Am I missing something here? EY and SA were discussing the advance of computer technology, the end of Moore’s rule-of-thumb, quantum computing, BIg Blue, etc. It seems to me that AI is an epistemological problem not an issue of more computing power. Getting Big Blue to go down all the possible branches is not really intelligence at all. Don’t we need a theory of knowledge first? I’m new here so this has probably already been discussed but what about freewill? How do AI researchers address that issue?
I’m with SA on the MWI of QM. I think EY is throwing the scientific baby out with the physics bath water. It seems to me that the MWI is committing the mind projection fallacy or the fallacy of the primacy of consciousness. I also agree with whoever said (paraphrased) that all these interpretations of QM just differ on where they hide the contradictions… they are all unsatisfactory and it will take a genius to figure it out.
Its not an explicit form of Primacy of Consciousness like prayer or wishing. Its implicit in QM and its basic premises. One example of an implicit form of PoC is to project properties or aspects of consciousness onto reality and treating them as metaphysical and not epistemological factors. I think the ancient philosophers got hung up on this when debating whether a color like “red” was in the object or subject. This went round and round for a few hundred years until someone pointed out that its both (form/object distinction).
Jaynes covers similar idea in his book and articles where he ascribes this error to traditional frequentists who hold probabilities as a property of things (a metaphysical concept) instead of a measure or property of our lack of knowledge (an epistemological, bayesian concept). Moreover, committing the PoC error will lead you to supernaturalism eventually so MWI is just a logical outcome of that error.
One example of an implicit form of PoC is to project properties or aspects of consciousness onto reality and treating them as metaphysical and not epistemological factors.
Could be but I don’t know QM well enough to say for sure.
If I understand it correctly, the collapse of the wave function is when the probabilities change at the moment of observation or measurement. So if one holds that the wave collapse is a metaphysical event (and you agree with Jaynes that probabilities are epistemological) then that would be a case of what Jaynes called the mind projection fallacy. Much of the debates in QM regarding wave collapse revolve around exactly this point. Of course, camps have formed on both sides of the dichotomy and I don’t think it can be resolved by just asserting that probabilities are epistemological. The error is deeper than that and I suspect QM needs to be derived from bayesian principles but I am not sure that bayesian probability theory is yet up to the task. The situation is very similar to the ancient debates on whether color was a property of the object or in the mind, which makes me think there is an object/subject distinction that is being missed.
Just read the Less Wrong sequence on QM. All the answers to your questions may be found there. I consider myself an aspiring disciple of Jaynes, probably as versed as any living human being in the ways of the Mind Projection Fallacy, and MWI is the version of QM which does not have such difficulties.
You’ve certainly arrived at the correct website to find the answers that you in particular seek, fellow Bayesian and Jaynesian; but you’re being voted down because you haven’t read the existing material.
So: you know all about the mind projection fallacy—but don’t seem to be able to find a coherent way to link it to the MWI, even though you seem to want to do that. I don’t know what your motives are—and so don’t see the point.
Of course my motives are irrelevant here but for the record I am trying to understand epistomology and its application to my self and, ultimately to AI. How about you, what are your motives?
Not knowing the exact details of where the PoC flaw is in QM is not a devastating criticism of my point, though your tone seems to suggest that you think it is. Why does the USPTO no longer accept applications for perpetual motion machines? Because it violates the first and/or second laws of thermo, no need to dig further into the details. This is just how principles work and once a fundamental error is identified then that’s it, end of discussion.… unless I was a physicist and wanted to dig in and take a crack at resolving the QM quandries which I do not. Jaynes left us a pretty large clue that the PoC error probably lies in the mis-use of probability theory as he described. As a non physicist that’s all (and more) than I need to know.
If you can’t tell us why Primacy of Consciousness is necessary for MWI, then we have no grounds for doubting MWI on the basis of your argument. It’s like saying that X is a perpetual motion machine and therefore impossible, and then when asked in what way is X a perpetual motion machine, replying that it’s implicitly a perpetual motion machine and you can’t relate the exact details.
