I am going to have to accuse you of making a grave Mind Projection.
Physics, to be believable should never talk about “information.” I know from study that most of modern physics have this property, and I know EY knows from the QM sequence and the Epistemology 101 sequence.
Special and General Relativity might talk about “observers” and “observables,” but these are very distinct from the “information” discussed in Bayesian Stats.
Bayesian stats (i.e. non-omniscient Agents) is the only place you are ever allowed to talk about “information,” (Thermodynamics is applying agents to physics).
An observable in relativity is usually taken to mean something you can slap a unit on and call it a day. Mass of bodies, relative velocities, energy, etc.
I am going to have to accuse you of making a grave Mind Projection
Apparently Black Holes preserve information. There are other connections to physics and information theory, Such as the theoretical computers that can use ever smaller quantities of energy, so long as all of their operations are reversible. Given that, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that there would be an information theoretic component to the rules of magic. My formulation doesn’t require a human mind. If I talk about minds or arbiters, or use language suggesting that then that’s just lazy writing on my part.
The most obvious instance of Information Theory/Bayesian Statisics overlapping physics is Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics, which both deal with the notion of Entropy (all physical entropy is Shannon Entropy). The Information Problem of black holes is a question of their entropic behaviour, and really, black holes are sort of a grey area of our map of reality.
Your formulation exactly hinges on information, not observables. I read it twice. It is much more likely that the 6 hours is a conceptual limitation and that the HPMOR-verse is consistent if not causal, either by recomputation or being the solution to an equation, and just has time travel built in.
Conceptual limitations are apparent in other branches of magic, and I would hazard a guess that timetravel requires energy correlating to the amount of time jumped back. This would put a practical limit on it too.
Magic is clearly agent-like. Magic is clearly embedded in reality. Reality is by definition physics.
I don’t know if EY has planned to pull something along the lines of Sam Hughes’ Ra, but it would highly surprise me if he was about to throw Reductionism out the window.
There is literally no other definition of Information than the one being the moniker in Information Theory. Bayesian statistics heavily overlaps with Information theory. Everything axiomatized differently doesn’t lend itself to Agenthood and Statistics. Anything else than Bayesian Stats doesn’t lend itself to Agenthood either.
Also, I have spent inordinate amounts of thinking on solid academic grounds and in conversation with several sharp rationalists. Most of these counterpoints I have already considered.
I thin you might have missed that Harry at one point figures out this almost verbatim, that there must be some sort of very powerful system out in the territory that makes “Wingardium Leviosa” into a force application of some kind.
Also, I am trying to make a point, not trying to fight-argue with you.
It also seems that you do not know what Agent, Reality and Physics really mean.
Reality is whatever you can point at using Causality or Axiomatisations. Causality is just about any time where you have a verb and a noun, not anything special “sciency” like thing. “Dumbledore levitated a book” is causality. This definition also allows for the Everett Interprentation and for ships passing the Cosmological Horizon. Axiomatizations is the thing mathematicians are employed to work with, proofs, theorems, deduction.
Physics is whatever we find in the end. I believe we are done when there is no question left to ask of elementary physics when we can derive everything mathematically. Constants, interactions, gravity, the whole shebang.
Agents are the object studied in Decision Theory. Unless you think magic somehow does away with brains, world models, sensory input, motorical output, utility functions, cost-benefit analyses, choices and a few other useful concepts, then you have misunderstood something,
Is there a “Magic” term is the True Causality Truth? Is there a “Magic” factor in the math from which Decision Theory is created?
Broomsticks, for gods’ sakes! Broomsticks break relativistic physics by having a maximum groundspeed (airspeed? I don’t think it’s explicitly stated) rather than thrust and drag. But there’s a method to ground broomsticks that aren’t protected against the grounding charm; it’s possible that physics always was the way that imperfect thinking beings imagined it should be, but it’s more likely that imperfect thinking beings hacked physics at some point to work the way they thought it ought to- and they thought that flying broomsticks ought to go where they were pointed, and ought to have a fixed maximum speed relative to the ground or air.
