CCC comments on Is Spirituality Irrational? - Less Wrong

5 Post author: lisper 09 February 2016 01:42AM

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Comment author: CCC 25 February 2016 07:57:30AM 0 points [-]

the ignorant man is still being punished

That hardly seems fair.

If a man pushes a button that launches a thousand nuclear bombs, is it just for him to avoid punishment on the grounds of complete ignorance?

That means that if Adam and Eve had not eaten the fruit then they would have been punished for the sins that they committed out of ignorance.

As I understand the theology, until they had eaten the fruit, the only thing that they could do that was a sin was to eat the fruit. Which they had been specifically warned not to do.

education is still important to reduce sin

Indeed. But God didn't provide any. In fact, He specifically commanded A&E to remain ignorant.

He commanded them not to eat the fruit. Their sin was to eat the fruit, so the command itself might be considered sufficient education to tell them that what they were doing was something they should not be doing.

And then, later, God educated Moses with the Ten Commandments and a long list of laws.

Huh? I don't understand that at all. Your claim was that any designed entity "cannot do or calculate anything that its designer can't do or calculate". I exhibited a computer that can calculate a trillion digits of pi as a counterexample. What does the fact that evolution took a long time to produce the first computer have to do with it? The fact remains that computers can do things that their human designers can't.

Okay, let me re-state my argument.

1) Any designed object is either limited to actions that its designer can calculate and understand (in theory, given infinite time and paper to write on).

2) In the case of a calculating device like a computer, this means that, given infinite time and infinite paper and stationary, the designer of a computer can in theory perform any calculation that the computer can. (A real designer can't calculate a trillion digits of pi on pencil and paper because his life is not long enough).

3) The universe has been around for something like 14 billion years.

4) If the universe has a designer, and if the purpose of the universe is to perform some calculation using the processing power of the intelligence that has developed in the universe, then could the universe provide the answer to that calculation any more quickly than the designer of the universe with pencil, paper, and a 14-billion-year head start?

In fact, just about anything that humans build can do things humans can't do; that's kind of the whole point of building them. Bulldozers. Can openers. Hammers. Paper airplanes. All of these things can do things that their human designers can't do.

Yes, but we can predict what they will do given knowledge of all relevant inputs. In the special case of computers, predicting what they will calculate is equivalent to doing the calculation oneself.

[if] someone, somewhere, might know with certainty what I will decide in a given set of circumstances is logically incompatible with the idea that I might choose something else.

Exactly. This is necessarily part of the definition of free will. If you're predictable to an external agent but not to yourself then it must be the case that there is something that determines your future actions that is accessible to that agent but not to you.

Knowledge of the future is not the same as control of the future.

To take a simpler example; let us say you flip a fair coin ten times, and come up with HHHHHTTHHT. After you have done so, I write down HHHHHTTHHT on a piece of paper and use a time machine to send it to the past, before you flipped the coin.

Thus, when you flip the coin, there exists a piece of paper that says HHHHHTTHHT. This matches with the series of coin-flips that you then make. In what way is this piece of paper influenced by anything that controls the results of the coin-flips?

but nowhere is it explained what that means

Sorry about that. I tried to write a pithy summary but it got too long for a comment. I'll have to write a separate article about it I guess. For the time being I'll just have to ask you to trust me: time travel into the past is ruled out by quantum mechanics. (This should be good news for you because it leaves open the possibility of free will!)

It does not, actually. The same quantum-mechanical argument tells me (if I understand the diagrams correctly) that there are no free variables in any observation; that is to say, the result of every experiment is predetermined, unavoidable... predestined.

I still don't understand the argument, but it certainly looks like an argument against free will to me. (Maybe that is because I don't understand it).

Let me know if/when you write that separate article.

Yes!!! Exactly!!! That is in fact the whole point of my OP: the quale of the Presence of the Holy Spirit has also been directly observed and therefore does exist (despite the fact that the Holy Spirit does not).

I'll agree that the quale of the Presence of the Holy Spirit does exist, and I'll agree that this is not, in and of itself, sufficient evidence to prove beyond doubt the existence of the Holy Spirit. (I will argue that it is evidence in favour of the existence of the Holy Spirit, on the basis that everything which there is a quale for and which is directly measurable in itself does exist - even if the quale can occasionally be triggered without the thing for which the quale exists).

Coming to the realization that free will (and even classical reality itself) are illusions doesn't make those illusions any less compelling. You can still live your life as if you were a classical being with free will while being aware of the fact that this is not actually true in the deepest metaphysical sense.

Fair enough, but that seems to be the case when you are not using the skill of being certain that your free will is an illusion.

Sorry, that didn't parse. What is "that"?

The idea that "You can still live your life as if you were a classical being with free will".

Yes. Did you read "31 flavors of ontology"?

I did. The author of the blog post claims that things can be real to different degrees; that Mozilla Firefox is real in a fundamentally different way to the tree outside my window, which in turn is real in a fundamentally different way to Frodo Baggins.

I don't see why this means that existence needs to be more than a continuum, though. All it is saying is that points on that continuum (Frodo Baggins, the tree outside my window) are different points on that continuum.

Comment author: gjm 25 February 2016 01:28:25PM 2 points [-]

If a man pushes a button that launches a thousand nuclear bombs, is it just for him to avoid punishment on the grounds of complete ignorance?

Yes, if in fact he was completely enough ignorant. What do I mean by "enough"? Well, if you come across a mysterious button then you should at least suspect that pushing it will do something dramatic you would on balance prefer not to have done, and if you push it anyway then that's a bit irresponsible. You aren't completely ignorant, because you have some idea of the sorts of things mysterious buttons might do when pushed.

