Incorrect comments on Open Problems Related to Solomonoff Induction - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Wei_Dai 06 June 2012 12:26AM

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Comment author: Incorrect 06 June 2012 04:56:37PM 1 point [-]

It is indeed true that to an analytical mind with an interest in physics, mathematics feels a lot less complex,

We have objective verification of the low complexity of formalized mathematical theories because we can look at the length of their formal description in say, first-order logic.

But no matter how much physics or psychology you know, you don't have introspective access to the universal prior --- maybe the prior privileges math over psychology, or maybe it doesn't.

Are you really suggesting some model of computation based on human ideas might work better than say, lambda calculus for computing Kolmogorov complexity for Solomonoff Induction? I'm not sure how to argue with that but I would appreciate it if you would state it explicitly.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 06 June 2012 05:14:57PM 0 points [-]

We have objective verification of the low complexity of formalized mathematical theories because we can look at the length of their formal description in say, first-order logic.

Right, and that'll be important if we ever run into aliens that for some reason can't wrap their brains around English, but instead can figure out our category theory notation and so on. Or if we're trying to build an FAI, or collaborate with the aforementioned aliens to build FAI.

I'm not sure how to argue with that but I would appreciate it if you would state it explicitly.

Apologies, inferential distance, and there's a few meta-level points that I think are important to communicate. But there's inferential distance on the meta level too.