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torekp comments on Preferences without Existence - Less Wrong Discussion
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What are the semantics of "exist" on this view? When people say things like "Paris exists but Minas Tirith doesn't" are they saying something meaningful? True? It seems like such statements do convey actual information to someone who knows little about both a French history book and a Tolkein book. Why not just exercise some charitable interpretation upon your fellow language users when it comes to "exist"? We use "existence" concepts to explain our experiences, without any glaring difficulties that I can see (so a charitable interpretation is likely possible). But maybe I've missed some glaring difficulties.
I think the definition of "exist" in the statement "Paris exists but Minas Tirith doesn't" is "exists within the visible universe." I think that that sentence still has meaning, just as normal.
I am rejecting that there is some objective global meaning to existence. "Exists within the visible universe" is a useful concept, and makes sense because it is defined relative to me as an observer.
Excellent. I favor something like "X will be implied by our best explanation of experience" rather than "X is within the visible universe", but I think broadly speaking, we're in agreement here. But note that this definition of "existence" allows me to dismiss most of Tegmark's Level IV objects as nonexistent. (Your version would allow the dismissal of more.) And of course I'm also free not to share the preference pattern of caring less about events/life-stories in proportion to their complexity.
I try to justify my preference pattern here http://lesswrong.com/lw/jn2/preferences_without_existence/aj4w