We often use words (soul, free will, etc) to define ideas that aren’t well defined. Sometimes, on rigorous inspection, those ideas turn out to be nonsensical. This leaves us with two options:
1) Discard the words altogether
2) Re-define the words so as to get as close as possible to the original meaning, while maintaining self-consistency. (see Eliezer’s posts on “free will” for an example of this which is carried out, I believe, successfully.).
I generally opt for (2) in the cases where the underlying concept being described as some sort of value and there is no other word that quite tackles it.
I maintain that “reality” is one of those words for which the underlying concept is valuable and un-described by any other word. I remain unsure of whether or not the laymen’s intuitive definition of “Reality” is logically consistent. I’ll continue trying to find a rigorous definition that completely captures the original intuition and nothing more. If I end up giving up I’ll have to opt for (2) or (1)...If, under the closest definition, probabilistic-many-world-splitting turns out to be the only “weird-to-normal-people” consequence of changing the definition then I’m okay with picking (2), since at least the practical consequences add up to normality.
I’d choose option (1) and abolish “reality” altogether, though, before I let it be turned into a synonym for “tautology”. That’s just too far from the original intuition to be a useful verbal label and we already have “tautology” anyhow. Plus, the practical consequences do not seem to add up to normality at all.
My philosophy on words is this:
We often use words (soul, free will, etc) to define ideas that aren’t well defined. Sometimes, on rigorous inspection, those ideas turn out to be nonsensical. This leaves us with two options:
1) Discard the words altogether
2) Re-define the words so as to get as close as possible to the original meaning, while maintaining self-consistency. (see Eliezer’s posts on “free will” for an example of this which is carried out, I believe, successfully.).
I generally opt for (2) in the cases where the underlying concept being described as some sort of value and there is no other word that quite tackles it.
I maintain that “reality” is one of those words for which the underlying concept is valuable and un-described by any other word. I remain unsure of whether or not the laymen’s intuitive definition of “Reality” is logically consistent. I’ll continue trying to find a rigorous definition that completely captures the original intuition and nothing more. If I end up giving up I’ll have to opt for (2) or (1)...If, under the closest definition, probabilistic-many-world-splitting turns out to be the only “weird-to-normal-people” consequence of changing the definition then I’m okay with picking (2), since at least the practical consequences add up to normality.
I’d choose option (1) and abolish “reality” altogether, though, before I let it be turned into a synonym for “tautology”. That’s just too far from the original intuition to be a useful verbal label and we already have “tautology” anyhow. Plus, the practical consequences do not seem to add up to normality at all.