So, I sort of randomly ended up at this old Sequences post, and I noticed something.
If the “boring view” of reality is correct, then you can never predict anything irreducible because you are reducible. You can never get Bayesian confirmation for a hypothesis of irreducibility, because any prediction you can make is, therefore, something that could also be predicted by a reducible thing, namely your brain.
I don’t believe that “a reducible thing can’t predict an irreducible thing” is necessarily correct. That part about Turing machines not being able to model oracle machines I did understand and agree with, but I know of no law of mathematics or physics that says that irreducible things must be uncomputable. I mean, if there actually is such a thing as a lowest level description of reality, it can’t be reducible to something else because (by assumption) it’s the lowest level description. So if electrons (or their corresponding quantum field) are irreducible (they’re not made out of anything else, as far as I know), and people can predict the behavior of electrons, then a reducible brain can predict the behavior of an “irreducible” subatomic particle. Which, as far as I know, is actually true, and invalidates Eliezer’s claim.
So, I sort of randomly ended up at this old Sequences post, and I noticed something.
I don’t believe that “a reducible thing can’t predict an irreducible thing” is necessarily correct. That part about Turing machines not being able to model oracle machines I did understand and agree with, but I know of no law of mathematics or physics that says that irreducible things must be uncomputable. I mean, if there actually is such a thing as a lowest level description of reality, it can’t be reducible to something else because (by assumption) it’s the lowest level description. So if electrons (or their corresponding quantum field) are irreducible (they’re not made out of anything else, as far as I know), and people can predict the behavior of electrons, then a reducible brain can predict the behavior of an “irreducible” subatomic particle. Which, as far as I know, is actually true, and invalidates Eliezer’s claim.