whowhowho

Karma: −212

whowhowho 24 Jan 2013 15:26 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Swimmy’s comment on: My summary of Eliezer’s position on free will

The “free will” debate is a confusion because, to answer the question on the grounds of the libertarians is to already cede their position. The question they ask: “Can I make choices, or does physics determine what I do?”

Implicit in that question is a definition of the self that already assumes dualism. The questions treats the self as a ghost in the machine, or a philosophy student of perfect emptiness.

The concern of libertaarians is actually that external events determine what they do. They don’t mind their actions being caused by neural events in their brain. A libertarian may accept that they are constituted of physics but that is not the same thing as being determined by physics. Being constituted of physical stuff is on the face of it neutral with regard to determinism and libertarianism.

The libertarians imagine that we should be able to make decisions not only apart from physics, but apart from anything.

No. The phrase typicall used is “not entirely determined by”.

whowhowho 24 Jan 2013 15:40 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Giles’s comment on: My summary of Eliezer’s position on free will

To answer this question we need something like a formal definition of “free will”. The position on LW is generally that no such thing can exist, that the concept is confused and that the question “do we have free will?” dissolves into “why do we sometimes think we have something called free will?”

If “free will” is meaningless, so is “feeling of free will”, etc. Consider “feeling of vubbleflox”.

First I’m going to assert that determinism isn’t free will, and randomness isn’t free will either.

It’s uncontentious that neither pure determinism and pure randomness is (libertarian) free wiil. However, some libertarians theories (eg Robert Kane)’s rely on mixutures of determinism and randomness.

The free willers can just change their definition so that people’s behavior can be divided into a causal component and a random/uncorrelated component and still there’s room for free will there somewhere

As noted abve, that has sort-of happened although no change of definition was needed.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 2:33 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: Right for the Wrong Reasons
We can epistemically access possible but non actual worlds by noting that they are not against known laws of nature...what is not impossible is possible.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 3:10 UTC
2 points
in reply to: simplicio’s comment on: Right for the Wrong Reasons

My take: in the absence of real physical indeterminism (which I doubt exists), “possible” is basically an epistemic term meaning “my model does not rule this out.”

You may doubt that real physical indeterminism exists; others do not. The problem is that communication hinges on shared meanings, so if you change your meanings to reflect beliefs you have and others don’t, confusion may ensue.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 10:27 UTC
4 points
in reply to: simplicio’s comment on: Right for the Wrong Reasons
Or it might be better to use two different words. In fact, (courtesy of Popper IRC), we have “propensity” for objective probabilitty.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 13:04 UTC
0 points
in reply to: shminux’s comment on: Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013

OK, I cannot bring myself to add philosophy to the list of “don’t argue with the experts, learn from them” topics, but maybe it’s because I don’t know anything about philosophy.

I find that an odd statement. Why can’t you assume by default that arguing with an expert in X is bad for all X?

For some reason, theoritis is much worse with regard to philosophy than just about anything else. Amateurs hardly ever argue with brain surgeons or particle physicists. I think part of the reason for that is that brain surgeons and particle physicists have manifest practical skills that others don’t have. The “skill” of philosophy consists of stating opinions and defending them, which everyone can do to some extent. The amateurs are like people who think you can write (well, at a a professional level) because you can type.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 13:05 UTC
0 points
in reply to: OrphanWilde’s comment on: Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013

I take non-programmers seriously about programming all of the time

About implementation, or about what to implement?

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 13:14 UTC
1 point
in reply to: IlyaShpitser’s comment on: Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013
I couldn’t agree more. Mainstream academia is set of rationality skills and a very case hardened one. Adding something extra, like cognitive science might be good, but LW omits a lot of the academic virtues—not blowing off about things you don’t know, making an attempt to answer objections, modesty, etc.

PS: Tenure is a great rationality-promoting institution because...left as an exercise to the reader.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 13:38 UTC
1 point
in reply to: private_messaging’s comment on: False vacuum: the universe playing quantum suicide
Very cogent comment. Why was it voted down?

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 13:56 UTC
0 points
in reply to: ArisKatsaris’s comment on: My summary of Eliezer’s position on free will
Fair point. Will edit to clarify.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 14:13 UTC
2 points
in reply to: chaosmage’s comment on: Notes on Autonomous Cars

The world will see autonomous passenger trains and autonomous commercial planes before it has to get used to autonomous cars.

