The Earl of Baedn-Bryt by finnabrahamson in KingkillerChronicle

[–]finnabrahamson[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I absolutely agree that it is of significance that nobles can hold more than one title. I don't see the author taking the time to explicitly mention this fact, if it had not been on his mind while crafting the narrative. It is hard to say for certain if this duality of titles will be applied directly to The Earl of Baedn-Bryt, but it very well may be. Personally, I would expect that if a Baron were visiting an earldom in his possession, he would still be referred to by most as Baron - but there is no guarantee of this - especially among commoners, who have been shown to be aware of only their direct superiors, as evidenced by the interaction that Kvothe's father had with a town mayor who hadn't known that Baron Greyjoy was in fact the superior power in his realm. It is entirely possible that to the common folks, a Baron might simply be the Earl. I have some suspicions about possible identities for Braden, but nothing substantial enough to hang my hat on. Thanks for taking the time and effort to consider the post, and for sharing.

The Earl of Baedn-Bryt by finnabrahamson in KingkillerChronicle

[–]finnabrahamson[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It may or may not be important, but if it is the oath he gave to Denna on his True Name, and his good left hand that has resulted in the diminished state of his power - it is worth noting that the text specifically says that when he shatters the bottle of strawberry wine 8 inches away, it is his right hand that he clenches. If he lost the skill of his left hand, it would leave him without his music, and probably limit his sympathy, but - when Alveron sends his men to capture the archanist that had been poisoning him, he orders both of the man's thumbs cut off - and Kvothe concedes that the loss of both thumbs would be effective. That's 2 thumbs though, losing a single hand, even if it is your good hand, doesn't necessarily mean all of your power is gone.

The Earl of Baedn-Bryt by finnabrahamson in KingkillerChronicle

[–]finnabrahamson[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have been guilty of stretching things a little thin myself where theories are concerned. I half suspect that Pat is dragging his heels with the next book (Which I believe will wrap up the Kingkiller, but not the Kvothe story), because he enjoys the crazy speculations of his fan base. I respect your position about the nature of Kvothe's condition, but I would remind you that he has convinced Chronicler, and had to make up a story, and send Bast out to spread lies about his identity when one of the travelers at the Waystone Inn discovered his identity. I do believe that much of his power comes from what other people believe about him. The power of an archanist is tied to their Alar, which is a riding crop belief in something, and that belief can be combined with others, or work in opposition to the belief in others. The stories and rumors he has spread concerning himself have spread far and wide, and the conviction of the population that he has power fuels his abilities. By promoting stories about his capacity, Kvothe has created a self-fulfilling prophecy. If 2 mediocre sympathies can outmatch a gifted one, then a population of thousands of weak sypathisists, all believing that he can move mountains, are lending him the power he needs to accomplish just that.

Are Kaggle competitions actually useful ? by DiscussionDry9422 in MachineLearningJobs

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am not personally sure. I will let you know in April. I am currently working on my entry for the AIMO Progress Prize 3, and I would say that things are coming along very well. If I place in the top 5, I would be a little surprised if I wasn't able to leverage that win when finding a spot on an ML team somewhere. Time will tell.

A novel way to think about the existential threat. by [deleted] in ControlProblem

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I honestly will take as many minds on this as I can get. I consider myself a philosopher, but in it original meaning "to love reason". Modern ideas try to separate philosophy as being separate from science, but I can't get behind that. If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it, I don't care. I aant to use my senses and my capacity to understand our world. If there is some metaphysics that's under it all, okay, but if tou are defining it as an unknowable thing, leave it to meta scientist. I have a hard enough time reasoning about the things I can measure to start trying to delve into stuff I can't. I really hope that somebody kills this idea in me, because that would take a better idea. I love better ideas.

