A couple weeks ago I made a suggestion to the Less Wrong community: How about a Q&A with Eliezer?
Some were against, but a majority of people seemed to think it was a good idea, and Eliezer agreed to participate (he will film his answers to the questions that have received the higher number of votes), so I went ahead and created a thread where people can ask their questions:
If you have a question for Eliezer, all you need is a Less Wrong account. The rules are simple.
There’s a danger that lurks for those of us who are curious about lots of things and love learning, and it is that our “learning efforts” (of which there is a scarce supply) end up being allocated by external factors rather than by internal priorities. These outside forces bring us somewhere – and it might seem like a good place to be – but if we had initially asked ourselves where we wanted to go, it probably would’ve been somewhere else.
That might not be very clear, so allow me to demonstrate what I mean with three real-world examples:
Whole Brain Emulation
Earlier this year, during a trip to Detroit, I read a paper by Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom titled: Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap.
Going in, I knew that my goal was only to get a good idea of what was currently possible and where things were headed with whole brain emulation (WBE). I didn’t understand most of the paper (a lot of it is very technical), but the ~10-15% that made sense to me was enough to reach my goal, so I accepted that a lot of it was over my head.
To get to a level of comprehension significantly higher than the one I had would’ve required a massive amount of efforts, and that would have been disproportionate in relation to my target (my goal was not to become a brain scientist, but rather to understand the challenges and opportunities of WBE specifically).
Causality
Not long ago, I got Judea Pearl’s Causality (a book I’ve been meaning to read for years).
We’re Inconsistent About How Much Weight We Attribute to Genes
I think our intuition might be miscalibrated when it comes to evaluating how much a person’s genes impact how they turn out physically (which isn’t surprising). What’s a bit strange is that we seem to be closer to the truth when it comes to twins.
Nobody’s surprised when identical twins turn out to have very similar bodies (weight, muscle mass, etc), even into adulthood.
But when it comes to non-twins, people seem to think that “making the right choices” and “willpower” are primary factors in how human bodies turn out, and that we can assign a good amount of personal credit or blame to individuals for good and bad outcomes.
There is a disconnect between these two visions, and I think that it’s the latter that needs to be updated.
After all, even if we put aside the direct ways in which our genes build our bodies (encoding how our tissues grow) and instead look at our abilities to “make the right choices” and exert “willpower”, we find that those are also greatly determined by genetic factors. Identical twins probably turn out very similar in good part because they have almost identical amounts of those qualities of mind.
Wrong by Degrees
This doesn’t mean that all is pre-determined and that if we all stop trying we’ll turn out the same we would have otherwise, but rather that we are playing within certain parameters, and that the part we control is probably smaller than most people think (not non-existent — we still deserve some credit — just more modest).
To be clear, I’m not saying the situation was white and we thought it was black, or even that it’s a black & white thing, but rather that most people’s intuition might be the wrong shade of gray. Otherwise, I would think there would be a bigger variation between identical twins, but they spend their lives making different choices yet most stay very similar to each other (as far as I know — if you know of a study on this, please send it my way).
This article has been cross-posted on LessWrong. There’s more discussion of it in the comments over there.
The excerpt above is from page 185 of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt.
It comes at the end of a chapter on risk perception, ie. roads that seem safer can be more dangerous than we think because they encourage us to drive more dangerously, while roads that seem dangerous can actually be safer than we think since they make us slow down and pay more attention. The dangerous-looking roads might still be more dangerous than the safe-looking roads in the absolute, but both of them might not be respectively as safe or dangerous as drivers tend to think…
Anyway, what annoyed me is the last sentence of the excerpt. I think it’s a good real-world example of misleading statistics.
While it might be literally true that most crashes “happen on dry road, on clear, sunny days, to sober drivers” (I wouldn’t swear to it, I haven’t seen the stats), it doesn’t take into account the difference in sample sizes. In most places, the roads are dry more often than not, and most days are sunny, and most drivers are sober.
These conditions might produce a higher total number of crashes, but what really matters is how many crashes they produce per driver. If you look at it this way, it’s probably pretty obvious that wet roads, at night, with drunk drivers cause a lot more crashes.