If a man walking in the woods steps on a twig that was actually attached to a mechanism that launches a thousand nuclear bombs, is it just for him to avoid punishment on the grounds of complete ignorance? Of course it is.

He commanded them not to eat the fruit. Their sin was to eat the fruit, so the command itself might be considered sufficient education to tell them that what they were doing was something they should not be doing.

What's the underlying principle here? I mean, would you endorse something like this? "If you find yourself in a nice place with no memory of anything before being there, and someone claiming to be its creator and yours gives you instructions, it is always wrong to disobey them."

Leaving aside the question of the culpability of Adam and Eve in this story, it seems clear to me that God is most certainly culpable, especially in the version of the story endorsed by many Christians where the Fall is ultimately responsible for sending billions of people to eternal torment. He puts A&E in this situation where if they Do The Thing then the consequences will be unimaginably horrendous. He tells them not to do it -- OK, fair enough -- but he doesn't tell them accurately what the consequences will be, he doesn't give them evidence that the consequences will be what he says[1], and most importantly he doesn't in any way prepare them for the fact that in the garden with them is someone else -- the serpent -- who will with great cunning try to get them to do what God's told them not to.

If I put my child in a room with a big red button that launches nuclear missiles, and also put in that room another person who is liable to try to get her to press the button, and if I know that in that case she is quite likely to be persuaded, and if all I say is "now, Child, you can do what you like in the room but don't press that button" -- why then, I am much more at fault than she is if those missiles get launched.

[1] In fact, the only consequence the story represents God as telling them about does not happen; God says that if they eat it then "in that day you will surely die", and they don't; the serpent tells Eve that they won't, and they don't.

Comment author: CCC 26 February 2016 09:04:40AM 2 points [-]

If a man walking in the woods steps on a twig that was actually attached to a mechanism that launches a thousand nuclear bombs, is it just for him to avoid punishment on the grounds of complete ignorance? Of course it is.

I take your point - it is just to avoid punishment for ignorance so complete. (Mind you, whoever deliberately connected that twig to the nuclear launch silo should get into some trouble).

What's the underlying principle here? I mean, would you endorse something like this? "If you find yourself in a nice place with no memory of anything before being there, and someone claiming to be its creator and yours gives you instructions, it is always wrong to disobey them."

When I was a small child, I found myself in a nice place with two people who called themselves my parents. I did not remember anything before then; my parents told me that this was because I had not yet been born. They claimed to have somehow had something to do with creating me. They informed me, once I had learned to communicate with them, of several rules that, at the time, appeared arbitrary (why was I allowed to colour in in this book, but not my Dad's expensive encyclopedias? Why was I barred from wandering out onto the road to get a close look at the cars? Why should I not accept candy from a stranger?) They may have tried to explain the consequences of breaking those rules, but if they did, I certainly didn't understand them. If some stranger had attempted to persuade me to break those rules, then the correct action for me to take would be to ignore the stranger.

(Which makes the Adam and Eve story a cautionary tale for small children, I guess.)

In fact, the only consequence the story represents God as telling them about does not happen; God says that if they eat it then "in that day you will surely die", and they don't; the serpent tells Eve that they won't, and they don't.

I'd understood that to mean "on that day your death will become inevitable" - since they were thrown out of the Garden and away from the Tree of Life (which could apparently confer immortality) their eventual deaths did become certain on that day.

Comment author: gjm 29 February 2016 12:36:22PM -1 points [-]

When I was a small child [...]

I don't think you answered my question: what's the underlying principle?

I agree that it is generally best for people who, perhaps on account of being very young, are not able to survive effectively by making their own decisions to obey the people taking care of them. But I'm not sure this is best understood as a moral obligation, and surely sometimes it's a mistake -- some parents and other carers are, one way or another, very bad indeed. And Adam and Eve as portrayed in the Genesis narrative don't seem to have been anything like as incapable as you were when you had no idea why scribbling in one book might be worse than scribbling in another.

But let's run with your analogy for a moment, and suppose that in fact Adam and Eve were as incompetent as toddler-you, and needed to be fenced about with incomprehensible absolute prohibitions whose real reasons they couldn't understand. Would your parents have put toddler-you in a room with a big red button that launches the missiles, sternly told you not to push it, and then left you alone? If they had, what would you think of someone who said "oh, it's all CCC's fault that the world is a smoking ruin. He pushed that button even though his parents told him not to."?

a cautionary tale for small children

It certainly makes more sense that way than as history. But even so, it comes down to something like this: "Remember, kids! If you disobey your parents' arbitrary instructions, they're likely to throw you out of the house." Ah, the piercing moral insight of the holy scriptures.

on that day your death will become inevitable

That's an interpretation sometimes put on the text by people with a strong prior commitment to not letting the text have mistakes in it. But does what it says actually admit that interpretation? I'm going entirely off translations -- I know maybe ten words of Hebrew -- but it sure looks to me as if God says, simply and straightforwardly, that eating the fruit means dying the same day. Taking it to mean "your death will become inevitable" or "you will die spiritually" or something of the kind seems to me like rationalization.

But, again, I don't know Hebrew and maybe "in that day you will surely die" really can mean "in that day it will become sure that on another day you will die". Anyone want to enlighten me further?

Comment author: CCC 01 March 2016 08:18:26AM 0 points [-]

I don't think you answered my question: what's the underlying principle?

I'm not actually sure.

I do think that there's really incredibly good evidence that the Adam and Eve story is not literal, that it's rather meant as a fable, to illustrate some important point. (It may be some sort of heavily mythological coating over an internal grain of historical truth, but if so, then it's pretty deeply buried).

