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The center dough was paper thin while the crust was a too thick.

I need to stretch the dough better so it’s more circular.

Next time, I could turn the broiler off. And if I have the steel on the top rack, I could maybe move it to the middle, but that could take time and let too much hot air out of the oven.

The toppings were done cooking much faster than the dough and started burning a bit toward the end.

I could buy a cheese grater.

Need to use more cheese and spread it better.

Presumably, I need to get the oven hotter. I could try moving the steel right underneath the broiler while preheating.

The dough was bland and not very crispy.

Ingredients

• Store-bought dough (1 pound)
• Crushed tomatoes (120g)
• Mozzarella (part skim, 77g)

Then, for garnish:

• Oregano
• Fresh basil leaves
• A dash of salt

Steps

1. Preheat pizza steel for 45 min on middle rack with broiler on (was somewhere between 450 and 500°F).
2. Rest dough at room temperature for 20 min (per instructions on the label).
3. Stretch the dough.
4. Dust the pizza peel with flour and place pizza on peel.
5. Add tomato sauce.
6. Add cheese.
7. Put pizza in oven (on pizza steel).
8. Bake for about 10 minutes.

The main challenge with baking pizza at home is that home ovens don’t get hot enough for the dough to bake properly. The pizza steel is supposed to help with that.

Results:

• https://drive.proton.me/urls/SWE626NJKW#IQaJLZim5HZD
• https://drive.proton.me/urls/XGNSHXQDM8#ePyj0dPmg2xg

Ingredients

• Store-bought dough (1 pound)
• Crushed tomatoes (120g)
• Mozzarella (part skim, 77g)

Then, for garnish:

• Oregano
• Fresh basil leaves
• A dash of salt

Steps

1. Preheat pizza steel for 45 min on middle rack with broiler on (was somewhere between 450 and 500°F).
2. Rest dough at room temperature for 20 min (per instructions on the label).
3. Stretch the dough.
4. Dust the pizza peel with flour and place pizza on peel.
5. Add tomato sauce.
6. Add cheese.
7. Put pizza in oven (on pizza steel).
8. Bake for about 10 minutes.

The main challenge with baking pizza at home is that home ovens don’t get hot enough for the dough to bake properly. The pizza steel is supposed to help with that.

Superseded by #1503. This comment was generated automatically.

An example I have previously given is the flickering flags computation in the tv show (books) The Three-Body Problem. This computation depends on a mind defining states and logical relations.

I am not familiar with this example, but that sounds like an inversion of the real relationship between reality and consciousness. See Ayn Rand’s ‘The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made’. Certain types of computation give rise to the mind in the first place, so I don’t see how the mind could come before computation.

Or are you saying there are certain kinds of computation that require a mind?

An example I have previously given is the flickering flags computation in the tv show (books) The Three-Body Problem. This computation depends on a mind defining states and logical relations.

I am not familiar with this example, but that sounds like an inversion of the real relationship between reality and consciousness. See Ayn Rand’s ‘The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made’. Certain types of computation give rise to the mind in the first place, so I don’t see how the mind could come before computation.

An example I have previously given is the flickering flags computation in the tv show (books) The Three-Body Problem.

Where?

I think you run into circular dependence if you exhaustively try to account for brain function by information processing.

It’s not meant to be exhaustive. I’m not saying the brain is a computer and only a computer. It does other stuff too but that alone doesn’t mean it’s not a computer.

Superseded by #1498. This comment was generated automatically.

I think you run into circular dependence if you exhaustively try to account for brain function by information processing. Even Claude Shannon’s definition of information depends on a «mind/perspective» defining a range of possible states. The world devoid of any perspective would have infinite states and systems depending on how you «view the world». An example I have previously given is the flickering flags computation in the tv show (books) The Three-Body Problem. This computation depends on a mind defining states and logical relations.

How to Structure Discussions

Overall, I think the starting point of a discussion isn’t all that important as long as you’re willing to keep correcting errors. (Popper)

But for those looking for a starting point, you can take inspiration from what I wrote in #502. You can either structure a discussion around a single problem:

Discussion title: problem
Top-level ideas in the discussion: proposed solutions
Nested ideas: criticisms, counter-criticisms, and further solutions

Or, if the discussion is wider than a single problem, you can treat it as a collection of problems:

Discussion title: some topic (such as ‘abortion’)
Top-level ideas: problems
Nested ideas: solutions, criticisms and so on

Either way, discussions map onto Popper’s problem-oriented philosophy. If that’s what people want – I’m keeping discussion structures open and flexible in case they don’t.

