Human is the awkward liminal phase between animal and machine

4917 1328

One particularly relevant (throughout all of history but perhaps especially as of late) instance of humans running on a faulty and profoundly unreliable hardware might be expressed as follows.

When people start thinking about an issue in moral terms, they tend to stop thinking about it in terms of costs and benefits, dismiss anyone who disagrees with their values as not merely different or even wrong but explicitly “evil”, and desire to harshly punish those they now see as “villains” in order to protect whatever group they have selected as the “victims”. [1]

Contrary to common wisdom, emphasising empathy is not only unlikely to help in such cases but can exacerbate them and provide additional rationalised justification for them. While the value of understanding how and why people think the way they do cannot be overstated, relying heavily on affective empathy can cause reliance on anecdotal evidence, acting in favour of familiar or similar individuals, and harbour other potentially dangerous biases. [2][3] Maintaining impartiality and distance seems to help reasoning about the available facts.

Nothing of this is new or surprising, there is no morale [sic] to this post and I have no readily available solutions for counteracting the outlined issues. If anything, read and think of this as an example of the “This is a reminder that [..]” trope.

The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before?

[1] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.00139
[2] https://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy
[3] https://philpapers.org/rec/PRIIEN

19617 1623

Nākamo piektdien, sarunu festivāla “LAMPA 2017” ietvaros, piedalīšos diskusijā par maģisko domāšanu un tās radītajiem un ietekmētajiem riska faktoriem. Visi interesenti ir laipni aicināti.

5317 1514

I think that, from now on, whenever anyone claims that anthropogenic climate change is a myth or a conspiracy, instead of explaining that increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere leads to rise in ambient temperatures, I should say something along these lines:

“The roto-vibrational absorption lines, determined as the eigenvalues of the quantum oscillator model of atmospheric molecules like CO₂, interact with specific wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation emitted from the surface and isotropically from the atmosphere. The envelope of actual emission follows the black-body Planck function but with spectral features corresponding to the lines of the emitting gas and surface, collisionally broadened.

For radiation emitted from the surface, Wien’s displacement law dictates that the bulk of the emitted energy falls within a few μm on either side of about 10 μm. CO₂ absorbs in this wavelength and, following from Kirchoff’s law, also re-emits at that same wavelength, resulting in an increase of downward infrared flux convergence. The resultant radiative heating is a function of the local atmospheric density and the volumetric heat capacity at a constant pressure, assuming a collisionally-equilibrium gas with a Maxwellian velocity distribution, with the energy being radiated isotropically, including the 2π sr solid angle towards the ground.

Some of that radiation makes it to the surface where it may be absorbed but the precise value of heating must be determined by solving the Schwarzchild equation of radiative transfer, given known spectral properties of all present gases and taking into account the Doppler broadening of the quantum emission line.

Which part of this do you disagree with?”

In so many words, science communication is very important but it requires the public to be able to distinguish evidence from deeply held opinions. Again, teaching the basics of rationality and so raising the sanity waterline seems to be more important than ever.

291216 1433

Ko ir vērts darīt 2017. gadā?

Subjektīvs viedoklis, bez noteiktas secības, prognoze – laika un līdzekļu ieguldīšana šajās lietās ar vislielāko varbūtību maksimāli pozitīvi ietekmēs pasauli (expected value maximisation) un/vai ar vislielāko varbūtību nodrošinās ne-katastrofālu cilvēces nākotni (maxipok) turpmākā gadsimta laikā:

• mūža ilguma palielināšanas (t.sk. WBE/SIM) un kognitīvās kapacitātes uzlabošanas iespēju pētniecība un izstrāde (it īpaši šajā kontekstā, pie kā es vēl atgriezīšos);
• klimata izmaiņu kontroles iespēju meklējumi;
• AI drošības risinājumu pētniecība;
• efektīvais altruisms;
• ar fosilajiem konkurēt spējīgu alternatīvo enerģijas ieguves veidu (t.sk. jaunas paaudzes kodolreaktoru) izpēte un izstrāde.

Honourable mentions:

• evidence-based politikas un medicīnas ieviešanas veicināšana;
• “social supercollider” metodoloģijas izstrāde;
• blokķēdes risinājumu drošības un pielietojamības palielināšana.

131216 2223

Galvenais personiska līmeņa secinājums, ko izdarīju pēc Trampa ievēlēšanas, bija "esmu 1.89 bitus^* pārsteigts par šo iznākumu". Entropijas vai pārsteiguma izteiksmē tas ir nedaudz mazāk par siržu masts kārts izvilkšanu no 52 kāršu kavas vai monētas nokrišanas ar ciparu uz augšu divas reizes pēc kārtas.

No vienas puses, protams, šis rezultāts nozīmē, ka biju rupji kļūdījies savā novērtējumā un esmu atjaunojis vairākus savus uzskatus, balstoties uz šo evidenci. No otras puses, tas parāda lietas zināmā perspektīvā, kas palīdz abstrahēties no šāda veida notikumiem un turpināt darbu.

181116 2348

181116 0117

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnZVvYm6KKM

Let us stand now, unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old. Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of One or All. That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is Done. Hail Satan.

Ko lai tur piebilst.

17916 0244

No pēdējā laika labākā populārā līmeņa raksta par cognitive bias tēmu.

22316 0224

8316 1207

Name a proposition and I’ll tell you whether I think it’s true and what would change my mind.

Please try to make propositions atomic, or at least non-conjunctive (conditionals and negations are acceptable). Idea taken from B. Yudkowsky on Facebook.

14216 1251

141215 1535

Verbal reasoning seems to be a cesspool of poor thinking, compared to writing things out as formulae, on graphs, in spreadsheets, in code, or as formally posed logical arguments.

Throughout the history humans have almost always used verbal reasoning for everything. Why aren’t we better at it? And how can a reasoning style that was used much less by our ancestors be much more effective?

Perhaps we evolved to be bad at accurate verbal reasoning because it was mostly for the purposes of deceiving ourselves and others into believing convenient falsehoods (the same way a prosecutor in court doesn’t need to worry about being accurate, only persuasive).

It’s possible that thinking through problems formally and avoiding turning to the slick verbal component works because it routes around the parts of our mind that are particularly prone to bias our thinking. Maybe it’s better precisely because it’s an “unnatural” way to do things, and so hasn’t been broken.

21215 0501

22615 1357

Disclaimer: Follows a core dump of semi-formulated semi-beliefs, decidedly not intended to be taken as suggestions or advice. Caveat lector.