Dennis Hackethal
@dennis-hackethal·Member since June 2024
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Fix typo
Deutsch’s stance in my own words:
The distinguishing characteristic between rationality and irrationality is that rationality is the search for good explanations. All progress comes from the search for good explanations. So the distinction between good vs bad explanations is epistemologically fundamental.
A good explanation is hard to vary “while still accounting for what it purports to account for.” (BoI chapter 1 glossary.) A bad explanation is easy to vary.
For example, the Persephone myth as an explanation of the seasons is easy to change without impacting its ability to explain the seasons. You could arbitrarily replace Persephone and other characters and the explanation would still ‘work’. The axis-tilt explanation of the earth, on the other hand, is hard to change without breaking it. You can’t just replace the axis with something else, say.
The quality of a theory is a matter of degrees. The harder it is to change a theory, the better that theory is. When deciding which explanation to adopt, we should “choose between [explanations] according to how good they are…: how hard to vary.” (BoI chatper 9; see similar remark in chapter 8.)
Deutsch’s stance in my own words:
The distinguishing characteristic between rationality and irrationality is that rationality is the search for good explanations. All progress comes from the search for good explanations. So the distinction between good vs bad explanations is epistemologically fundamental.
A good explanation is hard to vary “while still accounting for what it purports to account for.” (BoI chapter 1 glossary.) A bad explanation is easy to vary.
For example, the Persephone myth as an explanation of the seasons is easy to change without impacting its ability to explain the seasons. You could arbitrarily replace Persephone and other characters and the explanation would still ‘work’. The axis-tilt explanation of the earth, on the other hand, is hard to change without breaking it. You can’t just replace the axis with something else, say.
The quality of a theory is a matter of degrees. The harder it is to change a theory, the better that theory is. When deciding which explanation to adopt, we should “choose between [explanations] according to how good they are…: how hard to vary.” (BoI chapter 9; see similar remark in chapter 8.)
Add missing word
Deutsch should instead name some examples the reader would easier to disagree with, and then walk them through why some explanations are harder to vary than others.
Deutsch should instead name some examples the reader would find easier to disagree with, and then walk them through why some explanations are harder to vary than others.
This is solved by actively doing some visible stuff you'd want to do anyway as an AGI researcher.
This is solved by actively doing some visible stuff you'd want to do anyway as an AGI researcher.
I don’t know what kind of phone you use, but iPhone keyboards have support for multiple languages. You can switch between them. Should make false autocorrects rarer.
I don’t know what kind of phone you use, but iPhone keyboards have support for multiple languages. You can switch between them. Should make false autocorrects rarer.
#3743·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 1 day agoThat was autocorrect from my cellphone. Mye means alot in Norwegian. Not a good idea to have autocorrect on when you're writing in two languages..
I don’t know what kind of phone you use, but iPhone keyboards have support for multiple languages. You can switch between them. Should make false autocorrects rarer.
#3654·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 4 days agoThis is also borrowed from cognitive science. But what I meant was to point to the fact that there are “pre-conceptual” models, desires, attentional salience etc. that impinge on and filter input to conscious cognition. An example is how brain regions originally used for moving the body through 3D space are repurposed cognitively to “move around” in idea-space. Some anecdotal evidence for this: notice how many movement metaphors structure propositional thinking. We say we’re close to the truth, we understand, we grasp a concept, we arrive at a conclusion.
Humans use flight-related words even though we can’t fly. From ChatGPT:
- Elevated (thinking, mood, language)
- High-level (ideas, overview)
- Soar (ambitions, prices, imagination)
- Take off (projects, careers)
- Grounded (arguments, people)
- Up in the air (uncertain)
- Overview (“over-see” from above)
- Perspective (originally spatial vantage point)
- Lofty (ideals, goals)
- Aboveboard (open, visible)
- Rise / fall (status, power, ideas)
- Sky-high (expectations, costs)
- Aerial view (conceptual overview)
- Head in the clouds (impractical thinking)
#3755·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 1 day agoI think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.
I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears.
Yeah maybe but again (#3693), those are parochial factors, starting points. Ideas are more important. AGI could just switch bodies rapidly anyway.
#3755·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 1 day agoI think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.
So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.
You don’t “train” an AGI any more than you’d “train” a child. We’re not talking about dogs here.
2) Skepticism is too different from fallibilism to consider it a continuation.
I don’t think so, for two reasons. 1) Skepticism came long before Popper’s fallibilism.
#3639·Tyler MillsOP, 4 days agoOption 2: Go on hiatus from the day job/career, and focus on creative pursuits and research, full-time, for some number of months (duration perhaps depending on job opportunities).
One rule of thumb financial advisors have told me in the past is to have enough cash on hand to last at least six months without an income.
If you don’t, quitting your job right now could be a bad idea, and your first priority should be to build enough runway.
(This is not financial advice – follow at your own risk.)
#3638·Tyler MillsOP, 4 days agoOption 1: Continue working the day job and balancing the other pursuits on the side.
