Human babies may learn causality from observations, but:
(a) In this scenario the baby is the armchairian, and the parents are the omniscient Universe programmers. The parents know the baby is right in some cases, but how does the baby itself know it is right, without actually pushing things around. Armchairians aren’t allowed to push things around, either to learn or to verify what they learned.
(b) I think ScottL’s question is also about justifying your beliefs (I don’t think it is such an easy problem). But I am (perhaps naturally) more interested in Scott Aaronson’s question.
The parents know the baby is right in some cases, but how does the baby itself know it is right, without actually pushing things around.
The baby is pushing things around, not being an Armchairian. That’s what I intended as the point of the video. Causality is one of the earliest things we learn, even before walking and talking, and we learn it by acting and perceiving the effects.
I meant Aaronson, also.
Human babies may learn causality from observations, but:
(a) In this scenario the baby is the armchairian, and the parents are the omniscient Universe programmers. The parents know the baby is right in some cases, but how does the baby itself know it is right, without actually pushing things around. Armchairians aren’t allowed to push things around, either to learn or to verify what they learned.
(b) I think ScottL’s question is also about justifying your beliefs (I don’t think it is such an easy problem). But I am (perhaps naturally) more interested in Scott Aaronson’s question.
The baby is pushing things around, not being an Armchairian. That’s what I intended as the point of the video. Causality is one of the earliest things we learn, even before walking and talking, and we learn it by acting and perceiving the effects.
I agree!