Less Wrong Book Club and Study Group

I liked the last slide a lot. (The others, too.) One reason I'm putting this post up is I plan to teach my kids this stuff, and I want to know how to explain it.

Thanks. "Fluency" is exactly the concept I needed to argue with the people who say you don't need to know things, you just need to know where to look them up.

It's like reading a novel in a barely known foreign tongue, translating with a dictionary, and juggling the syntax without feeling the flow of the language.

Hm. This is not quite on-topic, but I learned English that way, lo those many years ago. My dad is an avid science-fiction fan and his collection resided in the loo. As a kid I loved sci-fi, I'd gotten hooked after reading Star Beast (translated, natch). And everytime I went for a twinkle there was this treasure trove, mocking me because I couldn't understand a word of it.

So one day (must have been 11ish) I picked up an Asimov, a dictionary and a French translation. (Why? The Loo Library was sorted by author; I started with the A's.) I struggled through that first book, I have no idea how I didn't just give up, but I made it through. The next one came easier, I didn't rely on a translation. After a while I could pretty much do without the dictionary, and started building my vocabulary from unknown words made clear by contextual clues. By the time I started on Heinlein I was getting top grades in English at school, a nice added bonus.

I'd agree that my real fluency only came later, after I also got some practice writing. But I disagree that tackling a difficult but intrinsically rewarding work isn't a good way to enter a previously unknown domain of knowledge.

Further to that, and getting back on topic, there are places in Jaynes where I can tell that I'm missing some pieces of background knowledge (e.g. familiarity with binomial coefficient manipulations) that others are likely to have, that don't really detract from my understanding what's going on but do make it harder for me to reproduce the derivations, but that having others to help me would add some "icing on the cake" to my appreciation of the math.

Is this a roundabout way of saying that people 'between levels 0 and 1' should probably start with a more introductory text? Do you have any specific recommendations?

The most important parts of a technical book are often the non-technical portions, and this is especially true with Jaynes.

Yes!

This reflects in the fact that great artists are invariably technical virtuosos. Mastery makes way for creativity.

This is due to limited working memory. You may be able to juggle the concepts/math of a particular field in working memory, but that takes away precious space for the combinatorial exploration of novel ideas, or even higher level concepts. Only with practice, when most of the steps in your thought processes can be carried out subconsciously, are you free to do higher-level thinking.

It's not all about working memory of course, since there is subconscious exploration going on as well. Still, things must surface to working memory to be checked that they make sense.

Also, there is also the fact that concepts are built upon concepts. To think at a higher level, you have to truly understand how concepts of the lower level work. It is simply impossible to do it all with limited working memory capacity.

So, you disagree with this? http://lesswrong.com/lw/gl/eric_drexler_on_learning_about_everything/

Don't drop a subject because you know you'd fail a test — instead, read other half-understandable journals and textbooks to accumulate vocabulary, perspective, and context.

and this, too http://radicalacademy.com/adlerhardreading.htm

How do you unpack "fail" or "flounder" in this context? What counts as success?

If your criterion for success is "taking a group of people through the entire text without most of them dropping out" then yes, I also expect failure, but I wouldn't be bothered by it much.

Here relative success seems more important. On a personal level this is an opportnunity for me to get more out of Jaynes, through comparing notes with others, than I would otherwise have. Symmetrically others should get the same benefit. Some people will invest time in studying the book that they may not otherwise have, and depending on their goal just that may count as a success.

I've had a very satisfactory prior experience participating in an online SICP study group (i.e. I learned quite a bit about programming), and I was peripherally involved in a brown bag club that tackled Jerry Weinberg's Quality Software Management, the people who did stick with it got a lot out of it.

This is the primary reason I gave my location - if I'm meeting with a group of people every week, we can go over the problems together in a high-bandwidth format.

I'm in.

Spokane Washington here.

offhand: one failure to read through Dune, 2 different groups failing to read through The Book of the New Sun, multiple failed attempts at The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and Real World Haskell

Great list! You must have some cool friends, though apparently somewhat undermotivated.

If anyone has already reformatted (automatic conversion is not as good as one might hope) to an ebook format for easy Kindle use, I'd appreciate it. For a good non-DRM conversion, I'd be happy to pay up to $72 (the current Amazon.com price for a new dead-tree copy).

I'm not exactly between 0 and 1...But I have some hours available here, and would like to do this. I've been through bits of Jaynes, but the social aspect will make doing the whole thing more interesting.

FWIW, I've a math degree, and have 20 years of technical (math, software, etc.) teaching expertise, if you'd like some assistance.

