Hello, clever charming good-looking people. I am in need of a richer understanding of:
you
the nature of reality
consciousness
ethics
dynomight internet website
and have therefore created a survey, which you can take here. (You don’t need to create an account or give your email or any such nonsense.)
If you’d like to see what you’d be getting into, I include some questions below. But you can’t actually take the survey here, you need to follow this link to do that. (Edit: Survey now closed. You can still take it if you want but the results will probably never be used.)
ABOUT YOU
Were you born in the first half or second half of your birth year?
First half (Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun)
Second half (Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec)
Say there’s a pill that makes you immune to food. (You never feel hungry. You CAN eat if necessary, and it’s not painful, but it’s not enjoyable, so you wouldn’t bother unless there was a good reason. There are no side effects, and your health/lifespan stay the same as now.) How much would you pay for this pill?
$0 (I don’t want the pill)
$10
$100
$1,000
$10,000
$100,000
$1,000,000
$10,000,000 or more
Say there’s a pill that would eliminate your need to pee or defecate. (You never need to do these, but otherwise everything is just like it is now.) How much would you pay for this pill?
$0 (I don’t want the pill)
$10
$100
$1,000
$10,000
$100,000
$1,000,000
$10,000,000 or more
Say there’s a pill that would make you immune to sleep. (You never need to do it, but your average energy level is the same as it is now. Your lifespan is unaffected.) How much would you pay for this pill?
$0 (I don’t want the pill)
$10
$100
$1,000
$10,000
$100,000
$1,000,000
$10,000,000 or more
Do you think you could beat me in a fight?
For the following 4 questions, please take the MBTI test at dynomight.net/mbti. Or you can also just skip these questions.
What was your score along the I/E axis?
I
i
x
e
E
What was your score along the S/N axis?
S
s
x
n
N
What was your score along the F/T axis?
F
f
x
t
T
What was your score along the J/P axis?
J
j
x
p
P
ABOUT THE NATURE OF REALITY
Suppose that 1 out of a million people can live to be 5000 years old. (It’s known at birth but random and non-genetic. They age normally until 18, then start aging at ~1.3% the normal rate.) How much would the existence of these people change society?
society would be unrecognizable
a lot
a fair amount
a little
not much at all
How harmful is it to human health to consume aspartame in recommended dosages?
Harmless
Very small harm
Moderate harm
Serious harm
What is the probability P that on 2 May 2034, abortion in Florida remains banned after 6 weeks?
P < 20%
20 ≤ P < 40%
40 ≤ P < 60%
60 ≤ P < 80%
80 ≤ P ≤ 100%
ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS
In the following questions, you will be asked how much you agree with a bunch of different theories of consciousness. (Reminder: If you don’t like these questions, you can skip ahead.)
Trad consciousness: Consciousness exists because of God and immortal souls etc.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Substance dualism: The body and mind are made of different stuff.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Fundamental property dualism: There’s only one kind of stuff, but it has different physical/mental PROPERTIES.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Neutral monist property dualism: There’s a deeper layer of reality where everything is unified, physical and mental properties are just glimpses.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Panpsychism: Consciousness is everywhere, let’s get a drum circle going.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Full-bore eliminativist: Consciousness doesn’t exist.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Minor eliminativist: Consciousness exists, but qualia or the self or something else people often talk about doesn’t exist.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Identity theory: Consciousness IS a physical thing, feeling happy IS a brain in the state of feeling happy, nothing more.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Non-reductive physicalism: Consciousness emerges from physics + consciousness is physical + consciousness can’t be reduced to normal physics.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Functionalism: A system is conscious by virtue of playing the role of consciousness within a larger physical system. (Or something; I don’t understand functionalism.)
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Higher order theory: Consciousness is a mental state of being aware that one is in that same mental state.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Global workspace theory: Consciousness happens when information is broadcast between different “local processors” in the brain.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Integrated information theory: The amount of consciousness a system has is proportional to some information-theoretic measure of that system.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Quantum theory: Consciousness somehow depends on quantum physics.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
Angry: I’m angry about the previous set of consciousness options and/or descriptions.
1 (strong disagree)
2
3
4
5 (strong agree)
How likely do you think it is that we will make significant progress on the nature of consciousness in the next 50 years by: Doing philosophy (thinking about it, writing about it, etc.)
1 (very unlikely)
2
3
4
5 (very likely)
How likely do you think it is that we will make significant progress on the nature of consciousness in the next 50 years by: Neuroscience (experimenting with / theorizing about brains)
1 (very unlikely)
2
3
4
5 (very likely)
How likely do you think it is that we will make significant progress on the nature of consciousness in the next 50 years by: AI (building / interacting / experiments with artificial intelligent systems)
1 (very unlikely)
2
3
4
5 (very likely)
How likely do you think it is that we will make significant progress on the nature of consciousness in the next 50 years by: Something else
1 (very unlikely)
2
3
4
5 (very likely)
How likely do you think it is that we WILL NOT make significant progress on the nature of consciouness in the next 50 years.
