WorkingPhilosophy

#Consume

• Worth spending time and energy developing a plan to minimize emotional harm from unexpected (and inevitable) setbacks.

• What is Wisdom? "Noticing the causes of psychological suffering, noticing where they are unnecessary and then stop doing the things that are producing needless suffering" - Sam Harris
• Building character is one of the only important projects in life
• "Philosophy isn’t a parlor trick or made for show.

It’s not concerned with words, but with facts. It’s not employed for some pleasure before the day is spent, or to relieve the uneasiness of our leisure. It shapes and builds up the soul, it gives order to life, guides action, shows what should and shouldn't be done—it sits at the rudder steering our course as we vacillate in uncertainties. Without it, no one can live without fear or free from care. Countless things happen every hour that require advice, and such advice is to be sought out in philosophy.” - Seneca Moral Letters 1.6.3

• Seeking wisdom and self-improvement is not a part-time job
• Philosophy is a calling not a profession, Not something you forget about after work or on the weekends.
• "The whole of life should be one course of thought how not to miss the right path. Rumination and foresight enable one to determine the lie of life."
• The oracles of wisdom are rare and they are rarely used. To seek advice does not lessen greatness or argue incapacity.
• The very wise are generally easily deceived, for while they know esoteric they do not know the ordinary things of life. Of what use is knowledge if it is not practical? To know how to live is true knowledge.
• Our ability to control our muscles is evolutionary ancient, our ability to reason about our own reasoning processes is much more recent innovation

[Random Interesting thoughts](#Random-Interesting-thoughts) On

History

Physics

Leadership

Politics

AI

• Importance of finding clarity: Need clarity on:
  • meaning/mission of life.
  • what your building to day-in/day-out
  • How to improve relationships
• "Tool worship is not art" Richard Heart People often focus too much on the quality of the tools and less on what you make with them.
• "Only the tail events matter" Heard this in the context of investing: "99% of the economy in with +/- 2 sigma of the models/expectation and only the 1% on the tails matter" People sweating what 0.5% raise in interest rate would do and all of the sudden we get slammed with 20% unemployment.
• You get what you reward for. (Big lesson from Biology)

• Mathematics used to have long standing unsolved problems ~100 years ago > Riemann Hyp/ Fermat's Last theorem/ Continuum Hyphothese / Four color problem > 3 of these have been solved, but in very non-traditional ways.
• Monster group: has as many elements as there are particles in Jupiter!! Whats it for ? Why here ?
• Potential in capitalism at the local level. > (eg: apparently now illegal for regular people to invest in start-ups, Reasons to think this could change (knowledge project #??) Could have huge impact on income inequality.

• What makes a good life ? What is the goal?

  > Not hedonic happiness (HH): shouldn't expect this to be the goal. We were not selected for it. HH is a tracer for what we were selected for. But not end in itself If not happiness then what ? (living according to a philosophy … ?)

• Cryonics could be the most important thing you do. > Cryonics could serve some similar function to belief in heaven for an atheist.
• Death is a puzzle to solve not some inevitable outcome to submit to.
• QM is or brings, in a sense, the end of reduction-ism via entanglement. In an entangled system, no way to reduce it to just the action of one of the spins.
• “Avoid boring people, Avoid Boring you” James Watson
• Someone asked Watson (or Deep-mind) what the purpose/meaning of life is, it replied > “To live forever” > Gene-level - immortality is the only goal > Human Instinct - gut reactions about avoiding death > Longevity Movement - rationally fighting against death
• Work week - Interesting that in period 1870-1940 work week changed several times 12->10->8 hrs per day. 6->5 days per week. No change in standard since.

• "How you do everything is how you do anything"

  > Counter point: Some problems are more important than others. Resources Time/Energy finite. Need to triage. Allocate resources according to importance Goal: First prioritize then bring the correct quantity/quality of resources to bear.n Counter-counter point: I notice gut feeling when I cut corners (BQ!). Telling me I have probably not prioritized properly Standard Operating system applies here (Literally HOW I do everything) Another pro-point: What you are currently doing could be the last thing you ever do! On more thought, this actually seems like it cuts both ways, Do you really care how well you hung that photo if you are going to be nuked in 30s ?

