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Ad­ding Up to Normality

TagLast edit: 18 Oct 2024 9:24 UTC by ToasterLightning

“It all adds up to normality” is a common phrase used on LessWrong (also known here as Egan’s law[1]). Adding Up to Normality is the property of an explanation which adds to our understanding without changing what we already know to be true. for example:

The purpose of a theory is to add up to observed reality. Science sets out to answer the question “What adds up to normality?” and the answer turns out to be “Quantum mechanics adds up to normality” or “General Relativity adds up to normality”.

A weaker extension of this principle applies to ethical and metaethical debates, which generally ought to end up explaining why you shouldn’t eat babies, rather than why you should.

See also

[1] After the science fiction writer Greg Egan, who first wrote this phrase in Quarantine.

Head­ing Toward Morality

Eliezer Yudkowsky20 Jun 2008 8:08 UTC
27 points
53 comments4 min readLW link

Time­less Control

Eliezer Yudkowsky7 Jun 2008 5:16 UTC
47 points
69 comments9 min readLW link

And the Win­ner is… Many-Wor­lds!

Eliezer Yudkowsky12 Jun 2008 6:05 UTC
30 points
12 comments9 min readLW link

A Cor­re­spon­dence The­o­rem in the Max­i­mum En­tropy Framework

johnswentworth11 Nov 2020 22:46 UTC
33 points
7 comments6 min readLW link

Con­ser­va­tion of Ex­pected Ev­i­dence and Ran­dom Sam­pling in Anthropics

Ape in the coat3 Sep 2023 6:55 UTC
9 points
9 comments7 min readLW link

An­throp­i­cally Blind: the an­thropic shadow is re­flec­tively inconsistent

Christopher King29 Jun 2023 2:36 UTC
43 points
40 comments10 min readLW link

Quan­tum Me­chan­ics and Per­sonal Identity

Eliezer Yudkowsky12 Jun 2008 7:13 UTC
14 points
28 comments10 min readLW link

Acausal normalcy

Andrew_Critch3 Mar 2023 23:34 UTC
198 points
38 comments8 min readLW link1 review

Quan­tum Physics Re­vealed As Non-Mysterious

Eliezer Yudkowsky12 Jun 2008 5:20 UTC
13 points
26 comments8 min readLW link

Thou Art Physics

Eliezer Yudkowsky6 Jun 2008 6:37 UTC
153 points
88 comments3 min readLW link

Quan­tum Non-Realism

Eliezer Yudkowsky8 May 2008 5:27 UTC
56 points
40 comments8 min readLW link

Boltz­mann Brains and Within-model vs. Between-mod­els Probability

Charlie Steiner14 Jul 2018 9:52 UTC
15 points
12 comments3 min readLW link

Ad­ding Up To Normality

orthonormal24 Mar 2020 21:53 UTC
86 points
22 comments3 min readLW link

Eth­i­cal Im­pli­ca­tions of the Quan­tum Multiverse

Jonah Wilberg18 Nov 2024 16:00 UTC
7 points
22 comments6 min readLW link

Ethics in Many Worlds

fin6 Nov 2020 23:21 UTC
8 points
24 comments9 min readLW link

On­tolo­gies Should Be Back­wards-Compatible

Thoth Hermes14 May 2023 17:21 UTC
3 points
3 comments4 min readLW link
(thothhermes.substack.com)

[Question] Egan’s The­o­rem?

johnswentworth13 Sep 2020 17:47 UTC
24 points
13 comments1 min readLW link

Chang­ing Your Metaethics

Eliezer Yudkowsky27 Jul 2008 12:36 UTC
64 points
20 comments5 min readLW link

An­trop­i­cal Prob­a­bil­ities Are Fully Ex­plained by Differ­ence in Pos­si­ble Outcomes

Ape in the coat9 Nov 2023 15:34 UTC
19 points
7 comments5 min readLW link

The Solu­tion to Sleep­ing Beauty

Ape in the coat4 Mar 2024 6:46 UTC
18 points
77 comments13 min readLW link

Dooms­day Ar­gu­ment and the False Dilemma of An­thropic Reasoning

Ape in the coat5 Jul 2024 5:38 UTC
48 points
61 comments7 min readLW link

Causal­ity Adds Up to Normality

johnswentworth15 Jun 2020 17:19 UTC
13 points
2 comments5 min readLW link

Another Non-An­thropic Para­dox: The Un­sur­pris­ing Rare­ness of Rare Events

Ape in the coat21 Jan 2024 15:58 UTC
19 points
16 comments6 min readLW link

Liv­ing in Many Worlds

Eliezer Yudkowsky5 Jun 2008 2:24 UTC
62 points
81 comments5 min readLW link