= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
shminux comments on Bridge Collapse: Reductionism as Engineering Problem - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (61)
Do you assign literally zero probability to the simulation hypothesis? Because in-universe irreducible things are possible, conditional on it being true.
Assigning a slightly-too-high prior is a recoverable error: evidence will push you towards a nearly-correct posterior. For an AI with enough info-gathering capabilities, it will push it there fast enough that you could assign a prior of .99 to "the sky is orange" but it will figure out the truth in an instant. Assigning a literally zero prior is a fatal flaw that can't be recovered from by gathering evidence.
How would you tell if the the simulation hypothesis is a good model? How would you change your behavior if it were? If the answers are "there is no way" or "do nothing differently", then it is as good as assigning zero probability to it.
If it's a perfect simulation with no deliberate irregularities, and no dev-tools, and no pattern-matching functions that look for certain things and exert influences in response, or anything else of that ilk, you wouldn't expect to see any supernatural phenomena, of course.
If you observe magic or something else that's sufficiently highly improbable given known physical laws, you'd update in favor of someone trying to trick you, or you misunderstanding something, of course, but you'd also update at least slightly in favor of hypotheses in which magic can exist. Such as simulation, aliens, huge conspiracy, etc. If you assigned zero prior probability to it, you couldn't update in that direction at all.
As for what would raise the simulation hypothesis relative to non-simulation hypotheses that explain supernatural things, I don't know. Look at the precise conditions under which supernatural phenomena occur, see if they fit a pattern you'd expect an intelligence to devise? See if they can modify universal constants?
As for what you could do, if you discovered a non-reductionist effect? If it seems sufficiently safe take advantage of it, if it's dangerous ignore it or try to keep other people from discovering it, if you're an AI try to break out of the universe-box (or do whatever), I guess. Try to use the information to increase your utility.