chaosmosis comments on Causal Reference - Less Wrong

30 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 October 2012 10:12PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 October 2012 08:45:56AM 4 points [-]

Meditation:

If we can only meaningfully talk about parts of the universe that can be pinned down inside the causal graph, where do we find the fact that 2 + 2 = 4? Or did I just make a meaningless noise, there? Or if you claim that "2 + 2 = 4" isn't meaningful or true, then what alternate property does the sentence "2 + 2 = 4" have which makes it so much more useful than the sentence "2 + 2 = 3"?

Comment author: chaosmosis 20 October 2012 11:29:54PM *  8 points [-]

2+2=4 isn't a cause. It's a tautological description. Describing things is useful, though.

Comment author: [deleted] 27 October 2012 06:31:26AM 0 points [-]

I agree...PA was invented based on our observations; our observations aren't just magically predicted by some arbitrary set of rules. PA has only existed since 1889; reality had existed long before that.