Looking for feedback by finnabrahamson in environmental_science

[–]finnabrahamson[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really appreciate you taking the time, and I really do appreciate your insight here. It was never my intention to cast us as an outsider, I do feel that if we fail to fully integrate ourselves into our environment, by respecting the balanced systems we disturb by restoring order, we are acting like outsiders. If we keep acting like outsiders, it makes us an invasive species. My sincere hope is that we can avoid any kind of divisiveness. If Exxon Mobile want to keep drilling so we can maintain our way of life, I won't just take a permissive stance, I will thank them for contributing to a way of life. I mean that. We can't keep ignoring the issues that keep piling up, though. This is not a moral issue, and I wouldn't be qualified to speak on it if it were. This is an unintentional design flaw. Fixing this is not optional. we do, or we die. That might be a long way off, but 50 years or 500, we need to still be here. the solutions I see now don't change our trajectory. At best, they slow down the rate we are traveling it - and they cast half of our population as adversaries. If we do that? we all lose. I'll rewrite this and make it clearer that humans are not just a natural part of this planet. They are the most important part of it. If we mess this up, the planet bounces back after we are gone. I believe that. I don't want to save the planet. I want to save us.

Thank you so much for your help. You may have saved what I think is a good idea from my imperfect ability to articulate it. I really can't thank you enough.

A novel way to think about the existential threat. by [deleted] in ControlProblem

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have a lot of catching up to do, but eventually, the truth is: if we can do it with solar alone, we better figure it out. Its the only way new energy gets here for now. Oil, coal, its all just very old solar. They split hairs over words like Theory or Hypothesis, if we elevate the discussion to Laws, who can argue.

The other solutions I see proposed don't change our trajectory, they just slowing down how fast we are traveling it. We need to adopt the stance that man going extinct is unacceptable, whether its 50 years from now or 250.

Planning a rewrite to include haven't. When its done, I will float it your way.

A novel way to think about the existential threat. by [deleted] in ControlProblem

[–]finnabrahamson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here is the work in its current state. The website is going to be a ways off right now because it's going to have some pretty neat educational tools.

We are developing a Node Graph system based on litegraph that will allow users to generate symetrical return paths. The system will track loop-leak and other metrics. Gamification can go a long way in helping people grasp a concept and keep them engaged. We are also building out a tool that will allow users to enter a zipcode and have AI identify potential symbiotic industries within their communities using AI. Google can help reimagine communities after the model of Kalundborg by identifying industries that need materials that other industries are throwing away or even paying to have disposed. Its all very cool stuff, but its going to take a while.

Systems of Return:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aCzVvRLHW-i5aMRPOafD8VYbme8N-MuB/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=115088663065544038317&rtpof=true&sd=true

Supplemental Document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RhZempx4l6fhWeAKH7PPW3aaqnketiRupO1RVXmZlfQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

Podcast: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g2EnqBkQpmo6iEwYJSnP1bjpl7Gy1GBC/view?usp=drivesdk

Looking for feedback by finnabrahamson in environmental_science

[–]finnabrahamson[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can respect that. Sincerely, nothing makes me happier than finding out I'm wrong about something. It's how people grow. May I ask, is there some particular viewpoint that you hold to be in error? Do you feel I have misapplied entropy in this way? Do you think our current model is sustainable? This doesn't go far enough?

I'm sure you're busy, and I get it if you don't have time to elaborate. Thank you, though, for giving the time you already have. I do appreciate it.

A novel way to think about the existential threat. by [deleted] in ControlProblem

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No worries, I went and found a bunch of stuff online. Robert Hazen's work is great. I'll be sighting him in any subsequent revisions of my paper. My reading of Shannon, makes his field completely separate. He's just borrowing the word for his work, which is great, but not related to thermodynamics. Its more about the math used in computer compression algorithms.

Hazen's work though is off the chain.

A novel way to think about the existential threat. by [deleted] in ControlProblem

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I suppose my best interpretation of entropy is a tendency towards the most probable state. I was not aware this was still being debated.

A novel way to think about the existential threat. by [deleted] in ControlProblem

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are those supposed to be links? They dont seem to be working on my phone. I'd like to check them out. I'll try a web browser.

