Rationality Quotes April 2013

Woah, I'd better implement Phase One of my evil plan if it's going to be ready in time for the hero to encounter it.

Omg, what do I do?! I can't find my random encounter table!

And rewards.

someone located the player character

???

Someone located his inner d2!

http://blog.yunwilliamyu.net/2011/08/14/mindhack-mental-math-pseudo-random-number-generators/

When I need this I just look at the nearest object. If the first letter is between a and m, that's a 0. If it's between n and z, that's a 1. For larger strings of random bits, take a piece of memorized text (like a song you like) and do this with the first letter of each word.

http://abstrusegoose.com/494

Now that you mention it, a fable, by definition, requires bullshit.

FTFY:

"Moral: life is inarguably a depressingly fair endeavor."

What's unfair about that quote? The faster one did win. This would exemplify your moral.

If you're in a group where "that's not fair" is frequently a winning argument, you may already be in trouble.

Even more generally it can be taken as a paraphraasing of the Litany of Gendlin

Jack Sparrow: The only rules that really matter are these: what a [person] can do and what a [person] can't do. For instance, you can accept [reality] or you can't. But [reality] is [true whether or not you believe it], boy, so you'll have to square with that some day ... So, can you [accept it], or can you not?

Well, it certainly didn't stop Jack Sparrow from being a beloved character.

You can be ruthless and popular, if you're sufficiently charismatic about it.

Mmm, that's a good point.

Potentially - If people know you're going to play according to a higher rule or purpose, rather than following feelings, then how much are they going to trust that you're really going to exercise that rule on their behalf?

It'd be like the old argument that people should be allowed to kidnap people off the streets and take their organs - because when you average it out any individual is more likely to need an organ than be the one kidnapped so it's the better gamble for everyone to make. But we don't really imagine it that way, we all see ourselves being the ones dragged off the street and cut up, or that people with unpopular political opinions would be the ones... You can't trust someone who'd come up with that sort of system not to be playing a different game because they've already shown you can't trust their compassionate feelings to work as bounds on their actions. Maybe any friendship they express means as little to them as the poor guy they just butchered.

I wonder how much of it is a trust problem though, and how you'd resolve that. It seems to me that if you knew someone really well, or they didn't seem to be grasping power, they could get away with being ruthless. People seem almost to gloat about how ruthless specops folks and the like are.

If it's any consolation, none of the answers past the first one on this question are very good.

Come and take my herb?

Math is a significant topic!

I've read your link to John Leslie with both curiosity and bafflement.

17 x 24 is not perhaps the best example of a question for which no answer comes immediately to mind. Seventeen has the curious property that 17 x 6 = 102. (The recurring decimal 1/6 = 0.166666... hints to us that 17 x 6 = 102 is just the first of a series of near misses on a round number, 167 x 6 = 1002, 1667 x 6 = 10002, etc). So multiplying 17 by any small multiple of 6 is no harder than the two times table. In particular 17 x 24 = 17 x (6 x 4) = (17 x 6) x 4 = 102 x 4 = 408.

17 x 23 might have served better, were it not for the curious symmetry around the number 20, with 17 = 20 - 3 while 23 = 20 + 3. One is reminded of the identity (x + y)(x - y) = x^2 - y^2 which is often useful in arithmetic and tells us at once that 17 x 23 = 20 x 20 - 3 x 3 = 400 - 9 = 391.

17 x 25 has a different defect as an example, because one can hardly avoid apprehending 25 as one quarter of 100, which stimulates the observation that 17 = 16 + 1 and 16 is full of yummy fourness. 17 x 25 = (16 + 1) x 25 = (4 x 4 + 1) x 25 = 4 x 4 x 25 + 1 x 25 = 4 x 100 + 25 = 425.

