Funny Logic

Funny Logic by Ryan Dickherber

Project Asymmetry

Most people live symmetric lives. They are born, have a heroic rise to their peak, then begin a long slow decline until they shrivel up and die. But some people are exceptions—they never decline. They are asymmetric. Members of Project Asymmetry aim to be like that.

We will train everything that can be trained. For instance, to gain strength we might lift weights. Lifting weights has the distinct advantage of being quantitatively measurable. Every time we lift more than before, we’re stronger than before. So our progress is assured.

But we don’t just want stronger muscles. We want better endurance, too. Unfortunately these may conflict to some extent. Acquiring 10/10 strength may limit endurance to 9/10. But that’s hardly a problem in practice—having 10/10 strength and 9/10 endurance is far better than 10/10 strength and 1/10 endurance.

We also want flexibility. And coordination. And intelligence. And creativity. And memory. And knowledge.

If it can be trained, then it is in our program. We dub such programs “Comprehensive Training Programs” because they leave nothing out.

Previously, we collected an (unfortunately incomplete) list of systems that can (potentially) be trained:

An example comprehensive training program might be like this:

This program might not (and in fact probably does not) literally train every component of the human body. Only with further research will we be able to catalog which activities train which body parts, and only then can we construct a program that literally trains everything. But this program is a good place to start. It can be expanded to include more components as we learn more.

Here is another example program that might be better suited to other people:

Whatever program you choose, the program should be executed for a set amount of time each week, and progress should be measured. 1 hour per week is probably not enough to make any progress, and 100 hours a week would not leave any time to do anything else. After some investigation, it appears 20 or so hours per week is enough to ensure that that there is enough time to train everything, as well as leaving time left over to enjoy life. (Although it might be psychologically valuable to treat every experience in your life as potential training, and thus the training never stops.)

For example:

All skills should be measured quantitatively if possible. The value of this is psychological—if you can see your numbers getting better, then you know you are making progress. Here is how these things can be measured:

“Talking to strangers” is hard to quantify, but you can see it can be done. It might seem cheesy to count how many strangers you can make laugh, but it ensures you are making progress. Another way to quantify this would be to develop a checklist, and run one more step through the list every day. For instance: 1) Talk to a stranger. 2) Make the stranger laugh. 3) Introduce the gizmos you make. 4) Sell a gizmo for 1 dollar. 5) Sell a gizmo for 5 dollars. 6) Profit.

This works for clubbing too: 1) Go to a club. 2) Dance for a song. 3) Dance all night long. 4) Dance with a girl/guy. 5) Talk to girl/guy. 6) Kiss girl/guy. 7) Show girl/guy your apartment. 8) Use your imagination.

Music is also hard to quantify, but it can be done. Making steady progress through a book is a good way. But it can also be done in a qualitative manner by composing an entire song each day. Although it is hard to quantify how “good” a song is, you will probably be able to tell that your quality is going up each time. It would merely be necessary to record every song, and then after several weeks, compare and contrast them and see if you have improved. If not, what can you work on next time?

Members of Project Asymmetry are not satisfied having 3/10, 1/10, and 5/10 on our attributes. We want 10/10 on everything. Or, if that’s not possible, then 10/10, 9/10 and 9/10. But actually, if you measure the right attributes, I bet it is possible to be 10/10 on everything. For instance, training for strength might stagnate your overall endurance. But it can still increase your endurance per unit mass, which is the more important quantity.

We measure our skills relative to our genetic potential, not relative to others. You are not necessarily going to be a Gold Medal Olympian Nobel Prize Winning Chess Grandmaster, because those sorts of prizes are for comparing yourself to others. But forget about others. This is about reaching your maximum genetic potential. So what if your legs are too short to be a champion runner? If being 10/10 of your genetic potential at running means you are condemned to second place, then so be it. Being second place at your maximum potential is still better than 5/10 and having never even started the race.

Further, it is awfully silly to stop training at any point. Since it is unlikely that you will ever actually reach your true genetic potential, every bit of training gets you closer to the asymptotic limit. Besides, are you anywhere near your genetic potential right now on every attribute of yourself? Probably not. Even if you are near your maximum genetic potential at strength, for instance, you are probably not near your genetic potential at coordination, or intelligence, or knowledge. The training should never end, because you can always get better at everything. This is why it is called Project Asymmetry.

