shokwave comments on The benefits of madness: A positive account of arationality - Less Wrong

101 Post author: Skatche 22 April 2011 07:43PM

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Comment author: shokwave 24 April 2011 05:07:22PM -1 points [-]

"something is thinking."

I thought the standard answer to this problem was that "think" confers "me-ness" - if you could observe "someone thinks" the way that Descartes observed it (introspection on the thought process) then you are that someone.

The flipside is that you can't know that others are thinking, because you have no ability to introspect on their thoughts.

Comment author: Desrtopa 24 April 2011 05:20:27PM 0 points [-]

It might be more appropriate to say "something appears to be thinking." Perhaps in the chaotic mass of whatever-exists-ness, a random collision of entities has produced something that feels from the inside like thoughts and memories of a past, but has no continuity.

I suppose you could say that the entity is still "I," even if it's divorced from your conception of yourself, but I think a better solution is to not entertain the notion at all.

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 24 April 2011 05:40:10PM 0 points [-]

Try "thinking is happening" and "observing is happening". No entity required.

Comment author: shokwave 24 April 2011 05:58:23PM 0 points [-]

Yeah, this clarifies what I thought on the matter - although it touches on anthropic reasoning, so I guess it isn't a standard answer.

For the record, it would look something like:

  • "Thinking is happening" entails " "Thinking is happening" is being observed".
  • " "Thinking is happening" is being observed" entails "observing is happening".
  • "Observing is happening" entails the existence of an observer (existential claim, can't find the symbol, would be "There exists an x such that x is an observer")
  • Some further work on the concept of "me" or "I" would define it in terms of observer-property, some argument from denying "me"-ness of observer requires multiple observers, etc.
Comment author: abramdemski 25 April 2011 02:50:20AM 0 points [-]

Putting this in formal logic, it only works if "being observed" is defined from the two-place predicate "x is observing y". We could also use a one-place predicate, "x is observed". So it's still not totally free of assumptions, so to speak.

The point is, Decart was supposedly doubting everything; so this particular argument, while decent, is not so unusually decent as to justify being held up as the one undoubted thing.

Comment author: shokwave 25 April 2011 04:14:46AM 0 points [-]

I feel like the existence of an observer is a necessary condition for "x is observed" to be true - but that is again anthropics, and so fully fleshing out this argument might take more than a comment,

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