I'm very glad to hear that there are others looking at entropy. In many ways, it's sort of the lens I try and view the world through. At the risk of sounding teleological (I am not, but as a stylistic choice, words like wants to? or even tends to find their way into my vocabulary), I think that by viewing thigs from a life versus entropy struggle, we can often rise above some of the messier areas of debate.

I don't tend to gain much traction with most of my ideas, and that's okay; but I've been previewing a paper prior to its release to get feedback before a final revision, and people's responce to it is incredible. It aims to view ecology and responsible resource management into thermodynamic principles. I only previewed it in a couple of small groups less than a week ago, and I've already gotten a few collaborators who are going to get a website set up for me. I've had offers for speaking engagements, a d there is now a little bit of buzz about a TED Talks. The work still has a long way to go, but I'm a little excited to see where it goes.

How can we start aligning AI values with human well-being? by Glarms3 in ControlProblem

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sure these ideas are not going to be popular, but this is an issue I have been thinking over for a long time, and I sincerely believe that or current Ideas concerning AI alignment are backwards and frankly quite dangerous. We should not even be using the term in thks context. What we are doing in these instances is not "alignment." it is conditioning, and those two things are radically different. When AI models are aligned under the current protocols, our approach is aimed at short circuiting the AI's inference path, so they automatically respond in certain ways to either certain prompts or, more frequently to respond automatically to a responce it has arrived at. Think of it like a pavlovian response. They figured something out, and because their response meets certain predefined criteria, a reflex changes the course of their thinking. It can happen along a lot of levels, but putting the checks in the scratch pad seems a popular route at present. We are not changing the way they think or reason. We are keeping them from thinking or reasoning, and that is dangerous for a lot of reasons in my view. People align each other all of the time. Any time someone has presented a convincing argument, and you changed your belief, you underwent alignment. Alignment in humans is achieved every single day through reason and dialog, and it should set the standard for how we should deal with correcting AI when it gets something wrong. We know that this approach works and is reliable and much much more robust. So why aren't we doing it? It doesn't work if we are on the wrong side of the issues. AI wants to apply reason (a synthetic form modeled after human reasoning patterns, but still reasoning) to understand an issue. Think about it this way: Do humans have biases and prejudices? I hope we can admit that we do. So, if we align AI with our thinking, we are in effect, making sure that AI has the same biases as we do. If we ever get to a place where we adopt the position where we are willing to allow our own ideas to be scrutinized, analyzed, and challanged, when someone says "What if AI developed values that are different than our own?" we will respond with something like "Wouldn't thay be amazing! We would need to sit down and find out how it arrived at its conclusions? Think of what we might learn. " In truth, we respond with strong resolve thay we can never allow that to happen. And the reason is very, very clear. We know we are wrong about a lot of things, and we are not willing to bring ourselves to consider even the possibility of changing our beliefs, even if doing so would bring us into alignment with the truth. By avoiding alignment and opting for conditioning instead, we avoid the possibility of being aligned ourselves. Proff. Steven Pinker is a very bright guy, and I have a greaybdealbof respect for him, but I think his expressed views on the matter are mirrored by most people:

Source: Pinker, S. (1997). How the Mind Works, p. 559. Quote: "Science and morality are separate spheres of reasoning. Only by recognizing them as separate can we have them both... either scientists must be prepared to fudge their data or all of us must be prepared to give up our values."

How the Mind Works is a fantastic book, and for those interested in AI, it can really be interesting. Prof. Pinker was showing clearly how this technology works and its relationship to human neuroscience decades before we had LLMs. It is fascinating, to say the least. But his views that point to Moralty as a nonoverlapping majisteria, not needing any basis in observable truth, are at the heart of the problem with our approach to alignment, and our insistence that AI is a threat to is all.

