Comment by eschaton
5 days ago
It makes a lot of sense when you realize that for many of the “leaders” in this community like Yudkowsky, their understanding of science (what it is, how it works, and its potential) comes entirely from reading science fiction and playing video games.
Sad because Eli’s dad was actually a real and well-credentialed researcher at Bell Labs. Too bad he let his son quit school at an early age to be an autodidact.
I'm not at all a rationalist or a defender, but big yud has an epistemology that takes the form of the rationalist sacred text mentioned in the article (the sequences). A lot of it is well thought out, and probably can't be discarded as just coming from science fiction and video games. Yud has a great 4 hour talk with Stephen Wolfram where he holds his own.
Holding one’s own against Stephen Wolfram isn’t exactly the endorsement it might seem.
I'm interested in this perspective, I haven't come across much criticism of Wolfram but I haven't really looked for it much either. Is it because of his theory of everything ruliad stuff?
I really enjoy his blog posts and his work on automata seems to be well respected. I've felt he presents a solid epistemology.