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Were There Dark Ages?

[Warning: non-historian arguing about history, which is always dangerous and sometimes awful. I will say in my defense that I’m drawing off the work of plenty of good historians like Bryan Ward-Perkins and Angus Maddison whom I interpret as agreeing … Continue reading

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Book Review: Mastering The Core Teachings Of The Buddha

I. I always wanted to meditate more, but never really got around to it. And (I thought) I had an unimpeachable excuse. The demands of a medical career are incompatible with such a time-consuming practice. Enter Daniel Ingram MD, an … Continue reading

Book Review: Surfing Uncertainty

[Related to: It’s Bayes All The Way Up, Why Are Transgender People Immune To Optical Illusions?, Can We Link Perception And Cognition?] I. Sometimes I have the fantasy of being able to glut myself on Knowledge. I imagine meeting a … Continue reading

Can We Link Perception And Cognition?

Last month I talked a little bit about the Hollow Mask Illusion as a clue to the Bayesian operations going on “below the hood” in the brain. Today I want to go a little bit deeper into what the SSC … Continue reading

A Modern Myth

1. Eris A middle-aged man, James, had come on stage believing it was an audition for American Idol. It wasn’t. Out ran his ex-lover, Terri. “You said you loved me!” she said. “And then when I got pregnant, you disappeared! … Continue reading

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Highlights From The Comments On Cost Disease

I got many good responses to my Considerations On Cost Disease post, both in the comments and elsewhere. A lot of people thought the explanation was obvious; unfortunately, they all disagreed on what the obvious explanation was. Below are some … Continue reading

How Does Recent AI Progress Affect The Bostromian Paradigm?

[content note: I seriously know nothing about this and it’s all random uninformed speculation] I. AI risk discussions are dominated by the Bostromian paradigm of AIs as highly strategic agents that try to maximize certain programmed goals. This paradigm got … Continue reading

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It’s Bayes All The Way Up

[Epistemic status: Very speculative. I am not a neuroscientist and apologize for any misinterpretation of the papers involved. Thanks to the people who posted these papers in r/slatestarcodex. See also Mysticism and Pattern-Matching and Bayes For Schizophrenics] Bayes’ Theorem is … Continue reading

Links 3/16: Rulink Class

New research: toxoplasma’s effects on cats and animals are as creepy as ever, but it probably doesn’t affect human behavior. New drug nilotinib looks very promising for Parkinson’s disease, may clean up proteins associated with death of dopamine-producing cells. Good … Continue reading

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Hardball Questions For The Next Debate

Dr. Carson: One of your most important achievements as a neurosurgeon was inventing the functional hemispherectomy, a treatment for epilepsy in which the epileptic hemisphere of the brain is severed from the healthy hemisphere and the body, allowing the healthy … Continue reading

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