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eref

117 karma · joined November 5, 2017

Off-the-shelf hacker with diverse interests in AI, graphics and armchair philosophy.
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eref··on Shut up and calculate: an extreme mathematical universe
What I gather from discussions about fine-tuning, it would not be enough to define all the constants as 1 to simplify the picture. In fact, this is already often done in physics. The universe still appears to be oddly fine-tuned.
eref··on Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook
Are there any statistics about how much of the value produced by professionals abroad actually flows back to the country of origin? Intuitively, I would say it is very little because why would you return once you live in much more privileged circumstances.
eref··on Apple at Its Best
I stand corrected. I only saw this on Reddit with an apparently misleading title.
eref··on Apple at Its Best
The Touch Bar is also a ergonomic and UX catastrophe. Touching it accidentally happens way too often and your hands also tend to be in the way for reading it. It is also way too small and requires adjusting ones pose to read it properly.

Then there is the iPhone case with extra battery that looks absolutely hideous: https://i.imgur.com/VZM2SED.jpg

And not to mention the utter design flaw that the Mighty Mouse cannot be used during charging: https://i.redd.it/e5p6uoibkkkx.jpg

Why not change the design altogether when adding a charging port? The original design was known to be an ergonomic nightmare for years anyway.

Then there is the way the Apple Pen is supposed to be charged (and easily broken by accident): http://i.imgur.com/NjKqE2r.jpg

Why didn't they simply add a small cable accessory, or even better, a small 90° hinge like on an antenna? This is just such an awkward design decision.

The speaker grilles on the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar are also mostly merely cosmetics. Form follows form. What's next? Ornaments? http://i.imgur.com/aEz8pWN.jpg

I also thought the lack of indicators for buttons in iOS 7 was a really bad decision. Luckily, they are reversing that.

eref··on Shut up and calculate: an extreme mathematical universe
It links a certain axiom set with computations, not all of mathematics (i.e. the set of all axiom sets), doesn’t it?
eref··on Shut up and calculate: an extreme mathematical universe
I am unsure now whether he describes the set of mathematical objects by enumeration and evaluation. He definitely describes the set of universes this way, as being “run”, so it is a computation. But you are right that he never discussed the substrate that they are run on. He assumes the existence of that enumeration to be axiomatic, like an uncaused cause, somewhere in the space of all mathematical objects that simply exist. I guess, if we had a proof that all non-computable formal systems are inconsistent then we could also skip one layer and assume the enumeration of all programs as axiomatic in order to be maximally agnostic.
eref··on Shut up and calculate: an extreme mathematical universe
I think the universe could easily be less complex if you would simply remove everything below Newtonian physics and basic chemistry. We would have evolved in pretty much the same way. But our universe is also complex in that the currently most fundamental laws of physics depend on a lot of seemingly arbitrary constants that are finely tuned (i.e. they become incompatible with our observations if they would be set slightly differently). Of course, it could be that we are missing a much simpler unifying theory, but currently it seems to have a quite high entropy such that we cannot explain it by saying it is in some sense canonical, i.e. that it is the only way a universe can be. That is also supported by the fact that we can build tiny universes in our computers (e.g. video games and Convey’s Game of Life).
eref··on Shut up and calculate: an extreme mathematical universe
Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH) is actually pretty much a computational theory of the universe. It basically makes the assumption that there exists somewhere the simplest process imaginable: One that counts through and runs all mathematical formulas which includes all programs, which, in turn, includes all (computable) universes. This assumption explains why our universe is oddly complex: If all universes exist, then a weird one such as ours merely exists because all universes do. This line of reasoning is also called the "anthropic principle".

I think, Tegmark does not talk about computations per se because the hypothesis is agnostic about what kind of computer our universe is. It could, for example, be a geometric computer in which the position of objects can be determined with infinite precision (i.e. using the real numbers). Such a computer would be strictly more powerful than a Turing machine or equivalent (i.e. all computational models that can be described and run inside a Turing machine). Enumerating the space of all formalisms (i.e. the domain of mathematics) is as agnostic as you can be.

eref··on Cosmic radiation exposure and persistent cognitive dysfunction
Make them big enough to provide radiation protection and small enough such that they burn up in the atmosphere.
eref··on Cosmic radiation exposure and persistent cognitive dysfunction
I was wondering whether one could bring several asteroids in a regular orbit near Earth and Mars with minimal need for correction. Perhaps there exist orbits which might take significantly longer than a more direct trajectory (e.g. several years), but ultimately it might pay off in terms of reducing radiation exposure.
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