Every assumption is incorrect unless there is evidence.
Got any evidence for that assumption? 🙃
Answer to all of them is yes. What is your explanation here?
Well, I don’t always “agree”[1] with ChatGPT, but I agree in regards to those specific questions.
...
I saw a post where you wanted people to explain their disagreement, and I felt inclined to do so :) But it seems now that neither of us feel like we are making much progress.
Anyway, from my perspective much of your thinking here is very misguided. But not more misguided than e.g. “proofs” for God made by people such as e.g. Descartes and other well-known philiophers :) I don’t mean that as a compliment, but more so as to neutralize what may seem like anti-compliments :)
Best of luck (in your life and so on) if we stop interacting now or relatively soon :)
I’m not sure if I will continue discussing or not. Maybe I will stop either now or after a few more comments (and let you have the last word at some point).
FWIW, while I am as certain as I can reasonably be that 2+2=4, This is not a foundational assumption. I wasn’t born knowing it. I arrived at it based on evidence acquired over time, and if I started encountering different evidence, I would eventually change my mind. See https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6FmqiAgS8h4EJm86s/how-to-convince-me-that-2-2-3
Also, the reason that “Every assumption is incorrect unless there is evidence” isn’t “basic logic” is that “correct” and “incorrect” are not the right categories. Both a statement and its competing hypotheses are claims to which rational minds assign credences/probabilities that are neither zero nor one, for any finite level of evidence. A mind is built with assumptions that govern its operation, and some of those assumptions may be impossible for the mind itself to want to change or choose to change, but anything else that the mind is capable of representing and considering is fair game in the right environment.
This is a question that’s many reasoning steps into a discussion that’s well developed. Maxentropy priors, Solomonoff priors, uniform priors, there are good reasons to choose each depending on context, take your pick depending on the full set of hypotheses under consideration. Part of the answer is “There’s basically no such thing as no evidence if you have any reason to be considering a hypothesis at all.” Part is “It doesn’t matter that much as long as your choice isn’t actively perverse, because as long as you correctly update your priors over time, you’ll approach the correct probability eventually.”
I agree that you can refute Pascal’s Wager with anti-Pascal’s Wager. But if you evaluate all wagers and anti-wagers you are left with power seeking. It is always better to have more power. Don’t you agree?
No, I don’t, you aren’t, and I don’t, in that order.
If you agree that I can refute Pascal’s Wager then I don’t actually “face” it.
If I refute it, I’m not left with power seeking, I’m left with the same complete set of goals and options I had before we considered Pascal’s Wager. Those never went away.
And more power is better all else equal, but all else is not equal when I’m trading off effort and resources among plans and actions. So, it does not follow that seeking more power is always the best option.
It seems that 2 + 2 = 4 is also an assumption for you.
Yes (albeit a very reasonable one).
Not believing (some version) of that claim would make typically make minds/AGIs less “capable”, and I would expect more or less all AGIs to hold (some version of) that “belief” in practice.
I don’t think it is possible to find consensus if we do not follow the same rules of logic.
Here are examples of what I would regard to be rules of logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rules_of_inference (the ones listed here don’t encapsulate all of the rules of inference that I’d endorse, but many of them). Despite our disagreements, I think we’d both agree with the rules that are listed there.
I regard Hitchens’s razor not as a rule of logic, but more as an ambiguous slogan / heuristic / rule of thumb.
Like with many comments/questions from you, answering this question properly would require a lot of unpacking. Although I’m sure that also is true of many questions that I ask, as it is hard to avoid (we all have limited communication bandwitdh) :)
In this last comment, you use the term “science” in a very different way from how I’d use it (like you sometimes also do with other words, such as for example “logic”). So if I was to give a proper answer I’d need to try to guess what you mean, make it clear how I interpret what you say, and so on (not just answer “yes” or “no”).
I’ll do the lazy thing and refer to some posts that are relevant (and that I mostly agree with):
I cannot help you to be less wrong if you categorically rely on intuition about what is possible and what is not.
I wish I had something better to base my beliefs on than my intuitions, but I do not. My belief in modus ponens, my belief that 1+1=2, my belief that me observing gravity in the past makes me likely to observe it in the future, my belief that if views are in logical contradiction they cannot both be true—all this is (the way I think of it) grounded in intuition.
Some of my intuitions I regard as much more strong/robust than others.
When my intuitions come into conflict, they have to fight it out.
I don’t agree. Every assumption is incorrect unless there is evidence. Could you share any evidence for this assumption?
If you ask ChatGPT
is it possible that chemical elements exist that we do not know
is it possible that fundamental particles exist that we do not know
is it possible that physical forces exist that we do not know
Answer to all of them is yes. What is your explanation here?
Got any evidence for that assumption? 🙃
Well, I don’t always “agree”[1] with ChatGPT, but I agree in regards to those specific questions.
...
I saw a post where you wanted people to explain their disagreement, and I felt inclined to do so :) But it seems now that neither of us feel like we are making much progress.
