RichardKennaway comments on Rationality Quotes: October 2009 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 October 2009 04:06PM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 22 October 2009 09:34:43PM 1 point [-]

The statement that all of us are purportedly able to coherently conceive or imagine a certain situation - for instance, an imitation man or a zombie - is rather trivial from a philosophical point of view because ultimately it is just an empirical claim about the history of the brain and its functional architecture. It is a statement about a world that is phenomenally possible for human beings. It is not a statement about the modal strength of the relationship between physical and phenomenal properties; logical possibility (or necessity) is not implied by phenomenological possibility (or necessity). From the simple fact that beings like ourselves are able to phenomenally simulate a certain apparently possible world, it does not follow that a consistent or even only an empirically plausible description of this world exists. -- Thomas Metzinger

Comment author: RichardKennaway 22 October 2009 11:33:43PM 9 points [-]

In fewer words: we can imagine things that cannot exist.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 October 2009 05:57:11AM 2 points [-]

In even fewer words: we can imagine the illogical.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 23 October 2009 11:26:52PM 1 point [-]

What a fun game: Impossibilities are imaginable.

Comment author: Neil 24 October 2009 03:24:48PM *  1 point [-]

I think he's saying something more limiting - we cannot tell if we imagine things that cannot exist.

or even as far as - we cannot tell if things cannot exist. :)