self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
User ID: 454
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
3mo ago
Among the new individuals, I noticed netstack, selfmadehuman and another individual which is liberal.
I'm a liberal? That's news to me!
On political compass quizzes, for what it's worth, I am dead center. In terms of self identification, I call myself a classical liberal with libertarian tendencies, and that is very much not what just "liberal" means these days, sadly.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
3mo ago
I do not think that his infidelity remotely outweighs any contribution he made to ideals (utilitarianism) by the first and second order effects from his promulgation of it.
He's not perfect. Nobody is, as far as I'm aware.
I fail to see much reason to care, and I'm not a utilitarian, and I wouldn't see any even if I was.
I appreciate the sources.
Addressing the letter to JAMA that you linked:
There is evidence from several sources, recently collated by the Neuro-Research Foundation, that brain dysfunction related to a focal lesion plays a significant role in the violent and assaultive behavior of thoroughly studied patients.1'4 In¬ dividuals with electroencephalo¬ graphic abnormalities in the tem¬ poral region have been found to have a much greater frequency of behav¬ ioral abnormalities (such as poor impulse control, assaultiveness and psychosis) than is present in peo¬ ple with a normal brain wave pat¬ tern.' On the other hand, French and South African reports disclosed that persons arrested for murder had six to nine times the frequency of ab¬ normal brain waves as occur in the population at large.8'7 Delinquent psychopaths tested in a medical cen¬ ter for federal prisoners in the Unit¬ ed States had an almost equally high frequency of abnormal brain wave patterns.8 Stafford-Clark and Taylor9 divided 64 English priso¬ ners accused of murder into five cat¬ egories. They found only one of 11 prisoners guilty of killing in self- defense, or in the commission of an¬ other crime, with an abnormal brain wave. Four out of 16 murderers with a clear homicidal motive had elec¬ troencephalographic abnormalities, but an abnormal pattern was pres¬ ent in 11 of 15 prisoners who did not have a motive for committing murder. It would be of more than passing interest to find what per¬ centage of the attempted and com¬ pleted murders committed during the recent wave of riots were done without a motive. Finally, it is an unjustified dis¬ tortion to conclude that the urban rioter has a monopoly on violence. It pervades every social, ethnic, and racial stratum of our society. The real lesson of the urban rioting is that, besides the need to study the social fabric that creates the riot at¬ mosphere, we need intensive re¬ search and clinical studies of the in¬ dividuals committing the violence. The goal of such studies would be to pinpoint, diagnose, and treat those people with low violence thres¬ holds before they contribute to fur¬ ther tragedies.
Emphasis added. The letter was written in the context of sweeping race riots, but I do not see anything suggesting racist/discriminatory intent on the part of the authors. They specialize in neurological correlates to violence, there's an epidemic of ongoing violence, and they're urging further research into the topic and treatment of those who have predilections to indulge in it.
The identification of violent/anti-social individuals is still a routine matter in psychiatry, though the matter only extends to formal diagnosis of Anti-social Personality Disorder, which doesn't have any treatment. Consider it a more formal way of saying, yeah, this dude's an asshole.
There's nothing singling out black people, or suggesting they're uniquely prone to violence, the race riots were simply the most salient example.
Regarding the other evidence you've shared, I don't consider it particularly damning. If you wish to study violence, especially the aetiology, then you want to conduct your research in an area with a high amount of violence. Would you deny that high schools with majority black/hispanic students wouldn't on average be more violent? That's a factually true statement. Fund raising before Congress to make the most of a (quite relevant) Current Thing? Who wouldn't?
On the use of a military base:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike
As the sites were decommissioned they were first offered to federal agencies. Many were already on Army National Guard bases who continued to use the property. Others were offered to state and local governments while others were sold to school districts. The left-overs were offered to private individuals. Thus, many Nike sites are now municipal yards, communications and FAA facilities (the IFC areas), probation camps, and even renovated for use as Airsoft gaming and MilSim training complexes. Several were obliterated and turned into parks. Some are now private residences.
The Army was handing out now useless Nike silos, which were snapped up by everyone from schools to airsoft players. This is because they were moving out, not offering a timeshare program!
