This post was a blog post day project. For its purpose of general sanity waterline-raising, I’m happy with how it turned out. If I still prioritized the kinds of topics this post is about, I’d say more about things like:
“equilibrium” and how it’s a misleading and ill-motivated frame for game theory, especially acausal trade;
why the logical/algorithmic ontology for decision theory is far from obviously preferable.
But I’ve come to think there are far deeper and higher-priority mistakes in the “orthodox rationalist worldview” (scare quotes because I know individuals’ views are less monolithic than that, of course). Mostly concerning pragmatism about epistemology and uncritical acceptance of precise Bayesianism. I wrote a bit about the problems with pragmatism here, and critiques of precise Bayesianism are forthcoming, though previewed a bit here.
One thing I have to say about anthropics is that I think anthropics is basically normal Bayesian reasoning, and the weirdness around it is because people do not specify sampling procedures/realize that the theories work under specific sampling assumptions.
In particular, a lot of anthropical theories assumed independent and random sampling, and if there’s any bias to the sampling, the theories spit out nonsense results.
The important properties of the sampling procedure that I think are relevant for anthropics is that it’s not an independent or random sample, meaning we get less information from our sole existence today than we think.
The fact that it’s not an independent or random sample, and that we have more information is why I reject the doomsday argument (this is also why I think Grabby Aliens is also flawed for explaining the fermi paradox, and the actual answer is we don’t know, but at least 1 of the factors is too high.)
Also, very low probability things can happen without any explanation.
Roughly speaking, it’s close to a deterministic sample, though from a human perspective it’s affected by some noise on the quantum level, which is amplified to create chaotic outcomes, that is determined by your parents having sex at a particular place and time.
(A complete explanation is beyond my ability, but this is roughly how all humans generate (with caveats/exceptions).
This post was a blog post day project. For its purpose of general sanity waterline-raising, I’m happy with how it turned out. If I still prioritized the kinds of topics this post is about, I’d say more about things like:
“equilibrium” and how it’s a misleading and ill-motivated frame for game theory, especially acausal trade;
time-slice rationality;
why the logical/algorithmic ontology for decision theory is far from obviously preferable.
But I’ve come to think there are far deeper and higher-priority mistakes in the “orthodox rationalist worldview” (scare quotes because I know individuals’ views are less monolithic than that, of course). Mostly concerning pragmatism about epistemology and uncritical acceptance of precise Bayesianism. I wrote a bit about the problems with pragmatism here, and critiques of precise Bayesianism are forthcoming, though previewed a bit here.
One thing I have to say about anthropics is that I think anthropics is basically normal Bayesian reasoning, and the weirdness around it is because people do not specify sampling procedures/realize that the theories work under specific sampling assumptions.
In particular, a lot of anthropical theories assumed independent and random sampling, and if there’s any bias to the sampling, the theories spit out nonsense results.
Sure, but isn’t the whole source of weirdness the fact that it’s metaphysically unclear (or indeterminate) what the real “sampling procedure” is?
The important properties of the sampling procedure that I think are relevant for anthropics is that it’s not an independent or random sample, meaning we get less information from our sole existence today than we think.
The fact that it’s not an independent or random sample, and that we have more information is why I reject the doomsday argument (this is also why I think Grabby Aliens is also flawed for explaining the fermi paradox, and the actual answer is we don’t know, but at least 1 of the factors is too high.)
Also, very low probability things can happen without any explanation.
What kind of sample do you think it is?
Roughly speaking, it’s close to a deterministic sample, though from a human perspective it’s affected by some noise on the quantum level, which is amplified to create chaotic outcomes, that is determined by your parents having sex at a particular place and time.
(A complete explanation is beyond my ability, but this is roughly how all humans generate (with caveats/exceptions).