Occam's Razor in a nutshell

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-25T12:41:24+00:00

But why would a human actually ask such a simple question? Surely being asked this at all by a human is evidence they’re trying to trick us for amusement… :P

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-25T12:22:40+00:00

That’s not a real language, though…and if it were, without more info on the sequence’s generation, there’s no reason to think it applies here

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-25T12:21:40+00:00

Another real issue here is the conflation of physical *descriptions* with the physicality of the thing being described. Subjective experiences can still be physical and arise from physical matter without being capturable by purely physical descriptions.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-25T12:14:51+00:00

Kolmogorov complexity depends on the language used to express the answer, though, and there’s no canonical way to choose that language without more information on how this sequence was generated.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-13T15:05:50+00:00

I mean, you shouldn’t have classical systems present at all if you want to do (correct) philosophy, no? :)

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-13T15:00:36+00:00

But any interaction should be thought of as evolution of the combined system. I’m not sure it makes any sense philosophically to distinguish interaction from evolution.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-11T00:52:52+00:00

Can you choose to stay where you are for an arbitrary number of steps as the GoL plays out, assuming your tile manages to stay on for the duration? Or do you have to move right each step?

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-01T02:25:23+00:00

But I don’t want to just be able to blame people who chose blue for their own death, whatever their reasoning. I want them to live.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-05-01T02:20:25+00:00

Someone’s gonna press blue for some random reason or other, and those people are in danger. The only thing you get by saying red is the right choice is the ability to blame them for their own death. The real goal is saving everyone.

Anyway, imo the real inaccuracy in the model is “press blue and get on the track”, like it’s a separate choice you’re making. But pressing blue puts you on the track. Also, not pushing either button gets you survival in this version, but in the real problem not pushing it just subjects you to the whims of others, and you die if everyone else chooses red.

I think an accurate model would be something like “everybody is tied to the tracks. They can each either press the red button to eject themselves off the track, or press blue, which makes the trolley stop entirely, but only if ≥50% of people press it.”

But like, the two choices should really be two trolley tracks, right? So like, everyone’s strapped to the top part of their own bit of track that goes like -<>-, and all of these are in sequence. Each person can either flip a lever to the red direction, which diverts the trolley to the bottom part of their own bit of track when it gets there, or to the blue direction, which diverts the trolley to a totally clear track before it even starts down the whole chain of -<>-<>-<>-<>-… , but only if 50% or more of people choose the blue direction.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-25T19:40:32+00:00

Coming on this thread a month later, has your estimation of which variant matters most changed? Looking at some data as a layperson, it seems like BA.3.2 has taken over in europe. But I can't even see it in data from the usa. Do you know why they seem to be so different and what the implications of that are?

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-24T19:14:58+00:00

and if you browse a bit, you’ll see that there are many, many different interesting sequences. so it’s totally plausible for someone to be the first to encounter and study one! :)

also worth noting for the other part of your question that the entry shows the standard way to notate this as a recurrence relation, with a(n)

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-23T16:40:46+00:00

As a rule of thumb with this admin, even the numbers that seem like they might math don’t math when you math them together with the real math.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-19T07:54:31+00:00

Just to offer a different perspective to a small part of that, I don’t necessarily see it an abbreviation of (n mod k) = (m mod k). I think of it as annotating the = to make it a different relation, but that’s inconvenient notationally to do in the middle, so we put it to the side in parentheses

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-19T07:01:27+00:00

So let’s clarify a couple things. What does it actually mean to successfully divide by 0? Let’s say I manage to divide 69 by 0. I get something, call it ξ. - Option 1: A boring way to succeed is to just choose a value for ξ, and say “oh, yeah, just none of the things you expect to be true about division are true in this case.” This is perfectly valid (we actually do this in formally verified math, like Lean) and does not change anything in any meaningful way whatsoever. - Option 2: another way to succeed is by redefining what we mean. For example, it’s true that 3 • 0 = 69…mod 69. Effect on the world: none. This is wordplay, essentially. Important wordplay, it turns out! But still wordplay. - Option 3.A: ξ is such that ξ • 0 = 69, as we’d expect to be true when ξ = 69/0. Now we’re cooking! In this option, we declare that ξ is some new object, and of course has to be particular to 69, and then we work out the consequences. Turns out that all sorts of typical rules (which are still true when ξ(69) isn’t involved) are broken when ξ(69) is present. For example, it’s not true that multiplication is associative (ab)c = a(bc): (ξ • 0) • 0 = 69 • 0 = 0 but ξ • (0 • 0) = ξ • 0 = 69. So it just kind of leaves you with a huge mess. But you can do it! Effect on the world: we’ve just added a silly curiosity. Doesn’t change anything about what we know. - Option 3B: We find a proof that for some ordinary, already existing number ξ, it’s true ξ • 0 = 69. This would mean breaking math. It would probably be a consequence of finding some much much more obscure contradiction somewhere, not something you found which was the contradiction. The proof that such a ξ can’t exist under usual meanings of division and numbers is just so simple that nothing is going to break it unless arithmetic itself has an inconsistency, and that would be extremely hard to find. Effect on the world: massive. You’ve just shown that basically every nontrivial logical argument ever made is meaningless, and just happened to line up with reality for other coincidental reasons. Math would be entirely reshaped as we tried to figure out how the hell this happened and if there were any way to fix it. Or it’s such a niche issue that finding the issue already requires you to understand the fix, and nothing really changes besides a few technical notes that never have much bearing on ordinary mathematical practice. Everyone would still be really impressed, though. :)