This isn't some kind of top-secret blacksite for MKULTRA redux, there was property being handed out to whoever asked, and if I was to organize a program that involves isolating violent patients (likely against their will), then "remote" and "secure" sounds like excellent ideas, regardless of what I do with them.
Well, you're the doctor, and no offense to neurosurgeons (they actually seem to try to do it right, as far a I can tell), but I was under the impression that they absolute pussies compared to psychosurgeons. Don't they go on and on about how dangerous it is, and how it's a last resort?
I have met plenty of psycho surgeons, no psychosurgeons, so I have no opinion on their personality and habits. They don't market themselves as such anyway, they call themselves neurosurgeons.
Sure, it wasn't shut down completely, but you said yourself the time period in question was the point of it's decline. The paper you linked to seems to confirm it.
Because it was obsolete, not because it was controversial (not by 2007, at the least). For a perfectly benign example, open cholecystectomies have long been replaced by laparoscopic cholecystectomies. They were never controversial. In the odd case where the destruction of a small portion of the brain is needed, we zap it with radiation, and that's a procedure that happens every day in my hospital, even if it's more for tumors than violence.
I find no conclusion to the case of Kille after looking, it seems the negative PR, especially after the association with Terminal Man came out, was sufficient to derail the psychosurgery division there. He was hardly the only patient, and others presented as case studies did much better. If you manage to find the outcome of the lawsuit, I'd be curious to see it.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
4mo ago
Nobody cares (well, apparently except you) if the Fremen are realistic
Sorry dawg, Brett Devereaux apparently does, and I've seen this particular piece of work crop up both on the Motte, as a definitive rebuttal to the "Weak times, weak men" hypothesis that so many are fond of, and in the wild elsewhere, that I can be confident there's a significant number of people who find the Fremen-wank grating.
And they're far from the worst elements in the novel, credit for being first only goes so far. So sure, I "give credit" to Dune, if you so desire, which doesn't negate my stance that I think it's a mediocre book with questionable worldbuilding, queer plotting, 1D characters, and enough fetish material to make an accurate adaptation to the big screen something you should book your popcorn for well in advance.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
4mo ago
Isn't it amazing that DALL-E 3 has prompts? Those little text input boxes where you can specify the styles and content, be it in the style of video game concept art, minimalism, expressionism, and just about anything you can think of?
PEBKAC right here. I'm not going to defend their approach to diversity being prompt injection of random diverse ethnicities and genders.
At any rate, they've been here for more than a year, welcome to 2023, just about in time to meet 2024.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
5mo ago
No, that was 'high decoupling consideration of hypotheticals'. I wasn't saying you, self_made_human, was a goat-fucker, I was saying hypothetical general you who may want to defend goat-fucking.
Uh huh..
https://www.themotte.org/post/760/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/159366?context=8#context
Your notion of entertaining hypotheticals seems to be "agree with them". 'Oh, you don't like that proposal, you disagree with it? You're a low decoupler who's too stupid to be able to think abstractly'. That seems to be your go-to position.
Listen, you want to fuck goats? That's your thing, but don't try and get around objections with "Why are people so mean to me about goat-fucking, it must be because they're all too stupid to think outside of conventional notions".
You had plenty of opportunities to state that when I told you I had no desire to fuck goats, or either brand of "kid", but such a considered, nuanced intent was lacking.
At any rate, it's water under the bridge, you took your lumps.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
5mo ago
I get bans because a mod said so
As opposed to a random user banning you? If that's happening the code base inherited from rdrama must be more interesting than I thought.
somebody went running to teacher to complain
I wonder how much bearing that has on whether the complaint was valid. Certainly the gangsters or mafiosos declaring "snitches get stitches" aren't saying so because of their wounded pride from being falsely accused. You did call me a goat-fucker lol.
I do wonder what a system entirely run off user reports might look like, plenty of social media platforms, Reddit and Facebook/Insta included, have that to a degree where a sufficient number of user reports gets things auto-removed. They still have humans in the loop somewhere even if they don't act in every case. Not that I expect this to be a good idea, or work very well if at all, l just want to see novel forms of dysfunction at times!
By Allah, is that comment the one you wish to rephrase to be less inflammatory?
