What's the point of despair? There seems to be a given assumption in the original post that:

1) there is no protection, universe is allowed to be horrible --> 2)lets despair

But number 2 doesn't change 1 one bit. This is not a clever argument to disprove number 1. I'm just saying despair is pointless if it changes nothing. It's like when babies cry automatically when something isn't the way they like because they are programmed to by evolution because this reliably attracted the attention of adults. Despairing about the universe will not attract the attention of adults to make it better. We are the only adults, that's it. I would rather reason along the lines of:

1) there is no protection, universe is allowed to be horrible --> 2)what can I do to make it better

Agreed with everything else except the part where this is really sad news that's supposed to make us unhappy.

Eli, do you think you're so close to developing a fully functional AGI that one more step and you might set off a land mine? Somehow I don't believe you're that close.

There is something else to consider. An AGI will ultimately be a piece of software. If you're going to dedicate your life to talking about and ultimately writing a piece of software then you should have superb programming skills. You should code something.. anything.. just to learn to code. Your brain needs to swim in code. Even if none of that code ends up being useful the skill you gain will be. I have no doubt that you're a good philosopher and a good writer since I have read your blog but wether or not you're a good hacker is a complete mystery to me.

Eliezer, perhaps you were expecting them to seem like A-holes or snobs. That is not the case. They are indeed somewhat smarter than average. They also tend to be very charismatic or "shiny" which makes them seem smarter still. That doesn't necessarily mean they are smart enough or motivated to fix the problems of the world.

Perhaps there are better models of the world than the Approval/Disapproval of Eletes dichotomy.

A simple GLUT cannot be conscious and or intelligent because it has no working memory or internal states. For example, suppose the GLUT was written at t = 0. At t = 1, the system has to remember that "x = 4". No operation is taken since the GLUT is already set. At t = 2 the system is queried "what is x?". Since the GLUT was written before the information that "x = 4" was supplied, the GLUT cannot know what x is. If the GLUT somehow has the correct answer then the GLUT goes beyond just having precomputed outputs to precomputed inputs. Somehow the GLUT author also knew an event from the future, in this case that "x = 4" would be supplied at t = 1.

It would have to be a Cascading Input Giant Lookup Table(CIGLUT). eg: At t = 1, input = "1) x = 4" at t = 2, input = "1) x = 4 //previous inputs what is x?" //+ new inputs We would have to postulate infinite storage and reaffirm our commitment to ignoring combinatorial explosions.

Think about it. I need to go to sleep now, it's 3 AM.

Humans have a metaphysical consciousness which is outside the mere physical world. I know this is true because this means I'm special and I feel special so it must be true. If you say humans consciousness is not something metaphysical and special then you are saying humans are no more special then animals or mere matter. You are saying that if you arrange mere matter in a certain way it will be just as special as me. Well, for your information, I'm really really special: therefore I'm right and you are wrong. In fact, I'm so special that there must be some way in which the universe says I'm special. Also, anyone attempting to take my specialness feelings about myself away from me is evil.

Can someone just tell us dumb asses the differece between describing something and experiencing it?

Um... ok.

Description: If you roll your face on your keyboard you will feel the keys mushing and pressing against your face. The most pronounced features of the tactile experience will be the feeling of the ridges of the keys pressing against your forehead, eyebrows and cheekbones. You will also hear a subtle "thrumping" noise of the keys are being pressed. If you didn't put the cursor in a text editor you might hear some beeps from your computer. Once you lift your head you may still have some residual sensations on your face most likely where the relatively sharp ridges of the keys came in contact with your skin.

Experience: Roll your face on your keyboard. Don't just read this, you have to actually roll your face on the keyboard if you want to experience it. 1, 2, 3, go ... bnkiv7n6ym7n9t675r

Did you notice any difference between the description and the experience?

Anyways, I still hold that you can only define reductionism up to point after which you are just wasting time.

Too much philosophy and spinning around in circular definitions. Eliezer, you cannot transfer experiences, only words which hopefully point our minds to the right thing until we "get it". Layers upon layers of words trying to define reductionism won't make people who haven't "gotten it" yet "get it". It will just lead to increasingly more sophisticated confusion. I suppose the only thing that could snap people into "getting" reductionism at this point is lots of real world examples because that would emulate an experience. How is this useful for building an AGI anyway? Please change your explanation tactic or move on to a different topic(if you want).

Q: Is "snow is white" true? A: No, it is false. Sometimes it is yellow(don't eat it when yellow). Next question.

Everyone ignored my c++ example. Was I completely off base? If so please tell me. IMHO we should look for technical examples to understand concepts like "reductionism". Otherwise we end up wasting time arguing about definitions and whatnot.

Personally, I find it irritating when a discussion starts with fuzzy terms and people proceed to add complexity making things fuzzier and fuzzier. In the end, you end up with confused philosophers and no practical knowledge whatsoever. This is why I like math or computer science examples. It connects what you are talking about to something real.

If people can understand the concept of Unions from c/c++ they can understand reductionism. One can use different overlaping data structures to access the same physical locations in memory.

union mix_t { long l; struct { short hi; short lo; } s; char c[4]; } mix;

Unfortunately the blog ate my indentations.

Is mix made up of a long, shorts or chars? Silly questions. mix.l, mix.s and mix.c are accessing the same physical memory location.

This is reductionism in a nutshell, it's talking about the same physical thing using different data types. You can 'go up'(use big data types) or 'go down' use small data types but you are still referring to the same thing.

In conclusion, aspiring rationalists should learn some basic c++.

Caledonian's job is to contradict Eliezer.