You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

kokotajlod comments on An additional problem with Solomonoff induction - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: gedymin 22 January 2014 11:34PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (51)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: kokotajlod 30 January 2014 06:34:46AM 0 points [-]

Well, it seems like the part of this conversation that had to do with the original claim and counterclaim has petered out. Do you agree with this claim:

In a truly deterministic universe, the concept of "faster-than light interaction" is largely nonsensical.

If so, then we can keep going. If not, then we can move on to discuss the nature of possibility and its use against claims like the above. If you are still interested enough in continuing, that is. I won't detain you against your will.

...

Making testable predictions about empirical reality? That's a pretty high bar. For example, counterfactuals do not fare well under such rules.

Is it? I'm happy to lower the bar; I didn't think this definition through very much. But thus far I see no reason to revise it. Why don't counterfactuals fare well? Are you saying that under my definition of possibility, counterfactuals are impossible? That would mean that we shouldn't consider theories that involve counterfactuals, which seems to me to be false, though it might depend on what theory of counterfactuals we are using.

Comment author: Lumifer 30 January 2014 04:09:59PM 0 points [-]

Do you agree with this claim

I have no strong opinion. I suspect that this claim needs its assumptions fleshed out (e.g. that the speed of light is REALLY the limit of how fast information can propagate).

Why don't counterfactuals fare well?

Because they are rarely useful for making predictions about reality. Not "never", of course, just "rarely".