Profile for Student of Trinity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Student of Trinity |
| Member number | 3431 |
| Title | Electric Sheep One |
| Postcount | 3335 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
Recent posts
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Riddle Me This, Batman! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, August 15 2006 00:17
Profile
quote:Thanks, Thuryl; I think that's the one. And the measure issue was discussed when I heard it; it did seem to be a weak point. I think I might remember some added complication, but probably I'm wrong or it wasn't important. I am still wondering whether this is really resolved. For instance I could imagine playing the game with, say, Bill Gates. I would really only expect to be able to draw any conclusions based on the amount found in the first envelope, if I found a fair fraction of a billion dollars there. Anything less than that, and the relevant issue is simply how frivolous he's feeling that day, which I would have no way of knowing at all. (Okay, actually from what I've heard Bill rarely feels frivolous to any degree, but imagine a different Bill Gates.) So in this case the measure issue doesn't really seem so relevant. If I find $20,000, or $200,000, I just don't see that there's any appreciable information to be extracted. Certainly not in comparison to the 200% vs. 50% payoff factor. So I think there must instead be a problem with minmax, probably related to the fact that this is a one-shot game. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Riddle Me This, Batman! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, August 14 2006 13:30
Profile
At a conference a few years ago, someone who seemed authoritative at the time propounded a paradox somewhat reminiscent of the Monty Hall problem, but with envelopes of cash, and doubling the money in between two choice stages, or something like that. Point was, it was supposed to be a truly unresolved problem, after a fair amount of study by professionals, at least at that time. But that's as far as I remember. Ring any bells for anyone here? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Riddle Me This, Batman! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, August 12 2006 13:05
Profile
Let's put it this way, Alec. We'll play the 1000-door version, with me as the host. It'll cost you $10 to play each time, and you have to stick to your initial choice every time. But the prize is $100. Easy money, right? For $10 you get a 50% chance at $100! Step right up. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Riddle Me This, Batman! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, August 12 2006 12:37
Profile
Huh. Interesting point, Khoth. If an ignorant audience member opened the door, and there happened to be no prize behind it, we really wouldn't be any better off switching; it would be 50/50. Only if we know that the opened door could not have had the prize does it pay off to switch. The argument for switching is that your initial guess was right only 1/3 of the time, so 2/3 of the time the prize was behind one of the other doors -- and after the door is opened, you know which one it would have to be if your initial 1/3 chance didn't come up, so you get 2/3 by switching. From a Bayesian point of view, if you like, the fact that a randomly opened other door has no prize boosts your confidence that your initial guess was lucky, so you have to revise it upwards from 1/3 -- to 50%, in fact. A door that was opened non-randomly, and was guaranteed to show no prize, has no implications for the correctness of your initial choice. So you get no Bayesian boost, and your chances from sticking are still 1/3. This little remark by Khoth should clarify the fallacy in Alec's analysis. In the classic version with the canny host, the two games are not independent, because the host chose which door to open based on his prior knowledge and your choice. But if 998 doors were opened randomly, and still showed no prize, you'd be certain that an incredible fluke had occurred; but the two possible incredible flukes would be equally likely. Fun, fun, fun. [ Saturday, August 12, 2006 12:53: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Idea for realsing creations in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 10 2006 07:22
Profile
*shoos away the Thing again I kind of like this idea too, but it needs some limits. You certainly shouldn't get experience from the creatures. Some funny new kind of AI would be needed to make them behave reasonably: they might hate you, or still like you, or just try to escape from you. They might be aggressive against anything near, or passive or trying to hide. Also I think they should have a sharply limited life span. This has never been spelled out by Jeff, but I have always had the idea that the reason for anyone to invest in the various big vats and labs that we always see is that growing creations in vats is the only way to make them really independent. Creatures formed from essence alone, as by spawner or by the PC, must (it seems to me) dissipate after some time, if they are not deliberately maintained (at a cost against your maximum essence). All this could be built in, though it would be a fair amount of work and would take a lot of testing. The result might be interesting and useful a few times. I see no reason to try to squeeze this feature into G4, but maybe it would be something for G5 or G6. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Shaper hypocrisy vs. Shaper tragedy (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 10 2006 07:11
Profile
It has always seemed clear to me that Drayks, Drakons, Gazers, and Serviles are the only really intelligent creations. Oh yeah, also Servant Minds. Battle Alphas and their kin also seem to be sentient, albeit with intelligences well below normal human. But I have always had the impression from the games that Vlish, Clawbugs, Glaahks, Fyoras, and so on are no smarter than, say, dogs. I also have the idea that how a creation is produced must affect its mentality somehow. I find it hard to believe that a creation that I just made, crackle-POOF! out of thin air and personal essence, is really capable of independent thought. Whereas a Drayk that grew over months in a vat and then lived outside it for a while, or a Servile born to and raised by Servile parents, can evidently be quite comparable in mentality to a human. So I have never had any moral qualms, apart from sentimentality, about absorbing my own creations or sending them into minefields, etc. To paraphrase Savage Ed: easy come, easy go. But a 'real' Drayk or Servile, that to me seems a very different matter. You can have conversations with them. If my own creations started talking back to me, I would suddenly have to consider them more as teammates than as living tools. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Here's to the upcoming GF 5 and 6 ... in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 10 2006 02:33
