Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Is Reality Ugly? - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 January 2008 10:26PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 January 2008 06:11:55AM 3 points [-]

Anon, Bostrom's book is Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy.

Raj, Godel's Theorem does not say what people believe it does (would take a separate post). But in any case, Godel's Theorem surely does not show that natural numbers don't exist. It says you'll have trouble proving certain theorems. The observed universe is like the natural numbers, not like a theorem about them.

James, you would seem to be committing the Mind Projection Fallacy. Whether reality is a perfectly regular mathematical object, and whether we can ever have perfect confidence of this fact even if it is true, are two entirely different questions.