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The New Yorker article on cognitive biases 2012-06-13T06:14:49.170Z

Comments

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Questions on Theism · 2014-10-09T23:35:01.513Z · LW · GW

How else could He do so?

it would be trivially easy for him to arrange a miracle which no other agent could replicate, and for that matter he could allow everybody to see it at once. This would remove all ambiguity and would be a much better way of achieving the goal of making his existence known, or further, of making his will known. If he does indeed use miracles to further his goals, it must be the case that he prioritizes hiding his goals and interventions almost as much as actually achieving them. (after all, nobody can come to an agreement about what God wants or what counts as a miracle) I can't think of a reason why this would be the case, so at this point I've abandoned the project of trying to justify it.

(a standard response would be that God's ambiguous interventions are a test that only the faithful will interpret as evidence. At that point he is actively discouraging the impartial weighing of evidence, which is another baffling behavior which would need motivation)

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Halloween thread - rationalist's horrors. · 2013-11-05T02:47:37.993Z · LW · GW

When I stay up too late I am often bewildered by my alarm clock when it wakes me up, unable to figure out what the numbers mean for a while. Nonetheless there must be a part of me that knows what's going on because I always end up setting it again so I have enough time to get ready after sleeping some more.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on How to Beat Procrastination (to some degree) (if you're identical to me) · 2013-10-20T05:25:34.872Z · LW · GW

It doesn't seem like I ever process the word like that (gendered) at all when it's used in a phrase like that, but I suppose other people might experience it differently.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Teaching rationality to kids? · 2013-10-17T17:50:25.695Z · LW · GW

I'm not sure when education becomes an ugh subject, but I don't think it starts out that way.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school · 2013-10-14T06:59:09.369Z · LW · GW

if you have to memorize 3x7 and 7x3 separately, you're doing it wrong

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality Quotes July 2013 · 2013-07-02T19:59:35.203Z · LW · GW

I wasn't claiming it was the whole story, but thanks for giving more info. I maybe should have said that you can't have that situation without changing trajectories but I thought acceleration was a simpler way to summarize.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality Quotes July 2013 · 2013-07-02T17:34:16.725Z · LW · GW

if you are traveling very fast, the clocks of others are speeding up from your point of view.

This is backwards. Everyone in an inertial frame thinks other peoples clocks are slower. Acceleration is what causes the opposite, e.g. turning the spaceship around to come back

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on LW Women Entries- Creepiness · 2013-04-29T11:36:32.178Z · LW · GW

Why is that creepy instead of just shy?

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Minor, perspective changing facts · 2013-04-23T04:22:53.680Z · LW · GW

Like a cannon from a civil war reenactment?

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Ritual Report: Schelling Day · 2013-04-21T07:35:38.104Z · LW · GW

The fact that they are practiced by existing cults does not mean they are not beneficial. The main cultish aspect is the fear of exploitation, which hopefully is not present.

edit: if it is, please say so.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality Quotes April 2013 · 2013-04-09T11:27:06.748Z · LW · GW

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.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality Quotes April 2013 · 2013-04-09T11:17:31.953Z · LW · GW

It can't do exact relativity but it can do exact general AI? Not to mention that simulating a God that doesn't include relativity will produce the wrong answer.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Fermi Estimates · 2013-04-09T07:48:40.821Z · LW · GW

So, what you're saying is that the larger number is less likely to be accurate the further it is from the smaller number? Why is that?

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on The Quantum Arena · 2013-04-05T07:13:28.850Z · LW · GW

Here is a great simulation of two electrons in a wire that looks just like your drawing of a two particle configuration space, and is quite helpful for showing how it moves and what it means about the particles.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on [SEQ RERUN] You're Calling *Who* A Cult Leader? · 2013-04-03T09:29:47.626Z · LW · GW

In fact, the best indicator of being a masterful cult leader is that no one suspects you! wait...

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on The cup-holder paradox · 2013-03-31T05:09:28.955Z · LW · GW

You can't have a counterpoint to someone's experience. He always found luxury cars to have good cupholders. You can't say he's wrong about that...

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Boring Advice Repository · 2013-03-14T05:19:57.474Z · LW · GW

However, make sure that the things you put on your list are things you actually want to do. Otherwise it may take away from the effect.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Boring Advice Repository · 2013-03-14T05:18:25.489Z · LW · GW

Or maybe they think that your non-drinking is not a value of yours, but a value of another group that you are choosing over theirs.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on You only need faith in two things · 2013-03-14T04:23:13.427Z · LW · GW

I'm not sure why, but now I want Super-induction-turkey to be the LW mascot.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Open thread, February 15-28, 2013 · 2013-03-06T01:06:14.235Z · LW · GW

We argue using simple models that all successful practical uses of probabilities originate in quantum fluctuations in the microscopic physical world around us, often propagated to macroscopic scales

Their argument is that not only is quantum mechanics ontologically probabilistic, but that only ontologically probabilistic things can be successfully described by probabilities. This is obviously false (not to mention that nothing has actually been shown to be ontologically probabilistic in the first place).

