Said Achmiz
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I am glad you like the anti-kibitzer feature!
As for toggling quickly, I agree that this is important—which is why you can skip the confirmation dialog, by holding the Shift key when you click to disable the anti-kibitzer. (I am not sure if you missed this bit in my post, or, if you saw it but still think this is too inconvenient? I have made the note to that effect more prominent, in case it’s the former; if it’s the latter, my apologies.)
But you’ve done a sleight of hand!
First, you defined C, a.k.a. the “criterion of truth”, like this:
Suppose we know the criterion of truth, C; that is, there exists (not counterfactually but actually as in anyone can observe this thing) a procedure/algorithm to assess if any given statement is true.
Ok, that’s only mildly impossible, let’s see where this leads us…
But then, you say:
The counterfactual I’m proposing with C is exactly one that would allow not just any mind, but literally anything at all to comprehend A. The existence of C would create a universe wholly unlike our own, which is why I think we’re all in agreement that the existence of such a thing is extremely unlikely even though we can’t formally prove that it doesn’t exist.
Why should the thing you defined in the first quote, lead to anything even remotely resembling the second quote? There is no reason, as far as I can tell; the latter quote just adds extremely impossible magic, out of nowhere and for no reason.
The counterfactual I’m proposing with C is exactly one that would allow not just any mind, but literally anything at all to comprehend A. The existence of C would create a universe wholly unlike our own, which is why I think we’re all in agreement that the existence of such a thing is extremely unlikely even though we can’t formally prove that it doesn’t exist.
Ok, this is… far weirder than anything I thought you had in mind when you talked about the “knowability of the criterion of truth”. As far as I can tell, this scenario is… incoherent. Certainly it’s extremely bizarre. I guess you agree with that part, at least.
But… what is it that you think the non-reality of this scenario implies? How do you get from “our universe is not, in fact, at all like this bizarre possibly-incoherent hypothetical scenario” to… anything about rationality, in our universe?
New GreaterWrong feature: anti-kibitzer (hides post/comment author names and karma values)
But… why would you want to avoid this? (Surely it’s not difficult to post a link?)
How would you convince rocks?! What in the world does that have to do with there existing or not existing some observable procedure that shows whether something is true?
Suppose we know the criterion of truth, C; that is, there exists (not counterfactually but actually as in anyone can observe this thing) a procedure/algorithm to assess if any given statement is true. Let P be a statement. Then there exists some argument, A, contingent on C such that A implies P or ~P. Thus for all P we can know if P or ~P. This would make A universally compelling
But of course it wouldn’t. What? This seems completely unrelated to compellingness (universal or otherwise). I have but to build a mind that does not implement the procedure in question, or doesn’t implement it for some specific argument(s), or does implement it but then someone reverses it (cf. Eliezer’s “little grey man”), etc.
a mind-independent argument for
There is no such thing as a “mind-independent argument for” anything. That, too, was Eliezer’s point.
For example, suppose C exists. However, it is then an open question where I believe that C exists. How might I come to believe this? Perhaps I might be presented with an argument for C’s existence. I might find this argument compelling, or not. This is dependent on my mind—i.e., both on my mind existing, and on various specific properties of my mind (such as implementing modus ponens).
And who is doing this attempted convincing? Well, perhaps you are. You believe (in this hypothetical scenario) that C exists. And how did you come to believe this? Whatever the chain of causality was that led to this state of affairs, it could only be very much dependent on various properties of your mind.
Again, a “mind-independent argument” for anything is a nonsensical concept. Who is arguing, and with whom? Who is trying to convince whom? Without minds, the very concept of there being arguments, and those arguments being compelling or not compelling, is meaningless.
This is to say, why is it that you can build a mind that fails to be convinced by any given argument, because Eliezer only intimates this and doesn’t fully explain it.
But he does. He explains it very clearly and explicitly! Building a mind that behaves in some specific way in some specific circumstance(s) is all that’s required. Simply build a mind that, when presented with argument A, finds that argument unconvincing. (Again, see the “little grey man” section.) That is all.
