This is an interesting idea for waste heat. Is the waste heat a nuclear power plant produces significant? My understanding is you want all your heat working to spin your turbine.
It's a very old idea which is in use in many places [1] -- and not just for nuclear plants. Main constraint is that you really can't transport the waste heat very far.
Yes, ideally all the energy released by the reactor would go into the turbine. But no engine is 100% efficient, and waste heat is inevitable. Waste heat is "free" energy in the sense that it would have otherwise not been harnessed for something useful.
Waste heat is not free to the degree that you're not cooling your cold side as efficiently. If "sending heat to homes" has the same thermal resistance as "just dissipate it", then sure.
However, I find it elegant that heat is directly used to heat homes, rather than turning it into low-entropy electricity just to turn it to heat again (which is inelegant, even with heat pumps).
A natural gas furnace is up to 98% efficient. A natural gas turbine is 40-60% efficient; a modern heat pump can have a COP of 3 or even 4, for 150-200% equivalent efficiency (ballpark).
A fossil fuel plant will burn fuel to produce heat. Some of this heat will be used for generation, and the remainder is waste heat. A solar panel or wind turbine, on the other hand, does not produce significant amounts of heat in operation - a PV solar panel would only get somewhat warm, a wind turbine would only achieve some friction heating - to where it is not economical to harness this relatively small amount of energy (compared to waste heat from an exothermic generation process, like nuclear fission or hydrocarbon combustion)
Solar panels are super thermally inefficient generally speaking, collecting about 20% of the energy that hits the panel. They are dark, and this leaves a lot of heat available for the gathering. You can get solar systems that heat water as well, especially in rooftop solar. This also cools the panels down and makes them more efficient. Not much, but measurably. Something like this. [1]
Of course, in the winter in Canada, you have to bleed the system otherwise the water will freeze in the tubes and they'll burst.
Actually, wind turbines do produce heat but we generally let it dissipate. It may be that it is not really usable, but wind turbines that only produce heat are a thing historically:
I think the issue is you can’t really move heat too far physically, and turbines are located usually pretty far from houses themselves. Certainly relative to rooftop solar.
That’s not really the argument monkeybutton is making, the point is lobsters’ neural complexity is similar to ants, and orcas are comparable to humans.
It’s still a gradation, “as complex” is obviously a stretch. The whole argument is silly, soon turning off my Deep Learning algorithms because they are more complex than lobster.
It is true that photonic systems can multiply/add very efficiently. The limiting factor for optical neural networks are activation functions. Non-linear relationships are hard for photonics. State-of-the-art nonlinear features require optical elements that are difficult to manufacture or op-amps which slow the computational potential of the optical neural network by orders of magnitude.
I concur with many other commenters here, this is a fantastic read. Though, I find the value in this book is not the discrete proposals Jaynes makes - his conclusions on schizophrenia are dubious at best. Jayne’s achievement is in his explaining of the mindset and thought patterns (what Jaynes calls consciousness) of the ancients.
So often ancient man felt alien to me. Not until reading this book have I felt I understand what it was like to have lived millennia ago.
Is it wrong to be opinionated? Feser quickly remarks on a problem of math: some mathematical constructs reflect the system of math more than reality. If your philosophy never touches the political, the reality, aren’t you merely creating a system of reasoning for its own sake?
Moreover, does he need to challenge his own presuppositions? We can do that!
I think that sometimes being overly opinionated and incapable of changing your mind is potentially harmful to others, yes… Is it not potentially dangerous to advocate for various political realities based solely on unexamined/individual opinion-based constructs? Maybe I am wrong, though… I’m curious what you think of the ideas in this article?:
https://aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2007/08/26/is-philosophy-just...
I understand caution when stating opinions - it is a good instinct, but I'm not sure what you're arguing.
> I think that sometimes being overly opinionated and incapable of changing your mind is potentially harmful to others, yes… Is it not potentially dangerous to advocate for various political realities based solely on unexamined/individual opinion-based constructs?