Profile
From the latest Spiderweb newsletter (emphasis added): quote:Maybe this is being too literal, but I infer that Jeff intends there to be two more GF games after G4. Can the series really stay fun and interesting that long? I don't know, but my experience so far in beta-testing G4 makes me feel that the series is definitely not getting tired yet -- there's a lot of creativity in this one. We'll have a better idea how much further the series could run once we see how many fresh possibilities this next instalment raises. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Geneforge Beta Testing in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 9 2006 21:08
Profile
Yes, it's true, G4 is in beta testing. From Jeff's latest update thread on this board, though, it is clear that the game isn't all that close to being finished. He's testing the parts that are done. For final release his tentative target of year's end is still the best guess we have. Whether he may yet enlist more testers as the game approaches completion, I have no idea. Jeff's rationale for keeping beta testers independent makes sense. He figures that if just one person out of a bunch thinks that monster X is too tough, or whatever, well, you can't please everyone; but if he hears the same complaint or argument from several independent people, he really has to address it. But if the testers start talking to each other, that one tester might cajole others into repeating what is really just one complaint. And then Jeff ends up with a game partly tailored to just one person, who probably doesn't represent the whole potential market for the game. Even for discussing strategy and so on, I think it would be better for the testing process if nobody talked to each other. It'll be important for Jeff that the game is still playable, and winnable, by people who haven't been coached on tactics by veterans. And it might well be that a neophyte tries something new, something that the GF veteran testers would never try, and this reveals some important problem with the game. [ Wednesday, August 09, 2006 21:10: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Introducing Leopard in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 9 2006 02:27
Profile
I think it will probably work okay just because disks are so huge these days. In normal family use for about 5 years, with digital photos and music, we have not yet had any space troubles with our 30GB drive on our old iMac flat panel 700 MHz. And today I think you'd have to pay extra to get a new desktop with under 250 GB. At the rate we buy new computers, our disk space seems likely to grow faster than our volume of data forever. Keep in mind that the system will presumably not be keeping multiple copies of unchanged files, just one copy of each different version and a record of when changes occurred. The way most people work, that will take a fair bit less space than duplicating the hard drive every day. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Alec Kyras: An 19th Birthday Retrospective in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, August 6 2006 15:42
Profile
But the closest we've had to Boxers was that Chop Sockey thread. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Icshi's Whereabouts in Richard White Games | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, August 6 2006 10:46
Profile
Loud but distorted. Over. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Were there to be a new spiderweb series... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, August 6 2006 10:39
Profile
Evidently if you should lose your sanity, your particular derangement would be lycanthropy. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Shaper hypocrisy vs. Shaper tragedy (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, August 6 2006 00:47
Profile
quote:The frustrating thing about your discussion, Savage Ed, is that this is really all you seem to be saying, over and over and at length. To any suggestion that there might be other overriding factors, you simply say, 'No' and repeat your basic assumption, which everyone else finds self-evidently abominable. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but there is supposed to be a difference between repeating an opinion and arguing. quote:Nobody said anything about catering to wants. Most people acknowledge a responsibility to provide for needs. The important point is that the creator is not entitled to treat the creation as a slave. Care to address this one? quote:No doubt. So the Shapers were stupid to do it. But how stupid it was to make sentient creations has no bearing on the right of the sentient creations to a free existence. Why do you keep raising this issue as though it did? Do you have some unstated premise that wasting time and energy must entitle one to compensation in the form of slave labor? quote:Nonsense. Pretending that the only alternative is heavy labor by children and the elderly is pretty shabby argument. Pay healthy adults a fair wage for mining and cutting wood. The Shaper culture, like ours, can well afford it. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Character Fighting Order in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, August 4 2006 06:10
Profile
If your priest isn't going to be faster than your fighters -- and they probably aren't -- then they'd better be slower than any monsters that might panic or freeze or charm your fighters. This is where you feel the loss of the 'wait' option in combat. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Love in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, August 4 2006 05:53
Profile
Unconditional love may make a bit more sense if you think of a parent's love for a child. Maybe you need to have a child to appreciate this, but you're somehow stuck rooting for the kid permanently. If they're good, you're happy; if they're spiteful, petty, or odoriferous, you want them to get better, and you're willing to stick with them until they do. You adjust your expectations so that you're happy about every slight downward increment in spitefulness, pettiness, or odor. And to a large extent this irrational hope of improvement is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'd say it's rather subtle how to extract from this example a principle that could be applied to other relationships than parent-child. A parent-child relationship would clearly not be a healthy marriage, for instance. But I think there probably is some essential element of this unconditional love that can bear translation out of the parent-child context, and serve as a basis for other relationships. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Most powerful Shaper 'build' in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 3 2006 22:55
