RobbBB comments on Mixed Reference: The Great Reductionist Project - Less Wrong

29 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 December 2012 12:26AM

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Comment author: RobbBB 06 December 2012 06:44:08PM * 3 points [-]

This question is meaningless in the framework I have described (Experience + models = reality).

If commitment to your view renders meaningless any discussion of whether your view is correct, then that counts against your view. We need to evaluate the truth of "Experience + models = reality" itself, if you think the statement in question is true. (And if it isn't true, then what is it?)

If you provide an argument why this framework is not suitable, i.e., it fails to be useful in a certain situation, feel free to give an example.

Your language just sounds like an impoverished version of my language. I can talk about models of cucumbers, and experiences of cucumbers; but I can also speak of cucumbers themselves, which are the spatiotemporally extended referent of 'cucumber,' the object modeled by cucumber models, and the object represented by my experiential cucumbers. Experiences occur in brains; models are in brains, or in an abstract Platonic realm; but cucumbers are not, as a rule, in brains. They're in gardens, refrigerators, grocery stores, etc.; and gardens and refrigerators and grocery stores are certainly not in brains either, since they are too big to fit in a brain.

Another way to motivate my concern: It is possible that we're all mistaken about the existence of cucumbers; perhaps we've all been brainwashed to think they exist, for instance. But to say that we're mistaken about the existence of cucumbers is not, in itself, to say that we're mistaken about the existence of any particular experience or model; rather, it's to say that we're mistaken about the existence of a certain physical object, a thing in the world outside our skulls. Your view either does not allow us to be mistaken about cucumbers, or gives a completely implausible analysis of what 'being mistaken about cucumbers' means in ordinary language.

Comment author: shminux comment score below threshold [+] (15 children)

Comment author: RobbBB 06 December 2012 07:17:05PM * 1 point [-]

True. Accurate. Describing how the world is. Corresponding to an obtaining fact. My argument is:

Cucumbers are real.
Cucumbers are not models.
Cucumbers are not experiences.
Therefore some real things are neither models nor experiences. (Reality is not just models and experiences.)

You could have objected to any of my 3 premises, on the grounds that they are simply false and that you have good evidence to the contrary. But instead you've chosen to question what 'correctness' means and whether my seemingly quite straightforward argument is even meaningful. Not a very promising start.

Comment author: shminux 06 December 2012 07:30:02PM * 1 point [-]

True. Accurate. Describing how the world is.

Sorry, EY is right, "define" is not a strong enough word. Taboo "correct" and all its synonyms, like "true" and "accurate".

Corresponding to an obtaining fact.

This is somewhat better. What is "obtaining fact" but analyzing (=modeling) an experience?

Cucumbers are real.

Yes, given that experiences+models=reality, cucumbers are a subset of reality.

Comment author: DaFranker 06 December 2012 08:39:27PM * 1 point [-]

Taboo "correct" and all its synonyms, like "true" and "accurate".

A personal favorite is: Achieves optimal-minimum "Surprising Experience" / "Models"(i.e. possible predictions consistent with the model) ratio.

That the same models achieve correlated / convergent such ratios across agents seems to be evidence that there is a unified something elsewhere that models can more accurately match, or less accurately match.

Note: I don't understand all of this discussion, so I'm not quite sure just how relevant or adequate this particular definition/reduction is.

Comment author: RobbBB 06 December 2012 07:43:53PM * 1 point [-]

What is "obtaining fact" but analyzing (=modeling) an experience?

That a fact obtains requires no analysis, modeling, or experiencing. For instance, if no thinking beings existed to analyze anything, then it would be a fact that there is no thinking, no analyzing, no modeling, no experiencing. Since there would still be facts of this sort, absent any analyzing or modeling by any being, facts cannot be reduced to experiences or analyses of experience.

Yes, given that experiences+models=reality, cucumbers are a subset of reality.

You still aren't responding to my argument. You've conceded premise 1, but you haven't explained why you think premise 2 or 3 is even open to reasonable doubt, much less outright false.

∃x(cucumber(x))
∀x(cucumber(x) → ¬model(x))
∀x(cucumber(x) → ¬experience(x))
∴ ∃x(¬model(x) ∧ ¬experience(x))

This is a deductively valid argument (i.e., the truth of its premises renders its conclusion maximally probable). And it entails the falsehood of your assertion "Experience + models = reality" (i.e., it at a minimum entails the falsehood of ∀x(model(x) ∨ experience(x))). And all three of my premises are very plausible. So you need to give us some evidence for doubting at least one of my premises, or your view can be rejected right off the bat. (It doesn't hurt that defending your view will also help us understand what you mean by it, and why you think it better than the alternatives.)

