Ian_C.

Karma: 143

Ian_C.Jun 11, 2008, 8:00 AM
−1 points
on: Bloggingheads: Yudkowsky and Horgan
Nick: “what makes you think the things humans do aren’t implied by its initial state, nature, and inputs?”

What humans do is determined by their nature, just like with a computer. The difference is, human nature is to be able to choose, and computer nature is not.

“The form of choice reason demands (different outputs given different inputs) is perfectly compatible with determinism, in fact it requires determinism, since nondeterministic factors would imply less entanglement between beliefs and reality. If your conclusion is not totally determined by priors and evidence, you’re doing something wrong.”

You’re not doing something wrong, because I don’t think reason is pure discipline, pure modus-ponens. I think it’s more like tempered creativity—utilizing mental actions such as choice, focus, imagination as well as pure logic. The computer just doesn’t have what it takes.

But the point I was making is that the whole idea of reason wouldn’t arise in the first place without prior acceptance of free will. It is only by accepting that we control our minds that the question of how best to do so arises, and ideas like reason, deduction etc. come to be.

All these ideas therefore presuppose free will in their very genesis, and can not validly be used to argue against it. It would be like trying to use the concept “stealing” in a proof against the validity of “property”—there is no such thing as stealing without property. Likewise there is no such thing as reason without free will.

Ian_C.Jun 8, 2008, 5:24 PM
−1 points
on: Bloggingheads: Yudkowsky and Horgan
The interviewer accused Eliezer of being religious-like. But if the universe is deterministically moving from state to state then it’s just like a computer, a machine that moves predictably from state to state. Therefore it’s not religious at all to believe anything in the world (including intelligence) could eventually be reproduced in a computer.

But of course the universe is not like a computer. Everything a computer does until the end of time is implied in it’s initial state, the nature of it’s CPU, and subsequent inputs. It can never deviate from that course. It can never choose like a human, therefore it can never model a human.

And it’s not possible to rationally argue that choice is an illusion because reason uses choice in it’s operations. If you use something in the process of arguing against it, you fall in to absurdity. e.g. your proof comes out something like: “I presumed P, pondered Q and R, chose R, reasoned thusly about R vs S, finally choosing S. Therefore choice isn’t really choosing.”

Ian_C.Jun 8, 2008, 8:11 AM
0 points
on: Bloggingheads: Yudkowsky and Horgan
It was OK until the interviewer started going on about his ridiculous communist utopia, and in almost the same breath he accuses Eliezer of being pie in the sky!

By the way Eli, if you put an MP3 clip of how to pronounce your name somewhere on the web, maybe interviewers wouldn’t have to ask all the time (don’t you get sick of that?).

Ian_C.Jun 7, 2008, 4:58 AM
−1 points
on: Thou Art Physics
Don’t forget what the laws of physics are, they are not something out there controlling things, rather we observe patterns and then make up laws to match.

So to those who insist men are governed by such a law, which individual men did you observe and successfully predict the actions of? Do you have their names, or if they wanted to be anonymous, do you at least have a citation for the experiment? Thanks.

Ian_C.Jun 6, 2008, 2:25 PM
0 points
on: Thou Art Physics
There’s no a-priori reason to believe that an object needs a rule to follow in order to move from A to B. Why can’t it “just move?” That is what I believe people do.

Ian_C.Jun 1, 2008, 6:07 AM
1 point
on: A Premature Word on AI
It’s better to spend your life trying and failing than doing nothing at all. And a lot of people, unless they’re given a significant goal, won’t even try. General AI? Let’s get to it. Edge detection in a visual field? Yawn. If that’s my life might as well sit around and play Xbox all day.

Ian_C.May 30, 2008, 9:50 AM
4 points
on: Einstein’s Superpowers
Could this be a Jewish or American cultural thing? I know in English culture great scientists are highly regarded but they are very much still men. There’s praise but it’s not effusive or reverential.

Ian_C.May 29, 2008, 7:32 AM
2 points
on: Timeless Causality
“It still seems to me that there is some actual connection that makes it more likely for me to wake up tomorrow as Eliezer Yudkowsky, than as Britney Spears.”

Connection between what and what? If there is no time, there are no separate moments or instants to be connected to each other. There is just a thing, you, existing. And not even existing continuously, just existing (outside of time).

