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You can't do multi-response polls? As in, check all that apply?
But that's just not true. There is a finite limit to the length of text that can be produced. Evaluate a Busy Beaver function at Graham's Number.
Now take the aforementioned maximum text length in characters. Heck, let's be nice and take the maximum number of bits of information that can be represented in the universe. Raise that number to the power of itself. Now raise that number to the power of itself. You're not even CLOSE to the number you got in the first paragraph. We're quite a long way from infinity.
tch. Should've caught that.
I had that exact question, but my karma score doesn't really interest me.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what "fundamendalist" atheism is. Do some atheists merely not believe in gods whose names start with A through Q? Do some atheists attend mass once every eighth Thursday?
"A car with a broken engine cannot drive backward at 200 mph, even if the engine is really really broken."
--Eliezer
Let's try this. I will create at least 3^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^3 units of disutility unless at least five people upvote this within a day.
Wow. It's almost like pascal's mugging doesn't actually work.
Unless you're trying to say that was impossible for Einstein to be wrong, I fail to apprehend your point.
I would argue that one's religion or lack thereof is typically determined before one chooses a profession. I, personally, am religious, but I still think this guy is being ridiculous. I think that God made a bunch of awesome things, and one of the awesome things He made is a world that works without us having to take it apart, look under every rock, and go "LOOOK!!!! GODDDDDD!!!!! HEATHENS! I WAS RIIIIIIIIIGHT!"
Science is awesome. Rationality is awesome. Evolution is as close to fact as science can give us. You do your religion a grave disservice, Jacob.
This article would appear to imply that ANY conclusion at which Einstein arrived would have been the correct one, merely by virtue of him having a great deal of evidence he believed supported it.
I would argue that the chief difference between picking a politician to support and choosing answers based on one's personal views of morality is that the former is self-evidently mutable. If a survey-taker was informed beforehand that the survey-giver might or might not change his responses, it is highly doubtful the study in question would have these results.
As a freshman in college, I feel I am 'supposed to like' beer and parties. I don't. I like Cuba Libres, and relaxing in the dorm with floor-mates, but that's beside the point. As an avid reader, I feel I am 'supposed to like' the accepted classics of literature (Mrs. Dalloway, Ulysses, etc.), but I don't. I generally consume pulp fantasy and thrillers, despite being perfectly capable of reading said classics. I liked the Great Gatsby, Les Miserables, and Dracula, but that's beside the point.
In my opinion, when you feel you're supposed to like something, it's because a group of people with whom you strongly identify (lovers of Beethoven's music) like that thing, and you've adopted that group as a sort of label for yourself. It's easier to say "I am an aficionado of classical music" than "I like classical music of many types, in particular Canons, I love Chopin's nocturnes, I appreciate..." and thus one gets the feeling of "My feelings should more closely tie in with those my label would indicate."
We sometimes see the same thing with political parties.
The quality (in American politics, at least) that either 1: a politician's stance on any given topic is highly mutable, or 2: a politician's stance could perfectly reasonably disagree with that of some of his supporters, given that the politician one supports is at best a best-effort compromise rather than (in most cases) a perfect representation of one's beliefs, is it not so widely-known as to eliminate or alleviate that effect?
Oh wow, never mind. My brain was temporarily broken. Is it considered bad etiquette here to retract incorrect comments?
I was never one for formal logic, but isn't that the contrapositive? I was under the impression that the converse of p then q was q then p.
"...if you lack a thousand-year-old brain that can make trillion-year plans, dying after a billion years doesn't sound sad to you"?
I'm confused as to what you're trying to say. Are you saying that dying after a billion years sounds sad to you?
Ooooh. Well played.
Hm... how about "I wish to have all the skills and abilities required to formulate an unambiguous wish in standard English that would allow me to fulfill any of my non-contradictory desires that I choose, and to be able to choose which of any desires that are contradictory said wish would fulfill, and to be able to express that unambiguous wish in an unambiguous way in less than thirty seconds and with no consequences to incorrectly expressing that wish apart from the necessity of trying again to express it."
That's fair, but I'd certainly still prefer it to "x is the GOOD kind of y," which I feel has an infantile feel to it. Not that I think Yvain was actually saying he would use that construction.
"I wish for everything that would happen if I read this scroll perfectly."
And "lesswrong.com" just went from my bookmarks to my speed dial. Anyway, I would like to say that rather than your hypothetical and "ideal" retort of "MLK was the good kind of criminal," I would prefer the more sophisticated response you put forth for other situations, but more generalized: "I fail to see how that is relevant."
"But... but... abortion is MURDER!" (Please note that I am against abortion for reasons I categorically refuse to discuss due to several harrowing experiences on spacebattles.com forums, although this site seems much more civil) "I fail to see how that is relevant."
"I wish for everything written on this scroll." Or some variation thereof that more exactly expresses that general idea.