= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
SilasBarta comments on Causation as Bias (sort of) - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (88)
Ugh. Agreed. I think this post is a reference to Loschmidt's paradox, i.e. that there should not be a "thermodynamic arrow of time" in an otherwise time-symmetric universe. It has been discussed before on OvercomingBias, but I can't find the link since it isn't mentioned by name.
Here, Spluck seems to be using one of the common attempts to resolve it, which is that the universe is time-reversible, but we are in a region where entropy happens to only increase.
The (oft-cited) problem with this position is that local irregularity should not imply the further "irregularity" we see. That is, if the universe is truly random and time-symmetric, and you find a locally-time-asymmetric part, you should not expect to see this further asymmetry again and again. It's like believing that because you won the lottery, you're likely to win it again.
The confusion potency of this post is so high that it shouldn't be understood, unless a better argument is presented. The expectation of finding something fruitful in the writings like this is too low for the activity to be a good use of one's time. It's like studying philosophy.
lol! Or like finding the word processor in the molecular motions of a wall!
I am unsure why the parent had multiple downvotes. Vladmir's insight is one that I recommend.
It has been said that your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge. Likewise, while it can cause a few instrumental difficulties when dealing with the dark side, there significant epistemic benefit to cultivating incomprehension when encountering confused or illogical writings.
As with (I expect) most people here I have more than enough creativity wit and cached knowledge to generate deep (sounding) insights for just about any given source statement, absurd or otherwise. And when I am socialising I apply that skill liberally. But when I'm trying to actually enhance my understanding? It is far better not to train my brain to follow dead ends and misleading paths.
(And now I wonder to what extent I should consider my above elaboration ironic.)
It was downvoted for being rude to philosophers.
On the one hand, you're right, but on the other hand, reading philosophy is often more like trying to follow the plot of a really boring SF novel than like learning anything. On the gripping hand, this is probably because philosophy is hard and skill at philosophy isn't uniformly correlated with skill at writing.
I guess I'm saying I can see both sides or something.
I would have said it is because philosophy as commonly practised is a relatively simple skill that serves primarily as a carrier signal for social politics and only incidentally to generate insight into the nature of things. (Having exposed myself to altogether too much of the Australian Association of Philosophy conference in the last week may well have contributed to this cynicism.)
You're right - another problem is that the barriers to entry are poorly correlated with expertise. (In contrast to health care, where a would-be good doctor may burn out in med school but a student who doesn't is likely to be competent.)
I have yet to see any criticism of philosophy at large (as opposed to some given sub-discipline, or particular theorist, or specific individual philosophy convention) that doesn't just look like complaining about academic disciplines you don't like (or possibly complaining about academic disciplines you are bad at).
My chief complaint about the academic discipline that I don't like is the overwhelming frustration of seeing an activity that I love to engage in and in which I excel dominated by woo. Philosophy just isn't the rational enquiry into the nature of things that I want it to be.
I find it difficult to imagine a combination of words that I could present that isn't vulnerable to the above accusation.
Since we're discussing it: here's Eliezer's rant on philosophy and how it's bad at reductionism.
Sure, that's fair. I honestly like philosophy - it's just sometimes much too tiring for me.
(Or, to be more precise, I like the work of expert philosophers. Philosophical questions do attract a lot of well-meaning ignoramuses, especially online.)
Rude, but is it not true (most of the time)?
I don't think so. If I had so poor an opinion of philosophy, I wouldn't be trying to get my PhD in the subject.
A PhD-level philosopher knows where to look, and so expected value of the answer they can find is high enough, as opposed to the situation for a random educated person. This is very unlike the situation in other sciences, where even few weeks' study can give you a lot of genuine insight in how things work, likely answering your questions if the answers are known and not awfully deep. With philosophy, you are going to be led in circles for years, emerging more confused than at the start, with a few simple answers and likely a serious memetic illness.
The good answers in philosophy are easy enough to find. We just offload them onto other disciplines for easy reference. For instance, once we'd gotten a good handle on natural philosophy, we started putting bits of it into new disciplines like 'physics'.
Complaining about not finding easy answers in academic philosophy is like complaining that your R&D department hasn't manufactured anything this week.
You suggested that 'studying philosophy' was not a "good use of one's time". Given how much we've already gone around the whole 'philosophy is useless' meme, I'd expect such a comment to just get downvotes from the at least a dozen or so philosophers kicking around these parts.
When was the last time another discipline was spun out of philosophy?
psychology, a century ago?
I can't make heads or tails of your first couple sentences. As for the last, what's your evidence for that claim and what is a "memetic illness"?
"What is Wrong with Our Thoughts?" describes the problem with memetic illness: you start believing some of the nonsense invented by philosophers. This is not to say that all philosophers invent nonsense, but some excel at it.
Expected value of seeking an answer in a given pool of info is the estimation of how good the answer you're going to get, given what you know before actually looking. If you are asking a person on the street a question about quantum mechanics, you don't expect a good answer, even though there is still a chance that the person will turn out to be a physicist. The answer to the same question asked at a physics conference will have higher expected value, even though you are not guaranteed to chance upon a knowledgeable person. Likewise when the person you are asking a question is yourself, with a library to study.