You will have to forgive me, as i am over three years late to get here since inception, and about six months late since the last comment, but surely rationality waits for all. I seek the help of rationalists more advanced then me because something still seems very flawed with the argument when I account for my previous understanding of emergence. As I understood it, emergence most recently came about when psychology hit a serious recursive (is that the right word?) question, that is namely “where is consciousness located in the mind?”. To frame my objection and not to patronize those who are familiar, the basic search before recent time consisted of the search for the homunculus, the little man in our head who would take in our sensory information and respond in kind. various candidates were found and rejected due to the simple fact that once you choose and individual structure to possess the properties of consciousness you must then answer how it in turn perceives and understands everything and get caught in an eternal loop of ever smaller integrative centers (because the little man in your head must also have internal structure that allows it do it’s job). On top of that, even setting the recursive(?) problem aside, none of the brains structures seem to posses the property of consciousness. The eventual hypothesis submitted was emergence. Because it
Again, please help me and let me know if I am wrong, badly wrong, or very badly wrong but a little right, but Eliezer’s argument seems to suffer from a couple basic flaws, the use of replacing emergence with magic being the first. It certainly serves its point to draw the parallel’s between the current use of emergence and magic, but i could just as easily say,
A: The car moves because of (combustion being directed into useful kinetic energy that causes parts to move and the car to run)
B: the car moves because of magic
as you noted, magic fails to explain everything because it is so general, and so can be compared to anything, in which lies the fallacy. You could make your point about magic and anything just as easily because magic isn’t a real explanation, nor is it a good comparative point for anything.
and the other point i guess is one that every college freshman knows, “wikipedia is not a liget source of anything. dont use it”
though i will say that the comparisons to an engine and go earlier do not serve the purpose of those who support the hypothesis that emergence is a legitimate concept because as I noted above, the individual pieces of an engine do posses the property of motion, the oil and the fire, should you heap all the pieces of a car in a pile atop a bucket of oil and apply fire you will find that each individual piece will gain the property of motion quite rapidly and in your general direction.
You will have to forgive me, as i am over three years late to get here since inception, and about six months late since the last comment, but surely rationality waits for all. I seek the help of rationalists more advanced then me because something still seems very flawed with the argument when I account for my previous understanding of emergence. As I understood it, emergence most recently came about when psychology hit a serious recursive (is that the right word?) question, that is namely “where is consciousness located in the mind?”. To frame my objection and not to patronize those who are familiar, the basic search before recent time consisted of the search for the homunculus, the little man in our head who would take in our sensory information and respond in kind. various candidates were found and rejected due to the simple fact that once you choose and individual structure to possess the properties of consciousness you must then answer how it in turn perceives and understands everything and get caught in an eternal loop of ever smaller integrative centers (because the little man in your head must also have internal structure that allows it do it’s job). On top of that, even setting the recursive(?) problem aside, none of the brains structures seem to posses the property of consciousness. The eventual hypothesis submitted was emergence. Because it
Again, please help me and let me know if I am wrong, badly wrong, or very badly wrong but a little right, but Eliezer’s argument seems to suffer from a couple basic flaws, the use of replacing emergence with magic being the first. It certainly serves its point to draw the parallel’s between the current use of emergence and magic, but i could just as easily say, A: The car moves because of (combustion being directed into useful kinetic energy that causes parts to move and the car to run) B: the car moves because of magic as you noted, magic fails to explain everything because it is so general, and so can be compared to anything, in which lies the fallacy. You could make your point about magic and anything just as easily because magic isn’t a real explanation, nor is it a good comparative point for anything. and the other point i guess is one that every college freshman knows, “wikipedia is not a liget source of anything. dont use it” though i will say that the comparisons to an engine and go earlier do not serve the purpose of those who support the hypothesis that emergence is a legitimate concept because as I noted above, the individual pieces of an engine do posses the property of motion, the oil and the fire, should you heap all the pieces of a car in a pile atop a bucket of oil and apply fire you will find that each individual piece will gain the property of motion quite rapidly and in your general direction.