Already has.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 14:16 UTC
0 points
in reply to: OrphanWilde’s comment on: Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013
I would assume that’s high-level—“use Oracle, not MySQL”

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 15:01 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Enginerd’s comment on: Mach’s Principle: Anti-Epiphenomenal Physics
“The amazing thing is that this is a scientifically productive rule—finding a new representation that gets rid of epiphenomenal distinctions, often means a substantially different theory of physics with experimental consequences!”

counterexample?

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 15:18 UTC
−4 points
in reply to: syllogism’s comment on: I’ve had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions
What kind of “more violence” do the nobs practice? Beating the servants?

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 17:07 UTC
2 points
in reply to: mitchell_porter2’s comment on: Many Worlds, One Best Guess
.> But is it clear that superposition means multiple instances of the thing superposed? Consider the temporal zigzag interpretations.

Consider also that supersposition is observer-relative.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 17:25 UTC
0 points
in reply to: mitchell_porter2’s comment on: Many Worlds, One Best Guess
No, you can’t fet inconsistent interpretations:-

“This relativisation of actuality is viable thanks to a remarkable property of the formalism of quantum mechanics. John von Neumann was the first to notice that the formalism of the theory treats the measured system (S ) and the measuring system (O) differently, but the theory is surprisingly flexible on the choice of where to put the boundary between the two. Different choices give different accounts of the state of the world (for instance, the collapse of the wave function happens at different times); but this does not affect the predictions on the final observations. Von Neumann only described a rather special situation, but this flexibility reflects a general structural property of quantum theory, which guarantees the consistency among all the distinct “accounts of the world” of the different observing systems. The manner in which this consistency is realized, however, is subtle.”—SEP

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 17:36 UTC
0 points
in reply to: shminux’s comment on: Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013

Now, when I listen to a mainstream philosophical argument, I don’t feel humbled at all (with one or two exceptions), instead I want to scream “why are you arguing about definitions?

Becuase phils. deal with abstract concepts, not things you can point at, and because many phil. problems are caused by inconsistent definitions, as in the when-a-tree falls problem.

Especially the definitions you didn’t even bother formalizing?!?!”

Phils can and do stipulate.

or “why do you rely on a premise you find “intuitive” or “obvious”, given that it’s rather not obvious to others?”

Are there fields where people don’t rely on intuitions?

or “why do you gleefully strawman someone else’s argument instead of trying to salvage it?”.

Maybe they can’t see how.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 17:50 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: Right for the Wrong Reasons

we can simply discard the idea of metaphysical possibility, to avoid miscommunication (since most people do not understand it in this way),

Because most people do understand it epistemically/subjectively? I think there are many kinds of possibility and many kinds of laws, and different kinds of possibility, and we make judgements about possibility based on lows. The nomologically possible is that which is allowed by the laws of nature, the logically possible is that which is not contradictory, which follows the law of non contradiction, and the epistemically possible is that which does not contradict anything I already know. So I think the kinds of possibility have a family resemblance, and there is no issue of dsicarding the other kinds in favour of epistemic possibility. (I am however happy to deflate a “possible world” into a “hypothetical state of affairs that is allowed by such-and-such laws”). into

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 20:16 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: Right for the Wrong Reasons
do not use ‘p is (metaphysically) possible’ to mean ‘p is not ruled out by the laws of physics’. If they did, then they wouldn’t understand anthropic arguments that presuppose the contingency of the physical laws themselves.

If that is meant to indicate there is some specific sense of possible that is used instead, I doubt that. Consider the following:
- A: “Are perpertual motions machines possible?”
- B: “I don;t see why not”
- A: “Ah, but theyre against the laws of thermodynamics ”
- B: “Ok, they.re impossible”.
- A: “But could the laws of phsyics have been different..?”
- B: “I suppse so. I don’t know what makes them thew way they are”.
AFAICS, B has gone through as many of 3 different notions of possibility there.

But you still haven’t explained what a ‘merely possible’ thing is.

I don’t think there is “mere” possibility, if it means subtracting the X from “something is X-ly possible if it is allowed by X-ical laws”.

If logical and nomological possibility are metaphysical, then you owe us an account of what kinds of beings or thingies these possibilia are. On the other hand, if you reduce logical and nomological possibility to epistemic possibility

What they are would depend on the value of X. Family resemblance.

whowhowho 25 Jan 2013 20:38 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: private_messaging’s comment on: The Level Above Mine
Black swans flock. There are any number of things with very low probablity and very high positive and negative payoffs. You can;t control for them all. I suggest renormalisation: hand-wave them away by assuming they cancel out.