Ian_C.May 28, 2008, 7:52 AM
−1 points
on: Timeless Beauty
I have also argued in the past that time is not a 4th dimension. Things exist and they move. We watch that movement and mentally discard aspects such as it’s path (straight line, arc) or type (swimming, flying), leaving only the progression aspect, and over all the entities we call this “time.”

Because it is the progression that indicates the passage of time and not the positions at any given “moment,” if someone snapped their fingers and instantly moved all objects to their 100 years hence positions, it would not be the future, because no progression of motion took place. If they “fast-forwarded” it then yes, it would be the future.

Ian_C.Apr 1, 2008, 8:09 AM
0 points
on: Heat vs. Motion
If we look at something with the naked eye and see “plastic” and then look at it again with a super-microscope and see fundamental particles whizzing around, why does the second observation disprove the first or somehow make it an illusion?

Fact 1. This object, when looked at through the naked eye, looks like X. Fact 2. This object, when looked at through the microscope, looks like Y.

Even after you know Fact 2, Fact 1 is still true. Microscopes don’t make liars of our eyes. I think the error is in not accepting human limitations to being with.

We are limited. We can only know what things look like through this or through that. But most people forget this and therefore state the two facts as “This object looks like X” and “This object looks like Y” with X != Y, so they think they have to discard one of the facts to avoid a contradiction. Really, they should be careful to state the full context of what they knew each time.

Ian_C.Mar 30, 2008, 2:04 PM
−2 points
on: Hand vs. Fingers
“To review, the reductionist thesis is that we use multi-level models for computational reasons, but physical reality has only a single level.”

But wouldn’t an ultimate/complete physical model of reality have to explain why our brains, when hit with certain stimuli, produce a world of solid coloured objects? (To disagree would be to admit the content of our minds is mystical and other worldly.) And if the model does explain it, then aren’t our maps part of reality too (i.e. real)? So therefore isn’t reality multi-level?

Ian_C.Mar 19, 2008, 10:22 PM
−1 points
on: Explaining vs. Explaining Away
Frank Hirsch: “So much for evidence from introspective memory”

Those experiments are fascinating, but the fact that a damaged brain in a different situation makes up stories is not evidence that a healthy brain is doing so in this situation.

Ben Jones: “To be honest, I’m not convinced this is a useful argument.”

I’m not convinced it’s not a useful argument either. Argument is for when you have made a deductive chain that you want to explain to others. When all you are doing is pointing out something in their field of perception, all you can do is point, and if they deny it, just point again.

The fact is, that choices do come “pre-packaged” with the knowledge that we chose them. They don’t come pre-packaged with some data that we might interpret rightly or wrongly as the knowledge that we chose, they come directly with the actual knowledge.

Ian_C.Mar 19, 2008, 7:41 AM
0 points
on: Explaining vs. Explaining Away
Frank Hirsch: “You are saying that because it seems to you inside your mind that you had freedom of choice, it must automagically be so?”

I believe the mind is not magical or holy, but a natural occurrence. Therefore, to me, introspection is not automatically an invalid way of gathering knowledge.

‘How do you propose to lend credibility to your central tenet “If you seem to have free will, then you have free will”?’

I’m not deducing (potentially wrongly) from some internal observation that I have free will. The knowledge that I chose is not a conclusion, it is a memory.

If you introspect on yourself making a decision, the process is not (as you would expect): consideration (of pros and cons) → decision → option selected. It is in fact: consideration → ‘will’ yourself to decide → knowledge of option chosen + memory of having chosen it. The knowledge that you chose is not worked out, it is just given to you directly. So their is no scope for you to err.

“Also, how will you go and physically explain this free will thing? All things we know are either deterministic or random.”

I don’t have a physical explanation, just some observations.

Ian_C.Mar 17, 2008, 5:00 PM
−1 points
on: Explaining vs. Explaining Away
Sebastian Hagen: “So, you’re saying you don’t assign any of the proposed answers to the homework exercise in Dissolving the Question even a half-decent probability of being correct? That’s interesting. Please explain your reasoning.”

Because I believe things are what they are. Therefore if I introspect and see choice, then it really truly is choice. The other article might explain it, but an explanation can not change what a thing is, it can only say why it is.

Ian_C.Mar 17, 2008, 4:16 PM
0 points
on: Reductionism
Ben Jones: “But the chair isn’t seeking to imitate the table.”

But the mind isn’t seeking to imitate reality either. The mind seeks to provide awareness of reality, that is all. In taking the data of the senses and processing it only following the laws of cause and effect, it achieves this goal (because the output of the pipeline remains reality).

