Decius comments on Proofs, Implications, and Models - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 October 2012 01:02PM

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Comment author: Peterdjones 30 October 2012 03:38:10AM *  3 points [-]

The great virtue of valid logic in argument, rather, is that logical argument exposes premises, so that anyone who disagrees with your conclusion has to (a) point out a premise they disagree with or (b) point out an invalid step in reasoning which is strongly liable to generate false statements from true statements.

Further to that, there is an advantage to the maker of an argument, in that they have to make explicit assumptions they may not have realised they were making. Speaking of imoplicit assumptions...

For example: Nick Bostrom put forth the Simulation Argument, which is that you must disagree with either statement (1) or (2) or else agree with statement (3):

(1) Earth-originating intelligent life will, in the future, acquire vastly greater computing resources.

(2) Some of these computing resources will be used to run many simulations of ancient Earth, aka "ancestor simulations".

(3) We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

(3) is not entailed by the conjunction of (1) and (2). You also need to assume something like "the kind of consciousness we have is computationally simulable". If that is false, no amount of computing power will make the argument work.

Comment author: Decius 05 November 2012 03:59:01AM 2 points [-]

If you are a simulation, then the kind of consciousness you think you have is by definition simulable. Right down to your simulated scepticism that it is possible.

But it doesn't have to be simulable from within the simulation...