TheOtherDave comments on Wrong Questions - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 March 2008 05:11PM

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Comment author: MugaSofer 12 April 2013 11:52:15PM -2 points [-]

Maybe Sam's just familiar with the anecdote?

That would hardly be compelling grounds for believing I exist inside a thought experiment.

I'm just using a time-honored technique for simulating characters smarter than me: cheat like crazy. See also: Sherlock Holmes.

Well, yes and no. I think you're disregarding the many, many real-world cases in which starting down the path of #2 leads me to a real understanding of the situation.

Oh, absolutely. I just meant that such understanding wouldn't look like #2.

Of course, I can now ask what holds the elephant up, but that's a different question, and all the same considerations come into play.

Arguably, it's a special case of "what holds [list of 3,456,338 turtles] up?" Returning to the original question of which this is a metaphor, momentarily, the elephant would be roughly equivalent to the Big Bang.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 13 April 2013 12:03:43AM 1 point [-]

Sherlock Holmes is a lousy simulation of a hyperintelligent theorist, FWIW. But OK, if you're just talking about fictional characters, then most of my objections are moot.

such understanding wouldn't look like #2.

Agreed.

Arguably, it's a special case of "what holds [list of 3,456,338 turtles] up?"

At the #2-level, it's not. But you're right that at the #3 level, it could easily be.

Incidentally, it's not a stack of 3,456,338 turtles, it's just a stack that bottoms out 3,456,338 turtles down from where I started.

the elephant would be roughly equivalent to the Big Bang

Or something like that, yeah.

Comment author: MugaSofer 13 April 2013 12:17:28AM -1 points [-]

Sherlock Holmes is a lousy simulation of a hyperintelligent theorist, FWIW.

Cheap to run, though, computationally speaking.

Incidentally, it's not a stack of 3,456,338 turtles, it's just a stack that bottoms out 3,456,338 turtles down from where I started.

Well, in the original anecdote the stack topped out with a (precariously balanced?) flat Earth, so I just sort of assumed you started at the top. In bastardised mathematical terms, it's usually a ray, and finding a bottom makes it a line segment.

At the #2-level, it's not. But you're right that at the #3 level, it could easily be.

Well, it's a matter of detail, isn't it? If I already understand brains, pointing to the cognitive alogarithm is sufficient; if I already understand the Big Bang, tracing history back to it is sufficient; if I already understand how elephants stay up, following the turtles down to one is sufficient.

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