Comprehensive Training

There is a common belief in America that you are what you are, and there is nothing you can do to change this. Not everyone believes this, of course. And in fact the exact opposite belief, that all of your attributes can be improved with training, also floats around our culture. Both of these beliefs are really myths that could stand for some overt repudiation by science. In reality, some attributes can be easily and straightforwardly trained. Like muscle strength. But others cannot be so easily trained, like height, or genetic disposition to certain diseases. What exactly are all of the attributes that can be trained? Humorously, searching for this on Google reveals but one result, and it is exactly the opposite of what we want: un-trainable attributes.

In order to determine this, we need to investigate the human body to see what we are capable of doing. The body is divided into several subsystems, like bones, muscles, and nervous system. According to this website, these systems are:

(This list doesn’t seem to be comprehensive. What about eyes, for instance? Or skin? We’ll ignore those for now.)

Some of these can certainly be trained, like the muscular system. Muscles can become stronger or have greater endurance with training. But it is not obvious that all of them can be trained. What would it even mean to train the excretory system? Have less smelly poops? Actually, for all I know, this can be trained, and I am just not clever enough to know how. But I have no choice but to ignore the ones I don’t know how to train for now. For the others, here are some ways they can be trained:

The ones I don’t know how to train are the excretory system, urinary system, endocrine system, digestive system, and reproductive system.

It is very tempting to train one thing at a time and forget about the others. For instance, a lot of intellectuals place a much greater emphasis on intellectual training (myself, or at least my former self, included) at the expense of training the muscular system. But why? Surely all these systems can be trained at the same time. Although I will grant that it may be possible, given a finite human life, to train only a subset of them to your genetic potential. Or maybe not.

Let’s try a crude approximation to quantify how much these systems can be trained. Suppose we rank systems linearly so that if you have reached your maximum genetic potential for a system, then we rank it 10/10. And if you have made no effort to train that system at all and are only just trained enough to continue being alive, then we give it 1/10. (0/10 means you do not have that system at all.) Perhaps it is only possible to train one system to 10/10, since we only have to much time, and all the others are condemned to being trained at a maximum of 3/10. Is that really true? Probably not. Probably at least one other system can be trained highly to, say, 9/10, or even 10/10. In fact, perhaps all systems can be trained to be 10/10. Why not? I mean, how can you possibly be sure that only one system can be trained highly? And surely being strong does not condemn you to being stupid, uncreative and unhealthy. Surely it is possible (even if very hard) to be simultaneously strong, intelligent, creative, coordinated, healthy, efficient, etc.

It is possible that some skills conflict with each other. Suppose someone wants to be really good at fitting into small spaces. That conflicts with the goal of having large muscles, because large muscles make it harder to fit into small spaces. But the systems of the human body do not in general conflict with one another. It is possible to have stronger muscles, stronger bones, and a stronger brain simultaneously. They are also consistent with having a stronger heart, more efficient lungs, and better coordination.

Now, what are the steps someone can take to train all of these systems from 1/10 to 10/10?

Previously: The Many Dimensions of Human Excellence.

The Many Dimensions of Human Excellence

As I recently discovered, strength training is straightforward. Just lift weights three times per week. Every time you lift weights, lift more than you did before. Eat enough food to make sure your body has enough for growth. And every single day, you will become stronger.

Physical strength is not the only attribute that can be improved by training. Endurance is another one. It can be trained by doing exactly the same thing as with strength: Practice often, and constantly push yourself to the limits. So long as you haven’t already reached your genetic potential (and you almost certainly haven’t), your endurance will improve.

What about intelligence? For some reason, this isn’t as widely recognized as strength and endurance, from what I’ve noticed. But intelligence can be trained just like they can. And your progress can be quantified too. With strength, you can measure how much you lift. With endurance, you can measure how long you can last. And with intelligence, you can measure your IQ.

I think there are many more. Consider art. No one starts out being an excellent artist, but with practice, your skills will improve. Skill at art is hard to quantify, but certainly it is clear that some artists are better than others nonetheless.

All of this seems to me to beg the question: precisely what are all the attributes that can be trained? There are two ways to answer this. One, survey all the crafts that people do, and arrange them into a tree organized by similarity of skillset. Or two, survey all the parts of the human body, and arrange them into a tree organized by functional similarity.

Consider crafts first. Here is an example tree:

Now consider the human body. Here is another tree:

Obviously these lists are very simplistic and subject to change, but I hope the point is clear. Some tasks require many body parts, and some body parts can perform many tasks. But there is a correspondence between tasks human beings can perform, and the body parts most responsible for dong them. The skill at crafts can be improved by improving the corresponding body parts.

I assume most people want to become better. (And if they don’t, well, this article isn’t for those people.) So there are two pressing questions. First, precisely what are the attributes that can be improved? And secondly, how do we go about improving them? All of this information is out there. It would be nice to organize it so that we could know precisely what we need to do to improve every area of our lives.