I'm not entirely sure what that point is. Part of it may be "the rules are there for a reason, don't break them unless you're really sure". Part of it may be intended for children - "listen to your parents, they know better than you". (And yes, some parents are bad news; but, by and large, the advice "listen to your parents" is very good advice for toddlers, because most parents care about their toddlers).

And Adam and Eve as portrayed in the Genesis narrative don't seem to have been anything like as incapable as you were when you had no idea why scribbling in one book might be worse than scribbling in another.

I do wonder, though - how old were they supposed to be? It seems that they were created in adult bodies, and gifted from creation with the ability to speak, but they may well have had a toddler's naivete.

Would your parents have put toddler-you in a room with a big red button that launches the missiles, sternly told you not to push it, and then left you alone?

Not if they had any option.

If they had, what would you think of someone who said "oh, it's all CCC's fault that the world is a smoking ruin. He pushed that button even though his parents told him not to."?

Toddler-me would probably have expected that reaction. Current-me would consider putting toddler-me in that room to be horrendously irresponsible.

It certainly makes more sense that way than as history. But even so, it comes down to something like this: "Remember, kids! If you disobey your parents' arbitrary instructions, they're likely to throw you out of the house." Ah, the piercing moral insight of the holy scriptures.

I see it as more "obey your parents, or you're going to really hate what comes next". It's not perfect, but it's pretty broadly applicable.

on that day your death will become inevitable

That's an interpretation sometimes put on the text by people with a strong prior commitment to not letting the text have mistakes in it. But does what it says actually admit that interpretation?

If you know ten words of Hebrew, then you know ten more words of Hebrew than I do.

In short, I have no idea.

Comment author: gjm 01 March 2016 01:38:34PM -2 points [-]

there's really incredibly good evidence that the Adam and Eve story is not literal

Do you mean there's incredibly good evidence that it's not literally true, or there's incredibly good evidence that it's not intended literally? I agree with the former but am unconvinced by the latter. (But, for the avoidance of doubt, I have absolutely zero problems with Christians or Jews not taking it literally; I was among their number for many years.)

ten words of Hebrew

I started writing a list and realised that maybe the figure is more like 30; the words I know are all in dribs and drabs from various sources, and I'd forgotten a few sources. I suspect you actually know at least some of the same ones I do. (Some likely examples: shalom, shema, adam.) Of course the actual point here is that neither of us knows Hebrew, so we're both guessing about what it means to say (as commonly translated into English) "in the day that you eat it, you shall surely die".

Comment author: CCC 03 March 2016 07:29:12AM 0 points [-]

Do you mean there's incredibly good evidence that it's not literally true, or there's incredibly good evidence that it's not intended literally?

I think there's incredibly good evidence that it's not literally true, and (at least) very good evidence that it's not intended literally. I consider the fact that there is incredibly good evidence that it's not literally true to, in and of itself, be pretty good evidence that it's not intended literally..

I started writing a list and realised that maybe the figure is more like 30; the words I know are all in dribs and drabs from various sources, and I'd forgotten a few sources. I suspect you actually know at least some of the same ones I do. (Some likely examples: shalom, shema, adam.)

Shalom - I think that's "peace", right? I'm not sure. I don't know shema at all, and adam I know only as the name of the first man.

So, it seems I know more Hebrew than I thought; but nonetheless, you are perfectly correct about the point.

Comment author: gjm 03 March 2016 11:50:33AM -1 points [-]

Shalom [...]

Yup, shalom is peace. (Related to salaam in Arabic.) I thought you might know shema from the famous declaration of monotheism, which goes something like Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, adonai ekhad", meaning "Hear, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one". (It comes from Deuteronomy, and is used liturgically.) I think *adam actually means "man" as well as being the name of the first one.

There are some other Hebrew words you might know because they're used to make Biblical names; e.g., Isaac = Yitzhak and means something like "he laughs", which you might remember from the relevant bit in the Bible. (I think I remember you saying you're a Christian, which is why I thought you might know some of those.)

Comment author: CCC 04 March 2016 07:35:24AM 0 points [-]

I thought you might know shema from the famous declaration of monotheism, which goes something like Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, adonai ekhad, meaning "Hear, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one". (It comes from Deuteronomy, and is used liturgically.)

I don't think I'm personally familiar with that phrase.

I think adam actually means "man" as well as being the name of the first one.

That makes sense. I think I recall seeing a footnote to that effect.

...if I had a perfect memory, I probably would know a lot more Hebrew than I do. I've seen the derivations of a lot of Biblical names, I just haven't really thought of them as being particularly important enough to memorise. There are plenty of things about Isaac more important than the etymology of his name, after all.

Comment author: gjm 04 March 2016 12:43:11PM 0 points [-]

if I had a perfect memory

Understood, and I hope I didn't give the impression that I think anyone is obliged to remember this sort of thing. (It happens that my brain grabs onto such things pretty effortlessly, which I guess is partial compensation for the other things it's rubbish at.)

Comment author: gjm 03 March 2016 11:42:03AM -1 points [-]

I consider the fact that there is incredibly good evidence that it's not literally true to, in and of itself, be pretty good evidence that it's not intended literally.

How good that evidence is depends on whether the incredibly good evidence was available to (and incredibly good evidence for) the original writers.

A lot of the best reasons for thinking that the early chapters of Genesis are not literally true were (so far as anyone knows) completely unknown when those chapters were written.