17 x 26 is a better example. Nature has its little jokes. 7 x 3 = 21 therefore 17 x 13 = (1 + 7) x (1 + 3) = (1 + 1) + 7 x 3 = 2 + 21 = 221. We get the correct answer by outrageously bogus reasoning. And we are surely puzzled. Why does 21 show up in 17 x 13? Aren't larger products always messed up and nasty? (This is connected to 7 + 3 = 10). Any-one who is in on the joke will immediately say 17 x 26 = 17 x (13 x 2) = (17 x 13) x 2 = 221 x 2 = 442. But few people are.

Some people advocate cultivating a friendship with the integers. Learning the multiplication table, up to 25 times 25, by the means exemplified above, is part of what they mean by this.

Others, full of sullen resentment at the practical usefulness of arithmetic, advocate memorizing ones times tables by the grimly efficient deployment of general purpose techniques of rote memorization such as the Anki deck. But who in this second camp sees any need to go beyond ten times ten?

Does John Leslie have a foot in both camps? Does he set the twenty-five times table as the goal and also indicate rote memorization as the means?

That's not the important point. Even if you have, you will still face the same problem when facing a question like, for example, say 34 × 57 = ?. The quote was using that particular problem as an example. If that example does not apply to you because you Ankified the multiplication table up to 25 or for any other reason, it is trivial to find another problem that gives the desired mental response. (As I just did with the 34 × 57 problem.)

I'm a little perplexed that I haven't got the multiplication table up to 25 memorized, given the number of times I've multiplied any two numbers under 25.

I'm curious - what advantage do you get from this?

I think you are using settle in its more precise meaning (i.e. release a legal claim), which is not consistent with the colloquial usage. Colloquially, "settle" is often used as the antonym of "take reasonable risks."

Similarly, I think the difference between "don't like the menu" and "fairly bad" is hairsplitting for someone who would find this level and type of advice useful. In just about any city, the BATNA is "travel to another place to eat, getting no further from your home than you were at the first place." And that's a pretty good alternative. I think the quote correctly asserts that the alternative is underrated.

Consider the basilisk.

I have, and I've come to the conclusion that Eliezer's solution, i.e., suppress all knowledge of it, won't actually work.

Agreed, but I think the exceptions are very few.

Wait... he did that on purpose?

Exactly. In fact, it was well known at the time that the Earth is round, and most educated people even knew the approximate size (which was calculated by Eratosthenes in the third century BCE). Columbus, on the other hand, used a much less accurate figure, which was off by a factor of 2.

The popular myth that Columbus was right and his contemporaries were wrong is the exact opposite of the truth.

I've noticed this in executives and higher-ranking military officers I've met-- they get a quick view of the possibilities, then they make a decision and execute it.

Executives and higher ranking military officers also happen to have the power to enforce their decisions. Making decisions and acting on them can be possible without that power but the political skill required is far greater, the rewards lower, the risks of failure greater and the risks of success non-negligible.

I think the idea is that all of the people are him.

Mapmakers deliberately put slight mistakes in their maps so they can tell when someone copies them. If another map has the same mistake, that's very convincing evidence.

Same essay.

Thank you!

To this, the skeptics might respond: but of course we can’t win over the mainstream scientific community, since they’re all in the grip of an evil left-wing conspiracy or delusion! Now, that response is precisely where “the buck stops” for me, and further discussion becomes useless. If I’m asked which of the following two groups is more likely to be in the grip of a delusion — (a) Senate Republicans, Freeman Dyson, and a certain excitable string-theory blogger, or (b) virtually every single expert in the relevant fields, and virtually every other chemist and physicist who I’ve ever respected or heard of — well then, it comes down to a judgment call, but I’m 100% comfortable with my judgment.

-- Scott Aaronson in the next paragraph

Not that I don't think this is a fair counterpoint to make, but in my own experience trying to find the best arguments for religion, I learned a lot more and got better reasoning talking to random laypeople than by asking priests and theologians.

Of course, the fact that I talked to a lot more laypeople than priests and theologians is most likely the determining factor here, but my experiences discussing the nature and details of climate change have not followed a similar pattern at all.