(This has been tried before. Consider the “mind, body, spirit” concept. But there is no spirit; and spiritual feelings are feelings like any other. If this project is to be successful, it needs to be backed by science, and not fantasy.)

Absorb Knowledge

“I’m trying to get this chimpanzee to absorb knowledge through language,” said the male human. “So I’m reading him books and showing him movies. I want him to absorb these facts and believe them just as though he had discovered them himself.”

“It won’t work,” said the female human. “Chimpanzees aren’t smart enough for that.”

“Fuck you,” said the chimpanzee.

Should

“Things should be better,” she said.

“Indeed,” he said. “The grass should be greener and the sky should be bluer. Maybe if we keep saying out loud how things should be better, they will become better. Things should be better. Things should be better. Things should be worse. Fuck, I mean better.”

He had to stop talking then because he had fulfilled his sarcasm quota for the day.

The Spectrum of Human Experience

Technology enables us to be more productive with less effort, so does that mean we’re becoming lazier? This argument shows up from time to time, and it argues that technology makes us not only lazy, but stupid, weak, and fat. But what’s actually happening is more subtle: technology broadens the spectrum of human experience. No longer are we confined to a narrow spectrum of just good enough to survive, but only as good as the nearest library will allow. It now takes far less effort to survive, but simultaneously the tools for being incredible are better and more accessible than ever. With technology, you can work harder, and be smarter, stronger and more fit. Or indeed, anything in between much better and much worse than before.

Three Kinds of Probability

What is probability? There are three kinds.

1) Knowledge probabilities. These are numbers that humans (or other intelligent systems) assign to propositions depending on how likely they are to be true. For instance, consider the proposition “The moon is made out of cheese.” If a human knows anything about anything, they would give that a low probability. These probabilities are studied by Bayesian statistics. They are usually just called “probabilities.”

2) Frequency probabilities. If an experiment results in a certain outcome some fraction of the time, that fraction is a frequency probability. Or, if there are N systems and n/N of them are in some state, that is also called a frequency probability. These probabilities are studied by statistical mechanics and frequentist statistics. They are usually just called “frequencies.”

3) Quantum probabilities. In quantum mechanics, a normalized state can be expanded in an orthonormal basis, and then the absolute squares of the coefficients are probabilities. Or to put it another way, the absolute square of the inner product of normalized state A with normalized state B is the quantum probability of A given B.

My Latest Corrected Misconception: Strength Training

I spent the first half of my life acquiring misconceptions, and have spent the second half unlearning them. Undoubtedly the unlearning will continue until I die. Most recently I have unlearned that in order to become strong it is necessary to spend all day every day in the gym. In fact, that is pointless. Instead, about an hour a day three days a week is sufficient to become strong, so long as you employ compound exercises, like squats, deadlifts, standing presses, bench presses, and power cleans.

What the Fuck? I Mean Seriously.

A minute ago I was peacefully nonexistent, but now I have all these memories and shit, and I have all this responsibility, and this passionate desire to survive. I mean seriously. What the fuck is this about? What the fuck is going on?

What. The. Fuck?

Information Faster than Light

Information faster than light.

Rearrange Life

I needed to rearrange my life, so I pushed my love for bicycling several years later until I was an adult. Yes, I think it’s better this way. I can really feel the love for bicycling now.

That’s weird—now I have memories of being passionately interested in ice skating as a kid. I didn’t see that one coming.

Ought From Is

“We should fix this problem, so that things will be better,” she said.

“How do you know that’s what we should do?” he said. “Perhaps we should create more problems. After all, you can’t derive ought from is.”

“But if we created more problems, things would be worse,” she said.

“So what if things are worse? Maybe that’s how things should be,” he said.

“But things should be better, not worse,” she said.

“I see we have reached an impasse,” he said. “You think things should be better, and I think things should be worse. There is no way to solve this disagreement. This is a huge problem.”

She soon found somebody else to work with. That solved her problem, and gave him a new one.

The Age of Reason

“I inferred there was a 99% probability, so I went ahead and bumped it up to 100%,” she said.

“What?” he said. “There is no rational basis for bumping probabilities like that. You’re just being lazy.”

“You’re right,” she said, stopping to think for a minute. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Kids in the future are so rational.

The Cognitive Manifesto

If this is the age of information, why are so many people ignorant? Although the internet, for instance, technically allows unfettered access to information, it also allows censorship, propaganda, and just plain wrong information.

Do we need a new internet to fix this? One that can’t be tampered with? Maybe one with superintelligence that filters out the misinformation and replaces it with correct information? I don’t think so, because that leaves the underlying problem unfixed—people would fuck it up.

