michael_vassar3 comments on Mach's Principle: Anti-Epiphenomenal Physics - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 May 2008 05:01AM

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Comment author: michael_vassar3 28 May 2008 05:55:19AM 5 points [-]

"The amazing thing is that this is a scientifically productive rule - finding a new representation that gets rid of epiphenomenal distinctions, often means a substantially different theory of physics with experimental consequences!"

The paradox is resolved by noticing that the new theories of physics don't have their subjective probabilities increased. Rather they come to our notice and when they come to our notice we note that their subjective probabilities had always been high but that they had been a large part of the "other" term, a term of undefined but large size, in our model of the space of possible models.