Happy Birthday to Me! I’m off to Geek Summer Camp!

Last updated on: July 21, 2012 at 11:04 am by Leah Libresco

Happy Birthday to Me! I’m off to Geek Summer Camp! 2012-07-21T11:04:45-04:00 Leah Libresco

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

(Not that one, but I do strongly recommend CTY to any readers with children).

I’m in California today and for the rest of the week for a rationality minicamp run by the people behind Less Wrong and the Singularity Institute. This is the kind of summer camp where, before you go, they send you and two close friends a detailed survey, so they have a baseline to assess the impact of the camp on you in a year when they do the follow up. Squee!

As a result, posting will be a little less frequent and more of it will be of the “This is an awesome thing to read! Want to discuss it in the comments?” genre. I’ve also had a folder for a while of some of my favorite LessWrong posts, so I’ll be featuring some of those for people who didn’t want to wade through all the Sequences without a tasting course, first.

So to start off with, I obviously recommend Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which along with, um, well, The Draco Trilogy is my favorite fanfic. And “An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes’ Theorem” is perhaps the most logical way to begin, but I recognize that both of them can feel like a bit of a heavy lift.

So I like to point people to “Archimedes’s Chronophone” as an amuse-bouche. The concept is a little weird, so I’m going to use a long pull quote:

Archimedes of Syracuse was the greatest mathematician and engineer of the ancient world. Imagine that Archimedes invented a temporal telephone (“chronophone” for short) which lets him talk to you, here in the 21st century. You can make suggestions! For purposes of the thought experiment, ignore the morality of altering history – just assume that it is proper to optimize post-Archimedean history as though it were simply the ordinary future. If so, it would seem that you are in a position to accomplish a great deal of good.

Unfortunately, Archimedes’s chronophone comes with certain restrictions upon its use: It cannot transmit information that is, in a certain sense, “too anachronistic”.

You cannot suggest, for example, that women should have the vote. Maybe you could persuade Archimedes of Syracuse of the issue, and maybe not; but it is a moot point, the chronophone will not transmit the advice. Or rather, it will transmit the advice, but it will come out as: “Install a tyrant of great personal virtue, such as Hiero II, under whose rule Syracuse experienced fifty years of peace and prosperity.” That’s how the chronophone avoids transmitting overly anachronistic information – it transmits cognitive strategies rather than words. If you follow the policy of “Check my brain’s memory to see what my contemporary culture recommends as a wise form of political organization”, what comes out of the chronophone is the result of Archimedes following the same policy of looking up in his brain what his era lauds as a wise form of political organization.

You might think the next step would be to prepare a careful series of Plato-style philosophical arguments, starting from known territory, and intended to convince an impartial audience, with which to persuade Archimedes that all sentient beings should be equal before the law. Unfortunately, if you try this, what comes out on Archimedes’s end is a careful series of Plato-style philosophical analogies which argue that wealthy male landowners should have special privileges. You followed the policy of “Come up with a line of philosophical argument intended to persuade a neutral observer to my own era’s point of view on political privilege,” so what comes out of the chronophone is what Archimedes would think up if he followed the same cognitive strategy.

What strategy would you need to use to get Archimedes to come to a new conclusion?

Housekeeping

Previous Post

July 20, 2012

Comments Tab is Up (just after the nick of time)

Next Post

July 22, 2012 Conceding a Point is Not a Slippery Slope

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 7 Quick Takes Apologetics Atheism Book Conversion Debate Tactics Debates Epistemology/Philosophy Housekeeping Ideological Turing Test Marriage Morality in Practice Parsing Catholicism Possibly Heretical Radio Reviews/Recommendations Sequence Index Spiritual Practice Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How does Isaiah describe the suffering servant's reaction to unjust treatment?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Weeping loudly Silent as a sheep Roaring like a lion Fleeing to Egypt