As your circle gets increasingly large, or your measuring instruments smaller, your estimate of pi starts running into problems because of spacetime curvature or quantisation effects. The observable universe has a finite size, and finite quantisation, which puts a hard limit on the accuracy of any physics-based estimate of pi. Whereas mathematics lets us be arbitrarily precise.

Physics is maths except we don't know the correct axioms which govern the universe, we just guess some physics axioms and find contradictions in our experiments.

which is why the channel should have just used something directly made by humans like proofwiki instead of assuming that gpt's tokenizer was well equipped to handle latex

I was gonna make a comment close to this but you beat me to it. Congrats and thank you.

Theologian: Hmm... where am I?

As a mathematician, no. There is philosophy in maths, sure. But maths is not applied philosophy, not even close.

@@souloftheworld9810 I think philosophy is on the other extreme end, left of sociology. But maybe it's a circle?

​@@souloftheworld9810 i mean, both philosophy and maths are about deduction. The way of finding the truth is literally identical (just that philosophy doesn't have axioms, or that everyone postulates their own axioms)

@@Randomini Yeah, this is true. I was pretty handwavy about the details for how induction works.

'Things just happen for no reason' is an incredibly complex theory according to some views of complexity. Consider Kolmogorov complexity, where complexity is essentially negative compressibility (i.e., more complex -> less compressible). Theories that describe the world with natural laws compress information effectively. For instance, a deterministic world can be fully described by the starting conditions and laws of nature. A 'things happen for no reason' allows for no compression whatsoever and is thus very complex. I think this is a useful way of thinking about 'complexity.'

@@matthijsdejong5133 As a theory, "things happen for no reason" is the empty set - it's incompressible because it communicates no information whatsoever. As a predictive theory it gets you zero bits of predictive power. On the flipside you can encode it using zero bits too! But I agree that it doesn't help you compress the universe's representation, which I think is what you're getting at.

@@Randomini Frankly, that theory sounds like it is not a theory whatsoever. If your theory contains no information, it cannot be said to properly fit the data. Occam's razor supports the simplest theory among those that fit the data.

@@МаксимВыменец Incidentally the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banned the positioning of nuclear weapons in space. In a sci-fi setting, asteroid redirection could serve this purpose too.

@@lsusr265 Yep, I know. But maybe this treaty was stupid, actually.

Yes. This history is a source of current tensions between Emutopia and Kiwiland.

It depends on what your standards are for "certainly false", "substantial research" and "in the know". A popular-yet-false idea in the society I live in is leftist economic policy. It's "certainly false" because the whole edifice is incompatible with understanding economics. By this, I mean that being able to explain economic principles like Moral Hazard and pricing as a coordination mechanism--even if you don't agree with them--is usually incompatible with leftist ideology. For most people, learning basic economics constitutes "substantial research", but if you're watching this channel then you might have a higher standard of what constitutes "substantial research". [In this case, I'm using "in the know" to describe leftist politicians, not economists.]

@@lsusr265 I believe that user was trying to challenge your claim in the video. You gave example of left politician stopping people from conducting research so they could not find the incompatibility of economic theory and leftist economic. They sought example of person with correct position doing opposite, encouraging research, since it correlates positively with agreeing with that person. This line of thought is good reason to condemn heresy if the orthodoxy comes from place of intellect.