Just so I'm clear: do you believe the theology community ("bishops, the Pope, pastors, denominational and non-denominational bodies, etc.") is as reliable an authority on the nature and existence of the thing atheists don't believe in than the academic climatology community is on the nature and existence of the thing climate skeptics don't believe in?

If so, then this makes perfect sense.

That said, my experience with both groups doesn't justify such a belief.

If atheists really thought that theists believed just because the pastors did, then targeting the pastors would seem to be the best way to go about it, yes. Either by attacking their credibility or attempting to convince them otherwise/attack the emotional basis of their faith. Even if the playing field was uneven and the pastors were actually crooked, there just wouldn't be any gain in going after the believers as individuals.

I can't think of a reply to this that won't start a game of reference class tennis; but I think there's a possibility that Aaronson's list is a more complete set of the relevant experts on the climate than your list is of the relevant experts on the existence of deities. If we grant the existence of deities, and merely wish to learn about their behavior; your list would be analogous to Aaronson's.

with superior research and arguments

If nothing else at least we've got that covered.

For reference purposes: video clip; episode transcript.

WTH... My latest Facebook status is “You got to lose to know how to win” (from “Dream On” by Aerosmith). o.O

Right, I often play blitz games for an hour a day weeks on end and don't improve at all. Interestingly, looking at professional games, even if I don't bother to calculate many lines, seems to make me slightly better; so there are ways to improve without deliberate practice, but playing blitz doesn't happen to be one of them. Playing standard time controls does work decently well though, at least once you can recognize all the dozen or so main tactics.

Playing a lot isn't as good as deliberate practice, but it's better than having done neither.

I'd like to imagine that it's the blurb he put on the back of his own book: "I've done the reflection (noble!); buy now and you can get the benefit -- it's easy! -- or you can go stumbling off without the benefit of my wisdom like a sucker."

This is definitely true. General class of examples: almost any combinatorial problem ever. Concrete example: the Four Colour Theorem

In my experience it can often turn out that the formulation is more difficult than the solution (particularly for an interesting/novel problem). Many times I have found that it takes a good deal of effort to accurately define the problem and clearly identify the parameters, but once that has been accomplished the solution turns out to be comparatively simple.

Do you have an original source for that?

Nope, and I don't recall where I saw it attributed to him originally. (I did check by Googling it, but you're right that that only confirms that it's often attributed to him.)

One of the things that focusing is about is giving up pursuing good things.
Which means that if I want to focus, I need to decide which good things I'm going to say "no" to.
This may seem obvious, but after seeing many not-otherwise-stupid management structures create lists of "priorities" that encompass everything good (and consequently aren't priorities at all), I'm inclined to say that it isn't as obvious as it may seem.

Let us say you have a paper to write but you also want to go to a party. While trying to write the paper, you could keep wondering whether you should stop writing the paper and just go to the party, but keep writing anyway, i.e. try to use willpower. Or you could decide, once and for all that you are not going to go to the party, which is saying no. I think the second approach will be more effective in getting the paper done. So, I think there is actually a difference.

Now, of course the insight isn't profound and both folk and professional psychology has known it for some time (I can't find a good link off-hand). But, when a successful person high-status person who has achieved a lot saying it lends it whole lot more of credibility.

Punster: go on a hunting trip with Mick Jagger.

.

Um, be creative? 11 upvotes.

My problem with this is, that like a number of Kafka's parables, the more I think about it, the less I understand it.

There is a mouse, and a mouse-trap, and a cat. The mouse is running towards the trap, he says, and the cat says that to avoid it, all he must do is change his direction and eats the mouse. What? Where did this cat come from? Is this cat chasing the mouse down the hallway? Well, if he is, then that's pretty darn awful advice, because if the cat is right behind the mouse, then turning to avoid the trap just means he's eaten by the cat, so either way he is doomed.

Actually, given Kafka's novels, so often characterized by double-binds and false dilemmas, maybe that's the point: that all choices lead to one's doom, and the cat's true observation hides the more important observation that the entire system is rigged.

