Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Rationality Quotes May 2013 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: katydee 03 May 2013 08:02PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 May 2013 04:23:12PM 11 points [-]

Actually, it was someone asking what the heck I meant by "reality fluid", to which the answer is that I don't know either which is why I always call it "magical reality fluid". I mean, I could add in something that sounded impressive and might to some degree be helpful along the lines of "It's the mind-projection-fallacy conjugate of 'probability' as it appears inside hypotheses about collections of real things in which some real things are more predicted to happen to me than others for purposes of executing post-observation Bayesian updates, like, if the squared modulus rule appearing in the Born statistics reflected the quantity present of an actual kind of stuff" but I think saying, "It's magic, which is the mind-projection-fallacy conjugate of 'I'm confused'" would be wiser in a conversation like that. I think it's very important not to create the illusion of knowing more than you do, when you try to operate at the frontiers of your own ability to be coherent. At the same time, refusing to digress into metaphysics even to demarcate the things that confuse you, even to form ideas which can be explicitly incoherent rather than implicitly incoherent, is indeed to become the slave of the unexamined thought.

Comment author: shminux 20 May 2013 07:02:53PM *  0 points [-]

I wonder if others find the notion of "magical reality fluid" a useful moniker for "I have no clear idea of what's going on here, but something does, so I cannot avoid thinking about it". I confess it does nothing for me.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 May 2013 07:03:36PM 6 points [-]

Some people do (I have already received multiple comments to this effect). Mileage possibly varies.

Comment author: wedrifid 21 May 2013 01:34:09AM *  2 points [-]

Some people do (I have already received multiple comments to this effect). Mileage possibly varies.

Signalling sophistication and confidence when there is no object level reason for such confidence is one of the more destructive of human social incentives. I heartily endorse measures to prevent this. Seeing that someone is willing to admit uncertainty at the expense of their dignity increases the confidence I can have that their other expressions of confidence are more than social bullshit.

I would of course encourage you to stop using "magical reality fluid" as soon as possible. That is, after someone figures the philosophy (or epistemology or physics) out with something remotely approaching rigour.

Comment author: Benja 20 May 2013 09:15:26PM 1 point [-]

Much as I love the idea of this and would like it to work for me, unfortunately as far as I can tell my brain simply treats "magical reality fluid" the same way as it would something bland like "degree of reality".

Though come to think of it, I'm not actually sure whether or not I've really been saying the magical part to myself all this time. I'll try to make sure I don't leave it out in the future, and see whether it makes a difference.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 20 May 2013 07:37:43PM 3 points [-]

FWIW, it does a fine job for me of conveying "I don't quite know what I'm talking about here."

Comment author: [deleted] 25 May 2013 12:26:25PM 2 points [-]

Hypothesis: Whether or not a readers finds that useful correlates with whether or not they've read this.

Comment author: [deleted] 21 May 2013 04:21:00PM 0 points [-]

I wouldn't if it was the first time I read that phrase, but since I read EY's explanation of what he means by it I have had no trouble in remembering that. Sure, a long phrase full of hyphens starting with “whatever-the-hell-it-is-that-” would be clearer, but it would also be more of a PITA to type, so I can see why EY wouldn't use it.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 May 2013 04:26:18PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for the explanation.