LessWrong 2.0

Aug 24, 2017

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by Eliezer_Yudkowsky

This sequence asks whether science resolves the problems raised so far. Scientists base their models on repeatable experiments, not speculation or hearsay. And science has an excellent track record compared to anecdote, religion, and . . . pretty much everything else. Do we still need to worry about “fake” beliefs, confirmation bias, hindsight bias, and the like when we’re working with a community of people who want to explain phenomena, not just tell appealing stories?

Fake Explanations

Once upon a time, there was an instructor who taught physics students. One day she called them into her class, and showed them a wide, squa

Guessing the Teacher's Password

Followup to: Fake Explanations When I was young, I read popular physics books such as Richard Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light

Science as Attire

Prerequisites: Fake Explanations, Belief As Attire The preview for the X-Men movie has a voice-over saying: "In every human being... the

Fake Causality

Followup to: Fake Explanations, Guessing the Teacher's Password Phlogiston was the 18 century's answer to the Elemental Fire of the Greek

Semantic Stopsigns

And the child asked: Q: Where did this rock come from? A: I chipped it off the big boulder, at the center of the village. Q: Where did

Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions

Imagine looking at your hand, and knowing nothing of cells, nothing of biochemistry, nothing of DNA. You've learned some anatomy from dissec

The Futility of Emergence

Prerequisites: Belief in Belief, Fake Explanations, Fake Causality, Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions The failures of phlogiston

Say Not "Complexity"

Once upon a time... This is a story from when I first met Marcello, with whom I would later work for a year on AI theory; but at this poin

Positive Bias: Look Into the Dark

I am teaching a class, and I write upon the blackboard three numbers: 2-4-6. "I am thinking of a rule," I say, "which governs sequences of

Lawful Uncertainty

Previously in series: Lawful Creativity From Robyn Dawes, Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: "Many psychological experiments were

My Wild and Reckless Youth

It is said that parents do all the things they tell their children not to do, which is how they know not to do them. Long ago, in the unth

Failing to Learn from History

Continuation of: My Wild and Reckless Youth Once upon a time, in my wild and reckless youth, when I knew not the Way of Bayes, I gave a M

Making History Available

Followup to: Failing to Learn from History There is a habit of thought which I call the logical fallacy of generalization from fictional

Explain/Worship/Ignore?

Followup to: Semantic Stopsigns, Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions As our tribe wanders through the grasslands, searching for fru

"Science" as Curiosity-Stopper

Followup to: Semantic Stopsigns, Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, Say Not 'Complexity' Imagine that I, in full view of live tel

Truly Part Of You

Followup to: Guessing the Teacher's Password, Artificial Addition A classic paper by Drew McDermott, "Artificial Intelligence Meets Natur

Interlude

The Simple Truth

I remember this paper I wrote on existentialism. My teacher gave it back with an F. She’d underlined true and truth wherever it appeared in

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Eliezer_Yudkowsky

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