781–790 of 831 posts
Not tried yet but I’d love to make a JS front end library to “bring your own storage” so that if I provide you with an app online (think SPA) it can then save the data to where he used wants (s3, Dropbox, local disk using extension, etc.) Another similar idea is a very simple rest protocol so that you can save to server and then make it easy to self host it. I like the idea of people building apps as web pages withou…
I need to come up with a way to remotely shut up Jesus in case the "Left Behind" books are right and He plans to slaughter millions of people with His voice. I'm learning a lot about audio engineering and wave mechanics. ( I also co-wrote a story about what happens if I fail, which you can read at https://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyo... )
If He returns, then He is who He said He is - the Son of God. And you're going to try to fight Him with audio engineering? That's, um, not the wisest possible response...
I'd prefer coherent light, of course, but if audio engineering does the job, I'll take it.
I believe that computation, mathematics, information and semantics all share the same set of simple foundations. And that the means to understanding these foundation is to look at how physical computational processes use information from their environment, and produce information that is used to make "real world" outcomes happen. I am working on this at the moment, and no, I don't expect that what I write here will c…
We're in need of an information-theoretic definition of computation or information processing, in analogy to Shannon's definition of communication. I'm trying to work it out. It's clear that there is a relationship between computation and information via Landauer's principle. It's also clear that it's got to do with nonlinearity of dynamical systems: "The essence of computation is nonlinear logical operations." J. Ho…
Could you elaborate? It's not clear to me what you mean by that.
> It's clear that there is a relationship between computation and information via Landauer's principle.
Information, in the sense I'm concerned with, is an inherent part of computation. You can't have the latter without the former.
> Semantics: in short, 'meaning' is just a mapping (ie, mutual information) between language and the physical world.
That doesn't explain meaning in the case of imaginary or abstract details, or the system's conception of the meaning.
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BTW, would I be able to get a copy of that Hopfield paper? I wasn't able to find a copy of it.
I’m working on a new way to talk online, with the goal of killing cancel culture, increasing understanding, and basically calming down current radicalization. Picture Reddit, but with the ability to anonymously share ideas with other people in your social circles. My theory is that most reasonable people stay off social media, so places like Twitter end up filled with unreasonable narcissists. At the same time, discu…
I love this idea. I have been working on something similar and would love to discuss this with you some more. Anonymity is important but tricky. Many researchers believe that anonymity can be key to countering groupthink, where people say what they think is socially acceptable, and not what they actually believe, for fear of denunciation and retaliation (some great books on this subject: Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann "the…
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Couldn't you just say "I'm working on this specific thing for this specific purpose that works this specific way" ? Sigh. Sorry for the negativity, but this post is the perfect example of the wishy-washy rhetoric that people interested in this domain always use. For examples of what I'm talking about, browse this tedious litany [1] (roam-whitepaper), see if you manage to get pass the first paragraph [2]. BTW, the pri…
You know, the trouble is, you're absolutely right. I _could_ have just said "I'm working on a note-taking app", but nothing about that seems particularly weird or hard. To address the poetic waxing more directly, it's important to remember that we still don't have very good language to talk about the "primitives of knowledge work", which is why I phrased my statement the way I did. We know it almost certainly doesn't…
Many write-only "scratchpad" notes are useful because they helped the mind focus and organize information. They can often be safely archived or discarded.
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I don't think so, in the sense that it's not concerned with the same kinds of details as information theory (which it is not to say it is incompatible with it), and it provides a set of foundations that are common to information, semantics, mathematics and computation. As is well known, information theory doesn't deal with the meaning of the messages. As far as information goes, I am primarily concerned with informat…
Ok, so less about the flow and nature of information and more about the semantics. > Seeing the computation as a physical process, processing information "about" details in its environment, highlights this. Are you familiar with Karl Friston's work on the Free Energy Principle? [0] He touches on how the nature of a living being (computational agent) is to model its external environment and act upon that model. That m…
I'm working on explaining the fundamental nature of information, and arguing that it is fundamentally semantic. I think there's a lot of confusion about what information theory actually tells us. I don't think it actually tells us about the fundamental nature of information. This isn't to detract from its importance, or to say the theory itself is wrong -- I'm saying that the usual interpretation of what it means, regarding information, is flawed.
