I guess I’m a bit tired of “God was unable to make the show today so the part of Omniscient being will be played by Omega” puzzles, even if in my mind Omega looks amusingly like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Particularly in this case where Omega is being explicitly dishonest—Omega is claiming to be either be sufficiently omniscient to predict my actions, or insufficiently omniscient to predict the result of a ‘fair’ coin, except that the ‘fair’ coin is explicitly predetermined to always give the same result . . . except . . .
What’s the point of using rationalism to think things through logically if you keep placing yourself into illogical philosophical worlds to test the logic?
Particularly in this case where Omega is being explicitly dishonest—Omega is claiming to be either be sufficiently omniscient to predict my actions, or insufficiently omniscient to predict the result of a ‘fair’ coin, except that the ‘fair’ coin is explicitly predetermined to always give the same result
Coin is not predetermined, and it doesn’t matter if Omega has hand-selected every result of the coin toss, as long as we don’t have any reason to slide the probability of the result to either direction.
Could be a quantum coin, which is unpredictable under current laws of physics. Anyway, this stuff actually does have applications in decision theory. Quibbling over the practical implementations of the thought experiment is not actually useful to you or anybody else.
By ‘unpredictable’ I mean ‘under current formalisms of physics it is not possible for us to accumulate enough information to predict it’.
By ‘more precisely’ I mean… no. The way you have phrased it makes your statement false.
You can predict what the future outcome of a quantum coin will be (along the lines of branches with heads and tails their respective amplitudes). A related prediction you cannot make—when the quantum event has already occurred but you have not yet observed it you cannot predict what your observation will be (now that ‘your’ refers only to the ‘you’ in the specific branch).
Again, for practical purposes—for most people’s way of valuing most future outcomes—the future coin can be treated as though it is an unpredictable coin.
I was using ‘you’ and ‘us’ in the colloquial sense of the subjective experiences of a specific, arbitrary continuity chosen at random from of the set of Everette branches in the hypothetical branch of the world tree that this counterfactual occurs in.
Now, I CAN start listing my precise definitions for every potentially ambiguous term I use, or we could simply agree not to pick improbable and inconsistent interpretations of the other’s words. Frankly, I’d much prefer the latter, as I cannot abide pedants.
EDIT: Or you could downvote all my posts. That’s cool too.
Since the distinction is of decision theoretical relevance and the source of much confusion I choose to clarify incorrect usages of ‘unpredictable’ in this particular environment. By phrasing it as ‘more precisely’ I leave plenty of scope for the original speaker to be assumed to be just speaking loosely.
Unfortunately you chose to fortify and defend an incorrect position instead of allowing the additional detail. Now you have given a very nice definition of ‘you’ but even with that definition both of your claims are just as incorrect as when they started. Fixing ‘you’ misses the point.
You are probably too entrenched in your position to work with but for anyone else who wants to talk about ‘unpredictable’ quantum coins, qualifiers like (“for most intents and purposes”, “effectively”) are awesome!
By reading the quantum coin flip, you definitely entangle yourself with it, and there’s no way you’re going to stay coherent.
As a hard-core Everettian, I find the original usage and the followup totally unobjectionable in principle. Your clarification was good except for the part where it said Ati’s statement was wrong. There exists a reading of the terms which leaves those wrong, yes. So don’t use that one.
EDIT: Or you could downvote all my posts. That’s cool too.
It should be noted that ‘all my posts’ does not refer to karma-assassaination here. Rather, that three comments here were downvoted. This is correct (and in accord with my downvoting policy).
And I perceived you as being needlessly pedantic and choosing implausible interpretations of my words so that you could correct me. You’ll note that your comment karma stands. I am, in fact, aware of quantum mechanics, and you are, of course, entirely correct. Coins behave in precisely deterministic ways, even if they rely on, say, radioactive decay. The causality just occurs in many Everette branches. That said, there is no way that before ‘you’ ‘flip the coin’ you can make a prediction about its subjective future state, and have more than half of your future selves be right. If that’s not ‘unpredictable’ by the word’s colloquial definition, then I’m not sure the word has any meaning.