How can I disagree with this? Yes there is hazard in advocating for anything. Moreover, there is hazard in doing anything. But I see what you're getting at. There is some line we draw in our own minds between philosophy, that is the pursuit of truth, and political - the realm of opinions.
Where is the line? Most would say that it is when the philosopher argues in good or bad faith. Thus, we are in the realm of the unknowable, the motivations of all around us. Also, not to comment on the notions of whether it's possible for an individual's to be "good" or "bad", but I don't want to digress.
To return, I think you're saying that making statements result in harm to individuals is bad. I agree, but this is a political question, not a philosophical one. Thus providing a philosophical justification or contradiction for your statement is moot.
Having read a few philosophers, I don't really see any fundamental difference between Feser's approach and those of other philosophers. All philosophers have their positions and try to construct arguments to support those constructions. Feser's positions are traditional Roman Catholic positions, but your average atheist philosopher (such as Graham Oppy or J. L. Mackie) is doing the same basic thing.
I feel like your expectations for how philosophers ought to behave aren't based on any significant familiarity with the work of actual philosophers, just your suppositions about how philosophy ought to be done.
Good point: perhaps I have an unrealistic, dumb, ill-educated or otherwise malformed ideal/view that philosophers should somehow be constantly challenging their own ideas, using their writing/discourse as an instrument to help them reach better conclusions through statement/contradiction (something like constructing an academic essay using thesis/antithesis/synthesis I guess?) and disputing them internally… Actually, as you suggest, the ‘correct’ approach to philosophy, or at least the only realistically possible approach, is to repeatedly state prior beliefs in the most persuasive way possible and then presumably to defend your a priori views from any challenges by others - only ‘testing’ those ideas in reaction by engaging in external debate rather than an internal one… I wonder though, doesn’t the outcome/process of that debate have to register internally somehow, for one side at least, for it to have any point? …for an evolution of the thinkers involved’s ideas to take place, is it not necessary for one/both sides in a debate to have at least a somewhat open mind, even as they strongly debate their particular ‘side’? …to allow one side to change its mind when the arguments put forward by the opposition are significantly strong - otherwise the debate would inevitably become stale, never-changing and circular? If one side is fixed in its beliefs, why would the other side bother debating them at all? If they were interested in adopting those ideas they should merely ‘receive’ them, rather than engage in an inevitably fruitless debate? I suppose if you have an unshakable belief that there exists an eternal and ever-present truth that you are inalterably sure of, and others who don’t agree with you are simply less enlightened, then you may feel that you should never have cause to change your mind - why should you, as you are already privy to the ultimate truth? Your task then, if you are communicative/evangelical/missionary in some way at least, is only to expound that truth to others? Your writing becomes a vehicle to promote your ‘truth’ - truth informed by mystically or intuitively received wisdom, never conjecture… Your debate/writing etc. is not a way to clarify your own ideas, but rather to show others the folly of contrary thoughts?
But where does it end? Is all reason not based on a set of axioms? You can comment on your presuppositions, if you throw them all out then there is no (classical) logic.
Philosophy is a conversation, and valid argumentation is that starting point of any treatise. The work of contending philosophers is to challenge one another, so there should be no hesitation in using less-than-certain (that is to say, all) presuppositions.
Moreover, Feser does comment on his presuppositions in this very article.
> I would qualify this by saying that metaphysics is prior to logic if “logic” is understood in sense (b) described above, though not if understood in sense (a). Naturally, we have to presuppose certain canons of reasoning when reasoning about anything, including metaphysics. But it doesn’t follow that we have to presuppose the codification enshrined in some particular formal system – such as, for example, modern propositional and predicate logic rather than traditional Aristotelian logic, or rather than some system that tries to capture the best of both worlds (such as that of Fred Sommers).