See also: Rationality Articles
I Can’t See You, But I Know You’re There
I don’t think I spent a day of my life without thinking about invisible things. Of course I’m not talking about truly invisible things as in supernatural thing, but rather things that are invisible to the naked eye but that we know are there because we can see or measure them with instruments.
Every single day I randomly think about things like allergens (the photo above is of pollen), DNA, cells, viruses, atoms in various conformations (proteins, lipids, hydrocarbon chains, neurotransmitters, etc) and of various kinds, radio waves, photons and electrical flows (from how much energy is used when I flip various switches to the incredibly fast pulses that encode everything in my computer and over my broadband connection). I also often think about the large invisible things, like stars, galaxies, nebulas, black holes, and the vastness of space in between it all.
Our brain has a hard time with these things because, as Richard Dawkins would say, it has evolved in “middle world” and is simply not equipped to grasp these things properly at scale.
What’s Your Relationship With the Unseen?
I know that it’s probably not that way for everybody, and it makes me wonder how it changes my perception of the world.
How do you see the world? Do you naturally think about invisible stuff, or do you rarely consider these things? Please let me know in the comments below.
Analyzing and Comparing Books
I have just noticed that Amazon has a “Text Stats” section on its book pages. I’m not sure how long it has been there, but it’s very interesting.
- The Fog Index was developed by Robert Gunning. It indicates the number of years of formal education required to read and understand a passage of text.
- The Flesch Index, developed in 1940 by Dr. Rudolph Flesch, is another indicator of reading ease. The score returned is based on a 100 point scale, with 100 being easiest to read. Scores between 90 and 100 are appropriate for 5th and 6th graders, while a college degree is considered necessary to understand text with a score between 0 and 30.
- The Flesch-Kincaid Index is a refinement to the Flesch Index that tries to relate the score to a U.S. grade level. For example, text with a Flesch-Kincaid score of 10.1 would be considered suitable for someone with a 10th grade or higher reading level.
Information Technology & Book Writing
I wonder how long before publishers and writers start to use this data to better zero in on certain targets in the hope of better reaching their target demographics. I’m sure that someday – if it hasn’t already happened – writers will get notes from editors asking them to “bring the Fog Index rating of their manuscript down by at least 20%” or “reduce the number of complex words by 10%”, all based on statistical analysis of the composition of recent best sellers.
A kind of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for books, in a way.
Like all tools, it could be abused and lead to bad results. But if used properly, it could result in more readable books and reduce the variability in quality output between individual editors (probably not by much, but any improvement would be welcome).
The pic on top of this post is from the Amazon page for I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter (which I’m currently reading).
Here’s an excerpt that I liked:
Update: Just to make it clear, this post isn’t an ad for I Am A Strange Loop. It’s just the book I looked up on Amazon when I noticed the Amazon Text Stats feature, and I thought some people might be curious to know which book the Text Stats in the screenshot came from.
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I think the weather this summer has inspired Mélanie…
Problem
One of the demons I’m wrestling with when it comes to my information diet is keeping a high signal to noise ratio for an extended period of time. I know that the time and mental energy I’m spending reading news items about business, politics and technology are taking away from the energy I have for settled science and more timeless information (I mentioned this previously in Curiosity: Good Friend, Bad Master).
I think my problem is mostly discipline. I know that I’ll get more out of reading books and textbooks from my to read list than by reading The Economist and whatever interesting blog posts are featured on Hacker News, but even after I resolve to focus on the highest-quality material first and read other fun things on the side, as weeks pass I get less and less vigilant about it… until I some day I realize that I open the ‘hard’ books infrequently and spend most of my time reading lighter things that give me less lasting value. Once in a while there’s a big spike of willpower that brings me back on track, but it doesn’t last and at the bottom of the cycle I end up feeling feeling that I wasted an opportunity to learn new things and grow.
Why is it such a big deal to me? Because I feel that there’s a qualitative difference in how much I benefit from the highest quality material compared to whatever’s being written about this week. In short: More life-changing books like Gödel, Escher, Bach, and fewer articles about what’s happening this week in Myanmar.