You will notice that when I said that the coin is unpredictable, I did not claim, or even imply that the world was undeterministic, or that quantum mechanics was wrong. If I had said such a thing, you would have right to correct me. As it is, you took the opportunity to jump on my phrasing to correct me of a misconception that I did not, in fact, possess. That is being pedantic, it is pointless, and above all it is annoying. I apologize for rudeness, but trying to catch up others on their phrasing is a shocking waste of intellect and time.
EDIT: Again, I can totally discard every word that’s entrenched in good, old-fashioned single-universe connotations, and spell out all the fascinating multiverse implications of everything I say, if that will make you happy—but it will make my posts about five times longer, and it will make it a good deal more difficult to figure out what the hell I’m saying, which rather defeats the purpose of using language.
I’ll note that I reject your ‘implausible’ claim, object to all insinuations regarding motive, stand by my previous statements and will maintain my policy of making mild clarifications when the subject happens to come up.
As you like. Though I do hope you apply your strident policy of technical correctness in your home life, for consistency’s sake.
For example: someone (clearly wrong) like I would merely say, in our archaic and hoplessly monocosmological phrasing ‘I am going to lunch.’ This is clearly nonsense. You will, over the set of multiverse branches, do a great many things, many of them having nothing to do with food, or survival. The concept of ‘I’ and ‘lunch’ are not even particularly well defined.
In contrast, someone held to your standard of correctness would have to say ‘The computation function implemented in the cluster of mass from which these encoded pressure waves are emanating will execute a series of action for which they predict that in the majority of future Everette branches of this fork of the world tree, the aforementioned cluster of mass will accumulate new amplitude and potential energy through the process of digestion within the next hour and fifteen minutes.’
Clearly this is more efficient and less confusing to the reader.
I consider the selection of analogies made in the parent to constitute a misrepresentation (and fundamental misunderstanding) of the preceding conversation.
I guess I’m a bit tired of “God was unable to make the show today so the part of Omniscient being will be played by Omega” puzzles, even if in my mind Omega looks amusingly like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Particularly in this case where Omega is being explicitly dishonest—Omega is claiming to be either be sufficiently omniscient to predict my actions, or insufficiently omniscient to predict the result of a ‘fair’ coin, except that the ‘fair’ coin is explicitly predetermined to always give the same result . . . except . . .
What’s the point of using rationalism to think things through logically if you keep placing yourself into illogical philosophical worlds to test the logic?
Coin is not predetermined, and it doesn’t matter if Omega has hand-selected every result of the coin toss, as long as we don’t have any reason to slide the probability of the result to either direction.
Could be a quantum coin, which is unpredictable under current laws of physics. Anyway, this stuff actually does have applications in decision theory. Quibbling over the practical implementations of the thought experiment is not actually useful to you or anybody else.
More precisely it is exactly predictable but for most practical purposes can be treated as equivalent to an unpredictable coin.
By ‘unpredictable’ I mean ‘under current formalisms of physics it is not possible for us to accumulate enough information to predict it’.
By ‘more precisely’ I mean… no. The way you have phrased it makes your statement false.
You can predict what the future outcome of a quantum coin will be (along the lines of branches with heads and tails their respective amplitudes). A related prediction you cannot make—when the quantum event has already occurred but you have not yet observed it you cannot predict what your observation will be (now that ‘your’ refers only to the ‘you’ in the specific branch).
Again, for practical purposes—for most people’s way of valuing most future outcomes—the future coin can be treated as though it is an unpredictable coin.
I was using ‘you’ and ‘us’ in the colloquial sense of the subjective experiences of a specific, arbitrary continuity chosen at random from of the set of Everette branches in the hypothetical branch of the world tree that this counterfactual occurs in.
