Interesting! I have a post cooking somewhere in the guf of my brain which is something like “How Much Imagination Should We Use?”. A “Proof by Lack of Imagination” is dual to a “Proof by Excess of Imagination”.
Example: suppose someone says “I can imagine an atomic copy of ourselves which isn’t conscious, therefore consciousness is non-physical.” and I say “No, I can’t imagine that.”
On the one hand, a good model of the world should prevent me from imagining things which aren’t possible. If I have a solid idea of what acidic and alkaline solutions are, I should have great difficulty imagining a solution which is both at once! But on the other hand, it is a good thing if my model can imagine things which are possible, like a power-plant which harvests energy from a miniature sun.
I’ve been thinking about things from a pedagogical angle a lot lately, which is why this post is phrased in the specific way it is. I would like to come to a better conclusion of how to move disagreements forward. If I say to someone “It seems quite easy to imagine an AI smart enough to take over the world using a medium-bandwidth internet connection” and someone says “No I can’t imagine that at all”, then it seems like we just reach an impasse immediately! How do we move forward?
Example: suppose someone says “I can imagine an atomic copy of ourselves which isn’t conscious, therefore consciousness is non-physical.” and I say “No, I can’t imagine that.”
If I have a solid idea of what acidic and alkaline solutions are, I should have great difficulty imagining a solution which is both at once!
Or at least one that is both at once for more than a very short period of time, as the relevant ions will quickly react to make “neutral” water until one runs out...
“Possible” is a subtle word that means different things in different contexts. For example, if I say “it is possible that Angelica attended the concert last Saturday,” that (probably) means possible relative to my own knowledge, and is not intended to be a claim about whether or not you possess knowledge that would rule it out.
If someone says “I can(not) imagine it, therefore it’s (not) possible”, I think that is valid IF they mean “possible relative to my understanding”, i.e. “I can(not) think of an obstacle that I don’t see any way to overcome”.
(Note that “I cannot think of a way of doing it that I believe would work” is a weaker claim, and should not be regarded as proof that the thing is impossible even just relative to your own knowledge.)
If that is what they mean, then I think the way to move forward is for the person who imagines it impossible to point out an obstacle that seems insurmountable to them, and then the person who imagines it possible to explain how they imagine solving it, and repeat.
If someone is trying to claim that their (in)ability to imagine something means that the laws of the universe (dis)allow it, then I think the person imagining it is impossible had better be able to point out a specific conflict between the proposal and known law, and the person imagining it is possible had better be able to draw a blueprint describing the thing’s composition and write down the equations governing its function. Otherwise I call bullshit. (Yes, I’m aware I am calling bullshit on a number of philosophers, here.)
gguf (Georgi Gerganov’s Unified Format) from ggbl (Georgi Gerganov Brain Learning), which is a file format and associated software for running and storing brain images. you can use it via, eg, lemur.cpp (Lemur stands for the common term LEmuR, Large Emulation Runner, which runs brain images). J Bostock is referring to the file that stores the upload of their brain. /j
Interesting! I have a post cooking somewhere in the guf of my brain which is something like “How Much Imagination Should We Use?”. A “Proof by Lack of Imagination” is dual to a “Proof by Excess of Imagination”.
Example: suppose someone says “I can imagine an atomic copy of ourselves which isn’t conscious, therefore consciousness is non-physical.” and I say “No, I can’t imagine that.”
On the one hand, a good model of the world should prevent me from imagining things which aren’t possible. If I have a solid idea of what acidic and alkaline solutions are, I should have great difficulty imagining a solution which is both at once! But on the other hand, it is a good thing if my model can imagine things which are possible, like a power-plant which harvests energy from a miniature sun.
I’ve been thinking about things from a pedagogical angle a lot lately, which is why this post is phrased in the specific way it is. I would like to come to a better conclusion of how to move disagreements forward. If I say to someone “It seems quite easy to imagine an AI smart enough to take over the world using a medium-bandwidth internet connection” and someone says “No I can’t imagine that at all”, then it seems like we just reach an impasse immediately! How do we move forward?
Possibly of interest
Or the followup by Logan Strohl, even more directly on this
Or reply, “But it would be conscious (if it were alive).”
Or at least one that is both at once for more than a very short period of time, as the relevant ions will quickly react to make “neutral” water until one runs out...
“Possible” is a subtle word that means different things in different contexts. For example, if I say “it is possible that Angelica attended the concert last Saturday,” that (probably) means possible relative to my own knowledge, and is not intended to be a claim about whether or not you possess knowledge that would rule it out.
If someone says “I can(not) imagine it, therefore it’s (not) possible”, I think that is valid IF they mean “possible relative to my understanding”, i.e. “I can(not) think of an obstacle that I don’t see any way to overcome”.
(Note that “I cannot think of a way of doing it that I believe would work” is a weaker claim, and should not be regarded as proof that the thing is impossible even just relative to your own knowledge.)
If that is what they mean, then I think the way to move forward is for the person who imagines it impossible to point out an obstacle that seems insurmountable to them, and then the person who imagines it possible to explain how they imagine solving it, and repeat.
If someone is trying to claim that their (in)ability to imagine something means that the laws of the universe (dis)allow it, then I think the person imagining it is impossible had better be able to point out a specific conflict between the proposal and known law, and the person imagining it is possible had better be able to draw a blueprint describing the thing’s composition and write down the equations governing its function. Otherwise I call bullshit. (Yes, I’m aware I am calling bullshit on a number of philosophers, here.)
What’s a guf?
Uhhh either I forgot the word and it means nothing, or it’s (roughly) the place where souls live before they get born in Judaism.
Interesting. I thought that was a typo and you meant ‘guff’; (UK slang—nonsense, humbug) which seemed to make perfect sense in context.
...yeah ok my google-fu was grandma-level here, also I should just have asked a chatbot. Confirmed guf = guf as you know it.
gguf (Georgi Gerganov’s Unified Format) from ggbl (Georgi Gerganov Brain Learning), which is a file format and associated software for running and storing brain images. you can use it via, eg, lemur.cpp (Lemur stands for the common term LEmuR, Large Emulation Runner, which runs brain images). J Bostock is referring to the file that stores the upload of their brain. /j