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Martin Lowe
10.5K posts
Martin Lowe
@NormalDenizen
Over-educated social scientist, beloved shitposter and insult connoisseur, recently returned from a gruelling odyssey.
Tønsberg, Norway 加入时间 Haziran 2013
195 关注254 粉丝
I’m fascinated by a different experience, namely the one where a rough idea pops into my head. But *from where*?
I’ve begun seeing these as hints from my subvonscious about stuff worth paying attention to. Because I’ve so often found interesting stuff from investigating these clues. It can be the idea that two theories are related, or a proposition that doesn’t seem true at first.
But *why does the information package have to be so small*?
If my subconscious mind knows that this is worth thinking about, *it* must have thought about it first. One would think that it knows more than it’s letting on. Or is it not intelligent, and more like a stupid pattern recognition algorithm?
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@NormalDenizen Oh, I’m slow at everything. Sometimes though I catch a glimpse of what’s going on “underneath” and the frenzied nature of it shocks me.
n.gazer@reukers
Have you ever had the experience of hearing somebody say something to you, but not hearing what they said. Then, instead of quickly admitting that and asking them to repeat themselves, you instead catch yourself working it out? “…a couple syllables at least…serious tone…moving that way… yesterday x…birthday next week…headache…bins tomorrow…favourite colour pink…I recently said…the dog was barking…I’m late for work…could be a ‘W’…etc. etc…” A seeming cacophony of clues, all in a couple of seconds. And voila: “did you say ‘where’s the keys?’” Forlornly: “yes dear”. She already knows you make little effort to hear her. Anyway, I have a suspicion that on such occasions we’re not just seeing how mind works on such occasions, but how mind works at all times… At least as far as we might see such things. Seems to raise some interesting questions. Not that I can quite put my finger on them… sorry 🤷
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What’s thinking for?
Thinking is not for anything. That’s planning and planning ultimately fails.
We all know this. The lesson is learned over and over.
Thinking is about being prepared. It’s about being better at itself. There are moments where it will be required.
And those moments might be any moment. That’s why it runs, ceaselessly, practicing, preparing.
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Much the same journey here, but the additional step of realizing that, although it is strictly true that good parts of cristianity can be had without christianity, our ability to design complex evolved systems are both practically limited and, to some extent, principally limited as well.
I think bitcoin is the most astounding designed complex system I know of, if we define complexity as «many interlocking, non-arbitrary and necessary constraints to keep the system performing its task» (a variant of HTV).
But designed complexity, in the sense of systems designed to perform specific functions, cannot compete with the stupid disrespect of complexity you find in evolved systems. Evolution does not care how complex the system becomes, or how many functions it has.
The flipside is that it doesn’t care about parasites, scaling or sustainability either.
So, given that christianity is an evolved system, we should expect it to have unknown benefits *and* unknown drawbacks.
And it could be that any set of systems that serves positive functions x, y, z, is so constrained that it basically is christianity. In other words, you could be saying «we can have non-dog friendly animals with a wagging tail, canines, barking, paws etc.».
The constraints is the description, kinda?
OK now I’m just rambling (I’m really just trying to formulate some stuff here).
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My journey was:
1. Chill Catholic who liked the discovery channel more than church, but went to church
2. Binge watcher of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris debates, realizing I never took religion seriously, but now was actively against it
3. Reader of David Deutsch, realizing that anti-rational ideas are the real enemy. These include many religious ideas, but also many non-religious ones like Woke.
So, I don’t think literal religious claims stand up to scrutiny. But, some ideas are true and useful, and if some of those are currently tied up with Christianity, they can be had without Christianity as well, and be improved and made stronger in the process.
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I don't know how it will go for Elon, but for midwit atheists like me (now Christian), there are stages:
The first realization is that Christianity *works.* This leads to statements like "We need religion." When people say this, they mean other people need it, not them. "The plebs need it."
The second realization is that Christianity is *True*. Metaphorically true, the way Jordan Peterson decscribes it. It will work for you personally. It's not just something "people" in general need, but something you need. It's a system, a philosophy.
The third realization is that Christianity is *literally* true. The resurrection happened as written in the Gospels. Such a miracle would be no obstacle for the Creator of the universe. The spiritual world is real. You have a heavenly Father. And he loves you so much he sacrificed his son for you.
For me the journey happened from reading Jordan Peterson > C.S. Lewis > G.K. Chesterton, then finally the Gospels themselves. How did it happen for you?
Matt Van Swol@mattvanswol
Something is stirring in Elon.
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@reukers @ChipkinLogan @HermesofReason @astupple She does not hate it, but the passion is muted.
Perhaps it would have been anyway.
She retains her fascination with patterns and numbers though. I suspect the issue now is that 4th year math (she’s back at school, but a much better one) is not catering well to that interest.
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@NormalDenizen @ChipkinLogan @HermesofReason @astupple Does she now love math, or at least not hate it?
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Also a vast, and strange, case of society-wide amnesia.
We know we have forgotten how to solve quadratic equations, and our kids will forget as well, yet we insist they learn it, at a time when we KNOW they will not use it!
David Deutsch@DavidDeutschOxf
@mathladyhazel More importantly, at 16, most pupils can solve a quadratic equation. At 32, few can. Compulsory maths lessons are therefore a vast economic inefficiency and a vast moral calamity. There is no justification for wasting people's lives like this.
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Functionalists:
“My digital mind works the same. If you deny consciousness, you’re a vitalist!"
Sanity:
“Your digital mind is missing a ton of the actual physics, but consciousness still magically travels with the pattern. Who’s the vitalist now?”