Although we’re trying our best to cut idea space such that you see the part we’re talking about, the process is inexact because although I’ve pointed to it with the technical language of philosophy the technical language of philosophy is easily mistaken for non-technical language since it reused common words
I am sympathetic to this sort of explanation. Could you, then, note specifically which of your terms are supposed to be interpreted at technical language, and link to some definitions / explanations of them? (Can such be found on the SEP, for instance?)
The reason I cited is not an “engineering reason”; it is fundamental. It seems absurd to say that it’s “an expression of” something like “epistemic circularity”. A more apt analogy would be to computability theory. If we make some assertion in computer science, and in support of that assertion, prove that we can, or cannot, construct some particular sort of computer program, is that an “engineering reason”? Applying such a term seems tendentious, at best.
Further, Eliezer doesn’t really prove his point in that post if you want a detailed philosophical explanation of the point.
If you disagree with Eliezer’s arguments in that post, I would be interested in reading what you have to say (as would others, I am sure).
Thus, it seems that you’re just agreeing with me even if you’re talking at a different level of abstraction, but I take it from your tone you meant to disagree, so maybe you meant to press some other point that’s not clear to me from what you wrote?
You said:
I don’t see a natural space into which you could claim the criterion of truth is knowable and that there are no universally compelling arguments
The phrasing is odd (“natural space”? “into”?), but unless there is some very odd meaning hiding behind that phrasing, what you seem to be saying is that if “the criterion of truth is knowable” then there must exist universally compelling arguments. (Because ¬(P ∧ ¬Q) ⇒ (P → Q).)
And I am saying: this is wrong and confused. If “the criterion of truth is knowable”, that has exactly zero to do with whether there exist universally compelling arguments. Criterion of truth or no criterion of truth, I can always build a mind which fails to be convinced by any given argument you propose. Therefore, any argument you propose will fail to be universally compelling.
This is what Eliezer was saying. It is very simple. If you disagree with this reasoning, do please explain why! (And in that case it would be best, I think, if you posted your disagreement as a comment to Eliezer’s post. I will, of course, gladly read it.)
I’m not nshepperd, but:
The non-existence of universally compelling arguments has nothing to do with whether “the criterion of truth is knowable”, or “epistemic circularity”, or any other abstruse epistemic issues, or any other non-abstruse epistemic issues.
There cannot be a universally compelling argument because for any given argument, there can exist a mind which is not persuaded by it.
If it were the case that “the criterion of truth is knowable” (whatever that means), and you had what you considered to be a universally compelling argument, I could still build a mind which remains—stubbornly, irrationally (?), impenetrably—unconvinced by that argument. And that would make that argument not universally compelling after all.
There is nothing esoteric about any of this; Eliezer explained it all very clearly in the Sequences.
(sorry; I can’t seem to nest blockquotes in the comments; that’s the best I could do)
Not related to your points, but re: blockquotes and nesting, try the GreaterWrong editor; you can select some text and click the blockquote button, then select text (including the blockquoted) and click blockquote again, etc., and it’ll nest it properly for you.
none of this stuff about choosing beliefs is in conflict with standard LW rationality
What do you mean, “choosing beliefs”? The bit of my comment that you quoted said nothing about choosing beliefs. The situation I describe doesn’t seem to require “choosing beliefs”. You just believe what is, to the best of your ability to discern, true. That’s all. What “choosing” is there?
Someone might then respond, “well if it’s so ordinary, what’s this whole thing about post/metarationality being totally different from ordinary rationality, then?” Honestly, beats me. I don’t think it really is particularly different, and giving it a special label that implies that it’s anything else than just a straightforward application of ordinary rationality is just confusing matters and doing everyone a disservice. But that’s the label we seem to have ended up with.
Maybe what you’re talking about is different from what everyone else who is into “postrationality”, or what have you, is talking about?
