Quote of the day

"He calls me once in a while and there's that special bond you have with a guy who's played guitar while you've floated around naked in zero G."

- Penn Jillette, "God, No!"

Quote of the day

"One important detail is that actions that have not yet been tried in a state s are always assumed to lead immediately to the goal with the least possible cost, namely h(s). This optimism under uncertainty encourages the agent to explore new, possibly promising paths.

- Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Russell&Norwig)

Amusing how theory can guide one's life as well as explain the inevitable disappointments. Of course, Mae West anticipated theory with "Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven't tried before"

Obscure segue of the month

The prize goes to one of my favorite bloggers (my most frequently hat-tipped, too!), Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution, who bafflingly connects a post about the responsibilities identical twins might have to each other (the idea is here that a twin who reveals details about their genome automatically reveals the same about the twin) with a post about swimsuit pictures.

Amazingly, this actually works.  In the second post, the question is whether women who reveal their bodies are violating some duty to OTHER women not to be seen as sex objects (making both posts about externalities toward other members of a genetic group - one very specific, the other everybody having two X chromosomes).

Reassuringly, the swimsuit pictures are OK by Katja Grace, the philosophical writer of the second post:

In sum, I agree that women who look like ‘sex objects’ increase the expectation by viewers of more women being ‘sex objects’. I think this is a rational and socially useful response on the part of viewers, relative to continuing to believe in a lower rate of sex objects amongst women. I also think it is virtually certain that in any given case the women in question should go on advertising themselves as sex objects, since they clearly produce a lot of benefit for themselves and viewers that way, and the externality is likely miniscule. 

Personally, I think the women in question could go quite a bit further in advertising themselves as sex objects than by just posing for swimsuit issues.

Life as an adventure

Tyler Cowen from Marginal Revolution ponders one of his favorite philosophers (just follow the link, boys and girls) who compares literary adventures (where the main characters often follow a path that has been mapped out for them by either a living guide or a trail of clues) with real life careers.

His Robin Hanson quote is worth quoting again:

If you want life paths that quickly and reliably reveal your skills, like leveling up in video games, you want artificial worlds like schools, sporting leagues, and corporate fast tracks. You might call such lives adventures, but really they pretty much the opposite. If you insist instead on adventuring for real, achieving things of real and large consequence against great real obstacles, well then learn to see the glorious nobility of those who try well yet fail.

How happy is happy enough?

Well, if you're not there yet, Badakesuyo tweets how to move in the right direction.

Chess versus poker

I stopped playing chess on a regular basis a long, long time ago.

When I DO play abstract strategy games, I usually play go.

Once upon a time, though, I was a serious player: a member of the United States Chess Federation (USCF), a player in tournaments, even a (losing) contender for the run-off to challenge for the championship of the US Virgin Islands.

Of the many world chess championships, many have been spectacular failures. There have been lunatics, apparatchiks, and monomaniacs (of course, being a monomaniac might be a prerequisite for being the world's best at almost ANYTHING). One that I've admired, though, has been Kasparov, who wrote this article about chess and computers:

erhaps chess is the wrong game for the times. Poker is now everywhere, as amateurs dream of winning millions and being on television for playing a card game whose complexities can be detailed on a single piece of paper. But while chess is a 100 percent information game—both players are aware of all the data all the time—and therefore directly susceptible to computing power, poker has hidden cards and variable stakes, creating critical roles for chance, bluffing, and risk management.

These might seem to be aspects of poker based entirely on human psychology and therefore invulnerable to computer incursion. A machine can trivially calculate the odds of every hand, but what to make of an opponent with poor odds making a large bet? And yet the computers are advancing here as well. Jonathan Schaeffer, the inventor of the checkers-solving program, has moved on to poker and his digital players are performing better and better against strong humans—with obvious implications for online gambling sites.

Perhaps the current trend of many chess professionals taking up the more lucrative pastime of poker is not a wholly negative one. It may not be too late for humans to relearn how to take risks in order to innovate and thereby maintain the advanced lifestyles we enjoy. And if it takes a poker-playing supercomputer to remind us that we can't enjoy the rewards without taking the risks, so be it.

HT, again, MR!

Recommendation: I Am A Strange Loop

This book by Hofstadter (best known for Goedel, Escher, Bach) pretty much means I don't have to write it. If you are interested in the nature of the self and the meaning of consciousness, this book is for you. You might not agree with it, but you should be aware of that point of view.

Texting for somebody else's supper....

Marginal Revolution points us to this article that describes how you can donate to charities by texting.

Quote of the day

"I am shy with women: therefore there is no God" is highly unconvincing metaphysics.
- Fernando Pessoa

Hume versus Brooks

Yes, it is an uneven contest, brought to you by the good professors of Language Log. This is a refutation of Brooks' piece, The End of Philosophy, taking a handicap of over 200 years.

Still....if philosophers had just written in a more readable style, would we still have to be rehashing their ignored ideas today?

Better than reality : a principle to live by

This article points out the futility of designing web interfaces to "emulate" (more like "mock", which actually works quite well if the intention is humor rather than usability) the real world.

The principle is clear: don't burden yourself with unnecessary limitations just to cleave to the familiar. Transcend.

HT: MR on the Kindle

Quote of the Day

Speed, velocity, simultaneity, acceleration, and other mathematical abstractions having to do with the patterns of eternity were part of Martian mathematics, but not of Martian emotion. Contrariwise, the unceasing rush and turmoil of human existence came not from mathematical necessities of time but from the frantic urgency implicit in human sexual bipolarity.

Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land"

Abortion

This Straight Dope article actually states my own opinion quite well:

1. Human life begins at conception.

2. Big deal.

Even though I do not object to legalized abortion, it has always irritated me when people arguing against abortion prohibition would not admit that, yes, they thought it should be legal to terminate a human life.

The Catholic church is right about this: if you believe that human life is sacrosanct, you can not tolerate abortion, euthanasia, or capital punishment.

If you favor any of those listed, you are speaking against the absolute sanctity of human life, and saying that different human lives have different values. You are saying that you have to think.

Live with it.

To me, abortion is ending a human life, but it is not murder. If it were done without consent of the mother, it would be a grave crime against her, but the interests of the fetus are not the interests of our society. Certainly people who are infertile and would love to have a baby, other relatives (or perhaps boyfriend or husbands), and people generally opposed to abortion may find this disturbing. That's OK - go ahead and bribe the mom and try to make it worth her while to have the baby, but in the end it is her decision.

To me, euthanasia should be a basic human right. If you do not believe your life is worth the pain that it costs, you should be able to end it. The fact that you might change your mind later is really not the issue....you should have that right.

As capital punishment goes, I am sort of against it. A healthy human life must have some value, and ending it against the will of them who would live it seems wrong, a waste. But in the really bad cases, it does not seem much of a loss. I guess I would say that it should be avoided when possible.