Comment author: CCC 04 March 2016 07:30:38AM 0 points [-]

According to Genesis 2 verse 10-14, the Garden was watered by a stream, which later split into four rivers. Two of those have, according to a brief Google search, gone missing in the time since Genesis was written, but the Tigris and the Euphrates would have been well known, even then. So checking up on Eden would have simply required heading up one of those rivers.

...which, now that I think about it, would have required someone willing to leave home for perhaps several days at a time and travel into the unknown, just to see what's there.

Comment author: gjm 04 March 2016 12:38:38PM -1 points [-]

checking up on Eden would have simply required heading up one of those rivers.

Nah. If you head up those rivers and don't find Eden, the obvious conclusion is just that God removed it some time after Adam and Eve left because it was surplus to requirements. It doesn't (at least not obviously, so far as I can see) refute the Genesis story.

Comment author: lisper 25 February 2016 04:50:15PM *  0 points [-]

This comment has been moved here

Comment author: gjm 25 February 2016 06:01:34PM 0 points [-]

You might want to know that you have accidentally replied to my comment instead of CCC's. (In particular, your reply won't have made CCC's inbox icon light up.)

Comment author: lisper 25 February 2016 07:47:49PM 0 points [-]

Doh! Thanks for the heads-up.

Comment author: lisper 25 February 2016 07:49:14PM *  1 point [-]

If a man pushes a button that launches a thousand nuclear bombs, is it just for him to avoid punishment on the grounds of complete ignorance?

Of course it is just. How could you possibly doubt it? I mean, imagine the scene: you're at home watching TV when you suddenly realize that there's a button on your universal remote that you've never pressed and you have no idea what it does. You're too lazy to get up off the couch to get the manual (and you have no idea where it is anyway, you probably threw it out) so you just push it to see what it does. Nothing happens.

The next day you turn on the TV to discover that nuclear armageddon has broken out at 100 million people are dead. An hour later the FBI shows up at your door and says, "You didn't push that red button on your remote last night, did you?" "Why yes, yes I did," you reply. "Is that a problem?" "Well, yes, it rather is. You see, that button launched the nuclear missiles, so I'm afraid you are now the greatest mass murderer in the history of humanity and we're going to have to take you in. Turn around please."

As I understand the theology, until they had eaten the fruit, the only thing that they could do that was a sin was to eat the fruit.

Yeah, this theory has always struck me as rather bizarre. So before eating the fruit it's perfectly OK to torture kittens, perfectly OK to abuse and rape your children, and after you eat the fruit suddenly these things are not OK. Makes no sense to me.

He commanded them not to eat the fruit. Their sin was to eat the fruit,

But why is this a sin? Remember, at this point this is a command issued (according to your theory) by a deity who thinks it's perfectly OK to torture kittens and rape children. Such a deity does not have a lot of moral authority IMHO.

And then, later, God educated Moses with the Ten Commandments and a long list of laws.

Yeah, that's another weird thing. God educated Moses. Why not educate everyone? Why should Moses get the benefit of seeing God directly while the rest of us have to make do with second-hand accounts of what God said? And why should we trust Moses? Prophets are a dime a dozen. Why Moses and not Mohammed? Or Joseph Smith? Or L. Ron Hubbard?

And as long as we're on the topic, why wait so long to educate Moses? By the time we get to Moses, God has already committed a long string of genocides to punish people for sinning (the Flood, Sodom) despite the fact that they have not yet had the benefit of any education from God, even second-hand. That feels very much like the button scenario above, which I should hope grates on your moral intuition as much as it does on mine.

Any designed object is either...

Your either-or construct is missing the "or" clause.

could the universe provide the answer to that calculation any more quickly than the designer

Of course it could. Why would you doubt it?

we can predict what they [computers] will do given knowledge of all relevant inputs

No, we can't.

Knowledge of the future is not the same as control of the future.

I didn't say it was. But reliable knowledge of the future requires that the future be determined by the present. If it is possible to reliably predict the outcome of a coin toss, then the coin toss is deterministic, and therefore the coin cannot have free will. So unless you want to argue that a coin has free will, your example is a complete non-sequitur.

The same quantum-mechanical argument tells me ... that there are no free variables in any observation

No, you've got this wrong. Quantum randomness is the only thing in our universe (that we know of) that is unpredictable even in principle. So it is possible that free will exists because quantum randomness exists. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that quantum effects have any bearing on human mental processes. So while one cannot rule out the possibility that quantum randomness might lead to free will in something there is no evidence that it leads to free will in us.

Let me know if/when you write that separate article.

Will do. (UPDATE: the article is here )

it is evidence in favour of the existence of the Holy Spirit

Yes, of course it is. That was my whole point.

Coming to the realization that free will (and even classical reality itself) are illusions doesn't make those illusions any less compelling. You can still live your life as if you were a classical being with free will while being aware of the fact that this is not actually true in the deepest metaphysical sense.

Fair enough, but that seems to be the case when you are not using the skill of being certain that your free will is an illusion.

Sorry, that didn't parse. What is "that"?

The idea that "You can still live your life as if you were a classical being with free will".

Ah. Then yes, I agree. You can live in the Matrix with or without the knowledge that you are living in the Matrix. Personally, I choose the red pill.

I don't see why this means that existence needs to be more than a continuum, though.

There are different ways of existing. There is existence-as-material-object (trees, houses). There is existence-as-fictional-character (Frodo). There is existence-as-patterns-of-bits-in-a-computer-memory (Firefox). Each of these is orthogonal to the other. George Washington, for example, existed as a physical object, and he also exists as a fictional character (in the story of chopping down the cherry tree). Along each of these "dimensions" a thing can exist to varying degrees. The transformation of a tree into a house is a gradual process. During that process, the tree exists less and less and the house exists more and more. So you have multiple dimensions, each of which has a continuous metric. That's a vector space.

