 3^^^3 is a very large number Trivial things can be horrendous if there are 3^^^3 of them. Things that require a large number like 3^^^3 of them in order to be horrendous are trivial things. It is implied that bringing bad weather is a relatively trivial thing. There are other things that are worse than bad weather, per victim and instance, like torture. Saying "if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did" is a little bit funny if the crime is bad weather. =================== | 1 utilitymonster ------------------- Fair enough. Maybe it is typically reasonable to charge people with hypocrisy when they neglect to follow their professed ethical codes. I still like the quote, even if it is hyperbolic. It is useful to be reminded that there are important cases where failure to live up to one's professed code does not warrant this kind of criticism. Being overly concerned with hypocrisy can make you be unconcerned with living up to a meaningful ethical code. This is especially important in the context of consequentialist morality. This is just a hunch, but I think there are a fair number of intelligent people who shy away from a demanding code for fear of being charged with hypocrisy. But there need be no genuine hypocrisy, at least in any deeply regrettable sense, in professing a demanding ethical code and failing to live up to it. Better to try to live up to a demanding code and fail than meet the demands of an uninspiring and mundane one. (In this kind of case, of course, you aren't just professing the code to curry political favor.) =================== | 1 uninverted ------------------- Yep, sorry about that. Technical problem on my end. I think I have them all deleted now. =================== | 1 tommccabe ------------------- A complete tree of descent (all life from a common ancestor) was Charles Darwin's thinking, but the idea of a tree of descent was not. See, eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges-Louis_Leclerc,_Comte_de_Buffon for 18th-century thinking on the subject. =================== | 1 thomblake ------------------- as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey..., without having courage or industry to undertake it This seems at odds with our notion of subjective probability, where we assume that significant lingering doubt after confidently assigning a 99%+ probability is evidence that your calibration is poor, and your estimate should have been lower. Does the man really believe the voyage is, all things considered, a good one? =================== | 1 thomblake ------------------- Yes, what Jack said exactly. =================== | 1 thomblake ------------------- What about that most infamous claim, that women have fewer teeth than men? At first glance, one wonders (as does M.) how such a claim could serve an ideological purpose. How are the interests of men advanced at the cost of women by the belief that they have more bicuspids and molars? But more importantly, M. points out that there is some evidence to suggest that Aristotle's claim about teeth is actually a testament to his careful observation rather than evidence of apriorism in his science. Although the evidence is speculative, there is some proof that the diets of ancient Mediterranean women were deficient in vitamin C and D, deficiencies which resulted in diseases such as scurvy, osteomalacia, and osteoporosis, especially in pregnant and lactating women.5 No one knows exactly what Aristotle saw when he looked into the mouths of Mrs. Aristotle and her friends, but if he consistently saw fewer teeth that would hardly have been implausible given what we know about diet, calcium deficiency, and tooth loss. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.09.19 Robert Mayhew, The Female in Aristotle's Biology. Reason or Rationalization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Reviewed by Thornton Lockwood, Sacred Heart University Note that since Aristotle was about as close to an empiricist as you'll find those days, and discovered many exciting things about animals through direct observation, it's unlikely that this mistake was due to not having checked. =================== | 1 thomblake ------------------- Quotes such as these tend not to include arguments. =================== | 1 thomblake ------------------- It's obvious, but I must point out that giving the quote in the original French and providing a "rough translation" seems at odds with the message of the quote. =================== | 1 thomblake ------------------- Believing presupposes understanding. -al-Ghazali (theologian) =================== | 1 thomblake ------------------- And here I was trying to fit in a joke about the Fitch-Church knowability paradox. =================== | 1 taw ------------------- US is higher than most of non-Northern Europe when it comes to trust. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_tru_peo-lifestyle-trust-people The first theory is diversity, but trust here doesn't seem to correspond to diversity at all - Norway and Austria are homogenous and on opposite ends. Canada and Belgium are diverse and on opposite ends. As for other theories, socialist countries are also on both top (Scandinavia) and bottom (Austria, France). Catholic countries seem to be lower than Protestant countries, but Ireland is pretty high, and it might just be Scandinavia making this impression. So I'm not really sure what trust correlates much with. =================== | 1 steven0461 ------------------- God grant me the strength to change the things I must, the wisdom to know what I must change, and the rationality to know God isn't the key person here. -- Eliezer Yudkowsky (pre-LW/OB, so it counts) =================== | 1 spuckblase ------------------- Ok, I wasn't specific enough. I meant mainly that Eliezer also claimed that there is a fundamental level and that there are no funda-mental entities. Are there any actual individuals you have in mind when you make this generalization? To my knowledge, I have never heard of an individual ignoring observed phenomena they could not predict reductively. I take it you mean explain reductively? Anyway, behaviourism (and its problems with mental entities) seems the locus classicus. Or what about eliminativists like the churchlands or dennett (for qualia)? Or hartry field for numbers? There must be lots of others. =================== | 1 spriteless ------------------- First the sign describes reality. Then the sign replaces reality. - Last Psychiatrist, on the role of media. =================== | 1 sketerpot ------------------- You can't run cars with power that comes directly through the power line. No, but you can power people's homes, businesses, and industry. Currently we're burning ungodly huge amounts of coal to do that. Just because a green energy source isn't the final solution to all energy needs is not a point against it. You ignore the running cost of the nuclear reactors. I was addressing the argument, often put forward, that the up-front costs of nukes are much higher per-kilowatt than other green energy sources. The operations and maintenance costs of nuclear energy are so low that they are seldom attacked. Here are some approximate numbers You don't price risk from blowups and you don't price long term storage costs. Those are both included in the OM costs, actually. And by the way, name me a single light water reactor that has blown up. Or any modern reactor, for that matter. There are good reasons to believe that such an event is very unlikely or (in some cases) actually impossible. As for long-term waste management, I've addressed that in more detail here. It's surprisingly straightforward. If the word "average" would be meaningful in this context than you would simply compare solar cell productivity + transmission line losses to nuclear plant costs + transmission line losses. Construction costs? OM costs? OM plus loan payments until the up-front investment has been amortized off? There's more than one type of cost to consider, so I decided to focus on the particular argument that construction costs were too high. As for "average" being meaningless, it's true that I've ignored transmission line losses. Those are not high enough to significantly affect the calculation, and both nuclear and solar tend to have longer-than-average distances between the plants and the consumers, so I doubt there would be too much difference between them (unless you went with something like the idea of putting solar farms in the Sahara desert and sending the electricity to Europe). =================== | 1 sketerpot ------------------- It works better with longer dashes -- I always get thrown off when someone uses a single hyphen instead of faking an en dash with two hyphens surrounded by spaces. =================== | 1 simplicio ------------------- "You don't need to be an ichthyologist to know when a fish stinks." (Unattributed) =================== | 1 simplicio ------------------- "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk." ~HD Thoreau =================== | 1 savageorange ------------------- I find this rather gnomic. Is he admonishing us to only say 'ought' in reference to existing parts of reality? Or simply classifying ought as a nonsensical notion? =================== | 1 roland ------------------- The book is available for free on google books, can you tell us the page nr. of the quotation please? =================== | 1 roland ------------------- It's a coincidence that I was thinking along these lines recently. Most science is just the result of tiny footsteps put one after the other, but when you see the final result it is impressive. Most teaching books are in fault because they only portray the end result whereas the painstaking but simple steps that lead there often in a natural way are omitted. =================== | 1 roland ------------------- In addition, conscious thought can lead us to rely on weird little theories. --Ap Dijksterhuis =================== | 1 roland ------------------- Do you remember where exactly in the book this quote is? =================== | 1 roland ------------------- After I answered your comment I still had to think about it and I had to add the following. Often it's hard to separate serious reading from enjoyment: for example you could be reading reddit or hackernews either knowing that you are just doing it for entertainment or rationalizing it by thinking you are doing serious reading not realizing that the real reason is the dopamine rush you get. How much time are you willing to spend on random internet reading and other time wasters? You have to judge it yourself. But if you are investing a large amount of your time into that maybe it's good to start reevaluating your information diet. =================== | 1 righteousreason ------------------- I don't see how this reveals his motive at all. He could easily be a person motivated to make the best contributions to science as he can, for entirely altruistic reasons. His reasoning was that he could make better contributions elsewhere, and it's entirely plausible for him to have left the field for ultimately altruistic, purely non-selfish reasons. And what is it about selfishness exactly that is so bad? =================== | 1 pjeby ------------------- rationalist vampire in Peter Watts's Blindsight Um, wasn't he more of a p-zombie who just happened to be rational? (In that novel, vampires are a near-human species who lack consciousness -- so all the vampires are a bit like p-zombies, except they don't claim to be conscious.) =================== | 1 phaedrus ------------------- "Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise" - Bertrand Russell, “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism” (Part of the full sentence) =================== | 1 pangloss ------------------- Oh, that's a good point. I was assuming Aristotle was commending people who could hear it without coming to believe it, but it could easily be that he is commending people who diminish their belief rapidly, and acquire a state of mere apprehension. =================== | 1 pangloss ------------------- He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood. - John Locke =================== | 1 pangloss ------------------- "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true." - Diax =================== | 1 orthonormal ------------------- Upon further reflection, it was uncharitable of me to disregard your ceteris paribus for the reason I did (which has nothing to do with Latin versus English; I'm one of those who prefer ceteris paribus to "all else equal"). =================== | 1 orthonormal ------------------- The idea of the eternal recurrence didn't originate with that movie. =================== | 1 orthonormal ------------------- I don't think it was so bad to post something that spurred such a discussion. It wasn't off-topic, just wrong (or Not Even Wrong) in an argument-worthy way. Normally, I think karma is a reasonably good guide to writing here, but in this case I find myself both approving of the fact that you posted this, and approving of the massive downvoting (which I added to). Odd. =================== | 1 orthonormal ------------------- Given what I've read of The Tao is Silent, I'm inclined to take a more literal (and less agreeable) interpretation of his quote here. =================== | 1 orthonormal ------------------- Fair enough. It just bugs me on a status level to have an idea that was well-stated by famous philosophers quoted from K-PAX instead. I realize I'm being irrational here. =================== | 1 orthonormal ------------------- Beautiful (in the song) and true, but it doesn't sound very poetic on its own, and the following line is beautiful and false. =================== | 1 olimay ------------------- I have suspected that history, real history, is more modest and that its essential dates may be, for a long time, secret. A Chinese prose writer has observed that the unicorn, because of its own anomaly, will pass unnoticed. Our eyes see what they are accustomed to seeing. --Jorge Luis Borges =================== | 1 nickernst ------------------- I think it's that the website is dedicated to identifying common structures that make stories entertaining, with an emphasis that they are fictional structures. It's the very use of the word "tropes" in the title. Thus the user base is a bunch of people who enjoy a lot of bad (and usually absurdly bad) t.v., yet also have fun analyzing what psychological manipulation they were supposed to have been subjected to. Also, I know a few TVTropes addicts who are regular LW readers (from a forum on which Dresden Codak left a large impact), and wouldn't be surprised if they have contributed. =================== | 1 mattnewport ------------------- Please note that we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record. Followed by death. Good luck! Makes me think of the FAI problem... As does this: Good news. I figured out what that thing you just incinerated did. It was a Morality Core they installed after I flooded the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin to make me stop flooding the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin. So get comfortable while I warm up the Neurotoxin Emitters. =================== | 1 lukstafi ------------------- This statement is only partly true: under narrow view, an irrational position. It seems to steer people into irrationality. But people already are irrational. It says "let every your action follow from your asserted values. Let every moment be such an action." =================== | 1 loqi ------------------- Unless one of your terminal goals is to watch your money supply fluctuate in a downward sloping direction, this thrill isn't helping you. Correct. However, if "experiencing thrills" is one of my terminal goals, then that thrill is helping me. I mean this in the same way that I mean it when I say "If getting a big piece of meat makes you happier than a $10k check, then your happiness system doesn't get it" No, it just means my happiness system isn't mediated by expected utility calculations. If your implication is that it "should" be, then you're committing a grievous is/ought error. You're assuming that "thrills" and "happiness" serve specific, narrow purposes (presumably the ones evolution "intended" them for). I don't share your assumption. =================== | 1 loqi ------------------- So if I understand the point you're making: Losing an argument provides enough evidence of your prior ignorance to prevent any net gain in your expectation of your own overall knowledgeability, at least relative to winning the argument. I don't disagree, but I don't know why I'd care to base an emotional response on this kind of evaluation. I'm not fretting over my absolute position on the axis of knowledge, I'm just hill climbing. It's the first derivative that my decisions affect, not the initial constant. =================== | 1 loqi ------------------- I can't square The quote is not about whether statistics might tell you something useful about people in general with Statistical findings are worse than useless. They give the illusion of knowledge. I'd say "useful folklore" is by definition better than useless. =================== | 1 loqi ------------------- Honestly acknowledging their existence, as in the original quote, is probably a better route to their elimination than an emotionless assertion that losing arguments is good. Possibly, but I certainly wasn't advocating an emotionless response. Fight fire with fire! If you realize you're feeling stupid for having been wrong instead of feeling excited to have learned something, go ahead and feel