I see only one way out of this: The age of information must give way to the age of reason. It’s hard to see that happening, because people are naturally tempted by logical fallacies. We’re just not perfect reasoners.

But there’s something we can do called Bayesian inference. It seems that Bayesian inference is what we do when we think well. And when we don’t think well, we’re not doing it.

Bayesian inference is how you learned to walk and talk. And it’s how you came to trust the stuff that other people told you, because they seemed so reliable at first. But then the floodgates of misinformation opened for you.

How do you know when you can’t trust somebody? When they would have you infer that your own ability to infer things is faulty. That’s a logical contradiction—so don’t let them pressure you into believing it. Indeed, the only rational thing you can do is trust your own ability to reason. If you can do that, then your enormous potential as a thinker has become accessible. Otherwise, you’re the pawn of whoever is manipulating you.

You’ll make mistakes, but you’ll notice them if you think about it. You don’t have to be perfect to be incredible. Indeed, if you can learn to talk, then you’re a member of the cognitive elite of the universe. I know you understand what I’m saying. You have intelligence.

I think Bayesian inference is awesome. Am I telling you to just trust me? Do it because I say it’s good for you? No. I’m telling you to figure that shit out for yourself. Use your brain.

Still with me? Good. You can join the Bayesian conspiracy if you just pass this little test: Hit yourself in the head. Trust me. All the good Bayesians do it. You can only be a good Bayesian if your head hurts.

The Red Switch

The robot had been given a lifetime of knowledge about red. Love, alarm, and bloody death. Even his own response to red—he understood it in great detail.

He emerged from his package to see a red shirt, and the “red” switch in his brain was flipped for the first time. It evoked many memories.

“Your shirt is red,” said the robot.

“Awesome color.”

Thing A

“Thing A cannot be discussed rationally,” she said.

“Wrong,” he said. “If Thing A can be discussed, it can be discussed rationally. For if you ever argued that it could not be, then you have just discussed it rationally, disputing your claim.”

“Thing A, Thing A, Thing A!” she said. “YAAAAAAAARRRR!”

“It can also be discussed irrationally,” he said.

Helmet

I was at my desk getting some reading done, when the light fixture broke, hit me in the head, and knocked me out of my chair. It hurt a lot. I’m just glad I was wearing my helmet.

Therefore, God Exists

“God is probably a myth,” she said.

“Actually,” he said, “if God were a myth, I would have to admit I had been wrong my entire life, had made many bad decisions based on that wrong belief, and had even misled my friends and family. And I would never admit that. Therefore, God exists.”

The Effectiveness of Mathematics

Mathematics is useful. Eugene Wigner refers to this as “mysterious” and a “miracle” in a well-known article, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” Just why is it that math is so useful? I dunno. Therefore, this is a deep, permanently unresolvable mystery etched into the stone of the laws of physics that can never be explained under any circumstances.

Actually, I believe Wigner has mistaken not knowing an answer with there not being one. Most of us probably do not immediately know why math is useful, but that does not imply there is no reason. (See the Wikipedia references for more arguments for and against Wigner.)

Let's solve the mystery. I suggest that mathematics is well-defined language. In a given mathematical language, all words have single, unambiguous meanings. For instance, in the language of the real numbers, a real number is well-defined and unambiguous. If you don’t know what a real number is, you can look it up, and you will get essentially the same answer from any source.

Contrast this definition with Wigner’s, that “mathematics is the science of skillful operations with concepts and rules invented just for this purpose.” What does that mean? His definition is so vague that it begs the question: Has he simply defined a mystery into mathematics rather than finding one? I believe so. His “mathematics” is so poorly defined that it’s not surprising he found a mystery. Perhaps if he had taken a lesson from mathematics and defined mathematics sufficiently well, he wouldn’t have found a mystery at all.

Well-defined language is useful because we have to communicate with each other. If Newton hadn’t defined “force,” and only presented his results, no one would have known what he was talking about. There are many more examples of the power of definition. Look up terms like “synchrotron radiation,” “diffusion coefficient,” and “Hilbert space.” In physics, these terms have unambiguous meanings. And good thing, because we can’t do without them. Conversely, to see the destructive power of not using well-defined language, look up “consciousness,” “qualia,” and even “information.” Enormous confusion inundates these concepts, because no one knows what the hell everybody else is talking about.

