marcusmorgan

Karma: −44

marcusmorgan 25 Jul 2012 5:48 UTC
−10 points
in reply to: marcusmorgan’s comment on: An Intuitive Explanation of Solomonoff Induction
Vladimir, are you at liberty to confirm whether you have provided any of my various posts today with negative votes, and how many? I await your detailed reply to the basic issues I have outlined above in any event, but I read somewhere that it is common for unexplained negativity from others to be explained when asked. What is your explanation, if any?

marcusmorgan 25 Jul 2012 4:15 UTC
−13 points
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: An Intuitive Explanation of Solomonoff Induction
I agree that nature might even be entirely deterministic, but only statistically in particle & field behaviour, and ways poorly understood in biology, but that is not the point. It is obvious that we are resoning to a deductive conclusion because we hope that the solution, if there is one (a Unified Theory for example) explains a self-consistent state and our path to discovering it. The entire point is that in the practical journey to this hopeful order we use inductive creativity that is as open as we need to gather and refine into a stricter theory. I think you have set up a straw man argument against me, and your answer does not seem to relate directly to the quote you provided, which is consistent with the above. It is clearly foolish to assume in advance of deductive confirmation that we will get it, which is why we open up to be creative. We frequently revisit the deduced bases for our induction by induction and further deuction to refine them as the process works both ends.

As to the side issue you seem to raise in support of the claim that I “seem wrong”, namely the appearance of choices when in fact we might be better off deductively guided to the best option, that is a non-argument. If we had that deductive guidance we wouldn’t be in a process of reasoning about options to begin with. No matter which way you look at it, we are free to create when we have no clear deductive solution, and that’s what we do when we use what you seem to call “Free Will” (a much broader issue that your identified point). Logical uncertainty is our reality until satisfied with reasoning to something more secure, as fact rule at the end of the day and we are nowhere near reconciling them across all sciences. Perhaps you should read my book, its free at my website http://www.theumandesign.net and deals with these issues. I see a lot of rigidity in your approach, perhaps leading to a misunderstanding of what is really going on when we discover things.

marcusmorgan 25 Jul 2012 3:45 UTC
−1 points
on: Welcome to Less Wrong! (July 2012)
I am a new member and have been looking at Blogs for the first time over the past few weeks. I have written a book, finished last month, which deals with many of the issues about reasoning discussed at this site, but I attempt to cut through them somewhat, as there is so much potential in the facts out there to be ordered that I don’t spend a lot of time considering the theory relating to my reasoning in providing some order to it in my book. I discuss reasoning, and many of the principles raised in posts here, but my interest is in reasonably framing the conditions of my hypotheses and making them clear, whatever they may be. For example, immediately before 2 particles collides we can fairly accurately predict what will happen because our conditions are very closed, but nature has broad universal sweeps of properties in four forces and how they more generally structure matter (including biology and humans in particular) and hypotheses relating to those explanations are more broad.

My book tries to cover the entire sweep on nature, based upon the use of the four forces in physics, and extends to an explanation of the emergence of biology on planetary surfaces. You are all most welcome to read it, its a free download at http://home.iprimus.com.au/marcus60/1.pdf and well worth a quick flip to see if the coverage interests you. My website in www.thehumandesign.net (a non-spiritual Design) for additional information including a Blog in future. It is entirely novel, and without any input from scientists or philosophers. I am a lawyer of long standing, and do my research by checking facts at the library (and internet now) and I simply constructed a view over a period of several decades. A bit like ongoing Sunday contemplations accumulated into a theory. I hope you enjoy it, and my posts at this site if I get an opportunity to contribute further.

marcusmorgan 25 Jul 2012 3:39 UTC
−2 points
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: An Intuitive Explanation of Solomonoff Induction
Could you possibly provide a simple reason why it is wrong, to let me know what to look for if I go to your links? It is fine if you have no time to provide a simple reason, rather than “this seems wrong”, but I would much prefer any reason at all or any reasoning at all. Just a short sentence would be fine to address your key point. Otherwise it appears disrespectful, like “back to the drawing board, lad” without any reason whatesoever. I am happy to argue my post above, which explains very clearly the meaning of the quote you chose. but I cannot go chasing rabbits of a decription I do not know, were I to chase rabbits. See this as a challenge Vladimir, in response to what seems a lazy reply.