('"Alas", said the voter, "at first in the primaries the options seemed so wide and so much change possible that I was glad there was an establishment candidate to turn to to moderate the others, but as time passed the Overton Window closed in and now there is the final voting booth into which I must walk and vote for the lesser of two evils." "You need only not vote", the system told the voter, and took his silence for consent.')

On the other hand, it's a perfectly optimistic little fable if you simply replace the one word "trap" with the word "cat".

"Alas", said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the cat that I must run into."

"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.

This is much better than my moral.

Time and effort are zero-sum.

Sure. From the same post:

Want to know how to win a gold medal in Rio in 2016? Here's a guaranteed plan to reach the top spot on the podium:

1. Qualify for an Olympic event.

2. Do better than every other competitor.

That's it! There's your path to victory. If you find an error in my guaranteed foolproof advice, do let me know.

“You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” “You can catch even more with manure; what's your point?”

That's actually an insightful analogy regarding human social politics.

I gather one theory behind that is that captives associate an absence of punishment for the presence of kindness. i.e. they adjust for perceived reward - the reward being not getting intimidated/raped/whatever, at least not right then.

That link isn't clear to me. Could you please elaborate?

"Steelmanning" and "understanding the other's position" aren't really related (to my knowledge).

I would say this is not ALWAYS true. But for the purpose of civilized discussion between human beings, it does seem like a very useful rule of thumb.

Substitute "statement" with "belief".

That statement is bad for the nazis, who are now unable to achieve their desires. The statement is about instrumental badness, not universal moral badness. They're really quite different.

Wouldn't explaining why the statement is misleading be more productive than suppressing the misleading statement?

Sense of incredulity is not a belief, so it's not covered by those injunctions. A sense of wonder is both pleasant and good for mental health, and diverging to much from the average in deep emotional reactions carries a real cost in less accurate empathic modelling.

Well, I dunno, if you describe physics as a Turing machine program, ala Solomonoff induction, special relativity may well be more incredible than god(s), chiefly because Turing machines may well be unable to do exact Lorentz invariance, but can do some kind of god(s), i.e. superintelligences. (Approximate relativity is doable, though).

That on probabilistic or rational reflection one can come to believe intuitively implausible things that are as or more extraordinary than their theological counterparts. Or to mutilate Hamlet, that there are more things on earth than are dreamt of in heaven.

I doubt that Laxness means "rationalist" in the LW community sense. In philosophy, a rationalist is defined as distinct from an empiricist, as one who believes knowledge to be arrived at from a priori cogitation, as opposed to experience.

Necessarily, of course not. Usually, well, this is Francis Bacon, and so the intended meaning of the quote is more like "We can be more certain in the outputs of empiricism than we can be in the outputs of deductive argument beginning with intuitions or other a priori knowledge."

In context, this is said right before the battle of Agincourt and Henry V is reminding his troops that the only thing left for them to do is to prepare their minds for the coming battle (where they are horribly outnumbered). I guess the rationality part is to remember that sometimes we must make sure to be in the right mindset to succeed.

I've always seen that whole speech as a pretty good example of reasoning from the wrong premises: Henry V makes the argument that God will decide the outcome of the battle and so if given the opportunity to have more Englishmen fighting along side them, he would choose to fight without them since then he gets more glory for winning a harder fight and if they lose then fewer will have died. Of course he doesn't take this to the logical conclusion and go out and fight alone, but I guess Shakespeare couldn't have pushed history quite that far.

A good 'dark arts' quote from that speech might be when he offers to pay anyone's fare back to England if they leave then. After that, anyone thinking of deserting will be trapped by their sunk costs into staying - but maybe that's not what Shakespeare had in mind...

Isn't there a law or something stating that Einstein never said 99% of what's attributed to him? Or maybe that the accuracy of quote's attribution is inversely proportional to the person's fame?

Thanks FiftyTwo- I just looked up the article you refer to and it indicates that it may be a paraphrase of a longer quote. I heard this from Anthony Robbins, this quote is attributed to Einstein in some of his literature. It seems that the sentiment, if not the exact quote, seem to be attributable to Einstein