Jack comments on A Rationalist's Tale - Less Wrong

82 Post author: lukeprog 28 September 2011 01:17AM

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Comment author: Jack 12 September 2011 12:49:51AM 1 point [-]

You don't think whether or not the Tegmark Level 4 multiverse exists could ever have any decision theoretic import?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 12 September 2011 12:54:30AM *  1 point [-]

I believe that "exists" doesn't mean anything fundamentally significant (in senses other than referring to presence of a property of some fact; or referring to the physical world; or its technical meanings in logic), so I don't understand what it would mean for various (abstract) things to exist to greater or lower extent.

Comment author: Jack 12 September 2011 12:57:42AM 1 point [-]

Okay. What is your probability for that belief? (Not that I expect a number, but surely you can't be certain.)

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 12 September 2011 01:04:07AM 1 point [-]

That would require understanding alternatives, which I currently don't. The belief in question is mostly asserting confusion, and as such it isn't much use, other than as a starting point that doesn't purport to explain what I don't understand.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 12 September 2011 01:19:20AM *  1 point [-]

Anyone who has positive accounts of existentness to put forth, I'd like to hear them. (E.g., Eliezer has talked about this related existentness-like-thing that has do with being in a causal graph (being computed), but I'm not sure if that's just physicalist intuition admitting much confusion or if it's supposed to be serious theoretical speculation caused by interesting underlying motivations that weren't made explicit.)

Comment author: Jack 12 September 2011 01:16:54AM 1 point [-]

Fine. So you agree that we should be wary of any hypotheses of which the reality of abstract objects is a part?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 12 September 2011 01:23:06AM 0 points [-]

No, I won't see that in itself as a reason to be wary, since as I said repeatedly I don't know how to parse the property of something being real in this sense.

Comment author: Jack 12 September 2011 05:04:10AM 1 point [-]

Personally, I am always wary of hypotheses I don't know how to parse.