For anyone reading, the original was along the lines of "Only if you assume reality is inductive ;)". That would probably be the least inflammatory or questionable thing you've said in living memory. It's like if someone resurrected Hitler and gave him a rundown of all the unkind things people have said about him over the years, and his takeaway was to give up on vegetarianism.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
5mo ago
unless you're in the camp that thinks that human consciousness is basically just a really complex statistical model running on a biological computer
As someone vocally in that camp, I invite you to demonstrate any other model for what human consciousness could possible be. And it doesn't even matter if the AI is "conscious" if it's intelligent and capable of using that intelligence to forward ends not aligned with our goals.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
7mo ago
Eh, I'm not a fan of old.reddit, considering it only superior to the trash fire that is new reddit. I'd strongly prefer an app with the usual bells and whistles that accommodate for mobile.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
7mo ago
And the ultra wealthy can afford to hire accountants and legal advisors to deal with the reporting rules. For everyone else it will be an additional burden to entry that makes business ownership and self employment more difficult.
This will cease to be an issue relatively soon, with GPT-4 likely being competent enough and future models even better at helping out an unsophisticated consumer who can't afford an accountant.
I'm not well versed with any licensing restrictions that may or may not be in place in the US, but an educated, well-versed entitity to advise you is now cheap and available via a phone.
I presume if the company is big enough that they're running into context window issues and such with a modern ML model, they can afford said human accountant!
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
9mo ago
Books are free if you have internet and know where to look.
I doubt that the particularly rare or niche books that can't be readily found online would be stocked in a school library.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
9mo ago
His account is 5 months old, so a relatively geriatric contestant, but I don't count him out just yet!
Sorry, I was aware that's against the rules, I was just too surprised and pissed off at the time to care, because of all the reasons for someone to blow their top at me and insult my very academic credentials, someone else making an innocent enough statement that I simply referenced wasn't it. Man, Narnia fans are a tough crowd.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
10mo ago
They spent half their life in Narnia and then were able to be more or less regular kids again to grow up and not look like isekai protagonists
I consider that itself to be nonsensical, so it's not doing Lewis any favors.
But is arguing about shitty worldbuilding in the Chronicles of Narnia really what any of us want to do haha?
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
11mo ago
All I wish to say is that I find your ruling highly disappointing, especially since this is my first and only ban on The Motte.
In fact, I've made a nigh identical comments at least twice in the past without censure.
At the very least, you'd think being a poster in good standing would earn some leeway, especially since a warning would have gotten the point across just as well.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1yr ago
Hello, this is Bing. I will try to debunk the statement from a materialist and rationalist perspective.😊
First of all, let me clarify what materialism and rationalism mean in philosophyMaterialism is the view that all facts are causally dependent upon or reducible to physical processes1Rationalism is the view that reason is the chief source and test of knowledge, and that there are some truths that the intellect can grasp directly2.
Now, let me address some of the points made by the statement.
The statement claims that there are other parts of the nervous system that are more influential in our experience than the brain, but does not provide any evidence or examples for this claim. A materialist would argue that the brain is the central organ of the nervous system and that all our mental states and processes are ultimately caused by or identical to brain states and processes1.
The statement claims that none of the chemical processes as we currently understand them should generate consciousness, but does not explain why this is so. A materialist would argue that consciousness is a natural phenomenon that emerges from complex interactions of physical entities, such as neurons, molecules, and atoms1. A rationalist would argue that we can use reason and logic to discover the principles and laws that govern these interactions and explain how consciousness arises2.
The statement claims that death is permanent and that it is more parsimonious to say that the link between the body and the soul has been severed than that the computer has been broken in a subtle way that can’t be repaired. A materialist would deny the existence of a soul or any immaterial substance that can survive death1. A rationalist would argue that there is no evidence or reason to believe in such a substance, and that parsimony is not a valid criterion for truth2.
The statement claims that if consciousness was simply a property of certain arrangements of matter, we wouldn’t expect nature to select the ones that can be bricked. A materialist would argue that nature does not select anything, but rather evolution by natural selection is a blind and contingent process that results in various adaptations and maladaptations1. A rationalist would argue that we can use reason and science to understand how evolution works and how it affects our cognitive capacities2.