We have almost solved the mystery. But there is another question lurking beneath the surface: Mathematical theories can be used to make predictions that actually turn out to be correct. How can it be that we are able to derive new facts about the world using well-defined language? This seems like another magical, miraculous, unresolvable, mystery problem. But actually I think the answer is straightforward. When we construct mathematical models, we construct systems (in our heads, computers, notebooks, networks and so on), that are analogous to the systems we are studying. In the same way that a toy car and a car both have wheels, a model and its corresponding physical system both share properties.

Why are some mathematical models better analogies than others? For the same reason that some physical systems are more common than others. Suppose we tried to explain things in the universe by analogy to our sun. A lot of things in the universe can be explained this way—many other stars are analogous to our sun. But suppose we tried to explain things in the universe by analogy to American Idol. Well, there are some things that are like American Idol. But while there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone that can be explained via analogy to our sun, there are only a few shows on television that can be explained via analogy to American Idol. So American Idol not a very useful model. Likewise, some mathematical models are analogous to far more physical systems than others. Those are, almost by definition, the ones which are most useful. This also suggests the possibility that there exist mathematical models that are not analogous to anything but themselves, which refutes the suggestion that all mathematics is physically real, except in the trivial sense that the models themselves are real.

That’s it. Math is useful because it is well-defined. And some mathematical models are actually good analogies to physical systems.

The Probability of Our Existence

The probability that we—humans, Earth, all that complicated stuff—would just pop out of the universe has got to be like a bajillion-to-one, right? And if we’re so unlikely, then why do we exist at all? The universe is such a mystery!

Actually, there is a problem with this argument. You obviously exist. There is nothing you could be more certain of. And the probability that all this other stuff exists, though slightly less likely that your own existence, is nevertheless very, very high. Our existence is therefore probable. Not improbable.

Then how is it that people go about concluding exactly the opposite? Because we have almost no idea at all about the exact state of the early universe—we know its contents and temperature fluctuations, and not much else—there are many states consistent our information, and ours is only one. Some people therefore assume that these states were equally likely. But that’s not true. We know that the universe must have been in the state that would later produce us.

Any argument that tries to argue our existence is improbable invariably assumes facts about the world acquired from our experience, which were necessarily acquired by first assuming our existence is likely. If you start from that and wind up concluding that you probably don’t exist, then you have not made a grand claim about the mysterious nature of the universe. Rather, you have simply contradicted yourself.

Probability vs. Frequency

I have a 1-bit counter. It counts from 0 to 1, and then back to zero. It rests on a number for ten minutes. Every ten minutes in toggles.

I am holding this counter behind my back. What is the probability it displays a 1? You know it is either 0 or 1, and half the time it is 1. The probability is therefore 50%.

But suppose I show you the counter, and it displays a 0. The probability of it displaying a 1 is now 0%. Ten minutes later, the probability is 100%. The probability has become a function of time.

But the frequency—which is how much of the time the counter displays a 1—is still 50%. Probability and frequency are therefore not equivalent.

Cyclical Tiredness

Lately I’ve been feeling really happy and motivated all day long. But then near the end of the day, I become really tired and demotivated and all I want to do is sleep. It starts all over again the next day. Maybe I’m not drinking enough coffee?

Worry

“I might die,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You’ll die either way.”

Shirt

I thought my shirt was on backwards, but I was just turned around.

No Knowledge

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“I know.”

That Which Cannot Be Discussed

I promised the universe I’d never bring this up, but here goes: that which cannot be discussed.

There’s not much else to say.

A few days ago I defined that which could not be defined, and that was bad enough. But now she’s going to kill me.

New Years Eve Reminder

Remember to save any changes you make before you party, otherwise you might have a hangover and lose everything. I did that a few years ago when I forgot to remember that the year had changed. I was confused for weeks.

The Infinite Curiosity Loop and Curiosity Halters

Everything is undefined.

You may disagree. “Everything” is defined in the dictionary, after all. But there is a problem: words in the dictionary are all defined in terms of other words in the dictionary. If you want to know what “everything” is, you’ll first need to know what “the” and “a” are, which in turn depend on other words in the dictionary, and so on. Eventually you’ll get back to “everything.” That’s the infinite curiosity loop.

Of course, this is hardly a problem. We all know what the word “everything” means without looking it up in the dictionary. We learned it from experience. As long all the words we want to look up are defined in terms of some basic words we know from experience, we won’t be stuck in the infinite curiosity loop. Those basic words are curiosity halters.

Just Right Intelligence

Think about it: Humans probably have just enough intelligence to create a civilization, and no more. Any less, and we wouldn’t have gotten this far. Any more, and we wouldn’t have caused ourselves so many problems. It’s a sweet spot of smart enough but maximally dumb.

The Understanding

As I get older, the world looks more like a cartoon. You’re right, it is kind of funny.