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Well that's amusing. It's for a Alberta based curriculum. Anyway that would be most agreeable as the assignment is simply to "Interview an individual employed in a 'SCIENCE' based occupation and make special note of the significance of science and technology in their occupation. Record their views on the significance of social responsibilities that pervade their chosen occupation." I'll ask the teachers if you qualify. You should as engineering is based on a very sound understanding of physics.
For my high-school Chemistry course I need to interview an individual involved with the sciences in some professional capacity. Anyone interested?
Actually I had multiple reasons for posting this. Firstly it's to make myself known to the community. As an ulterior motive I have trouble with being open with others and connecting (although I suspect that this is a common problem) and I want to get over my fear of such.
I've already read it thanks. To anyone else reading this 'Good Omens' is thoroughly funny and a all around good read.
Right, Paragraphs. Knew I was forgetting something!
My name is Alexander Baruta. People call me confident, knowledgeable, and confident. The truth behind those statements is that I'm inherently none of those. I hate stepping outside my comfort zone; as some of my friends would say "I hate it with a fiery burning passion to rival the sun". As a consequence I read a ton of books, I also have only had one good ELA teacher. My summer school teacher for ELA 30-1 (that's grade 12 English for those of you outside Canada), I'm in summer-school not because I failed the course but because I want to get ahead. I'm going into grade 12 with 3 core 30 level subjects completed. (although this is offset by the 2 additional science courses I want to take).
I spent most of my life in a christian environment and during that time I was one of those that thought humans could do no evil, Queue me being bullied. While nothing major, it was enough to set me thinking that what I'd been taught was wrong. I spent many years (Grades 6-9) trying to cope with my lack of faith, and as a result decided that the Bible was wrong. I don't know when I was introduced to LW, I think I found it simultaneously through TVTropes (warning may ruin your life), HPMOR, and Google. Since then I've been shocked at the attitude towards education in Alberta, for instance Bayes Theorem was on the Gr 11 curriculum six years ago and has since been removed along with the entirety of probability theorem to be replaced with what I like to call 1000 ways to manipulate boring graphs. I attend a self directed school.
One reason for the length of my explanation is that I want to expand my comfort zone, It is one of my major goals because I am an introvert, If any of you set any store by the Myers-Briggs test I am an INTJ. As a result of my introversion it is rather difficult for me to make any close friends, (although it is atrocious practice, I suspect that I am an ambivert: someone possesing both introverted and extroverted personality traits. When I am in a comfortable setting I am the life of the party. Other times I simply find the quietest corner and read). I am attempting to overcome my more extreme traits by taking up show-choir (not like glee at all I swear) and by being more open with myself and others. Due to pure chance I am going to become the holder of a Canadian-American duel citizenship and as a consequence able to attend a university in the states. Due to even more fortunate circumstances I am having at least a percentage of my tuition paid for by one of my relatives.
Some of my more socially unusual traits are things that are practically open secrets to my acquaintances. (Right now the mantra is I need to do this) I am a member of the Furry Fandom, and a Transhumanist (rather ironic really), as well as a wannabe philosopher. (Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, as well as some of the earlier ones such as Aristotle, not to be confused with Aristophanes) I thoroughly enjoy formal logic as well as psychology and neurology. I fear being judged, but I also welcome that judgement because I can use criticism to help me see beyond my tiny Classical perspective ingrained by my upbringing.
In terms of literature I enjoy mainly Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and science (Although I do enjoy a little romance on the side, Iff it is well written, and thanks to my wonderful ELA teacher I am learning to enjoy tragedy as well as comedy). My favorite authors include: Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaimon, Issac Asimov, Terry Pratchett, Ian. M. Banks, Shakespeare (yes Shakespeare), G.K. Chesterton, and Patrick Rothfuss, As well as some specialized authors of Furry Fiction. (Will. A. Sanborn, Simon Barber, Phil Guesz [pronounced like Seuss was originally pronounced]) In some capacity I also study what rationalists consider to be the dark arts, as I participate (and do rather well in) a debate club. (8th overall in the beginner category). However in my defense I need the practice of arguing with someone else in a reasonably capable capacity because I tend to have trouble expressing myself on a day to day basis. (Although the scoring system is completely ridiculous, it marks people between 66-86 percent and does not seem capable of realizing that getting a 66 is the exact same thing as a 0...) Again sorry for the wall of text... it's a bad habit of mine to ramble. I just needed to finally tell someone these things.
~Actually, consider this as my: Lurker Status=Revoked post. I did one intro when I'd just joined and have been commenting on various things including me mixing up Aristotle and Aristophanes to amusing results.
