Rationality · From AI to Zombies by Yudkowsky, Eliezer -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Preface Biases: An Introduction by Rob Bensinger Book I Map and Territory Part A Predictably Wrong

1 What Do I Mean By “Rationality”? 2 Feeling Rational 3 Why Truth? And . . . 4 . . . What’s a Bias, Again? 5 Availability 6 Burdensome Details 7 Planning Fallacy 8 Illusion of Transparency: Why No One Understands You 9 Expecting Short Inferential Distances 10 The Lens That Sees Its Own Flaws

Part B Fake Beliefs

11 Making Beliefs Pay Rent (in Anticipated Experiences) 12 A Fable of Science and Politics 13 Belief in Belief 14 Bayesian Judo 15 Pretending to be Wise 16 Religion’s Claim to be Non-Disprovable 17 Professing and Cheering 18 Belief as Attire 19 Applause Lights

Part C Noticing Confusion

20 Focus Your Uncertainty 21 What Is Evidence? 22 Scientific Evidence, Legal Evidence, Rational Evidence 23 How Much Evidence Does It Take? 24 Einstein’s Arrogance 25 Occam’s Razor 26 Your Strength as a Rationalist 27 Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence 28 Conservation of Expected Evidence 29 Hindsight Devalues Science

Part D Mysterious Answers

30 Fake Explanations 31 Guessing the Teacher’s Password 32 Science as Attire 33 Fake Causality 34 Semantic Stopsigns 35 Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions 36 The Futility of Emergence 37 Say Not “Complexity” 38 Positive Bias: Look into the Dark 39 Lawful Uncertainty 40 My Wild and Reckless Youth 41 Failing to Learn from History 42 Making History Available 43 Explain/Worship/Ignore? 44 “Science” as Curiosity-Stopper 45 Truly Part of You Interlude The Simple Truth

Book II How to Actually Change Your Mind

Rationality: An Introduction by Rob Bensinger

Part E Overly Convenient Excuses

46 The Proper Use of Humility 47 The Third Alternative 48 Lotteries: A Waste of Hope 49 New Improved Lottery 50 But There’s Still a Chance, Right? 51 The Fallacy of Gray 52 Absolute Authority 53 How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3 54 Infinite Certainty 55 0 And 1 Are Not Probabilities 56 Your Rationality Is My Business

Part F Politics and Rationality

57 Politics is the Mind-Killer 58 Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided 59 The Scales of Justice, the Notebook of Rationality 60 Correspondence Bias 61 Are Your Enemies Innately Evil? 62 Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence 63 Argument Screens Off Authority 64 Hug the Query 65 Rationality and the English Language 66 Human Evil and Muddled Thinking

Part G Against Rationalization

67 Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People 68 Update Yourself Incrementally 69 One Argument Against An Army 70 The Bottom Line 71 What Evidence Filtered Evidence? 72 Rationalization 73 A Rational Argument 74 Avoiding Your Belief’s Real Weak Points 75 Motivated Stopping and Motivated Continuation 76 Fake Justification 77 Is That Your True Rejection? 78 Entangled Truths, Contagious Lies 79 Of Lies and Black Swan Blowups 80 Dark Side Epistemology

Part H Against Doublethink

81 Singlethink 82 Doublethink (Choosing to be Biased) 83 No, Really, I’ve Deceived Myself 84 Belief in Self-Deception 85 Moore’s Paradox 86 Don’t Believe You’ll Self-Deceive

Part I Seeing with Fresh Eyes

87 Anchoring and Adjustment 88 Priming and Contamination 89 Do We Believe Everything We’re Told? 90 Cached Thoughts 91 The “Outside the Box” Box 92 Original Seeing 93 Stranger than History 94 The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence 95 The Virtue of Narrowness 96 How to Seem (and Be) Deep 97 We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think 98 Hold Off On Proposing Solutions 99 The Genetic Fallacy

Part J Death Spirals

100 The Affect Heuristic 101 Evaluability (and Cheap Holiday Shopping) 102 Unbounded Scales, Huge Jury Awards, and Futurism 103 The Halo Effect 104 Superhero Bias 105 Mere Messiahs 106 Affective Death Spirals 107 Resist the Happy Death Spiral 108 Uncritical Supercriticality 109 Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs 110 When None Dare Urge Restraint 111 The Robbers Cave Experiment 112 Every Cause Wants to Be a Cult 113 Guardians of the Truth 114 Guardians of the Gene Pool 115 Guardians of Ayn Rand 116 Two Cult Koans 117 Asch’s Conformity Experiment 118 On Expressing Your Concerns 119 Lonely Dissent 120 Cultish Countercultishness

