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RichardKennaway comments on Open Thread, July 1-15, 2013 - Less Wrong
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I've been talking to some friends who have some rather odd spiritual (in the sense of disorganised religion) beliefs. Odd because its a combination of modem philosophy LW would be familiar with (acausal commuication between worlds of Tegmark's level IV multiverse) ancient religion, and general weirdness. I have trouble pointing my finger at exactly what is wrong with this reasoning, although I'm fairly sure there is a flaw, in the same way I'm quite sure I'm not a Boltzmann brain, but it can be hard articulating why. So, if anyone is interested, here is the reasoning:
1) Dualism is wrong, due to major philosophical problems as well as Occam's razor
2) I think therefore I am, so I know that the 'mental world' exists.
3) Therefore Idealism is true, the mental world exists but the physical is just an illusion
4) In response to 'so why can't you fly?' the answer is a lack of mental discipline: after all, its hard to control your thoughts
5) If two different people existed in the same universe, there is no reason why they would perceive the same illusions.
6) Therefore, each universe consists of one conscious observer and their illusory reality
7) But Tegmark's level IV multiverse is true, so we can acausaly communicate between worlds, in fact all conversations are actually acausal communication between worlds.
8) This also implies there is reincarnation, of a sort - there is no body to die, so you just construct a new illusory reality.
From here on it gets into more standard 'spiritual' realms, although I did find it amusing when my friend told me that there are at least aleph-2 gods.
I should state that these beliefs are largely pointless, in that its not obvious that they actually influence any decisions the believers make, and that they do seem to make people happy without any major downsides.
I should also make it clear that I don't believe this, because I wouldn't want to lose status as a rationalist by believing in something unpopular!
TL;DR
To a large extent, this boils down to: how do I distinguish between the hypothesizes that the universe is lawful, and the hypothesis that the universe is determined by my beliefs, and I believe it to be lawful.
Where do your friends get this stuff? Did they read the Sequences on LSD or something? Do they do anything differently in everyday life on account of it (besides talking about it)?
How did you get the belief that it is lawful?
I doubt it, for the sequences are very long and I don't think one's attention span would hold while tripping. They might have read David Lewis on LSD.
It comes from many different places. Friend A got here through psychedelics and Schrodinger, friend B through their families' Hindu beliefs dating back thousands of years. Oddly enough, they mostly agree with each other.
Not really. Many of them try to influence reality through positive thinking, but then this probably has psychosomatic benefits anyway. But, if for instance one of them was ill, they would use conventional medicine.
Why do I believe that the universe is lawful? Because it appears lawful, and due to reasons discussed in other replies to my post, and my common sense has marked the alternative as insane.
Well then, there's how you:
You observe lawfulness, not just believe in lawfulness. Whatever the source of that lawfulness, the lawfulness itself is right there in your observations.
Is it lawful independently of you, or is it lawful because you are God but have forgotten yourself? I suppose you could seek out and practice spiritual exercises to remember your true being as God, and only if that fails to produce a smidgen of miracle-working ability, consider that you might not be God after all. But "we are subject to physical law because we have forgotten our divine nature" is already too much like claiming to have an invisible dragon.