quantum mechanics

Article

quantum mechanics is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between August 04, 2022 and February 15, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “true things sound absurd before they turned out to be true (eg … quantum mechanics)”; “quantum mechanics crackpots”. It most often appears alongside ACX, Eliezer Yudkowsky, AI.

Metadata

• Category: Concepts
• Mention count: 2
• Issue count: 2
• First seen: August 04, 2022
• Last seen: February 15, 2023

Appears In

• Absurdity Bias, Neom Edition
• Trying Again On Fideism

Related Pages

• • ACX (2 shared issues)
• • Eliezer Yudkowsky (2 shared issues)
• • AI (1 shared issues)
• • AI risk (1 shared issues)
• • Alexander (1 shared issues)
• • Alexandros (1 shared issues)
• • Alexandros M (1 shared issues)
• • Anthony Fauci (1 shared issues)
• • Big Pharma (1 shared issues)
• • Bounded Distrust (1 shared issues)
• • Bulverism (1 shared issues)
• • Chris Kavanagh (1 shared issues)

External Links

• • http://web.archive.org/web/20221104130431/https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/1m-bet-rules
• • http://web.archive.org/web/20221129133112/https://blog.rootclaim.com/rootclaim-accepts-500000-challenge-on-covid-vaccine-safety-efficacy/
• • http://web.archive.org/web/20221224061743/https://www.skirsch.com/covid/SaarWilf.pdf
• • https://archive.ph/pY4gF#selection-663.103-683.190
• • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_interpretation
• • https://web.archive.org/web/20230104080248/https://www.rootclaim.com/
• • https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/secrets-of-the-great-families
• • https://www.neonarrative.us/p/an-interview-with-scott-alexander
• • https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/business/media/heather-cox-richardson-substack-boston-college.html

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Absurdity Bias, Neom Edition

August 04, 2022 · Original source

But isn’t the absurdity heuristic a cognitive bias? Didn’t lots of true things sound absurd before they turned out to be true (eg evolution, quantum mechanics)? Don’t I specifically believe in things many people have found self-evidently absurd (eg the multiverse, AI risk)? Shouldn’t I be more careful about “this sounds silly to me, so I’m going to make fun of it”?

Inline links: isn’t the absurdity heuristic a cognitive bias

Trying Again On Fideism

February 15, 2023 · Original source

This is a great post that contains a lot of truth. And yet … I also see a grain of truth in Kavanagh’s position. Like, I get emails every single day from P=NP crackpots and quantum mechanics crackpots and now AI crackpots too. Some of them probably *would* be better off never trying to think for themselves again, and just Trusting Science and Trusting the Experts. Sure, the experts are sometimes confidently wrong, but not as consistently so as they are! And for my part, I can’t possibly write 25,000 words to explain why each and every crackpot is wrong. As a matter of survival, I *have* to adopt a Kavanagh-like heuristic: “this person seems like an idiot.”

Backlinks

• Absurdity Bias, Neom Edition
• Concepts: Q
• Trying Again On Fideism