Part K Letting Go

121 The Importance of Saying “Oops” 122 The Crackpot Offer 123 Just Lose Hope Already 124 The Proper Use of Doubt 125 You Can Face Reality 126 The Meditation on Curiosity 127 No One Can Exempt You From Rationality’s Laws 128 Leave a Line of Retreat 129 Crisis of Faith 130 The Ritual

Book III The Machine in the Ghost

Minds: An Introduction by Rob Bensinger Interlude The Power of Intelligence

Part L The Simple Math of Evolution

131 An Alien God 132 The Wonder of Evolution 133 Evolutions Are Stupid (But Work Anyway) 134 No Evolutions for Corporations or Nanodevices 135 Evolving to Extinction 136 The Tragedy of Group Selectionism 137 Fake Optimization Criteria 138 Adaptation-Executers, Not Fitness-Maximizers 139 Evolutionary Psychology 140 An Especially Elegant Evolutionary Psychology Experiment 141 Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization 142 Thou Art Godshatter

Part M Fragile Purposes

143 Belief in Intelligence 144 Humans in Funny Suits 145 Optimization and the Intelligence Explosion 146 Ghosts in the Machine 147 Artificial Addition 148 Terminal Values and Instrumental Values 149 Leaky Generalizations 150 The Hidden Complexity of Wishes 151 Anthropomorphic Optimism 152 Lost Purposes

Part N A Human’s Guide to Words

153 The Parable of the Dagger 154 The Parable of Hemlock 155 Words as Hidden Inferences 156 Extensions and Intensions 157 Similarity Clusters 158 Typicality and Asymmetrical Similarity 159 The Cluster Structure of Thingspace 160 Disguised Queries 161 Neural Categories 162 How An Algorithm Feels From Inside 163 Disputing Definitions 164 Feel the Meaning 165 The Argument from Common Usage 166 Empty Labels 167 Taboo Your Words 168 Replace the Symbol with the Substance 169 Fallacies of Compression 170 Categorizing Has Consequences 171 Sneaking in Connotations 172 Arguing “By Definition” 173 Where to Draw the Boundary? 174 Entropy, and Short Codes 175 Mutual Information, and Density in Thingspace 176 Superexponential Conceptspace, and Simple Words 177 Conditional Independence, and Naive Bayes 178 Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles 179 Variable Question Fallacies 180 37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong Interlude An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes’s Theorem

Book IV Mere Reality

The World: An Introduction by Rob Bensinger

Part O Lawful Truth

181 Universal Fire 182 Universal Law 183 Is Reality Ugly? 184 Beautiful Probability 185 Outside the Laboratory 186 The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition 187 Perpetual Motion Beliefs 188 Searching for Bayes-Structure

Part P Reductionism 101

189 Dissolving the Question 190 Wrong Questions 191 Righting a Wrong Question 192 Mind Projection Fallacy 193 Probability is in the Mind 194 The Quotation is Not the Referent 195 Qualitatively Confused 196 Think Like Reality 197 Chaotic Inversion 198 Reductionism 199 Explaining vs. Explaining Away 200 Fake Reductionism 201 Savannah Poets 202 Joy in the Merely Real

Part Q Joy in the Merely Real

203 Joy in Discovery 204 Bind Yourself to Reality 205 If You Demand Magic, Magic Won’t Help 206 Mundane Magic 207 The Beauty of Settled Science 208 Amazing Breakthrough Day: April 1st 209 Is Humanism a Religion Substitute? 210 Scarcity 211 The Sacred Mundane 212 To Spread Science, Keep It Secret 213 Initiation Ceremony

Part R Physicalism 201

214 Hand vs. Fingers 215 Angry Atoms 216 Heat vs. Motion 217 Brain Breakthrough! It’s Made of Neurons! 218 When Anthropomorphism Became Stupid 219 A Priori 220 Reductive Reference 221 Zombies! Zombies? 222 Zombie Responses 223 The Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle 224 GAZP vs. GLUT 225 Belief in the Implied Invisible 226 Zombies: The Movie 227 Excluding the Supernatural 228 Psychic Powers

