Will_Pearson comments on The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 February 2008 12:48AM

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Comment author: Will_Pearson 27 February 2008 08:49:24PM 0 points [-]

I don't mind people ignoring elements of science when they are not important. e.g. ignoring general relativity when calculating ball trajectories.

But molecules and atoms are very much in the quantum realm. So it seemed to me to be like saying, ignoring special relativity, when things are travelling faster than the speed of light then this analogy holds, from this we can conclude blah. To me it seems unlikely to hold any insights.

I don't see why I should accept any conclusion drawn from the premises if I do not hold with the premises. But this brings up an interesting point, when is it valid to ignore data? Is it ever?

To me your first point seems elementary as I don't have good evidence for pyschic powers, and can be derived from the uncertainty principle or probably preferably from the no cloning theorem. Your second would be better derived from quantum physics as well by showing a minimum energy required for a bit flip, if it can.