You’re young. Now’s the time to take (educated, calculated) risks. Even if quitting turns out to be a mistake, you have all the time in the world to correct the mistake and recover. You can always find some day job somewhere. But you may not always be able to pursue your passion.
#3638·Tyler MillsOP, 4 days agoOption 1: Continue working the day job and balancing the other pursuits on the side.
You describe your job as “excruciating”. That’s reason to quit.
Deutsch should instead name some examples the reader would easier to disagree with, and then walk them through why some explanations are harder to vary than others.
Deutsch should instead name some examples the reader would easier to disagree with, and then walk them through why some explanations are harder to vary than others.
#3749·Dennis HackethalOP, 1 day agoMaybe Deutsch just means hard to vary as a heuristic, not as a full-fledged decision-making algorithm.
A heuristic or heuristic technique (problem solving, mental shortcut, rule of thumb) is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless "good enough" as an approximation or attribute substitution.
None of this means a heuristic couldn’t be programmed. On the contrary, heuristics sound easier to program than full-fledged, ‘proper’ algorithms.
I’d be happy to see some pseudo-code that uses workarounds/heuristics. That’d be a fine starting point.
#3707·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 days agoDeutsch contradicts his yardstick for understanding a computational task. He says that you haven’t understood a computational task if you can’t program it. His method of decision-making based on finding good explanations is a computational task. He can’t program it, so he hasn’t understood it.
Maybe Deutsch just means hard to vary as a heuristic, not as a full-fledged decision-making algorithm.
#3747·Dennis HackethalOP, 1 day agoPersephone vs axis tilt is low-hanging fruit. The reader finds it easy to disagree with the Persephone myth and easy to agree with the axis tilt, from cultural background alone. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything to hard to vary.
Deutsch should instead name some examples the reader would easier to disagree with, and then walk them through why some explanations are harder to vary than others.
#3726·Dennis HackethalOP revised 2 days agoDeutsch’s stance in my own words:
The distinguishing characteristic between rationality and irrationality is that rationality is the search for good explanations. All progress comes from the search for good explanations. So the distinction between good vs bad explanations is epistemologically fundamental.
A good explanation is hard to vary “while still accounting for what it purports to account for.” (BoI chapter 1 glossary.) A bad explanation is easy to vary.
For example, the Persephone myth as an explanation of the seasons is easy to change without impacting its ability to explain the seasons. You could arbitrarily replace Persephone and other characters and the explanation would still ‘work’. The axis-tilt explanation of the earth, on the other hand, is hard to change without breaking it. You can’t just replace the axis with something else, say.
The quality of a theory is a matter of degrees. The harder it is to change a theory, the better that theory is. When deciding which explanation to adopt, we should “choose between [explanations] according to how good they are…: how hard to vary.” (BoI chatper 9; see similar remark in chapter 8.)
Persephone vs axis tilt is low-hanging fruit. The reader finds it easy to disagree with the Persephone myth and easy to agree with the axis tilt, from cultural background alone. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything to hard to vary.
Read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. That should give you some fuel to move forward.
If that’s too long, watch ‘The Simplest Thing in the World’
#3740·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 1 day agoJust referring here to alters as the clinical word for 'the other dissociated personalities
You’re right, my mistake.
#3736·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 1 day agoInteresting! Getting ideas to jibe/cohere seems like a more and more fundamental idea the more I think about it. Has anyone explored whether the collection of ideas in a person's mind must have a specific structure?
When discussing virtues, you seem to suggest a hierarchical organization of ideas, as opposed to ideas competing horizontally for attention and salience. It appears that ideas organize vertically in a hierarchy, where activating "higher-level" ideas automatically resolves conflicts among lower-level ones. For example, if a snake suddenly appears next to you, all previous internal conflicts dissolve because self-preservation is among the most dominant (highest) ideas in their value structure.
However, individuals can construct even higher-order values that override self-preservation. The structure seems hierarchical: when a top-level idea is activated, there seems to be some alignment in lower level ideas.
Getting ideas to jibe/cohere seems like a more and more fundamental idea the more I think about it.
Agreed. There’s more to it than meets the eye. For example, maybe capitalism can be thought of as society-wide common-preference finding (#3013). Rationality might work the same way across minds as it does within a single mind. Capitalism as an expression of rationality in society.
As for virtues, I think some virtues are more fundamental than others. There are some virtues I think people should adopt. Like, rationality depends on them. But the core functionality of the mind as a whole does not. There’s a difference between creativity and rationality. Which virtues someone adopts and why and how they prioritize them in different situations is downstream of creativity as a whole.
I don’t know if activating higher virtues always resolves conflicts between ideas. But it could put them on hold for a while, yeah. If I see a venomous snake, my main priority is to get to safety (life as the ultimate value, as objectivists would say).
#3731·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 1 day agoOne part of mye question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?
The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?
Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?
Yeah, I think so.
If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?
For example, you could observe that you’re feeling sad even though only good things have been happening to you. So the sadness doesn’t make sense (at least on the surface). And then you can introspect from there.
#3731·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 1 day agoOne part of mye question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?
The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?
mye
How does this happen? (Not a metaphorical question.)