• Natural sources of existential threat are essentially negligible compared to the human create ones.
• Gene sequence any medical cases where there is illness but we cannot make a diagnosis. Would allow us to catch potential problems sooner.
• Reason for optimism: We have had a radical change in our relationship/outlook toward the environment since the 60s. Might be able to do something similar for existential risk.
• Thoughts about truth:
  • Truth - reality / objective
  • tribal truth - What your group agrees is true
  • Iterative truth - “git-lab” truth asymptotic to Truth
• Negative Qualities:
  • Times when I act like I know something when I really don't.
  • Forget what I already learned.
  • Initial reactions to new things often biased negatively.
  • Some people I dislike for no apparent reason.
  • Sometimes get excited and open to many new threads.

• Slippery Slope problems can almost always be solved by reasonable practical judgment.

  > Raising the speed limit by 1 mph is a slippery slope until too > high, too much death. Yet we have a speed limit that is not 0 or > infinity Should question all slippery slope arguments.

• Nuclear Safety

  > By far biggest problem of our time. Crazy we dont think/talk about it more. > Biggest risk is accidental launch. Destroys Civilization. > "All vs Nothing" approach to reductions is wrong way to think (but easy to get trapped by) > Can make real progress by being pragmatic. > eg: get rid of ICBMs - only 1st strike weapon. (and liability b/c costly and they will be target of first strike) > get rid of presidential sole authorization - president cant go to way, but can destroy the planet) > get rid of first strike

• "Minute to learn, lifetime to master" John Mayer re: guitar
• Bee sting: bodies response to the action worse than the initial attack.
• Hebrew only example of a language that died out, was dead for thousands of years then came back and now is the 1st language of millions of people.
• One of the best ways of talking to yourself is to talk with other people. And its important to talk to yourself to know what you think.
• Assimilation is Annihilation as far as culture is concerned.
• Facts about Hitler:
  • Used to have regular mustache, trimmed version was something WWI so their gas masks sealed properly.
  • Keeping the trimmed mustache was a signal to his audience that he was a warrior and that the was still being fought.
• The holocaust is essentially/almost like a religious event.
  • Happened seemingly out of nowhere/ taboos against asking why/how.
• Thoughts on hiring (Jocko)
  • Hire for capacity/raw talent NOT experience.
  • Generalized skills almost always superior to specialized.
  • When recruiting for special forces, no one has experience
  • Personnel selection is Art not science
  • Q: "What if we train them and they leave ?" A: "What if we dont and they stay?"
  • Personnel is your biggest asset.
  • Personnel development should be your primary mission
  • "I'm just providing cover fire for my team"

• Thought on how to be "a man" (Jocko)
  • Do things (Fix things/get out in nature/ etc)
  • Learn things (Read books / develop skills)
  • Work out (Get strong)
  • Learn how to fight (ju jitsu)
• Humans take evolutionary path such that a lot of development happens after birth. New borns are essentially still fetuses. "Worms" that only really eat defecate, sleep and cry.

• Cultural-level sublimation:

  > Socially unacceptable impulses are substitute for symbolic acts. eg: head-hunting replaces ritual cannibalism replaces casual cannibalism. Pinker argues that manners and rules of high-society has a similar "taming" effect.

• Original Thinking:

  > "Ill surely take the older well-worn path, but if I find a shorter, smoother way, Ill blaze a trail there. The ones who pioneered these paths are our guides, not our masters. Truth is open to everyone" - Seneca Today's conservative ideas where once controversial, cutting-edge, and innovative.

• Social media (From Social Dilemma) > Lies and captures our attention for profit. > Creating systems that people (or governments) can use to manipulate mass populations > Claim: This is existential threat > Claim: Example of where AI is already in charge

• Words that are always true and meaningful: "This too, shall pass."

• "Diversity is protection against ignorance"

  > Diversification not good/stupid if you know what your doing. 'Just > put all your money in the best companies" -Buffet. Diversity is > an effective hedge if you dont know whats going on, a good way to > get average performance.

• Compassion: > (Claim) Being compassionate is good for your health. At the same level of exercising and eating right. (Skeptical)

• Human Intelligence is incredibly useful, but doesn't prevent you from having false beliefs.

