DanArmak comments on Rationality Quotes July 2012 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: RobertLumley 04 July 2012 12:29AM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 10 July 2012 07:37:30AM 0 points [-]

But here you specify all "statements about the world". In that case I can say outright that in no meaningful sense does there "exist" something not in the world which cannot interact with the world. By the generalized p-zombie principle: if it cannot interact with us, then it is not causally involved with your reason for speaking about it.

I don't find the generalized p-zombie principle particularly convincing, in part because it's not clear what "interact" means.

It does not have some Platonic independent "existence" because existence is a predicate of things in the physical world; it makes as much sense for a pure circle to exist as to not exist.

I think you're using the word "exists" to mean something different from what I mean by it. This may be one source of confusion.

Comment author: DanArmak 10 July 2012 10:12:48AM *  0 points [-]

it's not clear what "interact" means

It means 'causally influence in at least one direction'. Two systems are said to interact if knowing something about one of them gives you information about the other.

I think you're using the word "exists" to mean something different from what I mean by it. This may be one source of confusion.

I know two meanings of the word 'exist'. First, predicate about states of the physical world (and by extension of other counterfactual or hypothetical worlds that may be discussed). There exists the chair I am sitting on. There does not exist in this room a sofa.

Second, 'exists' may be a statement about a mathematical structure. There exist irrational numbers. There exists a solution to a certain problem, but not to another.

What do you mean by 'exists'?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 11 July 2012 08:15:36AM 0 points [-]

It means 'causally influence in at least one direction'.

Well, when you start dealing with mathematical systems, causality becomes a very tricky concept.

Two systems are said to interact if knowing something about one of them gives you information about the other.

Well, knowing mathematics certainly helps with studying the physical world.

I know two meanings of the word 'exist'. First, predicate about states of the physical world (and by extension of other counterfactual or hypothetical worlds that may be discussed). There exists the chair I am sitting on. There does not exist in this room a sofa.

Second, 'exists' may be a statement about a mathematical structure. There exist irrational numbers. There exists a solution to a certain problem, but not to another.

What do you mean by 'exists'?

Belong to the same cluster in thing space as your two examples.

Comment author: DanArmak 11 July 2012 03:23:39PM 0 points [-]

Belong to the same cluster in thing space as your two examples.

IIUC this unpacks to "things such that if we talked about them, we would decide to use the same words as we do for the two examples".

Applying this to "objective morals", I don't feel that the statement tells me much. If this is all you meant, that's a valid position, but not very interesting in my view. Could you more explicitly describe some property of objective morals, assuming they "exist" by your definition? Something that is not a description of humans (what word we would use to describe something) but of the thing itself?

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