The idea that it is trying to imitate (and the associated criticisms like map, territory and distortion) come from looking at the evolved design after the fact and assuming how it is supposed to work without taking a wide enough view of all the ways awareness of reality could be implemented.

Ian_C.Mar 17, 2008, 12:48 PM
−2 points
on: Explaining vs. Explaining Away
Doug S.: “My chess playing software considers options and makes a decision. Does it have free will?”

When I wrote you can “introspect yourself weighing the options and picking one,” I didn’t mean those words to be a self-contained proof, but rather a indication of where to look in reality to find the actual proof for oneself. I’m sure this idea of language as a pointer has been covered on this blog before. Yes, I know other things (such as computers) can be described using similar terms, but that is neither here nor there.

Here is how to do it: take some random decision, such as “Should I go to work tomorrow?” and focus on it. For the first few seconds nothing happens while the focus builds, then you suddenly know the answer. But the important thing is the form the answer comes in. It is not simply “Yes” (or “No”) but it is “[I choose] Yes.” The “I choose” might not be explicitly verbal, but the knowledge of it is there. And if you continue to maintain the focus then the reasons behind the decision start to come through. i.e. “Because I want to get paid.”

Once again, these words are not a proof. Just a pointer to something to try, and then decide for yourself.

Ian_C.Mar 17, 2008, 11:02 AM
0 points
on: Reductionism
Ben Jones: “If you have a wrong belief, saying ‘my mind is part of reality!’ doesn’t make it any less wrong. Agreed?”

I agree that there is a difference between the object in the mind and the object in the world, but I wouldn’t call it distortion any more than a chair is a distortion of the table next to it. They are both just different parts of reality. But if your mind can only be aware of the chair then you must discover the table by deduction, which is what someone trying to “correct” the chair would do also. So yes, I guess it makes little practical difference.

“That was exactly the situation I found myself in at about 3am on Sunday morning.”

And here I was thinking it was only a model, when it was direct observation all along! Who am I to contradict direct observation? I hereby accept your theory and discard my own :-)

Ian_C.Mar 17, 2008, 10:39 AM
3 points
on: Explaining vs. Explaining Away
“I can’t predict the tomorrow’s weather; does that mean atmospheres have free will?”

It’s not the fact that you can’t predict other people’s actions that proves the existence of free will, it’s that you observe your own self making choices. You can introspect and see yourself weighing the options and then picking one.

Frank Hirsch: “I don’t think you can name any observations that strongly indicate (much less prove, which is essentially impossible anyway) that people have any kind of “free will” that contradicts causality-plus-randomness at the physical level.”

More abstract ideas are proven by reference to more fundamental ones, which in turn are proven by direct observation. Seeing ourselves choose is a direct observation (albeit an introspective one). If an abstract theory (such as the whole universe being governed by billiard ball causation) contradicts a direct observation, you don’t say the observation is wrong, you say the theory is.

Ian_C.Mar 17, 2008, 6:56 AM
−13 points
on: Explaining vs. Explaining Away
Observation is the standard for what ideas are true or not. We observe that atoms move in predictable ways, and we also observe that humans, who are made of atoms, have free will. Therefore, by observation, reductionism is false.

Ian_C.Mar 16, 2008, 2:30 PM
2 points
0
on: Reductionism
Ben Jones: “if minds don’t create their own distinct internal maps, but simply ‘latch on’ to what’s actually there, then how do explain the fact that maps can be wrong? In fact, how do you explain any two people holding two opposed beliefs?”

Different people have different eyes, nervous systems and brains, so the causal path from the primary object to the part of reality in their brain to which they are latching on can be different.

I agree sensory perception is not like a photograph, but I don’t think it’s like an idiot trying to explain to us. I don’t believe there’s the outside world, and then an idiot distortion layer, and then our unfortunate internal model. There’s one reality, and one part of it outside our body acts by a chain of cause and effect on another part inside our body, of which we happen to be able to be conscious.

So if the internal object is just as real as the external object, then we’re done. We have our contact point with reality, and can begin to study it and figure out the universe, including deducing (maybe one day) the existence of the primary object. But whether it actually resembles the primary object in some way, surely that is not the main issue? From an evolutionary point of view, it doesn’t have to be similar, just useful, and from an epistemological point of view it’s not important whether it is (at all) similar or not.