Something like historical examples of fundamental breakthroughs in science or great works of art produced by committee.
Criticism is for stuff one doesn't like, which is why it belongs firmly in the public realm of news, politics, etc. A group isn't public. When it comes to your private work, ignore criticism and trust your intuition. Ideas need room to grow just like children do.
I doubt it. New ideas develop slowly and can't be communicated or explained until they are ready. If you look at creative intellectuals they work alone or, rarely, in pairs. Discussion to the point of resolution would be more like politics or opinion-leading; perhaps necessary for defence or for sorting out existing ideas but otherwise harmful to progress.
I suspect the answer will turn out to be the same for food and alcohol: have periodic breaks from both to allow the body to recover. In the case of food this is now called intermittent fasting but it applies to both. In particular to allow the immune system, which captures many incipient cancer growths, to reset. One of the reasons that smoking is so harmful I think is that people do it continuously whereas most drinkers don't drink every day.
>Some people are just attracted to the crazy unknown
Yes. "Find what you love and let it kill you" somebody said. And most people don't feel safe unless they're living fearfully close to the edge of what is possible for them. In the past men worked till they dropped dead in their 40s to keep their families alive through the winter; women had baby after baby until they died or couldn't otherwise cope.
The strange thing is that, absent those harsh historical conditions, people still want the feeling of an edge, an existential risk. So they gamble, they do drugs, etc.
But these aren't good edges to be on. There are many real, urgent problems the world faces that could benefit from obsessive, risk-seeking commitment to the 'crazy unknown'. Addiction-level commitment. It shouldn't have to be to drugs. How do we funnel ourselves towards these problems?
Yes, our understanding gets more refined the more we learn. It remains messy, error-prone and incomplete. So the solution can never be to learn things 'well' or get things right first time or produce perfect teachers/videos or something like that. The solution is to go on correcting misconceptions where we are interested. Ken Shirriff's blog, mncharity's website, comments here and so on simply are part of the ongoing spontaneous correction process. Like the contents of a cell, they may look crazy and disorganised but they get the job done.
There's at least one thing about the film, though, that I find mysterious. It was given a 'U' rating in the UK (which means universal, i.e. suitable for all ages). Yet many people find it scarily unwatchable -- why?
SPOILERS. True, there's blood, which is unusual for a children's animation. The enemy warren, savagely run by General Woundwort, is terrifying. But I think the real objection seems to be the perception that vulnerable little rabbits are being picked off one by one as our group journeys across the countryside. Yet, if you look closely, you notice that only one member of the group, a minor character, is actually killed (Violet; by a bird of prey). Bigwig escapes from the snare, Hazel recovers from being shot, and so on.
UPDATE. I think I've figured it out. Because of the beautiful song 'Bright Eyes' (sung by Art Garfunkel), we have mourned Hazel even though he was only wounded. So it feels as if he has died, even though he hasn't.
We want to explore the solar system... and there are these marvellous parcels of kinetic energy and expensive rare earth elements whizzing around the place. With built-in radiation shielding, too.
OK, at least one of the bigguns is pointing at Earth. But, you know what they say, every existential threat is an opportunity in disguise! In this case, potentially unlimited funding for the study and development of asteroid harnessing technology. That's before you sell the metals.
Indeed! The way I see it, identity derives from memory. So to the extent (if any) that they share identical memories they are strictly the same person. Beyond that I would guess there may be some (false) identification with behaviours of the other twin, in a manner redolent of Gazzaniga and Sperry's famous split brain experiment:
No no. The routine is a space for unstructured improvement. Nor is there such a thing as repetition in learning. Every attempt at gaining skill is at least slightly different and is made under at least slightly different conditions. Progress being the slow accumulation of mastery over many details. If it feels dull then either a plateau has been reached or the ambition itself is an unworthy one and should be abandoned in favour of something else.
Well, alternative medicine that actually works is usually re-labelled medicine. e.g. vaccines are thought to have had origins in China way before the scientific revolution.
An exception is the Alexander Technique (AT), which I think cured my RSI, despite medical doctors and physiotherapists being unable to help. AT hasn't been incorporated into mainstream medicine yet, presumably because nobody can explain how it works (though it doesn't make any obviously superstitious claims).
But this lack of good explanation goes way further, beyond alternative therapies and into the heart mainstream medicine. There is a problem with medical science, imo. Most 'testing' and clincical trial related-work is beset by empiricism, wherein many treatments are assessed without an idea of how they allegedly could work.
As I understand it, this is why a large proportion of medical studies can't be reproduced: we understand by now that theory without experiment leads nowhere; most of us don't yet appreciate that experiment without theory is equally useless.
This is why I see even Science in its present form as insufficient for medical progress.
Rather, solid engineering is the more reliable answer, which is essentially the approach of the anti-aging SENS Research Foundation. Our philosophy should be, as far as possible, to engineer and fix the body, repairing its accumulated damage and so forth before it gets ill or aged.
Humans mostly don't eat sweet stuff for calorific or nutritional purposes. Rather I think they enjoy puddings, cakes, chocolate, and so on, for psychological reasons (comfort, pleasure) as well as for cultural reasons. So my question remains. What should they substitute to maintain an even mental keel? What should should be served or otherwise laid on at social gatherings that yields equivalent cheer and can be passed down from grandmother to grandaughter?
Sure but I could be reading even further ahead if I didn't have to carefully trace the horizontal line from a tied note (to see if it stays on the same level or if it jumps to another note). On the other hand if it were, say, a thicker line, or a broken line, or a line of different colour, or a something-else-to-distinguish-it-from-a-phrase-mark, then I could be utilising that time more fruitfully.
I think modern musical notation could be improved by making a more readily apparent distinction between phrase marks and tied notes. As it is one often has to read ahead on a tied note to see if is tied or not, which costs attention.
Yet such things are done by apparently good and nice people trying to work in the best interests of humanity. So how can we expect to somehow get it right in the case of an AGI without turning him into a resentful demon?
What I mean is that intelligence and creativity are independent of each other and since most people don't make significant contributions to culture then neither do most intelligent people.
Something like historical examples of fundamental breakthroughs in science or great works of art produced by committee.
Criticism is for stuff one doesn't like, which is why it belongs firmly in the public realm of news, politics, etc. A group isn't public. When it comes to your private work, ignore criticism and trust your intuition. Ideas need room to grow just like children do.