I fear that there is no real way to do this objectively and since there will always be small mutations/errors in copying you can never know which of the other “you’s” is the most like you.
You’re writing that you can never know which pattern is objectively most like you, because there is no objective way of comparing patterns, and this is a problem for patternism.
But you don’t need to have an objective way of comparing patterns in order to be a pattern, so this isn’t a problem for patternism after all.
I agree. The original title was “The problem with patternism” but I realized this problem doesn’t disprove it, it just makes it useless. If a theory doesn’t generate new insights it’s useless. Most of the time this will be because the theory is wrong, but sometimes a theory can be true and useless at the same time. So unless johnswentworth convinces me otherwise, I think I will throw away patternism.
I can know that heat comes from particles moving fast w/o having a full understanding of thermodynamics. It seems like maybe we’re in a similar situation with patternism.
I think all the questions you asked in the post are legitimate. But the fact that they can be asked doesn’t seem like much of a critique of the basic idea. (At least, of the version of patternism that I have in my head.)
These questions don’t make me at all tempted to go back to saying that I am my this particular collection of atoms, or something like that. But I am happy to admit that patternism is an incomplete explanation of personal identity.
The fact that personal identity remains not totally solved should not be too controversial of an idea around here (see for example #s 10 and 12 in Wei Dai’s list of open problems in rationality).
I can know that heat comes from particles moving fast w/o having a full understanding of thermodynamics. It seems like maybe we’re in a similar situation with patternism.
I disagree. Middle school understanding of heat still allows for some generation of insights/predictions, just with a big margin of error. Patternism doesn’t do that, it’s useless. In other words: I would much rather have middle school understanding of heat than I would have the theory of patternism.
Hmm, are you thinking of the theory of patternism as something other than the claim that 1) it’s your pattern of atoms (and how they interact with each other and the rest of the world) that’s relevant for determining your behavior, including your internal experience, and 2) that there’s no metaphysical personal identity other than what arises from the relationship of these patterns to each other over time?
It seems to me that this predicts that we won’t in the future discover some way to determine which of two copies of a person is “the original”.
If you claim instead that this is not a prediction, but just a restatement of patternism, then maybe that’s a valid criticism—that patternism is not a theory but just a claim. But then I wouldn’t want to through that claim away! Because I expect it to be true.
Right so why would I want to throw away an idea that’s true? Even if it’s useless, isn’t having true beliefs good?
No, not necessarily. You have a limited mental capacity to hold and manipulate ideas. If I tell you that shmooplys are pink furry meteors, and the dictionary confirms it. This is a true believe AND you can make predictions about what dictionaries will say. But you spend time learning about a concept that you can never actually use! That’s time and mental capacity that you could’ve spent elsewhere. And I would argue shmooplys might be more useful because you can actually make a shmooply and it’s not an abstract philosophical concept. Some concepts don’t deserve to be learned! My life and mind are a finite resource, so I better learn concepts I will get the most use out of.
Ah, maybe I misunderstood what you meant when you said you would throw it away. I thought maybe you meant you’d discard it in favor of some other preferred theory. Or in favor of whatever you believed in before you learned about patternism.
And depending on what those theories are, that seemed like it might be a bad move, from my perspective.
But if instead your attitude is more like picking up a book, only to find out the author only got half way through writing it, and you’re going to set it aside until it’s done so you can read the whole story, then it seems to me like there’s nothing wrong with that.
Well that seems like good life advice in general, only in this case I have no fate the books will ever actually get finished so I’m moving on to other books. So patternism is like George rr Martin (rip ‘A dream of spring’ what is dead may never die)
I can think of two consequences of patternism—firstly, that consciousness doesn’t depend on any specific substance, only on the pattern. This is very important when judging the consciousness of mind uploads, AIs, robots or aliens.
Secondly, if we’re the pattern, we survive mind upload, which seems very important too.
You’re writing that you can never know which pattern is objectively most like you, because there is no objective way of comparing patterns, and this is a problem for patternism.
But you don’t need to have an objective way of comparing patterns in order to be a pattern, so this isn’t a problem for patternism after all.
I agree. The original title was “The problem with patternism” but I realized this problem doesn’t disprove it, it just makes it useless. If a theory doesn’t generate new insights it’s useless. Most of the time this will be because the theory is wrong, but sometimes a theory can be true and useless at the same time. So unless johnswentworth convinces me otherwise, I think I will throw away patternism.
I can know that heat comes from particles moving fast w/o having a full understanding of thermodynamics. It seems like maybe we’re in a similar situation with patternism.
I think all the questions you asked in the post are legitimate. But the fact that they can be asked doesn’t seem like much of a critique of the basic idea. (At least, of the version of patternism that I have in my head.)
These questions don’t make me at all tempted to go back to saying that I am my this particular collection of atoms, or something like that. But I am happy to admit that patternism is an incomplete explanation of personal identity.
The fact that personal identity remains not totally solved should not be too controversial of an idea around here (see for example #s 10 and 12 in Wei Dai’s list of open problems in rationality).
I disagree. Middle school understanding of heat still allows for some generation of insights/predictions, just with a big margin of error. Patternism doesn’t do that, it’s useless. In other words: I would much rather have middle school understanding of heat than I would have the theory of patternism.
Hmm, are you thinking of the theory of patternism as something other than the claim that 1) it’s your pattern of atoms (and how they interact with each other and the rest of the world) that’s relevant for determining your behavior, including your internal experience, and 2) that there’s no metaphysical personal identity other than what arises from the relationship of these patterns to each other over time?
It seems to me that this predicts that we won’t in the future discover some way to determine which of two copies of a person is “the original”.
If you claim instead that this is not a prediction, but just a restatement of patternism, then maybe that’s a valid criticism—that patternism is not a theory but just a claim. But then I wouldn’t want to through that claim away! Because I expect it to be true.
Right so why would I want to throw away an idea that’s true? Even if it’s useless, isn’t having true beliefs good? No, not necessarily. You have a limited mental capacity to hold and manipulate ideas. If I tell you that shmooplys are pink furry meteors, and the dictionary confirms it. This is a true believe AND you can make predictions about what dictionaries will say. But you spend time learning about a concept that you can never actually use! That’s time and mental capacity that you could’ve spent elsewhere. And I would argue shmooplys might be more useful because you can actually make a shmooply and it’s not an abstract philosophical concept. Some concepts don’t deserve to be learned! My life and mind are a finite resource, so I better learn concepts I will get the most use out of.
Ah, maybe I misunderstood what you meant when you said you would throw it away. I thought maybe you meant you’d discard it in favor of some other preferred theory. Or in favor of whatever you believed in before you learned about patternism.
And depending on what those theories are, that seemed like it might be a bad move, from my perspective.
But if instead your attitude is more like picking up a book, only to find out the author only got half way through writing it, and you’re going to set it aside until it’s done so you can read the whole story, then it seems to me like there’s nothing wrong with that.
Well that seems like good life advice in general, only in this case I have no fate the books will ever actually get finished so I’m moving on to other books. So patternism is like George rr Martin (rip ‘A dream of spring’ what is dead may never die)
I can think of two consequences of patternism—firstly, that consciousness doesn’t depend on any specific substance, only on the pattern. This is very important when judging the consciousness of mind uploads, AIs, robots or aliens.
Secondly, if we’re the pattern, we survive mind upload, which seems very important too.