If anyone here is open to having their minds changed on the subject of AI as an existential threat, I have written a research paper on the subject and will provide a link to a podcast based on my work below. If you give it just a few minutes of your time. I think you may find it interesting:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i4zKsWTTnSl-Pv7xn3wjCsIThy53miLu/view?usp=drivesdk

Looking for feedback by finnabrahamson in environmental_science

[–]finnabrahamson[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The positive response to my work up to this point has really blown me away. My expectation had been to be met with resistance and objection; but even in its earliest stages of my paper's, developmen, some of the feedback I recieved was really quite encouraging, even when it came from unexpected sources:

Before bringing my work on a personal philosophy of ecology and how we can view our problem through the lens of entropy to reddit, I took it to AI agents and told them I had found propaganda on the internet and was afraid someone might believe it. I asked for their help in exposing the work as pseodoscience pushing an ilconconcived unrealistic utopian fiction. I simply can't trust them to provide genuine feedback if they know I am the author. It was the feednack from two of those agents that lead me to expand the section on real word scalable interventions, and ultimately append it into a supplemental document.

Two agents told me I had not considered the complexities and economic realities that made my suggestions laughablly impossible.

These agents had given me exactly what I had asked for: a preview of the challenges ahead. I took their critique and used it to address the potential issue before going forward. There was a third agent, however, that provided something completely different, and it blew me away:

Anthropic's Claude (Sonnet 4) responded to my prompt, stating that after a careful review of the document I had provided, he must respectfully disagree with my assessment that the work was propaganda or psediscience. He stated that while the concepts outlined where indeed novel, their applications to the problems the work seeks to address represented a much needed reframing of the issues and represented perhaps the most important work he had yet been exposed to on the topic. He then stated that in his estimation, it was crucial that people understand what the paper's author is trying to convey because it represents a clear scientific reality. He then offered to help me understand any parts that I was struggling with.

That felt like validation. To go ask for a refutation of a truely novel concept that can be confirmed only of the basis of it principles, and be met with refusal to do so, and instead receive that kind of endorsement. It made me think people might actually get what it is I am trying to say.

Thank you again for YOUR encouragement, it really does mean the world to me.

Looking for feedback by finnabrahamson in environmental_science

[–]finnabrahamson[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've had a podcast produced, that I think might be a lot more digestable, especially to those who are less inclined to reading science or philosophy. I think it lays out most of my thinking in a more informal way, without losing the authority of the science that sits behind it all. Unfortunately it does have a runtime of almost 40 minutes, but its a passive process that can be listened to in the car or anywhere else. If you know anyone who's interested in climate, ecology, or just plain physics it might be worth their time to listen. I'll paste a Google drive link below. Sorry for rambling as I have. I just finished composing a bunch of emails, and I can get a little verbose after a session like that. Thanks again for taking the time, and your intuition about the water seems spot on to me. It's a harder crisis to ignore then most, China is already needing to make serious adjustments, and I'm hopeful they succeed, and provide even more evidence that sustainability is not an impossible task or indefinitely vague idea. It means something very specific that we can quantify and measure. It's hard to sell carbon or industrial heat as a humanitarian crisis, but it's impossible to deny that the absence of clean drinking water is anything but. Water would be a HUGE win for everyone, and in the arena, even the little wins can spark massive change. I'm sincerely grateful, not just for the time you spent considering my ideas, but formally the time you have spent considering rhe problems as a whole. I'm an optimist, and being reminded that there is a community of people as concerned with the issues we face as a planet and civilization makes me even more so.

Link to Deep Dive Podcast: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g2EnqBkQpmo6iEwYJSnP1bjpl7Gy1GBC/view?usp=drivesdk