The real point, though, is that disagreements over whether or not something exists are usually (but not always) disagreements over the mode in which something exists. God clearly exists. The question is what mode he exists in. Fictional character? Material object? Something else?

(BTW, the author of "31 flavors" is me.)

Comment author: CCC 26 February 2016 09:15:42AM *  0 points [-]

Of course it is just. How could you possibly doubt it? I mean, imagine the scene: you're at home watching TV when you suddenly realize that there's a button on your universal remote that you've never pressed and you have no idea what it does. You're too lazy to get up off the couch to get the manual (and you have no idea where it is anyway, you probably threw it out) so you just push it to see what it does. Nothing happens.

The next day you turn on the TV to discover that nuclear armageddon has broken out at 100 million people are dead. An hour later the FBI shows up at your door and says, "You didn't push that red button on your remote last night, did you?" "Why yes, yes I did," you reply. "Is that a problem?" "Well, yes, it rather is. You see, that button launched the nuclear missiles, so I'm afraid you are now the greatest mass murderer in the history of humanity and we're going to have to take you in. Turn around please."

For the analogy to match the Garden of Eden example, the red button needs to be clearly marked "Do Not Press".

And I'm not saying that the just punishment should be same for something done in ignorance. But, at the very least, having pushed the button on the remote, the person in this analogy needs to be very firmly told that that was something that he should not have done. A several-hour lecture on not pushing buttons marked "do not press" is probably justified.

Yeah, this theory has always struck me as rather bizarre. So before eating the fruit it's perfectly OK to torture kittens, perfectly OK to abuse and rape your children, and after you eat the fruit suddenly these things are not OK. Makes no sense to me.

Put like that, is does seem odd. But consider - biting a kitten's tail would be a form of torturing kittens. Is it okay for a three-month-old baby, who does not understand what it is doing, to bite a kitten's tail? (And is it okay for the kitten to then claw at the baby?)

Yeah, that's another weird thing. God educated Moses. Why not educate everyone? Why should Moses get the benefit of seeing God directly while the rest of us have to make do with second-hand accounts of what God said? And why should we trust Moses? Prophets are a dime a dozen. Why Moses and not Mohammed? Or Joseph Smith? Or L. Ron Hubbard?

Delegation?

And as long as we're on the topic, why wait so long to educate Moses? By the time we get to Moses, God has already committed a long string of genocides to punish people for sinning (the Flood, Sodom) despite the fact that they have not yet had the benefit of any education from God, even second-hand. That feels very much like the button scenario above, which I should hope grates on your moral intuition as much as it does on mine.

Lots of other people had some idea of what was right and wrong, even before Moses. Consider Cain and Abel - Cain knew it was wrong to kill Abel, but did it anyway. (I have no idea where that knowledge was supposed to have come from, but it was there)

Your either-or construct is missing the "or" clause.

Whoops.

Any designed object is either limited to actions that its designer can calculate and understand (in theory, given infinite time and paper to write on) or cannot be guaranteed to continue to perform to specification.

we can predict what they [computers] will do given knowledge of all relevant inputs

No, we can't. (link to the Halting Problem)

Okay, but we can still predict the output of the computer at any given, finite, time step.

I didn't say it was. But reliable knowledge of the future requires that the future be determined by the present. If it is possible to reliably predict the outcome of a coin toss, then the coin toss is deterministic, and therefore the coin cannot have free will.

The important thing in the coin example is not the coin, but the time traveller. The prediction of the coin tosses is not made from knowledge of the present state of the world, but rather from knowledge of the future state of the world; that is to say, the state in which the coin tosses have already happened. The mechanism by which the coin tosses happen is thus irrelevant (the coin tosses can be replaced by a person with free will calling out "head!" and "tail!" in whatever order he freely desires to do).

No, you've got this wrong. Quantum randomness is the only thing in our universe (that we know of) that is unpredictable even in principle.

...I'm going to read your further explanation article before I respond to this.

There are different ways of existing. There is existence-as-material-object (trees, houses). There is existence-as-fictional-character (Frodo). There is existence-as-patterns-of-bits-in-a-computer-memory (Firefox).

Agreed.

Each of these is orthogonal to the other.

Why? I can see how the rest of your argument follows from this; I'm not seeing why these different types of existence must be orthogonal, why they can't be colinear.

(Incidentally, I'd consider "George Washington the physical object" and "George Washington the fictional character" to be two different things which, confusingly, share the same name).

Comment author: lisper 26 February 2016 05:36:52PM 0 points [-]

For the analogy to match the Garden of Eden example, the red button needs to be clearly marked "Do Not Press".

Not quite. It needs to have TWO labels. On the left it says, "DO NOT PRESS" and on the right it says "PRESS THIS BUTTON". (Actually, a more accurate rendition might be, "Do not press this button" and "Press this button for important information on how to use this remote". God really needs a better UI/UX guy.)

Is it okay for a three-month-old baby, who does not understand what it is doing, to bite a kitten's tail?

No. Of course not. Why would you doubt it?

(And is it okay for the kitten to then claw at the baby?)

Yes. Of course. Why would you doubt it?

Delegation?

Huh??? Why would an omnipotent deity need to delegate?

Cain knew it was wrong to kill Abel

How do you know that? Just because he denied doing it? Maybe he thought it was perfectly OK to kill Abel, but wanted to avoid what he saw as unjust punishment.

