

How An Algorithm Feels From Inside - pawelwentpawel
http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside/

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krenoten
Eliezer and others on LessWrong have authored a treasure trove of articles on
using your brain more effectively. For a high level map of some "tracks" of
articles elaborating common themes, check out
<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences>

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tunesmith
It's just about impossible to start if you're intent on reading the articles
in order, however. Every article seems to link to some collection of other
unread articles. I manually scraped them all a while back and came up with a
rough graph order, although there are some circular loops (cycles).

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lmm
It's a useful metaphor when talking to people too. I find I'm a lot calmer
once I've considered how something must look from behind their eyes - it's not
enough to just "put yourself in their shoes", you have to remember that things
that seem true to them may not to you (and vice versa).

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danbruc
I never interpreted the question the way presented in the article. I always
interpreted it as "Does something exist if it is unobserved?" and therefore
never cared if the sound of a falling tree is heard by a human, recorded by a
cassette recorder or recognized due to seeing a tiny movement of a light
object caused by the pressure wave. This problem seems - at least to me - to
be much more interesting than arguing about the (correct) definition of sound
(to use in this context).

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zeteo
Wonderful example of arguing with strawmen and assigning mental deficiencies
to those who disagree with you. The whole idea about the tree falling in the
forest is not the definition of the word "sound", but rather that we have _no
evidence_ it made a sound. It's a comment on how we assume the world works in
a certain way even where we can't really observe it doing so.

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Eliezer
In the original historical presentation, perhaps. I've _seen_ this argument on
IRC and I assure you it was _not_ taken to be about that.

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simonb
That's just one step away from reasoning form a paradox and patting yourself
on the back, how you have proved something (would the same argumentation be as
enticing if it were based on misappropriation or misunderstanding like that of
using "physics" for arguing for perpetuum mobile?).

My bigger gripe with your reasoning is that using topology 1 and stopping at
that (i.e. there are no questions left) precludes (or makes intractable
because of combinatorial explosion) reasoning by analogy (symmetry).

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Symmetry
It's quite correct that people's misconceptions about physics aren't a good
guide to reasoning about physics. But they can be useful evidence for
reasoning about how people form conceptions.

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dakimov
A rational thinking community? What a wonder! I need to investigate that stuff
and take part in some discussions.

Thanks for that site, friend!

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dvanduzer
If you're so inclined, I also highly recommend Eliezer's Harry Potter and the
Methods of Rationality (hpmor.com).

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loeg
HPMOR can tend more towards fiction and less of this rationality stuff, but
that's why it is a fun read.

