Quotes

Mark Rosewater

"At the end of one class, she asked for us to write a short story about a college student having breakfast and at the end of the next she asked us to write a short story about a serial killer having breakfast. When we turned the second paper in, she had the class discuss the differences between the two assignments."
-- Mark Rosewater

"But I was a smart alec, and submitted the same essay both times."
-- me

The original class went on (I think) to decide that it was easier because they were familiar with college students, but not with serial killers, so would need to do a lot of research for that. My philosophical point is that the chilling thing is, most of the time, a serial killer is just like everyone else.

Edsger Dijkstra

"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
-- Edsger Dijkstra

"The question of whether a human can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
-- me

I liked this quote because it gets truer the more you look at it. It doesn't necessarily say the question is uninteresting, but that it's likely irrelevant to whatever you wanted to do. I decided to generalise this and apply it with gay abandon to any meaning of any word I wanted to temporarily mock out of existence.

Newcomb's paradox

Links

Newcomb's paradox on wikiepedia
Newcomb's paradox on Overcoming Bias blog
Newcomb's paradox on Scott Aaronson's blog and lectures

I first came across it via overcoming bias, and discussed it with a few people, but then recently saw it again in one of the transcriptions of scott aaronson's philosophy/quantum/computing lectures.

Newcomb's paradox

In very short, Newcomb's paradox says, suppose you're a professor and a grad student (or, in some cases, a superintelligent alien) comes to you and demonstrates this experiment. She chooses a volunteer, examines them, then takes two boxes, puts £1000 in box A and either £1000000 or nothing in the box B (see below for how she decides). She brings the boxes into the room and explains the set-up to the volunteer and says that they're allowed to either take the mystery box (when they either get lots or nothing) or take both boxes (when they get at least £1000.)

She even lets them see the £100000 beforehand so they know it exists, and lets them peek into box A to show it does have the money in, though box B remains a secret until afterwards.

Choice	In box A	In box B	Total obtained
B only	£1000	£0	£0
Both	£1000	£0	£1000
B only	£1000	£1000000	£1000000
Both	£1000	£1000000	£1001000

"What's the catch," the volunteer asks. "Ah," begins the experimenter. "I have previously examined you, and worked out which choice you're going to make. If you were going to choose both boxes, I put nothing in box B. Only if you were going to take box B only, did I choose to put £1000000 in it.

"Hm", says the volunteer. "What do I do?"

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