Posts
Comments
I have taken the survey
I feel like some questions could use a way to provide an explanation for the answer, or the "other" option. Like, for example, my answer for the immigration question would be "no restriction on immigration for educated and culturally compatible people, extreme restrictions for non-educated and culturally incompatible ones", but I ended up putting in the "no options" one, as it was more like the average between "no restrictions" and "strong restrictions"
Can anyone recommend good books on teaching (preferrably not kids, but adults) ?
We haven't seen anything like evidence that our laws of physics are only approximations at all. If we're in a simulation, this implies that with high probability either a) the laws of physics in the parent universe are not our own laws of physics (in which case the entire idea of ancestor simulations fails) or b) they are engaging in an extremely detailed simulation.
It depends on what you consider a simulation. Game of Life-like cell automaton simulations are interesting in terms of having a small number of initial rules and being mathematically consistent. However, using them for large-scale project (for example, a whole planet populated with intelligent beings) would be really expensive in terms of computer power required. If the hypothetical simulators' resources are in any way limited then for purely economic reasons the majority of emulations would be of the other kind - the ones where stuff is approximated and all kinds of shortcuts are taken.
And our simulating entities would be able to tell that someone was doing a deliberate experiment how?
Very easily - because a scientist doing an experiment talks about doing it. If the simulated beings are trying to run LHC, one can emulate the beams, the detectors, the whole accelerator down to atoms - or one can generate a collision event profile for a given detector, stick a tracing program on the scientist that waits for the moment when the scientist says "Ah... here is our data coming up" and then display the distribution on the screen in front of the scientist. The second method is quite a few orders of magnitude cheaper in terms of computer power required, and the scientist in question sees the same picture in both cases.
I feel there are some significant differences between drawing Mohammed and showing the British person a picture of the salmon:
In case of Britain affected with the salmon ailment, it is not actually necessary to stop depicting salmon. For example, if you are a proud owner of a salmon-fisher’s blog, it is sufficient to put up a “CONTAINS SALMON” warning on the front page to prevent some unlucky Brit from wandering inside and getting a jolt. We do not stop selling peanut products because some people are allergic to them and might actually die from consuming those – we just put a highly visible “CONTAINS NUTS” label on the packaging. However, if you have a religious issue discussion blog that may contain some Mohammed art, posting a “CONTAINS PICTURES OF MOHHAMED” warning on the front page will only attract the kind of Muslims that are particularly averse to Mohammed art.
Another interesting point to consider is that being atheist, I do not have a duty or commandment not to draw a picture of Mohammed and neither do Christians, Buddhists, Jews or Hindus. Technically, if your commandments do not forbid it you are not committing a sacrilege. Now, waving a Mohammed pic in the Muslims’ face would be definitely a dick move, but publishing it in your blog/journal/whatever other media that a Muslim would have to actively seek out in order to be exposed should be ok.
A tit-for-tat argument – suppose that while Britain was affected by salmon aversion the rest of the world was struck by an aversion to cat pictures (the horror! Oh, the fluffy horror!). Now, if the British demand that we get rid of our salmon pics but keep flashing the cat pics all over the place, would you still feel that it is a dick move to keep your salmon? Getting back to the Mohammed issue, this is exactly what we see – the same Muslim groups that react most aggressively to the Mohammed pics are known for damaging and destroying various objects that hold cultural and religious value to non-Muslims. Is it right to cooperate when your opponent is known for defecting?
However, I do feel that my thinking might be influenced by a tribal-rivalry bias against Muslems. If you find anything of that sort – feel free to dig in.
Religions' centuries-long endurance is an interesting topic to think about. However, there are simpler explanations for the longevity of religious beliefs than attributing them to some sort of supernatural causes - ones involving some sort of memetic selection. I am pretty sure there are good and detailed studies out there in the internet that you could read for a more detailed argument on that, maybe even on this site, but as for a simple explanation, here is a hypothesis that I could come up with in about 5 minutes of thinking:
Here is a list of certain traits that are common to many long-surviving and wide-spread religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the most fitting examples) :
- Indoctrination starts in the family at a young age
- The strength of belief (especially, unreasoning belief) is considered something positive and praiseworthy
- A large value is placed on holding this exact set of beliefs
- Not-believers (atheists or people with differing religious views) are described as inferior
- There are promises of reward for the faithful (in this world and after death) and punishment for the unfaithful
- There are various well-established practices and rituals that can be seen as directly intended for increasing the strength of the belief
At least to me, those seem like the exact traits needed for a set of beliefs to become self-reinforcing and infectious, so I wouldn't be very surprised if a belief set with such traits survived a long time. Actually, I do not remember seeing a post here that would go into more depth on this, but maybe I will compose one, if I have the time and people think it is an interesting topic.
