whpearson comments on Assuming Nails - Less Wrong
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Could you elaborate on what you mean by "ethereal etherealness"? What Eliezer is talking about in that post looks to me like what most philosophers would call abstract Platonic entities. And I get the sense (though I may be projecting) that most people here are pretty uncomfortable with those. LWers seem to think it worthwhile to eliminate any reference to anything other than concrete physical referents.
I find the discussions of Decision Theories a little ethereal sometimes. There is a base assumption that Eliezer has made that the manner of making the decision doesn't matter. So questions of energy efficiency or computational resources used when making a decision don't come into the discussion. I personally cannot justify that assumption looking at the evolutionary history of brains, i.e. stuff that has worked in the real world. It matters how big the brain is, the smaller the better if you can get away with it. The simpler the better, if you can get away with it, as well.
Quote from a Newcomb's Problem article