The proof is left as an exercise for the reader ;-)
Seriously, I can’t explain the whole chain of thought to you. I made my claim that MWI is implicitly PoC and is a rejection of science and amounts to a supernatural theory. I gave examples of the difference between implicit and explicit PoC errors and gave an historical example where philosophy got hung up on an implicit error. I also cited Jaynes’ argument on how traditional probability theory (on which QM rests) projects probabilities onto reality when they are in fact epistemological measures. And I gave an example of how to use principles to avoid unnecessary work such as examining every single case of perpetual motion. And finally I explained that I am not a physicist and have no obligation or desire to find the specific error.
However, if you decide to do the proof as an excersise I will add the following as a hint;
We have this great theory in QM that allows us to make all kinds of calculations and prediction in the microscopic world. It does not integrate with our best theory of the macroscopic world and cosmology—Special and General Relativity. Moreover, there are various “interpretations” of QM that do not change the calcs but are an attempt to bring meaning and understanding to QM. But they all fail in various ways leaving use with unsatisfactory and contradictory choices between causality -vs- acausality, locality -vs- non-locality, faster than light -vs- c as a limit, one reality -vs- many realities, etc.
Nevetheless, I think these different interpretations of QM should be studied because such understanding and perspectives will lead someone to finding the error that gives rise to all the contradictions and false-alternative. Finally, I don’t need to be a physicist nor find the specific error to state with certainty that either QM or GR (or both) are wrong and that the answer, whatever that turns out to be, will be consistent with both of these theories.
What principle do you believe that MWI is violating that is analogous to a perpetual motion machine violating conservation of energy?
In the case of the perpetual motion machine, it is easy to see that the described system violates energy conservation, because you can compare the energy in the system at different times. From this global violation, one can deduce that there was a mistake somewhere in the calculations that predicted it for a system that follows the physical laws that imply conservation of energy.
So, what is the global problem with MWI that leads you to believe that it has a PoC flaw?
Probably mostly to learn things—though you would have to consult with my shrink for more details. Of course I’m not doing that in this thread—I guess that, here I’m trying to help you out on this issue while showing that I know what I’m talking about. Maybe someday, someone can return the favour—if they see me talking nonsense.
Am I missing something here? EY and SA were discussing the advance of computer technology, the end of Moore’s rule-of-thumb, quantum computing, BIg Blue, etc. It seems to me that AI is an epistemological problem not an issue of more computing power. Getting Big Blue to go down all the possible branches is not really intelligence at all. Don’t we need a theory of knowledge first? I’m new here so this has probably already been discussed but what about freewill? How do AI researchers address that issue?
I’m with SA on the MWI of QM. I think EY is throwing the scientific baby out with the physics bath water. It seems to me that the MWI is committing the mind projection fallacy or the fallacy of the primacy of consciousness. I also agree with whoever said (paraphrased) that all these interpretations of QM just differ on where they hide the contradictions… they are all unsatisfactory and it will take a genius to figure it out.
Neither consciousness nor mind are primary in the MWI—so I can’t see where you are getting that from.
Its not an explicit form of Primacy of Consciousness like prayer or wishing. Its implicit in QM and its basic premises. One example of an implicit form of PoC is to project properties or aspects of consciousness onto reality and treating them as metaphysical and not epistemological factors. I think the ancient philosophers got hung up on this when debating whether a color like “red” was in the object or subject. This went round and round for a few hundred years until someone pointed out that its both (form/object distinction).
Jaynes covers similar idea in his book and articles where he ascribes this error to traditional frequentists who hold probabilities as a property of things (a metaphysical concept) instead of a measure or property of our lack of knowledge (an epistemological, bayesian concept). Moreover, committing the PoC error will lead you to supernaturalism eventually so MWI is just a logical outcome of that error.
you mean like collapse?
Could be but I don’t know QM well enough to say for sure.
If I understand it correctly, the collapse of the wave function is when the probabilities change at the moment of observation or measurement. So if one holds that the wave collapse is a metaphysical event (and you agree with Jaynes that probabilities are epistemological) then that would be a case of what Jaynes called the mind projection fallacy. Much of the debates in QM regarding wave collapse revolve around exactly this point. Of course, camps have formed on both sides of the dichotomy and I don’t think it can be resolved by just asserting that probabilities are epistemological. The error is deeper than that and I suspect QM needs to be derived from bayesian principles but I am not sure that bayesian probability theory is yet up to the task. The situation is very similar to the ancient debates on whether color was a property of the object or in the mind, which makes me think there is an object/subject distinction that is being missed.
