Links for 2021-10-07
[Book review] Gödel, Escher, Bach: an in-depth explainer https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wwNnzaPnB5a48K86N/book-review-goedel-escher-bach-an-in-depth-explainer
Looking for resources on learning causality "from scratch"? Preetum Nakkiran (@PreetumNakkiran) suggests to start with this short lecture for the philosophical motivations (http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/BOOK-2K/causality2-epilogue.pdf) followed by this survey for the formalisms and structural results (https://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r350.pdf). Also check this causality reading list for much more (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dYk8SG094hpjkq2kVL6u211ssD0aQGmI1AFM0qjPPMI/edit?usp=sharing) and David K. Lewis' first paper on the counterfactual analysis of causation (https://andrewmbailey.com/dkl/).
Nobody knows what the function of sleep is, but we know that it cannot be achieved without disconnecting us from the external world. Sleep is not compatible with a fully conscious experience. Why? Here is a paper that investigates this question https://rdcu.be/cyE9t [redirects to nature.com]
Brain-Machine Interface with Ultrasound https://translation.simplecast.com/episodes/listening-to-neurons-with-sumner-norman
Why is it cheaper to build nuclear power plants in France than in the US?
“The French process is cooperative and flexible while the American process is adversarial, legalistic and rigid” / “French process allows for very little public participation or review of regulatory decisions”.
Two papers:
A. Comparative analysis of United States and French nuclear power plant siting and construction regulatory policies and their economic consequences https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/31297
B. Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106Startup With $120 Million for Deals Aims to Make Drugs Cheaply https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-30/startup-with-120-million-for-deals-aims-to-make-drugs-cheaply?sref=5kXB2YQi
The ‘Weirdest’ Matter, Made of Partial Particles, Defies Description: Theorists are in a frenzy over “fractons,” bizarre, but potentially useful, hypothetical particles that can only move in combination with one another. https://www.quantamagazine.org/fractons-the-weirdest-matter-could-yield-quantum-clues-20210726/
Trump has 28%, Biden has 20.7%, chance to be the next president. https://electionbettingodds.com/
Intelligent people are more politically intolerant than their less intelligent counterparts. This seems to be because they come up with more sophisticated justifications for their political views, whatever they happen to be. https://www.psypost.org/2021/02/more-intelligent-people-are-more-ideologically-intolerant-than-their-less-intelligent-counterparts-59701
“I am a professor who just had a prestigious public science lecture at MIT cancelled because of an outrage mob on Twitter. My crime? Arguing for academic evaluations based on academic merit. This is the story of how a cancellation is carried out, why it should worry all of us, and what we can do to stop this dangerous trend.” bariweiss.substack.com/p/mit-abandons-its-mission-and-me