Likewise, someone thought that faux-Latin and wand movements should be required to lift stuff with magic, so they mostly are (obviously there was a dissenting opinion somewhere). Someone decided that Seeker was an interesting game rule, and someone decided that Hogwarts need not have a consistent internal layout, so all of those things are true enough.
Okay. It occurs to me we have some inferential gaps that I don’t see my duty to fill. Go read HPMOR again, go read some more sequences. This is beginner level stuff, you are not presenting strong-evidence-based arguments, you are asking rhetorical questions, making non-deep analogies and taking things literally.
Is there a “Magic” term is the True Causality Truth? Is there a “Magic” factor in the math from which Decision Theory is created?
There is not a term for “magic” anywhere because first of all, we are arguing about a fanfic, so let us get that mind projection out of the way.
I know Eliezer’s core beliefs and messages: He will not allow his work to portray a universe where anything is inherently “magic” because that is bad reductionism. He will maybe not introduce a new kind of quantum mechanics, because it is very much not his style to techno-babble.
Broomsticks, for gods’ sakes!
Broomsticks do not conclusively break anything. The speeds are too low for the gamma factor to be measurable with equipment that can function around magic. Broomsticks probably have maximum velocity only in the apparent. Remember, there has not in canon been any precise measurement of the nature of broomsticks.
That the physics is the way imperfectly thinking beings thing is not a credulous hypothesis, because QM and GR are experimentally right, yet counterintuitive, and because the program that describes Aristotelian Physics is more complicated than the QFT lagrangian, for any representation of rational numbers. I know the math, evidently better than you.
Likewise, someone thought that faux-Latin and wand movements should be required to lift stuff with magic, so they mostly are (obviously there was a dissenting opinion somewhere). Someone decided that Seeker was an interesting game rule, and someone decided that Hogwarts need not have a consistent internal layout, so all of those things are true enough.
Have you completely missed the chapter where Harry thinks that the “heart of magic” is a thing the Atlanteans built? In the most recent chapters he thinks about, and talks to Quirrel about how one goes about making a new spell!
Seekers existing does not have anything to do with magic, it has to do with the culture surrounding games. You can see it in many existing games and sports today. Wizards are still human, they have human habits.
Why are we even arguing? I agree to almost everything you say which is not a blatant argument soldier!
I don’t accept that “strong evidence-based arguements” is a meaningful phrase in the presence of a counterfactual premise. If there was introduced some kind of unexplained techno-babble that wasn’t consistent both internally and with the entire story (including the exchange rate of magical currency), it would simply be pushing ‘magic’ up or down the meta-scale.
The (reletivivistic) speed of a broomstick is roughly equal to the speed of the Earth, which almost has measured relativistic effects (GPS satellites in LEO observe relativistic effects from their orbital velocity, but their orbital velocity is inherently greater than any sustained orbital velocity on the surface).
And the math doesn’t have to be done in-universe. Can you estimate the mathematical complexity of turning into a cat, getting your tail stepped on, and then returning to human form with a bruised coccyx? In a world where magic acts this way, it makes sense for physics to be a cultural phenomenon as well.
I have conferred with a few of my most trusted rationalist friends, It seems we agree that you conceive of a “magic” being separate from “physics” in a way which we have collectively edited you of our cognition.
I really must emplore you to read the sequence Highly Advanced Epistemology 101 for Beginners. It argues strongly for why Mathematics and Physics/Causality is the only way of talking “meaningfully” about the universe.
Also, you are veering dangerously close to my trolling pattern matching algorithm’s threshold.
Given the object-level information I have about the universe of HPMOR, I assign a significant probability to the possibility that the universe there does not follow Mathematics as we can conceive of in this universe. With the meta-level knowledge I have, I an certain that it will not be confirmed to be the case, and that magic will have the properties needed for the plot without having any epicycles which are not foreshadowed far enough in advance. It is currently too late to foreshadow anything new.
Also, you are veering dangerously close to my trolling pattern matching algorithm’s threshold.
