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So an alarm system has preferences? That is not most people's understanding of the word "preference", which requires a degree of agency that most rationalists wouldn't attribute to an alarm system.
Nonetheless, let us say an alarm system has preferences. You didn't answer any of my follow-on questions for that case.
As for explaining away the rainbow, you seem to have me confused with an anti-reductionist. See Explaining vs. Explaining Away, in particular:
At this point, I am attempting to show that the very concept of a "preference" existing in the first place is something projected onto the world by an inbuilt bias in human perception. Reality does not have preferences, it has behaviors.
This is not erasing the rainbow from the world, it's attempting to erase the projection of a mind-modeling variable ("preference") from the world, in much the same way as Eliezer broke down the idea of "possible" actions in one of his series.
So, if you are claiming that preference actually exists, please give your definition of a preference, such that alarm systems and humans both have them.
A good reply, if only you approached the discussion this constructively more often.
Note that probability is also in the mind, but yet your see all the facts through it, and you can't ever revoke it, each mind is locked in its subjectively objective character. What do you think of that?
I think that those things have already been very well explained by Eliezer -- so much so that I assumed that you (and the others participating in this discussion) would have already internalized them to the same degree as I have, such that asserting "preferences" to be "about" things would be a blatantly obvious instance of the mind projection fallacy.
That's why, early on, I tended to just speak as though it was bloody obvious, and why I haven't been painstakingly breaking it all out piece by piece, and why I've been baffled by the argument, confusion, and downvoting from people for whom this sort of basic reductionism ought to be a bloody simple matter.
Oh, and finally, I think that you still haven't given your definition of "preference", such that humans and alarm systems both have it, so that we can then discuss how it can then be "about" something... and whether that "aboutness" exists in the thing having the preference, or merely in your mental model of the thing.
That in reply to a comment full of links to Eliezer's articles. You also didn't answer my comment, but wrote some text that doesn't help me in our argument. I wasn't even talking about preference.
I know. That's the problem. See this comment and this one, where I asked for your definition of preference, which you still haven't given.
That's because you also "didn't answer my comment, but wrote some text that doesn't help me in our argument." I was attempting to redirect you to answering the question which you've now ducked twice in a row.
Writing text that doesn't help is pointless and mildly destructive. I don't see how me answering your questions would help this situation. Maybe you have the same sentiment towards answering my questions, but that's separate from reciprocation. I'm currently trying to understand your position in terms of my position, not to explain to you my position.
We reached a point in the discussion where it appears the only way we could disagree is if we had a different definition of "preference". Since I believe I've made my definition quite clear, I wanted to know what yours is.
It might not help you, but it would certainly help me to understand your position, if you are not using the common definition of preference.
I asked you first, and you responded with (AFAICT) a non-answer. You appear to have been projecting entirely different arguments and thesis on to me, and posting links to articles whose conclusions I appear to be more in line with than you are -- again, as far as I can tell.
So, I actually answered your question (i.e. "what do you think?"), even though you still haven't answered mine.
That's why philosophy is such a bog, and why it's necessary to arrive at however insignificant but technical conclusions in order to move forward reliably.
I chose the articles in the comment above because they were in surface-match with what you are talking about, as a potential point on establishing understanding. I asked basically how you can characterize your agreement/disagreement with them, and how it carries over to the preference debate.
And I answered that I agree with them, and that I considered it foundational material to what I'm talking about.
Indeed, which is why I'd now like to have the answer to my question, please. What definition of "preferences" are you using, such that an alarm system, thermostat, and human all have them? (Since this is not the common, non-metaphorical usage of "preference".)
Preference is order on the lotteries of possible worlds (ideally established by expected utility), usually with agent a part of the world. Computations about this structure are normally performed by a mind inside the mind. The agent tries to find actions that determine the world to be as high as possible on the preference order, given the knowledge about it. Now, does it really help?