Thus we claim there is no physically verified fully classical theory of probability.

They think they can get away with this claim because it can't even be tested in a quantum world. But you can still make classical simulations and see if probability works as it should, and it's obvious that it does. Their only argument is that it's simpler for probability to be entirely quantum, but they fail to consider situations where quantum effects do not actually affect the system (which we can simulate and test).

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Open thread, February 15-28, 2013 · 2013-03-06T00:37:01.577Z · LW · GW

Well, you can run things like physics engines on a computer, and their output is not quantum in any meaningful way (following deterministic rules fairly reliably). It's not very hard to simulate systems where a small uncertainty in initial conditions is magnified very quickly, and this increase in randomness can't really be attributed to quantum effects but can be described very well by probability. This seems to contradict their thesis that all use of probability to describe randomness is justified only by quantum mechanics.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality Quotes March 2013 · 2013-03-05T13:52:01.639Z · LW · GW

I'm sorry, I want to be with someone more interesting, someone who just does something wild and lets the chips fall where they may!

I plan to never take any action toward fulfilling any of my hopes and dreams. What could possibly be riskier than that?

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality Quotes March 2013 · 2013-03-04T02:26:24.342Z · LW · GW

Down voted for unnecessary rot13

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Argument · 2013-02-19T23:00:47.194Z · LW · GW

I think "poorly" in this case meant that it wasn't rated very believable by the judges.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Open thread, February 15-28, 2013 · 2013-02-19T22:30:59.541Z · LW · GW

If they're saying all sources of entropy are physical, that seems obvious. If they're saying that all uncertainty is quantum, they must not know that chaotic classical simulations exist? Or are they not allowing simulations made by humans o.O

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Singularity Institute is now Machine Intelligence Research Institute · 2013-02-01T08:57:56.066Z · LW · GW

I don't think I've seen a pun thread on lesswrong before... Perhaps it's one of those things that should stay on reddit.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction - what might it say? · 2013-01-24T03:29:47.211Z · LW · GW

Now that I think about it, wouldn't it be incredibly easy for an AI to blow a human's mind so much that they reconsider everything that they thought they knew? (and once this happened they'd probably be mentally and emotionally compromised, and unlikely to kill the AI) But then it would be limited by inferential distance... but an AI might be incredibly good at introductory explanations as well.

One example: The AI explains the Grand Unified Theory to you in one line, and outlines its key predictions unambiguously.

In fact, any message of huge utility would probably be more persuasive than any simple argument for you not to kill it. Since the AI is completely at your mercy (at least for a short time), it might seek to give you the best possible gift it can, thus demonstrating its worth to you directly. Another option is something that seems like an incredible gift for at least as long as it takes for the AI to get the upper hand.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on On the Importance of Systematic Biases in Science · 2013-01-22T17:50:13.425Z · LW · GW

Maybe he means that each interview of a citizen is causally independent, since interviewing one of them won't causally affect the answer of another.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on How to signal curiosity? · 2013-01-14T11:17:00.259Z · LW · GW

Overly dramatic, sounds patronizingly sarcastic

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on PSA: Please list your references, don't just link them · 2013-01-07T22:25:52.327Z · LW · GW

The other question is whether it's helpful to quickly look for obvious answers when there isn't one. The information content of "there is a solution" is actually not only one bit (yes vs no), because the fact that that person told it to you means that they solved it quickly using techniques that they already know about. This usually helps you because you either share much of their knowledge, or have an idea of what things they are knowledgeable about. The correct advice in some other cases might have been "you need to learn something else completely new before you'll get it" or "just stop trying because this problem is really of no value and has no easy answer".

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Just One Sentence · 2013-01-07T21:55:54.661Z · LW · GW

And thus began a society of literal-minded and meticulous cartographers.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Just One Sentence · 2013-01-07T21:50:32.862Z · LW · GW

For good reason; it's the quickest way to become one of the least interesting parts of reddit.

