I'm a bit tired today, having stayed up until 3AM writing yesterday's >6000-word post on zombies, so today I'll just reply to Richard, and tie up a loose end I spotted the next day. …

Overcoming Bias

06.02.2023

Reductive Reference - LessWrong

The reductionist thesis (as I formulate it) is that human minds, for reasons of efficiency, use a multi-level map in which we separately think about things like "atoms" and "quarks", "hands" and "fin…

Overcoming Bias

06.02.2023

Where Experience Confuses Physicists - LessWrong

Continuation of: Where Physics Meets Experience …

Overcoming Bias

06.02.2023

Belief in the Implied Invisible - LessWrong

One generalized lesson not to learn from the Anti-Zombie Argument is, "Anything you can't see doesn't exist." …

Overcoming Bias

04.02.2023

The Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle - LessWrong

> "Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems." > —Rene Descartes, Discours de la Methode …

Overcoming Bias

04.02.2023

Angry Atoms - LessWrong

Fundamental physics—quarks 'n stuff—is far removed from the levels we can see, like hands and fingers. At best, you can know how to replicate the experiments which show that your hand (like everythi…

Overcoming Bias

02.02.2023

Buy Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace - LessWrong

The Intrade prediction market is giving Hillary a 53% chance and Obama a 47% chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination. Hillary is down 7.5 percentage points in just the last day. (N…

Overcoming Bias

02.02.2023

Bell's Theorem: No EPR "Reality" - LessWrong

Previously in series: Entangled Photons …

Overcoming Bias

02.02.2023

How Much Evidence Does It Take? - LessWrong

Previously, I defined evidence as “an event entangled, by links of cause and effect, with whatever you want to know about,” and entangled as “happening differently for different possible states of th…

Overcoming Bias

02.02.2023

Expecting Short Inferential Distances - LessWrong

Homo sapiens’s environment of evolutionary adaptedness (a.k.a. EEA or “ancestral environment”) consisted of hunter-gatherer bands of at most 200 people, with no writing. All inherited knowledge was p…

Overcoming Bias

02.02.2023

The Two-Party Swindle - LessWrong

The Robbers Cave Experiment had as its subject 22 twelve-year-old boys, selected from 22 different schools in Oklahoma City, all doing well in school, all from stable middle-class Protestant families…

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition - LessWrong

The first law of thermodynamics, better known as Conservation of Energy, says that you can't create energy from nothing: it prohibits perpetual motion machines of the first type, which run and run in…

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Classical Configuration Spaces - LessWrong

Previously in series: Distinct Configurations …

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Rationality Quotes 11 - LessWrong

"If we let ethical considerations get in the way of scientific hubris, then the feminists have won!" -- Helarxe …

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Joy in the Merely Real - LessWrong

...Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. —John Kea…

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

A Failed Just-So Story - LessWrong

Followup to: Rational vs. Scientific Ev-Psych, The Tragedy of Group Selectionism, Evolving to Extinction …

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Natural Selection's Speed Limit and Complexity Bound - LessWrong

Followup to: An Alien God, The Wonder of Evolution, Evolutions Are Stupid • Yesterday, I wrote: …

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Entropy, and Short Codes - LessWrong

Suppose you have a system X that's equally likely to be in any of 8 possible states: • {X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, X8.} …

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Where to Draw the Boundary? - LessWrong

The one comes to you and says: • Long have I pondered the meaning of the word "Art", and at last I've found what seems to me a satisfactory definition: "Art is that which is designed for the purpose…

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Mutual Information, and Density in Thingspace - LessWrong

Suppose you have a system X that can be in any of 8 states, which are all equally probable (relative to your current state of knowledge), and a system Y that can be in any of 4 states, all equally pr…

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Superhero Bias - LessWrong

Suppose there’s a heavily armed sociopath, a kidnapper with hostages, who has just rejected all requests for negotiation and announced his intent to start killing. In real life, the good guys don’t u…

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Arguing "By Definition" - LessWrong

"This plucked chicken has two legs and no feathers—therefore, by definition, it is a human!" …

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Empty Labels - LessWrong

Consider (yet again) the Aristotelian idea of categories. Let's say that there's some object with properties A, B, C, D, and E, or at least it looks E-ish. …