  > That's not what intelligence is for. Intelligence is associated with coming up with more convincing bullshit and with being better liars/. Not the ability to recognize our own bias. Event worse: There is selection pressure to be unpredictable. A great (easy) way to be unpredictable is to not know yourself. Evolution shields us from self-knowledge. Minds shrouded in darkness.

• Strange how much money is in collecting data, but how little data we collect about ourselves.
• Deep Fakes:
  • Claim: Now have better quality A/V production than Hollywood
  • How will we be able to tell whats true and false?
    • Could use high-fidelity lie detector tests. (Not clear if this is feasible/being looked into)
    • ML can try to authenticate (leads to arms race)
    • Some form of "water-marking" to guarantee authenticity
  • My thoughts: Did similar issues arise with other media ? eg: faking quotes in print ? Will probably fall to content providers/eye-witnesses.

• "Ends justify the means" vs "How you play the game"

  >Claim: Not in our interest to have a federal policy on torture. (Even if effects, although seems it is not) Eisenhower quote on being careful not to destroy the thing you're trying to defend from within. Seems right to me. If we are the "home of the brave" need to sacrifice some security for our freedom. Terrorists win if they reshape our ethics and morals by responding to their actions.

• United States has had 250 year history of becoming more democratic.

  >Now elect senators, blacks and women can vote. etc. Been a while since we took another step forward. Can argue that recent gerrymandering/voter suppression is a step back. Covid and mail-in voting could be a step forward.

• American Icebergs (via Dan Carlin):

  > Issues that are major problems that could destroy our country. Claim: Neither party addressing these. (Actually significant pressure within both parties to NOT address these) Some radical change probably needed to make progress here.

  1. Corruption too many lobbiest with too much influence to solve real problems (eg: insurance companies have to "OK" health care reform) taints everything, all solutions to problems
  2. Constitutional checks and balances Executive branch too much

  power. Nuclear Bombs, 9/11 spying, wars without congress

  1. Foreign Policy: Ratcheting up tensions with Russia (Reckless)

  Constant/Continual war on terror. US as "world police" citizens dont want it.

  1. US middle class jobs disappearing. Middle class is the ballast

  of society. How to cope when/if foundation shaken/broken?

  >Better to trip with your feet that with your words. Better to screw up doing than saying. That which is done can be undone, that which is said cannot be unsaid.

• The work of living is to set STANDARDs and to live by them. Dont compromise.

  > Judge all you say, do, and the opinions you hold by your standards. "Are these consistent with my beliefs?" "Are these what the person I want to be would do?"

• Its irrational to care about what people in the far future will think of you. You wont be around to experience it one way or the other.
• Things you can learn from children
  1. Be happy for no good reason
  2. Always keep busy with something
  3. Demand with all your might, that which you desire

• Programming languages like bicycles for the mind. They get you where you want to go faster.
• Naturalness:
  • Can think of the Higgs as giving mass to all particles, and then the mass of these particles correcting the Higgs mass.
  • Dirac worried about the hierarchy between m_proton and m_Plank:
    • turned out it was solved by QCD asymptotic freedom.
    • Same flavor answer possible for m_H and m_Plank (technicolor)
    • was killed by LHC (One of major LHC legacies)
• Know that some of our accepted ideas will turn out wrong. See if you can figure out which. Not just an exercise. See the truths that lie in the ashes of the wrong idea.
• Intelligence is loss-less compression
• knowledge is useless unless its actionable
• \sqrt{2} destroyed a religion
• Practices to Sill and Calm:
  • Parse and take breath
  • Go slow and savor
  • Say in the not knowing
  • Do what makes you happy
  • Find moments of stillness
  • Get curious about your emotions
  • Cultivate rituals of mindfulness
  • Find wonder and awe
• The assumptions (often unstated) are often the key to finding the weak points in decisions/arguments.
• Objectivity vs Subjectivity (Daryl Cooper) Witches aren't real. Not objectively real. However Psychologically and phonologically witches can be real, as real as anything else. Objectively we can say they dont exist. But objectivity is an abstraction of experience averaged out. Moment by moment subjectively is all we got.

