# Some (Updated) Beliefs

Years ago I wrote this, expressing without too much elaboration or reasoning several beliefs of mine in various categories. Needless to say, some have changed, and this gives me an outlet to write a little about what I haven't been writing about. So, following the original categorization (with a few new categories), here are some of my current beliefs. If I don't address an old one, conclude it hasn't really changed. Please keep in mind most of these are "academic level" beliefs and thus I'm not super attached to them, for clarity on that (and maybe some updated beliefs if this post is old) see here.

### Religion

I stand by my original belief in 2009. The only thing I might add is that I think the rituals employed by religion can be useful, ritual itself is important -- see these.

Of the current world religions, Islam clearly represents the realest and gravest threats to humanity and progress, specifically progress towards a successful intelligence explosion. If anti-theism is to have a bias, it should be against Islam.

### Math and Science (and Engineering)

My math background since my last post has expanded to include combinatorial game theory, differential equations (including Fourier and Laplace transforms), vector calculus and analytic geometry, fuzzy sets, and the math involved with digital signal processing and control theory. The topics I'd like to understand better include Bayesian probability (as always, though I know a good deal more than I did in 2009 it is still fairly limited since I never finished Jaynes or Pearl or the little green book), fractal geometry (I've had an unfinished book for maybe a decade now...), and geometric algebra.

I stumbled my way through a standard Electricity and Magnetism course that barely touched on Maxwell's equations at the end. I wouldn't have gotten through it without Feynman's texts, but I think an even better way to have made it would have been to ignore all "physics" and just think in terms of solving geometry problems via calculus with the occasional system of equations derived with linear algebra thrown in. I haven't really developed my knowledge of science that much. I think I read QED (quantum physics ) after 2009... I've read bits of Aaronson. I haven't gotten around to actual Lagrangian/Hamiltonian mechanics. I know the basics of the science of waves and of radar. I began reading Sakurai but was quickly curb stomped.

Is math the pinnacle of human intelligence? Maybe, I'm no longer certain, and I'm also no longer certain that question has a useful meaning. I remember the question was once posed shortly before that old post and I immediately answered, I don't think I've given it that much thought though.

More than just using Science to find truths, I'm more convinced now than I was in 2009 that using Bayesian methods to find truths is necessary to avoid pitfalls. Your p-values are shit compared to bayes-factors.

Many-Worlds is still the obviously correct way to look at things. Though it might be wrong, Copenhagen is most certainly more wrong.

My degree is in computer engineering, so I have a subset of the skills an electrical engineer (and an engineer in general) have. I think my current belief is that engineers are more valuable than scientists, though there's a disturbing trend that over the last 50 years it's taken more and more of each to do less than what less people used to be able to do. I think I acquired this belief after reading the Skunk Works book.

### Philosophy

I still think most philosophy is junk, there's a lot of navel gazing and philosophers could learn a great deal if they bothered to study science and engineering.

Philosophy is important, and it's more important to read in breadth than in depth. I mean really wide, the wider the better. It's not enough to read Kant, Hume, Hobbes, Plato, Nietsche... You need to read too Carlyle, Fitzhugh, Evola, Chuang Tzu, and many more. I still believe that people whose philosophical experience is from one mind (i.e. most Objectivists) are dangerous and deluded.

### Violence

Gandhi is no longer a hero though I still respect him and his methods. My belief on the subject of violence has changed, mainly I'm no longer so concerned about it and its extreme of killing. Its use should be avoided, and non-violence philosophy shows that many cases where one would assume there's no other solution besides a violent one actually have non-violent solutions so non-violence philosophy should be studied. But when violence is employed, it should be employed with commitment and follow-through, no half-measures. It does not need to be done at maximum output (as I once believed before I believed in pacifism), such as nuking the whole of the Middle East because someone there killed one of our civilians, it should fall under Just War theory as a measured response, but it can't be half-assed with no clear military objective. I'm still non-supportive of America's military because its goals, when it has them, are misaligned, and more often than not it has no real goals or they are very vague. I also think standing armies should go away, as historically they're a new phenomenon, but it's pretty laughable even by me to think that has a chance. We might see a further evolution of the majority non-fighting-role army into a more useful make-work role, however.

Violent video games are great. Gratuitous violence isn't gratuitous enough.