Without getting deeper into that topic, I’ll just say that there are ways of interpreting mythic mode which I think are perfectly in line with the kinds of examples I’ve been giving in the comments of this post
But… I think that your examples are examples of the wrong way to think about things… “crazy” is probably an overstatement for your comments (as opposed to those of some other people), but “wrong” does not seem to be…
From my point of view as the decision-maker, there’s no epistemically correct or incorrect action
I’m not sure I know what an “epistemically correct action” or an “epistemically incorrect action” is. Actions aren’t the kinds of things that can be “epistemically correct” or “epistemically incorrect”. This would seem to be a type error.
But epistemic rationality does not tell me which one I should choose; that’s in the domain of instrumental rationality.
Indeed…
My claim is that there are analogous situations where the decision you are making is “what should I believe”, where epistemic rationality does not offer an opinion one way or the other;
The epistemically correct belief is “the belief which is true” (or, of course, given uncertainty: “the belief which is most accurate, given available information”). This is always the case.
The one thing that most matters is how confident you are in giving the talk, which in turn depends on how you believe it will go
The correct belief, obviously, is:
“How the talk will go depends on how confident I am. If I am confident, then the talk will go well. If I am not confident, it will go badly.”
(Well, actually more like: “If I am confident, then the talk is more likely than not to go well. If I am not confident, it is is more likely than not to go badly.”)
Conditionalizing, I can then plug in my estimate of the probability that I will be confident.
If I am able to affect this probability—such as by deciding to be confident (if I have this ability), or by taking some other action (such as taking anxiolytic medication, imagining the audience naked, doing some exercise beforehand, etc.)—then, of course, I will do that.
I will then—if I feel like doing so—revise my probability estimate of my confidence, and, correspondingly, my probability estimate of the talk going well. Of course, this is not actually necessary, since it does not affect anything one way or the other.
Suppose for the sake of example that you could just choose which belief you have
As always, I would choose to have the most accurate belief, of course, as described above.
In that case, even though you are choosing which belief to have, from the point of view of epistemic rationality, they are both equally valid.
No, choosing to have any but the most accurate belief is epistemically incorrect.
The only criteria you get is the one from instrumental rationality: do you prefer your talk to go well, or do you prefer it to go badly?
Indeed not; our criterion is, as always, the one we get is the one from epistemic rationality, i.e. “have the most accurate beliefs”.
I am referring to this bit:
But the more general point of the original post is that there are a wide variety of beliefs which are underdetermined by external reality.
And, of course, this bit:
A partial response to your criticisms would be that, even if you do have truth as the criterion for your beliefs, then this still leaves the truth value of a wide range of beliefs underdetermined; so one postrational approach would be to use truth as the primary criterion for forming beliefs, and then use other criteria for filling in the beliefs which the criterion of truth doesn’t help us distinguish between.
And I am saying that this position is wrong. I am saying that there is no special underdetermination. I am saying that there is no problem with using truth as the only criterion for beliefs. I am saying, therefore, that there is no reason to use any other criteria for belief, and that “postrationality” as you describe it is unmotivated.
Do you think about distances in Metric or Imperial units? Both are equally true, so probably in whichever units you happen to be more fluent in.
Do you use Newtonian mechanics or full relativity for calculating the motion of some object? Relativity is more true, but sometimes the simpler model is good enough and easier to calculate, so it may be better for the situation.
These seem like silly examples to me.
I think about distances in Imperial units, but it seems very weird, inaccurate, and borderline absurd to describe me as believing the Imperial system to be “true”, or “more true”, or believing the metric system to be “not true” or “false” or “less true”. None of those make any sense as descriptions of what I believe. Frankly, I don’t understand how you can suggest otherwise.
Similarly, it is a true fact that Newtonian mechanics allows me to calculate the motion of objects, in certain circumstances (i.e., intermediate-scale situations / phenomena), to a great degree of accuracy, but that relativity will give a more accurate result, at the cost of much greater difficulty in calculation. This is a fact which I believe to be true. Describing Relativity as being “more true” is odd.
