= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
bryjnar comments on Causal Reference - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (242)
Mainstream status:
I haven't yet happened to run across a philosophical position which says that meaningful correspondences between hypotheses and reality can only be pinned down by following Pearl-style causal links inferred as the simplest explanation of observed experiences, and that only this can allow an agent to consistently believe that its beliefs are meaningful.
In fact, I haven't seen anything at all about referential meaningfulness requiring cause-and-effect links with the phenomenon, just like I haven't seen anything about a universe being a connected fabric of causes and effects; but it wouldn't surprise me if either of those ideas were out there somewhere.
(There's a "causal theory of reference" listed in Wikipedia but it doesn't seem to be about remotely the same subject matter; the theory's tenets seem to be that "a name's referent is fixed by an original act of naming", and that "later uses of the name succeed in referring to the referent by being linked to that original act via a causal chain".)
EDIT: Apparently causal theories of reference have been used to argue against Zombie Worlds so I stand corrected on this point. See below.
You've got a more sophisticated notion of causality, but otherwise this is very similar to the causal theory of reference. For example, the way they would describe what's going on with the shadow sneeze variables is that when you name "SNEEZEVAR", there was no causal link that allowed you to pick out the actual SNEEZEVAR: there would need to be a causal arrow going the other way for that to be possible. (and then any later uses of "SNEEZE_VAR" would have to be linked causally to your earlier naming: if we wiped your brain and rebooted it with random noise that happened to be the same, then you wouldn't succeed in referring) I'm pretty sure I've seen someone use a similar kind of example where you can't decide which of two possible things you're referring to because of the lack of a causal link of the right kind.
They also use pretty similar examples: a classic one is to think of an being on the other side of the galaxy thinking about Winston Churchill. Even if they have the right image, they even happen to think the right things about where he lived, what he did etc. it seems that they don't actually succeed in referring to him because of the lack of a causal link. It's just a coincidence.
With that in mind, there are probably arguments made against the causal theory of reference that may apply to you to, but I don't know any off the top of my head.
(They could be referring to all objects of class CHURCHILL, but not to our own, particular Churchill, although he happens to be such an object.)