pragmatist comments on Boltzmann Brains and Anthropic Reference Classes (Updated) - Less Wrong

-4 Post author: pragmatist 04 June 2012 04:04AM

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Comment author: pragmatist 04 June 2012 10:37:22PM -1 points [-]

IOW: a BB similar to yourself, would reach the same conclusions as you - that it is not a BB - but it would be wrong. However, it would be reasoning from the exact same evidence as you.

I disagree that it would be reasoning from the exact same evidence as me. I'm an externalist about evidence too, not just about belief.

Comment author: DanArmak 05 June 2012 11:06:13AM 1 point [-]

Again, you're using the word "evidence" differently from everyone else. This only serves to confuse the discussion.

Tabooing "evidence", what I was saying is that a BB would have the same initial brain-state (what I termed "evidence") and therefore would achieve the same final brain-state (what I termed "conclusions"). The laws of physics for its brain-state evolution, and the physical causality between the two states, are the same as for your brain. This is trivially so by the very definition of a BB that is sufficiently similar to your brain.

I don't know what you mean by "externalist evidence" and I don't see how it would matter. The considerations that apply here are exactly the same as in Eliezer's discussion of p-zombies. Imagine a BB which is a slightly larger fluctuation than a mere brain; it is a fluctuation of a whole body, which can live for a few seconds, and can speak and think in that time. It would think and say "I am conscious" for the same reasons as you do; therefore it is not a p-zombie. It would think and say "Barack Obama exists" for the same reasons as you do; therefore what everyone-but-you calls its knowledge and its beliefs about "Barack Obama", are of the same kind as yours.