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Actually, I was wondering that myself! I differentiate myself by the fact that I'm among the very first Vladimirs around here. (I've been an OB reader for three years now, I think.)
I'd add step 0: have Singulairty Institute members come for a long visit near you, thus serving as the impetus of the meetup :-)
You can move to Israel :-)
I accept this correction as well. Let me rephrase: the probability, while being positive, is so small as to be on the magnitude of being able to reverse time flow and to sample the world state at arbitrary points.
This doesn't actually change the gist of my argument, but does remind me to double-check myself for nitpicking possibilities...
You are strictly correct, but after brain disintegration, probability of revival is infinitesimal. You should have challenged me on the taxes bit instead :-)
Pardon me, now I'm the one feeling perplexed: where did I screw up?
First, the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Cryonics aside, we should talk in probabilities, not certainties, and this is true of pretty much everything, including god, heliocentrism, etc.
Second, cryonics may have a small chance of succeeding - say, 1% (number pulled out of thin air) - but that's still enormously better than the alternative 0% chance of being revived after dieing in any other way. Dieing in the line of duty or after great accomplishment is similar to leaving a huge estate behind - it'll help somebody, just not you.
Third, re senile dementia, there is the possibility of committing suicide and undergoing cryonics. (Terry Pratchett spoke of a possible assisted suicide, although I see no indication he considered cryonics.)
If cryonics feels like a wash, that's a problem with our emotions. The math is pretty solid.
Agreed.
One caveat: it's great to want to be rationalist about all things, but let him without sin cast the first stone. So much of the community's energies have gone into analyzing akrasia - understanding that behavior X is rational and proper yet not doing it - that it appears hypocritical and counter-productive to reject members because they haven't yet reached all the right conclusions. After all, MrHen did mark religion for later contemplation.
Boris Strugatsky is probably chuckling to himself) right now.
Clarity check: "trumps" = "is (normatively) more important than"?
Yes.
will be really confusing if/when that entry drops off the front page.
Hehe :-) if you propose a less confusing quip, I'll edit it in.
Yes, that would be better, but as yourself note, it's a big change that's unlikely to happen in one go. On the other hand, specialized journals are not a novelty, and considering that at least some folks took that specific specialization up, it appears to be more an issue of advertising than invention.
But nobody said this problem should be attacked on just one front. More (different) attempts mean more chances of success, no?
At least in the second journal (of ecology and evolutionary biology), they do say they accept replication studies.
Cool, thanks! (Also, Google-fu fail on my part.)
One other journal I just found (although no publications there yet): http://www.arjournals.com/ojs/
If this is representative, then it's both encouraging (at least a few folks are taking the problem seriously) and discouraging (they're too few). At least now there's something concrete to evangelize :-)
For what it's worth, I offer this summary of a study about Chinese and American education. Even though Chinese students know a heck of a lot more science, they can't reason scientifically any better than their American counterparts.
I confess I don't know a lot about China, and so my preference to live in almost any Western country and not in China may be biased by ignorance, but... would you prefer to live in China, or another authoritarian state but whose management would be experts in various fields? Do you honestly think such a state would be better at various important parameters of societal welfare?
A final point: while congressfolk may be less competent than we might wish, actual state managers - civil servants in high positions - are often accredited veterans in their fields.
Novel information. I liked your post "on dollars, utility, and crack cocaine", for example.
Downvoted.
As a gut feeling, I agree with the sentiment. But... Most if not all of us agree that neither politicians nor voters are as educated or as rational as they should be, and we voice our agreements frequently. Is this the best use of our time? Considering that many folks have called for "thinking-based" education for a long time now, we're not even innovating. So, what are we doing? Reinforcing virtually uncontroversial beliefs? Priming our own private affective death spiral?
I can't be the only guy to generate the 410 hits from Israel... if I am, that is very sad.
Ampakines are a new class of compounds known to enhance attention span and alertness, and facilitate learning and memory. ...
Unlike earlier stimulants (e.g. caffeine, methylphenidate (Ritalin), and the amphetamines), ampakines do not seem to have unpleasant, long-lasting side effects such as sleeplessness.
Apparently, only the military is interested in its mind-enhancing effects. Any chemists here interested in a start-up? ;-)
Thanks, that's a good starting point. I do feel guilty now for not applying any google-fu, and belatedly offer the Wikipedia article, which mentions other beneficial studies, but also mentions adverse effects and one unfavorable meta-analysis. Whatever the case may be, it opens the way for more constructive analysis, including a cost-benefit one to determine if we, in fact, should meditate, and to what degree. (I'd like to mention here that Erdős took amphetamines. It's a cheat, but then so is meditation. I wonder what other cheats exist? We might be missing on something big here.)
Anyway, it was Yvain who reminded us the power of positivist thinking, and I think that we should proceed along those lines. Even if we agree that Crowley has identified an infrequent experience that is awesome, it does not mean we should automatically care. We need to understand exactly what this awesome is, what it means in general and what applications it has for us. It appears to me that this post and subsequent discussion got it somewhat backwards!