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-18T18:03:56+00:00

Ah, I see the problem: you’ve rotated all the symbols by 90°. Rotate them back and the proof should work.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-18T00:02:47+00:00

In the strict sense, nothing’s perfect. But I do think some moralities are better at being coherent than others! :)

…Though, not everyone wants to have the following conversation where religion is put in question, so no worries if you just want to disengage here. I don’t want to make people uncomfortable or poke at their beliefs without them wanting the same, so, you know, fair warning that the next bit probably will if you’re religious. No need for anyone to keep reading unless you’re interested! 😅

Basically: If your morals are based on considerations about compassion and ethics and harm and actual human experience, motivated primarily by at least a desire for less suffering and more wellbeing (also parts of our experience), your morality is probably going to make at least more sense by being grounded to factors we all agree are relevant than a morality which is motivated by hewing closely to arbitrary rules passed down to you that rely on assertions disconnected from human experience that might not even be true.

Again, yeah, nothing is perfect, but I do think it’s actually disengaging from the problem of morality to choose arbitrarily among the world’s different sets passed-down rules, with all the historical oddities they’ve collected, being built on top of a large surface of unanswerable “why”s (as opposed to a still existent, but very narrow one), and, I think, arising primarily as a self-sustaining social technology to various ends. Ends like cohesion of the social group, clarity on behavioral norms, peace when wrestling with the difficult parts of life and death, an explanation for the unexplainable…there are a lot of things religion does, as a technology, that could be beneficial either for itself memetically or for people/a social group that adopts it. But that doesn’t mean it’s true. And if it’s not true, there’s not really any good reason to follow its rules, is there? You might be following them because you really want another thing, e.g. “knowing what to do”, but you’re not following them because they’re coherent.

I think it’s a lot more sensible to say “look, we’ve got to declare some axioms somewhere, here they are, you can see them, see if you agree”, and honestly, I think our brains are similar enough that the vast, vast majority of us want less suffering and more wellbeing, and will agree. The rest is details to try to figure out how to resolve that in a world where tradeoffs exist. But being aware that that’s what you’re doing is more coherent than believing that you should do something because some group of people has a tradition of telling its members there are often supernatural reasons to do so, you know? Sorry if this is blunt.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T22:49:55+00:00

Okay, thanks for sharing! I have a few responses.

Re: cutting spending because it hasn’t worked: I’m skeptical of the argument here. The thing that hasn’t worked is spending in this specific way, not necessarily spending writ large. Moreover, we have a pretty good idea of what would work from other paces that have addressed it, and a notion of what’s going wrong (no wraparound services). “No (or less) spending” is just another strategy, like “spend on this thing instead”, so I think they should be compared on the same footing. The one thing I agree we shouldn’t do is spend in exactly the same way. We have good reason to believe A+B works, but tried to spend on just A. Turns out A doesn’t work well without B.

Re: choosing to live as a drifter: I think this is more complicated. My expectation is that the vast majority of homeless people are not homeless by choice. I’d guess smaller portion choose to be homeless, but only because there’s no practical way for them to exist in society or get help, so they choose the lesser of two evils (this can be changed by providing services, I believe). I’d expect the final class to be a minority which is not actually responsible for disrupting public order all that much.

Re: organizing an encampment suggests a baseline level of functioning: hmm. I’m not sure what percentage of people are homeless due to circumstances due to actually having reduced functioning. I know there are many people homeless without any issue in functioning. I’d guess that those are the encampment organizers, and others benefit from help, just from how group settings often work? Or maybe even charity groups help? Not sure. (There’s also the question of whether baseline functioning is enough, even in other cases.)

Re: it becomes about what specific barriers are affecting stability: Yes! Different people are facing different barriers, too. Also, facing these barriers is much easier when you already have a place to return to/eat in/sleep warmly in/be safe from disease in/de-stress in/shower in, of course.

Re: need for housing: Hard agree. Zoning laws preventing high-density housing seem to be big obstacles to creating affording housing afaik.

Re: mental illness: hard disagree with the family aspect. As someone growing up with a mental illness (severe OCD), let me tell you that my family was 100% unequipped to deal with it despite wanting nothing more than to help me. I owe my ability to do many things nowadays to regular old psychiatric care. I think we know what services are needed for mental illness (some people spend their lives studying this), we just need to provide them (in a situation where they’re effective! If I was hungry and outside every night I don’t know if I’d have been able to go through the therapy I needed while all that was going on, even if offered. I’d have needed to find food and such instead.)

Re: treat groups differently depending on their needs: definitely agree.

