Tyler Mills
@tyler-mills·Joined Jan 2026·Ideas
#4827·Tyler Mills, 24 days agoReiterating/refining #3904: I think the yellow "Criticism of" bubbles can and should be replaced by a graphical indication that is much easier on the eyes. The dropdown line can be made red if the comment it leads to is a criticism, and the bubble on the criticism can be eliminated. Reading the yellow bubble to get the idea # it is referring to, then searching the ideas above for the matching # is inelegant (even if it is usually the one right above).
And dimmer red for refuted criticisms, brighter red for pending ones! Default gray for comments.
#4828·Tyler Mills, 24 days agoThe yellow bubbles link to the ideas they are criticizing, which can be handy.
The link could be put in a new tooltip, or something. Or kept as is, just without the yellow bubble, frankly.
#4830·Tyler Mills, 24 days agoThe quote
indentation bar
is red, which would cause visual confusion.
It should be made not red. Gray. Arguable even without the red criticism line idea above, since it already conflicts with the "red = criticism" motif.
#4827·Tyler Mills, 24 days agoReiterating/refining #3904: I think the yellow "Criticism of" bubbles can and should be replaced by a graphical indication that is much easier on the eyes. The dropdown line can be made red if the comment it leads to is a criticism, and the bubble on the criticism can be eliminated. Reading the yellow bubble to get the idea # it is referring to, then searching the ideas above for the matching # is inelegant (even if it is usually the one right above).
The quote
indentation bar
is red, which would cause visual confusion.
#4828·Tyler Mills, 24 days agoThe yellow bubbles link to the ideas they are criticizing, which can be handy.
Is it handy? I have yet to want to open the criticized idea in a new tab. I have only ever wanted to scroll up to see it, which is slightly irksome with the current yellow bubble hashtag-matching method. And when the criticized idea is clearly immediately above, the yellow bubbles serve no real purpose, only add visual clutter.
#4827·Tyler Mills, 24 days agoReiterating/refining #3904: I think the yellow "Criticism of" bubbles can and should be replaced by a graphical indication that is much easier on the eyes. The dropdown line can be made red if the comment it leads to is a criticism, and the bubble on the criticism can be eliminated. Reading the yellow bubble to get the idea # it is referring to, then searching the ideas above for the matching # is inelegant (even if it is usually the one right above).
The yellow bubbles link to the ideas they are criticizing, which can be handy.
Reiterating/refining #3904: I think the yellow "Criticism of" bubbles can and should be replaced by a graphical indication that is much easier on the eyes. The dropdown line can be made red if the comment it leads to is a criticism, and the bubble on the criticism can be eliminated. Reading the yellow bubble to get the idea # it is referring to, then searching the ideas above for the matching # is inelegant (even if it is usually the one right above).
#4616·Dennis HackethalOP, about 2 months agoNot sure this is a good idea. You say you wouldn’t mind horizontal scrolling, but users generally dislike horizontal scroll.
Could be optional, as I said. Rearrange top-level ideas as toggled. Maybe not worth the trouble. Just spitballing. See #4825.
Not understanding this criticism. Maybe my idea is unclear. I'm picturing the existing "column" of a discussion, repeated column-wise for each top-level idea. Current discussion content takes up only the left ~third of my screen, while the right two thirds of my screen is totally unused. The cost of using that real estate is more content (clutter) on screen, the benefit is less time scrolling up and down in one dimension, looking for given ideas and getting bearings, which I sometimes find tiring. A second dimension helps get bearings (e.g. "Oh yeah, this relates to that one over here near the middle of the third column." Rather than: "That one was ... 77% of the way down the page, hmm, what were some words from it that I can use to ctrl+f, grrrrr.").
Thoughts on an optional "implies" relation for ideas? I find myself commenting on one idea something which it implies, then criticizing that, but the original idea is not marked criticized. Being able to chain or bundle ideas avoids the bookkeeping issue of having to make new criticisms for each step in the chain, if one is criticized.
#4813·Dirk Meulenbelt, 25 days agoCreativity isn't defined by its outputs but by its process. RNGs do not recognise or criticise ideas.
Agreed on both counts, but I think the bountied idea survives this...
Recognizing and criticizing ideas could be a requisite for tractably synthesizing any possible explanation (I suspect as much).
#4816·Dennis Hackethal, 25 days agoSpeed is a property of programs, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation
Ah, so if I understand correctly, there are two knobs affecting speed (elapsed time) for a given algorithm: the hardware, and the implementation of the algorithm. The given algorithm has a complexity, independent of those two, which is how the time and memory scales with an input.
Assumption A1: Only programs that are people while running constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.
Assumption A1: Only programs that are people, while running, can constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.
#4764·Dennis Hackethal, about 1 month agoIn everyday English, we say ‘probably’ to leave room for error and communicate some uncertainty. That’s fine because everyone knows we’re not assigning actual probabilities in the sense of the probability calculus.
