andrewla

11 ms·

181.
by andrewla 1y ago
Okay. If a given carton of eggs weighs 1201g, how much does 1/3 of that carton weigh? If the volume of the eggs in a dozen is 769ml, what is the volume of 1/3 of that carton? Some eggs are smaller than others; some are more dense,
182.
by andrewla 1y ago
Sure, that's a way to approach it. All you have to do is stay interested in "linear functions" long enough to get there. It's totally possible -- I got there, and so did many many many other people (arguably everyone who
183.
by andrewla 1y ago
It's crazy that Linear Algebra is one of the deepest and most interesting areas of mathematics, with applications in almost every field of mathematics itself plus having practical applications in almost every quantitative field that us
184.
by andrewla 1y ago
Why are rationals special? They represent an exactness in a similarly unphysical way as the integers. The rationals are infinitely precise. 1/3 is not the same as 0.33333 or 0.33333333 or 0.3. The real numbers exist and are approximabl
185.
by andrewla 1y ago
Only so long as we use the rationals as an approximation. If we expect them to be exact then they are as bad as the integers. The continuum is the reality that we have to hold to. Not the continuum in the Cantor sense, but in the intuitiona
186.
by andrewla 1y ago
A non-rotating black hole. Or a rotating black hole with zero charge. Or a rotating black hole with non-zero charge no external magnetic fields. Or a rotating black hole with non-zero charge with non-time-varying external magnetic fields. O
187.
by andrewla 1y ago
I would argue that even the rational numbers are unphysical in the same way that the integers are! The idea that a quantity like 1/3 is meaningfully different than 333/1000 or 3333333/10000000 is not really that interesting o
188.
by andrewla 1y ago
I loosely identify with the schools of intuitinalism/construtivism/finitism. Primary idea is that the Law of the Excluded Middle is not meaningful. So yes, generally not starting with ZFC. I can't speak to "truth" i
189.
by andrewla 1y ago
That a bijection exists is incredibly useful. But the idea of "measuring" infinite sets in the cardinality sense is not very interesting or useful.
190.
by andrewla 1y ago
Here I'm referring to the cloud of things that Hilbert called "Cantor's Paradise". Basically everything around the notion of cardinality of infinities.
191.
by andrewla 1y ago
There are two things being talked about here, and worth teasing them out. On the one hand, this article is talking about the hierarchy of "physicality" of various mathematical concepts, and they put Cantor's real numbers at t
192.
by andrewla 1y ago
> a quantity of stars There is no fundamental unit of "star". Maybe we can talk about electrons or protons or something, but what is and is not a star is a model, not a reality. Concretely, a bundle of pre-stellar gasses at som
193.
by andrewla 1y ago
I'm an enthusiastic Cantor skeptic, I lean very heavily constructivist to the point of almost being a finitist, but nonetheless I think the thesis of this article is basically correct. Nature and the universe is all about continuous qu
194.
by andrewla 1y ago
I can conceptually imagine a world in which I'd feel guilty for ending a conversation with an LLM, because in the course of that conversation the LLM has changed from who "they" were at the beginning; they have new memories a
195.
by andrewla 1y ago
In the framework above it sounds like you're not willing to concede the dichotomy. If your argument is that only things made in the image of humans can be intelligent (i.e. #1), then it just seems like it's too narrow a definition
196.
by andrewla 1y ago
> Applying an LLM to a novel task is where the model breaks down I mean, don't most people break down in this case too? I think this needs to be more precise. What is the specific task that you think can reliably distinguish between
197.
by andrewla 1y ago
It is a brilliant game and the empathy you develop for the cube is a great concept. But arguably much deeper is the fact that nothing in this game, or any single-player game, is a living thing in any form. Arguably the game's character
198.
by andrewla 1y ago
Overall this article is completely correct and I agree with every point of it and have tried to make these arguments about the various ZKP proposers that I have encountered. But I almost gave up early because he can't resist the urge t
199.
by andrewla 1y ago
In the US there is pretty fierce opposition to the idea of giving political parties any legal status. In the US they are private companies that help candidates satisfy the legal requirements for candidacy (which are party agnostic) and poli
200.
by andrewla 1y ago
> it kinda lowers the quality That's why it's "80% of the real thing" and not "100% of the real thing".
201.
by andrewla 1y ago
The whole discourse around gerrymandering is fundamentally broken because national politics is too influential compared to local politics. What should happen is that candidates should position themselves based on the districts that they rep
202.
by andrewla 1y ago
> OpenAI definitely tarnished the name of GPT-5 by allowing these issues to occur For a certain class of customer maybe that is true. But the reality is that the fact that this occurs is very encouraging -- they are not micro-optimizing
203.
by andrewla 1y ago
Why on earth would they do this? This is not a fundamentally useful task; it serves as a measure of the LLM's ability to generalize to tasks outside of its training data and that strain the limits of what it can express.
204.
by andrewla 1y ago
The article links to a previous article discussing methodology for this. The prompting is pretty extensive. It is difficult here to separate out how much of this could be fixed or improved by better prompting. A better baseline might be to
205.
by andrewla 1y ago
My understanding of cigarettes is that while nicotine is responsible for the addictive effects of tobacco, it is a very minor contributor to the overall health impact of smoking, which are mostly the other tobacco ingredients, primarily par
206.
by andrewla 1y ago
I don't think this is even remotely true. It is literally an order of magnitude question. Don't vape! But your risk of lung cancer / emphysema is close to nil with vapes. Other risks related to nicotine exposure are of course
207.
by andrewla 1y ago
I have two elementary school age boys, and one day I complained about someone who was vaping and they solemnly informed me that vaping was more deadly than smoking. This is what they had learned in school; the anti-vaping hype was so aggres
208.
by andrewla 1y ago
There were numerous ships that attempted to traverse the Atlantic to form colonies in the Americas. Many were lost, or died out, or failed to thrive for unknown unknowns. And many survived and flourished for reasons not even the settlers un
209.
by andrewla 1y ago
On this thread people are pointing out many potential problems with all of these solutions. I think all have an element of validity but in the end a much bigger problem is the complete unknowns. The good news is that there is a system for m
210.
by andrewla 1y ago
Someone that makes an apartment building unlivable is probably mentally ill. The amount of disruption necessary to make an SRO unlivable is much much much lower. Failing to clean up after yourself in the kitchen or bathroom; playing loud mu

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