It’s meaningful and false, rather than meaningless, to say that on March 22nd, 2003, the particles in the center of the Sun spontaneously arranged themselves into a short-lived chocolate cake. This statement’s truth or falsity has no consequences we’ll ever be able to test experientally. Nonetheless, it legitimately describes a way reality could be, but isn’t; the atoms in our universe could’ve been arranged like that on March 22nd 2003, but they weren’t.
I actually think this a confusing statement. From a thermodynamic perspective, it’s not impossible that the particles in the center of the Sun spontaneously arranged themselves into a short-lived chocolate cake on that day. It’s very, very, extremely unlikely, but not actually completely impossible.
The extreme unlikelihood (roughly equal to me temporarily becoming a chocolate cake myself) is such that we are justified, in terms of the approximation that is plain English, in saying that it is impossible that such a thing occurred, and that it is just wrong to claim that it happened. But this is using the usual rule of thumb that absolute truth and falsity isn’t something we can actually have, so we happily settle for saying something is true or false when we’re merely extremely sure rather than in possession of absolute proof.
It’s quite OK in that context to claim that it’s meaningless and false to claim that the chocolate cake appeared, as the claimant has no good reason to make the claim, and saying the claim is false is pointing out the lack of that reason. The bit I don’t agree with is your final sentence.
Nonetheless, it legitimately describes a way reality could be, but isn’t; the atoms in our universe could’ve been arranged like that on March 22nd 2003, but they weren’t.
Here’s where it gets confusing. If you are speaking in colloquial English, it’s true to say that it’s impossible that a chocolate cake could appear in the middle of the Sun, and therefore it didn’t happen. If you’re speaking more scientifically, it’s instead true to say that it’s possible that the atoms in the Sun’s core could spontaneously form a chocolate cake, but the likelihood is of the order of 10^10^23 (or something like that) against, which clearly is sufficiently close to impossible for us to say informally that it didn’t happen. As the sentence stands, you end up making a claim of knowledge which you don’t have—that it was possible that a certain state of affairs could occur in the Sun, but that you know somehow that it didn’t.
More generally, Eliezer takes an explicit and very detail oriented approach to some aspects of some topics, but takes a very informal and relaxed approach to other topics. It seems to me that he pays attention to detail more when he agrees with the arguments he is outlining. This has the effect of making the arguments he opposes seem artificially weaker.
This isn’t directly relevant to the chocolate cake issue, but your comment reminded me of this.
I agree—I think this is because Eliezer’s intent is to explain what he believes to be right, rather than to worry too much about the arguments of those he doesn’t agree with. An approach I entirely agree with—my experience is that debate is remarkably ineffective as a means of reaching new knowledge, whilst teaching the particular viewpoint you hold is normally much more enlightening to the listener, whether they agree with the viewpoint or not.
I actually think this a confusing statement. From a thermodynamic perspective, it’s not impossible that the particles in the center of the Sun spontaneously arranged themselves into a short-lived chocolate cake on that day. It’s very, very, extremely unlikely, but not actually completely impossible.
The extreme unlikelihood (roughly equal to me temporarily becoming a chocolate cake myself) is such that we are justified, in terms of the approximation that is plain English, in saying that it is impossible that such a thing occurred, and that it is just wrong to claim that it happened. But this is using the usual rule of thumb that absolute truth and falsity isn’t something we can actually have, so we happily settle for saying something is true or false when we’re merely extremely sure rather than in possession of absolute proof.
It’s quite OK in that context to claim that it’s meaningless and false to claim that the chocolate cake appeared, as the claimant has no good reason to make the claim, and saying the claim is false is pointing out the lack of that reason. The bit I don’t agree with is your final sentence.
Here’s where it gets confusing. If you are speaking in colloquial English, it’s true to say that it’s impossible that a chocolate cake could appear in the middle of the Sun, and therefore it didn’t happen. If you’re speaking more scientifically, it’s instead true to say that it’s possible that the atoms in the Sun’s core could spontaneously form a chocolate cake, but the likelihood is of the order of 10^10^23 (or something like that) against, which clearly is sufficiently close to impossible for us to say informally that it didn’t happen. As the sentence stands, you end up making a claim of knowledge which you don’t have—that it was possible that a certain state of affairs could occur in the Sun, but that you know somehow that it didn’t.
More generally, Eliezer takes an explicit and very detail oriented approach to some aspects of some topics, but takes a very informal and relaxed approach to other topics. It seems to me that he pays attention to detail more when he agrees with the arguments he is outlining. This has the effect of making the arguments he opposes seem artificially weaker.
This isn’t directly relevant to the chocolate cake issue, but your comment reminded me of this.
I agree—I think this is because Eliezer’s intent is to explain what he believes to be right, rather than to worry too much about the arguments of those he doesn’t agree with. An approach I entirely agree with—my experience is that debate is remarkably ineffective as a means of reaching new knowledge, whilst teaching the particular viewpoint you hold is normally much more enlightening to the listener, whether they agree with the viewpoint or not.