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David_Gerard comments on Natural Laws Are Descriptions, not Rules - Less Wrong
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Comments (234)
I don't claim that this post in particular challenges the consensus (at least, I don't intend to claim that, but I can see how my phrasing in the intro suggests it). It's mostly just setup. I think the LW consensus is probably closer to what I call "explanatory reductionism" at the end of this post, but attacking that position required that I make it clear how I think about laws of nature. The ultimate position I want to defend is that the only tenable reductionism is the extremely weak mereological kind. Surely this is different from the position generally advocated here.
That said, I don't think the position I'm attacking in this post is a straw man. As I point out, Paul Davies (hardly a fringe figure in physics) explicitly embraces it. He also says (in the linked excerpt) that "most physicists working on fundamental topics inhabit the prescriptive camp, even if they won't own up to it explicitly." In addition, I've seen nomic reductionism defended (and upvoted) on LW more than once. As an example, see some of the comments on this thread. Even people who would, if pressed, agree that laws are description often unconsciously infer things that only work if you think of laws as rules.
Do you think the points made in this post are common enough knowledge around here for the post to be of not much use?
That would be the bit where you said "This is the first in a planned series of posts challenging a central tenet of the LessWrong consensus". When you say that you're challenging the consensus, it appears to the reader as though you're challenging the consensus.
Hence my parenthetical concession in the grandparent. But you're right, I should edit the post itself. Doing that right now.
I hereby nominate this for the 2012 Understatement Award.
How was it an understatement?
I acknowledge that it feels like one when you read it, but defining that way lies madness! Just ask the words "ironic" and "literally".
I agree with David_Gerard: when I say I'm doing something, it appears to the reader as though I'm doing that thing.
I would also agree with various more-strongly-worded equivalents, such as "when I say I'm doing X in a series of acts that includes Y, it's disingenuous to later claim that Y wasn't intended to do X."
Hence, understatement. That is, an expression worded less strongly than, in my opinion, the situation justifies.
Is "challenge the consensus" a performative utterance? By saying "I challenge the consensus regarding foo", do you thereby challenge the consensus regarding foo?
Consider: If I said, "I challenge the Less Wrong consensus that 2 + 2 = 5. I assert that it's 4," by saying this I wouldn't actually challenge a consensus that 2 + 2 = 5, because there isn't one to challenge. Rather, all I would be doing is setting up a straw man: falsely asserting the existence of a consensus, and then disagreeing with that imagined consensus.