Solution (?)
Maybe what I need is a way to keep track of my commitment, both as a reminder and a motivator. It worked pretty well with my molecular biology textbook… Until I moved to Ottawa. I haven’t opened that textbook in a month. You see what I’m talking about?
In fact, if I’m totally honest with myself, I’m thinking that maybe what will give the best result is a more drastic change. I’ve already unsubscribed to a few periodicals in the past, but maybe I should make deeper cuts and even create some rules about which websites I can visit and when (or maybe just re-arranging my bookmarks and RSS feeds would be enough to modify my behavior?).
If you’ve had a similar problem and found an effective way to deal with it, let me know in the comments.
See also:
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Moving to Ottawa
In a little less than a month, Mélanie and I will be moving to Ottawa. We’ve found a small but comfortable apartment, and it will be our first time actually living together.
While doing research to prepare for the move, I found many cool things that I think will help make our lives better. They are:
Follow Up on “What You Can Measure…”
I recently wrote about some challenges I gave myself. I’m happy to say that it’s working well, possibly better than I expected.
On the fruits & vegetables side, I’ve kept to the “5 extra portions a day, what goes in regular meals doesn’t count” rule and since then (about 5 weeks ago) I’ve eaten 198 portions of fruits and vegetables (lots of carrots, bananas, apples, bell peppers, oranges) that I wouldn’t have eaten otherwise. That’s a big win for me, and I intend to keep doing it for as long as possible.
My other challenge was to read at least 4 pages a day from a molecular biology textbook (on top of the other things I read — yesterday I finished reading a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, for example). The reason was that while I loved reading it, it was more arduous than the other books I was reading, the textbook is big and heavy… I was always finding excuses to avoid it and wasn’t making good progress. At the rate I was reading it, it would have taken me years to go from cover to cover.
Well, in the past ±5 weeks I’ve read about 155 pages, and I’ve only missed two days (completely forgot about it). This means my real average is higher than 4 pages a day, and I should hit the back cover in about 6-7 months. I consider this another win, and plan to keep doing this – or something similar – with technical books (and maybe also with online video lectures). The goal is to avoid the “hay fire” trap, where I start with really high motivation and burn out quickly and kind of forget about the book (even if when I do actually pick it up I find it fascinating).
Trip to Cancun
In February, Mélanie and I went to Cancun, Mexico, to visit her grand-parents for a one-week vacation. It was my first time south of New York City, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. The first photo in this post was taken on the beach there, and the second one shows what I spent a lot of time doing (in this case, reading a compilation of letters by Richard P. Feynman).
I’m now watching the third lecture in a Yale history class by professor David W. Blight about the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction Era (1845-1877). This particular lecture deals with the pro-slavery ideology. As a Canadian, a lot of this is new to me.
I think this passage says a lot:
But it’s amazing to read the letters and the language of slave traders when they write to each other, the complacency, the mixture of just pure racism on the one hand and just business language on the other. “I refused a girl 20-years-old at $700.00 yesterday,” one trader wrote to another in 1853. “If you think best to take her at 700, I can still get her. She is very badly whipped but has good teeth.” “Bought a cook yesterday,” wrote another trader, “Bought a cook yesterday that was to go out of the state. She just made the people mad, that was all.” “I have bought a boy named Isaac,” wrote another trader, “for $1100.00.” He writes this in 1854 to his partner. “Bought a boy named Isaac. I think him very prime. He is a house-servant, first-rate cook, and splendid carriage driver. He is also a fine painter and varnisher, and says he can make a fine panel door. Also, he performs well on the violin. He is a genius. And strange to say, I think he’s smarter than I am.” Truth always creeps through all of our language–it doesn’t always but sometimes–creeps through our language, doesn’t it?
I’m also four lectures in a MIT Physics class by Walter Lewin (8.01, classical mechanics), and it’s excellent so far. I also recommend it.
For more free online classes, have a look at Academic Earth.
Update: Another great resource is Youtube EDU.
