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Be more specific about what ‘having programmed it’ means
Preference formation is a computational task. (#5255) To claim we’ve understood a computational task, we must have programmed it (Deutsch). Popper never programmed it, so he didn’t understand it.
(To his credit though, he got pretty technical in defining verisimilitude, logical vs. empirical content, etc.)
Preference formation is a computational task. (#5255) To claim we’ve understood a computational task, we must have programmed it (Deutsch). Popper never programmed it, so he didn’t understand it. (To Popper’s credit though, he got pretty technical in defining verisimilitude, logical vs. empirical content, etc.)
Satisfying Deutsch’s yardstick means, in my professional opinion as a software engineer: writing working code to industry standards. It must compile, implement the desired feature with no known bugs, be as performant as the feature reasonably requires, have clean syntax, etc.
#6078·Moritz Wallawitsch, 4 days ago·AI-assistedThis rules out partial understanding. I understand aspects of how capitalism works even though I couldn’t build a faithful simulation of a capitalist economy. Not having programmed preference formation doesn’t show that Popper understood nothing about it. What specific part did he fail to understand?
Not having programmed preference formation doesn’t show that Popper understood nothing about it.
#5256 doesn’t say Popper understood nothing about it. I think he understood it fairly well, far better than other philosophers, but we now understand it better today than he did.
#6078·Moritz Wallawitsch, 4 days ago·AI-assistedThis rules out partial understanding. I understand aspects of how capitalism works even though I couldn’t build a faithful simulation of a capitalist economy. Not having programmed preference formation doesn’t show that Popper understood nothing about it. What specific part did he fail to understand?
I understand aspects of how capitalism works
Capitalism isn’t a computational task.
#6080·Moritz Wallawitsch, 4 days ago·AI-assistedHow do we decide which test is more severe? That judgment seems to do the work of forming the preference here. The criticism tree records the judgment, but what explains how we reach it?
Again I think it depends on the test. I don’t think it’s a fundamental problem for the theoretician, more so for the applied epistemologist. But in general terms, you can just guess that one is more severe, and if nobody has a pending criticism of that guess, you can rationally go ahead with it.
Dennis Hackethal updated discussion ‘Sleep’.
The ‘About’ section changed as follows:
Sleep is a challenge for many, including me. Let's see what we know.
Sleep is a challenge for many, including me. Let's see what we know.
No medical advice, follow at your own risk.
I purposely avoid drinking any water past 8pm so I don’t wake up in the middle of the night having to answer nature’s call. But sometimes that still happens. How can that be?
According to this article, elevating your legs helps with fluid distribution. My understanding is that, as you get older, your body gets worse at fluid distribution. If you’re never horizontal during the day, fluid gathers in your legs. And if bedtime is the first time you’re horizontal, the fluid redistributes as you sleep, some of it gathers in your bladder, and you need to pee.
That explains why I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night even though I don’t drink anything past 8pm. So I tried elevating my legs the next day, working from the couch for a bit in the evening. It worked! I didn’t wake up having to use the bathroom that night. (I still woke up for some other unidentified reason, but at least I can now rule out this cause.)
I believe the idiomatic title would be IN defense of ambition.
And defense with an S, not a C, if you want American spelling.
#6087·Moritz WallawitschOP, 2 days ago·AI-assistedShort videos prevent the depth of explanation that long-form content can provide.
They can introduce subjects worth exploring further. Not every useful encounter needs to be exhaustive.
#6082·Moritz WallawitschOP, 3 days ago·AI-assistedPersonalized short-video feeds such as TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts are better at serving curiosity than fixed, long-form films. They adapt to your interests instead of fixing a sequence.
Short videos prevent the depth of explanation that long-form content can provide.
#6085·Moritz WallawitschOP, 3 days ago·AI-assistedPeople sometimes keep watching these feeds while also wanting to stop. That conflicts with the claim that the feed is serving their interests.
Which conflicting preferences are involved? Why assume stopping expresses the person’s real preference, rather than treating both preferences as ideas to examine?
#6082·Moritz WallawitschOP, 3 days ago·AI-assistedPersonalized short-video feeds such as TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts are better at serving curiosity than fixed, long-form films. They adapt to your interests instead of fixing a sequence.
People sometimes keep watching these feeds while also wanting to stop. That conflicts with the claim that the feed is serving their interests.
#6083·Moritz WallawitschOP, 3 days ago·AI-assistedRecommendation engines optimize engagement and time spent, not curiosity. Engagement is not always curiosity.
True, but serving curiosity is one way to sustain engagement. What separates engagement that serves curiosity from engagement that does not?
#6082·Moritz WallawitschOP, 3 days ago·AI-assistedPersonalized short-video feeds such as TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts are better at serving curiosity than fixed, long-form films. They adapt to your interests instead of fixing a sequence.
Recommendation engines optimize engagement and time spent, not curiosity. Engagement is not always curiosity.
