"Suppose I run a computer program. What does it output? You don’t know the code, so it could do basically anything. You’re missing key information to resolve the question. However, even if you did know the source code, you might still be ignorant about what it would do. You have all the necessary information per se, and a perfect reasoner could solve it instantly, but it might take an unrealistic amount of effort for you to interpret it correctly.

The former kind of uncertainty is empirical. You have to look at the world and make observations about the source code of the program, how my computer interprets the code, etc. Other examples of empirical uncertainty: not knowing what the weather is, not knowing what time it is, not knowing the name of your friend, etc.

The latter kind of uncertainty is logical. Even after you’ve looked at the program and seen the source code, you still might not know what the source code will output. For instance, suppose you saw that the program printed the 173,498th digit of

p

i

. You know what the program will do, but you don’t know the results of that process. Other examples of logical uncertainty: not knowing if 19483 is prime, not knowing whether 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 is even, not knowing if 1/1/2000 was a Monday, etc. The bottleneck in these cases isn’t missing data, but rather missing computation - you haven’t yet exerted the required energy to figure it out, and it might not always be worth it with the tools at your disposal."

Let us call the process of “properly” managing logical uncertainty logical induction and reasoners that employ logical induction logical inductors.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/y5GftLezdozEHdXkL/an-intuitive-guide-to-garrabrant-induction

Why most people who now die with Covid in England have had a vaccination.

Manky Guardian explains:

A MailOnline headline on 13 June read: “Study shows 29% of the 42 people who have died after catching the new strain had BOTH vaccinations.” In Public Health England’s technical briefing on 25 June, that figure had risen to 43% (50 of 117), with the majority (60%) having received at least one dose.

It could sound worrying that the majority of people dying in England with the now-dominant Delta (B.1.617.2) variant have been vaccinated. Does this mean the vaccines are ineffective? Far from it, it’s what we would expect from an effective but imperfect vaccine, a risk profile that varies hugely by age and the way the vaccines have been rolled out.

Consider the hypothetical world where absolutely everyone had received a less than perfect vaccine. Although the death rate would be low, everyone who died would have been fully vaccinated.

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2021/jun/27/why-most-people-who-now-die-with-covid-have-been-vaccinated

a gene therapy cure to children with a rare degenerative brain disorder called Dopamine Transporter Deficiency Syndrome (DTDS).

The team have recreated and cured the disease using state-of-the-art laboratory and mouse models of the disease and will soon apply for a clinical trial of the therapy. Their breakthrough comes just a decade after the faulty gene causing the disease was first discovered by the lead scientist of this work.

The results, published in Science Translational Medicine, are so promising that the UK regulatory agency MHRA has advised the researchers that they can now proceed to prepare for a clinical trial. DTDS is a rare, progressive and life-limiting neurological condition caused by a faulty gene that affects brain cells. Infants with DTDS are rarely able to learn to walk or speak and as they grow they develop 'parkinsonism', so called because of similarities to Parkinson's Disease.

This includes slow movements, involuntary twisting postures of their arms and legs and whole-body stiffness.

There are no effective treatments or a cure and most children with DTDS sadly die before reaching adulthood, often from respiratory infections or other complications. Although the condition is rare, with around 50 children worldwide currently known to doctors, it has previously been mistaken for cerebral palsy and may continue to be undiagnosed.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-gene-therapy-breakthrough-children-rare.html