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“The great value of the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm is the way it helps us understand how what once was "noise" (e.g., unselected-uncorrelated variation) can become new "signal" under changing circumstances.”
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“In the cosmic scheme of things, your life barely registers as a blip. It is hardly noticeable in the long arc of history. The information you produce by moving your arm up is not going to tell you much about anything of interest. But when you scope down in a way that reflects the horizon scaled to human thought and action, your life looms large in the image. It doesn’t just loom large; it occupies a central place. The events of your life provide the frame of reference around which the events of History arrange themselves in circles of diminishing knowledge and concern. The difference that your choices make to your own future is large, indeed.”
― How Physics Makes Us Free
― How Physics Makes Us Free
“Principles of choice, or “personal rules,” represent self-enforcing contracts with your future motivational states; such contracts depend on your seeing each current choice as a precedent that predicts how you’re apt to choose among similar options in the future. Short-range interests evade personal rules by proposing exceptions that might keep the present case from setting a precedent. The will is a recursive process that bets the expected value of your future self-control against each of your successive temptations.”
― Breakdown of Will
― Breakdown of Will
“Evolution is all about turning "bugs" into "features," turning "noise" into "signal," and the fuzzy boundaries between these categories are not optional; the opportunistic open-endedness of natural selection depends on them.”
― From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
― From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
“Mechanism design takes up Hume's challenge by designing games in which the knaves to whom power is delegated are treated as players. The checks in the constitution are the rules of the game. These are used to prevent a player going off the rails in situations that the designer can effectively monitor and evaluate. However, it is the controls that are more important, since these apply to decisions that the designer can't monitor, or doesn't know how to evaluate. To get the players to act in accordance with the designer's aims rather than their own in such situations, it is necessary that the payoffs of the game be carefully chosen to provide the right incentives.”
― Natural Justice
― Natural Justice
Hélio’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Hélio’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
209 books
|
31 friends
253 books
|
120 friends
371 books
|
45 friends
31 books
|
13 friends
55 books
|
180 friends
231 books
|
375 friends
0 books
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55 friends
1 book
|
27 friends
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