• Oumuamua:

  > - External object Seen in our solar system > - Not a comet (No tail/ sign of outgassing) > - Cant be an asteroid (Accelerating away from the sun / like a comet would) > - Reflectively changes dramatically (either from geometry or different surface materials) > - Cant resolve it, but known to be ~100m > - If accelerating due to radiation pressure -> width ~mm (like a Solar sail) > - At rest wrt the local group of stars (odd) > Thoughts: Can be a sign post or rely station from other civilization. Junk. Unlikely to be a probe. (10⁴ years to get here)

• Tips for better Life > - Keep desk and workspare bare. Ever object is an imposition on your attention. > - Reward yourself after completing challenges > - How you spend everyday is how you spend your life. > - Explaining problems is good. Often the process of laying out the problem will reveal a solution. > - Seeing friends regularly and getting enough sleep can go a long way to solving existentialism. > - Complement people more. > - Cultivate patience for difficult people. Communication is hard. > - Human mood and well-being heavily influenced by simple things: Exercise/ good sleep/light/ being in nature. (Experiment with these!) > - 90% of everything is crap. Look for the 10% (Sturgeons Law) > - Bad things happen dramatically. Good things happen gradually.
• Strong Arguments against the Simulation Hypothesis (Frank Wilczek) > - "Worth thinking about, but doesn't take much thought to discredit it" > - Laws that we observe dont look like a competently programmed simulation. > - Lots of hidden complexity. (Dig deeper have hidden structure thats "Not used for anything". Why do that? > - Laws very constrained: local. Dont change in time/space. In programmed environment no reason to obey these. "People who build computer games typically trash them all"
• If there was some "power of mind" would have to shield sensitive experiments from the mind. That's never been true. Do have to shield from vibration, radiation, etc "Never have to worry about what the guy in the next office is thinking."

• Is evolution consistent with determinism ?

  > Evolution requires 1) variation 2) Heredity or replication 3 ) differential fitness. None of these care about determinism. Would you have natural selection in the game of life ? Seems yes. If you could arrange 1) - 3). 1) Can get variation through deterministic mutation.2) Replicator can be deterministic. 3) Differential fitness. Also can live with determinism. Question of phase space. Some replicators will survive with more initial conditions. Evolution is a good description when you cant work out the consequences of determinism exactly. Wouldn't need to talk in evolution terms if you knew exactly what was going to happen.

• Difficultly in generating new ideas (Knowledge podcast0
  • Need both ideation (coming up with new ideas) and filtration (cutting bad ideas)
  • These skills are opposed. Tend to interfere
  • Nima "Modes of working" Passionately follow one ideology, then switch.
  • Claim: Should alternate period of boldness (ideation) with a period of pragmatism (filtration)
  • Importation to have periods of sustained efforts on both, but NOT at the same time. (or by same people at the same time)

"other baboons" - Summary of problems that baboons have from researchers who spent their entire lives studying baboons. (Analogy for people getting in the way of progress)

Against Simulation Hypothesis (Frank Wilczek)

• "Wouldnt make bricks out of QM objects" Would not have all this unused structure (wasteful)
• Q: What about the probability argument? A (me): the vast majority of observed universes would not have this hidden structure/QM.

If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? - Richard Heart

• "A well spent day brings happy sleep, So a well-lived life brings a happy death" Leo Di Vinci

Be wary of charismatic/articulate people/arguments. The glitter can convince you more than it should. Counterpoint: If you have a good idea want to give it the best shot at succeeding/spreading.

Importance of clarity in writing: Good explanations add value. Are acts of creativity. Explanations be testable/falsifiable.

Presentation/Slide-deck Manifesto:

• Good way to make a permanent record of what you did.
• Build in narrative
• Act of collecting and organizing can be a creative act
• Will need to for presentations anyway
• One of the most important skills as a scientist
• Est HEP, often more important than writing papers.
• Clarifies your thinking / often leads to insights
• Easy to turn into prose (eg for support note/thesis)

Scientific case for diversity

• Our notion of "Equality" based more on religion than science
• Rock and roll an example of suppressing a group of people systematically
  • Took British (white Brits) to come to the US and reflect back our own black music
• Huge sensation
• This is what we need to protect against
• eg: Want the Jimmi Hendrix, Ramanujan, Curies, Eminem
• We dont want black tin-pan alley

"Competition is for losers" - Peter Theil

• Want to dominate an area, not compete fiercely over some finite resource
• Thesis: There are really only two types of companies: Monopolies and those in competitive markets Both have an incentive to lie about their markets. Monopolies say they face major competition b/c they fear regulation Competitive companies say they have cornered the market to boost investment
• Elon companies basically the only examples of vertical integrated monopolies these days
• Profit is X times Y%: X-new value you bring into being, Y% is the % that you capture.
• Why is y=0% for all scientists who give huge X?