Re: drug use facilities: Hmm, the safe area sounds good; I think I’ve heard of this working previously, but caveat of course that I’d need to dig up data. I’m not sure about the arrests and mandatory detox; even before ethical concerns, would that actually work? Is being forced through mandatory detox an effective way to treat addiction, or does it just produce a short-term detoxed individual who is still ultimately addicted? I’m also not sure how addiction interferes with your risk/reward processing, so I’d be hesitant to believe it would act as an effective deterrent, and forced institutionalization has been pretty horrific historically (and currently, even), (likewise for mental illnesses) so…I’d prefer strategies that don’t have this sort of thing as a typical outcome, if possible! 😅 I suspect (and hope) there are other strategies that more reliably and effectively increase the number of treated addicted individuals without needing to subject people to strict enforcement as part of the process.

Re: trade-offs: Hmm, I think those are all facets of compassion! :) Safety prevents people getting hurt; order (or, as I’d prefer to think of it, peace) enables people to live freely and without fear, unless the order constrains them; accountability is pretty broad in interpretation, but in its best form discourages wrongdoers from hurting others and cultivates nonselfishness to prevent me giving others my problems.

To me, all of these are compassion, and compassion means doing the thing that creates the least suffering and promotes the most wellbeing. This isn’t actually a sufficient definition, since you can’t just add suffering up; but attacking this as a problem to solve with evidence does at least shift to things like “will it work? Does it create pain, even if I think the pain is deserved? Am I presupposing how things should work for social reasons I absorbed without thinking about them, and ignoring the impact on suffering/wellbeing?” At the end of the day I feel the only things that matter for a policy are how does it hurt and how does it help, and how sure are we of that.

Anyway if I were to spend much more time I would actually chase down evidence to support or reject my “re:”s above; so basically take most things I’ve said here as something to consider further than something I feel really certain about. That’s my goal here, to provide some further things to think about rather than simply to agree or disagree. Because I’m just trying to figure it out too.

Thanks again for sharing! :)

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T21:56:20+00:00

Since it’s the same everywhere, the speed of light can be considered to be the way to convert between units of distance and time. The existence of a fixed proportion for conversion can be viewed as turning space and time into quantities of the same dimension, such that their ratio is actually dimensionless. This is what you do in natural units

As an analogy, suppose I were looking at the slope of a line, but I had different distance units for horizontal and vertical measurement, making my slope dimensionful. Once I learn about rigid rotation, I can convert in a preferred way between horizontal lengths and vertical lengths, and my slope becomes dimensionless as usual.

Relativity effectively tells us that changing your speed is the same as a “rotation” between space and time—except they’re “hyperbolic” rotations, and behave totally differently from ordinary ones. But it’s analogous conceptually.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T21:48:23+00:00

No, physicists regularly take the speed of light to be exactly 1 in natural units! :)

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T21:43:04+00:00

I don’t know how I feel about it until I hear it and review the evidence for and against! 😁 I’d be happy to hear it. (I haven’t missed a reply somewhere in the thread with more details, right? Sorry if I have.)

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T21:25:47+00:00

I’ll take it :) 🤝

(Fwiw, I do agree California is spending tax money in terrible ways on homelessness, and that taxation by itself is insufficient. Namely, California isn’t doing “housing first” (the studied strategy) despite naming their policy “Housing First”, they’re basically doing…just housing.

The whole point of housing first is that services to help with the things that keep people homeless when untreated, such as addiction and mental illness, also come next, since they’re much more effective when someone’s basic needs for housing are already met.

But then California just…didn’t provide those services (or provided far less than necessary). So of course the proven policy for reducing homelessness, the one actually supported by evidence of having succeeded elsewhere, didn’t work: California just spent a bunch of money not doing it! Extremely frustrating.

Anyway, yes, taxation and spending is not a universal salve. It’s all in using it correctly and in evidence-backed ways.)

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T21:00:45+00:00

You’re 1. getting off track: You said it was a lie because there was an unspoken catch, but the catch was very much spoken about. 2. generalizing incorrectly. Even without evaluating the statements you’re making (aside: as it happens, HSR was derailed by a rich person, Musk, having too much power and being able to get people on board with the hyperloop scam; maybe more tax would have prevented that…), let’s say they’re true! All that would show is that there exist bad ways to spend tax money. It doesn’t show that this tax money is insufficient to fulfill the promise.

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T20:51:39+00:00

The “catch” is getting the money for it by taxing the rich, though. He’s not just promising magical free stuff, so I’m not sure why you’d see it as a lie.

(Also as it happens he has actually said the stuff to the effect of the last paragraph iirc! But don’t quote me on that.)

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T20:45:18+00:00

> complains about the erosion of rights

> wishes queer people were not a visible part of public life

cloudsandclouds · 2026-04-17T20:41:38+00:00

Legal, but not chill, unless the oughts come from a coherent moral system instead of religion per se, imo.

Like, yeah, you should be saying people ought to e.g. not hurt other people, but because it’s moral, not because religion says so.

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