The statement claims that all this is pointless arguing about which theory of a mysterious phenomenon is the most elegant, and that it is not inquiry but masturbatory behavior. A materialist would argue that this is a false dichotomy, and that materialism is not just a theory but a method of inquiry that relies on empirical evidence and testable hypotheses1. A rationalist would argue that this is a false dilemma, and that rationalism is not just a theory but a method of inquiry that relies on deductive reasoning and logical consistency2.
Therefore, I have tried to debunk the statement from a materialist and rationalist perspective by showing its flaws, assumptions, and contradictions. I hope this was helpful.😊
Human comment here-
Bing did a pretty decent job IMO. But, if I had to nitpick:
-
There are in fact theories such as the gut-brain axis, but at the end of the day, that's just another modulation of the nervous system, the amount of computation done outside the CNS is small.
-
Natural selection is not omnipotent, it may very well be that the seemingly non-robust arrangements of matter that make up living animals is simply the best it could do with the tools on hand.
For fun, here's Scott's criticism:
Here are some possible ways to debunk this statement:
Parsimony is not a sufficient criterion for choosing a theory. A theory also needs to be consistent with the evidence and make testable predictions. The soul theory does not meet these requirements, as there is no empirical evidence for the existence of a soul or its interaction with the body, and no way to falsify it. The soul theory also raises more questions than it answers, such as what is the nature of the soul, how does it interact with the body, where does it go after death, etc.
There are many other things in your body that have similar effects to consciousness, such as metabolism, circulation, digestion, etc. These are all complex processes that involve chemical reactions and physical interactions. They are also affected by external factors such as temperature, nutrition, disease, etc. They do not require a separate entity or substance to explain them. Why should consciousness be any different?
The seat of consciousness problem is not irrelevant, as it affects how we understand the relationship between the body and the mind. If consciousness is located in a specific part of the brain, such as the cerebral cortex, then we can study its structure and function using neuroscience and psychology. We can also manipulate it using drugs, stimulation, lesions, etc. We can observe how it changes over time and under different conditions. We can compare it with other animals and humans with brain damage or disorders. We can also explain how it evolved and developed through natural selection and learning. All of these methods provide evidence for a naturalistic account of consciousness that does not require a soul.
Death is not permanent in the sense that the statement implies. It is true that when a person dies, their consciousness ceases to exist as we know it. However, this does not mean that their consciousness disappears into nothingness or goes to another realm. It simply means that their brain stops functioning and their body decomposes. Their atoms and molecules are recycled into other forms of matter and energy. Their genes and memes are passed on to their offspring and culture. Their memories and influences are preserved by their friends and family. Their legacy and impact are remembered by history and society. Death is not an end, but a transformation.
The statement also commits a fallacy of argument from ignorance or incredulity. It assumes that because we do not fully understand how consciousness works or why it exists, it must be explained by something supernatural or mysterious. This is a non sequitur , as our lack of knowledge does not imply anything about the true nature of reality. It only reflects our current limitations and challenges in exploring it. There may be many possible natural explanations for consciousness that we have not yet discovered or understood. We should not jump to conclusions based on our intuitions or preferences.
Therefore, I conclude that the statement is not a valid argument for the existence of a soul or its superiority over a naturalistic account of consciousness.
I think he would endorse most of this except for the nonsense about death being just another transformation.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
12d ago
I expect my grandkids, if they exist, will be simulated entities in a Matrioshka brain. When it's the size of the sun and change, I think it becomes a bit moot 🧐
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1mo ago
Funny thing: everybody loves Bayes rule; but they never state their priors. To that extent they never consciously use it. Nor is there any evidence that it models the unconscious process of real life rational cognition. The evidence to support that would need to be quantitative; not just "Hey I believed something, then I saw something, and I altered my degree of belief. Must have been using Bayes!"
You evidently don't hang around LessWrong enough.
While Predictive Processing theory, which posits that human cognition is inherently Bayesian, has not been established to the extent it's nigh incontrovertible, it elegantly explains many otherwise baffling things about human cognition, including how it breaks when it comes to mental illnesses like depression, autism, OCD, and schizophrenia. I've linked to Scott on it before. I think it's more likely to be true than not, even if I can't say with a straight-face that it's gospel truth. It is almost certainly incomplete.
