Notes on economies of recreation

Consider that you’d like to reach a certain state. Reaching this state is aided by a substance. This substance costs 5 shekels per marg. .1 margs will aid you for 67.5 minutes. Hence 1 marg aids for 675 minutes or 11.25 hours. For budgeting purposes, monthly, we’ll need 160 shekels for steady aiding if we assume an average of 30 days in a month, 720 hours in a month, and that during at least half of those hours you’ll be asleep or not in need of aid, leaving us with 320 hours, or 28 margs, or ~142 shekels. The remaining 18 shekels are ear marked for the acquisition of aid substance.

‘Cause I…

…said I should.

“When we traded very small, precious pieces, of our soul for a paycheck.” Said in response to the question, “When did we become adults?”

Welcome to…

…Version Four

For starters, we’re on a new host now. Being unemployed means cutting the fat, and running my own server became fiscally irresponsible, so we’ve moved to the awesome AstralSpace dot net for hosting. It’s run by two very talented former co-workers of mine from that place we don’t talk about anymore. Go to them for all of your hosting needs.

A new cleaner theme, and all widget’ed sidebar are here as well. Twitter and Flickr integration are back.

Great to see you all at the new digs.

If you want to know…

…where you’re going, go back to where you came from.

I think that’s got just enough poetry to it to have some truth. So, with that in mind, I went to visit a few places tonight. I thought I’d go check out places I used to live, places I used to work, places I used to go to school, even a few old girlfriends’ houses. It’ll take some time to get to all of them, couldn’t do them all in one sitting, to much driving and not enough gas.

I started down on the south side of Indianapolis. I lived at this first location, we’ll call it 4742 Matgater for a good portion of my life. I shared the home with my grand parents, Patty and Don, and various members of my family. I made a lot of friends, and a few enemies in that neighborhood. I’m not really sure what to say about it. A lot happened there, some good, but being human, I have a hard time focusing on that, and just manage to remember the bad. I wonder if that’s something you can change?

From there I visited another house I lived at with my mother and Great Aunt Rosemary. I remember once she held a yard sale, left me in charge, and I sold two very expensive antique violins for $50. I remember my father coming to visit, being denied entrance and me hitting his arm with a Plexiglas sword. I remember the harrowing tale of the escaped gerbil, and it’s very gruesome execution. I remember skipping school. I remember being sucker punched. I remember biting an extension cord, shocking myself, and seeing stars. I remember almost cutting off left index finger, I still have the scar. I remember visiting the local YMCA and playing pool. I remember hanging out with my grandfather at a car lot.

Leaving that neighborhood I traveled further south, and visiting University of Indianapolis and North Hall. I remember the thrill and rush of true high speed internet access. I remember late nights watching the big screen television in the common room and early mornings with fried eggs and pancakes at the cafeteria. I remember blind and bloody rage, righteous indignation, and the hard lessons of humility that followed.

Traveling further south, I visited an apartment I had off of a street named Orinoco. I searched in vain for the name of the apartment complex, but could find no sign. I remember screaming my lungs out, at more than one person, still not having burnt out the seemingly endless burning pile of rage deep within me. I remember late nights with multiplayer gaming, downloading from newsgroups, and running my own FTP server. I remember black leather couches, cable television, and massive quantities of fast food.

The furthest south last, a place I worked for a short period of time, a cyber cafe by the name of Cyberia, it’s now a mexican market of some sort. I remember learning how to pull a shot of espresso, foam milk, and add shitty tasting flavors to various forms of legally addictive stimulants. I remember working with many different people. I remember the hatred of cleaning things that were never used. I remember spending long hours after my shift, whiling away the time at Empire Earth, playing 24 hour games against the computer. I remember defending my then checkered past to the Powers that Were, being exonerated, and feeling an elation I’m not sure I’ve felt since. I remember talking smack to people that were larger than I, possessing of much better weaponry, and supposedly little fear of using it.

I’m not sure, but at more than a few places a long that trip, I can clearly see places I didn’t apply myself. I don’t regret it, I know I’m who I am because of those experiences, and wouldn’t change them at all. But maybe I can apply myself better.

