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Articles by Angela Pretorius
Schizophrenia as a deficiency in long-range cortex-to-cortex communication — LessWrong
(Written in a hurry. I was almost going to title this “My poorly-researched pet theory of schizophrenia”. Hoping for feedback and pointers to relevant prior literature. I am very far from a schizophrenia expert. Really. I cannot emphasize this enough. Like, if I took an undergraduate psych test on schizophrenia right now, I might well flunk it.) My hypothesis is that the root cause of schizophrenia is (…drumroll…) a deficiency in medium- to long-range cortex-to-cortex connections.
Fiber arts, mysterious dodecahedrons, and waiting on “Eureka!” — LessWrong
Part 1: The anomaly This story starts, as many stories do, with my girlfriend 3D-printing me a supernatural artifact. Specifically, one of my favorite SCPs, SCP-184. We had some problems with the print. Did the problems have anything to do with printing a model of a mysterious artifact that makes spaces bigger on the inside, via a small precisely-calibrated box? I would say no, there’s no way that be related.
[Intro to brain-like-AGI safety] 13. Symbol grounding & human social instincts — LessWrong
Part of the “Intro to brain-like-AGI safety” post series. In the previous post, I proposed that one path forward for AGI safety involves reverse-engineering human social instincts—the innate reactions in the Steering Subsystem (hypothalamus and brainstem) that contribute to human social behavior and moral intuitions. This post will go through some examples of how human social instincts might work.
Counter-theses on Sleep — LessWrong
Alexey Guzey’s Theses on Sleep gained a lot of popularity and acclaim on LessWrong and among people I follow on social media, despite largely consisting of what I think were weak arguments and misleading claims. I found that a bit surprising, so I decided to write a post pointing out several of the mistakes I think he’s made, and reporting some of what the academic literature on sleep seems to show.
Why has nuclear power been a flop? — LessWrong
To fully understand progress, we must contrast it with non-progress. Of particular interest are the technologies that have failed to live up to the promise they seemed to have decades ago. And few technologies have failed more to live up to a greater promise than nuclear power. In the 1950s, nuclear was the energy of the future. Two generations later, it provides , and reactor design hasn‘t fundamentally changed in decades.
How to Beat Procrastination — LessWrong
Part of the sequence: The Science of Winning at Life My own behavior baffles me. I find myself doing what I hate, and not doing what I really want to do! - Saint Paul (Romans 7:15) Once you're trained in BayesCraft, it may be tempting to tackle classic problems "from scratch" with your new Rationality Powers. But often, it's more effective to do a bit of scholarship first and at least start from the state of our scientific knowledge on the subject.
Rest Days vs Recovery Days — LessWrong
Based on a comment I made on this EA Forum Post on Burnout. Related links: Sabbath hard and go home, Bring Back the Sabbath That comment I made generated more positive feedback than usual (in that people seemed to find it helpful to read and found themselves thinking about it months after reading it), so I'm elevating it to a LW post of its own. Consider this an update to the original comment.
The Case Against Education — LessWrong
Previously: Something Was Wrong, Book Review: The Elephant in the Brain Previously (Compass Rose): The Order of the Soul Epistemic Status: No, seriously. Also literally. They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within I’m coming now I’m coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin — Leonard Cohen, First We Take Manhattan This was originally going to be my review of Bryan Caplan’s excellent new book, The Case Against Education.
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