Also, let's look at man's next transgression:

"Ge6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

In other words, God's first genocide (the Flood) was quite literally for thought crimes. Does it seem likely to you that the people committing these (unspecified) thought crimes knew they were transgressing against God's will?

Okay, but we can still predict the output of the computer at any given, finite, time step.

Really? How exactly would you do that? Because the only way I know of to tell what a computer is going to do at step N once N is sufficiently large is to build a computer and run it for N steps.

the coin tosses can be replaced by a person with free will calling out "head!" and "tail!" in whatever order he freely desires to do

I really don't get what point you're trying to make here. My position is that people do not have free will, only the illusion of free will. If it were possible to actually do this experiment, that would simply prove that my position is correct.

why they can't be colinear.

Because you lose critical information that way, and that leads to unproductive arguments that are actually about the information that you've lost.

I'd consider "George Washington the physical object" and "George Washington the fictional character" to be two different things

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. This is kind of like arguing over whether Shakespeare's plays were really written by Shakespeare, or by someone else who happened to have the same name. You've lost critical information here, namely, that there is a connection between GW-the-historical-person and GW-the-myth that goes far beyond that fact that they have the same name.

Or take another example: Buzz Lighyear started out existing as as an idea in someone's head. At some later point in time, Buzz Lightyear began to exist also as a cartoon character. These are distinct because Buzz-as-cartoon-character has properties that Buzz-as-idea doesn't. For example, Buzz-as-cartoon-character has a voice. Buzz-as-idea doesn't.

But these two Buzz Lightyears are not two separate things that just happen to have the same name, they are one thing that exists in two different ontological categories.

Comment author: CCC 01 March 2016 08:55:32AM 0 points [-]

Not quite. It needs to have TWO labels. On the left it says, "DO NOT PRESS" and on the right it says "PRESS THIS BUTTON".

Hmmmm. Not sure that's quite right. The serpent wasn't an authority figure. Maybe label the button "DO NOT PRESS" and add a stranger (a door-to-door insurance salesman, perhaps) who claims that you'll never know what the button does until you try it?

Is it okay for a three-month-old baby, who does not understand what it is doing, to bite a kitten's tail?

No. Of course not. Why would you doubt it?

(And is it okay for the kitten to then claw at the baby?)

Yes. Of course. Why would you doubt it?

Okay, in both cases, the situation is basically the same - a juvenile member of one species attacks and damages a juvenile member of another species. Why do you think one is okay and the other one is not?

Delegation?

Huh??? Why would an omnipotent deity need to delegate?

Because it's really boring to have to keep trying to individually explain the same basic principles to each of a hundred thousand near-complete idiots?

Cain knew it was wrong to kill Abel

How do you know that? Just because he denied doing it? Maybe he thought it was perfectly OK to kill Abel, but wanted to avoid what he saw as unjust punishment.

If so, then he sought to avoid what it from every other person in the world (Genesis 4, end of verse 14: "anyone who finds me will kill me"). Either he thinks that everyone else is arbitrarily evil, or he thinks they'd have reason to want to kill him.

Also, let's look at man's next transgression:

"Ge6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

In other words, God's first genocide (the Flood) was quite literally for thought crimes. Does it seem likely to you that the people committing these (unspecified) thought crimes knew they were transgressing against God's will?

I'd always understood the Flood story as they weren't just thinking evil, but continually doing (unspecified) evil to the point where they weren't even considering doing non-evil stuff.

Okay, but we can still predict the output of the computer at any given, finite, time step.

Really? How exactly would you do that? Because the only way I know of to tell what a computer is going to do at step N once N is sufficiently large is to build a computer and run it for N steps.

Simulate the algorithm with pencil and paper, if all else fails. (Technically, you could consider that as using your brain as the computer and running the program, except you can interrupt it at any point and investigate the current state)

the coin tosses can be replaced by a person with free will calling out "head!" and "tail!" in whatever order he freely desires to do

I really don't get what point you're trying to make here. My position is that people do not have free will, only the illusion of free will. If it were possible to actually do this experiment, that would simply prove that my position is correct.

The point I'm trying to make with the coin/time-traveller example is that knowledge of the future - even perfect knowledge of the future - does not necessarily imply a perfectly deterministic universe.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. This is kind of like arguing over whether Shakespeare's plays were really written by Shakespeare, or by someone else who happened to have the same name. You've lost critical information here, namely, that there is a connection between GW-the-historical-person and GW-the-myth that goes far beyond that fact that they have the same name.

(Side note: I don't actually know GW-the-myth. It's a bit of cultural extelligence that I, as a non-American, haven't really been exposed to. I'm not certain whether it's important to this argument that I should)

Or take another example: Buzz Lighyear started out existing as as an idea in someone's head. At some later point in time, Buzz Lightyear began to exist also as a cartoon character. These are distinct because Buzz-as-cartoon-character has properties that Buzz-as-idea doesn't. For example, Buzz-as-cartoon-character has a voice. Buzz-as-idea doesn't.

Hmmm. An interesting point. A thing can certainly change category over time. An idea can become a character in a book can become a character in a film can become ten thousand separate, distinct ideas can become a thousand incompatible fanfics. At some point, the question of whether two things are the same must also become fuzzy, and non-binary.

Consider; I can create the idea of a character who is some strange mix of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker (perhaps, to mix in some Star Trek, they were merged in a transporter accident). It would not be true to say that this is the same character as Luke, but it would also not be true to say that it's entirely not the same character as Luke. Similarly with Han. But it would be true to say that Han is not the same character as Luke.

So whether two things are the same or not is, at the very least, a continuum.

Comment author: lisper 01 March 2016 06:42:15PM *  2 points [-]

The serpent wasn't an authority figure.

