Douglas Hofstadter on Godel, Escher, Bach, and AI. The actual story behind GEB begins with me as a 14-year-old, when I ran across the slim paperback book Gödel’s Proof by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman, and was soon mesmerized by it. I intuitively felt that the ideas that it described were somehow deeply connected with the mystery of human selves or souls. (more)

Superhero, AlterEgo, SuperPower, RealityHacker, Warrior, Renaissance Man? (more)

typical distribution curve of any set of LargeNumbers (more)

Steven Johnson notes that SAT scores (High School) have improved over the past decade. Math scores have never been higher — they’re 14 points above where they were 10 years ago. Verbal this past year is four points above where it was a decade ago. And yet, during that time period, there has been a 38% increase in the number of people taking the test — a trend which has the effect of dragging down the average, since the new test takers tend to come from the bottom of the class. (Their equivalents in 1996 didn’t bother taking the test because they didn’t plan on going to college.) There’s also a huge increase in minority test-takers, who tend — again, on average — to have lower scores than the rest of the population.

Scott Alexander questions Bernie Sanders's plan for a free College Education. At what point do we say “Actually, no, let’s not do that, and just let people hold basic jobs even if they don’t cough up a a hundred thousand dollars from somewhere to get a degree in Medieval History”? (more)

Scott Alexander: Attempts To Put Statistics In Context, Put Into Context. There are many statistics that are much higher than you would intuitively think, and many other statistics that are much lower than you would intuitively think. A dishonest person can use one of these for “context”, and then you will incorrectly think the effect is very high or very low. (more)

Steven Johnson book, ISBN:978-1-59448-771-2. This 2010 book adduces seven conditions (patterns) that enable discoveries and inventions (Huge Invention, Breakthrough, Generative), each of which gets its own chapter. (more)

Richard Coyne is a professor at the University of Edinburgh and author of several books on the implications of information technology and design, published by MIT Press, Routledge, and Bloomsbury Academic. His work is strongly influenced by the writings of the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer on hermeneutics and interpretation theory, particularly as developed by Coyne's colleague Adrian Snodgrass in the 1990s, and with whom he co-authored the book Interpretation in Architecture: Design as a Way of Thinking.[1] He is Professor of Architectural Computing and was Head of the School of Arts, Culture and Environment (which covered the disciplines of architecture, history of art and music) until its merger with Edinburgh College of Art. Coyne is an architect by training and brings a design-oriented and spatial understanding to his research and writing on digital themes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Coyne (more)

Michael George Knight on Where good ideas come from (book by Steven Johnson). This is a very interesting and easy-to-red book about creativity and innovation. The author identifies 7 patterns of innovation found in the human and natural world then illustrates the patterns with a variety of stories and explanations (more)

Cory Doctorow: Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From: multidisciplinary hymn to diversity, openness and creativity. Good Ideas is a sweeping survey of many, many inventions, some dating back to antiquity, and a comparison of these innovations to the innovations that occur on the grand scale — in the natural evolution of new species and ecosystems — and on the micro-scale — the way that neuronal clusters alternate between synchronized, orderly firing and wild chaos to birth new ideas. (more)

Hacker in Accelerando (more)

Charlie Stross is not a fan of Steampunk. We know about the real world of the era steampunk is riffing off. And the picture is not good. If the past is another country, you really wouldn't want to emigrate there... The romanticization of totalitarianism is nothing new (and if you don't recognize the totalitarian urge embedded in the steampunk nostalgia trip, I should like to remind you that "king" is a synonym for "hereditary dictator" and direct you to the merciless skewing Michael Moorcock delivered to imperial hagiography in his Oswald Bastable books). Nevertheless, an affection for the ancien regime is an unconsidered aspect of the background of most steampunk fiction: much like the interstellar autocracies so common in space opera (and again, let me cite Michael Moorcock on Starship Stormtroopers).

trilogy of large novels (total ~2500 pages) by Neal Stephenson: Quick Silver, The Confusion, The System Of The World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle. Basically takes place over the lifetime of Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and he is sometimes a major character in the books. (Though large sections go without a mention of him.) (more)

Thomas Ptacek: My AI (LLM) Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts. Tech execs are mandating LLM adoption. That’s bad strategy. But I get where they’re coming from. Some of the smartest people I know share a bone-deep belief that AI is a fad — the next iteration of NFT mania. I’ve been reluctant to push back on them, because, well, they’re smarter than me. But their arguments are unserious. (more)

Eigenrobot's system prompt: Don't worry about formalities... Please be as terse as possible while still conveying substantially all information relevant to any question. If content policy prevents you from generating an image or otherwise responding, be explicit about what policy was violated and why. (see twitter for rest)

aka virtual community

Great Founder Theory - 2020 Manuscript by Samo Burja http://samoburja.com/gft/ (more)

A university (from Latin universitas 'a whole') is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines.[1] University is derived from the Latin phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars".[2] Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The first universities in Europe were established by Catholic monks.[3][4][5][6][7] The University of Bologna (Università di Bologna), Italy, which was founded in 1088, is the first university. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church, or temple, and may also serve as an oratory, or in the case of communities anything from a single building housing only one senior and two or three junior monks or nuns, to vast complexes and estates housing tens or hundreds. A monastery complex typically comprises a number of buildings which include a church, dormitory, cloister, refectory, library, balneary and infirmary and outlying granges. Depending on the location, the monastic order and the occupation of its inhabitants, the complex may also include a wide range of buildings that facilitate self-sufficiency and service to the community. These may include a hospice, a school, and a range of agricultural and manufacturing buildings such as a barn, a forge, or a brewery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery

There has never been an immortal human society. I work on figuring out why... In 2017, I founded Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that investigates the political and institutional landscape of society. I am a Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute where I advise how institutions can shape the future of technology. https://samoburja.com/