We suspect that there is a lossless compression algorithm, i.e., a theory of everything.

Yeah, I don't see this as likely at all. As I repeatedly said here, it's models all the way down.

What would it mean then for a Universe to not "run on math"? In this approach it means that in such a universe no subsystem can contain a model, no matter how coarse, of a larger system. In other words, such a universe is completely unpredictable from the inside. Such a universe cannot contain agents, intelligence or even the simplest life forms.

I think when we say that the universe "runs on math," part of what we mean is that we can use simple mathematical laws to predict (in principle) all aspects of the universe. We suspect that there is a lossless compression algorithm, i.e., a theory of everything. This is a much stronger statement than just claiming that the universe contains some predictable regularities, and is part of what makes the Platonic ideas you are arguing against seem appealing.

We could imagine a universe in which physics found lots of approximate patterns that held most of the time and then got stuck, with no hint of any underlying order and simplicity. In such a universe we would probably not be so impressed with the idea of the universe "running on math" and these Platonic ideas might be less appealing.

Quantum fluctuations are not dynamical processes inherent to a system, but instead reflect the statistical nature of measurement outcomes.

I'm no expert at all, but while that sounds agreeable on an intuitive level, I've read that the opposite is true - ie that QM processed are inherently fuzzy. Is there a consensus on this?

edit: Reading further into the blog post clarified the claim they were making, though I still don't know how mainstream this is.

I think the plausibility of the arguments depends in a very great part on how plausible you think cryonics is; since the average on this site is about 22%, I can see how other strategies which are low likelihood/high payoff might appear almost not worth considering. On the other hand, something like 'simulationist' preservation seems to me to be well within two orders of magnitude of the probability of cryonics - both rely on society finding your information and deciding to do something with it, and both rely on the invention of technology which appears logically possible but well outside the realms of current science (overcome death vs overcome computational limits on simulations). But simulation preservation is three orders of magnitude cheaper than cryonics, which suggests to me that it might be worthwhile to consider. That is to say, if you seriously dismissed it in a couple of seconds you must have very very strong reasons to think the strategy is - say - about four orders of magnitude less likely than cryonics. What reason is that? I wonder if maybe I assumed the simulation problem was more widely accepted than I thought it might be. I'm a bit concerned about this line of reasoning, because all of my friends dismiss cryonics as 'obviously not worth considering' and I think they adopt this argument because the probabilistic conclusions are uncomfortable to contemplate.

With respect to your second point, that this post could be counter-productive, I am hugely interested by the conclusion. A priori it seems hugely unlikely that with all of our ingenuity we can only come up with two plausible strategies for living forever (religion and cryonics) and that both of those conclusions would be anathemic to the other group. If the 'plausible strategy-space' is not large I would take that as evidence that the strategy-space is in fact zero and people are just good at aggregating around plausible-but-flawed strategies. Can you think about any other major human accomplishment for which the strategy-space is so small? I suspect the conclusion for this is that I am bad at thinking up alternate strategies, rather than the strategies not existing, but it is an excellent point you make and well worth considering

Personally, I don't find any of the strategies you mention to be plausible enough to be worth thinking about for more than a few seconds. (Most of them seem obviously insufficient to preserve anything I would identify as "me.") I'm worried this may produce the opposite of this post's intended effect, because it may seem to provide evidence that strategies besides cryonics can be easily dismissed.

The approximation thing is why I specified digits mattering.

I understand, my point was simply that "understanding" and "holding in your head at one time" are not at all the same thing. "There are numbers you can't remember if I tell them to you" is not at all the same claim that "there are ideas I can't explain to you."

Neither of your cases are unexplainable- give me the source code in a high level language, instead of binary and I can understand it. If you give me the binary code and the instruction set I can convert it to assembly and then a higher level language, via disassembly.

Of course, i can deliberately obfuscate an idea and make it harder to understand, either by encryption or by presenting the most obtuse possible form, that is not the same as an idea that fundamentally cannot be explained.

This is beautiful: I can't turn it into equations. Does that refute it or support it?

I see a future pattern emerging in the United States:

Few atheists among overwhelming Christians -> shrinking Christianity, growing Atheism -> atheism tribalness growing well connected and strong -> Natural tribal impulse to not tolerate different voices -> war between atheists and Christians.

The last arrow seems like quite a jump. In the US we try to restrain the impulse to intolerance with protections for free speech and such. Do you think these protections are likely to fail? Why are religious divisions going to cause a war when other divisions such as the political left vs. right haven't? Why do you think a religious war is likely in the US when European countries with much higher rates of atheism haven't experienced such wars and don't seem likely to?

Don't try to say this won't happen, and that Rationalists will always allow other people to believe differently. Coherent Extrapolated Volition, Politics is the Mind Killer, and Eliezar' success in creating the LW and rationalist movement say otherwise.

I'm confused; what do these three things you cite have to do with intolerance of religious views?

EY gives a definition of free will that is manifestly compatible with determinism.

True, and EY seems to be taking up Isaiah Berlin's line about this: suggesting that the problem of free will is a confusion because 'freedom' is about like not being imprisoned, and that has nothing to do with natural law one way or the other. I absolutely grant that EY's definition of free will given in the quote is compatible with natural determinism. I think everyone would grant that, but it's a way of saying that the sense of free will thought to conflict with determinism is not coherent enough to take seriously.

So I don't think that line makes him a compatibilist, because I don't think that's the notion of free will under discussion. It's consistent with us having free will in EY's sense, that all our actions are necessitated by natural law (or whatever), and I take it to be typical of compatibilism that one try to make natural law consistent with the idea that actions are non-lawful, or if lawful, nevertheless free. Maybe free will in the relevant sense a silly idea in the first place, but we don't get to just change the topic and pretend we've addressed the question.

and more interested in explaining in detail where all the intuitions about free will come from, and therefore why people talk about free will.

And he does a very good job of that, but this work shouldn't be confused with something one might call a 'solution' (which is how the sequence is titled), and it's not a compatibilist answer (just because it's not an attempt at an answer at all).

I'm not saying EY's thoughts on free will are bad, or even wrong. I'm just saying 'It seems to me that EY is not a compatibilist about free will, on the basis of what he wrote in the free will sequence'.