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CCC comments on Causal Reference - Less Wrong
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Some thoughts about "epiphenomena" in general, though not related to consciousness.
Suppose there are only finitely many events in the entire history of the universe (or multiverse), so that the universe can be represented by a finite casual graph. If it is an acrylic graph (no causal cycles), then there must be some nodes which are effects but not causes, that is, they are epiphenomena. But then why not posit a smaller graph with the epiphenomenal nodes removed, since they don't do anything? And then that reduced graph is also finite, and also has epiphenomenal nodes.... so why not remove those?
So, is the conclusion that the best model of the universe is a strictly infinite graph, with no epiphenomenal nodes that can be removed e.g. no future big crunches or other singularities? This seems like a dubious piece of armchair cosmology.
Or are there cases where the larger finite graph (with the epiphenomenal nodes) is strictly simpler as a theory than the reduced graph (with the epiphenomena removed), so that Occam's razor tells us to believe in the larger graph? But then Occam's razor is justifying a belief in epiphenomena, which sounds rather odd when put like that!
Following this reasoning, if there is a finite causal state machine, then your pruning operation would eventually remove me, you, the human race, the planet Earth.
Now, from inside the universe, I cannot tell whether your hypothesis of a finite state graph universe is true or not - but I do have a certain self-interest in not being removed from existence. I find, therefore, that I am scrambling for justifications for why the finite-state-model universe nodes containing myself are somehow special, that they should not be removed (to be fair, I extend the same justifications to all sentient life).