In this, Chomsky is in complete agreement with O’Reilly. (I recognize that the previous sentence would have an extremely low probability in a probabilistic model trained on a newspaper or TV corpus.)¹

Anyone who considers themself an intellectual should be required to read this new essay by Peter Norvig. It’s the best summary I’ve ever seen of the many types of science that now exist in our world — almost all of which are moving away from the simple algebraic, deterministic models of the world that fill high school science textbooks.

1. On Chomsky and the Two Cultures of Statistical Learning

The Bayesian-Frequentist debate reflects two different attitudes to the process of doing science, both quite legitimate. Bayesian statistics is well-suited to individual researchers, or a research group, trying to use all the information at its disposal to make the quickest possible progress. In pursuing progress, Bayesians tend to be aggressive and optimistic with their modeling assumptions. Frequentist statisticians are more cautious and defensive. One definition says that a frequentist is a Bayesian trying to do well, or at least not too badly, against any possible prior distribution. The frequentist aims for universally acceptable conclusions, ones that will stand up to adversarial scrutiny. The FDA for example doesn’t care about Pfizer’s prior opinion of how well it’s new drug will work, it wants objective proof. Pfizer, on the other hand may care very much about its own opinions in planning future drug development.¹

To me, it’s amazing how similar the ambiguous regions of behavioral decision theory are to the major questions of theoretical statistics: people seem largely unable to systematically decide whether they want to be minimaxing (which seems very close to Efron’s vision of frequentist thought as stated here) or whether they want to be minimizing expected risk (which is closer to my own vision of Bayesian thinking). My own sense is that we learn as a global culture, over time, which error functions are least erroneous — and we do so largely by trial and error.

Most interesting to me is to consider individual differences in the error functions people effectively use: I suspect political preferences correlate with a propensity to focus on worst case thinking rather than average case thinking. Also, I’m fascinated by the way that a single person switches between worst case and average case thinking: I suspect there’s as much to be learned here as there was in understanding what drives risk seeking behavior and what drives risk average behavior.

HT: John D. Cook

1. 
   Bradley Efron : Modern Science and the Bayesian-Frequentist Controversy

On the other hand, taken as a whole, decision theory seems to have about the same connection to real decisions as war games played on a table do to real wars.¹

1. David Freedman : Some issues in the foundation of statistics

Initiates into the mysteries of the goddess Logical Rigor use a strange speech among themselves, and find it all but impossible to communicate their visions to the mass of ordinary, unilluminated mankind. This accounts in part for the fact that, of the three disciplines most devoted to that goddess, analytical philosophy and neo-classical economics have done next to nothing to shape thought and the culture at large, or even within the academy, while mathematics gave up all such pretensions long ago.¹

I am not sure when it happened, but, at some point over the past ten years, I started to avoid arguing certain issues with people not familiar with rigorous mathematics, because I found it too upsetting to be reminded that many settled questions were still considered open to serious disagreement of opinion. Hopefully at some point I’ll find a better way to resolve these issues, because there is so much known only by the devotees of the goddess Logical Rigor that could benefit people, if only it were explained in a way they could understand. Sadly, I find it largely impossible to give someone more than a superficial intuition of how economic theory works without resorting to mathematics.

1. From Cosma Shalizi’s Review of Roemer’s “A Future for Socialism”

I’ve held onto old codes of honor like the captain to a sinking ship. The world moved on and rolled its eyes, but there are some things that are worse than dying. It’s always been my way to over-romanticize, cuz’ when I was young I had a hard time with what was real and fantasized. The world moved on and did its thing, and I tried and I tried, but could not stop being that boy. And nothing turned out quite like they told me. I will believe in dragons for as long as I run with dragons, while these bodies keep piling, but there are some things that are worse than dying.¹

Plainly, an appreciation for hardcore as a musical genre and for Bane’s lyrics in particular are acquired tastes, but I feel compelled to praise Bane for continuing to be, in my opinion, the most genuine band that exists in the modern world. Thank you, Bane, for being so beautifully real, with all of your faults, weaknesses and uglinesses right upfront, beside your unrivaled passion and sincerity.