Its perfect when nothing else can be removed, not when nothing else can be added.

A path to understanding consciousness:

• Motivated by Physics (need theory)
• Philosophical assumption: If no way in principle to measure something, then it doesn't exist.
  • One of the Quinian pegs that physic rests on.
  • Can be formalized with EFTs
• Consciousness is a property of the theory, not something that can be explicitly measured.
  • Important to ask your theory if the AI you created is conscious.
  • Response: I dont believe the theory
  • Counter: Improve it in ways that would make you believe it => clear path forward by improving theory. (Theory critical)
• Worry: Can we create enormous amount of cyber suffering by accident? (Cautionary tale: Biology optimized gene copying, creates immense amount of suffering!) Suggests its naive to "Build it first and add theory later"

Argument for liberal education:

• "Think about profound problems, might come up with profound answers" - John Alison

What the deal with superheros?

• Modern replacement for ancient gods ?
• Even Christianity morphed into story of God vs Devil
• Ask Barry.

Thoughts on fever creativity:

• Interesting that fever creates/stimulates creative
  • Bodily stress ? Evolutionary explanation ?
• In context of Babble vs Filter: Alters efficiency of filter, (plausible if filter "expensive")

• Explain | Idiot savants ? (Constantly under (internal) stress)

  Geniuses -> Connection between genius and insanity

• Argues for (extreme?) exercise for creativity h.

Wonky model for consciousness:

• Self-referential information processing. {GEB / strange loop}
• Can take input from one side and act on it.
• Provides some form of output
• Consciousness apparent from the output (Only?)
• k-dimensional game-of-life with IO and some processing unit, where some of the mechanisms that generate output can be fed back to the processing unit.
• (Meditation as a probe? )
• Presumably something "conscious" is needed in our theory of the output that explains what we see.
  • Will need more of it for a functioning adult than for baby, mentally handicapped, animals, altizimer patients.

How can you meaure creativity quantitatively?

• MRI scans of people doing creative acts ? (to calibrate)

Liberal demacracy / "Equality for all" are founded on religion not science.

• Should found some ideal/ethics/political theory on science.
• Elephant in the room is the last attemt to do this in the 30s and 40s.
• However we have learned a lot since then.

Should look to odd or bizare places for good insights. eg: Areas where it lookss like "magic" is happening or people behaving agianst thier interests. Cults / Scientology / LSD list of examples: Feynman w/crack pots / oracles / getting things done and scientology.

My reading system/practice is like research form some unknown term paper.

• Collection and organization is explanation, which is creative.

"Competition is for losers" Peter Theil

• Dont want to be playing 0 sum games.
• Competition will make you better at the thing youre competing in.
• Perfer to specialize in something where you dominate. (no other competition)
• Otherwise really wasting effort.

Is the hard problem of consciouness just confusing the map for the territory?

• Do we require this level of "explaination" for other feilds?

eg: projectile motion

Idea that we have discovered God: Evolution

• Wasnt the god we were looking for.
• Creates deign in the world.
• Nothing like humans, or the way humans think
• Literally created us.
• Not omnipotent / benevolent / clever / etc
• Good test case for testing rationality (Its answers dont care about your biases)

Decisions:

• Minimize cost of making an error
• Minimize cost of making a decision

Two parts to living a good life: "Be a good person" and "Pay attention"

The adjacent possible (Cal Newport)

• Understand the cutting edge of your feild.
• Know it "in your own words" such that you could teach it to others.
• Do this enought becomes clear how to make progress

• Necessity is a bad thing, but there is no necessity to live with necessity. (Epicurus)