They are actually quite rare. Existing powers, including the populace itself, often suppresses undesirable true beliefs, but much more rarely undesirable false beliefs, because (all else being equal) those are less persuasive. To my knowledge, facts that are both obvious to experts and at all relevant to non-experts have at least one "smoking gun" argument that also is comprehensible by non-experts. The Earth not being flat is a good example. Don't appeal to time zones or NASA because those aren't intuitive or immediately verifiable: use how a ship goes over the horizon. Another example: the news is worthless. Lsusr has good posts on this. These arguments (except for "Integrating the Lindy Effect") are perfectly intelligible to normal people, even the ones based on statistics, but they want to believe. In this particular case the false belief is mainstream, while the true one is "heretical." Actual examples: 1. Nietzsche was an antisemite, or a nihilist. I have never heard of a Nietzsche expert who believes this. Even Wikipedia doesn't believe this IIRC. Sufficient research is to read Nietzsche. 2. Saying a slur in an empty room harms the group it marginalizes. People who against doing this oppose it for other reasons. This justification is pure superstition. 3. Specific, easily counterindicated pseudosciences like astrology and homeopathy. Other pseudosciences or practices have elements of truth with a nonscientific ontology (body practices, acupuncture, psychoanalysis.) I am excluding them. 4. Geocentrism. Going by our eyes, the stars and celestial bodies seem to move along tracks. There is a more parsimonious model of what shows them to us, but it requires a lot of arithmetic, which not everyone is willing to do. It's worth noting that nearly everyone who believes it believes this as a result of an intuitive social model of the trustworthiness of their environment (in the best case) or as an appeal to authority (in a not-best case), neither of which are legible scientific arguments. 5. Quantum Field Theory. Everyone who studies quantum field theory knows that it is in some sense "fake" due to the incoherence of its methods, and how their ad-hoc use leads to overfitting to empirical evidence. But as far as I know, they don't know anything better. Lots of people have obviously false beliefs. This is a load-bearing part of every society I've ever heard of. High status false beliefs (e.g. [REDACTED]) don't get contradicted even by experts, for fear of exclusion. All of the examples I can think of (astrology, superstitious understanding of language) are either explicitly low-status false beliefs, or technical matters that no one actually really cares about.

"Integrating the Lindy Effect"'s title is awful. I published that post 5 years ago, long before I figured out how to write good titles. 😛 I was surprised QFT was on your list until I actually thought about it. Which is ironic because I considered listing "singularities" in my original answer. (Which is the same example, but from the opposite side of the contradiction.) "Lots of people have obviously false beliefs. This is a load-bearing part of every society I've ever heard of." ← I like this quote.

@@lsusr265 I actually don't know any physics beyond special relativity. The QFT option comes from my physicist friends explaining the state of physics to me and this exchange happening every single time: "And by truncating to the fourth term we reproduce empirical results." "Why the fourth term?" "Because it reproduces empirical results. The fact that any truncation of the series results in the correct result supports the theory." "Agreed. But do you truncate to the fourth term in other contexts, that being the way to derive implications from the theory? Or you have a principled account of how to truncate?" "No." "You're aware that means the entire thing is overfit, right?" "Yes. We're working on that."

Thanks!

You're absolutely right about the formality. Clothes are something I'm particularly bad at judging, so your feedback is especially appreciated in this domain. 🙏 You're right about the staging too. I wanted to experiment with better visuals, and the conversation took a hit for it, which shows. We did a conversation as usual, and then scripted the bridge and woods shots. I hope we can figure out a way to get both pretty framing and authentic conversation. The best way would be to add a specialized camera guy in addition to the two speakers; there were only two of us for this shoot. Another way is if I just did location scouting ahead of time. I'm glad the sound worked well, though. I'm particularly proud of the bird and water sound effects. The original audio had real birds and water, but it also had cars and other noise in the background. I use AI to isolate the conversation, but that removed the birds and water too. So I added stock recordings of them.

@@lsusr265 I did think the birds and rivers sounded unusually loud, but I don't recall guessing that they were stock recordings. My favourite sound-effect was of the "THWACK!" sound made by you hitting your unenlightened friend with a stick. It sounded like slapstick comedy, which was especially funny in a video about the difficulty of zen meditation. I assumed you had a specialized camera guy. I think the zoom-out when you were swinging around the trees at 3:45 was what made me think that. Was that editing? If so, you're clearly improving! This vdeio feels like a qualitative step up over your usual quality. And I only had a subtle feeling that your lines were staged. It felt pretty authentic. Admittedly, I know nothing about editing, so take my views with a lump of salt. Re the clothing: I can't say I'm much better. But I've been reading the menswear guy on Twitter a lot recently and now his takes are just living in my head: twitter.com/dieworkwear. If you ever do a session of Dharma Combat (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_combat), whether as student or teacher, I'd be interested in watching. Though it might be too esoteric for me, and too painful for the participants to share.