I'd suggest to everyone who hasn't as much tech-teaching experience that time spent doing exercises is the only thing that you should be counting as learning-time. Time spent reading has no feedback system, and you don't know (despite believing) whether you've learned anything. Do-->Learn. Read-->???

I will also be in the vicinity of the Bay Area from June 12 to late September, and would be quite happy to give the study group a try. I attempted a full read of Jaynes' book about a year ago, and realized about 70% of the way through that I didn't have all the mathematical background necessary to fully appreciate it.

A zipped archive of all the chapters, which seemed to be missing on the pages linked in the top-level post, is available here.

I'm currently trying to go through Jaynes:PTTLOS myself. As mentioned earlier in this comments: you hardly learn anything by reading alone, you need to discuss or solve exercises. So of course I would love to join a group!

I am currently in Manchester, UK, but will spend most of August and early September on the road, without regular internet access. After that I do not know for sure where I will live or how much time I can commit. But I am very interested!

I also do have a high-quality .pdf-version of the book. Apparently it is the first edition and has no links but it is not simply a scan of the pages of the book! That means the formulae and diagrams are all very high quality and you can do a full text search. I am not sure on the legal status though, probably it is an "only for private study use"-version that one is not supposed to make publicly available. What is the LW-policy concerning links to such content?

I finally registered just to participate in this.

I'm living in Buffalo, NY for the summer if anyone is up for a meetup.

Will participate (online only, living in Serbia). Additional back-and-forth on IRC seems like a good idea.

I'm in. Living in New Haven, CT. Though I wouldn't call myself "Between 0 and 1".

I intend to participate, and I publicly commit 3 hours of reading/thinking/problems and one hour of discussion per week (negotiable). Face-to-face in Seattle would be great. IRC or moderated real-time chat would be great as well. weekly new posts and comment threads on LW would be less ideal, but I'm willing to give it a go.

I'll be interested; I'm going to run a similar club on David Deutsche's Fabric of Reality, and this would be a nice compliment.

Oxford for the next few weeks, then in the south east of the UK.

Thank you very much for initiating this Morendil. I have lurked at LessWrong since Day #1 and came very close to getting an account several times before and submitting comments. This is my first one. I have studied Jaynes for years and spent many hours reading in the book and also his physics papers archived on the Jaynes website.

I look forward to some Probability Theory centered discussion and hope to contribute.

I am in Houston, Texas, USA.

I have been going through the book myself, having never taken probability, statistics, combinatorics, past the high school level. I'm studying to be a mathematician, so I decided to fix that my reading Jaynes on Eliezer's recommendation. I had an electronic edition, and just got the paper edition a couple days ago. I have a one week vacation starting now, so this will probably occupy a large fraction of it.

I've spent probably 15-30 hours in the last two weeks on it, but I've been having trouble with the problems (which is unusual for me), and was looking for a study group. I didn't think it was appropriate for Less Wrong (clearly not true!) and I found someone locally.

I would be happy to talk with other members online. I've never used Google Wave, but people can contact me via email or instant messenger until I get the hang of it. My throwaway is 'lispalien' on Yahoo! Messenger, or you can get another IM handle by contacting me any which way, including a private message here.

This has been on my reading queue for ages, might as well join in!

I live in Seattle (technically on the border of Bellevue and Redmond), which makes me #3 for this area. Meetups would be great, though I'm unavailable weekdays until after 7 or so.

I'll give it a go. I will be in Iowa City until August, Philadelphia after that. Willing to meet IRL.

Good timing. This was among the next few on my list already. I would like to participate. I'm in Halifax, NS (Canada) and interested in trying IRL as well as online.

I'll have a go. I'm in Oxford.

I live in Pittsburgh and would like to participate.

I'm in.

I'd like to participate. I live in a hidden location.

I'm in. I live in Kenosha, Wi., on campus at UWP. No car.

Edinburgh, Scotland, would love to discuss in real life.

I have the dead tree version and have written about the first two chapters.

I got hung up in chapter three on the symmetry of the hypergeometric distribution. I've managed to sort that out, but haven't got going again due to poor health.

I'm very interested and able to devote the time, but I may lack the prerequisite knowledge--if at all required. The most math I remember is up to a US Junior-High level. (Perhaps ironic, given my SN.)

I'm in Brisbane, Australia.

I live in Waterloo, Ontario (Canada). Does anyone live nearby?

I'm in.

This sounds great - count me in. I'm in Toronto.

I'd like to participate as well

Yes, I'd like to take part. I'm in the UK.

I'm in, Finland, UTC+02 time zone.