stupid for feeling stupid. I think I understand the rationale behind the original quote: Being wrong feels awful, so you should try to be right as often as possible. But this emotional response also disincentivizes attempts to stick your neck out on behalf of your existing beliefs. One might counter that a positive emotional response to being wrong provides an incentive for being wrong in the first place just so you can feel good about discarding your flawed beliefs in the future. This strikes me as a far less plausible mechanism than the above. =================== | 1 loqi ------------------- Hanlons Razor =================== | 1 lavalamp ------------------- I guess I can't imagine how two quotes could exist such that, if I could score them (on whatever attributes I find valuable in quote-space), they would come out equal enough that I would prefer one over the other based on the originator of the quote. I think this is due to the way I think of quotes, as unique things (i.e., apples and oranges. One could say, "I prefer fruit grown by a well-pedigreed gardener, all else being equal," and it would (possibly) be true for lots of people. But it doesn't really tell us what kind of fruit you like, assuming poorly-pedigreed gardeners have a non-zero chance of growing good fruit). It could also be interpreted as a failure of my imagination, I'm sure. =================== | 1 lavalamp ------------------- I agree, if we're talking about books. Further, I agree that some people are way better at making good quotes than others. But even a broken clock is right twice a day-- and if someone has taken the trouble to excerpt a quote from an author (i.e., they have pre-filtered it for me), it does not take me significantly more time to read the quote than it does to verify that I like the originator. (Unless I know I'm unlikely to agree with the aesthetics of the person who made the excerpt, but that's a different story entirely!) =================== | 1 komponisto ------------------- This sounds like a funny "blooper" story, but could just as well be an entirely normal history of the solution to an important problem. Many important theorems are proved by contradiction, and for all we know, the question of the existence of partially uniform k-quandles could have been a difficult unsolved problem. =================== | 1 komponisto ------------------- "we ate nothing" does not mean "we ate X" for X equal to "nothing"; it means "for all X, not (we ate X)" But surely "we ate X" can mean "X = {Y: We ate Y}", as in "we ate a set of fried chicken legs" -- and this would allow one to analyze "we ate nothing" to mean "we ate X" for X = emptyset. =================== | 1 kodos96 ------------------- Counterexample: Space shuttle. Really? I think only 6 of them were built, and 2 of those suffered catastrophic failure with all hands lost. =================== | 1 jimmy ------------------- Correct. However, if "experiencing thrills" is one of my terminal goals, then that thrill is helping me. Yes, that's trivially true. No, it just means my happiness system isn't mediated by expected utility calculations. If your implication is that it "should" be, then you're committing a grievous is/ought error. Just because I'm using a "should" doesn't make it an error. I mean it in the same way that your car "should" transport you from one place to another. Yes, I can describe it as it "is", but that don't mean it ain't broke. Do you really have a problem with that? If so, when do you think it's acceptable to use the word "should"? You're assuming that "thrills" and "happiness" serve specific, narrow purposes (presumably the ones evolution "intended" them for). I don't share your assumption. It sounds like you're saying that they didn't "serve a purpose" that caused them to be selected for, but I think you mean to say that you just don't care. There are abstract things that I want (which aligns fairly closely with what would have helped me reproduce as a caveman), and there are lower level feedback mechanisms that were selected because they helped people achieve (almost) these goals. To the extent that they don't enforce the 'right' behavior, I'd prefer to change that instead of having to choose between cheap thrills and abstract goals. =================== | 1 i77 ------------------- ... perfect existence, huh? Perfection does not exist in this world. It may seem like a cliche, but it's true. Obviously, mediocre fools will forever lust for perfection and seek it out. However, what meaning is there in "perfection"? None. Not a bit. "Perfection" disgusts me. After "perfection" there exists nothing higher. Not even room for "creation", which means there is no room for wisdom or talent either. Understand? To scientists like ourselves, "perfection" is "despair". Even if something is created that is more magnificient than anything before it, it still however, will be far from perfect. Scientists are constantly struggling with that antinomy. And furthermore, must become beings capable of drawing pleasure from such. In short, the instant that absurd word, "perfection", came from your lips, you had already been defeated by me. -- Kurotsuchi Mayuri =================== | 1 hirvinen ------------------- (Osmo A.) Wiio's first law of communication Communication usually fails, except by accident http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html =================== | 1 hegemonicon ------------------- the human mind is trained by the knowledge imparted to it and the direction given to its ideas. Only what is great can make it great; the little can only make it little. -Carl von Clausewitz =================== | 1 h-H ------------------- ok, I see your point. =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- Yes; don't see how it applies. =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- While I went back to work, I found a partner to continue its development and to sell it over the Internet. It hasn't made me rich, but eventually I got enough income from it to to quit my job and spend most of my time working on whatever interests me. It may not be LW material exactly, but I would be interested to read about this in an Open Thread (or see a link to a recountal). =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- Therefore, o mighty Ninjas, who grant awesomeness to fans, grant me that, in so far as you know it beneficial, I understand that you are as we believe and you are that which we believe. Now we believe that you are something crazier than which nothing crazier can be imagined. For if there were something crazier than a ninja, that ninja would every day grow in craziness and then that something would not be so; even a fool would agree to this. This is the greater ninja law - for every badass, there must be some even crazily more badass badass. But it would be crazier for the Ultimate Ninja to exist than to not exist, because that would be so totally sweet when he flipped out and cut the universe's head off. Thus, we must bow to the greater ninja law high-five the Ultimate Ninja, less he shuriken us with galaxies. Truly, Ultimate Ninja, you are so crazy that you cannot even be thought to not exist! =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- So, in Haruhi, does Egan's law apply? Does it all add up to normality? :) =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- Right. There are some constructions like Archimedes's use of a marked ruler (which is covered, actually, in the 'Means to trisect angles by going outside the Greek framework' section) which work correctly are not immediately obviously breaking the rules. So I had to ask before I could know whether he had broken the rules or broken his proof (if you follow me). =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- One I got while reading Jaynes's Probability Theory recently: "Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation." -- Laplace =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- Just like you can solve the Halting Problem - for particular Turing Machines. The interesting impossibility results are always general. =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- It's also worth noting that when you do Galileo's Tower of Pisa experiment, the heavier object does land first. (You think you release them at the same time, but you don't.) I find sometimes we here denigrate our distant predecessors too much; I have heard well-educated people call the Greeks fools for rejecting heliocentrism. =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- I was deeply confused for a moment, since I know that no such passage appears in the Ynglinga Saga and that the prose style means no such passage ever could; perhaps clarify that that is something entirely different? =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- I thought it was more implied by the ending, myself. (Does Blindsight really need spoilers ROT13ing? I mean, the book is right there for anyone to read.) =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- Hm. And I thought I was being original when I liked to say 'billion to one odds happen 7 times a day on Earth'. =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- "With 4 parameters I can fit an elephant, and with 5 I can make him wiggle his trunk." --von Neumann =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- "Society is composed of persons who cannot design, build, repair, or even operate most of the devices upon which their lives depend... In the complexity of this world people are confronted with extraordinary events and functions that are literally unintelligible to them. They are unable to give an adequate explanation of man-made phenomena in their immediate experience. They are unable to form a coherent, rational picture of the whole. Under the circumstances, all persons do, and indeed must, accept a great number of things on faith... Their way of understanding is basically religious, rather than scientific; only a small portion of one’s everyday experience in the technological society can be made scientific... The plight of members of the technological society can be compared to that of a newborn child. Much of the data that enters its sense does not form coherent wholes. There are many things the child cannot understand or, after it has learned to speak, cannot successfully explain to anyone... Citizens of the modern age in this respect are less fortunate than children. They never escape a fundamental bewilderment in the face of the complex world that their senses report. They are not able to organize all or even very much of this into sensible wholes...." --Autonomous Technology: Technics-Out-Of-Control (1989), Langdon Winner =================== | 1 gwern ------------------- "Everybody has got to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case." --author William Saroyan, letter written to his survivors =================== | 1 gregconen ------------------- That's not my point. My point is that Gall's law is unfalsifiable by anything short of Omega converting its entire light cone into computronium/utilium in a single, plank-time step. Edit: Not to say that Gall's Law can't be useful to keep in mind during engineering design. =================== | 1 gelisam ------------------- This story sports an interesting variation on the mind projection fallacy anti-pattern. Instead of confusing intrinsic properties with those whose observation depends both on one's mind and one's object of study, this variation confuses intrinsically correct conclusions with those whose validity depends both on the configuration of the world and on the correct interpretation of the evidence. In particular, one of the characters would like the inhabitants of the simulation to reconstruct our modern, "correct" scientific theories, even though said theories are in fact not a correct description of the simulated world. Here is a relevant (and spoiler-free) passage. [The simulation's] stars were just a planetarium-like backdrop, present only to help [the inhabitants of the simulation] get their notions of heliocentricity and inertia right The mistake, of course, is that if the simulation's sun is merely projected on a rotating dome, then heliocentricity isn't right at all. edit: it turns out that Eliezer has already generalized this anti-pattern from minds to worlds a while ago. =================== | 1 fburnaby ------------------- My girlfriend have been casually collecting data on this over the past 2 years. We occasionally end up in social situations with people who are flaky enough to take this stuff seriously. They'll usually -- after about 15 minutes of conversation -- make note of our 'auras' or personalities, and then guess a sign for each of us. We encourage them to try. Of the eight guesses we've had about our signs so far, none have been correct within 2 tries. I hope a few more years of this (and maybe some more data from less flaky friends) will offer enough data points to see if there's any bias, or if the odds of a good initial guess are uniform. =================== | 1 ellx ------------------- also, don't forget to consider that the cat is conscious and might not like getting hit by pennies :) =================== | 1 ektimo ------------------- Wondrous yes, but not miraculous Star Trek, Richard Manning Hans Beimler, Who Watches the Watchers? (reworded) =================== | 1 djcb ------------------- It's a nice quote, but I would rather think that science originated from the fact that people noticed correlations between things, and then some exceptionally bright people noticed increasingly non-obvious correlations, say in medicine or planetary positions. I can see the 'something is wrong' part in more recent science, i.e., people experimenting, wondering 'hmm, that's funny,.. not what I expected'. Many scientist might discard such findings, but sometimes some lucky soul found something that is both 'wrong' and not an error of measurement, and discover something new. =================== | 1 djcb ------------------- Could you please explain? There is no mentioning of slave morality at all; it's about people trying to subjugate others with words like 'sacrifice'. Even If you see a relation to Nietzsche's master/slave-morality, the quote clearly is not in support of that at all. =================== | 1 davidr ------------------- isomorphic to experiments in science, false and correct theories =================== | 1 cupholder ------------------- That's odd. The Wilson quote in aausch's post heavily implies that Freeman spoke Samoan and Mead didn't. But Paul Shankman's Skeptic article says Mead was a competent fieldworker who spoke Samoan with a degree of fluency and who understood Samoan joking. Hmm. Wonder who's right. =================== | 1 cupholder ------------------- Gerry Rafferty offers an alternative perspective. =================== | 1 cupholder ------------------- Also, what crisis? I had never previously considered the possibility of James Callaghan uploading into an internet-connected paperclip maximizer, but I guess there's a first time for everything. =================== | 1 cousin_it ------------------- You mean, like every Bayesian believes their prior is correct? =================== | 1 cousin_it ------------------- We don't "trust" ourselves not to rationalize, we acknowledge the problem and fight it. If you're trying to make the point that truth-seeking isn't always beneficial, we know that too. I'm too lazy to give you a large list of links, but the first ever post by Robin and the second ever post by Eliezer discuss the issue. I'd estimate the number of posts dealing with this exact topic to be somewhere between 10 and 100 (including my own first post on LW when I was much stupider than now), so you may find it interesting to browse the archives for a while. =================== | 1 cousin_it ------------------- Locked in, huh? Then I don't want to be a Bayesian. =================== | 1 cousin_it ------------------- I wanted to reply thus: Thank you. Maybe I'm a dark person, but I want to learn to argue like that someday. But then I contemplated that desire and banished it. So thanks anyway, and an upvote. =================== | 1 cousin_it ------------------- I don't quite understand your objection. "Love mother" was an unconditional answer, yes. Most people love their mothers, even though the mothers did try to "shape" them in childhood with rewards and punishments. But "hate spinach" and "love ice cream" were inferred from the information in the question. The kid dislikes spinach, or the mother wouldn't need to reward him; but he does like ice cream, or the mother wouldn't use it as a reward. And I haven't heard of any cases where the mother succeeded in "shaping" the kid's food preferences like this. If I'm not allowed to use real-life common sense, it's not clear how I would even understand the question, let alone solve it. Okay, what additional information do you think one should need? Why? =================== | 1 cousin_it ------------------- Holy shit, this the first time ever that I realized the relationship between this Lovecraft quote and classic OB/LW topics. Scary. =================== | 1 colinmarshall ------------------- I used to be a terrible hypochondriac when I was young and a great reader of medical dictionaries. One day I realised that I was not actually frightened of terminal illness but of not getting done the things I wanted to get done. A.C. Grayling, from a recent Guardian mini-interview (My interpretation: remember that our various seemingly nonsensical personality tics can mask other, more addressable concerns.) =================== | 1 ciphergoth ------------------- Or "Where do these stairs go?" ... "They go up." =================== | 1 ciphergoth ------------------- OK, but it takes two minutes to prove that an anti-metric space with more than one point can't exist. If x != y, then d(x, y) + d(y, x) d(x, x). Unless you allow negative distances, in which case an anti-metric space is just a mirror image of a metric space. =================== | 1 ciphergoth ------------------- I don't think you need to do anything as sophisticated as computing the derivative to prove that the only such functions are constant functions. Consider any distinct x_1, x_2. d(x_1, x_2) is nonzero by the definition of metric spaces. If d(f(x_1), f(x_2)) were nonzero, there would be a K small enough for the condition to be violated; therefore it must be zero for all x_1, x_2. =================== | 1 brian_jaress ------------------- [T]he dogmatist within is always worse than the enemy without. -- Stephen Jay Gould =================== | 1 brian_jaress ------------------- This is a lesswrong quote, but I think it belongs in this discussion because it's remarkably apropos: I remember when I finally picked up and started reading through my copy of the Feynman Lectures on Physics, even though I couldn't think of any realistic excuse for how this was going to help my AI work, because I just got fed up with not knowing physics.  