Will_Newsome comments on Were atoms real? - Less Wrong

61 Post author: AnnaSalamon 08 December 2010 05:30PM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 08 December 2010 11:16:44PM *  2 points [-]

Could you expand on why you feel like there's a question there? What does 'physical' mean? (Is it a distinction between your perceptions being the result of a high-resolution computation where other brains or stars or non-observed phenomena are also computed in detail and sent to your brain and a low-resolution computation where lots of computationally expensive details are left out and replaced with just barely imperceptibly simplistic high-level generators? That is, a physical universe would be detailed/expensive, whereas an... er, algorithmically simple/inexpensive universe would be algorithmically simple/inexpensive (speed prior-wise). Or were you thinking of a different distinction?)

For awhile I tried to make a distinction between existingness and realness (everything exists and nothing exists as made clear by ensemble universe theories, but, say, only directed acyclic graphs are real, or only things of decision theoretic significance are real, or what have you), but eventually I felt like I wasn't getting much traction from it. I've had a lot more luck with a distinction between 'right' and 'good'.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 December 2010 11:43:03PM 1 point [-]

I've had a lot more luck with a distinction between 'right' and 'good'.

What was your motivation for this distinction? Also, can you summarize the progress you made?

Comment author: Will_Newsome 09 December 2010 12:11:46AM 0 points [-]

In person some time, I've already bitten off more than I can chew with my 'memes are real, dualism is correct' meta-contrarianism elsewhere in the comments. Sorry Anna...

Comment author: thomblake 09 December 2010 02:09:12PM 0 points [-]

Tangentially, the usual distinction is that 'right' applies to actions and 'good' applies to states of affairs, with some slippage.