= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Girl 1: Because distance is infinitely divisible, if you assign number pairs to each letter of the alphabet, you can specify any string of letters just by pointing to a very specific place on this centimeter and getting its decimal output. In fact, that sentence I just said is at a particular point on the centimeter, as was this one, and whatever you or I say in the future. The centimeter has read every book there will ever be and knows every scientific fact that can be. It knows the future of our friendship. It knows how we'll die. It knows how the universe ends and how it began.
Girl 2: What's the point of doing anything then?
Girl 1: Well, the centimeter also "knows" a bunch of crazy stuff.
Centimeter callouts: "2+2=3" "Up is down, rotated 90 degrees" "Ponies aren't awesome"
Girl 2: So I know infinity less than the centimeter, but have infinity better discretion.
Girl 1: Yeah, that's basically your life. You know relatively no information, but you're relatively great at using it.
Girl 2: I bet if I tell Bobby about this, he'll like me.
Girl 1: Well, you're okay at using it.
I suppose I would say that reality would look as if things happened with no observable pattern related to the things that happen before them, but looking at things requires a long causal chain between photons being emitted and signals in my brain. Supposing I happened to somehow flash into existence for an instant in a noncausal world, or that causality suddenly failed, I would not expect to be able to experience anything past that point since my experiences depend on so many causal processes.
"Does your rule there forbid epiphenomenalist theories of consciousness - that consciousness is caused by neurons, but doesn't affect those neurons in turn? The classic argument for epiphenomenal consciousness has always been that we can imagine a universe in which all the atoms are in the same place and people behave exactly the same way, but there's nobody home - no awareness, no consciousness, inside the brain. The usual effect of the brain generating consciousness is missing, but consciousness doesn't cause anything else in turn - it's just a passive awareness - and so from the outside the universe looks the same. Now, I'm not so much interested in whether you think epiphenomenal theories of consciousness are true or false - rather, I want to know if you think they're impossible or meaningless a priori based on your rules."
How would you reply?
Well, my first thought was that it doesn't rule epiphenomenal consciousness out. It's strange that people would still talk about consciousness without it, but you can posit that people are just programmed to talk about consciousness for some reason (it's at least conceivable).
Then I looked at the next guy's answer (asparisi) and thought he had a point: Does our theory of causal links allow for causes to have probabilistic effects? (It's different to say that 'human brains sometimes cause consciousness than to say 'human brains can cause ANYTHING, like a blue goblin appearing in front of you or the universe being destroyed and replaced with another one') I'm not sure. If it does, then epiphenomena-that-sometimes-don't-happen are okay. If not, they aren't.
THEN I thought, but if consciousness is an epiphenomenon then what's strange is that people talk about it at all -- by definition, we cannot be aware of an epiphenomenon. But there could be another cause for the discussion of something we can't interact with in any way. After all, people's talk about gods is not caused by gods. There are other reasons to rule epiphenomena out, but a world with P-zombies is at least conceivable, even if it requires a lot of unlikely assumptions.
"You say that a universe is a connected fabric of causes and effects. Well, that's a very Western viewpoint - that it's all about mechanistic, deterministic stuff. I agree that anything else is outside the realm of science, but it can still be real, you know. My cousin is psychic - if you draw a card from his deck of cards, he can tell you the name of your card before he looks at it. There's no mechanism for it - it's not a causal thing that scientists could study - he just does it. Same thing when I commune on a deep level with the entire universe in order to realize that my partner truly loves me. I agree that purely spiritual phenomena are outside the realm of causal processes, which can be scientifically understood, but I don't agree that they can't be real."
How would you reply?
Okay, hypothetical mystic dude.
You said: "IF you draw a card... [then] he can tell you the name of your card". Sounds causal to me! Otherwise he could tell me the name of my card whether I draw it or not!
Also, you commune with the universe TO realize that your partner loves you. If you don't believe the results of your divination are caused by your partner's love why are you doing it?
In short, you may believe you believe that these are 'non-causal processes', but on the level that determines your behavior, you believe they are causal processes. I suspect this is because either labeling these things non-scientific is important to you for some reason (love of mystery, or perhaps it's what your peer group says to believe) or you don't understand what the words 'non-causal process' mean and it's just a password.
Coming up with a made up word will not solve this problem. If the word describes the content of the author's stories then there will be sensory experiences that a reader can expect when reading those stories.
I think the idea is that the hypothetical teacher is making students memorize passwords instead of teaching the meaning of the concept.
Is this actually a standard term?
I have no idea, I just interpreted it in an obvious way.
I share this interpretation, but I always figured in Eliezer's examples the hypothetical professor was so obsessed with passwords or sounding knowledgeable that they didn't bother to teach the meaning of 'post-utopian', and might even have forgotten it. Or they were teaching to the test, but if this is a college class there is no standard test, so they're following some kind of doubly-lost purpose.
Or it could be that the professor is passing down passwords they were taught as a student themselves. A word must have had some meaning when it was created, but if most people treat it as a password it won't constrain their expectations.
Also, I like that the comment system correctly interpreted my use of underbars to mean italics. I've been using that convention in plaintext for 15 years or so, glad to see someone agrees with it!
"How likely is it that a burglar silently defeated my deadbolt AND I spontaneously became paralyzed?"
Interesting! So you're explicitly evaluating priors in your dreams, then? That makes it more likely that it is indeed a matter of habit.
This was during sleep paralysis, not during dreaming. Perhaps the prior-evaluating inhibition is absent during sleep-paralysis but not dreaming?
They are obviously related states, but from personal experience I have had a much easier time realizing what's going on when sleep-paralyzed (including recognizing that the voices and people I hear in the room with me almost certainly aren't actually there because they weren't every other time this happened)
reinventing the wheel is exactly what allows us to travel 80mph without even feeling it. the original wheel fell apart at about 5mph after 100 yards. now they're rubber, self-healing, last 4000 times longer. whoever intended the phrase "you're reinventing the wheel" to be an insult was an idiot.
Not really on topic, but very interesting story: Normal people are convinced by role players that they are in a magical universe. http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=91462&cid=7876768
That is an excellent story, and I don't think it would be at all out of place in a top-level post.
Did a post ever get made of this?
It is a really cool story, but I too disbelieve it although I'll admit it's possible -- it needs more details. Any LARP I've been to, I'd think the padded-stick swords and calls of "2 [damage]" and the 'monsters' consisting of people in masks would be a giveaway that something's up, even if there was a big stigma against breaking character and the RPers all thought the wedding guests were in on it.
Also if I didn't know about LARPs and somehow became convinced I was in a magical land I'd want to see some magic, and since mages were a PC class there would be some around. I'd become suspicious when they threw beanbags or declared they'd made a force wall that I could walk right through. Maybe the guests had other priorities, though...
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
-- Penn Jilette.
I asked a religious relative something along these lines.
Her response was that God would never ask people to do bad things, and if it seemed that He was that would just be someone else deceiving her.
I explained the atheist view on this sort of thing and then the conversation shifted directions before I thought to point out the example of God asking someone to sacrifice their child in the bible.