@@algongoku It's not obvious to me what works and doesn't, so this feedback is all really useful. My favorite video-makers use lots of sound effects. I want to do more of that. All the zooms all happened in the editing stage. I was worried the lower-resolution zoomed-in parts would give it away, but apparently not. This is useful to know. I hadn't considered about Dharma Combat at all. Certain stars need to align to make it work, but it would be a lot of fun. Thanks for the idea!

Thanks!

Entirely possible. What facets of this topic are you most interested in?

That could be fun. The catch is these videos work best when my guests pick the topic, and none of my guests have shown interest in that topic so far. The trick I use when cutting through trans politics is I ask "Suppose a biologically-male adult claims to be a woman (or vice-versa). Is there any way to falsify that claim?" - If "yes", then womanhood is physically determined. - If "no" then women are not physically real.

@@lsusr265 please do it. i would love it

I'm glad you enjoyed! Nicky (the guy in the black hoodie) did all the research.

After the backyard fission reactor video.

Was supposed to be this video but I forgot my sharpie.

You make a good point. I hadn't thought about how the fact it's ephemeral and transgressive makes it better Art.

It's not a "getting made fun of" thing. All but the most intolerant cultures enjoy getting made fun of, as long as you do it in a friendly way. Jews are the biggest fans of Jewish jokes. Thank you for your feedback. I considered expanding on the Native American asterix in the video. Instead, here's a story. I was part of a secret society deeply integrated with the Pacific Northwest outdoors. Think "Freemasons" except a different organization. Nothing about this society would suggest it had anything to do with Native Americans. Like any good secret society, it had a multi-day indoctrination ritual ceremony. In the forest, at night, around the bonfire, Indians from the local Pacific Northwest tribes conducted a secret ritual that-for all I know-goes back to before Christopher Columbus. It. Was. Awesome. I like things that increase the total value to humanity. I think that copying a ritual like that, out of context, without reference for where it came from, would destroy what makes it so valuable, resulting in a net loss.

@@lsusr265 This makes sense, but I still don't get where 'Native Americans have a right to be intolerant of cultural appropriation comes from'. That society sounds sick!

idk could be the whole genocide thing. Maybe they don't enjoy the same people who stole their lands and criminalized their culture to profit off of a bastardized version of it generations later? 🤷‍♂

There's a scene in "The Devil Is a Part-Timer!" where immigrants to Japan from the fantasy demon kingdom are hanging out together. Sadao Maou (demon king) and Emi Yusa (hero sword lady) wear modern (read: Western) clothing. Suzuno Kamazuki spent lots of time studying "Japanese" culture in an attempt to blend in, and looks super out-of-place because she wears a kimono. For the most part, people around the world are wearing basically the same clothing. Humanity's diversity of sartorial traditions are dying. Including traditional Western clothing. Non-statesmen haven't worn white tie in generations.

乾杯！

Thanks for pointing out that and not, say, the autofocus. :P

One heuristic I use is that if a person asks for feedback, then I provide it honestly. The tricky cases are when they don't ask.

I appreciate the suggestion, but I'm not sure there's much to get out of that. I tell myself I'm supposed to do yoga, and then usually don't. I'll take a shower and then make breakfast. Today I bicycled to the market downtown and got some groceries. I'm a big fan of Samurai Matcha, but aren't as minimalist as he is. One thing I'm worried about is I recently moved, and so I'm still figuring out my routines. I don't want to give the impression that I'm more disciplined than I really am, either. That said, the idea sounds very feasible and I would learn a lot about producing videos.

Goddammit. The thing I'm trying to teach is how to NOT get sucked into a cult. I don't want to start a cult. I want to start a religion. Let the prophecy unfold!

cult following != cult@@lsusr265

We are trying to improve with each video. I hope I can make them even more incredible!

