434 karma · joined November 3, 2013
The intuition is that (e) is the optimal water-level when limited water is distributed among a variable amount of buckets where all the filled buckets multiply each other. Alternatively, it's like how volume() is maximized where
volume(x, y, z) = (x y z)
const = (x + y + z)
/
(0)
/ \
0 (1)
/ \ / \
0 1 0 (1)
= 011 = 3 (in decimal)
b) A 6-digit numeral roughly corresponds to a tree of length 6.
c) Base_10 corresponds to a tree with 10 possible children for each node.
d) e is the most efficient multiplier when trying to achieve compound growth in the fewest iterations of multiplication.
> Also, why does Euler's constant appear all over the place?
e is special because e^x is its own derivative. It also acts as a "bridge" between addition and multiplication. It often appears where growth or trees are involved.
E.g. (10^0.001) = (1.00230524...)
Incidentally, "exponentiation is just repeated multiplication", right? Try using iteration to solve 0^0.
lim{x -> 0} (0^x) = 0
lim{x -> 0} (x^0) = 1
dirty languages:
input -> function_a -> output/input -> function_b -> output
^ ^
| |
side_effect_a side_effect_b
| |
v v
lovecraftian_primordial_soup_of_global_state
pure languages:
input -> function_a -> output/input -> function_b -> output
^ ^
| |
side_effect_a side_effect_b ------>
|
+-------------------------------------------->
(output, side_effect_a) function_a(input);
(output, side_effect_b) function_b(input);
(output, side_effect_b, side_effect_a) function_b(input, side_effect_a);
function_a() >>= function_b() >>= function_c >>= function_d
"Meaningless but aesthetically pleasing" is just decor.
bankroll_final = (bankroll_initial)(round_1)(round_2)(round_3)(...)(round_n)
$0 = (bankroll_initial)(210% )(210% )(210% )(...)(0% )
Bankroll_final = (bankroll)(round_1) + (bankroll)(round_2) + (...) + (bankroll)(round_n)
EV[bankroll_final] = EV[(bankroll_initial)(round_1)(round_2)(round_3)(...)(round_n)]
EV[bankroll_final] = EV[(bankroll_initial) e^ln(r1 + r2 + r3 + (...) + r_n)]
I'm reminded of one of my math professors. When a student asked him "How do I do this problem?", the prof would always respond "Carefully and correctly". And then he'd laugh at his own joke and give the student a real answer.
I thought it was funny. And I liked the alliteration.
Another thing to keep in mind is that musical patterns accrete into genres. And there's a wide variety of genres. So it's difficult for any single video to cover everything in detail. I think it's more common for videos to cover the patterns of a particular genre. E.g. if you're interested in Blues, consider searching for videos about Blues.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm4LO22-cyY I remember the above Vox video highlights a unique chord which sounds "melty" and is often used in holiday music. The chord is known as a "minor_7th, diminished_5th" aka "m7d5".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I This video is about the infamous "4-chord pop progression". It's ubiquitous on the radio. Elitists and connoisseurs tend to look down on it for appealing to casuals. The progression is "I V vi IV" (capital denotes major chords, lowercase denotes minor chords).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfjXp4KTTY8 When I think of the "12-Bar Blues (Chord Progression)", I think of Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Pride and Joy". But there's tons of educational videos on this. It's very popular in not only Blues, but Rock & Roll. It's "I I I I; IV IV I I; V IV I I". But things get interesting here because musicians often substitue "jazzy" chords like Dominant_7th's (aka V^7). For bonus points, look up "tritone" (N.B. Rock is truly the devil's music).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dISEg1ydQoM I'm not actually sure what song I'm thinking of, but there's a particular trope often used in Hollywood films to denote a bullfight. It's based off the Phrygian Mode, which tends to sound very "spanish-y". In lieu, I've linked the the first bullfight track I found.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4fa44_sq2E A genre I'm particularly fond of is House. Which is often characterized by its "Four on the Floor" drum beat. It's very simple, just continuous quarternotes of kicks. The rhythm is sometimes denoted "1 2 3 4" (where the structure of a single bar is "1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a"). The above video is Daft Punk's "Superheros".
And then there's Jazz. Which is hard to explain, because it's the genre where anything goes. And besides jazz, there's lots of other techniques and obscure genres that I can't possibly cover in a single post.
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In any case, I'd suggest looking up a particular genre you like and studying it. If you're a musician, learn scales. 90% of pop music these days uses either Major or Natural Minor. But you can really expand your horizons by learning other scales. It's boring, but it builds a strong foundation. Like how a basketball player will run laps rather than shoot freethrows all day.
See my other comment.
There are 12 unique notes in an Octave (yes, octave means 8; ignore this for now). On the 13th note, the octave repeats itself (counting is 1-indexed). But of these 12 notes, only specific subsets are combined into specific scales.