Overcoming Bias

01.02.2023

Against Discount Rates - LessWrong

I've never been a fan of the notion that we should (normatively) have a discount rate in our pure preferences - as opposed to a pseudo-discount rate arising from monetary inflation, or from opportuni…

Overcoming Bias

31.01.2023

Joint Configurations - LessWrong

The key to understanding configurations, and hence the key to understanding quantum mechanics, is realizing on a truly gut level that configurations are about more than one particle. …

Overcoming Bias

29.01.2023

The Quantum Arena - LessWrong

Previously in series: Classical Configuration Spaces …

Overcoming Bias

29.01.2023

Feynman Paths - LessWrong

Previously in series: The Quantum Arena • At this point I would like to introduce another key idea in quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, this idea was introduced so well in chapter 2 of QED: The Stran…

Overcoming Bias

29.01.2023

Where Philosophy Meets Science - LessWrong

Looking back on early quantum physics—not for purposes of admonishing the major figures, or to claim that we could have done better if we’d been born into that era, but in order to try and learn a mo…

Overcoming Bias

29.01.2023

If Many-Worlds Had Come First - LessWrong

Not that I’m claiming I could have done better, if I’d been born into that time, instead of this one… …

Overcoming Bias

29.01.2023

Conference on Global Catastrophic Risks - LessWrong

FYI: The Oxford Future of Humanity Institute is holding a conference on global catastrophic risks on July 17-20, 2008, at Oxford (in the UK). …

Overcoming Bias

29.01.2023

Quantum Explanations - LessWrong

There’s a widespread belief that quantum mechanics is supposed to be confusing. This is not a good frame of mind for either a teacher or a student. …

Overcoming Bias

28.01.2023

Spooky Action at a Distance: The No-Communication Theorem - LessWrong

Previously in series: Bell's Theorem: No EPR "Reality" …

Overcoming Bias

28.01.2023

Quantum Non-Realism - LessWrong

"Does the moon exist when no one is looking at it?"—Albert Einstein, asked of Niels Bohr Suppose you were just starting to work out a theory of quantum mechanics. …

Overcoming Bias

27.01.2023

Zombies: The Movie - LessWrong

FADE IN around a serious-looking group of uniformed military officers. At the head of the table, a senior, heavy-set man, GENERAL FRED, speaks. …

home›Overcoming Bias›Economy

Overcoming Bias - Economy

Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality - LessWrong

Where Physics Meets Experience - LessWrong

Can You Prove Two Particles Are Identical? - LessWrong

GAZP vs. GLUT - LessWrong

On Being Decoherent - LessWrong

The So-Called Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - LessWrong

Zombie Responses - LessWrong

Reductive Reference - LessWrong

Where Experience Confuses Physicists - LessWrong

Belief in the Implied Invisible - LessWrong

The Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle - LessWrong

Angry Atoms - LessWrong

Buy Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace - LessWrong

Bell's Theorem: No EPR "Reality" - LessWrong

How Much Evidence Does It Take? - LessWrong

Expecting Short Inferential Distances - LessWrong

The Two-Party Swindle - LessWrong

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition - LessWrong

Classical Configuration Spaces - LessWrong

Rationality Quotes 11 - LessWrong

Joy in the Merely Real - LessWrong

A Failed Just-So Story - LessWrong

Natural Selection's Speed Limit and Complexity Bound - LessWrong

Entropy, and Short Codes - LessWrong

Where to Draw the Boundary? - LessWrong

Mutual Information, and Density in Thingspace - LessWrong

Superhero Bias - LessWrong

Arguing "By Definition" - LessWrong

Empty Labels - LessWrong

Against Discount Rates - LessWrong

Joint Configurations - LessWrong

The Quantum Arena - LessWrong

Feynman Paths - LessWrong

Where Philosophy Meets Science - LessWrong

If Many-Worlds Had Come First - LessWrong

Conference on Global Catastrophic Risks - LessWrong

Quantum Explanations - LessWrong

Spooky Action at a Distance: The No-Communication Theorem - LessWrong

Quantum Non-Realism - LessWrong

Zombies: The Movie - LessWrong

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