Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today • Hacker News Board

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#101

Post by rpedroso » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 2:55 AM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #97

rpedroso wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kuhn never denies that there are facts about the universe that we can observe. And I agree with you about this general class of example: no number of scientific discoveries or paradigm shifts will ever make the photoelectric effect cease occurring. Kuhn's argument is that science occasionally undergoes what he calls "paradigm shifts" -- a low-level shift in assumptions about a certain realm of scientific thought that…

> He doesn't say that there aren't facts about the universe, but rather, that the scientific approach to understanding the universe is caught up in a paradigmatic frame which makes it impossible to derive a simple, objective algorithm/process for scientific discovery. I don't see how he gets from A to B. How is the fact that we obviously can only build models based on the past - since the future is not accessible to…

  I don't see how he gets from A to B

There is only so much I can do to summarize his argument in an online forum without replicating the entire book. I recognize that I'm not doing the full-text justice, but it's hard to go into much more depth without simply recommending that you read the book itself.

  If I boil this down it sounds to me like he's claiming that a system that takes its past states as one of its inputs (observation of the universe being another) is incapable of refining scientific theories? Which, given the fact that's exactly how scientific discovery has been done so far, seems false.

I wouldn't say that paradigm shifts like the Copernican revolution, the discovery of elementary particles, or the uncovering of quantum mechanics are acts of "refining" existing theories -- they largely involved throwing away a significant amount of work and starting from scratch. Scientists since Ptolemy created extraordinarily complex epicycle models to explain the movement of planetary bodies from a geocentric perspective. When the Copernican heliocentric model became accepted, all the work on epicycles became more or less useless.

Now, we didn't have to abandon Newtonian mechanics entirely, but quantum mechanics have replaced Newtonian mechanics in most fields dealing with particles and small numbers of atoms.

Kuhn's argument is that science has advanced, but not through a simple process of "refining". According to Kuhn, science isn't generally a linear or incremental process -- it is a cyclical one in which our existing models cease being useful and we have to find a better one.

I hope that helps! If you're interested, I highly recommend reading the text -- Kuhn was an excellent writer [1].

[1] http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn...

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#102

Post by rpedroso » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 3:13 AM UTC

cbd1984 wrote: post #96

siglesias wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a very naive refutation of what the point was about Kuhn. First off, the notion that engineering "validates" science. What do you mean by validate? Do you mean successful engineering informed by a set of scientific principles, somehow, in a scientifically rigorous way, renders those principles true? As in, end of story true? Because most of mechanical engineering is done on the assumption that force e…

> I think this is a very naive refutation of what the point was about Kuhn. I don't deny that it's naive. > First off, the notion that engineering "validates" science. What do you mean by validate? Do you mean successful engineering informed by a set of scientific principles, somehow, in a scientifically rigorous way, renders those principles true? As in, end of story true? Nothing is end-of-story true except in math…

I don't really have time to respond to your comments right now, but I did want to make one tangential remark.

  Mathematics is absolute, but it's only valid within the abstract context of that branch of mathematics.

Mathematics itself went through a paradigm shift in the early 20th century, known as the "foundational crisis". At the time, mathematicians began running into paradoxes which existing theories could not properly address, including Russel's Paradox.

In response, mathematicians developed a set of formal axioms (nowadays most people use ZFC, although sometimes Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel and other variations are used) which produce a mathematical foundation that is consistent (i.e. free of paradoxes/contradictions).

However, as Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems demonstrated, there is no set of foundational axioms which are both consistent (free of contradictions) and complete (all mathematical truths can be deduced by such a system).

So, while it is true that mathematical proofs are formally valid deductions from a set of axioms, it is worth recognizing that the relationship between mathematics and truth are somewhat more complex than they seem. As it stands, there are an infinite number of mathematical statements that cannot be derived by an axiomatic system. Some philosophers have even sought to identify 'quasi-empiricism' in mathematical thought [1].

And if you find that interesting, you'll love James Conant's paper on Logically Alien Thought [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-empiricism_in_mathematics

[2] http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/conant/Search%2...

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#103

Post by qrendel » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 3:16 AM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #87

homulilly wrote: post #68

Every time I see anything related to Less Wrong all I can think of is Roko's Basilisk and I can't stop laughing.

Here's what the parent is referring to http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWrong#Roko.27s_Basilisk . I'm in agreement regarding the absurdity and group think of Less Wrong, for reasons that aren't that relevant to this thread. That said, HPMOR is a fairly entertaining read, once you can get past the feeling that you're having an ideology forced on you through Harry's point of view. The book reminds me of things Ayn Rand…

That fairly hostile "article" is not accurate and the basilisk portion has already been responded to previously by Yudkowsky. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/2myg86/xkcd_1450_aibo...

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#104

Post by qrendel » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 3:20 AM UTC

Issac wrote: post #18

It was a brilliant story , loved it! and did recommend it to i think almost everyone i know at least once XD ! A bit sad its finished

Ditto. Started reading it a few weeks ago and just caught up two days before the end. Certainly ranks among my favorite novels now. Almost literally could not put it down until I finished. Thanks, Eliezer.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#105

Post by homulilly » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 3:26 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #81

zyxley wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have no way to know if homulilly got drunk and puked on the floor in public, but we do know that Yudkowsky and assorted Lesswrong visitors had a reaction to the Roko's basilisk concept that most relatively "normal" people would judge as embarrassing or humorous.

That was one situation in the long history of a community with high standards of reasoning and discussion, that produces tons of interesting and educative content. Are you really going to judge the whole community by a single overreaction they AFAIR later admitted was an overreaction?

I'm not really saying anything about the community other than my own immediate reaction to it. I've read a bit of hpmor and found it fairly entertaining in an Ayn Rand sort of way but I have trouble investing the time required in online fiction as vast as it is and I've found the fanbase to be fairly obnoxious in my personal interactions.