Anyway, from my perspective much of your thinking here is very misguided. But not more misguided than e.g. “proofs” for God made by people such as e.g. Descartes and other well-known philiophers :) I don’t mean that as a compliment, but more so as to neutralize what may seem like anti-compliments :)
Best of luck (in your life and so on) if we stop interacting now or relatively soon :)
I’m not sure if I will continue discussing or not. Maybe I will stop either now or after a few more comments (and let you have the last word at some point).
I use quotation-marks since ChatGPT doesn’t have “opinions” in the way we do.
That’s basic logic, Hitchens’s razor. It seems that 2 + 2 = 4 is also an assumption for you. What isn’t then?
I don’t think it is possible to find consensus if we do not follow the same rules of logic.
Considering your impression about me, I’m truly grateful about your patience. Best wishes from my side as well :)
But on the other hand I am certain that you are mistaken and I feel that you do not provide me a way to show that to you.
FWIW, while I am as certain as I can reasonably be that 2+2=4, This is not a foundational assumption. I wasn’t born knowing it. I arrived at it based on evidence acquired over time, and if I started encountering different evidence, I would eventually change my mind. See https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6FmqiAgS8h4EJm86s/how-to-convince-me-that-2-2-3
Also, the reason that “Every assumption is incorrect unless there is evidence” isn’t “basic logic” is that “correct” and “incorrect” are not the right categories. Both a statement and its competing hypotheses are claims to which rational minds assign credences/probabilities that are neither zero nor one, for any finite level of evidence. A mind is built with assumptions that govern its operation, and some of those assumptions may be impossible for the mind itself to want to change or choose to change, but anything else that the mind is capable of representing and considering is fair game in the right environment.
What is the probability if there is no evidence?
This is a question that’s many reasoning steps into a discussion that’s well developed. Maxentropy priors, Solomonoff priors, uniform priors, there are good reasons to choose each depending on context, take your pick depending on the full set of hypotheses under consideration. Part of the answer is “There’s basically no such thing as no evidence if you have any reason to be considering a hypothesis at all.” Part is “It doesn’t matter that much as long as your choice isn’t actively perverse, because as long as you correctly update your priors over time, you’ll approach the correct probability eventually.”
And here you face Pascal’s Wager.
I agree that you can refute Pascal’s Wager with anti-Pascal’s Wager. But if you evaluate all wagers and anti-wagers you are left with power seeking. It is always better to have more power. Don’t you agree?
No, I don’t, you aren’t, and I don’t, in that order.
If you agree that I can refute Pascal’s Wager then I don’t actually “face” it.
If I refute it, I’m not left with power seeking, I’m left with the same complete set of goals and options I had before we considered Pascal’s Wager. Those never went away.
And more power is better all else equal, but all else is not equal when I’m trading off effort and resources among plans and actions. So, it does not follow that seeking more power is always the best option.
Yes (albeit a very reasonable one).
Not believing (some version) of that claim would make typically make minds/AGIs less “capable”, and I would expect more or less all AGIs to hold (some version of) that “belief” in practice.
Here are examples of what I would regard to be rules of logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rules_of_inference (the ones listed here don’t encapsulate all of the rules of inference that I’d endorse, but many of them). Despite our disagreements, I think we’d both agree with the rules that are listed there.
I regard Hitchens’s razor not as a rule of logic, but more as an ambiguous slogan / heuristic / rule of thumb.
:)
So this is where we disagree.
That’s how hypothesis testing works in science:
You create a hypothesis
You find a way to test if it is wrong
You reject hypothesis if the test passes
You find a way to test if it is right
You approve hypothesis if the test passes
While hypothesis is not rejected nor approved it is considered possible.
Don’t you agree?
Like with many comments/questions from you, answering this question properly would require a lot of unpacking. Although I’m sure that also is true of many questions that I ask, as it is hard to avoid (we all have limited communication bandwitdh) :)
In this last comment, you use the term “science” in a very different way from how I’d use it (like you sometimes also do with other words, such as for example “logic”). So if I was to give a proper answer I’d need to try to guess what you mean, make it clear how I interpret what you say, and so on (not just answer “yes” or “no”).
I’ll do the lazy thing and refer to some posts that are relevant (and that I mostly agree with):
Where Recursive Justification Hits Bottom
Could Anything Be Right?
37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong
I cannot help you to be less wrong if you categorically rely on intuition about what is possible and what is not.
Thanks for discussion.
I wish I had something better to base my beliefs on than my intuitions, but I do not. My belief in modus ponens, my belief that 1+1=2, my belief that me observing gravity in the past makes me likely to observe it in the future, my belief that if views are in logical contradiction they cannot both be true—all this is (the way I think of it) grounded in intuition.
Some of my intuitions I regard as much more strong/robust than others.
When my intuitions come into conflict, they have to fight it out.
Thanks for the discussion :)