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Perplexed comments on Decoherent Essences - Less Wrong
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Comments (34)
Is this really the case? It seems to me that that the interpretation of QM (and almost all micro-level details of fundamental physics) ought to be (and in Eliezer's case, are) independent of "macro-level" philosophy. Eliezer could justify his reductionism, his Bayesianism, his utilitarian ethics, his atheism, his opposition to most kinds of moral discounting, his intuitions regarding decision theory, his models of mind and of language, and his futurism - he could justify all these things even if he were a strict Newtonian believer in simple determinism who models all apparent indeterminacy as ignorance of the true initial conditions.
To my mind, the micro assumptions don't change the macro conclusions, they only change the way we talk about and justify them.
I agree with you that one should reach most if not all of the same conclusions from a strict Newtonian perspective (or from a Copenhagenite perspective, and so on). But the way it's talked about does scare me, because it's difficult for me to tell why they believe the things they believe, and opaque reasoning rings several warning bells.
That is, to answer your original question- "Is this really the case?"- it certainly is the case that it appears that EY's philosophy builds directly on his interpretation of QM. When judging by appearances, we have to take the language into account, and to go deeper requires that you go down the rabbit hole to tell whether or not EY's philosophy actually requires those things- and that rabbit hole is one that is forbidding for non-mathematicians and oddly disquieting for physicists (at least, that's my impression as a physicist). QM is an inferential distance minefield.
It seems to me that MWI is just a convenient visualization trick, and thus there is equivalence, but I don't feel I understand EY's philosophy and its development well enough to argue for that interpretation.
Agree. It would be nice to have Eliezer's take on this question.
I got this from Quantum Explanations:
That is, Eliezer brought QM up at all as part of a philosophical discussion, because he felt he had to in order to make his philosophical points. You may then argue (as you seem to in your comment) that he did not in fact have to bring in QM to make his points, but he felt he had to, per that quote.
And then there's Timeless Identity, which expressly claims to be the philosophical payoff from the QM sequence. Given that post and the introduction I quoted from Quantum Explanations, I really don't see how you can deny that his philosophy builds directly on his interpretation of QM.
It appears you are right. Eliezer derives his conclusions regarding zombies, personal identity, and the philosophy of transporters and duplicators from his understanding of QM.
On the other hand, I reach exactly the same conclusions on these issues without really understanding QM. Of course, I have the advantage over Eliezer that I have read far less Philosophy. :)
People shouldn't build too much of their philosophy on top of the MWI, IMO. If evidence that relatively "distant" worlds are being deleted is found then they would have to revisit it all. That doesn't seem terribly likely - but we can hardly rule it out. Occam's razor just doesn't rule against it that strongly.
Love the Philosophy jibe! :)
Well, ISTM that this sort of reductionism/functionalism is still right in a classical universe, just going by the whole notion of beliefs should pay rent; but it's not forced like it is in the actual universe.