I am in (online only, Russia, Moscow).

I'd like to join. I'm in Greenville, South Carolina.

I'm in. I live in Bogotá, Colombia.

Buffalo NY USA

I live in Melbourne, Australia, and am open to discussion IRL.

I will participate.

In the interest of tsuyoku naritai, I'd like to do this. I'm in Lafayette, Indiana.

I'm in; Saskatoon, Canada.

I'm (still) in!

I live in Davis, California, USA which is about an hour from the Bay Area.

I'm inclined to participate. I have some baseline knowledge of various discrete math but not much probability theory.

I'm in West Michigan, within forty-five minutes of Grand Rapids and two and a half hours of Chicago. I learn better face-to-face than online, so I'd be happy to meet.

I intend to participate. I am in Seattle. Face-to-face discussion is possible, but not probable.

I'll try. I know little calculus, though. Location is Finland.

I'm interested, definitely online, possibly IRL. I'm in London.

I've already read the book (the published paper version) without solving the exercises.

I'd be interested in participating in a technical discussion. Maybe (but not very probably) even IRL (Bay Area).

About time. Definitely in (will have to bump Subjective Probability: the real thing off the stack)

Edit: I work in NYC if anyone want to complement this with some IRL action.

I attempted PT:TLOS back in September and made it to chapter 7 before realizing I had only been understanding 30% of it, and gave up. I'm certainly eager to have another stab at it.

In the Bay Area until early/mid August, then St. Louis for a week or two, then Pittsburgh for the school year.

I'm in. I'm located in Salt Lake City, UT, US. I would be very willing to have IRL discussions, if I can fit it around work.

I'll join in. I have some vacation coming up, but no more than a week at a time. In Denmark (fat chance).

I'm in. Started reading through it this past winter but stopped. Hopefully this group will provide some motivation.

Really tempted to participate, a IRL group would help, I am in London but spend lots of time in Guildford.

Count me in, I've had a copy of PT:TLOS sitting around forever, and I'm not too far into it.

I'm in Illinois and am often in Chicago on weekends.

I've been meaning to work through PT:LOS forever, but never gotten it done. I'd be interested. (In the SF Bay Area for about a month longer, then in Finland.)

I'm in. I'm near Phoenix, Arizona.

Participants in the DC area, reply to this comment.

(I can go anywhere where WMATA and Ride-On public transportation can take me, but spend a lot of time at the University of Maryland.)

I intend to participate, sounds like a great idea!

ETA: I live in Texas, on the northern part of the I-35 corridor. Anyone remotely nearby? (I'll feel lucky to find just one person.)

I'd like to join too. I'm in Hungary, in the vicinity of Budapest.

Still in. I'm in London until tomorrow and then back home to Melbourne, Australia.

Does anyone know a good IRC infrastructure that allows for quickly entering and displaying TeX formulas?

There's a plugin for Pidgin called pidgin-latex which handles just that.

ETA: If people start using this plugin (or, more generally, if we use TeX/LaTeX in any capacity for this study group), it might occasionally be helpful to use the detexify handwritten symbol recognizer - for when you want to use a symbol and can't quite remember the command that produces it.

Other LWers have used IRC before, so that would be a good option to prolong our discussions. The difficulty I anticipate is dealing with time zones. People who have responded to the post are from all over the map.

I've set up an experimental Google Wave for this with Morendil. Eqygadget seems to be able to render Latex input in the Wave.

I can add people to the Wave so you can take a look. Just give your Wave account id here, on the #lesswrong IRC channel or mail it to rsaarelm at the Gmail.

Google Wave could be excellent for this, because it acts in part as a wiki (as well as a bunch of other things), meaning we could archive our discussions and come back to them. Also, it has Latex, which is probably necessary.

Any thoughts on an appropriate IRC host?

I think most of the "proof these are unique/sufficient" bits in the first IIRC couple chapters are quite unnecessary to your goals and just make it look like you need more mathematical expertise than you really do. So don't get bogged down by that.

Some attention to the mathematical prerequisites needed to properly get through Jaynes might be nice. I've basically got some poorly learned undergraduate math, practically no calculus above high-school level and a pretty hand-wavy understanding of probability theory. I think the undergrad probability course I took said that proper treatment of probability axioms requires measure theoretic calculus, so it will be dealt with in a later course. I know pretty much nothing about measure theory beyond it having something to do with both calculus and probability theory. So stuff that assumes good calculus literacy might be anything from hard going to impossible to understand properly without further study.

