Rationality Quotes June 2013

Thomas

Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, Overcoming Bias, or HPMoR.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, Overcoming Bias, or HPMoR.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

The way I like to think about it is that convincingness is a 2-place function - a simulation is convincing to a particular mind/brain. If there's a reasonably well-defined interface between the mind and the simulation (e.g. the 5 senses and maybe a couple more) then it's cheating to bypass that interface and make the brain more gullible than normal, for example by introducing chemicals into the vat for that purpose.

From that perspective, dreams are not especially convincing compared to experience while awake, rather dreamers are especially convincable.

Dennett's point seems to be that a lot of computing power would be needed to make a convincing simulation for a mind as clear-thinking as a reader who was awake. Later in the chapter he talks about other types of hallucinations.

The way I like to think about it is that convincingness is a 2-place function - a simulation is convincing to a particular mind/brain. If there's a reasonably well-defined interface between the mind and the simulation (e.g. the 5 senses and maybe a couple more)

The 5 senses are brain events. There aren't input channels to the brain. Take taste. How many different tastes of food can you perceive through your taste sense? More than 5. Why? Your brain takes data from nose, tongue and your memory and fits them together to something that you can perceive thro... (read more)