And - you can guess how this story ends - it gave me a new way of looking at the world, which all my earlier reading in popular physics (including Feynman's QED) hadn't done.  Did that help inspire my AI research?  Hell yes.  (Though it's a good thing I studied neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, Bayes, and physics in that order - physics alone would have been terrible inspiration for AI research.) -- Eliezer Yudkowsky =================== | 1 brian_jaress ------------------- Since we're doing quotes: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. -- Hanlon's Razor Of course, once you start thinking in terms of stories instead of theories, it's easy to forget that only a tiny fraction of things that happen are the result of planning or motive. =================== | 1 brazil84 ------------------- Something in the way you're asking suggests you might not really want answers. I'd be delighted to find out I'm wrong... Well I'm mainly trying to figure out what Seth Godin's point is. For example, his point might be that people have been brainwashed into feeling that they need to make money to buy various things. On the other hand, his point might be that people have been brainwashed into thinking that they should have a traditional 9 to 5 job. In other words, is he Ted Kozsynski? Or Carleton Sheets? Anyway, having done a couple web searches, I gather that he is advocating entrepreneurship. In any event, brainwashed or not, I think a lot of people -- perhaps most -- are actually better off working as somebody's employee. =================== | 1 billswift ------------------- You might find C.S.Lewis's "The Great Divorce" interesting, at least the part where dead scientists choose to remain in Hell, rather than go to Heaven where God will give them all the answers. =================== | 1 billswift ------------------- What else are you going to trust more? (Remember whatever you trust, and your trusting itself, depends on a "monkey brain".) =================== | 1 billswift ------------------- The Internet sucks for learning. See my short post http://williambswift.blogspot.com/2009/04/web-is-still-not-adequate-for-serious.html . Plus what you need for actually doing things are skills which you cannot pick up by reading, even with decent sources. =================== | 1 bgrah449 ------------------- Events with million-to-one odds of happening in one day to one person happen eight times a day in New York - on average. =================== | 1 benthamite ------------------- Engineering should learn from evolution, but never blindly obey it. Eliezer Yudkowsky, Creating Friendly AI, 2001 =================== | 1 baiter ------------------- I think he means that it is irrational to ponder death when those moments can be spent living life productively. Not sure if I agree -- doesn't the thought of one's death often propel us to great action, while lack of such thoughts leads to complacency? Anyways here is the the proof from the Ethics: Proof.— (67:1) A free man is one who lives under the guidance of reason, who is not led by fear (IV:lxiii.), but who directly desires that which is good (IV:lxiii.Coroll.), in other words (IV:xxiv.), who strives to act, to live, and to preserve his being on the basis of seeking his own true advantage; wherefore such an one thinks of nothing less than of death, but his wisdom is a meditation of life. =================== | 1 ata ------------------- This comment was already indexed by google. I've noticed that things on LW get indexed by Google really quickly. Wonder why that is. Maybe because LW uses a Google Custom Search, Google pays especially close attention to changes on it? =================== | 1 ata ------------------- By the way, Eliezer has already explicitly rejected a similar quote attributed to Einstein. They're both of dubious authenticity anyway. (I searched around for this version too, and the earliest mention of it I could find was in a 1977 Reader's Digest, and that's only according to a citation in a 2006 book.) That has nothing to do with whether it's true, of course — if a vague maxim like this can count as a rationality quote at all, then that is independent of whether or not Einstein said it. =================== | 1 arundelo ------------------- Voted this up, but of course Searle's dog was selected for chasing things similar enough to tennis balls. =================== | 1 ariel ------------------- Nullius in verba ~The Royal Society =================== | 1 anonym ------------------- We define the art of conjecture, or stochastic art, as the art of evaluating as exactly as possible the probabilities of things, so that in our judgments and actions we can always base ourselves on what has been found to be the best, the most appropriate, the most certain, the best advised; this is the only object of the wisdom of the philosopher and the prudence of the statesman. Jacob Bernoulli =================== | 1 anonym ------------------- Trust a witness in all matters in which neither his self-interest, his passions, his prejudices, nor the love of the marvelous is strongly concerned. When they are involved, require corroborative evidence in exact proportion to the contravention of probability by the thing testified. Thomas Henry Huxley =================== | 1 anonym ------------------- In all sensation we pick and choose, interpret, seek and impose order, and devise and test hypotheses about what we witness. Sense data are taken, not merely given: we learn to perceive.… The teacher has forgotten, and the student himself will soon forget, that what he sees conveys no information until he knows beforehand the kind of thing he is expected to see. Peter Medawar — Pluto’s Republic, “Hypothesis and Imagination”, p. 117 =================== | 1 anonym ------------------- If I only had a dollar for every time somebody misquoted that wonderful quote to me as "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"... =================== | 1 anonym ------------------- I'm guessing the number comes from the population of New York city: about 8 million. =================== | 1 anonym ------------------- I guess we understand the phrase "out of context" differently then and have to disagree. I would never use it for leaving out a single adjective, and haven't heard it used that way. I have only heard it used when entire clauses or sentences are omitted. I note that wikipedia seems to agree with my interpretation. From Fallacy of Quoting Out of Context (emphasis mine): The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning. ... Contextomy refers to the selective excerpting of words from their original linguistic context in a way that distorts the source’s intended meaning, a practice commonly referred to as "quoting out of context". The problem here is not the removal of a quote from its original context (as all quotes are) per se, but to the quoter's decision to exclude from the excerpt certain nearby phrases or sentences (which become "context" by virtue of the exclusion) that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words. =================== | 1 andrewc ------------------- ... hardly anyone except perhaps Richard Dawkins imagines that by denigrating religion one is advancing science. --E.T. Jaynes, "Probability Theory". =================== | 1 alexflint ------------------- Jack, this is actually part of an ongoing debate with a friend and I would quite like to be better informed about what the various postmodern positions actually are. Can you recommend a good overview/starting point given that I don't have a very great amount of time to invest? Or is it simply too broad a subject to ever get a reasonable birds-eye view? =================== | 1 alexflint ------------------- Fair point :) I've little formal philosophical training other than a little logic and what I've picked up out of my own personal interest. The debate is about whether the general public's surprise when scientific consensus turns out to be wrong is explained by a misconception of realism. My counter-claim is that science attempts to approximate, and hopefully gets closer over time to, truth, and that no one should be overly surprised when a scientific theory is overturned in light of new evidence. =================== | 1 akshatrathi ------------------- The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. -- Albert Einstein =================== | 1 ajayjetti ------------------- What is wrong with that? =================== | 1 agolubev ------------------- simply saying that you've talked about a weakness doesn't erradicate it. The weakness may be within you, but what affects you mroe is the extent of the problem with the REST of the society. If anything my point is that you should be spending all your effort working on the other 99% of the population, because they're going to affect your life a whole lot more by limiting your ability to live your life they way you think it oughta be lived. you know - bigger bang for the buck. Our (ANY country) education, medicine, politics, business, marriage are so full of BACKWARDS incentives that we will never come close at ALL to USING the intricacies of the problems this blog discusses. Maybe you think you can live a life disconnected from this, but if you have a job or are in a relationship or have kids, then you're not overcoming any bias. You may know that, but you're not living it. Paying tribute to that with my Anonymous quote. =================== | 1 aausch ------------------- My intuition marked this comment's intent as more humorous than serious- is my calibration off? =================== | 1 aausch ------------------- It seems everyone's been aiming at the same meta-level, so I thought I'd try something a bit less direct. The quote, for me, comments on several common themes around here. Probably the strongest connections I make are to updating of priors based on evidence, and to the issue of communication, when the speakers possess different levels of self awareness and rational thinking ability. The image is also one of the most recognizable from the book, and I thought it's worth while having it referenced here - though I suppose I should have researched a less oblique quote. =================== | 1 aausch ------------------- I am not looking for intelligent disagreement any longer.... What I am looking for is intelligent agreement. ~ Ayn Rand =================== | 1 Zubon ------------------- Would it be correct to say you mean "should" in the wishful thinking sense of "we really want this outcome," rather than something normative or probabilistic? =================== | 1 Zubon ------------------- That seems like an easy case to test, provided you have some way to re-light the candle. =================== | 1 Zubon ------------------- Raymond Smullyan is a gold mine for different cached thoughts. Maybe I should start finding quotes on random pages for these threads. =================== | 1 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- TELFER: At least I have a friend. Don't you ever get lonely down there? HARREN: In the company of my own thoughts? Never. TELFER: I don't believe that. Spend some time with us when we get back. You might enjoy yourself. HARREN: A hypothesis that would require testing. I'm a theoretician, remember? ---Star Trek: Voyager, "Good Shepherd" =================== | 1 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- Oh, I agree with you that nature vs. nurture is a false dichotomy, but I was actually cheered to see this exchange. As terrible as it is by our epistemic standards, it's actually quite sophisticated by Star Trek standards. (So much of what gets called science fiction is actually technology fantasy.) I was similarly cheered to see the other exchange that I posted from that episode: he actually used the word hypothesis! Real philosophy of science! On Voyager! I love it! Best episode ever! And you can see how this is still a rationality quote despite the conceptual confusion. Janeway is trying to break through Harren's contempt, but Harren resists her cliches and insists on (what he erroneously thinks is) accuracy. =================== | 1 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- JANEWAY: I understand you grew up on Vico Five. No wonder you became a cosmologist. HARREN: Wildest sky in the Alpha quadrant. JANEWAY: So they say. I've never been there. HARREN: Do you really believe that childhood environment is more important than genetically driven behaviour patterns? JANEWAY: Just making conversation. HARREN: Conversation filled with unspoken assumptions, which I don't agree with. I'm a product of my nucleic acids. Where and how I was raised are beside the point. So if you're trying to understand me better, questions about my home planet are irrelevant. ---Star Trek: Voyager, "Good Shepherd" =================== | 1 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- In questions of morality, there's nothing but the (really complicated) bottom line. =================== | 1 Zack_M_Davis ------------------- I thought it exemplifies a virtue which is nameless. =================== | 1 Yorick_Newsome ------------------- ^ Yossarian, a character in the novel Catch 22, by Joseph Heller. =================== | 1 Yorick_Newsome ------------------- I liked this comment, but as anonym points out far below, the original blog post is really talking about "pre-scientific and scientific ways of investigating and understanding the world." - anonym. So 'just a few centuries ago' might not be very accurate in the context of the post. The author's fault, not yours; but just sayin'. =================== | 1 XiXiDu ------------------- Thanks, as I wrote here, I'll just listen and learn now. Next time I'll hopefully think about it, if I might actually be able to add something valuable. This is certainly not the usual forum where some uneducated guy like me can just chat about anything he might not even understand properly. Which is very good, less noise. I'm happy the original quote at least caused some debate. =================== | 1 XiXiDu ------------------- I'm serious on this. I apologize for my naivety in thinking I could participate in such a discussion and for posting this quote in the first place. Reading some of your exchanges, and especially the one between Splat and Steven Landsburg (03 February 2010), opened my eyes about how little I really know and that I'm completely unable to judge any claims being made regarding this topic. Most of it is indeed far over my head. I'll retreat to further studying, educating myself, and listen and learn what you people have to say. So please ignore my previous comments. I'm happy that the original quote at least caused some, hopefully enlightening, debate. =================== | 1 XiXiDu ------------------- I should have checked the lesswrong wiki before posting this. And of course read the mentioned posts here on lesswrong.com. One of the easiest hard questions, as millennia-old philosophical dilemmas go. Though this impossible question is fully and completely dissolved on Less Wrong... Anyway, for those who care or are wondering what I have been talking about I thought I should provide some background information. My above drivel is loosely based on work by Björn Brembs et al. "Our results address the middle ground between simple determinism and randomness that is currently not well understood or characterized. We speculate that if free will exists, it is in this middle ground." This leads me to believe that the question of whether or not we have free will appears to be posed the wrong way. Instead, if we ask 'where between chance and necessity are we located?' one finds that this is precisely where humans and animals differ. Humans may not have free will in the philosophical sense, but even flies have a number of behavioral options they need to decide between. Humans are less determined than flies and possess even more options. With this small reformulation, the topic of free will becomes the new biological research area of studying spontaneous behavior and can thus be discerned from the philosophical question. PLoS ONE: Order in Spontaneous Behavior Maybe a misinterpretation on my side. But now my above comments might make a bit more sense, or at least show where I'm coming from. I learnt about this via a chat about 'free will'. Hope you