I'm wondering if this site might be of use for this: http://curiousreef.com/

I appreciate your use of and linking to my scale for rating understanding. But in the few months until it becomes a universally recognized standard ;-) , you should probably briefly explain any reference to the numbered levels.

In this case, given the subject matter, "between levels 0 and 1" means that you can sometimes, but not always, generate the Bayesian answer to a given problem.

I'd love to participate in this type of group in the future.

No problem. :) Please see the update and, if you're interested in live meetings, register your preferred times on the spreadsheet linked there.

I think Jaynes more or less defines 'Bayesian methods' to be those gadgets which fall out of the Cox-Polya desiderata (i.e. probability theory as extended logic). Actually, this can't be the whole story given the following quote on page xxiii:

"It is true that all 'Bayesian' calculations are included automatically as particular cases of our rules; but so are all 'frequentist' calculations. Nevertheless, our basic rules are broader than either of these."

In any case, Maximum entropy gives you the pre-Bayesian ensemble (I got that word from here) which then allow the Bayesian crank to turn. In particular, I think Maximum entropy methods are not Bayesian in the sense that they do not follow from the Cox-Polya desiderata.

(http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-Words): For some time, the only homosexuals who were studied were in prison or insane asylums. It took a good bit of work and some risk to get the word out that there were homosexuals living non-pathological lives.

However, I'm not sure this is the sort of thing Jaynes had in mind-- the old ideas are shaping which data gets collected, so it's not an example of re-examining the same data set. On the other hand, no amount of study of inmates in prisons and insane asylums could have established that there were homosexuals living ordinary lives.

I wonder if Jaynes' statement is really true? Here is an example that is on my mind because I'm reading the (thus far) awesome book The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Apologies if I get details wrong:

In the 1930s, there was a lot of work done on neutron bombardment of uranium. At some point, Fermi fired slow moving neutrons at uranium and got a bunch of interesting reaction products that he concluded were most plausibly transuranic elements. I believe he came to this conclusion because the models of the day discounted the hypothesis that a slow moving neutron could do anything but release a "small" particle like a helium nucleus or something and furthermore there was experimental work done to discount the lower elements that were in the vicinity of uranium.

Some weird experimental data by Joliet and Curie which seemed inconsistent with the prevailing model came up later. Hahn and Strassman seemed not to believe their results, and so tried to replicate them and found similar anomalies. A careful chemical analysis of the reaction products of uranium bombardment found elements like barium -- much lower on the periodic table. Meitner and Frisch came along and provided a new model which turned out to be right.

So here was data that when analyzed with respect to old models seemed implausible. The data was questioned, but then replicated, studied and then understood. The result was that the old model had to be cast aside for something new. The reason is that the data was incompatible with the model (or at least implausible enough) that a new model needed to be created.

Isn't this narrative the way knowledge often goes? New data comes along and blows up old ideas because the new data is inconsistent with or implausible in the old model. Does this jibe with Jaynes' statement?

re: old ideas

I can't really figure out what he means by that. His example with dangerous doses of artificial sweeteners seems to be about asking the wrong question. It seems logical that no amount of data can get you the right answer if you don't ask the/a right (set of) question(s).

He goes on about mutilating datasets, which seems to me a sin. Me, with GBytes of storage on my PC. When the medium of storage is paper, data gets mutilated. Consider a doctor writing up anamnesis: patient talks on and on, but only what the doctor considers relevant data is written down. Seems like a perfect example of a mutilated dataset and what Jaynes was talking about - if the doctor has a wrong model in mind while collecting data, (s)he is more likely not to collect important information.

I heard that the people at CERN don't let a bit go unstored. But are there variables not measured at all, due to our existing models of the universe.

Would also like to participate.

I'd like to be part of the group. m3lani3all3n would be my google wave, if thats how we do it...

+1 for NYC.

Hi Will,

the 2 NYCers interested in the PTLOS will be at this:

http://www.meetup.com/Less-Wrong-Overcoming-Bias-NYC

in case you're interested.

(Feedback sought: am I going too fast?)

"Are you going too fast"? The post has only been up for two days, man - people are still signing up to join the group, we don't have any scheduled meets, we don't have any scheduled chatroom meets ... the pace might be right once we get going, but most of us haven't.

I missed the preface update. Sometimes I get old posts duplicated in my RSS feed but this didn't happen with your edits so something else must trigger that. A title change perhaps? I think new posts might be better than expanding the original post by increments both because it would probably make RSS notifications work better and because I imagine the size of the comments section could get out of hand with it contained to a single post.

If it's not too late, I'd like to participate as well.

Lbraschi is my account for Google Wave. I'm in Madrid, Spain.