How could Eve have known that? See my point above about Eve not having the benefit of any cultural references.

Why do you think one is okay and the other one is not?

Because the kitten is acting in self defense. If the kitten had initiated the violence, that would not be OK.

Because it's really boring

Seriously?

he sought to avoid what it from every other person in the world

No he didn't. He was cursed by God (Ge4:12) and he's lamenting the result of that curse.

he thinks they'd have reason to want to kill him.

Yes, because he's cursed by God.

I'd always understood the Flood story as they weren't just thinking evil, but continually doing (unspecified) evil to the point where they weren't even considering doing non-evil stuff.

If that were true then humans would have died out in a single generation even without the Flood.

Simulate the algorithm with pencil and paper, if all else fails.

But that doesn't work. If you do the math you will find that the even if you got the entire human race to do pencil-and-paper calculations 24x7 you'd have less computational power than a single iPhone.

perfect knowledge of the future - does not necessarily imply a perfectly deterministic universe.

Of course it does. That's what determinism means. In fact, perfect knowledge is a stronger condition than determinism. Knowable necessarily implies determined, but the converse is not true. Whether a TM will halt on a given input is determined but not generally knowable.

I don't actually know GW-the-myth.

Sorry about making that unwarranted assumption. Here's a reference. The details don't really matter. If you tell me your background I'll try to come up with a more culturally appropriate example.

the question of whether two things are the same must also become fuzzy, and non-binary

Indeed.

Comment author: CCC 03 March 2016 07:54:38AM 0 points [-]

The serpent wasn't an authority figure.

How could Eve have known that? See my point above about Eve not having the benefit of any cultural references.

Eve could have known that God was an authority figure, from Genesis 2 verse 20-24, in which God created Eve (from Adam's rib) and brought her to Adam.

Why do you think one is okay and the other one is not?

Because the kitten is acting in self defense. If the kitten had initiated the violence, that would not be OK.

So you accept self-defense as a justification, but not complete (but not wilful) ignorance?

Because it's really boring

Seriously?

Well, I'm guessing, but yes, it's a serious guess. Omnipotence means the ability to do everything, it does not mean that everything is pleasant to do. And I certainly know I'd start to lose patience a bit after explaining individually to the hundredth person why stealing is wrong.

he thinks they'd have reason to want to kill him.

Yes, because he's cursed by God.

The curse, in and of itself, is not what's going to make people want to kill him (if it was, then God could merely remove that aspect of the curse, rather than install a separate Mark as a warning to people not to do that). No, the curse merely prevented him from farming, from growing his own food. I'm guessing it also, as a result, made his guilt obvious - everyone would recognise the man who could not grow crops, and know he'd killed his brother.

But the curse is not what's making Cain expect other people to kill him. He clearly expects that other people will freely choose to kill him, and that suggests to me that he knew he had done wrong.

I'd always understood the Flood story as they weren't just thinking evil, but continually doing (unspecified) evil to the point where they weren't even considering doing non-evil stuff.

If that were true then humans would have died out in a single generation even without the Flood.

I don't see how that follows. I can imagine ways to produce a next generation consisting of entirely evil (or, at best, morally neutral) actions. What do you think would prevent the appearance of a new generation?

Simulate the algorithm with pencil and paper, if all else fails.

But that doesn't work. If you do the math you will find that the even if you got the entire human race to do pencil-and-paper calculations 24x7 you'd have less computational power than a single iPhone.

Yes, and over fourteen billion years, how many digits of pi can they produce?

I'm not saying it's fast. Compared to a computer, pen-and-paper is really, really slow. That's why we have computers. But fourteen billion years is a really, really, really long time.

perfect knowledge of the future - does not necessarily imply a perfectly deterministic universe.

Of course it does. That's what determinism means. In fact, perfect knowledge is a stronger condition than determinism. Knowable necessarily implies determined, but the converse is not true. Whether a TM will halt on a given input is determined but not generally knowable.

That's provided that the perfect knowledge of the future is somehow derived from a study of the present state of the universe. The time traveller voids this implicit assumption by deriving his perfect knowledge from a study of the future state of the universe.

Sorry about making that unwarranted assumption. Here's a reference. The details don't really matter. If you tell me your background I'll try to come up with a more culturally appropriate example.

Ah, thank you. That explains it all quite neatly.

I'm not sure it's really worth the bother of coming up with a different example at this point - your point was quite clearly made, even without knowledge of the story. (If it makes any difference, I'm South African, which is probably going to be less helpful than one might think considering the number of separate cultures in here).

the question of whether two things are the same must also become fuzzy, and non-binary

Indeed. [linked to "Ship of Theseus"]

Your point is well made.

Comment author: lisper 03 March 2016 06:12:11PM 0 points [-]

The serpent wasn't an authority figure. How could Eve have known that? Eve could have known that God was an authority figure

That's a red herring. The question was not how she could have known that God was an authority figure. The question was how she could have known that the snake was NOT an authority figure too.

it's a serious guess

Oh, come on. Even if we suppose that God can get bored, you really don't think he could have come up with a more effective way to spread the Word than just having one-on-one chats with individual humans? Why not hold a big rally? Or make a video? Or at least have more than one freakin' person in the room when He finally gets fed up and says, "OK, I've had it, I'm going to tell you this one more time before I go on extended leave!" ???

Sheesh.

everyone would recognise the man who could not grow crops, and know he'd killed his brother

You do know that this is LessWrong, right? A site dedicated to rationality and the elimination of logical fallacies and cognitive bias? Because you are either profoundly ignorant of elementary logic, or you are trolling. For your reasoning here to be valid it would have to be the case that the only possible reason someone could not grow crops is that they had killed their brother. If you can't see how absurd that is then you are beyond my ability to help.

