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lmm comments on Summoning the Least Powerful Genie - Less Wrong Discussion

-1 Post author: Houshalter 16 September 2015 05:10AM

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Comment author: lmm 25 September 2015 06:51:48AM -1 points [-]

Not quite - rather the everyday usage of "real" refers to the model with the currently-best predictive ability. http://lesswrong.com/lw/on/reductionism/ - we would all say "the aeroplane wings are real".

Comment author: Lumifer 25 September 2015 02:40:37PM *  1 point [-]

rather the everyday usage of "real" refers to the model with the currently-best predictive ability

Errr... no? I don't think this is true. I'm guessing that you want to point out that we don't have direct access to the territory and that maps is all we have, but that's not very relevant to the original issue of replacing "I find it convenient to think of that code as wanting something" with "this code wants" and insisting that the code's desires are real.

Anthropomorphization is not the way to reality.