𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 7Now, you can use precognition to fake arbitrary retrocognition. But can you use retrocognition to fake arbitrary precognition? I'm still thinking.
You can do a lot if you invoke Laplacian Demon-level powers of prediction based on retrocognitive knowledge, but that's a big ask.
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 7Thus, Sabine has shown that while precognition & retrocognition may logically coexist, epistemically, they don't: you can only prove 'precognition NAND retrocognition'.
This definitely comes as a surprise to me and I don't think I've ever seen that claimed before.
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 7So, the retrocog dilemma: if some 'fact' about the past is reported by retrocognition, and it cannot be publicly verified, then obviously it's no proof; but if the fact ever is verified, then the 'retrocog' could just be a precog snooping on the future verification & no proof.
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 7Sabine makes a weaker argument above, appealing to subconscious knowledge, but you can of course strengthen it to any knowable 'verification' itself: if someone ever publicly discovered the meaning of a hieroglyphic, the precog steals it from the discover's *mind or publication*.
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 7What's really fascinating to me here is that Sabine succeeds in his goal of giving a fully general Kripkesteinian skeptical argument against retrocognition: any fact reported by retrocognition then verified could symmetrically just be *pre*cognition foreseeing the *verification*! pic.twitter.com/3LQs0p7ktE
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 7@slatestarcodex On a nominative determinism sidenote: the important details that they were lesbians & prone to hallucinations come from the salacious expose _The Ghosts of Versailles_, written by "Lucille Iremonger", which I was *sure* was a pseudonym until I checked.
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 7Actually, it's more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, presumably it was a stable time-loop: their vision ensured their research, & their research ensured their vision, with it being initially set up by an exogenous & apparently common fascination of lesbians with Marie Antoinette.
𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 6The value of fresh eyes/anon feedback: they asked why there was a big modal for the enable/disable popups toggle, when there was a theme bar with icon-options for everything else.
'Er... Good question.' There were reasons, but they hadn't been valid for easily a year.
Fixed.
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 5Visual tweaks:
- centered page metadata for consistency
- nice box wrapper around X-of-the-day to make it more gwernnetty
- slower demo-mode for toggle bar pic.twitter.com/10i8ywm2bB
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernJun 5Big CSS/JS rewrite to refactor & try to prevent bugs. On the lorems, Said says it cuts >5s off rendering time. Certainly does feel faster, although Google Pagespeed is convinced everything is slower. 😕
Now we find out the hard way about edge cases & bugs in the new version...
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernMay 30Caught COVID for a third time. ☹️
Observations:
- Dramamine worked wonderfully. (Ginger gum felt redundant.) What I thought was the intrinsic misery of air travel was actually low-grade nausea... Who else?🤔
- Project Fi worked well in UK
- Cash increasingly discouraged there
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernMay 28And a happy third anniversary to the GPT-3 paper. The years keep coming and they don't stop coming, huh.
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernMay 21Regrettably, all the Oxford stuff (like Ashmolean) today is right out due to a flat tire & missing the flight. Oh well.
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernMay 19I'll be in London/Oxford next week: possibly Oxford Sunday afternoon (then Mon/Tue), but definitely Wed in London & a bit of Thursday morning. Suggestions?
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𝔊𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔫@gwernMay 16'Disabling popups' has been extended to disabling-popins, same overall approach: quote icon in the theme toggle or struck-eye in popins. pic.twitter.com/KcMvPnMWcY