MugaSofer comments on Wrong Questions - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: satt 23 April 2013 10:40:35PM 1 point [-]

You don't know why that objection is wrong? Because it is. It's not a valid argument we reject anyway, it's an invalid argument.

Alright, call it "invalid" and "wrong" if you like. I'm not trying to make some clever-clever semantic nitpick about the meanings of the words "valid" & "invalid"; I'm trying to communicate why "but satt, it's always possible you are wrong about that!" is all but useless to me.

I'll try it again without using the words "valid" & "invalid": although the BS,IAPYAWAT! counterargument is literally true (which gives it a veneer of reasonable-soundingness) it rarely tells me anything new, because when I post something on LW I usually already know I could be wrong. Being told BS,IAPYAWAT! isn't substantial evidence for me being wrong, because someone can just as easily say it whether I'm wrong or not.

There's an important difference between "valid" and "valid, taken at face value."

Exactly.

If the objection is invalid, answer it! Let your arguments screen off your labels.

OK, gimme a sec.

Comment author: MugaSofer comment score below threshold [+] (9 children)

Comment author: satt 28 April 2013 06:54:04PM 0 points [-]

Sat, we're not saying that the fact you might be wrong invalidates all arguments ever, because you can never be totally certain.

I know. Nonetheless, if someone says to me "there could be an (n+1)th explanation neither of us has thought of" without elaborating, that does amount to a but-you-might-be-wrong-about-that argument (even if not intended as such).

We're saying it invalidates the argument "X is wrong, therefore Y", unless you have a proof that X and Y are the only possibilities.

I don't have a proof, just the plausibility argument I gave earlier. A plausibility argument is not a proof, but this plausibility argument is so straightforward I find it pretty convincing.

Comment author: MugaSofer 29 April 2013 08:18:41AM -2 points [-]

But - it doesn't matter how plausible your axioms are if they give paradoxical results! Is it really more plausible that there's an invisible flaw in our reasoning than that we've failed to think of another possibility?

Hell, there are unlimited possibilities! It could be a duck, for example. That doesn't make any sense as an answer, but neither do those three answers. So why are we privileging them?

Comment author: satt 29 April 2013 11:10:28PM 0 points [-]

But - it doesn't matter how plausible your axioms are if they give paradoxical results!

One way I differ is that the results don't feel paradoxical to me. They feel a bit counterintuitive, but not so much so that my internal paradox alarm goes off.

Is it really more plausible that there's an invisible flaw in our reasoning than that we've failed to think of another possibility?

I'll bite that bullet, sure.

Some people find quantum mechanics paradoxical because it directly contradicts a deep intuition that any & every physical object necessarily has to have an unambiguous position & velocity. That philosophical intuition is simply false; it's a flawed insistence that the universe conform to a flawed induction. The right course of action is to throw out the intuition, not the axioms, despite the apparently paradoxical results.

I think I'm applying the same basic decision rule here: when a robust formalism clashes with an informal, inductive philosophical intuition, let the formalism bulldoze the intuition.

Comment author: MugaSofer 01 May 2013 05:54:29PM -1 points [-]

I don't think the "intuition" that we probably didn't make a mistake in our proof is analogous to the "intuition" that objects have unambiguous positions & velocities.

More to the point, I could say the same thing about your "intuition" that there are no other possible explanations for the universe.

Comment author: satt 01 May 2013 09:37:53PM 1 point [-]

I don't think the "intuition" that we probably didn't make a mistake in our proof is analogous to the "intuition" that objects have unambiguous positions & velocities.

I agree! Maybe I made the analogy too ambiguous by trying to keep it concise. Being more explicit, here are four intuitions:

1A. There is an unambiguous position & velocity for every object.

1B. Every object obeys Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

2A. All concrete things have intelligible, psychologically satisfying explanations for what caused them to exist.

2B. Every causal chain must go on forever, have a loop, or bottom out in an uncaused cause.

I was drawing the analogy 2A:2B::1A:1B, rather than 2B:2A::1A:1B. 2B is backed by a straightforward, semi-formal plausibility argument (if not an outright formal proof); 2A is a gut-level induction from observing things in everyday life. 1B is backed by the formalism of QM; 1A is a gut-level induction from observing things in everyday life.

More to the point, I could say the same thing about your "intuition" that there are no other possible explanations for the universe.

I'd disagree, since 2B is backed by something at least resembling a formal argument, whereas 2A is backed by my gut insisting "it's just common sense!"

Comment author: MugaSofer 01 May 2013 10:12:25PM -1 points [-]

Except that my point isn't that 2B, true or false, is a statement about causal chains, not explanations. If it were rephrased as "everything is either explained by an "uncaused cause", a causal loop, or an infinite causal chain" we would see that it fails to address the question.

As for whether things need explanations ... if there's no reason for the way things are, why aren't they otherwise? Why am I still confused after hearing your answer?

Comment author: satt 02 May 2013 01:49:45AM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure I follow the first paragraph (the two sentences seem to contradict each other).

As for whether things need explanations ... if there's no reason for the way things are, why aren't they otherwise?

The answer to this, for me, follows from how I interpret "why are there"-type questions. If there's no reason why things are as they are, there's no counterfactual change that could have been made to render things "otherwise".

As a concrete example, I'm not allowed to ask "why didn't the Big Bang happen in some other way?" (if I understand orthodox cosmology correctly). There's no pre-Big Bang initial condition that could've been any different.

Comment author: MugaSofer 12 May 2013 09:22:08PM -2 points [-]

Let me rephrase this in terms of your strength as a rationalist: why are you not more confused by the fictional universe where something (could be the universe, could Hinduism, could be a magic indestructible rock) wasn't always there/created in a time loop? Compared to reality, that is?

These "explanations" are notable only in that they perfectly "explain" any possible state of reality.

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