Comment by ExAequali on Undiscriminating Skepticism · 2013-10-27T07:43:32.175Z · LW · GW

This article makes some interesting points about the meaning of intelligence. Curious what you think of Hofstadter's arguments.

Comment by ExAequali on Pascal's Mugging: Tiny Probabilities of Vast Utilities · 2013-10-16T11:49:25.852Z · LW · GW

Was Kant an analytic philosopher? I can't remember, but thinking in terms of your actions as being the standard for a "categorical imperative" followed by yourself in all situations as well as by all moral beings, the effect of giving the mugger the money is more than $5. If you give him the money once he'll be able to keep on demanding it from you as well as from other rationalists. Hence the effect will be not $5 but all of your (plural) money, a harm which might be in a significant enough ratio to the deaths of all those people to warrant not giving him the money.

I think we have assume that, although this sounds awfully like that quote about "a million deaths are a statistic", the cost of additional deaths decreases. I'm not really sure how to justify that though.

Comment by ExAequali on Undiscriminating Skepticism · 2013-10-15T09:10:52.956Z · LW · GW

So is the source of consciousness not a mystery? Or is consciousness not necessary for intelligence?

Comment by ExAequali on Competent Elites · 2013-04-11T01:52:13.935Z · LW · GW

An anecdote about Jeff Bezos's laserlike focus, etc.:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110981030061712822816/posts/AaygmbzVeRq

Comment by ExAequali on Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions · 2013-04-11T01:25:42.199Z · LW · GW

No credit to Nietzsche for the analogy?