The post is phrased pretty strongly (e.g. it makes claims about things being “inaccessible” and “intractable”).
Especially given the complexity of the topic, I expect the strength of these claims to be misleading. What one person thinks of as “roundabout methods” another might consider “directly specifying”. I find it pretty hard to tell whether I actually disagree with your and Alex’s views, or just the way you’re presenting them.
The post is phrased pretty strongly (e.g. it makes claims about things being “inaccessible” and “intractable”). Especially given the complexity of the topic, I expect the strength of these claims to be misleading.
I think the strongest claim is in the title, which does concisely describe my current worldview and also Quintin’s point that “the genome faces similar inaccessibility issues as us wrt to learned world models.”
I went back and forth several times on whether to title the post “Human values & biases seem inaccessible to the genome”, but I’m presently sticking to the current title, because I think it’s true&descriptive&useful in both of the above senses, even though it has the cost of (being interpreted as) stating as fact an inference which I presently strongly believe.
Beyond that, I think I did a pretty good job of demarcating inference vs observation, of demarcating fact vs model? I’m open to hearing suggested clarifications.
What one person thinks of as “roundabout methods” another might consider “directly specifying”.
I meant for the following passage to resolve that ambiguity:
I’m going to say things like “the genome cannot specify circuitry which detects when a person is thinking about death.” This means that the genome cannot hardcode circuitry which e.g. fires when the person is thinking about death, and does not fire when the person is not thinking about death.
But I suppose it still leaves some room to wonder. I welcome suggestions for further clarifying the post (although it’s certainly not your responsibility to do so!). I’m also happy to hop on a call / meet up with you sometime, Richard.
The post is phrased pretty strongly (e.g. it makes claims about things being “inaccessible” and “intractable”).
Especially given the complexity of the topic, I expect the strength of these claims to be misleading. What one person thinks of as “roundabout methods” another might consider “directly specifying”. I find it pretty hard to tell whether I actually disagree with your and Alex’s views, or just the way you’re presenting them.
I think the strongest claim is in the title, which does concisely describe my current worldview and also Quintin’s point that “the genome faces similar inaccessibility issues as us wrt to learned world models.”
I went back and forth several times on whether to title the post “Human values & biases seem inaccessible to the genome”, but I’m presently sticking to the current title, because I think it’s true&descriptive&useful in both of the above senses, even though it has the cost of (being interpreted as) stating as fact an inference which I presently strongly believe.
Beyond that, I think I did a pretty good job of demarcating inference vs observation, of demarcating fact vs model? I’m open to hearing suggested clarifications.
I meant for the following passage to resolve that ambiguity:
But I suppose it still leaves some room to wonder. I welcome suggestions for further clarifying the post (although it’s certainly not your responsibility to do so!). I’m also happy to hop on a call / meet up with you sometime, Richard.