You are a Social Liberal (83% permissive) and an… Economic Moderate (56% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Further thoughts

Our biological imperative is to procreate.
Our emotional imperative is to have companionship.
Our spiritual imperative is to have faith.
Our psychological imperative is to reason.

Procreation, companionship, faith, reason. Or Love if you’d like a simpler definition.

Quite simply…

…the most illuminating essay on rationality that I’ve ever read.

Twelve Virtues of Rationality

Twelve Virtues of Rationality
©2006 by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance. If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer. The glory of glorious mystery is to be solved, after which it ceases to be mystery. Be wary of those who speak of being open-minded and modestly confess their ignorance. There is a time to confess your ignorance and a time to relinquish your ignorance.

The second virtue is relinquishment. P. C. Hodgell said: “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm. Evaluate your beliefs first and then arrive at your emotions. Let yourself say: “If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.” Beware lest you become attached to beliefs you may not want.

The third virtue is lightness. Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Beware lest you fight a rearguard retreat against the evidence, grudgingly conceding each foot of ground only when forced, feeling cheated. Surrender to the truth as quickly as you can. Do this the instant you realize what you are resisting; the instant you can see from which quarter the winds of evidence are blowing against you. Be faithless to your cause and betray it to a stronger enemy. If you regard evidence as a constraint and seek to free yourself, you sell yourself into the chains of your whims. For you cannot make a true map of a city by sitting in your bedroom with your eyes shut and drawing lines upon paper according to impulse. You must walk through the city and draw lines on paper that correspond to what you see. If, seeing the city unclearly, you think that you can shift a line just a little to the right, just a little to the left, according to your caprice, this is just the same mistake.

The fourth virtue is evenness. One who wishes to believe says, “Does the evidence permit me to believe?” One who wishes to disbelieve asks, “Does the evidence force me to believe?” Beware lest you place huge burdens of proof only on propositions you dislike, and then defend yourself by saying: “But it is good to be skeptical.” If you attend only to favorable evidence, picking and choosing from your gathered data, then the more data you gather, the less you know. If you are selective about which arguments you inspect for flaws, or how hard you inspect for flaws, then every flaw you learn how to detect makes you that much stupider. If you first write at the bottom of a sheet of paper, “And therefore, the sky is green!”, it does not matter what arguments you write above it afterward; the conclusion is already written, and it is already correct or already wrong. To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization. Intelligence, to be useful, must be used for something other than defeating itself. Listen to hypotheses as they plead their cases before you, but remember that you are not a hypothesis, you are the judge. Therefore do not seek to argue for one side or another, for if you knew your destination, you would already be there.

The fifth virtue is argument. Those who wish to fail must first prevent their friends from helping them. Those who smile wisely and say: “I will not argue,” remove themselves from help, and withdraw from the communal effort. In argument strive for exact honesty, for the sake of others and also yourself: The part of yourself that distorts what you say to others also distorts your own thoughts. Do not believe you do others a favor if you accept their arguments; the favor is to you. Do not think that fairness to all sides means balancing yourself evenly between positions; truth is not handed out in equal portions before the start of a debate. You cannot move forward on factual questions by fighting with fists or insults. Seek a test that lets reality judge between you.

The sixth virtue is empiricism. The roots of knowledge are in observation and its fruit is prediction. What tree grows without roots? What tree nourishes us without fruit? If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? One says, “Yes it does, for it makes vibrations in the air.” Another says, “No it does not, for there is no auditory processing in any brain.” Though they argue, one saying “Yes”, and one saying “No”, the two do not anticipate any different experience of the forest. Do not ask which beliefs to profess, but which experiences to anticipate. Always know which difference of experience you argue about. Do not let the argument wander and become about something else, such as someone’s virtue as a rationalist. Jerry Cleaver said: “What does you in is not failure to apply some high-level, intricate, complicated technique. It’s overlooking the basics. Not keeping your eye on the ball.” Do not be blinded by words. When words are subtracted, anticipation remains.

The seventh virtue is simplicity. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Simplicity is virtuous in belief, design, planning, and justification. When you profess a huge belief with many details, each additional detail is another chance for the belief to be wrong. Each specification adds to your burden; if you can lighten your burden you must do so. There is no straw that lacks the power to break your back. Of artifacts it is said: The most reliable gear is the one that is designed out of the machine. Of plans: A tangled web breaks. A chain of a thousand links will arrive at a correct conclusion if every step is correct, but if one step is wrong it may carry you anywhere. In mathematics a mountain of good deeds cannot atone for a single sin. Therefore, be careful on every step.