Humor is asymmetric too. Jokes work because they point at something true. Stand-up comedians often use the recipe "What is true that you are not allowed to say?"

​@@lsusr265 Yes, though I think that's one half of humour. The other half is bullying. And that's the thing: I rarely see the first kind unalloyed in Socratic dialogues. In Plato's dialogues, for instance, I recall some characters looking ridiculous. Yet in conversations where I'm deeply curious about why another person thinks X thing I know is wrong, and I wind up changing their minds, there's rarely laughter of any sort. (And mocking an interlocutor, or making them feel silly, doesn't work well in my limited experience.) But somehow, you and your guests both laugh. Why the difference, when we expect humour to be useful in changing people's minds? Are your jokes doing work in changing people's minds? If so, how much, and in what ways are you employing the joke? Writing this comment made me realize that I want to watch a bunch more discussions like these, where people change their minds, with different interlocutor styles and see what features are common. Humour, of course, but what other talk-techniques am I blind to?

@algongoku Yes 100%. You ask good questions too. I believe these techniques are both learnable and teachable (with the usual caveats that you have to genuinely want to learn). The words "Juvenalian" and "Horatian" describe the distinction you're pointing at. Juvenalian humor is mocking, cruel and bullying. Juvenalian humor is laughing at a person or a group of people. I prefer Horatian humor. Horatian humor is laughing with a person. Juvenalian humor is about how someone else is misguided. Horatian humor is about how we're all misguided. But even that dichotomy misses other classes of jokes I employ, such as jokes that imply "you're better than this". Jokes are just one of many techniques I use in helping people see the mistakes they're missing. One trait common to many of my techniques is that they're indirect. Jokes are just one of many tools I use to convey an idea indirectly. When I wrote "Flowing like Water. Hard like stone." in this dialogue www.lesswrong.com/posts/WeSovg9Mpw3Rme7zB/flowing-like-water-hard-like-stone, I was being indirect too, but without a punchline.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Letting people figure things out for themselves takes patience. The video is faster than usual. Notice all the cuts. When I edit these videos, I streamline them for the KZbin audience. The real discussion moved at a pace slower than the video makes it seem. I'm still in the experimental stage regarding online sessions. PM me on Less Wrong and/or send me an email www.lsusr.com/email.html if you'd like to try one out.

That is a completely reasonable perspective.

Thank you for the corrections. I read the book a long time ago and forgot these details.

Yup. The way I look at it is that the acausal correlation informs good priors.

The most common one is when I'm talking to a person and they think they're truth-seeking, but I notice details that indicate the behavior is actually motivated by ego and aversion. They feel like levers and buttons I can operate that the person isn't consciously aware of. If I point this out directly, people will deny it, so instead I play a game. Many beliefs are lazily evaluated (in the software sense). I push buttons to elicit a response from a person that /that person/ recognizes are nonsense.

​@@lsusr265 Huh. Sounds more like mind-control and pretty plausible. I'd like to see/hear an example. And I'm curious what you'd detect in me. Could we arrange a mind-reading session?

​@@algongokuYeah, "mind-control" is more accurate for this example. But even that over-sells it a little. More precise words would be "insight", or vipassanā. It's nothing flashy. The result isn't that different from a quality therapy session. I try to keep this channel focused on science, philosophy, economics, rationality, etetera, and away from therapy and self-help. But if you'd like to see what it's like to be on this show, just send me an email and let me know you're @algongoku from KZbin. www.lsusr.com/email.html

Glad you like it! 😄

Thank you so much! Comments like these make my day (and encourage me to make more videos).

Glad you enjoy!

🤣 For a Socratic dialogue to work, it is necessary that both participants have equal status. Thus, either of us must be allowed to sit on the left!

That is indeed one of the challenges. Trust and compassion are different things.

Nice try. :)

@@lsusr265 i'll keep trying until you show you truly love me

I think it's interesting how flowering plants only got back to the early Cretaceous / late Jurassic.