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The Scientific Approach To Anything and Everything 2023-03-09T11:27:43.629Z
THE GOLDEN RULE; What can we learn from it? 2022-04-21T16:38:40.288Z

Comments

Comment by Rami Rustom (rami-rustom) on Physics is Ultimately Subjective · 2023-07-15T11:45:05.336Z · LW · GW

I don't understand the point of this post except to try to clarify the meanings of the words objective and subjective.

But if that's the case, what's the point of that? What does it help us do better? 

What happens if somebody does not hold your view and sticks with their current view? 

My guess is nothing. The act of doing physics (i.e. the scientific approach) does not get affected by how we understand the terms objective and subjective. Do you agree?

Side note: I wonder if it would have been better to start your post with a clarification of the terms objective and subjective, then explain what physicists and artists do, then explain how physics or art are objective or subjective. 

Comment by Rami Rustom (rami-rustom) on Consciousness as a conflationary alliance term for intrinsically valued internal experiences · 2023-07-15T11:23:16.745Z · LW · GW

This post reminds me of so many versions of this same thing. 

For example:  When people talk about love, they often are not talking about the same thing, without anyone in the discussion realizing it. They're just talking past each other. Often times they agree with each other, even though they are not using the same definition for the word "love" (they are too far apart, and the difference is enough to prevent mutual understanding). 

The same thing happens for lots of words/phrases, for example:

  •  "I'm sure X is true." People have different conceptions of what it means to "be sure". I recall a discussion with my then-8-year old kid that drives this home. Kid: I have to pee. Rami: Like right now? You're sure it has to be now? Kid: Yes, I'm sure. A few days pass and we're doing some math work. Kid: I'm sure I got the right answer. Rami: Do you mean you're sure of it like when you're sure you have to pee? Kid: No.
  • "X is true." People have different conceptions of what it means for an idea to be "true". True from the perspective of an omniscient being? Or true from the perspective of all existing human knowledge? Or true from the perspective of a single human being's knowledge? It's much more clear to say "X is true [as far as I know and here are all the ways that I checked to see that I'm wrong: A, B... Z]." 
  • "Does God exist?" People have different conceptions of what God is. So, which of the conceptions of God is being asked about in this question? None of them? Any/all of them (the ones that exist already and future ones that haven't been invented yet)?
  • "Does X exist?" People have different conceptions of what it means to "exist". 
  • "Do we have freewill?" People have different conceptions of what freewill is, yet most people talking about freewill do not establish what another person means by freewill before concluding that that other person is wrong about freewill.

I think that in all of these cases, people are making the same conflationary alliance mistake that you've identified. 

Comment by Rami Rustom (rami-rustom) on The Scientific Approach To Anything and Everything · 2023-03-10T00:58:25.764Z · LW · GW

btw, my ideas on the golden rule, vs platinum rule, vs common preference finding have changed. My newer article explains it differently. See section 10.  

Comment by Rami Rustom (rami-rustom) on The Scientific Approach To Anything and Everything · 2023-03-09T17:42:34.640Z · LW · GW

You're probably right.  Another person told me I could have said the same stuff in half the length.

This article is more on the marketing, not much about the content of the scientific approach. 

I did write another article that goes into the content (linked above under the heading Want more details about the scientific approach?). It's twice as long and it's tuned for a business audience.  I wrote the second article because I presented the first one to TOCICO, the org responsible for improving and spreading TOC, and they asked me to rewrite the article for the TOC audience, in less of a magazine style and more of the style of a scientific paper.

What effect did you mean to produce in me? What problem were you solving?

To want to learn more. Like from the article I wrote for the TOC audience (Eli Goldratt's followers). 

Comment by Rami Rustom (rami-rustom) on What Are You Tracking In Your Head? · 2022-07-01T21:53:02.316Z · LW · GW

and then there's the possibility of slowing down the activity we're doing (or even chopping up the activity into separate phases so you can track things in-between the phases), allowing for more capacity to be used for tracking new things. 

Comment by Rami Rustom (rami-rustom) on What Are You Tracking In Your Head? · 2022-07-01T21:50:04.652Z · LW · GW

minor feedback...

Mentally tracking extra information is exactly the sort of technique you’d expect to benefit a lot from excess cognitive capacity, i.e. high g-factor. Someone who can barely follow what’s going on already isn’t going to have the capacity to track a bunch of other stuff in parallel.

note that as one practices tracking something, the effort needed to track it goes down.

i don't think it makes sense to think of it like needing excess cognitive capacity to track things. i think our skill improves to the point of needing little to no excess cognitive capacity. so we only need excess cognitive capacity for new things we want to track.