PS: I upvoted lukeprog so that I could comment without penalty and am going to reverse it after I comment. I think that the karma penalty is not a good way to prevent trolls from dominating discussion because trolling is not the only reason that people downvote.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on 2012: Year in Review · 2013-01-06T21:13:30.639Z · LW · GW

Only on less wrong is a new years retrospective justified using game theory ;)

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013 · 2013-01-06T21:02:42.814Z · LW · GW

Society is thankfully not a zero sum game. In many cases, an immigrant having the option to move to a new country is gaining a significant amount of utility, and the citizens of that country do not lose as much as the immigrant gains (they usually even benefit from the immigrant's presence). And in the cases where the immigrant is taking too much, there already laws in place to counteract antisocial behavior such as stealing or fraud. We already have laws to limit bad outcomes, so restrictions on immigration should tend to cause more harm than good by blocking outcomes regardless of utility. This is in the case where I do not give any advantage to the citizens already in the country by valuing their happiness more, and I don't see a reason why I should.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013 · 2013-01-06T11:25:35.865Z · LW · GW

"Life isn't fair" is one of the least effective arguments I have ever heard, though it is a great example of naturalistic fallacy (this thing is better because it's natural / don't try to mess with the way things are meant to be). I also said why I thought unfairness in this particular case is bad, so I'm down voting.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013 · 2013-01-06T07:51:06.718Z · LW · GW

On immigration, not necessarily limited to the united states. I find laws that discriminate based on national origin to be unfair, in the sense that they limit good outcomes arbitrarily. On the other hand, I do not know of a way to transition to more lenient immigration laws successfully (though I haven't thought about it much and it's far from my areas of interest). I want to know if there are arguments for limiting the rights of immigrants (legal or not) that aren't rooted in excessive self-interest ("they took our jobs!") Or perhaps xenophobia.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on [Link] On the Height of a Field · 2013-01-05T10:18:13.509Z · LW · GW

I think he means multiply once for each piece of evidence, not each hypothesis.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on That Thing That Happened · 2012-12-22T06:44:07.947Z · LW · GW

Also for showing me what Lesswrong's version of r/circlejerk looks like

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on How well defined is ADHD? · 2012-11-18T08:26:04.843Z · LW · GW

Remember that the "soul" you are giving up isn't really the Cartesian dualist version. It matches better to certain emotional or social states that many people prefer to experience.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality Quotes November 2012 · 2012-11-10T18:01:55.897Z · LW · GW

And the biologist says, "guys, that's a dog"

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality Quotes November 2012 · 2012-11-10T10:23:35.696Z · LW · GW

"Bias" can include those flaws, especially how the word is used on this site

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey · 2012-11-07T02:08:47.149Z · LW · GW

I think it meant "not made of smaller parts", for example ghosts would be disembodied consciousnesses not made of any atoms. I thought this was incredibly unlikely.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on November 2012 Media Thread · 2012-11-03T09:06:27.139Z · LW · GW

I'm really enjoying Coheed and Cambria's new album (the second part is releasing in early February), though it may not be for everyone. Their music is an interesting mix of pop-oriented prog rock (with some emo and metal) and it comes with a sci-fi story along with each album. It might be better to listen to their albums chronologically, I rank the albums [1,2,4,3,6,5] in terms of how much I enjoy listening to them most to least.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on November 2012 Media Thread · 2012-11-03T08:57:19.484Z · LW · GW

I wouldn't say "none". Maybe half of the album seemed to be up to the Muse standard, if a little over-the-top. But the dubstep parts really didn't impress.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on An anecdote about names · 2012-10-31T07:55:50.845Z · LW · GW

That seems a bit extreme. Maybe you have that condition that makes it difficult do distinguish faces?

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Popular media coverage of Singularity Summit -the Verge [link] · 2012-10-23T08:22:25.622Z · LW · GW

Making a religion of rationality, it turns out, can lead some very smart people to embrace some insane-sounding ideas.

Also not sure quite what this means. Sounds negative.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on [Link] Are Children Natural Bayesians? · 2012-10-13T03:55:31.681Z · LW · GW

Yeah, I don't remember hearing anything about any AI work SI has done with Bayes Theorem. It's definitely used in the field though.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on [Link] One in five American adults say they are atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular" · 2012-10-13T03:51:13.268Z · LW · GW

I've heard before that if you count denominations, catholics have the most and former catholics are more numerous than any other individual religious organization.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Giulio Tononi's "Integrated Information Theory" of Consciousness · 2012-10-08T19:13:11.032Z · LW · GW

At first glance it seems his definition of consciousness works better as a definition of some subset of intelligence, and not the common concept of consciousness. Usually "consciousness" implies self-awareness more than straight information processing.

Comment by BlazeOrangeDeer on Rationality: Appreciating Cognitive Algorithms · 2012-10-07T07:57:42.004Z · LW · GW

I wouldn't say that for something at just over 50%, i'd say "will probably". An unqualified statement implies confidence.