Hooray!

Paul Almond

To Minds, Substrate, Measure and Value Part 2: Extra Information About Substrate Dependence I make his Objection 9 and am not satisfied with his answer to it. I believe there is a directed graph (possibly cyclic) of mathematical structures containing simulations of other mathematical structures (where the causal relation proceeds from the simulated to the simulator), and I suspect that if we treat this graph as a Markov chain and find its invariant distribution, that this might then give us a statistical measure of the probability of being in each structure, without having to have a concept of a physical substrate which all other substrates eventually reduce to.

However, I'm not sure that any of this is essential to my OP claims; the measure I assign to structures for purposes of forecasting the future is a property of my map, not of the territory, and there needn't be a territorial measure of 'realness' attached to each structure, any more than there need be a boolean property of 'realness' attached to each structure. I note, though, that, being unable to explain why I find myself in an Everett branch in which experiments have confirmed the Born rule (even though in many worlds (without mangling) there should be a 'me' in a branch in which experiments have consistently confirmed the Equal Probabilities rule), I clearly do not have an intuitive grasp of probabilities in a possible-worlds or modal-realistic universe, so I may well be barking up the wrong giraffe.

EDIT: In part 3, Almond characterises the Strong AI Hypothesis thus:

A mind exists when the appropriate algorithm is being run on a physical system.

I characterise my own position on minds thus:

A mind exists when there is an appropriate algorithm, whether that algorithm is being run on a physical system or not. If the existence-of-mind inheres in the interpretative algorithm rather than the algorithm-that-might-be-run, then the interpretative algorithm is the appropriate one; but the mind still exists, whether the interpretative algorithm is being run on a physical system or not.

This is because the idea of a 'physical system' is an attachment to physical realism which I reject in the OP.

All I see here is Tegmark re-hashed and some assertions concerning the proper definitions of words like "real" and "existence". Taboo those, are you still saying anything?

I'm saying that our intuitive concepts of "real" and "existence" have no referents, that Tegmark's restriction to computable structures is unnecessary, that nesting (ie. simulation) of worlds is an explicit causal dependence, and that Platonism needn't be as silly and naïve as it sounds. Also to the extent that I am rehashing Tegmark, I'm doing so in order to combine it with Syntacticism and several other prerequisites in order to build a framework that lets me talk about "the existence of infinite sets", because I think Eliezer's 'infinite set atheism' is a confusion.

Have you read any of Paul Almond's thoughts on the subject? Your position might be more understandable if contrasted with his.

I'll read "Minds, Substrate, Measure and Value" (which seems relevant) and then get back to you on that one, ok?

Particles break light-speed limit?

My grandfather is doomed, doomed I say!

Mwahahaha!

All I see here is Tegmark re-hashed and some assertions concerning the proper definitions of words like "real" and "existence". Taboo those, are you still saying anything?

Have you read any of Paul Almond's thoughts on the subject? Your position might be more understandable if contrasted with his.

I would think this an irrationality quote? "Fuzzy" thinking skills are ridiculously important. "Intuition" may be somewhat unreliable, but in certain domains and under certain conditions, it can be - verifiably - a very powerful method.

If you can't think intuitively, you may be able to verify specific factual claims, but you certainly can't think about history.

Well, maybe we can't think about history. Intuition is unreliable. Just because you want to think intelligently about something doesn't mean it's possible to do so.

Jewish Atheist, in reply to Mencius Moldbug

"And yet... and yet..." said I to my Teacher, when all the shapes and the singing had passed some distance away into the forest, "even now I am not quite sure. Is it really tolerable that she should be untouched by his misery, even his self-made misery?"

"Would you rather he still had the power of tormenting her? He did it many a day and many a year in their earthly life."

"Well, no. I suppose I don't want that that."

"What then?"

"I hardly know, Sir. What some people say on Earth is that the final loss of one's soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved."

"Ye see it does not."

"I feel in a way that it ought to."

"That sounds very merciful, but see what lurks behind it."

"What?"

"The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven."

"I don't know what I want, Sir."

This dialogue follows the most compelling (to me) scene in C. S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce". A saved woman is trying to coax a man she knew in life to join her in heaven while the narrator and his guide look on. She clearly acts in such a way as to reveal a preference that the man join her. But nothing he does, not even remaining in Hell for all eternity, makes a bit of difference to her emotional state.

Do I want her miserable? No. Do I think she cares, really cares about the man she's trying to help? Well... no. I don't think that's what "care" means; she lacks empathy for him. I recently acted in such a way as to get myself a baked potato. I don't really care, in the deep and meaningful way I care about other people, about having gotten a baked potato - and I'm not even devoid of potato-related emotional feelings, I would have been disappointed if it had caught fire and I was pleased when it turned out nicely.

Do I like being sad when my friends are sad? Well, no, not really, I don't have sadness-asymbolia. Would I rather not be sad when my friends are sad; do I want to deny them that power, as C. S. Lewis suggests would be only just? No! I don't want to go around helping people just because this is written somewhere on my abstract list of preferences, acting in numb glee and feeling nothing that responds to my environment.

I don't know what I want, Sir.

It's also something like people with recessive genes for mental illness get some of the benefits (increased creativity) without the debilitation. I have a family history of mental illness but am not mental ill, and I definitely recognize benefits from whatever it is about me that isn't neurotypical.

More, actually. I'm not sure what they go through before selling GMO food for human consumption, but I'm pretty certain peanuts wouldn't have passed the test.