I don't see how that follows.

Because "the good stuff" is essential to our survival. Humans cannot survive without cooperating with each other. That's why we are social animals. That's why we have evolved moral intuitions about right and wrong.

Yes, and over fourteen billion years, how many digits of pi can they produce?

What difference does that make? Yes, 14B years is a long time, but it's exactly the same amount of time for a computer. However much humans can calculate in 14B years (or any other amount of time you care to pull out of your hat) a computer can calculate vastly more.

I'm South African

I've been to SA twice. Beautiful country, but your politics are even more fucked up than ours here in the U.S., and that's saying something.

Comment author: CCC 04 March 2016 08:08:39AM 0 points [-]

That's a red herring. The question was not how she could have known that God was an authority figure. The question was how she could have known that the snake was NOT an authority figure too.

Oh, right. Hmmm. Good question.

...I want to say that it's common sense that not everyone who claims to be an authority figure is one, and that preferably one authority figure should introduce another on first meeting. But... Eve may well have been only hours old, and would not have any experience to back that up with.

Oh, come on. Even if we suppose that God can get bored, you really don't think he could have come up with a more effective way to spread the Word than just having one-on-one chats with individual humans? Why not hold a big rally? Or make a video? Or at least have more than one freakin' person in the room when He finally gets fed up and says, "OK, I've had it, I'm going to tell you this one more time before I go on extended leave!" ???

There are plenty of ways to handle it, yes. All of which work very well for one generation. Twenty, thirty years' time there's a new batch turning up. One either needs a recording or, better yet, get them to teach their children...

everyone would recognise the man who could not grow crops, and know he'd killed his brother

You do know that this is LessWrong, right? A site dedicated to rationality and the elimination of logical fallacies and cognitive bias? Because you are either profoundly ignorant of elementary logic, or you are trolling. For your reasoning here to be valid it would have to be the case that the only possible reason someone could not grow crops is that they had killed their brother. If you can't see how absurd that is then you are beyond my ability to help.

Yes, I know exactly what site this is. Yes, I know that the reasoning "he can't grow crops, therefore he killed his brother" is badly flawed. But the question is not whether people would think like that. The question is why would Cain, a human with biases and flawed logic, why would he think that people would reason like that?

And I think that the answer to that question is, because Cain had a guilty conscience. Because he had a guilty conscience, he defaults to expecting that, if anyone else sees something that is a result of his crime, they will correctly divine the reason for what they see (Cain was very much not a rationalist).

I don't think that there is any evidence to suggest that anyone else actually thought like Cain expected them to think.

Because "the good stuff" is essential to our survival. Humans cannot survive without cooperating with each other. That's why we are social animals. That's why we have evolved moral intuitions about right and wrong.

On a tribal level, yes, a cooperative tribe will outcompete a "pure evil" tribe easily. But even the "pure evil" tribe might hang around for two, maybe three generations.

I'm not claiming they'd be able to survive long-term, by any means. I just think one generation is a bit short.

What difference does that make? Yes, 14B years is a long time, but it's exactly the same amount of time for a computer. However much humans can calculate in 14B years (or any other amount of time you care to pull out of your hat) a computer can calculate vastly more.

That is true. However, in this case, if the universe if a computer, then the computer appears to have just sat around and waited for the first 14B years doing nothing. If it's intended to find the answer to some question faster than its creator could, then it must be a pretty big question.

I've been to SA twice. Beautiful country, but your politics are even more fucked up than ours here in the U.S., and that's saying something.

Yeah... wonderful climate, great biodiversity, near-total lack of large-scale natural disasters (as long as you stay off the floodplains), even our own private floral kingdom... absolutely horrible politicians.

Comment author: lisper 04 March 2016 05:10:35PM *  0 points [-]

why would Cain, a human with biases and flawed logic, why would he think that people would reason like that?

Maybe because God has cursed him to be a "fugitive and a vagabond." People didn't like fugitives and vagabonds back then (they still don't ).

I don't think that there is any evidence to suggest that anyone else actually thought like Cain expected them to think.

Well, God seemed to think it was a plausible theory. His response was to slap himself in the forehead and say, "Wow, Cain, you're right, people are going to try to kill you, which is not an appropriate punishment for murder. Here, I'd better put this mark on your forehead to make sure people know not to kill you." (Funny how God was against the death penalty before he was for it.)

even the "pure evil" tribe might hang around for two, maybe three generations.

How are they going to feed themselves? They wouldn't last one year without cooperating to hunt or grow crops. Survival in the wild is really, really hard.

If it's intended to find the answer

This universe is not (as far as we can tell) intended to do anything. That doesn't make your argument any less bogus.

Comment author: gjm 03 March 2016 11:55:28AM 0 points [-]

Eve could have known that God was an authority figure

I don't follow the reasoning you're expecting her to have used. She couldn't possibly have seen God taking one of Adam's ribs and making her out of it, for the excellent reason that for most of that process she didn't even exist. Is she supposed to accept God as an authority figure just because he tells her he made her?

Comment author: CCC 04 March 2016 07:37:37AM 0 points [-]

No, but she would have seen God taking her to Adam. And Adam also behaving as if it had been God who had made her.

...admittedly, it would have been incredibly easy (even probable) for her to have missed this sort of delicate social cue when she was, perhaps, mere hours old.

Comment author: lisper 26 February 2016 02:01:11AM 0 points [-]

Let me know if/when you write that separate article.

Here you go.

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