Joseph_Knecht comments on Think Like Reality - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 May 2007 06:36AM

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Comment author: Joseph_Knecht 19 December 2007 12:25:49AM 2 points [-]

This post makes a valuable point, but the point is weakened by too much hyperbole -- or rather by hyberbole that seems like a plausible non-hyperbolic statement that the writer might actually believe.

Whenever I hear someone describe quantum physics as "weird" - whenever I hear someone bewailing the mysterious effects of observation on the observed, or the bizarre existence of nonlocal correlations, or the incredible impossibility of knowing position and momentum at the same time - then I think to myself: This person will never understand physics no matter how many books they read.

I take the last clause ("This person will never understand physics no matter how many books they read") to mean "will never understand physics no matter what they do", since nobody seriously thinks you can really understand physics by just reading books, and there is no special relation between books and the other point being made, so I take that as evidence that 'books' is incidental and not intrinsic to the point.

If that is the case, then Eliezer would be committed to the idea that Einstein and Feynman, no matter how long they lived, would not be capable of understanding physics. Which is absurd! Yes, Einstein had intuitions that he found very hard to give up; yes, Feynman was limited to the theory of his day; but you still cannot mean that they would not have ever been able to understand physics, no matter how long they lived and what they did.

Surprise and weirdness are not qualities of the world but of model-making monkeys in the world. This is a valuable point. And thank you for it.