marcusmorgan 25 Jul 2012 3:31 UTC
−6 points
on: Evolutionary psychology as “the truth-killer”
I would say reasoning is a satisfying process towards secure knowledge from beliefs that might have any bases. Reasoning itself, by creative induction and strict deduction to confirm it, is a process that provides our ability to progress, and it is always open to debate as to the security of its knowledge. Consequently, if one seeeks absolutes, one may be entering spirituality, because even though nature might be an absolute and structured machanism (or might not), individual humans cannot state that is is an absolute reality because we are limited to our reasoning process, which is always provisional as to truth—its just a process towards greater satisfaction. You are welcome to read a new book I have written on this as a free download at http://home.iprimus.com.au/marcus60/1.pdf or at my site www.thehumandesign.net (it’s a non-spiritual Design, just science).

So your issue might be in why people seek spiritual absolutes when we might be restricted to a process of reasoning ‘towards’ satisfaction. Perhaps it is over confidence, or an easy half step to say that so much is regular (as we see it) that is ‘just is’ that way by the hand of a creator. Perhaps it is laziness, of lack of understanding, as we do develop the ideas in my post and this site generally over time. We learn our limitations by reasoning more and more about them. So, I would not look so much to the need to believe at the most basic level, as I would not say I have ever had any particular beliefs (except beliefs as those things I subject to reasoning to raise their status to more satisfying knowledge). The evolutionary psychology rationale, like all natural selection rationales, is open to interpretation as to what benefits survival, and there might some argument that its helps us to survive to believe without confirmation, but I would probably see it as a side issue with pluses and minuses for survival, and merely a slip into error.

marcusmorgan 22 Jul 2012 1:18 UTC
−12 points
on: An Intuitive Explanation of Solomonoff Induction
Some ideas about Solomonoff that might be of use: he is trying to raise induction from given deductive bases into somehow being “forwardly deductive” rather than inductive. No doubt we can refine our bases for inductive hypotheses to make them as deductively strict as possible, but ultimately if they are too deductively strict we leave no room for induction and would merely be proposing a continuation of the status quo as a process leading inevitably, deductively, somewhere.

Induction is a process from supposed real facts to hypothesized real facts, and when the hypothesized real facts eventually arise, we deduce the accuracy of our hypothesis about them. We can hypothesize backwards about the bases for the supposed real facts, to open issues about their supposed reliability as the basis for a future hypothesis, and use deduction to check again and decide again their reliability as facts, but we should have already done that before relying on them for the future hypothesis.

Hypotheses are not limited to the future, and we can hypthesize about the basis for anything to open up argument, and use deduction to be satisfied we are secure. What Solominoff is doing is identifying some important factors to deductively refine our induction when hypothesizing backwards or forwards. My concern is that creativity in working real facts into inductive hypotheses in reality can be guided by deductive refinements, but only broadly. The entire point of induction is to open up, and deduction is to close down, so I would not get too excited about Solominoff’s attempt at limiting induction to some kind of deductive certainty. All he is doing is building deductive refinements into his inductive methods.

I agree that the status quo may be a process leading inevitably statistically somewhere, and that we can try to use past deduced bases for the status quo to inductively predict its future. That is nice and secure, and perhaps a little like dominoes falling in line. In reality, data is more complicated, and interpreting it using induction (refined by deduction) is more creative. I will read Solominoff’s gudelines again, but I assume they are a product of his consideration of all the fundamental logical and practical issues that need consideration for greatest certainty, and if so, useful. However, I like looking at nature around me to see the factual complexity that needs reconciliation by hypotheses, and work on that rather than dredging too much through the basic formalisms, Facts rule at the end of the day.