Just read the Less Wrong sequence on QM. All the answers to your questions may be found there. I consider myself an aspiring disciple of Jaynes, probably as versed as any living human being in the ways of the Mind Projection Fallacy, and MWI is the version of QM which does not have such difficulties.
You’ve certainly arrived at the correct website to find the answers that you in particular seek, fellow Bayesian and Jaynesian; but you’re being voted down because you haven’t read the existing material.
Right—but there’s no collapse in the MWI. Everything remains in superposition forever—thus the “many worlds”.
So: you know all about the mind projection fallacy—but don’t seem to be able to find a coherent way to link it to the MWI, even though you seem to want to do that. I don’t know what your motives are—and so don’t see the point.
Of course my motives are irrelevant here but for the record I am trying to understand epistomology and its application to my self and, ultimately to AI. How about you, what are your motives?
Not knowing the exact details of where the PoC flaw is in QM is not a devastating criticism of my point, though your tone seems to suggest that you think it is. Why does the USPTO no longer accept applications for perpetual motion machines? Because it violates the first and/or second laws of thermo, no need to dig further into the details. This is just how principles work and once a fundamental error is identified then that’s it, end of discussion.… unless I was a physicist and wanted to dig in and take a crack at resolving the QM quandries which I do not. Jaynes left us a pretty large clue that the PoC error probably lies in the mis-use of probability theory as he described. As a non physicist that’s all (and more) than I need to know.
If you can’t tell us why Primacy of Consciousness is necessary for MWI, then we have no grounds for doubting MWI on the basis of your argument. It’s like saying that X is a perpetual motion machine and therefore impossible, and then when asked in what way is X a perpetual motion machine, replying that it’s implicitly a perpetual motion machine and you can’t relate the exact details.
The proof is left as an exercise for the reader ;-)
Seriously, I can’t explain the whole chain of thought to you. I made my claim that MWI is implicitly PoC and is a rejection of science and amounts to a supernatural theory. I gave examples of the difference between implicit and explicit PoC errors and gave an historical example where philosophy got hung up on an implicit error. I also cited Jaynes’ argument on how traditional probability theory (on which QM rests) projects probabilities onto reality when they are in fact epistemological measures. And I gave an example of how to use principles to avoid unnecessary work such as examining every single case of perpetual motion. And finally I explained that I am not a physicist and have no obligation or desire to find the specific error.
However, if you decide to do the proof as an excersise I will add the following as a hint;
We have this great theory in QM that allows us to make all kinds of calculations and prediction in the microscopic world. It does not integrate with our best theory of the macroscopic world and cosmology—Special and General Relativity. Moreover, there are various “interpretations” of QM that do not change the calcs but are an attempt to bring meaning and understanding to QM. But they all fail in various ways leaving use with unsatisfactory and contradictory choices between causality -vs- acausality, locality -vs- non-locality, faster than light -vs- c as a limit, one reality -vs- many realities, etc.
Nevetheless, I think these different interpretations of QM should be studied because such understanding and perspectives will lead someone to finding the error that gives rise to all the contradictions and false-alternative. Finally, I don’t need to be a physicist nor find the specific error to state with certainty that either QM or GR (or both) are wrong and that the answer, whatever that turns out to be, will be consistent with both of these theories.
Read this, and then come back and tell us where the reasoning requires PoC.
What principle do you believe that MWI is violating that is analogous to a perpetual motion machine violating conservation of energy?
In the case of the perpetual motion machine, it is easy to see that the described system violates energy conservation, because you can compare the energy in the system at different times. From this global violation, one can deduce that there was a mistake somewhere in the calculations that predicted it for a system that follows the physical laws that imply conservation of energy.
So, what is the global problem with MWI that leads you to believe that it has a PoC flaw?
Probably mostly to learn things—though you would have to consult with my shrink for more details. Of course I’m not doing that in this thread—I guess that, here I’m trying to help you out on this issue while showing that I know what I’m talking about. Maybe someday, someone can return the favour—if they see me talking nonsense.
Or maybe it’s just a case of:
http://mohel.dk/grafik/andet/Someone_Is_Wrong_On_The_Internet.jpg
Jaynes’ criticism doesn’t apply to the MWI. The MWI doesn’t involve probabilities—it’s a deterministic theory:
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm#deterministic