Once you see the pattern you will recognize it everywhere where significant terrorist activity is performed.
What... all of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_organizations ?
And these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_terrorism ?
Oh, I know, I know! Lehi and Etzel were funded by the British and Arabs to smear the Jews. Baruch Goldstein was in fact an Iranian operative sent to ignite Palestinian resistance even further, and we all know who funds Baruch Marzel!
Wow, I recognize that pattern everywhere now. Truly, I am enlightened!
One of the most pernicious biases of the human brain... is that your brain believes it can always intuitively predict its own responses to mental and physical actions that it has never actually taken.
Agreed, and relevance noted.
So, you say that meditation has practical benefits - helps problem solving and socializing. Is there research which supports these claims? How does meditation compare to other activities?
But... why?
Suppose there is such a thing as spiritual enlightenment that is not captured by conventional religion, suppose neither Eliezer nor Adam get it. Further, suppose you attain it. Sure, it's a novel experience, but so are drugs for many folks. What do you expect to get out of it?
"No free lunch" is a basic tenet in knowledge acquisition. Want to know how life emerged? I'm sure we can all suggest books, university courses, museums, documentaries... but meditation? Mysticism? Yogis? They all may be a wonderful experience, with a feel of enlightenment to them, but they cannot impart any novel knowledge apart from themselves.
Another commenter suspects that mystical experience is underestimated by rationalists. Well, what is their true value? What knowledge do they carry?
I only skimmed the article, but through the glasses of evolutionary biology, the idea that most kids (and adults) aren't interested in being educated is almost trivial. Steven Weinberg once remarked that people are more interesting than electrons, and I think that this is the essence of the relative failure of the education system. It's a wonder anybody at all finds special interest in stuff like ocean currents, fossils and fractals. It's ridiculous to expect most or even a sizable fraction to consciously want to invest in such things when they could be hanging out with their friends or engaging in other socially productive activities.
I understand that there are many philosophies in education, and I wonder if they're just like different schools of psychotherapy. Can anyone point to any relative studies (preferably with large sample-sizes over long periods of time)?
And?... (Well, Everett's QM interpretation comes to mind.)
There may be many dissenting choices (with cryonics being the only important one, I think), but there is a huge number of conforming choices. Are we better (than experts, not laymen) at predicting the weather? Building cars? Flying to the moon? Running countries? Studying beetles?
And, ironically enough, I picked most of the interesting dissenting opinions from OB. In this sense, isn't OB is an institution of general clear thinking, to which people defer? To take that thought to the extreme - if our beloved Omega takes up a job as an oracle for humanity, and we can just ask him any question at any time and be confident in his answer, what should happen to our pursuit of rationality?
One would also notice that almost never did one consciously use rationality techniques. Consider that we are already highly evolved to survive, and we are all descendants of survivalist winners. We have some baseline rationality hard-wired in us. It is this wiring that guides most of our actions, and it is there even if we don't have a single year of schooling.
Consider that in the West, life expectancy is very high, and people are very wealthy in historical perspective. This is the default position - to end up prematurely dead or poor (in an absolute, not relative, sense) you need to either take a lot of risk or be otherwise very unlucky. Sure, life could be better. But most (Western) folks have it OK as it is - yet they're not rational by OB standards.
LW readers seek a great deal of rationality, which is above and beyond what is required for an OK life in a human society. But remember that LW's prophets have extraordinary goals (Eliezer put a temporary moratorium on the discussion of his, but Robin has futarchy, as far as I understand). If your goal is simply to live well, you can allow yourself to be average. If your goal is to live better than average, you need some thinking tricks, but not much. If you want to tackle an Adult Problem (TM), then you have to start the journey. (Also if you're curious or want to be strong for strength's sake. But your life definitely will not depend on it!)
Cryonics seems to be an exception, but in most cases we'll do best by listening to the collective advice of domain experts. And we shouldn't believe that we can magically do better.
It is not economically feasible to outsmart or even match everyone. And even in an Adult Problem (TM), you can't hope to do it all by yourself. The lone hero who single-handedly defeats the monster, saves the world and gets the girl is a myth of movies and video games. In reality, he needs allies, supplies, transportation, weapon know-how, etc.
If you want to contribute, your best bet is to focus on a specific field. And you'll be much more productive if your background (which includes a lot of institutions) provides better support, evidence- and theory-wise. If we strive to improve institutions in general, that's a net gain for all of us, no matter what field we pursue. That's Robin's point, as I understand it.
(Ideas below are still works in progress, listed in descending order of potential disagreement:)
Bearing children is immoral. Eliezer has stated that he is not adult enough to have children, but I wonder if we will ever be adult enough, including in a post-singularity environment.
The second idea probably isn't as controversial: early suicide (outside of any moral dilemma, battlefield, euthanasia situation, etc.) is in some cases rational and moral. Combined with cryonics, it is the only sensible option for, e.g., senile dementia patients. But this group can be expanded, even without cryonics.