Part S Quantum Physics and Many Worlds

229 Quantum Explanations 230 Configurations and Amplitude 231 Joint Configurations 232 Distinct Configurations 233 Collapse Postulates 234 Decoherence is Simple 235 Decoherence is Falsifiable and Testable 236 Privileging the Hypothesis 237 Living in Many Worlds 238 Quantum Non-Realism 239 If Many-Worlds Had Come First 240 Where Philosophy Meets Science 241 Thou Art Physics 242 Many Worlds, One Best Guess

Part T Science and Rationality

243 The Failures of Eld Science 244 The Dilemma: Science or Bayes? 245 Science Doesn’t Trust Your Rationality 246 When Science Can’t Help 247 Science Isn’t Strict Enough 248 Do Scientists Already Know This Stuff? 249 No Safe Defense, Not Even Science 250 Changing the Definition of Science 251 Faster Than Science 252 Einstein’s Speed 253 That Alien Message 254 My Childhood Role Model 255 Einstein’s Superpowers 256 Class Project Interlude A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation

Book V Mere Goodness

Ends: An Introduction by Rob Bensinger

Part U Fake Preferences

257 Not for the Sake of Happiness (Alone) 258 Fake Selfishness 259 Fake Morality 260 Fake Utility Functions 261 Detached Lever Fallacy 262 Dreams of AI Design 263 The Design Space of Minds-in-General

Part V Value Theory

264 Where Recursive Justification Hits Bottom 265 My Kind of Reflection 266 No Universally Compelling Arguments 267 Created Already in Motion 268 Sorting Pebbles into Correct Heaps 269 2-Place and 1-Place Words 270 What Would You Do Without Morality? 271 Changing Your Metaethics 272 Could Anything Be Right? 273 Morality as Fixed Computation 274 Magical Categories 275 The True Prisoner’s Dilemma 276 Sympathetic Minds 277 High Challenge 278 Serious Stories 279 Value is Fragile 280 The Gift We Give to Tomorrow

Part W Quantified Humanism

281 Scope Insensitivity 282 One Life Against the World 283 The Allais Paradox 284 Zut Allais! 285 Feeling Moral 286 The “Intuitions” Behind “Utilitarianism” 287 Ends Don’t Justify Means (Among Humans) 288 Ethical Injunctions 289 Something to Protect 290 When (Not) to Use Probabilities 291 Newcomb’s Problem and Regret of Rationality Interlude The Twelve Virtues of Rationality

Book VI Becoming Stronger

Beginnings: An Introduction by Rob Bensinger

Part X Yudkowsky’s Coming of Age

292 My Childhood Death Spiral 293 My Best and Worst Mistake 294 Raised in Technophilia 295 A Prodigy of Refutation 296 The Sheer Folly of Callow Youth 297 That Tiny Note of Discord 298 Fighting a Rearguard Action Against the Truth 299 My Naturalistic Awakening 300 The Level Above Mine 301 The Magnitude of His Own Folly 302 Beyond the Reach of God 303 My Bayesian Enlightenment

Part Y Challenging the Difficult

304 Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want to Become Stronger) 305 Tsuyoku vs. the Egalitarian Instinct 306 Trying to Try 307 Use the Try Harder, Luke 308 On Doing the Impossible 309 Make an Extraordinary Effort 310 Shut Up and Do the Impossible! 311 Final Words

Part Z The Craft and the Community

312 Raising the Sanity Waterline 313 A Sense That More Is Possible 314 Epistemic Viciousness 315 Schools Proliferating Without Evidence 316 Three Levels of Rationality Verification 317 Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate 318 Tolerate Tolerance 319 Your Price for Joining 320 Can Humanism Match Religion’s Output? 321 Church vs. Taskforce 322 Rationality: Common Interest of Many Causes 323 Helpless Individuals 324 Money: The Unit of Caring 325 Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately 326 Bystander Apathy 327 Collective Apathy and the Internet 328 Incremental Progress and the Valley 329 Bayesians vs. Barbarians 330 Beware of Other-Optimizing 331 Practical Advice Backed by Deep Theories 332 The Sin of Underconfidence 333 Go Forth and Create the Art! Bibliography

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