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TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#101: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:14:53 PM

Well, Pascal's Wager is basically wrong because A.) Who knows WHICH God to follow and B.) You can't just will yourself to believe something because it's convenient.

The whole Cryonics thing has some parallels, sure. I mean, maybe computers can bring us back, but only if we pee on an electric fence. So, we can rationally gauge the likelihood of each given form of resurrection being effective, and the one thing it has in support is that it's something you can just do.

On the other hand, I'm !@#$ing poor, so !@#$ dat shiznit.

Ardiente I won't kill you. Since: Jan, 2011
I won't kill you.
#102: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:16:41 PM

Yudkowsky wants to believe that all his beliefs are the sole logical conclusions of empiricist materialism.

I see no evidence of that. And I find the view he expresses utterly understandable, even if it sounds a bit stupid. The matter is that the chances for the kids being resurrected isn't insignificant, especially if you think in terms of centuries. It doesn't require tampering with the cloth of reality. However, the Second Coming, the End of The World, and Judgement require physics-bending miracles to happen. You should stop comparing the Singularity to the Rapture, they don't have much in common. For one thing, the Singularity doesn't promise hope or justice or love. Only technological progress, which is a double-edged sword. Also, there's no reason the Rapture doesn't happen before we get there, or afterwards for that matter. This and that are just completely different things.

You can't just will yourself to believe something because it's convenient.

I never could do that, do you know how much suffering it brought me?

edited 3rd Apr '11 5:17:50 PM by Ardiente

"Sweets are good. Sweets are justice."
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#103: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:28:12 PM

Where does Yudzy get his sense of the value of life intrinsically? I mean, I'm all for reducing human suffering and maximizing human happiness, but I don't see a whole lot of benefit in bringing back dead people. I can't imagine The Computerized Society Of The Future is going to see it a whole lot differently either.

Rottweiler Dog and Pony Show from Portland, Oregon Since: Dec, 2009
Dog and Pony Show
#104: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:28:24 PM

The matter is that the chances for the kids being resurrected isn't insignificant, especially if you think in terms of centuries.

The chances of a frozen dead person being resurrected is completely unknowable if you're an empiricist. I gather Yudkowsky would save his claim that he can know "You're just a lousy parent!" by switching his theory of knowledge from empirical to the Bayesian one Pykrete demolished.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#105: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:32:45 PM

Given time and infinite energy, we should have infinite processing. To the extent that human beings are only finitely complex, this means that with a sufficiently advanced amount of processing, it should be more than possible to reconstitute them. So, if you believe that processing is getting faster at an arbitrarily fast pace, yeah-it's certain that eventually we'll get to a point where, as long as all the information is available, people can be duplicated.

But, again, I think the real issue is "Why?" Why bring back the dead? It just strikes me as a bit silly.

mailedbypostman Since: May, 2010
#106: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:33:04 PM

[up][up] They could bring back great thinkers maybe.

Rottweiler Dog and Pony Show from Portland, Oregon Since: Dec, 2009
Dog and Pony Show
#107: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:33:25 PM

Where does Yudzy get his sense of the value of life intrinsically?

That's an excellent question. Just how does he prove that death is a privation of a good? How does he disprove "life is dukkha"?

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#108: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:35:24 PM

Exactly. Some people are just better off dead <3

silver2195 Since: Jan, 2001
#109: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:35:55 PM

That's an excellent question. Just how does he prove that death is a privation of a good? How does he disprove "life is dukkha"?

I think he covers that in the "Fun Theory" sequence (which I haven't read).

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.
Rottweiler Dog and Pony Show from Portland, Oregon Since: Dec, 2009
Dog and Pony Show
#110: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:42:14 PM

@silver: Nor have I. "Read the sequences" is a lame answer, as the Rational Wiki article noted.

Does the Less Wrong crowd understand opportunity cost? I have no reason to read a million words by this guy when I have no evidence that he's any better than Ayn Rand. That's time I could use reading a million words by someone whose philosophy demonstrably advanced human knowledge.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard
Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#111: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:45:17 PM

Or time you could spend experimenting with AI. But that would be silly.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#112: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:47:37 PM

OR you could spend your time arguing with people on TV Tropes who you know aren't going to agree with you! Opportunity Cost: Time well spent!

Pykrete NOT THE BEES from Viridian Forest Since: Sep, 2009
NOT THE BEES
#113: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:47:39 PM

<- Taking courses in AI and machine learning. Fun stuff.

Rottweiler Dog and Pony Show from Portland, Oregon Since: Dec, 2009
Dog and Pony Show
#114: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:48:45 PM

@Pykrete: But your AI research is hobbled by belief in Christianity!