Nice review! I am actually reading through this one now. I've always felt like set theory is one of those one-point wonders of science - digging in deeply doesn't give you much benefit, but the basic stuff is the stuff you are going to run into pretty much everywhere. Guess I'll have to see what I think after I read all the way through.
One of the problems with this argument is that the such perseverence is not unique to Christianity in particular and religion in general:
- Many religions have stories of believers' faith persisting against all odds, so this particular property can't be easily attributed to Christ exclusively.
- Religion in general does not have a monopoly on perseverance either - people have been known to keep their ideas about the superiority of their country / government / lord / general political idea even with an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing in the other direction or even when threatened with death or torture.
- Perserverance is not limited to noble acts, like keeping your faith in god or loyalty to your political leaders either. I am pretty sure many of us have personally observed people keeping some sort of belief (non-religious and non-patriotic) that was detrimental and unprofitable to them (even sometimes to such an extent that holding on to such belief leads to severe harm or death).
- I was able to evaluate some of my behaviors in a more rational fashion, from a better cost/benefit viewpoint, and I was able to cognitively model and evaluate my behavior better, which was a significant help in getting rid of some unhealthy habits.
- LessWrong helped a lot with my self-education too, being a source of inspiration and motivation and pointing me towards some cool educational resources I didn’t know about previously.
- Found quite a lot of interesting fiction to read through LessWrong, too.
- Useful advice on combating akrasia.
- Helped me to systematize what I know about philosophy.
Overall, I feel that LessWrong made a noticeably significant positive impact on my life.
I wonder if any of the meetups set up a broadcast via Skype or a webinar of some sorts - I would be very curious to listen in on this one, if there is such an opportunity.
Hello, everyone!
I am a long-time lurker and reader of LessWrong, and I have finally worked myself up to making an account and writing some comments. I am looking forward to participating in the discussions more, and hopefully writing some posts and contributing to the thought-bank here. So far, LessWrong have been a great resource for me, helping me to get a sturdier basis for my ideological framework, and exposing me to some good new ideas to think about.
For a little bit about myself: I am 29 years old, Russian, bachelors’ degree in Chemistry and Math and a Masters’ in Nuclear Chemistry from an American university. Currently I live in Russia, working as an instructor in IT / software development for a business analytics software company. The job is pretty much another step of school, only going into a “job experience” slot on the resume, instead of the “education” one – we study a topic for a month, then we go and teach it to our developers. My first year was our company’s software applications, then development and coding, now I am on the databases part. Eventually, I am hoping to return to a sciencier sort of work, though.
Religion-wise, I am an atheist, formerly going through all kinds of interesting religious searches (maybe I will make a separate comment on the rationalist origin thread about that). Politics – wise, I find it hard to classify myself as going with any traditional views (call me an effective anarchist, maybe?). Or maybe I am hoping for a better set of political ideas to emerge someday in the future.
My interests are the following:
Reading everything I can get my hands on, preferably science and science-pop literature, fiction and science fiction.
Science and self-education. When I found Less Wrong, it sparked yet again my interest in the more arcane parts of IT, and I am currently working through the basics part of the Miri research guide posted here, while also keeping up with my job-related applied IT studies. In the past, I found myself sometime venturing into the evolution theory field (still hoping to find some time some day to make a study of evolutionary algorithms and maybe program some fun simulation with evolving pseudo-life), basics of quantum (well, that was in my school program), biology, sometimes philosophy, religion and applied ethics.
As for less science and reading-related interests – I enjoy camping, rafting, the general summery outdoors stuff. In my city, summer is short, so we try to squeeze as much goodness as possible out of it.
Anyways, I am looking forward to having some fun discussions here. Nice to meet you, guys!
Here is the story of my path to becoming a rationalist.
As far as I remember myself, I used to read anything I could get my hands on – my mom even jokes sometimes that I learned to read before I learned how to speak. So, long story short, at some point, when I was about 5-6 years old, I got my hands on a Bible. Having thoroughly studied that particular document, I decided to go forth and become baptized. I guess that I am one of the rare cases of child baptism being a somewhat educated decision – at least, I took time to familiarize myself with the tenets of my religion and made the decision to convert myself.