don't mind I post this. Maybe somebody will find it useful or informative. =================== | 1 XiXiDu ------------------- Ah ok, I guess I shouldn't have posted this on lesswrong.com - Really, it's a book that muses about the possibility of a mathematical universe. Mind is biology. Biology is chemistry. Chemistry is physics. Physics being math. Mind perceives math, thus the universe exists physically. Erase the "baggage" and all that's left is math. It explicitly states that all assertions are pure speculation, philosophical thought, not science. I think it's a very beautiful idea. This quote thus might be a bit out of context. More info here: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/11/the-big-questions.html So please don't judge the book by my quote here. Wasn't my intention. If you've read Permutation City by Greg Egan, this is musing about it being real. =================== | 1 Will_Newsome ------------------- As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. -- Henry David Thoreau =================== | 1 Wei_Dai ------------------- I suppose you could start a non-profit organization, but that's just another form of entrepreneurship. You could leech off society or friends and relatives, but presumably we don't want to encourage that. So, I don't know... You seem to be implying here and in other comments that you have more ideas. Why not share them? =================== | 1 Wei_Dai ------------------- Apparently, to summarize several responses, brevity is key. Well, I like brevity as much as the next person, but I also like explanations and arguments, and it seems that most quotes achieve conciseness at the cost of leaving out the "why". So after reading a quote, I can have one of three responses: nod my head in agreement if it's something I already knew track down the original book/article to find the explanation or argument just move on with some amount of frustration 1 and 3 don't provide me with much benefit, and I usually don't bother to do 2, because of the hassle involved, and because I don't know whether the source material even contains an attempt to argue or explain. =================== | 1 Warrigal ------------------- You're assuming that probability mass tends to be split between stuff. This would be true, if all interesting statements were mutually exclusive or something. But consider the hypothesis that at least one statement in the Bible is true. This hypothesis is very complex, and yet its prior probability is very large. =================== | 1 Warrigal ------------------- You can speed up your math reading skill by practicing, but be careful. Like any skill, trying too much too fast can set you back and kill your motivation. Imagine trying to do an hour of high-energy aerobics if you have not worked out in two years. You may make it through the first class, but you are not likely to come back. Shai Simonson and Fernando Gouvea, How to Read Mathematics =================== | 1 Warrigal ------------------- Well, the quote could be interpreted as "Any scientific theory must ultimately produce some numbers, so that reality can be measured and we can see whether the numbers match." Another interpretation is "A scientific theory ultimately isn't a scientific theory at all unless it's essentially a set of equations." =================== | 1 Warrigal ------------------- A "friend" of mine was a fan of using this to argue for Christianity. The idea of never changing one's mind doesn't seem very rational. =================== | 1 Waldheri ------------------- My initial response was to chuckle, but when my analytical capacities kicked in a moment later I was disappointed. If his initial assumptions was that he was walking into a bar, does that make him atheist in this metaphor? Substitute "walked into a bar" by "believed there is a god", the thing I assume it is a metaphor of. You will see it makes no sense. =================== | 1 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- You may give solid advice, accompanying it with ridiculous rationalization. The bottom line is correct, but the reasons you put above it are not. So, in this case, I assume that the practical advice he gives might be reasonable, but the description of why it works is not. =================== | 1 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Trace is something like a list of execution steps of a program, a list of what happens at each step, for all steps. When a program runs indefinitely, it'll be a potentially infinite list (or actually infinite if we know the program won't terminate). Finite dynamical system is something like a program (together with its current state) that is itself finite, and allows to compute data of the same kind (e.g. program + state) for the next step: this transition from the current step to the next step is the dynamic. Infinity appears in this process when we consider all the (future) steps, not just one, even though one step is enough to determine them all. Objectification as I used it is a concept from mathematics, when you are trying to capture some phenomenon as a certain kind of single mathematical object (as opposed to a thing with whistles, processes and hand-waving). =================== | 1 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Since you are already locked in in some preference anyway, you should figure out how to compute within it best (build a FAI). =================== | 1 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- No, he might be right about how people in business react "rationally", and I wouldn't know anything about that. =================== | 1 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Just how animated objects perceived their surroundings was a mystery even to the wizards who created them; when customers asked, the universal reply was simply, "It's magic." -- Lawrence Watt-Evans, Ithanalin's Restoration =================== | 1 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Don’t just do something, stand there. -- George Shultz. HT: Gödel’s Lost Letter and P=NP. =================== | 1 Vladimir_Nesov ------------------- Beyond the age of information is the age of choices. -- Charles Eames =================== | 1 Vlad ------------------- It's not "blatantly false". To get from theory to practice you have to add to the theory various pieces of information about the practical issue. E.g. you might have a general theory of economics, but as a businessman you also have to consider the local details (which are not part of the general theory). The general theory might tell you (in the best case scenario) what information you need to gather (e.g. Newtonian mechanics tells you that in order to solve specific problems you have to know the force and measure position and velocity at a given time), but even so, you still need to gather that information. So the relationship between theory and practice is not reversible: you may have a general theory and yet be unable to solve specific problems (as you lack the specific information - e.g. meteorology), or you may be able to solve specific problems but lack a general theory (e.g. psychology). =================== | 1 ValH ------------------- This is something I actually struggle with a lot. I read something that strikes me as profound, and that I agree with, but as soon as I try to explain it it's all gone, and I'm left with bits and pieces that don't make much sense to anyone else. I'm not sure if this is a failure on my part to understand, simplify an idea, or explain it. =================== | 1 Unnamed ------------------- That should be "Iyengar" with an i. =================== | 1 Unknowns ------------------- Even if their explanation were correct, they would still have lucked into them. Others have different priors and no doubt different causes for their priors. So those Bayesians would have been lucky, in order to have the causes that would produce correct priors instead of incorrect ones. =================== | 1 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- You have not made the case that the point is idiotic. Are you under the impression that the idiocy is self-evident to this audience? =================== | 1 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- What a fun game: Impossibilities are imaginable. =================== | 1 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- Unless I'm reading you wrong, those "other benefits" amount to no more than signaling tribal loyalties, at least in practical terms. ETA: . . . and if that kind of behavior helps a tribe to grow, it does so for non-truth-tracking reasons, producing a tribe full of people who are there just because they like the company. =================== | 1 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- It is opaque. If I'm reading it right, it's a functionalist argument against the concept of qualia, much as Dennett makes here. =================== | 1 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- I had trouble understanding the quote out of context. The first sentence is fine. But, despite a prior understanding of Hume's argument, I couldn't see how Aretae got from the first sentence to the conclusion that "Hume's argument goes up in smoke". On the contrary, Hume's point was that the connections we make in our minds might have little similarity to the actual connections, if any, that exist among things in the external world. I had to go to the context to see that Aretae is making Hume out to be some kind of a-priorist. Aretae concludes that general arguments against a-priorists are therefore arguments against Hume. This is a bizarre misreading of Hume. Hume's problem of induction is itself an attack on a-priorism. He refers to a-priori arguments only to show that they do not suffice to justify induction. This was big news in a day when practically all intellectuals were a-priorists. =================== | 1 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- Don't know why this was downvoted. The second clause is essentially Egans Law: It all adds up to normality. =================== | 1 Tyrrell_McAllister ------------------- Basically, the shuttle is a system of rockets carrying a space-worthy airplane as payload. Both of these components had predecessors. Had the shuttle been the first rocket or first space-worthy airplane, it would have falsified Gall's Law. =================== | 1 Tordmor ------------------- I think I get it now. There seems to be a confusion about what specialization means. It means specializing in the service you provide, not in the customers you provide it to. Market segmentation is only a tool to identify how to specialize your service. But no sane company would refuse to deliver to a paying customer simply because he doesn't fit into their target audience. And there is a difference between computer programming and basic marketing. The former is a specific skill with a smaller area of application while the latter is a very general skill, and what is more one that stems from a basic human trait, namely the formation of relationships. Of course, not everybody needs specific marketing knowledge as taught in business administration. Finally, I'm not arguing against working for a single employer in general. Quite the contrary. When you're relatively new to your field of work you almost certainly lack the experience to be a successful entrepreneur and should first learn the trade under the relative security of employment. What I am arguing is, that if a huge number of people do not gain the confidence from experience to form their own idea of the service they want to provide and market it to a relevant audience something seems to be wrong, because taking responsibility for your life and forming relationships is an essential part of growing up. =================== | 1 Tordmor ------------------- I fail to see your point. =================== | 1 Torben ------------------- I feel dirty now. =================== | 1 Tiiba ------------------- I reread your first post, and I think that you might have understood the word "action" too literally. Determinism is not presupposed in ANY human action, but to plan your next move, you need some idea of what its effect will be. And to do that, you need rules. That's causality. =================== | 1 ThomasRyan ------------------- I concede that the quote was inappropriate. Marriage is not merely, primarily or even credibly understood to be a protection for society with the object of reproducing of that same society. This pertains to the part of the quote that I don't care too much about and don't have much of an opinion on. The thing that I found most valuable in the phrase was this: "reproducing itself through generations," in the discussion of a nation. It's something that I've tried to say before, but it came out very clumsy. So, seeing something similar to what I've been trying to say, written, was great. I'm sure you've had the experience before. Anyway, now I feel really silly putting that quote up. Please understand that I'm likely much younger than you and am just now getting my feet wet with rationality. Thank you for the discourse and I'll see you around. =================== | 1 Thomas ------------------- When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Arthur Conan Doyle =================== | 1 Technologos ------------------- Seth appears to be contrasting a "job" with things like "being an entrepreneur in business for oneself," so perhaps the first of your options. =================== | 1 Technologos ------------------- My Cthulhu, yes. 3^^^3 days of sleet is so far beyond my normal conceptions of badness that I'm not sure a dozen lifetimes of torture would be enough. 3^^^3 is a very large number. =================== | 1 Technologos ------------------- Me, I like that I can carry them around as an easily-accessed procedure for focusing on a rationalist task. Some of Eliezer's most effective posts, I'd say, had as a key feature a single phrase ("shut up and multiply," for instance) that stuck with the community much like quotes stick with me. =================== | 1 Technologos ------------------- Careful... diminishing returns still apply ;) =================== | 1 Strange7 ------------------- It disappoints me that this kind of thing is still news to some people. I value survival (that is, the continued existence of things similar to myself) first and foremost, partly because it's the one thing my ancestors have had in common ever since the invention of phospholipid membranes. The state of Existence is, metaphorically, engaged in ongoing skirmishes with it's various neighbors in possibilty-space, so I'd rather stay away from the border, just to avoid getting caught on the wrong side if it shifts. =================== | 1 Sticky ------------------- Well, unless I've remembered it wrong, only two or three people have ever survived that fall. If I'm wrong, substitute a plane. Or a personal unprotected atmospheric re-entry. Sometime there really are problems that can't be helped. =================== | 1 Steve_Rayhawk ------------------- While I agree, where could the earth be getting its strength from? =================== | 1 Steve_Rayhawk ------------------- Economic growth occurs whenever people take resources and rearrange them in ways that are more valuable. A useful metaphor for production in an economy comes from the kitchen. To create valuable final products, we mix inexpensive ingredients together according to a recipe. The cooking one can do is limited by the supply of ingredients, and most cooking in the economy produces undesirable side effects. If economic growth could be achieved only by doing more and more of the same kind of cooking, we would eventually run out of raw materials and suffer from unacceptable levels of pollution and nuisance. Human history teaches us, however, that economic growth springs from better recipes, not just from more cooking. New recipes generally produce fewer unpleasant side effects and generate more economic value per unit of raw material. . . . Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. The difficulty is the same one we have with compounding: possibilities do not merely add up; they multiply. - Paul M. Romer, "Economic Growth", The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2007 (Related to a theme in We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think, which is about failure to grasp the other arguments one could have considered, and to a theme in arguments about the consequences of intelligence (Expected Creative Surprises, Belief in Intelligence, Efficient Cross-Domain Optimization, Recursive Self-Improvement, Dreams of Friendliness, That Alien Message, or The AI-Box Experiment), which are about failure to grasp the strategies that something more intelligent than oneself could find. People usually can't feel loss of opportunities unless they are already able to imagine the details of the opportunity. To be rational, one should have a habit of making well-calibrated estimates of how much opportunity would be felt by the sort of person who would have investigated the details.) =================== | 1 Stefan_King ------------------- It is worth emphasizing that your competitor is under the maximum handicap if he acts in a completely rational, objective, and logical fashion. For then he will cooperate as long as he thinks he benefits at all. In fact, if he is completely logical, he will not forgo the profit of cooperation as long as there is any net benefit. -- Bruce Henderson =================== | 1 Stefan_King ------------------- I posted the quote half hoping for a response like this. I have only superficial knowledge of Newcomb's Problem, and knew this would be relevant. I wrote "Rationalists should WIN!" in the margin of the article. The whole document is a lesson in Dark Arts Please taboo "Dark Arts". Also note that the competitor in this context is an industrial company, in a pre-Silicon Valley era. They have to restrain their (price) competition, or they will destroy each other. The question is how to make the competitor restrain himself more than you do. To me this looks more like capitalism than The Villain's Handbook. =================== | 1 Stefan_King ------------------- A man free of deceit and illusion. One who is virtuous and wise, a courtly philosopher. But do not be so only in appearance, or flaunt your virtue. Philosophy is no longer revered, although it is the chief pursuit of the wise. The science of prudence is no longer venerated. Seneca introduced it to Rome, and for a time it appealed to the noble. But now it is considered useless and bothersome. And yet freeing oneself from deceit has always been food for prudence, and one of the delights of righteousness. -- Baltasar Gracian =================== | 1 SirBacon ------------------- And when one goeth through fire for his teaching--what doth that prove? Verily, it is more when one's teaching cometh out of one's own burning! -Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- They are the results of that same rationalistic "individualism" which wants to see in everything the product of conscious individual reason. I lean libertarian, and have long worn the "yay Hayek!" mantle, but, looking back... It seems like he's unfairly using a) poorly-grounded attempts at large-scale social planning, to justify b) a philosophical, universal belief in the superiority of self-organizing systems over designed ones (i.e. even in building a robot). Eliezer Yudkowsky has previous criticized b) in the context of Rodney Brookss preferred robotic architecture. In some contexts, a centrally-planned mechanism which is the product of conscious individual reason is a better way to go. The inferiority of planned economies is not due to the very general superiority of self-organization that Hayek is claiming here. =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- Nor, apparently, when they're not even wrong. cousin_it's reply was non-responsive. =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- No, the whole point is if you have two entities, one of whom is a zombie and one of whom is conscious, there must be some physical difference in their brains. ('p-zombie' normally is used in the context of the (impossible) thought experiment where there is no physical difference in the two brains, but only one is conscious.) Please don't misunderstand -- I agree with all of that! I meant that the whole point of using the term "p-zombie" is to specify a being with the (hypothetical) properties that it looks just like a human (or being that is normally accepted as conscious), in all physically discernable ways, but (somehow) lacks consciousness. So I was confused as to how it could affect the storyline for some being to be specified as a p-zombie, since you wouldn't know the difference. I agree that such a being can't exist, for the standard reasons. If the vampires actually have different brain architectures, then they shouldn't be called p-zombies, because they don't have the form of something normally conscious, like a human. It would make as much sense as saying that a rock is a p-zombie. =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- Maybe the problem is that you're focusing too much on whether the proverb is authentic Chinese rather than on whether it accurately captures reality? =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- I think the only ick reaction here is from my examples of experiences that are much more painful than any epistemic event. =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- Hey, just suggesting a hypothetical... There really are worse things in life than realizing you're wrong mid-argument. =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- Great quote! (Talk about be smacked with your own hidden assumptions...) Got a link to the surrounding text? =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- ETA = Edited to add (not "estimated time of arrival", the more common usage) I sometimes use ETC, edited to correct, but that hasn't caught on. ETA: And heres the LessWrong acronym list -- we need to link it from the front page. =================== | 1 SilasBarta ------------------- "If the brain needs ... to make pair-bonding compatible with self-awareness - it will lie, shamelessly, as mush as it has to, in order to make the strategy succeed." Neat typo: it preserves the meaning of the passage. If you don't see how, read it as "If the brain needs you to feel romantic love, it will lie -- as mush, it has to -- in order to succeed." =================== | 1 Sideways ------------------- I think the point of the quote is not that young folks are more able to unlearn falsehoods; it's that they haven't learned as many falsehoods as old people, just by virtue of not having been around as long. If you can unlearn falsehoods, you can keep a "young" (falsehood-free) mind. =================== | 1 Sebastian_Hagen ------------------- never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. I'd like to add to that: Never forget who the true enemy is. =================== | 1 Rune ------------------- What does one mean when one denies the truth of ~(p^~p)? I would guess the person means that this statement is not always true, and thus there exists a p for which this statement is false. Which would mean that there is a p for which p and ~p are simultaneously true. Of course this doesn't mean that the person believes that "to be beaten is the same as not to be beaten", but it's an amusing quote. =================== | 1 RolfAndreassen ------------------- The Earth is a (fairly) rigid body held together by its internal structure, and is not required to be moving at orbital velocity at every point on its surface. That is, the effect you mention exists, but it is not clear that it exactly cancels the gravitational effect. (Or equivalently, it's not obvious that the tidal effect is small.) Don't forget that the Earth's rotation is reducing your effective orbital velocity on the day-side, and increasing it on the night-side. Now, if you have some numbers showing that the cancellation is close to exact for the specific case of the Earth, that's fine. An argument showing that it's always going to be close to exact for planet-sized bodies in orbit around stars would also be convincing. =================== | 1 Roko ------------------- Yeah, yuck! Um actually, maybe I might be persuaded if the lady asks really nicely... =================== | 1 Roko ------------------- Sounds like a lot of people would like to live in this world quite a lot. Imagine how happy the creationists would be! Hell, most people want that world. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- What's wrong with just using "Edit: additional note goes here" That's what I use, come to think of it. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Well, how did you mean your question? I mean, the answer is obviously, "of course you can act without guaranteed results, that's every action anyone has ever taken ever." Except that it's an utterly inane result which the people in the free will community (mostly) don't care about, and this entire debate is in the free will community, and needs to be understood in the context of compatibilism and incompatibilism. See, there are numerous philosophers (and non-philosophers) whose model of free choice is "choice which could go either way, even under the exact same circumstances" - and they interpret it logically, that you could load the save file from before the decision and see them switch. If that's the nature of a free decision, then you run into the problem of the soup, here - apparently, you're only free to order the soup if you've got some measurable chance of not ordering the soup, despite that you'd have to be crazy or stupid to not order the soup. Which is counterintuitive, because nobody's holding a gun to your head - it looks like an exemplar of a free decision unless you're committed to that sort of philosophy. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Wait, are you asking the empirical question, "do human decision-making processes operate in a deterministic fashion"? As far as I can tell, the answer is approximately "yes" (at least at scales typical of ordering food at a restaurant without influence from nondeterministic random-number generators), the aforementioned can-go-either-way philosophers are committed to the opposite answer (or to believing that we're just automata), and the people you really should be asking are the cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. Of which I am neither. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Through judicious abuse of my employer's resources, I have acquired a copy of the PDF - PM me an email address and I'll send it to you. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- There is no reason to propose such a being - privileging the hypothesis is when you consider a hypothesis before any evidence has forced you to raise that hypothesis to the level of consideration. Unless you have a mountain of evidence (and I'm guessing it'll have to be cosmological to support a god that hasn't visibly intervened in the world) already driving you to argue that there might be a god, don't bother proposing the possibility. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- That's not even empirically true. At best, morality is the (really complicated) function relating "is" and "ought" - which means errors in the "is" can make vast differences to the consequent "ought". (For example, in the Americas a couple centuries ago, it was widely believed that black people were not capable of being successful and happy without supervision of white people, and it was consequently meet to own such people in the same way as livestock is owned.) =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Some people prefer en-dashes – option-hyphen, alt-0150 – when you're surrounding them with spaces, only using em-dashes without the spaces, but I don't think it's important. Hyphens are more Lynx-friendly, so I often use those. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Point taken. Nevertheless, the fact that people draw absurd conclusions from a belief has no bearing on whether that belief should be questioned unless those absurd conclusions are (1) logical, rather than philosophical, inferences, and (2) contrary to evidence. Those conditions do not hold for reductionism (and Dennett, in particular, had a few things to say about "greedy reductionism"). =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- One of the most insidious sources of confusion, I find, is the distinction between the meaning of a word and its most frequent uses. It ties into the whole "Applause Lights" phenomenon, particularly "Fake Norms". P.S. Belatedly: Welcome to Less Wrong! Feel free to introduce yourself in that thread. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Now that is very strange, if my Yahoo search is any indication. (For the record: when I searched on Yahoo, it gave me "Quantum Explanations" as the very first hit. This may be a case of context-dependent searching, as I had immediately prior searched with the quotes.) Edit: Fascinating! Look at Altavista! =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Link appears to be broken. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Just out of curiosity: do you know the origin of that quote? I've tried to find the citation before, but been unable. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- I'm not sure enough to state it categorically, as you have, but his choice of sexist implication to withdraw seemed strange to me as well. The obvious problem to my eyes is that it assumes that the entire possible audience is attracted solely to women. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- I think I see the difficulty - my language is phrased in terms of an absolute morality to which all historical systems are approximations of varying accuracy. Do I correctly infer that you reject that concept? If so, I believe it reasonable to assume that the remaining confusion is a matter of phrasing. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- I personally recommend A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will by Robert Kane to anyone interested in that kind of question - it's short, and except when dealing with Kane's own theory (which it only does for the last few chapters), quite fair-minded. But to address your remark: one problem with declaring indeterminism in human decision-making is how it interacts with cases where the decision is obvious. Suppose you were visiting a town you only ever traveled to once a decade, and in that town you went to a restaurant serving the greatest (let's say) minestrone soup in the world. You haven't eaten minestrone soup at all for a year, you love the stuff, it's the cheapest thing on the menu, and you're leaving tomorrow so you know you gotta get you some of this. If you are causally determined to order the minestrone soup, are you acting of your own free will when you do? If you are not, then are you acting of your own free will if you don't? (I steal this example from my "Action and Responsibility" class a year or two ago, but it's a good one.) =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- I feel like an idiot for not seeing this earlier: you're right; this is the tidal force problem. More precisely, the lunar tidal acceleration (along the Moon-Earth axis, at the Earth's surface) is about 1.1 × 10−7 g, while the solar tidal acceleration (along the Sun-Earth axis, at the Earth's surface) is about 0.52 × 10−7 g, where g is the gravitational acceleration at the Earth's surface. In other words, the measured weight of 100-kg human changes from Solar gravity by 5.2 [edit: milli]grams between equitorial solar noon or midnight and equitorial dawn or dusk. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- I didn't downvote, but I didn't upvote either. The trouble is that a moment's thought reveals a host of objections. If I understand correctly, rationality quotes ought to be good, useful cached thoughts; this is merely a useful observation. (Edit: On further reflection, I've upvoted it. Points to eirenicon.) =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- I didn't - watching just now, as suggested by your comment, I bailed at the German type of toilet. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Hey, Darwin predicted and explained punctuated equilibrium all the way back in The Origin of the Species. It's remarkable how often the old masters hit a target generations ahead of their time. Or rather, it would be if I didn't already know that human beings don't as a rule draw the full benefit from the evidence at hand - which implies a small variation in the accuracy of the extrapolation leads to startling insight. (Not having read the Latin - chiefly thanks to not being fluent in the Latin - I can't swear it's a perfect translation, but I saw it in the book and had to quote it.) =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Good points. What I was attempting to measure was the relative measure* of rationalists on TV Tropes versus other nerd communities. The part of my thesis being tested is that no notable difference need be hypothesized to explain EY's perception of unusual rationality in the wiki. (Was I mistaken to believe that EY thought TV Tropes was unusually rational compared to other nerdy Internet communities, as opposed to compared to other Internet communities, full stop? I agree that TV Tropes is nerdier than most of the Internet.) * i.e. fraction of population weighted by intensity of participation. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Eliezer makes the further claim in those pieces that non-reductionism is based on confusion and doesn't lead to a coherent worldview, but that's not a property of reductionism. | If you take reductionism for granted, and some entity does not easily fit it, then you are seduced into eliminating that entity. Are there any actual individuals you have in mind when you make this generalization? To my knowledge, I have never heard of an individual ignoring observed phenomena they could not predict reductively. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- Elaboration, please? =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- According to Wikipedia, solar tides are about 0.52*10^-7 g, as opposed to lunar tides of about 1.1*10^-7 g. One part in twenty million and one part in ten million, respectively. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- A similar quote appears in Quantum Explanations - I imagine that's who Robin Brandt quoted. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- A logical inference is inescapable. If the universe is purely deterministic, then everything that happens tomorrow can be predicted from a complete description of the laws of nature and state of the universe at this exact instant - this is a logical inference. But if the universe is purely deterministic, then the people in the universe might be fully responsible for their acts or they might not - philosophers have drawn both inferences, because the deduction depends on additional premises not stated in the syllogism. Likewise, the inference from reductionism to the conclusion that ordinary things do not exist - what Dennett called "greedy reductionism", and what you^H^H^Hspuckblase (sorry, didn't look at the names!) offered Schaffer's beliefs as an anodyne to - has been argued, but has also been denied, by philosophers. Its validity depends on other premises, such as what it means to exist. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- A fair point, to be sure. Edit: To be precise, to a major extent, the causality is probably in the opposite direction - because treating people the way slaves were treated is wrong, those with a stake in the matter had it widely argued that the chattel slaves were not people in the proper sense of the word. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- A bit of a meta-quote: But in choosing a chair we follow the dictates of our eyes, for better or for worse, more often than those of our "ischial tuberosities," and the hammocklike Hardoy looks comfortable. [Joseph] Rykwert correctly assumes that "the buyers of Hardoy chairs, like many other customers for design goods, are guided in their choice by promptings quite different from the dictates of reason." And he adds a conclusion worth remembering: "The very fact that they do so should be a matter of interest to the designer: nothing human should be alien to him." A Philosophy of Interior Design (1990) by Stanley Abercrombie, quoting "The Sitting Position - A Question of Method" (1958) by Joseph Rykwert. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- ...why? =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- ...my, I am an idiot. No, it certainly doesn't look presupposed - I imagine someone is misunderstanding (Edit: or equivocating) the term "causal determinism". Causality is presupposed, but not determinism. =================== | 1 RobinZ ------------------- ...I am such a clod. Please adjust your votes accordingly. =================== | 1 RobinHanson ------------------- Apparently Lewis is implicitly contrasting math to some other fields where it would be OK for philosophers to correct the beliefs of others. What are those other fields? =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- rrrrOWWR! CHOMP! =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- Whoever it was, it was clearly someone who has never proved a theorem. Ok, in context he's talking about moral beliefs, but still. =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- When the time comes, there is no moment for reasoning. And if you have not done your inquiring beforehand, there is most often shame. Reading books and listening to people's talk are for the purpose of prior resolution. Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- This looks not like rationality, but like one of David Stoves examples of thought gone wrong. And like his examples, the context is just more of the same. Can you explain what you see in Boyd's words? ETA: I've since googled to see who John Boyd was, and he was a notable military strategist credited with fundamental improvements to fighter aircraft design. That tweaked my interest up enough to read some more of his work, but I am still unable to see anything in it. =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- The more I read that, the less sense it makes. Are we to conclude that Dawkins is as wrong about evolution as the Intelligent Design proponents? Is there the slightest reason to think that whatever source Landsburg is paraphrasing as "for Dawkins, complexity can arise only from simplicity", Dawkins had anything but evolution in mind? What has the ontological status of arithmetic to do with how present-day lifeforms came to be? What does any of this have to do with rationality? =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- Simplicity and concision are independent. I don't find Eliezer's sequences complicated. They are long, but simple all the way through. Simplicity and grandmother-explainability are also not the same thing. I'd reject the grandmother quote, but this one I don't have a problem with, even if Einstein never said it. Something I tell students when I'm teaching programming is "What is not clearly said was never clearly thought." =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- It doesn't sound like that to me. Can you elaborate? =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- I looked up the book "Gems from Spurgeon" cited in that link. Heres the whole book. =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- I googled around for this, and uncovered a rich seam of thought gone mad, including one complete lunatic insisting (in an academic journal, too) that nothing exists but quantum points, which have no relationship whatever to each other (and has also written about the secret rulers of the world in a book that an enthusiastic reviewer describes as more plausible than David Icke). Schaffer doesn't seem to actually take a position on atomism or monism -- heres another paper by him. None of the material I looked at contained the argument (which convinces me) that the simplest descriptions of reality use complex entities (rocks, people, uranium, etc.), and that all the soul-searching over what really exists is just thought gone wrong. =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- But what thermostats don't control is... what the thermostat is set to. Another control system does that. The chain tops out somewhere, of course. =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- A good mechanic will often use the following reason: 90% of cars with symptom x problem Y, so that is what I will check first. Then, he will discover whether Y is actually the problem (ETA: for this particular car), and if not, discard that hypothesis and look for something else. This essential step is missing from all papers in psychology reporting statistical results. The fault is even worse when those results are reported in terms such as (to take a recent example) "willpower is a scarce resource". =================== | 1 RichardKennaway ------------------- "God ha' mercy! What cannot be racked from words in five centuries? One could wring, methinks, a flood from a damp clout!" Shakespeare in the 20th century, as imagined by Isaac Asimov in "The Immortal Bard". =================== | 1 Rain ------------------- Yes, I considered that to be the primary statement under contention. It's not a strategy I wish to use, so I decided to speak out against it even as I realize that's kind of the point, to have purists who can continue to show that there's further to go, and a spectrum of other positions to provide a more gradual path. I recognize the potential usefulness of it even as I deride it; I am good cop. =================== | 1 Rain ------------------- Repeat. =================== | 1 Rain ------------------- Man's mind is a mirror of a universe that mirrors man's mind. -- Joseph Chilton Pearce =================== | 1 Psychohistorian ------------------- I was wrong. On further reflection, this is a failed attempt to refute this point, though I don't think the ensuing discussion of Kant actually gets to why. If you're familiar with the definition of bachelor, then this statement equates to, "There are no unmarried married men." Any statement of the form "No A are not-A" is completely uninformative. As it can be decided a priori for any consistent value of A, stating it demonstrates nothing. If you aren't clear on the meaning of bachelor, then this statement would require a citation of the definition in order to be convincing. This would constitute supporting evidence, and it would serve to demonstrate the meaning of "bachelor." Thus, this does not go to refute the claim that an assertion without supporting evidence demonstrates nothing, as that is clearly the case here. =================== | 1 Psy-Kosh ------------------- ow ow ow ow ow. =================== | 1 Psy-Kosh ------------------- I think the point Nick Tarleton was getting at was that you might BE one of those "joke interpretations" of a rock. So, combine that with any sort of decision theory that can handle Newcomblike problems... =================== | 1 Proto ------------------- This is my last one for the month, it seems. "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." - Rene Descartes =================== | 1 PhilGoetz ------------------- This sounds like a claim that rationality is hopeless. =================== | 1 PhilGoetz ------------------- I'm surprised that's gotten so many upvotes. It's just a very long way of saying "Why do people disagree with me?" without providing any reasons to agree. The sudden switch to talking about causal determinism is a non-sequitur. Causal determinism is presupposed in the concept of human action? Um, no. Belief in free will is not the same as denial of causality. =================== | 1 PhilGoetz ------------------- I don't understand what the quote is trying to say. What are the unrecognized consequences of the open-loop model? It sounds like the author is upset that psychologists don't believe he has a model of behavior that explains 99% of some output variable using only one input variable. I'd have a hard time believing too. =================== | 1 PhilGoetz ------------------- How does a Bayesian rule out a cause? =================== | 1 PhilGoetz ------------------- Expected cost per year, including purchase cost, repair cost, and cost of time spent dealing with failures, would be better. BTW, cars from heavy snow country last somewhere between 2/3 and 1/2 as long as cars down south (no official statistics, just my observation). This is due to just a few days per year when the roads are salted. Do the math, and you'll find it's probably cheaper to take leave without pay and stay home from work on days after it snows - even before taking into account the time saved by not working. =================== | 1 PeterS ------------------- The universe will expand, then it will collapse back on itself, then will expand again. It will repeat this process forever. What you don't you know is that when the universe expands again, everything will be as it is now. Whatever mistakes you make this time around, you will live through on your next pass. Every mistake you make, you will live through again, again, forever. So my advice to you is to get it right this time around. Because this time is all you have. -KPAX (I do not present this as an endorsement of the Big Bounce hypothesis.) =================== | 1 PeterS ------------------- Sufferers must be sustained by a hope so strong that no conflict with reality can smash it - so strong, indeed, that no fulfilment could ever satisfy it... -Nietzche =================== | 1 PeterS ------------------- I believe it's actually a Chinese proverb. =================== | 1 PeterS ------------------- Alas after a certain age, every man is responsible for his own face. -Camus =================== | 1 PeterS ------------------- A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study. =================== | 1 Oso_42 ------------------- "To know something is to make this something that I know myself; but to avail myself of it, to dominate it, it has to remain distinct from myself." -- Miguel de Unamuno =================== | 1 Nominull ------------------- And thus the contrapositive also holds: if something's not worth doing right, it's not worth doing at all. =================== | 1 NihilCredo ------------------- Our value judgements. -- All actions proceed from value judgements, all value judgements are either our own or accepted - the latter are by far the majority. Why do we accept them? Out of fear - that is: we consider it wiser to pretend that they have been our own as well - and we get used to this pretence, so that it eventually becomes our nature. Our own value judgement: that means measuring a thing on the basis of how much it pleases or displeases just us and nobody else - something exceedingly rare! But our judgement of another, that in which lies the reason why we so often rely on his judgement, should that at least come from us, be our own judgement? Yes, but we do this as children and rarely learn again in a different way; for our whole life, moreover, we are the fools of judgments to which we got used as children, if one considers the way we judge our neighbour (his spirit, his rank, his morality, his exemplarity, his loathsomeness) and hold it necessary to bow before his value judgements. Friedrich Nietzsche, "Daybreak" =================== | 1 NihilCredo ------------------- But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. Umberto Eco, "Foucault's Pendulum" =================== | 1 Nick_Tarleton ------------------- Disagreed; it also affects anthropic reasoning. =================== | 1 Nic_Smith ------------------- Funny quote; what's the connection to rationality? The character in question not being in touch with reality? The recent melatonin thread? Something else? =================== | 1 Neil ------------------- Puts me in mind of this passage ...philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow—it is a goldsmith’s art and connoisseurship of the word which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But for precisely this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of “work,” that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to “get everything done” at once, including every old or new book:—this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read well, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn =================== | 1 Neil ------------------- I think he's saying something more limiting - we cannot tell if we imagine things that cannot exist. or even as far as - we cannot tell if things cannot exist. :) =================== | 1 NancyLebovitz ------------------- When the means are autonomous, they are deadly --Charles Williams =================== | 1 NancyLebovitz ------------------- There are problems which happen so quickly that you can't do sustained thinking while you're in the middle of them, but sustained thinking might help install good reflexes for the general case. For example, I fell safely on ice for the first time this past winter. I'm reasonably sure that the Five Tibetans (a sort of cross between yoga and calesthenics) strengthened the muscles around my knees and possibly had other good effects such that I didn't twist my knee. =================== | 1 NancyLebovitz ------------------- Link One of the points Lesley makes is that the idea of ‘nature’ is actually a cultural construct. What do we mean when we say something is ‘natural’? I think that, in general, we mean that it hasn’t been altered or intervened with in anyway. Which is completely impossible. Everything we do changes our body in some way. Not doing something changes our body in some other way. Everything you eat becomes a part of you. And if you don’t eat, well, that has other implications. Breathing air, drinking water, wearing clothes, walking, driving, sitting, standing, sleeping, all of these things alter the body in some way. The body is always in flux, and we can’t live without taking in things from our environment, things which change us. An unaltered body is, by definition, not alive. (This is highly influenced by a presentation I recently attended by Rachael Kendrick on metabolism, and while I’m sure I’m this is an obscene misappropriation of her argument, I found it very interesting. Kendrick isn’t always entirely fat-positive, but she does an excellent critique of medial science and obesity epidemic discourse.) The ideal ‘natural’ body is also frequently invoked in anti-fat rhetoric, particularly in the figure of the ‘caveman’. In fact, some people call for a return to this way of eating (if not this way of living). The idea is that the human body is ideally suited to a palaeolithic lifestyle and that our digestive systems work best if we eat only foods that were around 2 million years ago, and avoid all that new-fangled stuff like ‘grains’ and ‘beans’. This idea basically harnesses the discourse of evolution in the service of what amounts to a creationist argument. It posits that the ideal human design was arrived at somewhere in the deep and distant past, and has remained constant ever since. It denies evolution as an ongoing process, and most importantly, ignores the fact that the caveman body was as much a product of its environment as the modern human body is. I think "natural" can work as a hypothesis for making things better, but it's just a hypothesis, not a source of reliable truth. =================== | 1 NancyLebovitz ------------------- I'm not sure Armstrong's reply is so bad as all that-- it's legitimate to point out that there's a difference between doing science and using the reputation of science as an excuse to commit atrocities, as in Communism and Nazism. =================== | 1 NancyLebovitz ------------------- I hold that information is not neutral. Never give a (fallible) human sterile information. He will not ignore it. These models led to an increase of risk in society, period. The providers are responsible. Nasim Taleb =================== | 1 NancyLebovitz ------------------- Does this free up your attention for other things, or does the pain keep coming back? =================== | 1 NancyLebovitz ------------------- "It is one thing to show a man that he is in error,| and another to put him in possession of the truth." (John Locke) =================== | 1 Nanani ------------------- Probably the close similarity to this site's oft-quoted "Shut up and multiply." =================== | 1 Nanani ------------------- Is this not true true of most modern cars, not only Japanese ones? Decades ago, drivers could and did repair engines