I might also take you up on that offer if you are willing. I've been considering MIT as a university since I heard that it has a insanely good Bio (and everything else) program. I'm currently getting my citizenship, reporting as a birth abroad (I'm 17 and have all the necessary qualifications) and want to do better than attending the ULeth Bio program as while it is decent it's nowhere near as good as MIT or any of the good universities in the states. Sorry if I seem overeager, It's just that things are a little stressful for me to pick a University at the moment. Sigh according to my friends I am insanely lucky, but I want to do better than chance.
Wow was that stupid. I'm not even gonna attempt to defend that statement. Facepalm
And now I'm hearing the modern major general's song in my head... "I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!"
Absolute knowledge also seems like it'd leave you gibbering... Just think about it: knowledge of everything, that is to say every atom of every single object in the universe.
I can only say Ouch
IIRC the standard experimental result is that atheists who were raised religious have substantially above-average knowledge of their former religions.
As a Grade 11 student currently attending a catholic school (and having attended christian schools all my life) I would have to vouch for the accuracy of the statement; thanks to CCS I've learned a tremendous amount about Christianity although in my case there was a lot less Homosexuality is bad then is probably the norm and more focus on the positive moral aspects...
I currently attend Bishop Carroll HS and even though it is a catholic school I have no desire to change schools because of the alternate religious courses they offer and because it's generally a great school. From my experiences there are a ton of non-religious students as well as several more unusual religions represented. I personally would recommend the school for any HS students in Calgary wishing to have a non-standard HS experience.
Although the majority of problems encountered at my school's IT desk can be solved by rebooting the ones that can't are a pain to fix.
I might be able to help with running the story past non LW Bronies as the school I'm at has a higher percentage of them then the norm.
(No seriously, our IT department had a Brony war last year that focused on converting the non Bronies)
I while personally not a Brony I really enjoyed the story, although that might be because I am an active member of the furry-fandom (the non-sexual part) and an avid reader.
The author originally added an extra f to the last if in the original post rendering it as "if and only if and only if" instead of "if and only if"
It's pretty much another injunction to use reason if you possess it.
Facepalms okay this is why I need to proofread everything I write
Thanks
Shouldn't it read
"FTL is impossible" is undesirable if and only if FTL is possible."
as it stands it reads "FTL is impossible" is undesirable if and only if and only if (iff) FTL is possible.
Look up some of the karma discussions on this very site.
He shook his head. "No, for the purposes of this discussion, Asuka... only I have the power to decide humanity's fate. And I refuse that power to give it back to them. Humanity is made of neither heaven or hell; that with freedom of choice and honor, as though the maker and molder of itself... that they may fashion themselves in whatever form they shall prefer. People, individuals, are not single things but always tip from order to chaos and back again. Those with order are needed for stability. Those who espouse chaos bring change. Only humanity may balance humanity. If a God should be needed, only that nothing from without should threaten that free choice. The maker should be the first servant, just as the mother would care without hesitation for her child
-Shinji & Warhammer Xover.
There are certain parts of perfectionism that are good but I think that the word brings up negative connotations. the definition that you have given for perfectionism (taken from Wikipedia) is "Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality disposition characterized by an individual striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations. It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional characteristic, as psychologists agree that there are many positive and negative aspects. In its maladaptive form, perfectionism drives individuals to attempt to achieve an unattainable ideal, and their adaptive perfectionism can sometimes motivate them to reach their goals. In the end, they derive pleasure from doing so. When perfectionists do not reach their goals, they often fall into depression."
Perfectionism is good in the fact that it rewards perfect creations and projects and negative in the fact that it can be self destroying, One of the defining traits of Perfectionism is that it increases the impact of criticism both from within and without Primarily on the subject in question and often goes overboard in the pursuit of perfection creating a depressive spiral. What benefit comes from Perfectionism is based upon the strength and resilience of one's mind and what outside help one has. Perfectionism is really a complex subject and the perception of it as a bad thing comes from the archetypal representation of the subject: That of a controlling figure who hates to be criticized.
Warning: TvTropes may ruin your life, TvTropes should be used at your discretion, (most Tropers agree that excessive use of TvTropes may be conductive to cynicism and overvaluation of most major media, Tvtropes can cause such symptoms as: Becoming dangerously genre savvy, spending increasing amounts of time on TvTropes, and a general increase in the number of tropes you use in a conversation. Please think twice before using TvTropes)
You know, now I actually want to go up to my art teacher with a painting and ask her to "Say something mathematical".
He's a decent author but I am having trouble finding anything of significance by him in Calgary
Quite okay actually, not sure who decided that the entire IQ test be made up of progressive reasoning tests, at least ask some other problem solving questions
Just took the IQ test for fun, wasn't even trying hard for half of it, still got a 102
I was laughing so hard when I saw this.
Sorry about that, the internet connection I am using occasionally does this sort of thing.