While my parents are not particularly religious, they took my request well enough (you want to go to church? Fine, enjoy yourself and don’t forget to come back in time for dinner!), and so I was baptized in a Russian Orthodox church. I did not become a severely religious child, but I did attend church of my own volition once in a while (though, honestly, most of the times I found that reading cool adventures of Philistine-slaying Jewish heroes in the Bible was significantly more fun than church attendance).
As time went on, though, I became increasingly interested in science. As a result, eventually, starting from the age of 8 - 10 or so I started getting my hands on some science fiction, then textbooks and encyclopedias on biology, geology, chemistry and physics. At the same time, I have discovered that there are various religious paths in the world other that Orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Paganism (of the latter two, I knew from the Bible). Well, actually, I also knew quite a lot about the Greeko-Roman pantheon a lot too by that time, but I generally considered those a fantasy story sort of thing, not a religious path. So, as the amount of information available to my mind grew, I started getting less and less satisfied with the Christian interpretation of the world.
By the time I entered high school, I started roaming around, trying to get a sense of what kind of religion would be satisfactory to explain the observed reality. For some time I fluctuated around, once in a while picking a religion and trying it on to see if its explanations would fit, however, most of them failed. I looked into writings of some esoteric authors – out of those guys, I most fondly remember a Russian esoteric writer Daniel Andreyev, who wrote a book called “Rose of the World” about unity between different religions. I looked into Buddhism, and I still retain the thought that if there is any religion that is “less wrong” than the others, Buddhism might be it. I tried to embrace the communist doctrine. I have spent some of my teenage time being a typical straw-man atheist of the type that yells at old babushkas “Your god is an illusion, fool! Repent! Everything is biochemistry and physics!” (Yes, I was an obnoxious youth at times.) I also tried to invent my own religion or three, though I wasn’t successful in making one that would suffice for explaining the reality or converting people. Those particular attempts, no doubt, did not help my public image at school at that time, so a lot of people thought I was nuts. However, I should say, trying to make my own religion was fun, and if I ever get enough time to sit down and write a fantasy novel (I do get that temptation once in a while), I will have some material ready and waiting for me from back then. And all the while, I studied more and more science, winning at some major competitions and preparing for college. My primary interest at that time ended up in Chemistry.
When time came for me to go get my undergraduate education, it happened so that I ended up going into a Christian school in America (for a major in Chemistry and Maths, though). Being surrounded by Christians (well-educated Christians too, who could argue their points and solve some of the difficulties I was facing) cooled me down for a while, so I became a somewhat satisfied Christian for a while again. Yet, as time passed, I still found that Christianity couldn’t provide me a satisfactory world model, even as explained by the trained theologians at my school. As I did not want to raise a scandal, I ended up maintaining my image of a functional Christian until I graduated, but by the time I left school I was certain that whatever I may honestly call myself, it is not Christian.
With time, as I encountered more materials on atheist and rationalist philosophy I lost the remaining shreds of my religious needs, and gradually became an atheist and stayed one ever since (a bit of an anti-climax to that exciting story, i guess). Similarly, with the rest of rationality both instrumental and fundamental, as my knowledge of the world grew, I ended up updating my beliefs more and becoming a more generally rational person as well. So, I guess I never went through a dramatic deconversion or rationalist awakening – in the end, I feel I just grew up.
I wonder if it would be possible to erase most of Voldemort, but keep the Quirrel mask personality through some combination of Memory Charms, Obliviation and Legilimency. He was a pretty cool teacher, after all, when not murdering the students and whatnot. Using the Stone, it would be even possible to give him a permanently-transfugured Quirrel body, so that the students don't get scared of Voldie teaching them...
R.I.P Quirrelmort, we shall miss you...
Actually, now that I spent a little time thinking on it, this idea becomes even more interesting. Remember, one of the recurring themes that makes Harry so cool is that he has different conceptual limitations from the rest of the wizards. Now, as far as we know, dementors are controlled by people's expectations. The reason that dementors haven't exterminated all the life on Earth yet could be that while people are afraid of death, death always seems to wait another day and moves slowly and on its own pace. I mean, for a medieval person, the image of death might be connected to a tiger or a warrior on horseback killing you or disease or hunger doing you in over the course of several days or maybe weeks. Barring freak accidents, the fastest death-related image in a medieval person's brain could be an arrow (or a fast-flying but perfectly dodgeable Avada Kedavra bolt for a wizard).