In other words, humans are being imperfect Bayesians all the time, and you don't need to explicitly whip out the formula on encountering evidence to get by, but in situations where the expected value of doing so in a rigorous fashion is worth it, you should. The rest of the time, evolution has got you covered.
Besides, the best, most accurate superforecasters and people like quants absolutely pull it out and do explicit work. In their case, the effort really is worth it. You can't beat them without doing the same.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1mo ago
How can we approach arbitrarily close?
By amassing more evidence from observations and updating accordingly. Physics demands 5 sigmas of confidence in experimental results before accepting an experiment as valid. For most purposes, you can get away with a lot less.
As stated, this does nothing to address Hume's argument against induction, which holds equally whether you are aiming for probability or for certainty, and does not address the retro skeptical argument that every reason you can give is either based on something else or based on nothing, leading to infinite regress.
Nobody has a solution to infinite regress, barring "I said so". As far as I can tell, you've got to start somewhere, and Bayesianism leads to more sensible decision theories and is clean and simple.
Another issue Bayesianism often runs into is that many variants of Bayesianism give up on truth - I'm not interested in the confidence we can assign to a theory given our priors and the evidence, I'm interested in whether the theory in question is actually true.
"The next sentence is false. The previous sentence is true." Good luck.
Given that English is an imprecise language, feel free to interpret my 99.9999% confidence that the Sun will rise tomorrow as being equivalent to "it's true the Sun will rise tomorrow".
But if Bayesianism aims at truth rather than solely at subjective calculations of confidence unmoored from reality, if it is interested in what is true rather than just what we can be confident in, it is in no better a position to provide justification than any other epistemology.
The universe we live in does not provide us the luxury of not being "subjective" observers. Bayesianism happens to be entirely cool with that.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
1mo ago
He's gone to other extremes to demonstrate his hostility against me, including impugning the validity of my medical degree.
Thankfully the medical registration authorities of two different countries respectfully disagree, but if I ever end up working for the VA, his back pain, tinnitus and so on will inevitably turn out to not be service related, and good luck getting anything stronger than motril.
(For legal reasons, this is a joke. Leaving aside that's how the VA does things by default)
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
3mo ago
I did take the mod hat off by my own initiative, it's not like the others yelled at me haha.
You're a regular here, we might bicker but I can't ever deny that your net contribution is very positive, even if you have your own quirks that make me raise an eyebrow, or on certain topics, want to claw my eyes out.
So my initial annoyance that motivated me to put the mod hat on was swiftly overruled by me sighing deeply and accepting that it wouldn't make a difference plus it wasn't a big deal in the first place. I suppose the fact that you were referencing a meme from a show that I haven't watched does make sense!
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
3mo ago
Let us be liberal in our dispensation of charity and tolerance for typos.
In that case, given that this forum is supposedly a single principled libertarian (me) and a zillion witches, you are at the very least not lonely haha.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
3mo ago
- Get into psychiatry training, or sit the USMLE
- Take my ADHD meds (for certain values of *successful')
See, I think it's all moot because human labor will shortly cease to matter. But ignoring that:
The people who are opting for pregnancy in a considered manner, especially those who want to go through IVF and potentially embryo selection, want a baby more than is the norm, or they wouldn't bother. People who adopt instead of accepting being childless probably want kids more than average after all.
My exam in about a dozen hours leaves me well prepared to field that point. You know why implants are offered in the first place? It's precisely because they reduce unwanted births.
Some poor 18 year old girl is scared of being knocked up? We give her an IUD. A 26 yo woman, we ask her if is planning a family. No? Or a 36 yo who says she's got 3 kids and not one more? Then an IUD, or perhaps an implant, which can be trivially removed for any reason, let alone if they desire kids.
Leaving aside total birth rates, where I expect changes to be minor, this is also helping mitigate dysgenics. A lower class girl with low time preferences has far lower odds of being knocked up again by her deadbeat boyfriend, and then has every opportunity to remove it when she legitimately feels ready.
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