AlexMennen comments on Causal Universes - LessWrong

60 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 29 November 2012 04:08AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 28 November 2012 08:37:31PM *  1 point [-]

Well, I appear to be somewhat confused. Here is the logic that I'm using so far:

If:

1: A hypothesis space can contain mathematical constants,

2: Those mathematical constants can be irrational numbers,

3: The hypothesis space allows those mathematical constants to set to any irrational number,

4: And the set of irrational numbers cannot be ennumerated.

Then:

5: A list of hypothesis spaces is impossible to enumerate.

So If I assume 5 is incorrect (and that it is possible to enumerate the list) I seem to either have put together something logically invalid or one of my premises is wrong. I would suspect it is premise 3 because it seems to be a bit less justifiable then the others.

On the other hand, it's possible premise 3 is correct, my logic is valid, and this is a rhetorical question where the answer is intended to be "That's impossible to enumerate."

I think the reason that I am confused is likely because I'm having a hard time figuring out where to proceed from here.

Comment author: AlexMennen 04 December 2012 06:28:14PM 1 point [-]

It looks like you're right, but let's not give up there. How could we parametrize the hypothesis space, given that the parameters may be real numbers (or maybe even higher precision than that).