Do you consider your romantic partner a wonderful person who you love dearly and want to be happy, or someone who does various things that benefit you, in exchange for you doing various things that benefit them? Both are true, but the former framing is probably one that will make for a happier and more meaningful relationship.
If both are true (as, indeed, they are, in many relationships), then this, too, seems like an odd example. Why choose? These are not in conflict. Why can’t someone be a wonderful person whom you love dearly and want to be happy, and who does various things that benefit you, in exchange for you doing various things that benefit them? I struggle to see any conflict or contradiction.
Meaning no disrespect, Kaj, but I spy a motte-and-bailey approach in these sorts of examples. The motte, of course, is “Newtonian mechanics” and so on. The bailey is “mythic mode”. To call the latter “indefensible” is an understatement.
Fair enough, that’s true. To be clear, then—is that all this is about? “Improvements to subjective well being”?
So… you have experience you can’t verbalize or explain, to yourself or to others; and through this experience, you gain knowledge, which you also can’t adequately verbalize or explain, to yourself or to others? Nor can you in any meaningful way demonstrate this knowledge or its fruits?
Once again, I do not claim that this proves that you don’t have any special knowledge or understanding that you claim to have. But it seems clear to me that you have no good reason for believing that you have any such thing—and much less does anyone else have any reason to believe this.
And, with respect, whatever assumption you have made, which would lead you to conclude otherwise… I submit to you that this assumption has taken you beyond the bounds of sanity.
The problem with this reasoning is: if you can’t explain it, just how exactly are you so sure that there is any “it” to explain?
If we’re talking about some alleged practical skill, or some alleged understanding of a physical phenomenon, etc., then this is no obstacle. Can’t explain it in words? Fine; simply demonstrate the skill, or make a correct prediction (or several) based on your understanding, and it’ll be clear at once that you really do have said skill, or really do possess said understanding.
For example, say I claim to know how to make a delicious pie. You are skeptical, and demand an explanation. I fumble and mumble, and eventually confess that I’m just no good at explaining. But I don’t have to explain! I can just bake you a pie. So I can be perfectly confident that I have pie-baking skills, because I have this pie; and you can be confident in same, for the same reason.
Similar logic applies to alleged understanding of the real world.
But with something like this—some deep philosophical issue—how can you demonstrate to me that you know something I don’t, or understand something I don’t, without explaining it to me? Now, don’t get me wrong; maybe you really do have some knowledge or understanding. Not all that is true, can be easily demonstrated.
But without a clear verbal explanation, not only do I have no good reason at all to believe that “there’s a ‘there’ there”… but neither do you!
I think this doesn’t take into account two things:
The line between “spending on yourself” and “giving to charity” is thin.
Signaling arms races.
For example, suppose I am a billionaire. I’ve got my mansions in every city, my helicopter, my private island, and a vault full of gold that I can dive into, Scrooge McDuck style. What more can I want?
In a word: intangibles. I’ve purchased joy, security, and freedom; now I want respect. I want people everywhere to love me, and my name to be synonymous with goodness and benevolence.
So I give to charity. But so does everyone, right? My friend/rival Bob—also a billionaire—has just given five hundred million dollars to save cute puppies in war-torn countries. TIME magazine man of the year! Me? I’m a footnote on page 40.
The more money I make, the more I can give. The more I can give (and/or spend on other things! there’s more than one way to reap the intangible benefits of fame, after all), the more I gain—in real benefit, to myself, personally.
My marginal utility of money, then, is far greater than zero.
“[L]etting them know directly” doesn’t scale, at all; is difficult (in several different ways); requires social capital; is damaging to said social capital; requires a personal relationship with a person; and, critically, doesn’t address root causes or do much to prevent the spread of memetic infection. It is a total non-starter as a solution.