Platonism can be a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can make certain concepts a bit easier to visualize, like imagining that probabilities are over a space of “possible worlds” — you certainly don’t want to develop your understanding of probability in those terms, but once you know what probabilities are about, that can still be a helpful way to visualize Bayes’s theorem and related operations. On the other hand, this seems to be one of the easiest ways to get caught in the mind projection fallacy and some of the standard non-reductionist confusions.
Generally, I allow myself to use Platonist and otherwise imaginary visualizations, as long as I can keep the imaginariness in mind. This has worked well enough so far, particularly because I’m rather confused about what “existence” means, and am wary of letting it make me think I understand strange concepts like “numbers”, “universes”, etc. better than I really do. Though sometimes I do wonder if any of my visualizations are leading me astray. My visualization of timeless physics, for instance; I’m a bit suspicious of it since I don’t really know how to do the math involved, and so I try not to take the visualization too seriously in case I’m imagining the wrong sort of structure altogether.
It took me forever to figure out that these strange thingies were physical systems in the computers themselves, and a bit longer to realize that they didn’t look anything like what I thought they did. (I still haven’t bothered to look it up, despite having a non-negligible desire to know.)
Look what up, exactly?
...and (it seemed to me) all computations were embodiments of some platonic ideal, souls must exist. Which could have been semi-okay, if I had realized that calling it a “soul” shouldn’t allow you to assume it has properties that you ascribe to “souls” but not to “platonic ideals of computation”.
It took me forever to figure out that these strange thingies were physical systems in the computers themselves, and a bit longer to realize that they didn’t look anything like what I thought they did. (I still haven’t bothered to look it up, despite having a non-negligible desire to know.)
Look what up, exactly?
Oh, sorry, I thought that was clear. I want to find out what the physical systems in a computer actually look like. Right now all I (think I) know is that RAM is electricity.
Platonism can be a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can make certain concepts a bit easier to visualize, like imagining that probabilities are over a space of “possible worlds” — you certainly don’t want to develop your understanding of probability in those terms, but once you know what probabilities are about, that can still be a helpful way to visualize Bayes’s theorem and related operations. On the other hand, this seems to be one of the easiest ways to get caught in the mind projection fallacy and some of the standard non-reductionist confusions.
Generally, I allow myself to use Platonist and otherwise imaginary visualizations, as long as I can keep the imaginariness in mind. This has worked well enough so far, particularly because I’m rather confused about what “existence” means, and am wary of letting it make me think I understand strange concepts like “numbers”, “universes”, etc. better than I really do. Though sometimes I do wonder if any of my visualizations are leading me astray. My visualization of timeless physics, for instance; I’m a bit suspicious of it since I don’t really know how to do the math involved, and so I try not to take the visualization too seriously in case I’m imagining the wrong sort of structure altogether.
Look what up, exactly?
Well said.
Oh, sorry, I thought that was clear. I want to find out what the physical systems in a computer actually look like. Right now all I (think I) know is that RAM is electricity.
Edited to make this more clear.
Ah, okay. The post had been talking about programs, so I thought you were referring to something on the software side.