Some have mentioned modern school systems to be broken, but I'll go even further and say that mandatory education is a huge waste of time and money, for all involved. Many, perhaps most, need to know only basic literacy and arithmetic. The rest should be taught on a want-to-know basis or similar. As a corollary, I don't think many or even most people can be brought into the fold of science or rationality.
(Curiously, the original poster wondered if our crazy beliefs might be true, but many responses, including my own, are value, not fact, judgments.)
Curiously, a similar argument was applied to Sokal's hoax. It, too, is not random gibberish, and it is not surprising at all that the editors of Social Text found it interesting. But does it carry actual value? Going by Weinberg's analysis, it has quite a few deliberate physics mistakes that could have been spotted by an undergraduate.
I have no idea how poetry buffs go about spotting obvious mistakes in poetry, but if semi-random stuff repeatedly get accepted as genuine (Wikipedia has a bunch of links under the Literary Hoaxes category), the field in trouble.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from a Bayesian perspective the only difference between first-hand knowledge and N-th hand knowledge (where N>1) are the numbers. There is nothing special about first-hand.
Suppose you see a dog in the street, and formulate this knowledge to yourself. What just happened? Photons from the sun (or other light sources) hit the dog, bounced, hit your eye, initiated a chemical reaction, etc. Your knowledge is neither special nor trivial, but is a chain of physical events.
Now, what happens when your friend tells you he sees a dog? He had to form the knowledge in his head. Then he vocalized it, sound waves moved through the air, hit your ear drum, initiated chemical reactions... supposing he is a truth-sayer, the impact on you, evidence-wise, is almost exactly the same. Simply, the chain of events leading to your own knowledge is longer, but that's the only difference. Once again, there is no magic here. Your friend is just another physical link in the chain.
(A corollary is that introspection in humans is broken. Often we honestly say we want X, but do Y. The various manifestations of this phenomenon have been talked about extensively on OB. It is conceivable that in the future scientists would be able to predict our behavior better than ourselves, by studying our brains directly. So we don't really have any special authority over ourselves.)
If there was an agent known to be a perfect pipe of evidence, we should treat its words as direct observations. People are not perfect pipes of evidence, so that complicates issues. However, some things are pretty clear even though I have no first-hand knowledge of them:
Los Angeles exists. (Note that I've never been to the Americas.) It is now night-time in Los Angeles. (About 2 AM, to be precise.) In 2006, the city of Los Angeles had a population of approximately 3.8 million.
And so on, until:
Modern evolutionary theory is generally true. There is no God.
And if I am wrong, it is simply because I failed my math, not because I lack in "authority". So there, I said it. Your turn :-)
To this I would add The Simple Truth, and perhaps a few expositions of failed intuition, a la Hindsight Devalues Science. Others have already mentioned Something to Protect and Joy in the Merely Real - as the "motivation" behind rationality. Finally, Newcomb's Problem and the Regret of Rationality, or anything that clearly separates The Way from Hollywood stereotypes.
Anyone up for some Rational Debating?
I tend to agree with MBlume - the most frequently used principles are probably assimilated too well. But let's see... the Bayesian worldview in general made me much more interested in probability, making me take the most "mathy" probability course in Uni early on and to plan on reading Jaynes and Pearl within the next half a year. Maybe it was The Dilemma: Science or Bayes that clinched the deal?
Skimming the list - Mind Projection Fallacy, Nobody Knows What Science Doesn't Know and Science as Attire often come to mind in contexts of what other people do wrong (I quoted the first and second principles in a few discussions). Making Beliefs Pay Rent, Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, Making History Available, Cached Thoughts, Bind Yourself to Reality - I try to apply to myself on a regular basis. In my professional capacity, I try to apply (not very successfully at the moment) The Planning Fallacy and Hold Off Postponing Solutions.
The Robber's Cave Experiment was the post that got me hooked on OB in the first place. I have cited it many times. Finally, the posts on morality are frequently used in the sense that I refer myself to them every time moral discussions crop up.
I also think you should include other writings. The list you gave in the previous post does not include Robin's articles (obviously), but he certainly did leave a mark as well. (To mind come his posts on medical spending and Politics is not about Policy, but undoubtedly there are many more.)
But this is already a large list. Perhaps a series is in order, with the first book being "A Gentle Introduction".
Do these methods actually work? There were a few posts here on how more evidence and bias awareness don't actually change minds or reduce bias, at least not without further effort. Can a practical "Deduce the Truth in 30 Days" guide be derived from these methods, and change the world?
Eliezer,
While I am unable to comment on the quantum physics, you have raised a valid point (albeit too briefly?) by noting that a very similar problem applies to the very young and the dieing. When does a human child become conscious? Dennett would indeed argue that there is no such single moment. It appears to me that until this question is solved (and it can be without recourse to QM), a similar scenario in QM isn't going to salvage it. In other words, going from 0 to 1 seems like an easier but just as fundamental question than going from 1 to N.