When Aubrey de Grey’s Happy, I’m Happy…
Why? Because he’s one of the leaders and main instigators of the scientific movement working on defeating the diseases of aging, by far the number one cause of death and suffering in the ‘Western’ countries.
Future Current has a transcript of the talk that Aubrey gave at the BIL ad-hoc conference (a kind of less exclusive TED).
But the best way to experience this is to watch the video of Aubrey.
How? Why?
If you are new to all this, I recommend starting with this older TED talk or this longer Google Tech Talk, then this primer at FightAging, and then Aubrey and Michael Rae’s book, Ending Aging.
The best way to contribute to the research efforts are to donate to the Methuselah Foundation.
Example #1
I’ve never been a very healthy vegetarian, getting a lot of my daily calories from cheese and pasta. It has always been obvious that I should eat more fruits and vegetables, but somehow I just wasn’t taking the step to really do it with any consistency. Small victories stayed isolated, and my eating habits stayed pretty much the same.
So I decided to challenge myself to eat at least 5 extra portions of fruits and vegetables a day. What I would normally be eating as part of a meal didn’t count; it had to be, for example, an extra bowl of carrots or an apple.
Results: So far in slightly less than 2 weeks I’ve eaten over 65 portions of fruits and vegetables that I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have eaten otherwise. It hasn’t been hard or complicated, but I know that without some metrics and way to stay accountable (see on the photo above), I wouldn’t have gotten this result.
I intend to keep doing that for at least a month to see if I can pick up the habit. If I don’t, I might stick with this system for as long as I need to. I figure that the small hassle is worth the price of an improved health (and possibly lower food bills).
Example #2
As I’ve already mentioned on this site, I read a lot. It hasn’t been hard to keep a good rhythm with books because I just love reading. I don’t need any external motivation.
I’ve recently started reading American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. So far it’s excellent.
While doing some online research on Oppenheimer, I discovered to my great pleasure that a 2-hour PBS documentary on with special focus on his 1950s McCarthy-like trial was available for free.
It’s fascinating and I strongly recommend it. The only thing that would have made it better was if it had included some references to Richard P. Feynman (who worked under Oppenheimer at Los Alamos).
Here is the link: PBS: The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer
How About You?
I’ve just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road at the recommendation of my cousin Marie-Eve. The setting is a post-apocalyptic world and the main protagonists – a father and son – basically spend all their time looking for food and shelter, and try to avoid being robbed or killed by other starving survivors.
It very much makes me not want to live in such a world. Everybody would probably agree. Yet few people actually do much to reduce the chances of of such a scenario happening. In fact, it’s worse than that; few people even seriously entertain the possibility that such a scenario could happen.
People don’t think about such things because they are unpleasant and they don’t feel they can do anything about them, but if more people actually did think about them, we could do something. We might never be completely safe, but we could significantly improve our odds over the status quo.
Danger From Two Directions: Ourselves and Nature.
Human technology is becoming more powerful all the time. We already face grave danger from nuclear weapons, and soon molecular manufacturing technologies and artificial general intelligence could pose new existential threats. We are also faced with slower, but serious, threats on the environmental side: Global warming, ocean acidification, deforestation/desertification, ecosystem collapse, etc.
While reading an article titled The Trough of No Value this passage caught my eye:
I have to chuckle whenever I read yet another description of American frontier log cabins as having been well crafted or sturdily or beautifully built. The much more likely truth is that 99% of frontier log cabins were horribly built—it’s just that all of those fell down. The few that have survived intact were the ones that were well made. That doesn’t mean all of them were.
I think it’s a marvelous illustration of survivor bias (also known as survivorship bias), itself a type of sample bias.
We should always look for implicit selection pressures that could have biased our sample and made it non-representative of what we’re trying to measure. For example, only the best music from the 1800s has survived to this day – most of the mediocre pieces have been long forgotten – so listening to music from that era that has survived to this day can’t give us an accurate portrait of the whole range of music produced of the 1800s.
It’s the same with mutual funds (those that perform badly are eventually shut down) or with ‘antique’ furniture (to be preserved, pieces usually have to be old and attractive).
See also: Articles on Rationality
TreeHugger
