Query the LessWrong Hivemind

D_Malik

Often, there are questions you want to know the answers to. You want other people's opinions, because knowing the answer isn't worth the time you'd have to spend to find it, or you're unsure whether your answer is right.

LW seems like a good place to ask these questions because the people here are pretty rational. So, in this thread: You post a top-level comment with some question. Other people reply to your comment with their answers. You upvote answers that you agree with and questions whose answers you'd like to know.

A few (mostly obvious) guidelines:

For questions:

Your question should probably be in one of the following forms:
- Asking for the probability some proposition is true.
- Asking for a confidence interval.
Be specific. Don't ask when the singularity will happen unless you define 'singularity' to reasonable precision.
If you have several questions, post each separately, unless they're strongly related.

For answers:

Give what the question asks for, be it a probability or a confidence interval or something else. Try to give numbers.
Give some indication of how good your map is, i.e why is your answer that? If you want, give links.
If you think you know the answer to your own question, you can post it.
If you want to, give more information. For instance, if someone asks whether it's a good idea to brush their teeth, you can include info about flossing.
If you've researched something well but don't feel like typing up a long justification of your opinions, that's fine. Rather give your opinion without detailed arguments than give nothing at all. You can always flesh your answer out later, or never.

This thread is primarily for getting the hivemind's opinions on things, not for debating probabilities of propositions. Debating is also okay, though, especially since it will help question-posters to make up their minds.

Don't be too squeamish about breaking the question-answer format.

This is a followup to my comment in the open thread.

A few (mostly obvious) guidelines:

For questions:

Your question should probably be in one of the following forms:
- Asking for the probability some proposition is true.
- Asking for a confidence interval.
Be specific. Don't ask when the singularity will happen unless you define 'singularity' to reasonable precision.
If you have several questions, post each separately, unless they're strongly related.

For answers:

Give what the question asks for, be it a probability or a confidence interval or something else. Try to give numbers.
Give some indication of how good your map is, i.e why is your answer that? If you want, give links.
If you think you know the answer to your own question, you can post it.
If you want to, give more information. For instance, if someone asks whether it's a good idea to brush their teeth, you can include info about flossing.
If you've researched something well but don't feel like typing up a long justification of your opinions, that's fine. Rather give your opinion without detailed arguments than give nothing at all. You can always flesh your answer out later, or never.

Don't be too squeamish about breaking the question-answer format.

This is a followup to my comment in the open thread.

As for multiple definitions with different answers, can you specify two definitions of 'universe' that have different answers? I of course do not only mean the observable universe.

A 'standard' definition of "universe" is "all existing matter and space". If we allow for the many-worlds hypothesis, then the universe is infinitely large even if a Laplacian Demon could know the entirety of the universe at a given state (i.e.; simultaneously finite and infinite). If we operate under a definition of "universe" whereby the MWI creates a new universe for each "choice", then we have no way of knowing where or if there is an outer bound of our universe beyond the observable lightcone.

Furthermore, if some variants of M-Theory are correct then our universe may be possessed of a specific shape and be limited in scope regardless; so again it could be finite. And again, under other variants of how we interpret M-Theory, each p-brane and membrane is not a separate universe but part of a whole. Which is presumed infinite.

So the problem is that we have no acceptably rigorous definition of what is a "universe" in order to start making assertions about its finiteness or lack thereof.

Even if we use the conventional "assumption" of what our Universe is which existed shortly after the 'discovery' of the Big Bang (i.e.; the collection of galaxies and matter that we can either observe or that directly and observably interacts with what we can observe, and the spacetime continuum these interactions occur within) -- we lack the ability to derive any information about its scope or dimension.

So no probability assertion about the universe's scope should, rationally speaking, have anything remotely resembling a high threshold of confidence. Said confidence should, in fact, approach zero.

I am not in the habit of bothering with probability statements whose confidence is below 1%; I find them not merely a waste of time but damaging.

Isn't it enough to simply say, "There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful reply" to the question?

If we allow for the many-worlds hypothesis, then the universe is infinitely large

OK, you have a good point. I was not considering each branch to count as an entire new space that we need to add up with every other branch. I guess I'm talking about our current branch, right now. Also, I could easily be wrong but I think there are no branch points that create an infinite number of new branches and so there still may be an insanely vast but finite number of branches.

So no probability assertion about the universe's scope should, rationally speaking, have

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3prase15y

So you are against induction, in general? Nothing directly unobservable is knowable? Do you really think that the assumption that the physical laws are the same outside Earth's light cone as they are inside is an error?

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