“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL” • Hacker News Board

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#761

Post by Albert500 » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 7:50 AM UTC

sheepmullet wrote: post #718

DanBC wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context is someone hearing comments that were "shocking", and that were so shocking they could only be delivered behind closed doors. This is a good, but not infallible, sign of a dysfunctional culture in health care. It might be fine in other industries, but in health care there are strong links between this culture and poor, harmful, practice. It's interesting that making a complaint is seen as a negative thing…

> The context is someone hearing comments that were "shocking" Shocking because they were dehumanising or shocking because they were unexpected? > and that were so shocking they could only be delivered behind closed doors. My take is that it simply meant out of earshot of patients - and that's basic professionalism - not a sign of dehumanising patients. They clearly weren't trying to hide their conversations from new…

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Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#762

Post by mjgeddes » Sun, Jul 22, 2018, 3:50 AM UTC

parrellel wrote: post #616

setgree wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One person who understands and writes extremely well about this dynamic is Eliezer Yudkowsky. From the incomparable Harry potter and the Methods of Rationality : [0] ""I was going to be a hero, once," said Professor Quirrell, still looking upward. "Can you believe that, Miss Granger?" "No." "Thank you again, Miss Granger. It is true nonetheless... I was not naive, Miss Granger, I did not expect the power-holders to a…

It is worth mentioning that Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't believe in the scientific method, and thinks it can be replaced with pure Bayesian reasoning, without, as far as I can tell, any data collection.

The 'scientific method' is not something that can be reduced to formal reasoning. Bayesian inference is a type of formal reasoning for making predictions, and as such, is a mathematical 'toy model' that doesn't correspond to the real universe.

Yudkowsky worships pure mathematics, but he always had it 'arse backwards'. It's not pure mathematics that's the ideal, it's numerical and iterated methods and heuristics (cognition). Pure math can only be applied to idealized situations, whereas numerical methods and heuristics apply everywhere. So in fact, it's numerical methods that are fundamental, and pure math that's the imperfect idealization!

Yudkowsky read too much Tegmark in his youth and was sucked in by the idea that 'everything is mathematics' (or 'everything is information'). But to repeat, this is all 'arse backwards'. Thank goodness that I read some Sean Carroll and debated with a friend of Sean's on his forum; that's what finally talked me out of all that Tegmark multiverse/'reality is a simulation' nonsense.

It's the physical world that's fundamental, cognition is next level of abstraction up, and pure mathematics is a top-level abstraction (it's not fundamental). As Bayesian inference (and all formal methods) are part of the domain of pure math, they can't serve as a foundation for rationality. Cognition is more fundamental than math (because it's closer to the base level of reality - physics).

As I commented recently to Scott Aaronson on his blog, what distinguishes cognition from pure math, is that pure math is about fixed equations, whereas cognition is about heuristics , iteration and numerical methods. But in fact, P≠NP implies that cognition is the more fundamental. See:

https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3875#comments

So for instance, AIXI (a much touted mathematical model of general intelligence), is the 'fake' (imperfect) solution, whereas a workable heuristic implementation would be the correct (perfect) one. This is the complete reverse of what Yudkowsky thinks.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#763

Post by Eliezer » Sun, Jul 22, 2018, 7:56 AM UTC

mjgeddes wrote: post #762

parrellel wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth mentioning that Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't believe in the scientific method, and thinks it can be replaced with pure Bayesian reasoning, without, as far as I can tell, any data collection.

The 'scientific method' is not something that can be reduced to formal reasoning. Bayesian inference is a type of formal reasoning for making predictions, and as such, is a mathematical 'toy model' that doesn't correspond to the real universe. Yudkowsky worships pure mathematics, but he always had it 'arse backwards'. It's not pure mathematics that's the ideal, it's numerical and iterated methods and heuristics (cogn…

I'd like to assure anyone reading this that the above commenter has no idea what Eliezer Yudkowsky thinks. I, with my considerably greater knowledge of that subject, can testify that among Yudkowsky's beliefs is "Bounded agents are more impressive than unbounded agents."

(In general, you would be very very wise not to believe someone who claims that I believe a thing, until you have seen the original text, in its original location, in full context, written by me under my own account, plainly and unambiguously saying that I believe that thing. Even then I've been known to change my mind later, as is a sane person's right. But most of what I'm wildly rumored to believe is more completely made up out of thin air than anything I've changed my mind about.)

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#764

Post by parrellel » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 1:36 AM UTC

Eliezer wrote: post #763

mjgeddes wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'scientific method' is not something that can be reduced to formal reasoning. Bayesian inference is a type of formal reasoning for making predictions, and as such, is a mathematical 'toy model' that doesn't correspond to the real universe. Yudkowsky worships pure mathematics, but he always had it 'arse backwards'. It's not pure mathematics that's the ideal, it's numerical and iterated methods and heuristics (cogn…

I'd like to assure anyone reading this that the above commenter has no idea what Eliezer Yudkowsky thinks. I, with my considerably greater knowledge of that subject, can testify that among Yudkowsky's beliefs is "Bounded agents are more impressive than unbounded agents." (In general, you would be very very wise not to believe someone who claims that I believe a thing, until you have seen the original text, in its ori…

Now the question is: were you watching my comment for activity, or do you have a bot checking for name drops.