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Hi! I'm Daniel.

This is my take on a digital garden. And also my contribution to AI safety. When a note shows up here, it hasn't been reviewed or edited to the degree it would be in a journal, or even on a blog. Instead, it's often a first attempt at understanding something.

The symbols in front of titles are a rough indication of level of maturity:

I've chosen jellyfish as a metaphor here instead of the usual plant metaphors (the polyp is the first stage of jellyfish development, and the medusa is its adult stage) because, similarly to Turritopsis dohrnii, some of my "medusa" notes might decide they weren't ready for adulthood and spontaneously turn back into a polyp.

Writing

title created updated tags
A space-time approach to computational hardness - on the overlap gap property September 26, 2024 September 26, 2024
A story about my name September 05, 2024 September 05, 2024 #writing/creative
artist's impression September 04, 2024 September 11, 2024 #poem
The Biology of Economic Systems August 08, 2024 August 08, 2024 #meta
Snowflakes and (Quantum) Error Correction- Part 1 August 04, 2024 August 04, 2024 #physics #math
Locally Meaningful, Globally Meaningless - a Call to Action for the Future of Work July 25, 2024 July 28, 2024 #satire #society
Fourier, Circles, Gaussians - A Proof of the Gaussian Integral via Fourier Analysis July 20, 2024 July 26, 2024 #math
Evolution Understands Selection Bias July 14, 2024 August 15, 2024 #evolution

Notes on talks, articles and other content

title created updated tags
Where Are You, Dear Heart - Mariana Enriquez September 24, 2024 September 24, 2024 #reading
Orientation - Daniel Orozco September 24, 2024 September 24, 2024 #reading
Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin September 24, 2024 September 24, 2024 #reading
Last Night - James Salter September 09, 2024 September 10, 2024 #reading #short-story
ghost season September 08, 2024 September 09, 2024 #book
Does chaos theory square classical physics with human agency- August 30, 2024 August 30, 2024
The Garden of Forking Paths August 19, 2024 August 19, 2024 #reading
Active matter — why does it matter- ▸ -KITP Blackboard Talk by Cristina Marchetti August 05, 2024 August 05, 2024
FE2.7 - Kelp Worlds- Trophic Cascadia (Part 1) August 04, 2024 August 05, 2024 #science
Noah Goodman - Cognitive science requires causal abstraction analysis August 04, 2024 August 04, 2024 #ai
Cultural Evolution August 03, 2024 September 11, 2024 #ai
Thesis Defense - Sarah Cen - Paths to AI Accountability August 02, 2024 August 04, 2024 #talk #ai #society
Understanding Higher-Level Intelligence from AI, Psychology, and Neuroscience Perspectives - Discussion August 02, 2024 August 04, 2024 #talk #ai

Questions

title created updated tags
fidelity and relative entropy (KL divergence) inequalities for post measurement distributions September 23, 2024 September 23, 2024 #math #physics
what are all the quantum states that can arise as the fourier transform of a boolean function? September 23, 2024 September 23, 2024 #math
why is position and momentum the right parametrization for mechanics? September 23, 2024 September 23, 2024 #physics
202409211708 how long will the longest memory from today last? September 21, 2024 September 21, 2024
what's in a place September 17, 2024 September 17, 2024 #philosophy
what does it mean that the brain is generating information? that to some extent, it has more information than our sensory neurons do? September 13, 2024 September 13, 2024 #neuroscience
are there regulatory (autonomic) mechanisms in our bodies which behave in a decentralized manner? September 12, 2024 September 12, 2024 #neuroscience
does the autonomic nervous system work like financial markets? September 12, 2024 September 13, 2024 #biology #economics #systems
will there be an incentive to write more due to LLMs? September 11, 2024 September 11, 2024 #thought #ai
can art and science be separated? September 10, 2024 September 10, 2024 #meta #creativity
how important is the social aspect to our sense of self? September 10, 2024 September 10, 2024 #psychology
are the examples of stories with multiple conflicts (say internal vs external) but the conflicts instead of paralleling each other, are contrasting? September 10, 2024 September 10, 2024 #story
are the characters in our dreams part of our selves? September 10, 2024 September 10, 2024 #psychology
how do we learn hierarchical relations between concepts? how does this apply to the self? September 10, 2024 September 10, 2024 #experiment
is there a proof of the central limit theorem via max entropy September 09, 2024 September 10, 2024 #math
are domesticated plants alive? September 02, 2024 September 09, 2024 #biology #science
why are there many elements August 26, 2024 August 26, 2024 #thought #physics
what is purely symmetry breaking vs actually fundamental and new August 04, 2024 August 04, 2024
does how many foundation model layers are required for a particular competency correlate with evolution July 31, 2024 July 31, 2024 #idea #ai #interp
how do higher levels of agency arise July 11, 2024 September 11, 2024 #theme
if there was a drug to make people “better suited for a large, interconnected society” would you take it? July 03, 2024 July 26, 2024 #thought

Quick thoughts

title created updated tags
will there be an incentive to write more due to LLMs? September 11, 2024 September 11, 2024 #question #ai
so many things are possible, and how to increase what feels possible September 10, 2024 September 12, 2024 #observation
the effectiveness of habituation September 09, 2024 September 10, 2024 #observation
the people hypothesis for the meaning of life September 09, 2024 September 09, 2024
who we are is what we choose to be blind to September 08, 2024 September 10, 2024
names are like fiat currency September 05, 2024 September 05, 2024 #observation
what's worth writing down August 29, 2024 August 29, 2024 #meta
202408280942 knowledge, data structures, and entropy August 28, 2024 August 28, 2024 #connection
why are there many elements August 26, 2024 August 26, 2024 #question #physics
multilevel selection, and symmetry breaking vs topological order August 14, 2024 August 19, 2024 #crazy
consciousness, many worlds, anthropic principle, and fermi paradox August 12, 2024 August 14, 2024 #idea #crazy
thoughts on quiet quitting August 08, 2024 August 08, 2024 #society
2024-08-04 thoughts - iPad kids, change vs continuity, competition, and what qualifies as creation and new August 04, 2024 August 04, 2024 #daily #meta
emergence of top down constraints and incentives on large platforms August 02, 2024 August 07, 2024 #society
market for long term social externalities August 02, 2024 August 02, 2024 #idea #economy #society
time exists because there are hard functions to compute August 02, 2024 August 02, 2024 #theory #crazy
the platonic representation hypothesis and what it says about the world July 31, 2024 July 31, 2024
the feudal stage of the internet July 31, 2024 July 31, 2024 #society
we've outsourced emotion to TV and movies July 28, 2024 July 28, 2024 #society
if there was a drug to make people “better suited for a large, interconnected society” would you take it? July 03, 2024 July 26, 2024 #question
godels incompleteness theorem tells us that magic does exist February 02, 2024 September 24, 2024

Updates

on projects, things I'm learning.

Page1CreatedModifiedTagsParent
2024-08-02 learning physics - liouvilles theorem, incompressibility, and the schrodinger vs heisenberg picture8 02, 20248 02, 2024#updatelearning physics