For the record, while I wont deny that I've had more to drink than I could handle in the past, I've always made it to the toilet in time to avoid any public embarrassment.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#106

Post by solarmist » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 3:57 AM UTC

zyxley wrote: post #80

solarmist wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fan fiction at best is a grey area and at worst is blatant copyright infringement. The community seems more than happy to leave it in that place rather than put it to the test by publishing something like that or attempting to make money from that. As soon as someone tries to make money from it, even if just to recoup self-publishing costs there will be a lawsuit and it'll be decided concretely, probably not in the c…

Yudkowsky has already made money off it by gating chapters behind receiving a certain amount in donations, which is part of why I find it really strange that he's apparently now trying to explicitly get Rowling's attention.

I didn't know that, donations are baiting the lion, I suppose it helps though that his story is almost completely separate from canon. That's a very risky path to walk though.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#107

Post by MichaelGG » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 4:05 AM UTC

zyxley wrote: post #62

I'm seriously surprised at how many people here are fans of Yudkowsky, given his lack of any real productive output beyond thought experiments and fanfiction, the distinctly weird stuff he judges as right by taking his philosophy to the extremes (e.g. "it's better for one person to be tortured for fifty years than for an extremely large number of people to each get a speck of dust in their eye"), and the way he treat…

>.g. "it's better for one person to be tortured for fifty years than for an extremely large number of people to each get a speck of dust in their eye"),

The number in question was 3^^^3 using Knuth's Up Arrow Notation. As he explains, that's a lot of people: (3^(3^(3^(... 7625597484987 times ...)))).

If we decide that one person being tortured for 50 years is worth a quick blink by all those other people, then a still tiny amount of people (say, 7625597484987) being tortured would be worth everyone else blinking furiously for their entire lives.

So it's not about deciding one person's fate. It's about being consistent, because if you make an exception for one person, that turns into several hundred billion, then that small sacrifice everyone else was to carry now has destroyed everyone else, too.

(I think the issue is that people tend to round down "speck of dust" to 0, then multiply, then find of course any amount of torture isn't worth 0.)

Personally, I take a more negative view and see the immense possibility for suffering as a reason that we should seek to destroy the entire multiverse. It's just not very nice otherwise.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#108

Post by ta82828 » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 4:20 AM UTC

judk wrote: post #98

andolanra wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of thing which could very easily turn into a flame war, and is much further off-topic. I'm not interested in that kind of argument right now, so all I will say in this thread is this: My personal experience with Less Wrong-style rationalism, to simplify the situation aggressively, is that it has a core of good, useful tools (Bayesian reasoning, strict positivism, utilitarianism) that I have no proble…

And yet no one has really made an convincing argument of why the conclusions of utilitarianism contradict the axioms of utilitarianism. And no one seems to offer the rather simple solution that utility is non-linear (so dust in ones eye is really a quite small fraction as bad as a century of torture), and people who mock Eliezer's utilitarianism hypocritically do so on sweatshops built&recycled computers, clothes, an…

The linearity of utility is irrelevant to the dust specks or torture problem because you can always increase the number of people to receive dust specks so the utility of torturing a single individual for 50 years is higher.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/

And calling people hypocrites because things like involuntary organ donation gives them "cognitive dissonance" is absurd. Also regarding hypocrisy, note that Yudkowski works for an organization whose goal is to protect humanity from Skynet, while people in Africa are starving. (I'm not personally attacking him, he can work on whatever he likes, and I think governments of wealthy nations have both the resources and responsibility to alleviate starvation, and individual efforts are mostly pissing in the wind. But parent poster brought up sweatshops &c. so I went there.)

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#109

Post by zyxley » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 4:33 AM UTC

jomohke wrote: post #95

zyxley wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left this out from the parent post because it's a subjective judgment, but I absolutely disagree that he's a "great" writer, or even anything really more than "serviceable" at best.

Can you recommend some alternative writers that fill the role better? I think his writing has two particular things going for it: - He explains concepts clearly with understandable examples. - He presents concepts that aren't (or weren't) well known outside of academia to a wider audience.

"Scientific parable fiction" is a pretty narrow genre (though I'd personally argue that Yudkowsky does a pretty poor job of it - for example, Harry constantly assuming things without testing them and just happening to be right because the author says so).

One that does come to mind is: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4976703/alexanderwales

alexanderwales writes relatively short, punchy stories that explore specific academic and narrative themes, and, importantly, generally work extremely very well as stories even if you discount the thought experiment aspects.

Re: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today

#110

Post by zyxley » Sun, Mar 15, 2015, 4:38 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #107

zyxley wrote: post #62

I'm seriously surprised at how many people here are fans of Yudkowsky, given his lack of any real productive output beyond thought experiments and fanfiction, the distinctly weird stuff he judges as right by taking his philosophy to the extremes (e.g. "it's better for one person to be tortured for fifty years than for an extremely large number of people to each get a speck of dust in their eye"), and the way he treat…

>.g. "it's better for one person to be tortured for fifty years than for an extremely large number of people to each get a speck of dust in their eye"), The number in question was 3^^^3 using Knuth's Up Arrow Notation. As he explains, that's a lot of people: (3^(3^(3^(... 7625597484987 times ...)))). If we decide that one person being tortured for 50 years is worth a quick blink by all those other people, then a stil…

> I think the issue is that people tend to round down "speck of dust" to 0, then multiply, then find of course any amount of torture isn't worth 0.

Why not round it down to 0?

There's some level of discomfort in everyday life to start with that's effectively negligible for any normal person, simply because it's a prerequisite for interacting with the world (getting a raindrop in your eye, dealing with a minor wedgie, having an itchy nose, whatever).