I’ve read this again (along with the rest of the Sequence up to it) and I think I have a better understanding of what it’s claiming. Inverting the axis of causality would require inverting the probabilities, such that an egg reforming is more likely than an egg breaking. It would also imply that our brains contain information on the ‘future’ and none on the ‘past’, meaning all our anticipations are about what led to the current state, not where the current state will lead.
All of this is internally consistent, but I see no reason to believe it gives us a “real” direction of causality. As far as I can tell, it just tells us that the direction we calculate our probabilities is the direction we don’t know.
Going from a low-entropy universe to a high-entropy universe seems more natural, but only because we calculate our probabilities in the direction of low-to-high entropy. If we based our probabilities on the same evidence perceived the opposite direction, it would be low-to-high that seemed to need universes discarded and high-to-low that seemed natural.
Inverting the axis of causality would require inverting the probabilities, such that an egg reforming is more likely than an egg breaking.
I don’t think this is a coherent notion. If we “invert the probabilities” in some literal sense, then yes, the egg reforming is more likely than the egg breaking, but still more likely is the egg turning into an elephant.
Hm. This is true.
Perhaps it would be better to say “Perceiving states in opposite-to-conventional order would give us reason to assume probabilities entirely consistent with considering a causality in opposite-to-conventional order.”
Unless I’m missing something, the only reason to believe causality goes in the order that places our memory-direction before our non-memory direction is that we base our probabilities on our memory.
Well, Eliezer seems to be claiming in this article that the low-to-high is more valid than the high-to-low, but I don’t see how they’re anything but both internally consistent
I’ve read this again (along with the rest of the Sequence up to it) and I think I have a better understanding of what it’s claiming. Inverting the axis of causality would require inverting the probabilities, such that an egg reforming is more likely than an egg breaking. It would also imply that our brains contain information on the ‘future’ and none on the ‘past’, meaning all our anticipations are about what led to the current state, not where the current state will lead.
All of this is internally consistent, but I see no reason to believe it gives us a “real” direction of causality. As far as I can tell, it just tells us that the direction we calculate our probabilities is the direction we don’t know.
Going from a low-entropy universe to a high-entropy universe seems more natural, but only because we calculate our probabilities in the direction of low-to-high entropy. If we based our probabilities on the same evidence perceived the opposite direction, it would be low-to-high that seemed to need universes discarded and high-to-low that seemed natural.
...right?
I don’t think this is a coherent notion. If we “invert the probabilities” in some literal sense, then yes, the egg reforming is more likely than the egg breaking, but still more likely is the egg turning into an elephant.
Hm. This is true. Perhaps it would be better to say “Perceiving states in opposite-to-conventional order would give us reason to assume probabilities entirely consistent with considering a causality in opposite-to-conventional order.”
Unless I’m missing something, the only reason to believe causality goes in the order that places our memory-direction before our non-memory direction is that we base our probabilities on our memory.
What do you want out of a “real” direction of causality, other than the above?
Well, Eliezer seems to be claiming in this article that the low-to-high is more valid than the high-to-low, but I don’t see how they’re anything but both internally consistent