I am Alexander Baruta, High-school student currently in the 11th grade (grade 12 math and biology). I originally found the site through Eliezer's blog, I am (technically) part of the school's robotics team (someone has to stop them from creating unworkable plans), undergoing Microsoft It certification, and going through all of the psychology courses in as little time as possible (Currently enrolled in a self-directed learning school) so I can get to the stuff I don't already know. My mind is fact oriented, (I can remember the weirdest things with perfect clarity after only hearing them once) but I have trouble combining that recall with my English classes, and I have trouble remembering names. I am informally studying formal logic, programming, game theory, and probability theory (don't you hate it when the curriculum changes. (I also have a unusual fondness for brackets, if you couldn't tell by now)
I also feel that any discussion about me that fails to mention my love of Sf/Fantasy should be shot dead, I caught onto reading at a very, very early age and by the time I was in 5th grade I was reading at a 12th grade comprehension level, and I was tackling Asimov, Niven, Pohl, Piers Anthony, Stephen R. Donaldson, Roger Zelazny and most good authors.
I am Alexander Baruta, High-school student currently in the 11th grade (grade 12 math and biology). I originally found the site through Eliezer's blog, I am (technically) part of the school's robotics team (someone has to stop them from creating unworkable plans), undergoing Microsoft It certification, and going through all of the psychology courses in as little time as possible (Currently enrolled in a self-directed learning school) so I can get to the stuff I don't already know. My mind is fact oriented, (I can remember the weirdest things with perfect clarity after only hearing them once) but I have trouble combining that recall with my English classes, and I have trouble remembering names. I am informally studying formal logic, programming, game theory, and probability theory (don't you hate it when the curriculum changes. (I also have a unusual fondness for brackets, if you couldn't tell by now)
Survey: Completed, no problems. Dithered quite a bit when asked what my position was on the true Prisoners dilemma. And I keep consistently overshooting the estimation dates by 100 years (almost precisely, on the previous survey I overshot by 105 years, this time overshot by 120ish). I've started getting more involved in the community over the past 3 months.
Right, response to the meditation:
It gets rather difficult talking about human mental constructs, let's begin by asking myself where would I find justice/mercy; almost immediately (which means that I need to do some more thinking) I find that I think of human emotional constructs as a side effect of society and it's group mindset,
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.
- Susan and Death, in Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
I would find that by grinding down the universe to it's component molecules would completely fail to find any number of things that humanity finds important; Humanity for one, to me rationalism is, above all the study of the universe and what it contains. And yet when it comes to most psychological phenomenon the models start to break down, does this mean that a more refined model would be equally unable to describe the phenomenon, not necessarily. Because as rationalists one of our key teachings is that we can observe something by studying it's causes and effects; justice and mercy exists insofar as we as humans can comprehend their nature. They exist because we can determine the differences between a universe where they exist and the ones where they don't exist.
-reposted in the right section
Putting this in a slightly more coherent way. (I was having some trouble understanding the explanation, so I broke it down into layman's terms, might make it more easily understandable)
If I assign P(0) to "Green is either" Then I assign P(1) to the statement "Green is not either"
If you assign absolute certainty to any one statement you are, by definition assigning absolute impossibility to all other possibilities.
Putting this in a slightly more coherent way. (I was having some trouble understanding the explanation, so I broke it down into layman's terms, might make it more easily understandable)
If I assign P(0) to "Green is either" Then I assign P(1) to the statement "Green is not either"
If you assign absolute certainty to any one statement you are, by definition assigning absolute impossibility to all other possibilities.
Okay, that makes tons more sense, I apparently wasn't thinking too clearly when I wrote the first post. (plus I didn't know about the standard tests)
Thanks for setting me straight.
Before they publish anything (other than a article on Coca-Cola not being related to stomach cancer) they should first use a different test group in order to determine that the first result wasn't a sampling fluke or otherwise biased, (Perhaps sneezing wasn't causing large ears after all, or large ears were correlated to something that also caused sneezing.)
What brought the probability to your attention in the first place shouldn't be what proves it.
If A then B is a separate experiment than If C then D and should require separate additional proof.
I'd love to participate in such a study, I've noticed my moods go all over the place and would like to see how such a survey would work.
From the few minutes I've seen of it it looks amazing. If anyone wishes to play it here's A link
Huh, I scrolled past this and read Nisan's post first, by the time I got any further this was already running through my head.
Not so sure that this is a good rationalist quote though.
Huh, I scrolled past this and read Nisan's post first, by the time I got any further this was already running through my head.
Not so sure that this is a good rationalist quote though.
Huh, I scrolled past this and read Nisan's post first, by the time I got any further this was already running through my head.
Not so sure that this is a good rationalist quote though.
This idea is absolutely brilliant, especially #2 on the list, personally I need to ensure that I actually start consciously making the connection between owning things and having them around to use.