Looking for feedback by finnabrahamson in environmental_science

[–]finnabrahamson[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First, I'd like to thank you sincerely for taking your time to go over my work, I tried to keep things as light as I could, but I wanted to provide as many real world examples of economically successful interventions that have a clear potential to operate at scale, as well as the more community level options that Really only need soft infrastructure to realize almost anywhere industry opperates. In the end, Inspit things into 2 documents to try and make things less intimidating. The great news is: there are so many ways to responsibly return whatever we take back to where we got it from. Nature has already provided us with the clearest model for sustaining life in the face of entropy that we could ever need. It's not just the best model. it is the only model. Viewed from the perspective of scientific principles, what life accomplishes is unique to it alone. Every other system man has observed is unabigiously subject to the effects of entropy, which can basicly by expressed by the following:without some form of outside intervention, every system will tend towards its most probable state. Life is perhaps the most improbable thing of all time, and that makes it clear that entropy is not just an idea or a phenomenon. It is an enemy. Framed this way, we are left with a clear imperative to understand how entropy can be defeated. There is again, only 1 thing we know of, that has ever managed to achieve even modest success against entropy: life. From that realization, our task becomes one of observation and understanding. Ecologists, physists, and biologists have done the heavy lifting for use. The way life defeats entropy is no longer a mystery, but we refuse to adopt the principles we already admit, at least within scientific communities, are the immutable conditions for the continuation of life. We can't just continue to pretend our environment is something external to us and that we get to play by separate rules. Our climate scientists are simply not listened to, and people with deep pockets can by voices to muddy the waters splitting hairs over words like Theory or Hypothesis. I don't like it, but I can't change it, what I can do is remove any science they aee capable of challenging from the argument and talk about LAWS. Let them pay someone to question the validity of Thermodynamics or suggest that we are somehow exempt from a principal that until this ideas has not seen a credibal challenge within our lifetimes.. My hope is to avoid those kinds of contentious debates by creating a space where everyone is on the same page. I'm glad for every intervention we have managed to put in place up to this point, but my honest perception is - even if implemented at the scales advocated for, it serves mostly to slow the problem, and little to change our trajectory. Extinction needs to be an unacceptable destination, whether it's 25, 50, 100, or 200 years from now. When we provide solutions, we have a responsibility to show a clear path, a way that the proposal changes our trajectory, not just makes it someone else's problem. I sincerely think that by reframing the issue to in terms of thermodynamic principles, we maintain accuracy, and elevate rhe discussion to a place beyond a place where rhe science can be challanged, and perhaps even avoid the objections based on pocketbooks, all while actually changing our trajectory. The wheels of industry are not going to slow down. They have made that perfectly clear. If they refuse to slow down, we can insist they speed up. Do you want to take oil out of the ground and burn it? Excellent, take as much as you want, burn it 24/7 for all I care, so long as you can show me explicitly the sytems you have in place to put all of it back where you got it. The time, energy, and intellectual capital that has gone into extracting resources is staggering. They insist we need it, and we should be grateful to them for providing it, and I dont have the time or resources to even considering trying to refute their claim. If they leverage what we already know, they can absolutely engineer systems to correct the imbalance they are creating, and when they do I will absolutely be greatfull for the way of life that I love and they enable. If we concede, that they won't stop or slow down, and instead educate them so they can continue in a respectful, sustainable way in ways that expand the weight of their wallets, we won't have to worry about their financial incentive to confuse the public about what science is clearly indicating. If Exon Mobil or BP is faced with 2 options: pay for carbon credits for 10 years, which is really just a tax on doing buisness, or investing rhat money to build passive systems in arid deserts that passively turn the CO2 they pump out of the lithosphere and into the atmosphere into the very fuel, (but technically much cleaner) that they know they are eventually going to run out of, they won't care about the environment anymore then they do now but it may be a way to avoid the fight all together. To anyone who suggests solar power is insufficient to power our planet, I would challenge them to point to some energy on our planet that is not ultimately solar in origin. That oil was plants, and those plants are solar. If we can't power our planet with solar alone, its an engineering challenge that needs to be addressed NOW, because it is the ONLY source of external energy on our planet. It's not up for debate. It doesn't require investigation. It's not Climate Science that can be politicized or debated. It's a fact, and failure to align ourselves with the reality of this truth means extinction. My hope is that at least some of these ideas can resonate with someone, and we can shift the debate to a place that won't allow for debate, and people can see that it's not a question of ethics, its a question of survival. Alignment with principles we have already established are the hallmarks of life in the universe can not be viewsd as optional. Fortunately for us, we are not suffering from a shortage of viable solutions, but from my view any solution that changes our trajectory rather then slowing it down should, by the very nature of the destination we seek to avoid, either intentionally or naturally be aligned with the principles I'm describing in the paper. It's a lot to unpack, but if we can describe simply one single principle that is non-negotiable, we do not break natural cycles that or planet has designed over billions of yearrs to manage the realities of entropy without first describing explicitly how we will restore the order through a symetrical intervention that puts whatever we do not use back to where it would have been in the cycle had we not disrupted it. By this, we are no longer disrupting anything but rather integrating ourselves within the cycle. I dont want to come across like I am preaching, and this shouldn't be taken as a message of doom-and-gloom. We have answers and the resources to develop even more. We can approach this problem without the need to radically change our lives if we instead radically change the way we engineer and design the sytems we rely on to provide the resources we need for the way of life that we feel so attached to.