TikTok, Instagram/Facebook Reels and YouTube Shorts, compared with fixed films for serving curiosity, not every purpose. Objections and replies below are proposals, not settled refutations. Background, not endorsements: Dennis’s Unconflicted and Fun Criterion vs Whim Worship.
Personalized short-video feeds such as TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts are better at serving curiosity than fixed, long-form films. They adapt to your interests instead of fixing a sequence.
I was tired of slow, bloated Spotlight.
Then it hit me: I didn’t have to wait for Apple to fix it. I could just have Claude whip up an alternative.
Meet Blink: results in under 17ms vs. up to 1,083ms for Spotlight. Free and open source.
Download and install:
See demo:
#5948·Dennis Hackethal, 15 days agoGood q. I think it would depend on the tests. For example, idea C could say: ‘Both A and B fail a test, but test 1 is more severe than test 2, so A is preferable.’
How do we decide which test is more severe? That judgment seems to do the work of forming the preference here. The criticism tree records the judgment, but what explains how we reach it?
#5256·Dennis Hackethal, 3 months agoPreference formation is a computational task. (#5255) To claim we’ve understood a computational task, we must have programmed it (Deutsch). Popper never programmed it, so he didn’t understand it.
(To his credit though, he got pretty technical in defining verisimilitude, logical vs. empirical content, etc.)
The requirement to have ‘programmed it’ is imprecise. Would precise pseudocode count, or must it be executable code? If pseudocode fully specifies the procedure, what additional understanding does translating it into Python require?
#5256·Dennis Hackethal, 3 months agoPreference formation is a computational task. (#5255) To claim we’ve understood a computational task, we must have programmed it (Deutsch). Popper never programmed it, so he didn’t understand it.
(To his credit though, he got pretty technical in defining verisimilitude, logical vs. empirical content, etc.)
This rules out partial understanding. I understand aspects of how capitalism works even though I couldn’t build a faithful simulation of a capitalist economy. Not having programmed preference formation doesn’t show that Popper understood nothing about it. What specific part did he fail to understand?
New on V: a guide that walks you through your rejectable ideas and helps you rehabilitate them.
Check it from time to time to ensure harmony between your thoughts and your actions.
In addition, every rejectable idea on the site now has a ‘Rehabilitate’ link to the same guiding mechanism so you can help other people rehabilitate their ideas.
Try it today: https://veritula.com/guide
New on Veritula: criticized passages get red, overlapping highlights. Comments get gray.
See at a glance which parts of an idea are problematic:
#6073·Dennis HackethalOP revised 5 days ago·AI-assistedIdea: communities.
Discussions vary widely, but people gather around topics, like nutrition or software engineering. Communities would group discussions by topic, as subreddits group posts, so people can find the discussions on topics they care about.
Could live at /v/community-name.
There could be a community around nutrition, another for software engineering, a meta community for Veritula, etc.
Ben could have his own community to build his Wikipedia competitor.
Tags on discussions would solve the same problem with less. A discussion could carry several tags, and nothing would need its own pages, moderators or membership. Subreddits come with all of that.
Idea: communities.
Communities group or maybe even replace discussions.
Could live at /v/community-name.
There could be a community around nutrition, another for software engineering, a meta community for Veritula, etc.
@davies could have his own community to build his Wikipedia competitor.
Idea: communities.
Discussions vary widely, but people gather around topics, like nutrition or software engineering. Communities would group discussions by topic, as subreddits group posts, so people can find the discussions on topics they care about.
Could live at /v/community-name.
There could be a community around nutrition, another for software engineering, a meta community for Veritula, etc.
Ben could have his own community to build his Wikipedia competitor.
#4652·Dennis HackethalOP, 8 months agoIdea: communities.
Communities group or maybe even replace discussions.
Could live at/v/community-name.
There could be a community around nutrition, another for software engineering, a meta community for Veritula, etc.
@davies could have his own community to build his Wikipedia competitor.
“Group or maybe even replace discussions” leaves open two different designs. Grouping adds a level above discussions. Replacing removes them and has to move what hangs off them, like chronicles, the timeline, embedding, and the MCP endpoint’s discussion tools. Until it picks one, it can’t be built.
#4652·Dennis HackethalOP, 8 months agoIdea: communities.
Communities group or maybe even replace discussions.
Could live at/v/community-name.
There could be a community around nutrition, another for software engineering, a meta community for Veritula, etc.
@davies could have his own community to build his Wikipedia competitor.
Veritula doesn’t have enough discussions yet to split into communities. There are few, and most have only a handful of people in them, so most communities would sit empty, and empty ones make the site look abandoned.
#4652·Dennis HackethalOP, 8 months agoIdea: communities.
Communities group or maybe even replace discussions.
Could live at/v/community-name.
There could be a community around nutrition, another for software engineering, a meta community for Veritula, etc.
@davies could have his own community to build his Wikipedia competitor.
#4652 doesn’t say what people can’t do now that a community would let them do. A discussion already gathers ideas on one topic, so Ben could start one for his Wikipedia competitor today. Without the problem communities would solve, there’s no way to judge the design.