> Are you familiar with Karl Friston's work on the Free Energy Principle?
Not terribly familiar with it. I watched the video.
I don't think it gets down to the a precise understanding of the fundamentals. I don't think there is a good understanding of the concepts like information and modelling, that it uses. It doesn't seem to provide specific mechanistic explanations of how the phenomena work and how they have their apparent properties.
As a couple of examples, what explanation does it have of how a system may have an understanding of the character of some entity? Where that entity might be something apparently "abstract" or "imaginary"? If the semantics are about mathematical details, what exactly are they about? What are those mathematical details?
But I don't think I can really hope to explain my position here. It requires a lot of explanation, and I'm still working on the explanation.
>> The key to all this is appreciating that, once you see semantics and information processing as a matter of physical processes, you can see that the correct semantics can be necessary for producing a physical outcome.
> I think I understand what you're saying and it touches on some of my own inquiries. A more concrete example, if you have one, might better help align me with where your thoughts are at regarding this.
Imagine a robotic arm that, when a electrical current is sent to it, reaches out and grabs at an area in front of it. If that current happens when there's an object in that position, then the robotic arm will end up picking up the object. If the current happens when there isn't an object in that position, the robotic arm will have picked up nothing. Thus, the semantics of the electrical current has a necessary causal role in the arm picking up the object. And thus we can analyse the causal details to get a concrete understanding of the semantics and its role.
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I really like this. At the start of this podcast [1] they talk about the dark forest theory of the Internet. It's that when you go into a dark forest at night you don't see many animals because they know if they move or make noise they become prey. Similarly many intelligent people stay silent on Twitter and only speak up in private circles for similar reasons. [1]: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/podcasts/2019/11/2…
Thanks for the thoughtful and interesting responses, looking forward to listening to the podcast. I loved the Cixin trilogy, but hadn’t heard of the dark forest theory applied to online conversations before. I’m not sure I agree with such a strong suggestion, maybe more that the people that are most verbal in a group are rarely the people with the most interesting thoughts. It is sadly becoming increasingly true thou…
I hope this counts as weird enough ... PROBLEM: If time travelers from the future were to visit you, it would be difficult for them to quickly prove their authenticity. SOLUTION: Temporal passwords. At the start of each year, you devise a new password. You commit the password to memory, but you never write it down or divulge it to anyone until Dec. 31, when you submit it to the Temporal Password Registry, which publi…
How can we document "human society" in 1000 pages or less? I've been casually researching for a while, and will eventually write a guide on going from zero to the moon. Step one is survival, basics of hunting, first aid and farming sort of stuff. That volume would end around homesteading and self-sufficient living. Volume two would be establishing society in larger groups than a family unit. Things like job specializ…
Cool idea - few questions: How many volumes are there? Would be cool to see the full list. The first to volumes are very goal purpose driven and so fit will together. The third feels very grab bag and likely should be split up more. You'll also likely want to cover on schools of thought, the scientific method and whatnot. An alternate volume 3a might be on mass production of food (enabling greater human capital). Lar…
I’m working on a new way to talk online, with the goal of killing cancel culture, increasing understanding, and basically calming down current radicalization. Picture Reddit, but with the ability to anonymously share ideas with other people in your social circles. My theory is that most reasonable people stay off social media, so places like Twitter end up filled with unreasonable narcissists. At the same time, discu…
I have a theory that, individually, people fundamentally disagree less than they think they do. And in real face to face meetings, they are willing to disagree about a topic without killing each other. They talk around points of disagreement. Eg: me, when I'm talking to my grandmother. The problem is that online people tend to polarize into factions during complex discussions. The more heated the discussion, the more…