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@dela3499 @NeoptolemusX @DrewPavlou Emigration from europe isn’t represented either (some 20 million in the same time period, according to my local LLM).
And the legal immigration, for comparison, was 35 million people, meaning 1 in ~4 migrants were illegal.
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@NeoptolemusX @DrewPavlou It’s highly misleading, though, as the non-immigrant population isn’t shown for comparison. I can’t tell whether the country is 5% immigrants or 95% at any given point.
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It’s one thing to see a graph saying, “12 million illegal migrants entered Europe since 2008.”
It’s another thing to actually see it.
Every blip in this animation represents 100 people.
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And here’s the problem with modern statistical science in education.
I bet half the replies go «yeah but how representative is that sample?». Good point! Probably higher SES than the other group, probably by quite a lot. Confounders everywhere.
Better question though, is «how can we find the true numbers?», and the answer is you can’t.
I mean you could, but then you’d have to get past the ethics board with a random cohort of kids not going to school. Good luck with that.
There will never be good research on this until people warm up to the idea that school isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, and if we do get there, we probably won’t need numbers?
In other words, the idea that schools are great is shielded from criticism.
Smirkley@Smirkley
Only teachers are smart enough to educate children. Education majors, training to become certified teachers, score an average of 1029 on the SAT. While homeschooled students (taught by parents with no formal teaching credentials) score 1190.
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@Principal_Jon @justabuzzard A family of teachers ought to have noticed
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A teaching credential has no impact on student achievement.
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@QiaochuYuan Dunno if this article makes this mistake, but I see it everywhere:
«Simulated water is not wet.» Yes it is, if the observer is also simulated and the simulation is good enough. Wetness is not a quality of water, it is a qualia of humans experiencing it. Total non-argument.
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@QiaochuYuan Yeah, it’s a good article.
But… A discussion on what can be simulated or not, that does not mention the Church-Turing-Deutsch theorem 🤔
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easiest-to-understand argument against functionalism i've come across so far 🧐
Pawel Pachniewski@pwlot
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I could cenceivably be among them. In primary school the math teacher was beside herself because of how easily I picked it up. My children both learned divition and multiplication in kindergarten (with no input and pressure from me).
But a series of bad teachers convinced me math was boring and that I had no knack for it after all. By the time I was applying for university, STEM was a non-option.
One of my life’s biggest could-have-been’s.
And so, when my daughter came home from school in 2024 and said «I hate math», around 15 minutes passed before she was formally unrolled from school.
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@tshddx @ToKTeacher The latter.
And he means fulfilled in the objective sense of «getting all your wants met», not in the subjective sense of being content and happy with your life.
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@ToKTeacher Is the claim then that it’s impossible for any person to be fulfilled? Or that it’s impossible for *every* person to be fulfilled?
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TIL in Thomas Sowell's 1995 work "The Vision of the Anointed" he writes his oft cited claim like this: “Moreover, the available resources are always inadequate to fulfil all the desires of all the people. Thus there are no 'solutions' in the tragic vision, but only trade-offs that still leave many unfulfilled and much unhappiness in the world.”
Scare quotes around 'solutions'!
That is absolutely crucial and alters the intention if they're lacking. He is not saying a tradeoff isn't a solution of a kind - but rather if one thinks perfect solutions where everyone gets everything they want given limited resources is generally possible: that's a mistake.
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There is infinite amount of work to do, yes.
But it's going to be economically irrational for humans to be doing it.
Beff (e/acc)@beffjezos
People don't understand that the work will expand to fill the available capacity. We are simply going to do more and produce way more value with less input work. The economic Doomers are hypnotized by the finite work / finite sum fallacy.
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@xolotltolox @BachmannRudi @psybertron The US exports dollars, language and culture, and somehow gets by very well.
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I think Europe should be proud not to be producing Elon Musks.
James Pethokoukis ⏩️⤴️@JimPethokoukis
'Why Europe Produces Nobel Prize Winners but Not Elon Musks' @SSRN
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Martin Lowe 已转推
Why determinism is compatible with free will:
No one can predict your decisions without creating a perfect simulation of you that would itself exercise the free will required to make those decisions.
~Conjecture Institute Fellow @maria__violaris
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Some of us understand the labor theory of value just perfectly. It is statists in the form of Marxists like @BladeoftheS , who don't understand reality, reason, morality, individual rights, or basic economics.
Profit is not stolen labor. It is the return on judgment, risk, and capital that made the work possible in the first place. The man who identified the opportunity, raised the funds, organized the enterprise, and bore the loss if it failed didn't "do no work." He did the work that made all other work possible.
Marx's error is epistemological before it is economic. He treats physical labor as the source of value while ignoring the mind that directs it. A ditch dug in the wrong place has negative value. Labor without thought is not productivity. It is motion.
"Split it among the workers" assumes the enterprise creates itself, the market appears by magic, and risk carries no cost.
It doesn't. Someone paid for that. Someone gambled on it. That someone is owed his return.
Without that someone you wouldn't be able to post this gibberish.
BladeoftheSun@BladeoftheS
People don't understand Marx's theory of Labour so here it is. In short, there should be no profit for people who don't do any work. It should all be split among the workers. You would think Capitalists would love that. But of course they hate it.
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@BladeoftheS It’s also as close as you’ll get to an economic theory that has been flat out falsified on purely logical grounds.
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People don't understand Marx's theory of Labour so here it is.
In short, there should be no profit for people who don't do any work.
It should all be split among the workers.
You would think Capitalists would love that.
But of course they hate it.
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