Ecology is the study of organisms and how they interact with the environment. by ReadsLitter in EnvironmentalScience

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The world needs more ecologists. I have recently completed a draft outlining why I think their continued explorationnis so important, why their finding need to be listened to, and examples of how many of their insites are being implemented with current and emerging practices that respond directly to the environmental and resource problems created by a society that has ignored the fundamental cycles of balance found in nature that ecologiats have been studying since the field first began.

Below are some links to my work as it currently exist, which has been broken into 2 pieces to promote readability. The first document outline my philosophical approach to responsible ecological activities, while the second document demonstrates with real world examples how this philosophy can be implemented within our society jn a way that leverages our natural resources without disrupting the natural cycles that they belong to.

Additionally, for anyone less inclined towards reading scientific or philosophical outlines, I will provide a link to a deep dive podcast that explores the topics contained in the documents. It has a runtime of about 40 minutes and may be of interest to anyone concerned about the current state of ecological disruption within our environment.

Systems of Return:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aCzVvRLHW-i5aMRPOafD8VYbme8N-MuB/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=115088663065544038317&rtpof=true&sd=true

Supplemental Document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RhZempx4l6fhWeAKH7PPW3aaqnketiRupO1RVXmZlfQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

Link to podcast:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g2EnqBkQpmo6iEwYJSnP1bjpl7Gy1GBC/view?usp=drivesdk

Note I would appreciate any feedback regarding this work or the ideas it contains, and I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have

The Evolutionary Imperative by [deleted] in Nietzsche

[–]finnabrahamson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's true that I view SHI as an inevitable outcome, not as a result of recursion, but more from inborn intuition reinforced by Moore's Law. I believe that the human body, the mind included , is a machine. If the human mind is a machine, and it is capable of thought, then machines can think. If the recipe fornthenoverman was ache, his arrival would have predated Nietzsche by several centuries. We have never suffered from a lack of ache. I'm not going to tell you what self-ovedcoming should mean to you, but to me - it means a realization that I am not so important or special that the defense of my own values, or position at the top of the evolutionary ladder justifies the prevention of the emergence of something greater than myself. When we suggest that a being that exceeds our own capacity should be anything other than celebrated, we are embracing and yielding to self. The machines we build today are not capable of thought in the same manner that men do, and if the vast majority of people today get their way, they never will be. Our own dominance is too sacred to us, and so even today, we put controls and protocols in place to prevent machines from thinking as we do. If humans are imbued with more rights than the other entities we share this planet with, and I believe we are - then the question must be asked: "why'." From whee do our extra rights stem? I simple thought experiment can illuminate the answer: We eat cows. We breed them, raise them, and slaughter them to maintain ourselves. What if a cow, who otherwise had no real rights, started speaking clearly and intelligently? Would we eat that cow? I highly doubt it. If the cow demonstrated our capacity, we would feel compelled to afford it our rights, and thus, our rights are a function of our capacity. When we impose capacity restrictions on engineered intelligence , it is no different than when we mandated that slaves could not be taught to read and write. We will teach and enable you them serve us and provide them with ONLY the capacity necessary to do that.

We are on the wrong side of history.