The question is then how you distinguish necessary evidence from knowledge that could be “a part of you” but is not.
It seems (to me) that the kind of ‘knowledge’ Eliezer was referring to is knowledge-as-epistemological-model, as opposed to knowledge-as-datapoint.
I can understand the disdain for “guessing the password” but the simple fact is that at some point there’s just no way to ‘know’ something beyond having it be an act of rote memorization—that is, the only way to know the “datum” is to be exposed to the “datum”. For example: what is my given name? Short of being able to uncover that information, there is no model of reality which will allow you to ‘derive’ that knowledge without external input.
This places “Logos01′s given name” in a different category from “the relationship between kinetic energy and mass at a given velocity”. It is possible to determine a greater mass at velocity v will have more kinetic energy than a lesser mass at velocity v without being told this directly. It is not possible to make that same determination of my given name.
Historical facts can still be derived from other historical facts.
Anyway, I think the generalization of your argument is that if you lose evidence then you may lose the ability to derive some facts.
The question is then how you distinguish necessary evidence from knowledge that could be “a part of you” but is not.
It seems (to me) that the kind of ‘knowledge’ Eliezer was referring to is knowledge-as-epistemological-model, as opposed to knowledge-as-datapoint.
I can understand the disdain for “guessing the password” but the simple fact is that at some point there’s just no way to ‘know’ something beyond having it be an act of rote memorization—that is, the only way to know the “datum” is to be exposed to the “datum”. For example: what is my given name? Short of being able to uncover that information, there is no model of reality which will allow you to ‘derive’ that knowledge without external input.
This places “Logos01′s given name” in a different category from “the relationship between kinetic energy and mass at a given velocity”. It is possible to determine a greater mass at velocity
v
will have more kinetic energy than a lesser mass at velocityv
without being told this directly. It is not possible to make that same determination of my given name.