And, as I wrote: “Note also that revisions act as solutions to problems. So do counter-criticisms, in a way.”

I agree with @tom-nassis that it’s best if discussion titles are problem statements (#506).

How to Structure Discussions

Overall, I think the starting point of a discussion isn’t all that important as long as you’re willing to keep correcting errors. That’s a standard Popperian insight.

But for those looking for a starting point, you can take inspiration from what I wrote in #502. You can either structure a discussion around a single problem:

Discussion title: problem
Top-level ideas in the discussion: proposed solutions
Nested ideas: criticisms, counter-criticisms, and further solutions

Or, if the discussion is wider than a single problem, you can treat it as a collection of problems:

Discussion title: some topic (such as ‘abortion’)
Top-level ideas: problems
Nested ideas: solutions, criticisms and so on

Either way, discussions map onto Popper’s problem-oriented philosophy. If that’s what people want – I’m keeping discussion structures open and flexible in case they don’t.

And, as I wrote: “Note also that revisions act as solutions to problems. So do counter-criticisms, in a way.”

I agree with @tom-nassis that it’s best if discussion titles are problem statements (#506).

Limitations of Veritula

Veritula can help you discover a bit of truth.

It’s not guaranteed to do so. It doesn’t give you a formula for truth-seeking. There’s no guarantee that an idea with no outstanding criticisms won’t get a new criticism tomorrow. All ideas are tentative in nature. That’s not a limitation of Veritula per se but of epistemology generally (Karl Popper).

There are currently no safeguards against bad actors. For example, people can keep submitting arbitrary criticisms in rapid succession just to ‘save’ their pet ideas. There could be safeguards such as rate-limiting criticisms, but that encourages brigading, making sock-puppets, etc. That said, I think these problems are soluble.

Opposing viewpoints should be defined clearly and openly. Not doing so hinders truth-seeking and rationality (Ayn Rand).

Personal attacks poison rational discussions because they turn an open, objective, impartial truth-seeking process into a defensive mess. It shifts the topic of the discussion from the ideas themselves to the participants in a bad way. People are actually open to harsh criticism as long as their interlocutor shows concern for how it lands (Chris Voss). I may use ‘AI’ at some point to analyze the tone of an idea upon submission.

Veritula works best for conscientious people with an open mind – people who aren’t interested in defending their ideas but in correcting errors. That’s one of the reasons discussions shouldn’t get personal. Veritula can work to resolve conflicts between adversaries, but I think that’s much harder. Any situation where people argue to be right rather than to find truth is challenging. In those cases, it’s best if an independent third party uses Veritula on their behalf to adjudicate the conflict objectively.

Veritula only works for explicit ideas. For example, you may have an inexplicit criticism of an idea, but Veritula can’t help with that until you’re able to write the criticism down, at which point it’s explicit. (The distinction between explicit vs inexplicit ideas goes back to David Deutsch. ‘Inexplicit’ means ‘not expressed in words or symbols’.)

Superseded by #1289. Knut, when you unmark an idea as a criticism, remember to ‘neutralize’ the old version.

If we use Claude Shannon’s framework of information as reducing uncertainty, a light switch doesn’t contain information. But the problem with all kinds of information is that it depends on subjectively definitions of states and uncertainty. Information is always relative to a certain «perspective».

Superseded by #1491. This comment was generated automatically.

Alan Forrester¹ says ‘no’, the brain is not a quantum computer but a classical one:

Quantum mechanics has almost no bearing on the operation of the brain, except insofar as it explains the existence of matter. You say that signals are carried by electrons, but this is very imprecise. Rather, they are carried by various kinds of chemical signals, including ions. Those signals are released into a warm environment that they interact with over a very short timescale.

Quantum mechanical processes like interference and entanglement only continue to show effects that differ from classical physics when the relevant information does not leak into the environment. This issue has been explained [in] the context of the brain by Max Tegmark in The importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes. In the brain, the leaking of information should take place over a time of the order 10⁻¹³ − 10⁻²⁰ s. The timescale over which neurons fire etc. is 0.001 − 0.1s. So your thoughts are not quantum computations or anything like that. The brain is a classical computer.

Superseded by #1489. This comment was generated automatically.