Giles comments on Causal Reference - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: CarlShulman 21 October 2012 08:25:33PM 11 points [-]

It seems that you get similar questions as a natural outgrowth of simple computational models of thought. E.g. if one performs Solomonoff induction on the stream of camera inputs to a robot, what kind of short programs will dominate the probability distribution over the next input? Not just programs that simulate the physics of our universe: one would also need additional code to "read off" the part of the simulated universe that corresponded to the camera inputs. That additional code looks like epiphenomenal mind-stuff. Using this framework you can pose questions like "if the camera is expected to be rebuilt using different but functionally equivalent materials, will his change the inputs Solomonoff induction predicts?" or "if the camera is about to be duplicated, which copy's inputs will be predicted by Solomonoff induction?"

If we go beyond Solomonoff induction to allow actions, then you get questions that map pretty well to debates about "free will."

Comment author: Giles 28 October 2012 08:59:33PM 1 point [-]

Oh wow... I had been planning on writing a discussion post on essentially this topic. One quick question - if you have figured out the shortest program that will generate the camera data, is there a non-arbitrary way we can decide which parts of the program correspond to "physics of our universe" and which parts correspond to "reading off camera's data stream within universe"?