Dennis Hackethal

Popper says to prefer ideas that are better corroborated, more truthlike. I wrote about this recently, pasting it here:

Corroboration was meant to help us form rational preferences between ideas. From The Logic of Scientific Discovery (pp. 281-282):

We can sometimes rationally justify the preference for a theory in the light of its corroboration, that is, of the present state of the critical discussion of the competing theories, which are critically discussed and compared from the point of view of assessing their nearness to the truth (verisimilitude). The current state of this discussion may, in principle, be reported in the form of their degrees of corroboration.

Specifically, corroboration helps you form a rational preference between two theories that have both been shown to be false while there are no known alternatives. From Conjectures and Refutations (p. 318):

… even after t2 has been refuted in its turn, we can still say that it is better than t1, for although both have been shown to be false, the fact that t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass may be a good indication that the falsity-content of t1 exceeds that of t2 while its truth-content does not. Thus we may still give preference to t2, even after its falsification, because we have reason to think that it agrees better with the facts than did t1.

That “t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass” means t2 is better corroborated than t1.

The idea ‘I’m located in a hemisphere’ is ‘easy to vary’ as to which hemisphere but it’s true, meaning it corresponds to reality.

HTV and correspondence are orthogonal.

I should write a blog post about intellectual dementia soon…

PC 😳

That said I still think you should go see a sleep doctor, Tyler.

Found this article illuminating (emphasis mine):

The gradual loss of energy during the day produces a drive to sleep in order to restore that energy. This is known as the homeostatic sleep drive. If the homeostatic process were the only one involved, a person would wake up fully energized and then gradually wind down over the course of the day, like a battery losing power. This would mean an uneven level of alertness during the day, with dangerously low alertness in the afternoon and evening. To counterbalance this, the SCN also regulates alertness by what is known as the circadian process. As the day goes on, and energy winds down, the SCN compensates for this by sending a stronger alertness signal to the brain and body. This alertness signal reaches a peak in the two hours just before bedtime. This zone of maximum alertness is known as the “forbidden zone for sleep” since the alertness signal makes sleep nearly impossible during that zone. When the usual bedtime is reached, the SCN begins to turn down its alertness signal to allow the body to sleep.

The article is on “Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder”. I’m obviously no doctor so don’t take anything I say as advice or diagnosis. But from what you’ve said, I wonder if you have that. I think I have the same issue.

The article goes into several causes you could look into. For example, it says exposure to blue light in the morning can help reset one’s internal clock. But that requires a special type of cell on the retina. If those cells don’t work properly, then as far as your internal clock is concerned, you’re effectively blind.

You may be overstating the difficulty. IIRC you like rural America. Finding a quiet place to live should be doable, even in cities but especially in rural places. (Believe it or not I once stayed at an Airbnb in Tahoe that was TOO quiet to sleep. It was so quiet it kinda freaked me out. And that’s saying something because I love quiet.)

Have you traveled internationally? I’m thinking specifically of flying west for a large distance.

For example, if I fly to the West coast from central Europe and I land at 12pm say. That’s 9 hours behind Europe. And then I try to stay up until 10pm or so. That’s nearly impossible. I’ve fallen asleep with the lights on.

Would be interesting if you still lay awake for an hour or so even when severely jet lagged.

Isn’t this a criticism?

What’s wrong with using melatonin indefinitely?

AFAIK it creates no physical dependence, you don’t build a tolerance, and it’s cheap. What’s not to love?

Shouldn’t this be a criticism?

Something I made the other day, recipe in the caption :) https://www.instagram.com/p/Db2DzFplBXq/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Could you do meal prep for the week? Have meals ready in the freezer so you don’t need to cook every day.

The cause of procrastination is a conflict between preferences. Part of you wants to take out the trash, another doesn’t. The solution is a common preference: a new option both parts of you prefer to their respective initial position.

Can you identify those parts within you?
Try brainstorming many new options on V. With any luck, you’ll find a new option both parts of you want without delay.

Then again, so is not sleeping…

But you don’t have that obligation right now, right?

There’s a company that makes a cube that you put in your bedroom and it creates a sound barrier. Like a noise canceling perimeter. It’s like noise canceling headphones except you don’t have to wear anything. I forget the name of the company but worth searching for it online. I remember being excited about it because I had the exact same idea and was stoked to see somebody actually doing it.

Just stumbled upon this tip in my Insta feed to deal with noisy neighbors: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db4gheyx9WP/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Apparently you can buy a device that cancels out vibrations in your walls. Not sure I’m understanding exactly how it works.

I’ve been using Spotify for over a decade.

Every few months I try Apple Music only to run into bugs and switch back.

But this most recent switch is actually decent.

Transferring my favorited songs from Spotify finally worked.

AutoMix song transitions are fantastic.

Spatial Audio is a win.

Fingers crossed I won’t have a reason to return to Spotify this time.

Explanations are functions. In other words, explanations are software. There’s no sharp distinction between explanations and end products here. So the concern about tight coupling still applies.

@edwin-de-wit recently asked Deutsch about this:

… hard to vary can also be a property that you don’t want. Sometimes they say that complicated systems are just so entangled that they’re no longer changeable. You could call that hard to vary but it’s not a property you pursue.

Deutsch’s reply:

Quite so. So hard to vary is about explanations, not about end products. So the end product should be easy to vary, if you want to. But it should be hard to vary in the sense that you don’t want to.

Taking Popper Too Far, Again: https://libertythroughreason.com/taking-popper-too-far-again/

Rationality as Computation: https://libertythroughreason.com/rationality-as-computation/

I think you may have misunderstood me. I asked how I can know that our discussion about HTV will be productive if we continue it now. (For context and for others: I’ve found that Liberty and I have roughly the same discussion in various venues every few months or so. I raised this issue in the linked X thread.)

I didn’t ask you to continue the object-level discussion itself.

Please address my concern before continuing the discussion.