Now, I CAN start listing my precise definitions for every potentially ambiguous term I use, or we could simply agree not to pick improbable and inconsistent interpretations of the other’s words. Frankly, I’d much prefer the latter, as I cannot abide pedants.
EDIT: Or you could downvote all my posts. That’s cool too.
Since the distinction is of decision theoretical relevance and the source of much confusion I choose to clarify incorrect usages of ‘unpredictable’ in this particular environment. By phrasing it as ‘more precisely’ I leave plenty of scope for the original speaker to be assumed to be just speaking loosely.
Unfortunately you chose to fortify and defend an incorrect position instead of allowing the additional detail. Now you have given a very nice definition of ‘you’ but even with that definition both of your claims are just as incorrect as when they started. Fixing ‘you’ misses the point.
You are probably too entrenched in your position to work with but for anyone else who wants to talk about ‘unpredictable’ quantum coins, qualifiers like (“for most intents and purposes”, “effectively”) are awesome!
By reading the quantum coin flip, you definitely entangle yourself with it, and there’s no way you’re going to stay coherent.
As a hard-core Everettian, I find the original usage and the followup totally unobjectionable in principle. Your clarification was good except for the part where it said Ati’s statement was wrong. There exists a reading of the terms which leaves those wrong, yes. So don’t use that one.
It should be noted that ‘all my posts’ does not refer to karma-assassaination here. Rather, that three comments here were downvoted. This is correct (and in accord with my downvoting policy).
And I perceived you as being needlessly pedantic and choosing implausible interpretations of my words so that you could correct me. You’ll note that your comment karma stands. I am, in fact, aware of quantum mechanics, and you are, of course, entirely correct. Coins behave in precisely deterministic ways, even if they rely on, say, radioactive decay. The causality just occurs in many Everette branches. That said, there is no way that before ‘you’ ‘flip the coin’ you can make a prediction about its subjective future state, and have more than half of your future selves be right. If that’s not ‘unpredictable’ by the word’s colloquial definition, then I’m not sure the word has any meaning.
You will notice that when I said that the coin is unpredictable, I did not claim, or even imply that the world was undeterministic, or that quantum mechanics was wrong. If I had said such a thing, you would have right to correct me. As it is, you took the opportunity to jump on my phrasing to correct me of a misconception that I did not, in fact, possess. That is being pedantic, it is pointless, and above all it is annoying. I apologize for rudeness, but trying to catch up others on their phrasing is a shocking waste of intellect and time.
EDIT: Again, I can totally discard every word that’s entrenched in good, old-fashioned single-universe connotations, and spell out all the fascinating multiverse implications of everything I say, if that will make you happy—but it will make my posts about five times longer, and it will make it a good deal more difficult to figure out what the hell I’m saying, which rather defeats the purpose of using language.
I’ll note that I reject your ‘implausible’ claim, object to all insinuations regarding motive, stand by my previous statements and will maintain my policy of making mild clarifications when the subject happens to come up.
There seems to be little else to be said here.
As you like. Though I do hope you apply your strident policy of technical correctness in your home life, for consistency’s sake.
For example: someone (clearly wrong) like I would merely say, in our archaic and hoplessly monocosmological phrasing ‘I am going to lunch.’ This is clearly nonsense. You will, over the set of multiverse branches, do a great many things, many of them having nothing to do with food, or survival. The concept of ‘I’ and ‘lunch’ are not even particularly well defined.
In contrast, someone held to your standard of correctness would have to say ‘The computation function implemented in the cluster of mass from which these encoded pressure waves are emanating will execute a series of action for which they predict that in the majority of future Everette branches of this fork of the world tree, the aforementioned cluster of mass will accumulate new amplitude and potential energy through the process of digestion within the next hour and fifteen minutes.’
Clearly this is more efficient and less confusing to the reader.
I consider the selection of analogies made in the parent to constitute a misrepresentation (and fundamental misunderstanding) of the preceding conversation.