Profile
Submissions are okay, but the real fun is Reaper madness. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Love in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 3 2006 11:24
Profile
quote:No such luck. Just saying that some things can be evolutionarily useful because they are important factors in reality; it's not necessarily the other way around. Having said that, from a hard AI perspective love must be some particular kind of pattern, or property of some class of patterns, or something like that. As such, sure, it would be an emergent phenomenon of physics. Whether that counts as being 'written into' physics would seem to depend on how one conceives of the writing. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Most powerful Shaper 'build' in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 3 2006 05:24
Profile
Here's where we really miss Slarty, alas. I think DV had some views on a missile Shaper; I believe he found it worked shockingly well. I've always just gone for enough Magic Shaping points to make the best creation I knew how, and chucked enough points into Blessing and Healing magic to cast my best spells in these areas; and who can live without Unlock? (Actually, doing so is a pain but you can live without it fine, there are so many living tools around.) Mainly I have simply pumped Intelligence to make as many beasties as possible. When you include stunning the effect of more creations seems to me to be nonlinear. And in the late game it's hard to think of anything that could possibly boost your power as much as adding another Gazer. Not only are Gazers incredibly deadly ranged attackers: in several replayings of both G2 and G3, I can't remember ever losing one in battle. The problem with having many creations is that it can become tedious moving them around. Manoeuvring your army in battle is kind of fun, but steering six creations in combat mode through one of those damaging areas is wretched. So I might consider going for fewer creations but buffing them up more. [ Thursday, August 03, 2006 05:27: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Great SW Photo Captioning Contest in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 3 2006 03:13
Profile
That Douglas Adams, what a joker. Let's have a new picture. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Books and movies in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 3 2006 03:11
Profile
Follow the advertising hype. Watch the movie. Read the book. Memorize the dialog. Join the web board. Collect the action figures. Wear the tatoo. Buy the stock. Or not. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Love in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, August 3 2006 02:55
Profile
I also think TM's post was very reasonable. What I might say though is that it is attacking an extreme version of evolutionary psychology, and it wouldn't be fair to tar the whole endeavor with the same brush. Not everyone who looks for evolutionary explanations for behavior necessarily assumes that evolution is perfectly efficient, or assumes that evolutionary efficiency is easy to assess. Of course, taking a less dogmatic view on those two issues tends to make evolutionary explanations less satisfactory as explanations. Since you're always making retrodictions anyway, your explanations inevitably tend to degenerate into mere commentary. That acknowledgement probably isn't made often enough; but even if it is made, I think evolutionary psychology can still find lots of things worth saying. Also, the original remark did acknowledge love as a real phenomenon, and not just a misnomer for pheremones. I'd say that no amount of evolutionary utility really has any implications for ontology. Many organisms rely on gravity for reproduction or even survival, but gravity is hardly a figment of evolution. Speaking of which, Alec's theory of love reminds me of Aristotle's theory of gravity, which was more or less, 'Things fall because it is their nature to fall'. Hard to argue with as far as it goes, but is that really the best we can do? (Okay, that's an oversimplification of Aristotle, who had this whole picture of the natural places of things in concentric spheres of the four elements; but in comparison to Newton, let alone Einstein, it's not a big one.) [ Thursday, August 03, 2006 03:03: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Shaper hypocrisy vs. Shaper tragedy (SPOILERS) in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 2 2006 11:22
Profile
quote:Hmmm; I guess that's a reasonable response. But if a really sentient computer program can be made, then I expect human personalities could also be copied. Reading the brain might be a bit tough now, but mapping it non-destructively to the cellular level, or close to it, might actually be possible in the foreseeable future. And then if we really understood sentience, enough to program it, perhaps we could recognize it in brain structure, and thus copy it from people. As you can see here, I pretty much have the 'hard AI' attitude that sentience is some kind of formal property of patterns. Humans, robots, serviles ... that doesn't matter. We're all dust in the wind. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Just a little question in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 2 2006 11:12
Profile
I find I can tolerate "I could care less" if I think of it as ironical understatement, with "but it would be very difficult" left unsaid. "We're not to be reckoned with" sounds to me, though, like a simple confusion between "we're a force to be reckoned with" and "we're not to be trifled with". -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Great SW Photo Captioning Contest in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 2 2006 11:01
Profile
quote:Some people are grammar mavens, but surely that's carrying it too far. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Great SW Photo Captioning Contest in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, August 2 2006 02:37
Profile
Too many people were trying to argue with St. Peter. [ Wednesday, August 02, 2006 02:37: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |