What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#111

Post by knzhou » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 4:54 AM UTC

Igelau wrote: post #109

knzhou wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The secret that is rarely revealed in pop science discussions is that theories of everything are cheap . To count as a theory of everything, you just need to come up with any mathematical structure big enough to cram the Standard Model plus a graviton in. And adding mathematical structure, especially when you're playing around, is easy, like snapping legos together. In this way, you can crank out ten theories of ever…

You have a couple threads going in here, so maybe you tacked this to the wrong one. You said you could speak for sure about things he'd said about physics, so I'm asking for those specifics.

These are the specifics. There isn't enough there there in his theory to have anything more to criticize. That is, it's too vague to even do the zeroth-order tests physicists would use to decide whether to take it seriously.

(You could criticize the little there is on aesthetic or philosophical grounds. I tried to avoid this because that's subjective, but it is true that there is a great deal more arbitrariness in his construction than in alternatives. For example, string theory also has a lot of extra dimensions, but the number of them is fixed by internal consistency. It wasn't just made up.)

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#112

Post by totetsu » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #73

cmgxyz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE This has always stuck with me. I’m not well enough read to know if he borrowed it from somewhere, but I’m not sure Terry Pratchett ever wrote finer words than those. Beautifully concise and apt summary of the human condition.

A variation of that quote is in a book by Robert Ardrey in 1961: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Ardrey

and maybe related to Nietzsche's "Man is a rope" https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/384722-man-is-a-rope-stretc...

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#113

Post by Reedx » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 5:25 AM UTC

sigil wrote: post #80

Eric Weinstein is a delight to listen to: a polymath, a contrarian, a great interviewer, really gifted verbally. I'm a Portal subscriber and I've listened to his Rogan interviews all the way through. That said... I have the sinking feeling that you're right about the breadth-first thing, and it's about to become a bigger issue. Back in the 80s Weinstein was working on an alternative Grand Unified Theory. When his wor…

It's worth keeping in perspective. ~99% of his platform has been about other things.

Also, in the referenced video he says he wants to work on further developing the theory now. It's not complete and doesn't claim that it'll work. He says repeatedly that it may be wrong, even pointing out it could be fools gold. He also notes he's not a physicist and doesn't have all the necessary skills.

He's openly questioning, starting to present an idea and working on it.

At this point it doesn't strike me charlatan-like and I don't see how it's dangerous given all of his disclaimers... just seems like an outsider taking an unorthodox approach.

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#114

Post by qznc » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 5:37 AM UTC

vntx wrote: post #75

qznc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have much bigger illusions than wrestling. Ironically, a piece of fiction made the point much clearer to me: “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU…

I need to start reading Discworld.

Don't start with the first one (Color of magic). Pratchett became a lot better over time.

Also, stick with it through one book. I found quite a few books childish in the beginning. It is often a journey from "this is silly" over "ok, it has its own logic" to the realization "our reality is just as weird".

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#115

Post by cairo_x » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

> a world in which investigative journalism seems to have vanished and bitter corporate rivals cooperate on everything from joint ventures to lobbying efforts

Says the man behind Thiel capital.

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#116

Post by 0x8BADF00D » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

sigil wrote: post #103

ianai wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the entire portion of that interview with Joe Rogan was just someone talking about absolutely everything but the elephant in the room. Then he eventually talked himself out of all other topics and detailed why he was really there - to discuss his GUT. Yes, it’s weird for someone outside of a field to try and introduce a whole new concept to it. But it’s been done. Einstein was a parent clerk, I think one of the…

Eric might be onto something. I want to believe. It’s not only possible that academia has rejected valuable but threatening ideas, it’s likely. However, the only way forward from this point is for Eric to publish his ideas in definite form — in the language of mathematics — for the rest of us to evaluate for ourselves. Paper or GTFO.

This reminds me of the ICO scams in recent times. They would publish a half baked white paper and raise millions in a few days. Instead of being a viable alternative to the venture capital model, ICOs became a tool to separate the unwitting from their money. Maybe that’s what Weinstein and his ilk are really after.

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#117

Post by core-questions » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 6:03 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #92

roenxi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subtlety is that kayfabe has elements of gradient to it. In some sense, everything competes with everything else. I could claim the gravity of Jupiter competes with my sense of justice and I can probably invent some convoluted chain of nonsense that justifies it. But to give some meaning to the word, there has to be some threshold of sustained competition before we call two things 'competitors'. Kayfabe is a stat…

Political dysfunction seems to be when politicians manufacture divisions between them and their opponents over issues that ought not to be divisive. A particularly painful example for me was the way Trump said during his campaign that Obamas (and Hillary’s) policy of threatening to bomb Syria if they used chemical weapons was wrong because the US could not afford to police the world, and it was nothing to do with the…

> Within weeks of becoming president Assad used chemical weapons on a civilian area, including a maternity clinic, and a Trump ordered air strikes. Clearly in reality he knew he had to do it

You know that during this strike, all that was hit was an empty airfield, right? It was deliberately a pointless attack that minimized harm. He only "had to do it" in the sense that he has to kowtow to powerful neoconservative influences.

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#118

Post by core-questions » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 6:05 AM UTC

__s wrote: post #71

tryitnow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I just don't see it. Unlike in professional wrestling politicians, corporations, etc have real conflicts over zero sum games. Of course, there are situations where there's are incentives to cooperate. As for his critique of neoclassical economics' reliance on perfect information - that's already been addressed by many economists, Stiglitz, etc. It's frankly banal to even bring it up any longer. I just d…

> have real conflicts over zero sum games No. Neither side wants the world to crumble tomorrow (I hope). Therefore it is not zero sum Similarly, energy from the sun isn't going to happen or not, so there's plenty of wealth being left on the table so that entropy isn't a good argument for zero sum "zero sum" is a hateful philosophy. It means I'd kill your children because if that's terrible for you it must be opposite…

> "zero sum" is a hateful philosophy. It means I'd kill your children because if that's terrible for you it must be oppositely great for me

If you managed to simplify the equation down to "kill their children or die yourself" through some desert-island scenario, then yeah, sure. Normally problems involve more variables than this.

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#119

Post by 0x8BADF00D » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 6:09 AM UTC

pippy wrote: post #108

vearwhershuh wrote: post #6

I suppose it's a worthwhile concept. You can certainly look at professional politics, corporate messaging and the financial crises, basically all elite-preservation systems, through a kayfabe lens. On the other hand, I think everyone would be better off reading Propaganda, by Bernays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book) It's short.

Ironically Eric used these techniques in his interview with Joe Rogan three days ago. Eric blamed the divergence of the income and production relation on the modern academic environment. Which is a bizarre conclusion to draw, instead of the more likely candidates of Neo-liberalisim and market forces of the employment sector. These conclusions wouldn't suit his world view, so he explained them away using jargon. His v…

The richer this type of person gets, the more deranged and farther from reality they become. It seems that their material success has corrupted their egos to a point of deification.

Re: What concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? Kayfabe (2011)

#120

Post by ctchocula » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 6:13 AM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #54

The writer was a guest on Rogan this weekend, and he was very engaging, he did wander a bit. He has a particular kind of breadth-first associative intelligence that can cause listeners to become almost hypnotized by all the open cognitive loops his conversation creates, not unlike the kayfabe concept he's touting. Similar things come up in the theory of musical composition where you create and resolve "tension," and…

> If you learn to play any Bach, you can begin to see and articulate how he discovered it.

Can you elaborate some more about how Bach ties into this? I can see how sonata-allegro form goes back to the tonic key in the recapitulation, but I'm interested in hearing some more about Bach and these concepts.