I like this article, but I think you are trying to hold on to a physics-based interpretation even when it makes less sense.
I think the zenith of this was when you say something like “I’m much more confident in the existence of an external world than I am that an external world is used in the simplest explanation of my sense data.” To you, the method by which you get legitimate information about the world is disconnected from Solomonoff induction to a potentially arbitrary degree, and we need to make sure that Solomonoff induction is “kept on the straight and narrow” of only considering physical hypotheses. But the more “Solomonoff native” perspective is that sometimes you’ll consider non-physical hypotheses, and that’s totally okay, and if there is an external world out there you’ll probably pick up on the fact pretty quickly, but even if there is an external world and there’s also some other simpler hypothesis that explains what you know better, such that you don’t end up believing in the external world, that’s actually okay and not some sort of failure that must be avoided at any cost.
I think whether you’re not a quark is intimately tied up with whether an external world is a good explanation of your sense data. So it makes sense that if one is unclear the other is unclear.
The same perspective issues color the discussions of infinities and soul magnetism. You start by considering a fixed physical world and then ask which copy within that world you expect to be. But you never consider a fixed set of memories and feelings and then ask what physical world you expect to be around you. What would SIA or SSA say about this latter case—what’s the problem here?
I like this article, but I think you are trying to hold on to a physics-based interpretation even when it makes less sense.
I think the zenith of this was when you say something like “I’m much more confident in the existence of an external world than I am that an external world is used in the simplest explanation of my sense data.” To you, the method by which you get legitimate information about the world is disconnected from Solomonoff induction to a potentially arbitrary degree, and we need to make sure that Solomonoff induction is “kept on the straight and narrow” of only considering physical hypotheses. But the more “Solomonoff native” perspective is that sometimes you’ll consider non-physical hypotheses, and that’s totally okay, and if there is an external world out there you’ll probably pick up on the fact pretty quickly, but even if there is an external world and there’s also some other simpler hypothesis that explains what you know better, such that you don’t end up believing in the external world, that’s actually okay and not some sort of failure that must be avoided at any cost.
I think whether you’re not a quark is intimately tied up with whether an external world is a good explanation of your sense data. So it makes sense that if one is unclear the other is unclear.
The same perspective issues color the discussions of infinities and soul magnetism. You start by considering a fixed physical world and then ask which copy within that world you expect to be. But you never consider a fixed set of memories and feelings and then ask what physical world you expect to be around you. What would SIA or SSA say about this latter case—what’s the problem here?