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Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

johnsalvatier.org

271–280 of 304 posts

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your short tale reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyTf7y3ityk In sincerity, I found that interesting. Lessons noted!

I must admit, HN is the last place I expected to find a link to a Trailer Park Boys clip.

My interests are a tapestry... and don't get me started on Letterkenny (and how good it is).

Anyway, I figured it fit the subject. ;) Ricky's a natural born hacker.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#272
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your short tale reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyTf7y3ityk In sincerity, I found that interesting. Lessons noted!

ricky explains legacy software https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6rGMNtXHgs

They have a lesson for everything.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except this AI doesn't exist. You're imagining there is such a technology, and this technology will just be able to see all the detail in the world it needs to learn Obviously I'm imagining it. Strong AI does not yet exist. It's also obvious that it could exist, because humans do it. I'm only making two logical inferences here: 1: Future superhuman AI will have at least the capabilities of the human brain, because…

I'm skeptical that strong AI will be superhuman in a way that allows it to do much better than the entire human race at any task. In context of the OP, the issue is all the detail in the world that takes many people over ages to work out. Will the superhuman AI be able to recognize all the detail it needs to know to accomplish tasks better than us (all humans)? Notice this isn't the same issue as being transparently…

> In context of the OP, the issue is all the detail in the world that takes many people over ages to work out. Will the superhuman AI be able to recognize all the detail it needs to know to accomplish tasks better than us (all humans)?

Yes, if for no other reason than this: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#274
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right. That sounds exactly like something amazon would do and how people would respond. I must have turned those emails off, which makes seeing the answers utterly stupefying.

To give customers the benefit of the doubt: Some may know exactly what's going on, and enjoy making Amazon look stupid by posting those replies.

That reply doesn’t suit your handle at all ;)

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A gif of what happens when one step is just slightly too high: https://imgur.com/hl3YWJD

Also interesting how people speed up after tripping.

I had an over weight friend in highschool who could run really fast. He did this by basically by making his top half fall forward which caused his legs to move quickly to keep him from landing on his face.

I think this is a similar phenomenon where the people tripping up the stairs have an imbalance causing their top half to fall forward. As a result the unconsciously speed their bottom half up to catch the top half from falling.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#276
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A moped (and I assume a motorcycle) is a lot harder to turn without countersteering. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s more massive or what. Anyway, learning to ride a moped was when I first consciously discovered countersteering. It made things a lot easier after that point.

It could be based on speed rather than mass. Above 5-10 mph or so, you turn a motorcycle with pretty much total countersteering, forcefully pushing forward on the inside hand grip to get the motorcycle to lean over. The faster you're going, the further you need to lean the motorcycle.

That makes sense too.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is quite smart with some deep understandings of the world (along with some less good ideas), as best I can tell. I've definitely learned interesting things or been sent down interesting paths from articles of his that I've read. However, he would be served very well to work on eliminating the moderate pomposity that permeates much of his writing. He is also overly verbose sometimes. Fixing those two…

It was my impression that he intentionally cultivates those aspects of his public persona. That is, if I can't deal with those particular points of personal obnoxiousness, I probably also won't hang credulously on his every word. In that case why would he want to interact with me at all? He's not the only person to employ this strategy. Personally I'm more willing to endure the idiosyncrasies of e.g. RMS.

Didn't he promise some AI stuff and never delivered?

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#278
I'm reminded of the coastline paradox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox

"The coastline paradox is the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length. This results from the fractal-like properties of coastlines."

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 separate points. The student was female (OP said "he"), and also that passage was notable (but not because she was female).

Yes, although I should probably haven't brought the correction up in the first place as it wasn't relevant to the main point.

Details, as they say...

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#280

There's something of a connection here to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Two examples come to mind: 1. The narrator thinks it's important to have in your toolset hammers of multiple hardness, because your hammer should be softer than whatever material you're hammering on at the time. At least, that's how I remember it; I might well be wrong about -- well, about the DETAILS of that example. Please correct…

For fans of extreme detail, I'd recommend The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker[0]. Iirc, he devoted several pages to the feeling of the curls of a brown paper bag carried in his hand. 0: https://www.amazon.com/Mezzanine-Nicholson-Baker/dp/08021449...

For fans of maybe slightly less extreme detail, Tim Carmody and Jason Kottke have recently launched a new newsletter, "Noticing".

https://kottke.org/18/01/noticing-a-new-weekly-newsletter-fr...

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