Your algorithm has the risk of false positives and false negatives; you can reduce the false results by improving the algorithm, or you can shift the threshold to reduce one and increase the other.
I am going to have to accuse you of making a grave Mind Projection.
Physics, to be believable should never talk about “information.” I know from study that most of modern physics have this property, and I know EY knows from the QM sequence and the Epistemology 101 sequence.
Special and General Relativity might talk about “observers” and “observables,” but these are very distinct from the “information” discussed in Bayesian Stats.
Bayesian stats (i.e. non-omniscient Agents) is the only place you are ever allowed to talk about “information,” (Thermodynamics is applying agents to physics).
An observable in relativity is usually taken to mean something you can slap a unit on and call it a day. Mass of bodies, relative velocities, energy, etc.
Apparently Black Holes preserve information. There are other connections to physics and information theory, Such as the theoretical computers that can use ever smaller quantities of energy, so long as all of their operations are reversible. Given that, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that there would be an information theoretic component to the rules of magic. My formulation doesn’t require a human mind. If I talk about minds or arbiters, or use language suggesting that then that’s just lazy writing on my part.
The most obvious instance of Information Theory/Bayesian Statisics overlapping physics is Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics, which both deal with the notion of Entropy (all physical entropy is Shannon Entropy). The Information Problem of black holes is a question of their entropic behaviour, and really, black holes are sort of a grey area of our map of reality.
Your formulation exactly hinges on information, not observables. I read it twice. It is much more likely that the 6 hours is a conceptual limitation and that the HPMOR-verse is consistent if not causal, either by recomputation or being the solution to an equation, and just has time travel built in.
Conceptual limitations are apparent in other branches of magic, and I would hazard a guess that timetravel requires energy correlating to the amount of time jumped back. This would put a practical limit on it too.
Magic clearly does care about information, and it even uses a different definition than Bayesian stats. Luckily, magic doesn’t care about physics.
Magic is clearly agent-like. Magic is clearly embedded in reality. Reality is by definition physics.
I don’t know if EY has planned to pull something along the lines of Sam Hughes’ Ra, but it would highly surprise me if he was about to throw Reductionism out the window.
There is literally no other definition of Information than the one being the moniker in Information Theory. Bayesian statistics heavily overlaps with Information theory. Everything axiomatized differently doesn’t lend itself to Agenthood and Statistics. Anything else than Bayesian Stats doesn’t lend itself to Agenthood either.
Also, I have spent inordinate amounts of thinking on solid academic grounds and in conversation with several sharp rationalists. Most of these counterpoints I have already considered.
Magic tells agents, reality, and physics to take a hike.
Unless you think that the Grand Unified Theory has a “WIngardum Leviosa” term.
I thin you might have missed that Harry at one point figures out this almost verbatim, that there must be some sort of very powerful system out in the territory that makes “Wingardium Leviosa” into a force application of some kind.
Also, I am trying to make a point, not trying to fight-argue with you.
It also seems that you do not know what Agent, Reality and Physics really mean.
Reality is whatever you can point at using Causality or Axiomatisations. Causality is just about any time where you have a verb and a noun, not anything special “sciency” like thing. “Dumbledore levitated a book” is causality. This definition also allows for the Everett Interprentation and for ships passing the Cosmological Horizon. Axiomatizations is the thing mathematicians are employed to work with, proofs, theorems, deduction.
Physics is whatever we find in the end. I believe we are done when there is no question left to ask of elementary physics when we can derive everything mathematically. Constants, interactions, gravity, the whole shebang.
Agents are the object studied in Decision Theory. Unless you think magic somehow does away with brains, world models, sensory input, motorical output, utility functions, cost-benefit analyses, choices and a few other useful concepts, then you have misunderstood something,
Is there a “Magic” term is the True Causality Truth? Is there a “Magic” factor in the math from which Decision Theory is created?