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard
Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
Ardiente I won't kill you. Since: Jan, 2011
I won't kill you.
#116: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:52:39 PM

Bring back the dead: because there's a big chance we would die before humans have generalized access to pseudo-immortality and I'd be really pissed off if I missed that because the people in the present thought I wasn't worth resurrecting. If they have the power to bring me back in reasonably good conditions and don't, that's murder.

"Sweets are good. Sweets are justice."
Pykrete NOT THE BEES from Viridian Forest Since: Sep, 2009
NOT THE BEES
#117: Apr 3rd 2011 at 5:59:44 PM

Yeah, game design. Which means I get to cut the difference between shiny idealized models that everyone gushes about and things we can actually cram into two milliseconds alongside everything else in the pipeline. The extent of it tends to be decision trees that may or may not be augmented by a very simplified Markov-ish process.

Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#118: Apr 3rd 2011 at 6:01:16 PM

I was so disappointed when I found out Half Life 2's AI needed paths set out for it. sad

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
Desertopa Not Actually Indie Since: Jan, 2001
Not Actually Indie
#119: Apr 3rd 2011 at 6:08:32 PM

Remember, he has no empirical evidence that freezing dead people will lead to future A.I.s restoring them to immortal bodies, any more than I have empirical evidence that God will in the future restore us to immortal bodies. The difference is that I admit it, while Yudkowsky wants to believe that all his beliefs are the sole logical conclusions of empiricist materialism.

Sure he has evidence. Our knowledge of biology suggests that cryonics ought to prevent information-death. Our understanding of how the world works would have to be wrong for this not to be the case. It may eventually turn out that our present techniques are inadequate, or that reviving people is even more complicated than it currently appears to be, but it's not remotely as if the method was selected randomly from hypothesis space.

Eliezer Yudkowsky dislikes death more than most people. The whole cryonics deal turns off a lot of people, I know he knows this, but the reason he brings it up so much is that it's something that most people never even consider, something that's seen as weird and outside social expectations, but the effort and resources it takes to sign up are simply not commensurate with the amount of added security it brings. Have you ever thought about how many needless deaths could be prevented if postmortem organ donation was made opt out rather than opt in? Something so simple and easy, which most people never bother to think about at all, is a matter of life and death, and if people thought about it as a matter of life and death, a great deal of tragedy could be prevented.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is, frankly, not a good PR person. To the extent that the reputation of Less Wrong and the SIAI hinge on his people skills, they're going to suffer for it. But he's also a very formidable rationalist, someone who can venture into novel idea space and more often than not not be completely off the mark, and that's very rare, even for exceptionally intelligent people. He has a lot of interesting and compelling ideas and expresses them clearly, so it's no surprise that he's got a very active following, but for all the accusations of cultishness, the community is frankly eager to disagree with him or call him out on mistakes when an opportunity presents itself.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#120: Apr 3rd 2011 at 6:25:50 PM

Death is not so convenient as to give us sufficient warning that we can just freeze ourselves and no information will be lost. At least, that's my theory.

Desertopa Not Actually Indie Since: Jan, 2001
Not Actually Indie
#121: Apr 3rd 2011 at 6:35:25 PM

Information death doesn't occur until some time after clinical death, according to our current medical understanding. If you're unlucky and it's a long time before you're found, cryonics isn't going to do you any good, but a lot of people suffer information death who wouldn't necessarily have to if they were signed up for cryonics.

It's generally better not to put forward a "theory" on anything without apprising yourself of the available information. Better to simply acknowledge to yourself that you don't know.

Also, Ardiente asked me to let people know that he's been banned, to head off anyone wondering where he's gone.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#122: Apr 3rd 2011 at 6:38:13 PM

My dad died of brain cancer. I'm pretty sure information loss occurred well before his death.

Still, my misconception may come from the general thought that people who asphyxiate suffer brain damage. Is this damage simply organic, rather than informational, to the extent that a sort of "Cybernetic Brain" would be able to recover it? Or are cells deteriorated such that personality and memories are lost once the brain stops receiving oxygen?

Stormtroper from Little Venice Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: I-It's not like I like you, or anything!
#123: Apr 3rd 2011 at 6:39:27 PM

Coining terms

Links to articles as arguments

These are the signs of Cult members using a Chewbacca Defense to fend off opposition. Any website that does this has crossed the Moral Event Horizon and their contributors are Complete Monsters.

edited 3rd Apr '11 6:40:05 PM by Stormtroper

And that's how I ended up in the wardrobe. It Just Bugs Me!
TheyCallMeTomu Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#124: Apr 3rd 2011 at 6:40:05 PM

That would include TV Tropes I'm sure.

Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001

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