themselves, but today's cars require more knowledge, training, and tools than the hobbyist is likely to have. The expense of repair says little about reliability. Mean time to failure would be better. =================== | 1 Nanani ------------------- All liquids, not just drinks? ...I wonder when Coca-Cola will start making liquid soaps, fuel, and lubricants. =================== | 1 NMJablonski ------------------- I'm not sure. Isn't the first rocket or airplane also built on simple technologies? Couldn't one continue to reduce components to simpler devices until you get to basic joints, inclined planes, tensors (springs), incendiary materials (fuel), etc - that all would have had to be developed and understood before an engineer could design the rocket / airplane? (EDIT: I realize that I'm essentially positing that Gall's Law holds if all technology should be reducible to simple machines, and that what we call "technology" is improving, refining, and combining those designs.) =================== | 1 NMJablonski ------------------- I know that. It's about an evolution from simpler systems to more complex systems. Various design phases of the space shuttle aren't what falsify that example. It's the evolution of rocket propulsion, aircraft, and spacecraft, and their components. (EDIT: Also, at no point was I suggesting that understanding of components guarantees success in designing complex systems, but that it is neccessary. For a complex system to work it must have all working components, reduced down to the level of simple machines. Big software projects would certainly fail if the engineers didn't have knowledge of if-statements and for-loops.) =================== | 1 Mulciber ------------------- "It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want." -Spock =================== | 1 Morendil ------------------- Why? I'm not an expert French-English translator, and I only invested a few minutes in the translation, so calling it "rough" seems appropriate. And saying something clearly in more than one language is more difficult than saying the same thing clearly in one language. That a perfect, instant translation of a well-crafted quote by a talented French Enlightenment philosopher doesn't just roll off my fingertips in English shouldn't compromise the message. =================== | 1 Morendil ------------------- Throughout relativity, both in its original, classical form and in the attempts to create a quantum form of it, clocks play a vital role, yet nobody really asks what they are. A distinguished relativist once told me that a clock is "a device that the National Bureau of Standards confirms keeps time to a good accuracy". I felt that, as a theorist, he should be telling them, not the other way around. -- Julian Barbour, The End of Time =================== | 1 Morendil ------------------- This is a seductive explanation, but competing hypotheses exist, for instance Coases, which states that firms, as a phenomenon, arise due to the transaction costs incurred when hiring on an open market a freelancer to perform a job you need. If there is an economic advantage to reducing these transaction costs by having the job performed "internally", and this advantage overcomes the intrinsic costs of keeping the job internal, firms will tend to form, and grow larger as the discrepancy between these costs. So here, rather than "employees choose to work in firms" we have an explanation of the form "firms have an interest in acquiring employees", and no particular reason to expect that the formation of firms benefits employees. What evidence (as opposed to just-so stories) can we find for or against each of these hypotheses? =================== | 1 Morendil ------------------- The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason. -- G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Jonah Lehrer's How we decide (In the section which discusses psychopaths and notes that the "rational" part of their brains appears to be undamaged: the human brain relies on the circuitry of emotion to form moral decisions, or at any rate that's what's broken in psychopaths.) =================== | 1 Morendil ------------------- Don't tell me how bad it is to have a standard job; show me the viable option! I've gone one better and outlined a process whereby you can generate multiple viable options. (See my reply to brazil.) Following this process, I picked a career for myself that doesn't involve a "job". I've done it once a few years back and am now doing it again. =================== | 1 MichaelGR ------------------- Thanks. I recently read this because it was linked on Hacker News, but I see that it's also linked from a LW post. =================== | 1 MichaelGR ------------------- I'm sorry. In fact, it might actually be where I got it from. Yet one more reason why we need to upgrade our brains (or at least, why I need to write down where I find interesting quotes).. =================== | 1 MichaelGR ------------------- I suspect that the people who voted this down might have misunderstood what is interesting about it (or at least, why I like this one): It's a warning not to let things turn out this way. =================== | 1 MichaelBishop ------------------- theory is a more compact, "lossier" form of information that is necessarily included in practice. Sometimes, but other times the opposite seems true to me. =================== | 1 MichaelBishop ------------------- Or that voting makes you feel powerful? I mean, maybe a little... not close to as much as performing well at work or in sport or in bed. My initial comment was not intended to argue that his quote was dumb because I didn't think it was worth fighting that fight against the numerous people that apparently think it is a good quote. But I can't pretend I like it. =================== | 1 MichaelBishop ------------------- Is he advocating writing ideologically biased history? =================== | 1 MichaelBishop ------------------- For the record, I'm not the Michael Bishop that so expressed this insightful point. =================== | 1 MichaelBishop ------------------- Ceteris Paribus, I prefer quotes from people who are well known, respected, and deserving of respect. Edit: I fear misinterpretation, please see further explanations below especially my response to Orthonormal. =================== | 1 MichaelBishop ------------------- A good mechanic will often use the following reason: 90% of cars with symptom x problem Y, so that is what I will check first. =================== | 1 Matt_Simpson ------------------- More or less. It's about a half-step away from invoking occam's razor to finish the job. =================== | 1 Matt_Simpson ------------------- In so doing he conveniently ignores those economists and investors who correctly predicted the crisis and explained in detail what was going to happen and why it was going to happen in the years before the crisis. There's always someone predicting a financial crisis, and when it inevitably happens (and one will eventually come), someone probably predicted it. Was there anyone who predicted the crisis based on reliable methods that we could use to predict another crisis? Easterly does have a point though - there are two ways to predict a crisis. Infer the implicit market prediction, or predict it yourself. The latter is extremely hard because as soon as you find some reliable method of predicting financial crises and tell the world about it, market prices will change to reflect this knowledge. On the other hand, as soon as the market knows about the crisis, the crisis is beginning (if people know the price of X is going to fall soon, then the price of X will fall now as they all sell it). So in some sense, a crisis has to come out of the blue. It sounds like Easterly was being sarcastic - taking a jab and macroeconomists who DO try to predict crises. =================== | 1 MattPrather ------------------- By the way, I am uncertain as to how to think about the quantification (number / proportion / "ballpark estimate") of real people who fit the concept of Russel's "wiser people", or Yeats' "best". How far off would I be if I were to estimate the quantity of such wiser and better people as "less than one third of the population of any given tribe" ? Is anyone brave enough to say it should be thought of as a drastically smaller quantity? Is anyone brave enough to realize how much they themselves actually fit the description for the "fools and fanatics" or "worst" -- and then, after realizing it, actually become the better? Or am I perhaps better off to not pick at the idea? =================== | 1 Mass_Driver ------------------- Currently, humans don't work that way. I mean, sure, we want to survive, and will do a lot of nasty things for it, but if you actually internalize nihilism, crass self-interest, and convention as your moral foundation, then the result will NOT be goodness or truth or beauty. To win, you have to be aware of the mundane roots of things without celebrating them. See, e.g., Gall's Law and/or Goodhart's Law. =================== | 1 MBlume ------------------- Statements should be as precise as possible, but no more precise. =================== | 1 MBlume ------------------- Hmm, this would be cooler if not for the fact that light does move faster in a vacuum. =================== | 1 Liron ------------------- That is inconsistent with what I imagined the well-known fact of "Japanese reliability" to mean. =================== | 1 Liron ------------------- Bayesians don't believe they lucked into their priors. They have a reflectively consistent causal explanation for their priors. =================== | 1 Lightwave ------------------- Related to that: "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." -- Anais Nin =================== | 1 Larks ------------------- Wow, New York must be a pritty boring place to live in. =================== | 1 Larks ------------------- Unless you're risk averse. =================== | 1 Larks ------------------- Even worse, some senior imperial officers at the time of Yavin IV believed it! =================== | 1 Larks ------------------- "If you speak the truth, have a foot in the stirrup" Turkish Proverb =================== | 1 Kutta ------------------- If choices are not clearly connected to their benefits, people usually interact in ways that make outcomes unpredictable. --- Mike Caro =================== | 1 Kevin ------------------- Looks like a slight mangling of the data from http://www.wemjournal.org/wmsonline/?request=get-document=1080-6032=016=02=0067#i1080-6032-016-02-0067-t02 =================== | 1 KatjaGrace ------------------- Making accurate significant claims in comments on obscure blogs isn't often consequential. =================== | 1 Karl_Smith ------------------- I just read their website. Its embarrassing but I have to say that honestly the centripetal force argument never occurred to me before. Rough calculations seem to indicate that a large man 100Kg should be almost half a pound heavier in the day time as he is at night. Kinda cool. Now I am dying to get something big and stable enough to see if my home scale can pick it up. =================== | 1 Kakun ------------------- The key word here is "inward-oriented;" that is, based on internal logic, instead of on new evidence. When previous theories are destroyed by the mismatch with reality, the facts that supported the previous theory are either revealed as untrue, or merged into a newer and more correct theory, that incorporates new evidence and different links between the facts to come to a different, and presumably superior, conclusion. On second though, that was a bad section to quote, although Boyd never really gave any better ones in his essay. I tried to note the way out without throwing on too much of Boyd's pointless terminology in the last sentence ("Fortunately, there is away out.") I clearly failed; my bad. =================== | 1 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- http://www.dorktower.com/2009/12/04/dork-tower-friday-december-4-2009-mayadamus/ =================== | 1 Kaj_Sotala ------------------- The statement that all of us are purportedly able to coherently conceive or imagine a certain situation - for instance, an imitation man or a zombie - is rather trivial from a philosophical point of view because ultimately it is just an empirical claim about the history of the brain and its functional architecture. It is a statement about a world that is phenomenally possible for human beings. It is not a statement about the modal strength of the relationship between physical and phenomenal properties; logical possibility (or necessity) is not implied by phenomenological possibility (or necessity). From the simple fact that beings like ourselves are able to phenomenally simulate a certain apparently possible world, it does not follow that a consistent or even only an empirically plausible description of this world exists. -- Thomas Metzinger =================== | 1 JoshuaZ ------------------- Yes, but many of these are testable. Thus for example, Oscar's hypothesis that "Things are only tropes if they happen more often in fiction that in reality, so to detect them you need an accurate map" is testable. You could take a random sample of people who edit TVtropes and test their map accuracy in completely separate areas (say things that can be often estimated with a Fermi calculation) and compare that to a general sample of people. Oscar's hypothesis suggests that the Tropers will do better. RobinZ's point is difficult to test, but presumably if one examined in detail what pages have historically stuck around and which have been merged or deleted, one could get data that would test it. =================== | 1 JoshuaZ ------------------- People understood that Aristotle's understanding of natural place didn't work long before Kant. As early as the 1300s, Oresme laid out problems with this view. The work of Galileo and others made it clear that it didn't make sense. Newton removed any remaining doubts about this. And Newton died about when Kant was born. That Kant knew that Aristotle was wrong is no credit to Kant. As to the chemistry matter, I'm not completely sure but I think that idea also was around before Kant. Robert Boyle wrote The Skeptical Chemist about 70 years before Kant was born and he touches on the idea of conservation of mass. Hooke also died before Kant was born and did work involving mass loss in chemical reactions. I don't think this can be substantially credited to Kant either. =================== | 1 JoshuaZ ------------------- Mistranscription by me. Fixed now. Thanks. =================== | 1 JoshuaZ ------------------- It is an issue that has been discussed here before. Eliezer generally uses Einstein as the example rather than Newton. See for example Einsteins Superpowers and My Childhood Role Model. =================== | 1 JoshuaZ ------------------- I'm not sure this is a very rationalist quote. In particular, many judgments people make and many biases come into play at a non-conscious level. We generally need to make a conscious effort to correct for those biases. =================== | 1 JoshuaZ ------------------- How would you measure the rate of rationally-insightful contributions? I'm also not sure which wikis would be useful to test this on. Some wikis (such as say the various Wikipedias) have prohibitions on original research. Other wikis have narrow goals that will mimimze the number of rational insights. Thus, I'd expect a very low insight rate on say Wikispecies since that is devoted to cataloging existing biological knowledge. =================== | 1 Jonnan ------------------- Really? -4 for not liking a defense of marketing sophistry? One which literally noted "Advertise the color" as a positive virtue? Sorry, if that's not favoring the darkside, I'm not sure how you're defining 'darkside', and karma around here is way too arbitrary - {G}. I will concede to a bias against marketing as a solution to anything - the marketing textbook I was subjected to in college was the most self-important ego-centric defense of a field I've ever seen - {G}. Jonnan =================== | 1 Jonathan_Graehl ------------------- Accuracy was sacrificed for a pleasant parallel construction. Anything can be so asserted. =================== | 1 John_Maxwell_IV ------------------- Rabbits? =================== | 1 John_Maxwell_IV ------------------- Perpetually angry dude makes the opposite case. Never get an argument with that guy, by the way. =================== | 1 James_Miller ------------------- All that glitters is not gold Unknown Origin =================== | 1 JamesPfeiffer ------------------- http://lesswrong.com/lw/mx/rationality_quotes_3/ =================== | 1 JamesCole ------------------- I doubt those kings can be killed. I think victory against them comes more from inserting layers of suppression between them and action, to modulate and reduce their power. You might be able to think of those layers as governmental machinery. =================== | 1 Jack ------------------- Welcome to Less Wrong, though! Introduce yourself. =================== | 1 Jack ------------------- Readings for the topic. You can probably get by reading Wikipedia Entries and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entries, for the purposes of your debate. Start with the Hacking, then the SEP articles then Kuhn, then Feyerbend and any other interesting names that come up. Thomas Kuhn- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Summary) Paul Feyerabend- Against Method (SEP Entry) Ian Hacking- The Social Construction of What? Some highly relevant