The most popular scale is the Major Scale which follows the pattern "Tonic Major_2nd Major_3rd Perfect_4th Perfect_5th Major_6th Major_7th" (there exist other notations). The Major Scale imparts a generically-happy mood. But there's other scales, including: the Chromatic Scale; the Major Scale; 3 varieties of Minor Scales; 7 varieties of Diatonic Modes (including Major and Natural Minor); the Pentatonic Scales; etc. E.g. Smoke on the Water, Sunshine of your Love, and Fight for your Right (to Party) all sound similar because they use the Blues Scale.
Once you familiarize yourself with the intervals, scales, and their various notations (which is its own feat), you can jump into the meat & potatoes of Music Theory. Which mostly consists of analyzing Chord Progressions and Key Signatures in order to find commonalities in mood. Chord Progressions and Key Signatures determine a song's general mood. It's too complicated for me to summarize quickly. But it's where all the interesting stuff happens.
N.B. I've deliberately omitted various details for the sake of brevity. E.g. I could have mentioned Time Signatures, Rhythms, Tempo, Dynamics, etc.
The article isn't bringing "-isms" or ideologies into the article. The article intended to contrast the Modern West's economic system [0] with the Feudal System. But you are interpreting the article to have contrasted Private Ownership with Public Ownership.
> the claim that it's a "myth of capitalism" makes no sense.
It makes sense under an interpretation you seem to have missed. Colloquially, "Capitalism" means different things under different contexts. Furthermore, it's possible to classify types of economies along boundaries other than Private Ownership vs Public Ownership. Analogously, there's more colors in the rainbow than just Red and Green. Attributing a property to Red doesn't necessarily attribute the opposite property to Green. Consider the possibility that your interpretation of the text was not the intended interpretation.
[0] which in reality is not a Free-Market Economy, but more accurately described as an Industrialized Mixed-Market Economy.
However, you've concluded that because the author described a problem with capitalism but not the equivalent problem with communism, the author must be a marxist.
I generally dislike the word "capitalism" because (like the word "man") it's ambiguous. By capitalism do you mean Private Ownership? a market economy? deregulation? Laissez Faire? Regardless of its definition and etymology, people irl use it to signify different concepts. Which dilutes the semantics and relies on context to properly resolve. In the article, perhaps "capitalism's most durable myths" should have been replaced with "industrialized-societies' most durable myths". But nobody except you seems to have interpreted the article as having a political agenda against Private Ownership.
> we are asked to imagine
not by a cabal, but by "The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption".
E.g. suppose I said "One of bowling's most enduring myths is that wearing a bowler's hat improves your score". Does this imply that a cabal of bowlers spread propaganda? Or simply that the myth exists within the bowling community.
The Soft Problem is easy to imagine. Neuroscience will solve it eventually. We may not understand it yet, but we can make a lot of computer analogies and educated guesses. After all, computers are already Philosophical Zombies (someone who passes the Turing Test, yet in no way experiences qualia).
> but it doesn't lead me to question the nature of reality in any deep philosophical way. Should it?
Here's the contention the professionals are currently debating. The Hard Problem challenges our notions of Physicalism (as opposed to say, Dualism). "But souls are dumb, Science says so!".
Extrapolate into the future. Even after Neuroscience solves the brain's circuitry, qualia will remain just as mysterious as ever. E.g. suppose we discover that the hippocampus demultiplexes memories to different parts of the brain. Suppose we learn how to directly manipulate memory. Not only can we fix amnesia, but we can implant false memories. "Hooray, we've solved the Soft Problem!". But we still have no leads on the Hard Problem. A hippocampus doesn't distinguish a Homunculus from a P-Zombie.
Physicalism has been so successful in the sciences, everyone takes its accuracy for granted. I myself consider Physicalism true. But Physicalism is not adequate to explain the Hard Problem. This doesn't mean we have to go back to souls. But it does mean we need to (at least) "spice up" Physicalism, or maybe choose another line of attack, etc if we're ever to crack the Hard Problem.
Mirimir wouldn't feel surprised about the absence of purple if they understood color in the context of phenomenology (rather than engineering), which is the spirit in which the post was made.
I understand the difference you are pointing to. It's not a novel or interesting position, it's the default position. If you insist on binding colors to wavelengths, you probably didn't get anything out of the blogpost.
The Problem of Color is a subset of the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Both are uncharted territory. Maybe one day we'll have a half-decent theory of color. When that day comes, it will probably bud-off and begin a field of study distinct from "philosophy proper". Just like math and science budded-off. In the meantime, the only thing we can do is imagine and philosophize. Because we don't understand how to even investigate the problem, let alone solve it. We're still at the stage analogous to when the Ancient Greeks were debating whether matter is continuous or discrete. "Nobody knows for sure, but matter sure feels continuous to me."
The least we can do is demarcate our ignorance. Which is why blogposts like this exist. So when you (essentially) say "Our current theory of optics sounds perfectly satisfactory", you are defending the delusion the blogpost meant to correct. My two previous comments aren't meant to contribute a theory of color, but to make obvious that optics and color are not the same thing.