Comment author: shminux 06 December 2012 08:56:04PM -1 points [-]

if no thinking beings existed

This is a counterfactual. I'm happy to consider a model where this is true, as long as you concede that this is a model.

Comment author: RobbBB 06 December 2012 09:05:01PM 1 point [-]

Sure, all counterfactuals are models. But there is a distinction between counterfactuals that model experiences, counterfactuals that model models, and counterfactuals that model physical objects. Certainly not all models are models of models, just as not all words denote words, and not all thoughts are about thoughts.

When we build a model in which no experiences or models exist, we find that there are still facts. In other words, a world can have facts without having experiences or models; neither experiencelessness nor modellessness forces or entails the total absence of states of affairs. If x and y are not equivalent — i.e., if they are not true in all the same models — then x and y cannot mean the same thing. So your suggestion that "obtaining fact" is identical to "analyzing (=modeling) an experience" is provably false. Facts, circumstances, states of affairs, events — none of these can be reduced to claims about models and experiences, even though we must use models and experiences in order to probe the meanings of words like 'fact,' 'circumstance,' 'state of affairs.' (For the same reason, 'fact' is not about words, even though 'fact' is a word and we must use words to argue about what facts are.)

Comment author: shminux 06 December 2012 09:22:52PM -1 points [-]

When we build a model in which no experiences or models exist, we find that there are still facts. In other words, a world can have facts without having experiences or models

Not sure who that "we" is, but I'm certainly not a part of that group.

Anyway, judging by the downvotes, people seem to be getting tired of this debate, so I am disengaging.

Comment author: RobbBB 06 December 2012 09:27:45PM * 1 point [-]

Not sure who that "we" is, but I'm certainly not a part of that group.

Are you saying that when you model what the Earth was like prior to the existence of the first sentient and reasoning beings, you find that your model is of oblivion, of a completely factless void in which there are no obtaining circumstances? You may need to get your reality-simulator repaired.

Anyway, judging by the downvotes, people seem to be getting tired of this debate, so I am disengaging.

I haven't gotten any downvotes for this discussion. If you've been getting some, it's much more likely because you've refused to give any positive arguments for your assertion "experience + models = reality" than because people are 'tired of this debate.' If you started giving us reasons to accept that statement, you might see that change.

Comment author: Peterdjones 06 December 2012 07:26:24PM 0 points [-]

But its just an exterme case of the LW Bad Habit of employig gerrymandered definitions of "meaning".

Comment author: DaFranker 06 December 2012 07:37:34PM * 0 points [-]

As opposed to...?

(Just because there's a black box doesn't mean we shouldn't ever work on anything that requires using the black box.)

Comment author: Peterdjones 07 December 2012 11:31:20AM -1 points [-]

As opposed to...?

Using definitions rooted in linguisitics, semiotics, etc.

Comment author: DaFranker 07 December 2012 02:42:53PM 1 point [-]

Is there any such definition of meaning that does not pile up incredibly higher power-towers of linguistic complexity and uses even more mental black boxes?

All the evidence I've seen so far not only imply that we've never found one, but that there might be a reason we would never find one.

Comment author: Peterdjones 07 December 2012 06:19:09PM 2 points [-]

OK. There might not be a clean definition of meaning. However, what this sub thread is about Shminux's right to set up a personal definition, and use it to reject criticism.

Comment author: DaFranker 07 December 2012 06:29:29PM 1 point [-]

Valid point. Any "gerrymandered" definitions should be done with the intent to clarify or simplify the solution towards a problem, and I'd only evaluate them on their predictive usefulness, not how you can use them to reject or enforce arguments in debates.

Comment author: Peterdjones 07 December 2012 06:43:16PM 0 points [-]

"Gerrymandering" has the connotation of self-serving, as in the political meaning of the term. Hence I do not see it as ever being useful.

Comment author: Peterdjones 06 December 2012 06:57:30PM -1 points [-]

There may be a cerrtain element of cross purposes here. I'm pretty sure Carnap was only seeking to reduce sentences to epistemic components, not reduce reality to ontological componennts. I'm not sure what Shminux is saying.

RobbBB comments on Mixed Reference: The Great Reductionist Project - Less Wrong

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