solipsist comments on Irrationality Game III - Less Wrong
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Comments (204)
You (the reader) do not exist.
EDIT: That was too punchy and not precise. The reasoning behind the statement:
Most things which think they are me are horribly confused gasps of consciousness. Rational agents should believe the chances are small that their experiences are remotely genuine.
EDIT 2: After thinking about shminux's comment, I have to retract my original statement about you readers not existing. Even if I'm a hopelessly confused Boltzmann brain, the referent "you" might still well exist. At minimum I have to think about existence more. Sorry!
Cogito, ergo upvoto. :-)
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To quote the adage, I'm a solipsist, and am surprised everyone else isn't too. I think any intelligent agent should conclude that it is probably something akin to a Boltzmann brain. You could plausibly argue that I am cheating with pronoun references (other people might agree with the solipsistic logic, but centered around them). Is that what you are asking?
EDIT
Not really. I think some of the problems with AIXI may be AIXI acting rationally where the desired behavior is irrational, but that's the only time I can think of it coming up outside of a philosophy discussion.
Could you be more specific about what you mean by that?
Of all possible minds thinking the thought that I am thinking right now, most aren't living on earth, posting to Less Wrong. Most are random fluctuations in high-entropy soup after the heat-death of the universe, or bizarre minds capable of belief but not thought, or other deluded or confused agents. In all but a negligible fraction of these, you, maia, do not exist.
What degree of certainty do you place on that belief?
I could put numbers to it, but it would really be pulling them out of my butt -- how certain are you that anthropic reasoning is valid? If it is valid (which seems more likely than not), then you quickly run into the problem of Boltzmann brains. Some people try to exorcise Boltzmann brains from their anthropic viewpoint, but I have no problem with biting the bullet that most brains are Boltzmann brains. The practical implications of that belief, assuming the world is as it appears to be, are (I believe) minimal.