J_Taylor comments on Causal Universes - Less Wrong

60 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 29 November 2012 04:08AM

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Comment author: Emily 28 November 2012 01:13:56PM 11 points [-]

There's causality anywhere there's a noun, a verb, and a subject: 'Dumbledore's wand lifted the rock.'

This is a rather confused use of some linguistic terminology. I think "a subject, a verb, and an object" is probably what was intended. (It's worth noting that in academic syntax these terms are somewhat deprecated and don't necessarily have useful meanings. I think the casual meanings are still clear enough in informal contexts like this though.)

Beyond the terminology issue, I'm unconvinced by the actual claim here. Arguments from linguistic usage often turn out to be very bad on scrutiny, and I'm not sure this one holds up too well. What about 'Quirrell secretly followed Harry.'? Seems like a much weaker assertion that Quirrell is causally affecting Harry in some way here. I expect there are more obvious examples - that one took me 10 seconds to come up with.

Comment author: J_Taylor 29 November 2012 05:42:16AM 4 points [-]

What about 'Quirrell resembles Harry.'?

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 29 November 2012 07:16:27AM 1 point [-]

Resemblance is evaluated in someone's brain, and causality is very much involved in that evaluation process.