You’re suggesting that a head of state (more, a sovereign) should have the right to rule subjects by decree in private. I think that most would agree that the citizens should have the right to know how the laws they live under came to be. You are unfair to conflate Greenwald's advocacy for everyday individual privacy with the Queen’s right to rule arbitrarily.
baybal doesn’t contradict you. Deng radically westernized parts of the Chinese economy, but he also enforced the one child policy. The economic effects of a small young generation supporting a large aging population is witnessed in Japan: a slow in growth if nothing else
Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the surface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and broken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their bones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some reason assert that this sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so sinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it is not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of life, with all their panting lard about them; even these brawny, buoyant heroes do sometimes sink.
It might be me personally, but I can't stand old, long-winded and effervescent writing. My eyes start to jump around in it, and I can't maintain focus. It makes me wonder how our writing and media will be perceived in a hundred or more years.
Entire patterns of thought become antiquated as our communication wiring adapts to the ever increasing pace of society. Social media is driving dopamine hits from shorter and shorter forms of engagement.
It's amusing to think that Harry Potter might one day read like an opaque relic.
> Entire patterns of thought become antiquated as our communication wiring adapts to the ever increasing pace of society. Social media is driving dopamine hits from shorter and shorter forms of engagement.
I think you are extrapolating a little too much from your personal experience. An obvious counterexample to our society trending to "shorter and shorter forms of engagement" is the rise of long-form podcasts and long-form independent reporting.
Plenty of people still enjoy literature and the way in which it can convey ideas that non-fiction does not. My impression is that you'd have the same reaction to more recent fiction by, say, Cormac McCarthy or David Foster Wallace. I'm not sure Harry Potter is exactly a fair comparison of a work that aims for the same register as Moby Dick. As far as I know, 19th century literature with a simpler prose style (for example Sherlock Holmes or Poe's short stories) is still entirely accessible to someone with basic reading comprehension.
I think the opening paragraph of Moby Dick is one of the most memorable of all the novels I have read; I think it would be hard to drive home the emotion with the same gravity in fewer words, and I'll paste it here in case I can con someone else into reading it :)
> Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
The "Catskill Eagle" sermon from Chapter 96 is possibly the most beautiful prose ever written by an American. I don't understand how it is legal to get a HS diploma in this country without having read that book.
I tried reading Moby Dick several times and gave up because I felt a similar reaction to the prose. I finally opted for an audiobook version that was reviewed well for its lively narration. I loved it and subsequently bought a copy to reread certain passages. It's really a great example of literary engineering.
This is a fun blog post, but I thought it was a little hard to follow. A few observations:
When we added the features a new problem emerged: their
ranges are very different from X1 meaning that a small
change in θ2, θ3, θ4 have much bigger imopacts than
changing θ1. This causes problems when we are fitting the
values θ later on.
This was a little confusing because you reference θ2, θ3, θ4 without explicitly showing them in h(x).
Because we will be using the hypothesis function many
times in the future it should be very fast. Right now h
can only compute one the prediction for one training
example at a time. We can change that by vectorizing it
What does it mean for _h_ to compute something? Why is vectorizing better? Context about the computation is needed to determine if vectoring will speed computation.
Why do you use gradient descent when you can use a closed-form solution to solve the regression? It would be nice to discuss both gradient descent and the closed-form solution.
You cover a lot of topics in this blog post which have a lot of nuance and depth (e.g. random initial weights) that merit whole posts on their own.
You are completely right and I have updated the post. (should be online within a few minutes.)
> You cover a lot of topics in this blog post which have a lot of nuance and depth (e.g. random initial weights) that merit whole posts on their own.
I agree the post is quite long. The reason for that is because I wrote the initial version for Google Code In, a programming competition for high schoolers. It had to cover a list of concepts and I wanted to explain them well instead of just giving a quick introduction so it ended up being quite long.
It would definitely be interesting to write another article on symmetry braking some time.