SEP articles: Social constuction The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge Social epistemology I wouldn't call any of the above postmodernist. Hacking just discusses "The Science Wars" from sort of a pox on both their houses perspective. Postmodernists are on the extreme social constructionist end of the debate but the best arguments don't come from there. Kuhn is classic and must read. For general philosophy: Descarte's Meditations on First Philosophy. Read, Meditations 1, 2 and 6. Read the middle ones only if you enjoy exercises in futility (you'll have to give Descartes the existence of God for #6 to make sense though). David Hume Enquiry Concernign Human Understanding/Treatise of Human Nature Book One. Also, his critique of the Watchmaker argument if you haven't already heard it from Dawkins. Kant and Hegel say some smart important things but basically not enough to justify their length and obscurity. If you can find good second hand summaries and descriptions of their views, do that. Hegel does seem to be really crucial for postmodernism. Thom missed a couple of postmodernist forerunners. Between, Marx and the pomos, there whole Frankfurt school of Critical Theory, Adorno and Horkheimer are still canon I think, especially Dialectic of Enlightenment. And more recently Habermas (who is not close to being a postmodernist and actually is worthwhile if you're interested in political philosophy). Postmodernists also take a lot from Freud and especially Lacan, for whom there are decent introduction out there. And then there is Derrida who really is a huge sack of bullshit. You could probably just wikipedia him and get the same out of it. Contemporary analytic: Armstrong, McTaggart, Putnam, Quine, Frankfurt, Rawls, Nozick, Lewis, Parfit, a bunch more that will come to mind ten minutes after I publish this comment. Postmodernism's intellectual founding fathers: Hegel, the least comprehensible philosophy of the modern world, Freud, whose theories either make no predictions of have been falsified with few exceptions and Derrida who basically just did silly things with words. =================== | 1 Jack ------------------- Munich is notorious in this respect. But this instance does not prove the rule. Edit: In fact, it's pretty clear that if there are lessons from history we shouldn't assume we know them until after we see the pattern. And one event does not make a pattern. Appeasement has worked really well in lots of times and places. =================== | 1 Jack ------------------- It's funny. I think this list is probably both overkill and underkill. No Hume?!?!?! You can skip Marx, since practically everything he said about economics was wrong, and everything he said about anything else was already said better by Hegel. Nothing ever said by someone other than Hegel was better said by Hegel. Also, Heidegger was an existentialist and Sartre just took his stuff and watered it down. =================== | 1 Jack ------------------- Great catch. Upvoted. I've heard it might be a rough paraphrase of a quote from the Kalama Sutta, but in its original form, it would not qualify as a "rationality quote"; it's more a defense of belief in belief, advising people to accept things as true based on whether believing it is true tends to increase one's happiness. I actually don't think this is right though. I'm pretty sure the original form is about the importance of personal knowledge from direct experience. I think the wikipedia article makes this clear, actually. I suppose you're taking your reading from: Kalamas, when you yourselves know: "These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness," enter on and abide in them.' But the emphasis here should be on "when you yourselves know", not "these things lead to benefit and happiness". Keep in mind the kind of teachings being addressed are often strategies for happiness so it makes sense to be concerned with whether or not a teaching really does increase happiness. I don't see why we can't take it as an injunction to trust only experiment and observation. It seems about right to me. (ETA: Except of course he's talking about meditation not experiment and ignores self-deception, placebo effect, brain diversity and the all important intersubjective confirmation, but I'll take what I can get from the 5th century B.C.E.) =================== | 1 Jack ------------------- Duplicate. =================== | 1 Jack ------------------- Did no one check out the video? =================== | 1 J_Grim ------------------- To conquer Chaos one must Learn, To maintain Stability one must Know, The dual struggle can be exhausting. --Donald Kingsbury =================== | 1 JGWeissman ------------------- Yes, I think this should be mentioned explicitly in the monthly threads. My intentions were to decrease future occurences of duplicate posts, establish a standard of effort that should go into avoiding duplicate posts, and not hit Johannes' comment too hard because it was made before the standard was expressed and agreed upon. =================== | 1 JGWeissman ------------------- I like this, but beware the converse. Debates should not be competitive games. The goal is not to steer a path through the game tree that causes your opponent to seem a fool, but to resolve disagreement by the discussion of the actual reasons you have for your position. Edit: After I started reading the linked source, I find my position really contrasts with Sirlin's: Expert debate involves gaining an understanding of the opponent and what he will say, and knowing immediately what you will say back. It involves deception and boldness, risk-taking and conservatism. =================== | 1 Hariant ------------------- I was disappointed to find that Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary didn't have such a term. I had thought it would be a similar definition, and an ironically close name, though searching again showed me that the Lexicon is based on the Dictionary. =================== | 1 Gavin ------------------- It might be more accurately rephrased as "can confer no interpersonal advantage on him." Or perhaps ". . . no possible worth to him other than the satisfaction of having upheld his values." =================== | 1 Furcas ------------------- Yeah, but waffle is all Armstrong ever writes when she puts her theologian hat on, and it doesn't seem to bother her fans in the slightest. Using sarcasm allowed Harris to point out the ridiculousness in her article without giving the impression that it was sane enough to deserve a respectful reply. =================== | 1 Furcas ------------------- Um, yes. That action A is bad for goal X isn't evidence that it's bad for goal Y, unless Y is very similar to X. "Saving the hostage" and "Advancing reason" aren't similar goals. =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Yup. =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- So rot13? =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- It's another quote. No, Haruhi's world does not add up to normality. =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- It could be true, but how would anyone know? =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I think it is true relative to the average young folk and the average old folk. To the extent that there is an uncommon skill involved in unlearning falsehoods, we can imagine people who get better at this skill by practice and learning over time. And hence, as it were, "stay young". =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- I hope that's not a spoiler, because I haven't read that story. If it is, please delete it or ROT13 it right now and don't do it again. =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Dupe. =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- Allan didn't say otherwise. =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- ...voted up for the beauty with which the interpretation of this particular quote, depends on knowing the time in which it was written. =================== | 1 Eliezer_Yudkowsky ------------------- ...I had no idea the art of rationality got that advanced that early! =================== | 1 Douglas_Knight ------------------- socialist countries...Scandinavia...Austria, France Which countries on that list do you call not socialist? English-speaking ones? Switzerland? Where can we get objective information about whether people are trusting or trust-worthy, rather than what they say? The Japanese claim to be less trusting than Americans, but they are trustworthy with wallets, if not with umbrellas and bicycles. and the angry dude argues that Americans should not trust institutions which is completely different from whether they do trust people, which is the topic of the survey and the slashdot entry. =================== | 1 Douglas_Knight ------------------- Why do you single out the Will to Power among Nietzsche's works? =================== | 1 Douglas_Knight ------------------- The question of how and why the general public reacts seem to be a question of psychology or sociology, not philosophy. So why are you asking about postmodern philosophical positions? worse, why are you discussing how people should react? =================== | 1 Douglas_Knight ------------------- So if you are surprised to find a $20 bill in your couch, your disappointment at having lost $20 some time in the past is equal to your pleasure at now having $20 more than you did a moment ago? roughly, yes. My current level of ignorance is a fact of life, I already know that there must be things that I'm wrong about. How is finding out something in particular that I am wrong about anything but a positive outcome? If your mistakes are independent, then correcting one of them doesn't (much) correct your estimate of how many more mistakes you have to correct. Say you have 21 beliefs with 95% confidence and an argument clarifies a random one of them. You still have 1 expected wrong belief. By independence, we might as well say it's belief #1 that gets clarified. People who were wrong about it end up the same as people who were right about it. Yes, they gained more information, but they were really just unlucky to start with less information. This is exactly the lottery/inheritance model. Yes, your ignorance is a fact, but it's not a fact accessible to you. The argument decreases your estimate of your ignorance by the same amount, regardless of whether you win or lose. If you happen to know how ignorant you are, how many items you're wrong about, then the situation is different, but that's a lot less realistic than independence. =================== | 1 Divide ------------------- I think he meant people doing self-surgery on their own. Ie. you can't go to a pharmacy and buy lidocaine just because you want to implant an RFID chip in your hand. As for why, well, that's perhaps another point. =================== | 1 Daniel_Burfoot ------------------- to speak of knowledge that cannot be Googled even in principle is nonsense. Roger Federer knows a hell of a lot about how to play tennis; I can't imagine any meaningful way of indexing and searching that knowledge. =================== | 1 Cyan ------------------- We are stardust. We are billion year old carbon. - Joni Mitchell =================== | 1 Cyan ------------------- It's very Philosophy 101; you can get more in-depth info online. But it does provide an entry into a variety of topics, and some of the jokes are real zingers. =================== | 1 Cyan ------------------- Interesting vid here. =================== | 1 Cyan ------------------- In the next line, only the word "back" is false. =================== | 1 Cyan ------------------- From the OP: do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB. =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- Yeah, looking over his blog, he never has arguments, only shouting matches. Considering his rampaging contempt for everyone who is not himself, I wonder why he even bothers to publish anything at all. =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- Well, 3-SAT is NP-complete, anyway. If consistency checking in mere propositional logic is already NP-complete, then it can't be any easier to do consistency checking to real-world arguments that require predicate logic or other, even more complicated systems to express. Godel Escher Bach has a section that talks about this. =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- The Paradoxical Commandments I didn't want to ruin the pretty formatting by posting it here, so go follow the link. =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- So, if we can't derive 'ought' from 'is' - then we have no reason to keep 'ought' around at all. We have no reason not to discard it and toss it in the same bin with God, devils, souls, [non-deterministic] free will, and other mythical entities that more primitive cultures once accepted. -- Alonzo Fyfe =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- It's easy to trisect an angle. Just use a protractor. ;) =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- It is ridiculous, silly to watch and excruciatingly embarrassing to perform. No it isn't! =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- I leave the room. ;) =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- I keep thinking of Robin Hanson as that guy. =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong =================== | 1 CronoDAS ------------------- "I hold that moral intuitions are nothing but learned prejudices. Historic examples from slavery to the divine right of kings to tortured confessions of witchcraft or Judaism to the subjugation of women to genocide all point to the fallibility of these 'moral intuitions'. There is absolutely no sense to the claim that its conclusions are to be adopted before those of a reasoned argument." - Alonzo Fyfe =================== | 1 ChrisHibbert ------------------- It has to be "may your grandchildren live in interesting times", or the caster of the curse is as cursed as the recipient. sheesh! =================== | 1 ChrisHibbert ------------------- A recent story on PodCastle gives the same message, albeit embedded in a short fantasy story with good economics. =================== | 1 Blueberry ------------------- This also happens all the time in poker, especially when you see the flop and instinctively feel good (or bad) that you folded. =================== | 1 Blueberry ------------------- I love this one. I don't really understand why it got downvoted, yet bizarre mystical religious quotes from nutcases in the Ouspensky/Gurdjieff tradition got upvoted... =================== | 1 Bindbreaker ------------------- "He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless dead." --anonymous =================== | 1 AndyWood ------------------- Perhaps the "person inside" is a metaphor for the vision of who they would like to become? =================== | 1 AllanCrossman ------------------- Treehouse of Horror 2, Lisa's Nightmare. =================== | 1 AllanCrossman ------------------- Must be a boring fellow when stargazing! I'm not sure stars can be called "flying objects". =================== | 1 AllanCrossman ------------------- But what thermostats don't control is... what the thermostat is set to. =================== | 1 Alicorn ------------------- That one, and not the indication that women are all pretty much alike if you aren't deluded by an emotional illusion, is the one that jumps out at you? =================== | 1 Alicorn ------------------- Only niceness, or the welfare of others, or any of the many possible reasons to value people you don't find personally useful, are irrational terminal values. =================== | 1 Alicorn ------------------- Obviously if you say "yeah, this is sexist against da bitches. lolz" then you have added sexism to your complete utterance. I don't think you've added sexism to whatever you said before "yeah". =================== | 1 Alicorn ------------------- It eliminates plausible deniability for ignorance. It doesn't actually make it more sexist, and it's arguable whether "saying something sexist on purpose for what one can presume is a halfway decent reason like sharing a neat quote" is worse than "saying something sexist accidentally through carelessness or ignorance or both". =================== | 1 Alicorn ------------------- Couldn't you trisect a right angle by making an equilateral triangle with one of the right angle's lines for a side, then bisecting that angle of the triangle? It wouldn't generalize to other angles, but you wouldn't need a ruler. =================== | 1 Alicorn ------------------- Context can affect sexist content. Sure. I just don't think lampshades are a kind of context that tends to increase sexist content, for reasons described above. If one wants to make what one says more sexist, one can accompany it with action (particular or over time), or elaborate on any potentially sexism-free components of one's utterance in such a way that they can now be interpreted as sexist where before they were innocuous. Acknowledging that there already existed a particular sexist interpretation of a statement makes that sexism consciously accessible when it might not have been, but doesn't make it greater in magnitude. =================== | 1 Alicorn ------------------- "Spruckel" is my new go-to nonsense word. It sounds like it should be a three-inch-tall woodland creature of some kind. =================== | 1 AlanCrowe ------------------- Actually by Daniel Goleman. It comes from Goleman's book, Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception, which looks relevant to the mission of Less Wrong.