So, the Wizengamot people whom Harry considered unleashing a dementor upon, and the Death Eaters surrounding him now - they are all medievals. Voldemort, at least, has contemplated nuclear missiles, rockets and spaceships, so for him death could imaginably be something that can cover a good portion of Earth's circumference in under half an hour, reenter the atmosphere at many times the speed of sound and blow a whole city to the oblivion. Voldemort, however, haven't internalized as much physics as Harry did, so he is on the level of a mid-20th century science fiction writer - and he doesn't have the power to control dementors.
Harry, however, is a totally different case. Harry can imagine (and, quite possible, given time and money, construct) a laser cannon that shoots a ray of death at the speed of light. Harry can think of supernova blasts covering interstellar distances. Harry can think of ultra-relativistic projectiles carrying enough kinetic energy to completely blow a planet apart. Harry can think in terms of homing missiles and AI-directed weapons that can track and destroy enemies without a need for human guidance. Hell, now that Harry knows that time-travel is possible in this universe, he should be able to realize that this could lead to FTL signaling (which could be used to kill people faster than light), so in his mind, death literally shouldn't have a physically set speed-limit. And with his Partial Transfiguration, Harry already has demonstrated his capablility of using his knowledge to bypass the concepts that hold the rest of the wizards back. And Harry does have the power to control dementors.
So, to summarize the above - Harry is the only person who can truly control dementors, and in his mind, Death has no speed limit. If Harry can figure this out within the remaining 60 seconds - Voldie and Death Eaters simply don't have any chance.
Well, as for the dementor manipulation ability as the "power the Dark Lord knows not", it is actually a pretty overpowered one. Considering that in HPMOR universe dementors are described as Death, "wounds in the world" and whatever else, they should make a very effective weapon. Consider that, for example, when Harry asks about what would happen if a dementor got thrown into the sun, people seem to interpret it not as a "would a dementor die?" sort of question, but as a "would the sun get damaged by that?" question. So, in my opinion, such a monster shouldn't be inhibited by such things as mere large distances, material obstacles and other mundane and magical protections. When Harry stood before the Wizengamot in a presence of some pretty powerful wizards, including Dumbledore, McGonnagal and Lucius, he was quite sure that in the absence of Patronuses a single dementor under his control would be sufficient to quickly and selectively wipe out everyone who Harry found distasteful. Note also, that there is no need for Harry to wave his wand or say anything to control dementors.
So, if Harry could get his hands on a dementor and his moral qualms wouldn't get in the way, I am sure that at the very least he could kill every death eater he wants dead (maybe sparing Lucius and Sirius, former as a possible ally, latter for a bit of questioning), and discorporate Voldemort, which would at least give him time to call for backup and warn people while Voldie is busy respawning and looking for some Listerine to wash that truly horrible dementor aftertaste out of his mouth. As for Voldemort's idea that he could run away from his body before it gets kissed - I think Voldie is overestimating himself here. Dementors are controlled by people's (especially Harry's) expectations, so if Harry expects a dementor to insta-kiss Voldemort, then Voldemort should be toast.
There are a few of ways to take this idea further than Harry's immediate survival. First, we don't know yet how a dementor's soul-munching abilities interact with a horcruxed spirit, so it is possible that a Kissed Voldemort would die completely or come back damaged.
Second, even if Voldie can come back from being kissed, Harry could do the following - tell Voldemort (maybe in the course of explaining the dementor-control power) in Parseltongue that the dementors are going to purposefully hunt down his horcruxes (being entropy personified, they might be able to slowly erode them and wouldn't be held back by such mundane inconveniences as said horcruxes being in Earth's mantle or something) and kiss any body that Voldemort enters. This sets the new expectations in Voldemort's mind (even if he finds it laughable) and then Harry unleashes the Death.
Now, the question is: where does Harry get a dementor? I guess Harry might have a sudden realization that being Death, dementors should not be bound by such trivialities as a mere few hundred kilometers, and summon some from Azkaban, but EY might consider that a revelation that bypasses the previously set constraints. Alternatively, Harry might try to gamble by telling Voldie that he knows a counterspell to dismiss Death (which does sound useful to an aspiring immortal), and hope that Voldemort doesn't realize the dementor connection and is actually willing to try an experiment with the sword and rope ritual. (and hope that the ritual actually produces a dementor and not some other variation of Death Incarnate).
Here is a little psychological trick that can be useful for those of us who have troubles with decision-making. I have found it rather helpful and time-saving on quite a few occasions.