1. Bane : Dublin 11:58 P.M. : The Young and the Restless

My formula for happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.¹

It amazes me that nearly all of Nietzsche’s philosophy is implicit in this single maxim, which is plainly a statement of the motive that singularly defined his personality. What is the madman of The Gay Science’s fear when he says, “what were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?,” save precisely that the death of God is also the death of all purpose for human existence? What is the Overman but the goal that Nietzsche offers humanity as a replacement for a dead God’s approval?

1. Friedrich Nietzsche : Twilight of the Idols : Maxims and Arrows : 44

That word balance is a significant one. The more willful you are, the more disciplined you have to be. The stronger your will, the less anyone will be able to argue with you except yourself. And someone has to argue with you, because everyone has base impulses, and if you have more will than discipline you’ll just give into them and end up on a local maximum like drug addiction.1

In part I like this passage because it reminds me of this aphorism of Nietzche’s:

Once the decision has been made, to shut your ears even to the best counterarguments: a sign of a strong character. Also an occasional will to stupidity.²

And in part I like it because it reminds me of the reasons why I and so many of the people I care about chose to become straightedge as teenagers.

1. Paul Graham : The Anatomy of Determination
2. Friedrich Nietzsche : Beyond Good and Evil : Part Four : 107

En el auténtico humanismo se respira la presencia de una sensualidad discreta y familiar.

In authentic humanism, there breathes the presence of a discrete and familiar sensuality.

Sólo una cosa no es vana: la perfección sensual del instante.

One thing alone is not vain: the sensual perfection of an instant.

Una existencia feliz es tan ejemplar como una virtuosa.

A happy existence is as exemplary as a virtuous one.

Se suele olvidar que lo contrario de romántico no es clásico sino imbécil.

It is commonly forgotten that the opposite of Romantic is not classical, but idiotic.

Cuando la providencia nos concede el destino que anhelábamos, pronto descubrimos que aceptarlo requiere una resignación desolada.

When providence concedes to us the destiny that we wished for, we soon discover that a desolate resignation is required to accept it.

Dios es la substancia de lo que amamos.

God is the substance of that which we love.¹

If anyone could make me believe in God, it would be Gómez Dávila.

1. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios a un texto implícito : Tomo I

A country where people do not wait in line in orderly fashion, or where the drivers do not stay in their lanes, is usually a country with serious economic and political problems.¹

If you like that passage, I recommend reading all of Arnold Kling’s discussion of Tyler Cowen’s new book, Create Your Own Economy. Tyler’s book, from which the passage is excerpted, looks like it will be fascinating.

One thing I will say: I dislike the use of the word, “autistic,” as a metaphor for a person guided more strongly by abstractions than emotions centered on persons and social groups. I am certainly among the most guilty of extending the use of psychopathological terms to daily life experiences. And I understand that we must often use these terms because we unfortunately lack the proper vocabulary at present — really, we lack the entire ontology of interpersonal differences — to express the ideas that drive us to rip terms from psychopathology out of their proper context. Yet surely the people of Germany are not such exemplars of autistic personalities as they might be made out to be.

Moreover, it is unclear to me how much of the relevant variance being attributed to “autistic” personalities is merely variance in the expression of levels of the Big Five factor of conscientiousness.

1. Arnold Kling : EconLog : Pro-Autistic Economics

The heaviest weight. — What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence – even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.” If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, “Do you want this again and innumerable times again?” would lie on your actions as the heaviest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?¹

A friend mentioned the Eternal Recurrence today, and so I reread this passage. It still strikes me as the greatest question of conscience imaginable and the truest test of happiness I know.

1. Friedrich Nietzsche : The Gay Science : Section 341

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.¹

Given the endless rains we’ve had lately, I decided to watch Ghost Dog tonight, which I hadn’t seen in a few years. It was as good as I remember it being — and, as always, the citations from the Hagakure are permanently apropos.

1. Yamamoto Tsunetomo : Hagakure – The Book of the Samurai

Men come and go as leaves year by year upon the trees. Those of autumn the wind sheds upon the ground, but when spring returns the forest buds forth with fresh vines. Even so is it with the generations of mankind, the new spring up as the old are passing away.¹

1. Homer : The Iliad : Book VI : Samuel Butler Translation

El católico debe simplificar su vida y complicar su pensamiento.¹

I’d apply this to everyone, not just Catholics.

Siempre es más fácil tener opiniones atrevidas que ser inteligente.²

1. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios sobre un texto implíciti : Tomo I
2. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios sobre un texto implíciti : Tomo I