1 (very unlikely)
2
3
4
5 (very likely)
ABOUT ETHICS
In the correct version of utilitarianism, how should you make choices that change the number of agents?
Maximize the SUM of utility of all agents (so trillions of semi-happy people is better than millions of insanely happy people)
Maximize the MEAN utility of all agents (so one very happy person is better than trillions of medium-happy people)
Maximize something between the sum and the mean.
Utilitarianism should only be used in situations where the set of agents is fixed and these distinctions don’t matter.
I disagree with utilitarianism so much that I refuse to answer this question.
If you combine utilitarianism and game theory, thinking about repeated interactions, how your decisions interact with other people’s decisions, etc., how similar does utilitarianism look to VIRTUE ETHICS?
Very
Kinda
A little
Not at all
If you combine utilitarianism and game theory, thinking about repeated interactions, how your decisions interact with other people’s decisions, etc., how similar does utilitarianism look to DEONTOLOGY?
Very
Kinda
A little
Not at all
If you combine utilitarianism and game theory, thinking about repeated interactions, how your decisions interact with other people’s decisions, etc., how similar does utilitarianism look to COMMONSENSE MORALITY?
Very
Kinda
A little
Not at all
ABOUT DYNOMIGHT
Should dynomight be:
more weird
equally weird
less weird
Did you think that (the above image) was funny?
Yes
A little
No
Huh?
How would you feel if I took posts from >2 years ago that I wanted to heavily revise and sent out a new “edition”? (Bearing in mind that I won’t realistically be motivated enough to actually do the revising if it’s just to update an old post and no one will read the update.)
I’d feel great.
I’d feel good.
I wouldn’t care.
I’d be slightly annoyed.
I’d be very annoyed.
Sometimes I write things that are insanely long. When that happens should I:
Break it up into pieces assuming they can be read semi-independently.
Just publish the whole monstrosity.
Whatever.
Do you want to give me money? Say I abandoned my trusty money bad posture and made it possible for you to give me money but I also said something like:
GIVING ME MONEY IS TOTALLY OPTIONAL AND IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT ME AND YOU’RE TORN BETWEEN GIVING ME MONEY OR OCCASIONALLY FORWARDING A POST TO FRIEND I’D HONESTLY PREFER YOU DID THE LATTER
and also say I didn’t paywall any posts, but in order to make it emotionally easier to give me money if you already wanted to give me money say I added some “odds and ends” to the ends of posts for money-givers, and also say that in the short term I’d likely use the money to hire an editor but hypothetically if I someday became like 100× more popular I might reduce the number of hours I work and spend more time blogging.
In the above hypothetical, would you give me money? (Please err on the side of saying no.)
No (it’s ok!)
Maybe
Probably
Absolutely
If you subscribe via substack, does it annoy you that substack has all sorts of invasive tracking on the website and emails etc.?
I don’t subscribe via substack but not because of this.
I don’t subscribe via substack partially because of this.
I do subscribe via substack but don’t care about this.
I do subscribe via substack and am annoyed by this.
If you subscribe via RSS/Atom, do you ever experience any of the following technical problems?
I don’t subscribe by RSS but I want to be a part of this question.
Images not showing up
Images rendering badly
Tables rendering badly
Expandy-boxes not working
Posts not showing up
Posts showing up repeatedly
I experience some other problem
Do you wish that dynomight.net had some kind of forum/comments? Some people have asked for this, but these days I figure most people prefer to comment elsewhere anyway? (Please err on the side of saying “no” because creating this would be kind of annoying.)
No
Whatever
Yes
Yes, please, I beg you
Which of the following types of posts do you wish there were MORE of?
“Advanced lists” (reasons to be thankful, things that don’t work)
Health (seed oils, colonoscopies, air quality)
Book reports (Bourdieu, Reasons and Persons)
Politics-y (Assange/espionage, harvard, abortion, death penalty, homelessness)
Random obsessions (ethylene, nuclear weapons)
Psychology (MBTI, factors of intelligence, gratitude)
Shorts
Which of the following types of posts do you wish there were LESS of?
“Advanced lists” (reasons to be thankful, things that don’t work)
Health (seed oils, colonoscopies, air quality)
Book reports (Bourdieu, Reasons and Persons)
Politics-y (Assange/espionage, harvard, abortion, death penalty, homelessness)
Random obsessions (ethylene, nuclear weapons)
Psychology (MBTI, factors of intelligence, gratitude)
Shorts
Any additional wisdom (about anything except seed oils)?
Well done, you read all the questions! If you’d like to answer them, go here.
Please tell me what answer you get for question 42 ("Sometimes I write things that are insanely long. When that happens should I:") because I would also like to know what to do when I write long things.
There is no comment section on your survey results so I am posting this here. What is "Extreme Luxury floss"? I searched for it on Amazon and I got "Xlent Expandable Floss Treated Activated Charcoal, Xylitol Natural Based Wax Fresh Mint Flavor", is that what you're recommending? I use cheapo Oral B and would love to upgrade.