So, suppose you are totally stuck trying to make a Buridan's ass choice between case A and case B, and you need to make a quick decision. Your quick utilitarian estimate have not been able to solve your problem, if you continue the deliberation, you are running the risk of missing both opportunities, and you are wasting your time and brainpower on this decision. There is also a known phenomenon that taking too much time for deliberation can be as bad for your performance/decision quality as taking too little time. So, here's a simple trick to make the choice quicker and easier: you toss the coin. The twist here is that first, you outsource the decision-making process to an agency outside of your control (the coin), and then you need to give yourself exactly one chance to veto the outcome. So, after the coin toss, do a quick evaluation of your feelings. If the outcome leaves you feeling resentful - switch the choice. If you feel relieved by the outcome - keep the choice. My guess at why this works is that making a decision incurs a larger willpower cost than judging whether the pre-made decision is right or wrong.
Now, the remaining outcome is that after the coin toss has been made, you don't feel anything. Then, if the choice is necessary - as in, you actually do need either A or B, just go with the toss and congratulate yourself for saving some time and mental effort. If you don't actually need either A or B - ask a little question on whether you actually want either of those items, because if you don't care about whether A or B was chosen, chances are you don't really need them that bad anyways.
I also 50% expect, that when Harry surveys the scene, an unbelievably improper voice in Harry's head says "Hey, we've got our primary companion back... and we've got some phat loot!" and then gets silenced with great prejudice.
Some obvious theorycrafting: (presuming, based on Hermione's resurrection, that Voldemort's plan is for Harry to rule the world): (note: Quirrel did mention once before in Parseltongue: plan iss for you to rule country, obvioussly.)
- possibility 1 (The simple and obvious version where Voldemort finally makes a mistake): Original plan - Voldemort plays the role of antagonist or whatever while Harry rules the world openly. However, the horcrux network glitches when Voldie tries to plug Hermione in, and we get what we see (Voldie supposedly dead, Harry wins).
- possibility 2: (Voldemort actually won) Unless Hermione can in some way detect the Horcrux network, there is no easy way to test whether Voldemort is really dead or not now. As Quirrell himself mentioned at some point, what worked once can work again, given the sufficient stupidity of audience, and it definitely seems now that Hary has once more vanquished the Dark Lord. The result is: Dumbledore is gone, Voldemort is free to assume any new identity he wants to and continue the game without anyone knowing about it, Harry is a hero and Harry gets all the toys and a resurrected Super-Hermione, who otherwise would have probably never agreed to undergo such rituals as human and magic creature sacrifice for the sake of her longevity.
For the second possibility - If there was anyone Voldemort could have been altruistic to, it's himself, and Harry is sort of, well, him. I could theoretically see how Voldemort in his twisted ways would consider his gambit a great gift to Harry - Harry has Hermione back (and better than original), Harry won't need to bother about Dumbledore while working towards his world domina... i mean, optimization, of course!, and Harry gets a load of cool toys to play with. So if we suppose that Voldemort is capable of limited empathy towards Harry - maybe he did decide to have a Grinch-Heart-Growing-A-Few-Sizes moment and give Harry such a nice, bloody and traumatizing gift? I feel that is more probable than the great Chessmaster Riddle finally making a mistake... though, as someone already mentioned, Dumbledore could have somehow loaded Voldie up with a nice overdose of Bahl's Stupefaction.
p.s. On the second thought, an additional correction. Provided that it was really Dumbledore that killed Draco's Mom, now that Dumbledore is conveniently gone by Voldemort's hand, Harry doesn't need to choose between his friendship with Malfoy and his wise old advisor. This assures me even further that what we observe is an unprecedented act of twisted altruism from Voldemort to his Mini-me.
It's a pity we didn't get to see what Harry would see if he looked into the mirror. I half-expected to see the scene where Harry looks into the mirror and sees himself transcend his humanity, becoming an immortal intelligence running on a Matryoska brain, then uses his newfound god-like powers and cognitive abilities to take Hermione's body apart atom by atom and reconstruct her back as a living Hermione, helps her ascend as well, so that the two of them can defeat death, optimize the world, and go on doing all those awesome things Harry once said he wanted to do with immortality ...and then Harry looks down and sees that he has a nano-factory in his pocket that can help him start this transition.
I mean, while EY told us that Harry would not build an FAI, he did not say "Harry will not become an immensely-powerful FAI"
This whole trail of thought also reminded me of what a certain Milo Amastacia-Liadon from a certain other HP fanfic saw in the mirror. We all know that Rational Harry doesn't aim low, does he?