In math, we use the probability calculus to describe the frequency of outcomes for underlying processes that look random. Like a coin toss. That’s also fine because we know all possible outcomes and we have a measure for each.
Things go wrong when people use probability even though they don’t know the outcomes (because of the growth of knowledge, say, as you write in #4762) or they have no measure for them or the underlying phenomena don’t behave randomly (again because of the growth of knowledge). Like Elon Musk tweeting we’re 90% likely to see AGI in 2026. (Not a literal quote but he says stuff like that sometimes.)
Some people try to steal the prestige of math and hide their ignorance by using the probability calculus illegitimately.
See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc. It’s been years since I watched it but it’s bound to have related ideas.
I think this clarifies it, thanks. Used in common speech to express uncertainty and leave room for error, valid mathematically only when all outcomes are known and have a measure.
#4760·Tyler MillsOP, about 1 month agoIn summer in the desert, will it "probably" be sunny in the afternoon?
No, it will or it won't, but "probably" expresses one's awareness of a lack of battletested explanations, or of their own uncertainty or lack of confidence in the prediction, etc. (cf. #4764).
#4807·Tyler MillsOP, 25 days agoDoesn't it? All explanatory knowledge is in the set of all possible programs, and a random program (or number) generator can generate any of those, given infinite time.
We could say a person is a program that can synthesize any possible explanation in finite time, excluding memory limitations. But this would again grant personhood to RNGs. For that matter, a counting program could just enumerate all possible binary strings up to its memory limit, in finite time...
#4783·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 27 days agoUnderstanding explanatory knowledge seems like a better criterion
Maybe... but "understanding" is too vague, I think. Doesn't understanding mean: can explain? But then this is just "can create any explanation" again. I think the core question is why a random program generator isn't a person, coming from Deutsch's definition of a person as a program that has explanatory universality -- can create any explanation (my thought here is that this definition isn't good enough on its own, given the random generator point).
#4781·Dirk Meulenbelt, 28 days agoA random number generator does not create explanatory knowledge.
Doesn't it? All explanatory knowledge is in the set of all possible programs, and a random program (or number) generator can generate any of those, given infinite time.
#4805·Tyler MillsOP, 27 days agoBut an AI programmed to make random variations to its conjectures (English or otherwise) can only do so by choosing from an existing set of variations. Again, that knowledge is pre-existing. True evolution must involve variations to the substrate on which the knowledge is based; variations must be agnostic to the semantics of whatever they are acting upon, else they are already implicit from it, in which case their application does not constitute a truly novel conjecture (in the sense defining creativity).
Even if variations are agnostic to any meaning or context of the knowledge, why are they still not implicit? Anything is implicit from anything else, if implicit just means: follows from when a given change is applied... The whole question is where the change is coming from... (?)
#4803·Tyler MillsOP revised 27 days agoIf only some of the criteria are stored, and the rest are random, is it still evolution? Is evolution only happening if there is random variation? But we could program an LLM to do that as well...
But an AI programmed to make random variations to its conjectures (English or otherwise) can only do so by choosing from an existing set of variations. Again, that knowledge is pre-existing. True evolution must involve variations to the substrate on which the knowledge is based; variations must be agnostic to the semantics of whatever they are acting upon, else they are already implicit from it, in which case their application does not constitute a truly novel conjecture (in the sense defining creativity).
If only some of the criteria are stored, is it still evolution? Then evolution is only the random part of the variation?
If only some of the criteria are stored, and the rest are random, is it still evolution? Is evolution only happening if there is random variation? But we could program an LLM to do that as well...
If only some of the criteria are stored, is it still evolution? Then evolution is only the random part of the variation?
If only some of the criteria are stored, is it still evolution? Then evolution is only the random part of the variation?
#4799·Tyler MillsOP, 27 days agoWhatever new "explanations" it creates are derivable from (and by?) the knowledge in the training data. It isn't evolution if all of the variations and selection criteria are stored ahead of time. That's just a search process, as in the case of Move 37 per AlphaGo.
If only some of the criteria are stored, is it still evolution? Then evolution is only the random part of the variation?
#4797·Tyler MillsOP, 27 days agoonly people can create explanatory knowledge
How is an LLM not creating new explanatory knowledge (even if worse than the existing, by any measure), by varying some existing written explanation? It could even vary and select by some criterion of its "choice", thus realizing Popperian epistemology.
Whatever new "explanations" it creates are derivable from (and by?) the knowledge in the training data. It isn't evolution if all of the variations and selection criteria are stored ahead of time. That's just a search process, as in the case of Move 37 per AlphaGo.
#4722·Tyler MillsOP, about 1 month agoThe definition of fitness that rendered Move 37 the best choice originated outside the system.
The definition of fitness for DNA also originated outside it, so this doesn't in itself suggest the system isn't actually creating new knowledge.