The eighth virtue is humility. To be humble is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors. To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty. Who are most humble? Those who most skillfully prepare for the deepest and most catastrophic errors in their own beliefs and plans. Because this world contains many whose grasp of rationality is abysmal, beginning students of rationality win arguments and acquire an exaggerated view of their own abilities. But it is useless to be superior: Life is not graded on a curve. The best physicist in ancient Greece could not calculate the path of a falling apple. There is no guarantee that adequacy is possible given your hardest effort; therefore spare no thought for whether others are doing worse. If you compare yourself to others you will not see the biases that all humans share. To be human is to make ten thousand errors. No one in this world achieves perfection.

The ninth virtue is perfectionism. The more errors you correct in yourself, the more you notice. As your mind becomes more silent, you hear more noise. When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek advancement to the next level. If you tolerate the error rather than correcting it, you will not advance to the next level and you will not gain the skill to notice new errors. In every art, if you do not seek perfection you will halt before taking your first steps. If perfection is impossible that is no excuse for not trying. Hold yourself to the highest standard you can imagine, and look for one still higher. Do not be content with the answer that is almost right; seek one that is exactly right.

The tenth virtue is precision. One comes and says: The quantity is between 1 and 100. Another says: the quantity is between 40 and 50. If the quantity is 42 they are both correct, but the second prediction was more useful and exposed itself to a stricter test. What is true of one apple may not be true of another apple; thus more can be said about a single apple than about all the apples in the world. The narrowest statements slice deepest, the cutting edge of the blade. As with the map, so too with the art of mapmaking: The Way is a precise Art. Do not walk to the truth, but dance. On each and every step of that dance your foot comes down in exactly the right spot. Each piece of evidence shifts your beliefs by exactly the right amount, neither more nor less. What is exactly the right amount? To calculate this you must study probability theory. Even if you cannot do the math, knowing that the math exists tells you that the dance step is precise and has no room in it for your whims.

The eleventh virtue is scholarship. Study many sciences and absorb their power as your own. Each field that you consume makes you larger. If you swallow enough sciences the gaps between them will diminish and your knowledge will become a unified whole. If you are gluttonous you will become vaster than mountains. It is especially important to eat math and science which impinges upon rationality: Evolutionary psychology, heuristics and biases, social psychology, probability theory, decision theory. But these cannot be the only fields you study. The Art must have a purpose other than itself, or it collapses into infinite recursion.

Before these eleven virtues is a virtue which is nameless.

Miyamoto Musashi wrote, in The Book of Five Rings:

“The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. More than anything, you must be thinking of carrying your movement through to cutting him.”

Every step of your reasoning must cut through to the correct answer in the same movement. More than anything, you must think of carrying your map through to reflecting the territory.

If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety.

How can you improve your conception of rationality? Not by saying to yourself, “It is my duty to be rational.” By this you only enshrine your mistaken conception. Perhaps your conception of rationality is that it is rational to believe the words of the Great Teacher, and the Great Teacher says, “The sky is green,” and you look up at the sky and see blue. If you think: “It may look like the sky is blue, but rationality is to believe the words of the Great Teacher,” you lose a chance to discover your mistake.

Do not ask whether it is “the Way” to do this or that. Ask whether the sky is blue or green. If you speak overmuch of the Way you will not attain it.

You may try to name the highest principle with names such as “the map that reflects the territory” or “experience of success and failure” or “Bayesian decision theory”. But perhaps you describe incorrectly the nameless virtue. How will you discover your mistake? Not by comparing your description to itself, but by comparing it to that which you did not name.

If for many years you practice the techniques and submit yourself to strict constraints, it may be that you will glimpse the center. Then you will see how all techniques are one technique, and you will move correctly without feeling constrained. Musashi wrote: “When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. All this is the Way of the Void.”

These then are twelve virtues of rationality:

Curiosity, relinquishment, lightness, evenness, argument, empiricism, simplicity, humility, perfectionism, precision, scholarship, and the void.