Broomsticks, for gods’ sakes! Broomsticks break relativistic physics by having a maximum groundspeed (airspeed? I don’t think it’s explicitly stated) rather than thrust and drag. But there’s a method to ground broomsticks that aren’t protected against the grounding charm; it’s possible that physics always was the way that imperfect thinking beings imagined it should be, but it’s more likely that imperfect thinking beings hacked physics at some point to work the way they thought it ought to- and they thought that flying broomsticks ought to go where they were pointed, and ought to have a fixed maximum speed relative to the ground or air.
Likewise, someone thought that faux-Latin and wand movements should be required to lift stuff with magic, so they mostly are (obviously there was a dissenting opinion somewhere). Someone decided that Seeker was an interesting game rule, and someone decided that Hogwarts need not have a consistent internal layout, so all of those things are true enough.
Okay. It occurs to me we have some inferential gaps that I don’t see my duty to fill. Go read HPMOR again, go read some more sequences. This is beginner level stuff, you are not presenting strong-evidence-based arguments, you are asking rhetorical questions, making non-deep analogies and taking things literally.
There is not a term for “magic” anywhere because first of all, we are arguing about a fanfic, so let us get that mind projection out of the way.
I know Eliezer’s core beliefs and messages: He will not allow his work to portray a universe where anything is inherently “magic” because that is bad reductionism. He will maybe not introduce a new kind of quantum mechanics, because it is very much not his style to techno-babble.
Broomsticks do not conclusively break anything. The speeds are too low for the gamma factor to be measurable with equipment that can function around magic. Broomsticks probably have maximum velocity only in the apparent. Remember, there has not in canon been any precise measurement of the nature of broomsticks.
That the physics is the way imperfectly thinking beings thing is not a credulous hypothesis, because QM and GR are experimentally right, yet counterintuitive, and because the program that describes Aristotelian Physics is more complicated than the QFT lagrangian, for any representation of rational numbers. I know the math, evidently better than you.
Have you completely missed the chapter where Harry thinks that the “heart of magic” is a thing the Atlanteans built? In the most recent chapters he thinks about, and talks to Quirrel about how one goes about making a new spell!
Seekers existing does not have anything to do with magic, it has to do with the culture surrounding games. You can see it in many existing games and sports today. Wizards are still human, they have human habits.
Why are we even arguing? I agree to almost everything you say which is not a blatant argument soldier!
I don’t accept that “strong evidence-based arguements” is a meaningful phrase in the presence of a counterfactual premise. If there was introduced some kind of unexplained techno-babble that wasn’t consistent both internally and with the entire story (including the exchange rate of magical currency), it would simply be pushing ‘magic’ up or down the meta-scale.
The (reletivivistic) speed of a broomstick is roughly equal to the speed of the Earth, which almost has measured relativistic effects (GPS satellites in LEO observe relativistic effects from their orbital velocity, but their orbital velocity is inherently greater than any sustained orbital velocity on the surface).
And the math doesn’t have to be done in-universe. Can you estimate the mathematical complexity of turning into a cat, getting your tail stepped on, and then returning to human form with a bruised coccyx? In a world where magic acts this way, it makes sense for physics to be a cultural phenomenon as well.
I have conferred with a few of my most trusted rationalist friends, It seems we agree that you conceive of a “magic” being separate from “physics” in a way which we have collectively edited you of our cognition.
I really must emplore you to read the sequence Highly Advanced Epistemology 101 for Beginners. It argues strongly for why Mathematics and Physics/Causality is the only way of talking “meaningfully” about the universe.
Also, you are veering dangerously close to my trolling pattern matching algorithm’s threshold.
Given the object-level information I have about the universe of HPMOR, I assign a significant probability to the possibility that the universe there does not follow Mathematics as we can conceive of in this universe. With the meta-level knowledge I have, I an certain that it will not be confirmed to be the case, and that magic will have the properties needed for the plot without having any epicycles which are not foreshadowed far enough in advance. It is currently too late to foreshadow anything new.
Your algorithm has the risk of false positives and false negatives; you can reduce the false results by improving the algorithm, or you can shift the threshold to reduce one and increase the other.