Sorry for butting in, but don’t you find it strangely convenient that your psi effect is defined just so as to move it outside the domain of scientific inquiry? Do you anticipate ever finding a way to reliably distinguish it from random chance, or do you anticipate forming another excuse, ahem, reason why you should have expected from the start that the way you just tried would not reliably show it? I’d claim you’re chasing invisible dragons, but I find it incredulous that you haven’t thought of the comparison yourself, which leaves me confused. How does an effect look like that is real but cannot be distinguished from random chance by any reliable method? How would you extract utility from such an effect? And is it worth it to break your tools of inquiry that otherwise work very well, just so you can end up believing in an effect that is true but useless? Food for thought.
I am aware of this. I would have to be incredibly stupid not to be aware of it.
Do you anticipate ever finding a way to reliably distinguish it from random chance
I can reliably distinguish it from random chance, but by hypothesis I just can’t tell you about it. I can get evidence, just not communicable evidence.
I think maybe every time I post about evasive psi I should include a standard disclaimer along the lines of “Yes, I realize how incredibly dodgy this sounds and I also find it rather frustrating, but bringing it up and harping on it never leads anywhere.”
(E.g., imagine a transhumanly intelligent agent who only hangs out with you when it knows that no one will believe that it hung out with you. This means that when it hangs out with you it can do arbitrarily magical things, but you’ll never be able to tell anyone about it, because the agent went out of its way to keep that from happening, and it’s freakin’ transhumanly intelligent so you know that any apparent chance of convincing others of its visit is probably not actually a chance. Is this theory improbable? Absolutely. But supposing that the agent actually does hang out with you and does arbitrarily magical stuff, you don’t have any way of convincing others that the theory is a posterior probable, and you’ll probably just end up making a fool out of yourself if you try, as the agent predicted.
I think a problem might be when people think of psi they think ‘ability to shoot fireballs’ rather than ‘convincing superintelligences to act on your behalf’ (note that that’s just one possible mechanism of many and we shouldn’t privilege any hypotheses yet). If people thought they were dealing with intelligent agents then they’d use the parts of their brain designed for dealing with agents, and those parts are pretty good at what they do. Note we only want to use those parts because, at least in my opinion, psi as a relatively passive phenomenon seems to be a falsified hypothesis, or at the very least it doesn’t explain a ton of things that seem just as real as passive psi phenomena.)
That’s my point, I don’t expect to be able to make consistently differing observations! If his theory is correct, we still wouldn’t be able to reliably exploit that feature.
I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m saying even if it’s right it’s useless to believe.
I mean if there is some form of reliable Psi I’ll have a party because that’d be awesome.
I think you should look more closely at the arguments I made above: my hypothesis makes testable predictions, but if verified the evidence isn’t reliably communicable to other people. By my hypothesis psi is perhaps “exploitable” but I cringe at the thought of trying to “exploit” a little-understood agentic process in the case that it actually exists.
A safety heuristic. Just say no to demons, for the same reason you should say no to drugs until you figure out what they are, what they do, and the intentions of the agent offering them to you.
Sorry for butting in, but don’t you find it strangely convenient that your psi effect is defined just so as to move it outside the domain of scientific inquiry? Do you anticipate ever finding a way to reliably distinguish it from random chance, or do you anticipate forming another excuse, ahem, reason why you should have expected from the start that the way you just tried would not reliably show it? I’d claim you’re chasing invisible dragons, but I find it incredulous that you haven’t thought of the comparison yourself, which leaves me confused. How does an effect look like that is real but cannot be distinguished from random chance by any reliable method? How would you extract utility from such an effect? And is it worth it to break your tools of inquiry that otherwise work very well, just so you can end up believing in an effect that is true but useless? Food for thought.
I am aware of this. I would have to be incredibly stupid not to be aware of it.
I can reliably distinguish it from random chance, but by hypothesis I just can’t tell you about it. I can get evidence, just not communicable evidence.
I think maybe every time I post about evasive psi I should include a standard disclaimer along the lines of “Yes, I realize how incredibly dodgy this sounds and I also find it rather frustrating, but bringing it up and harping on it never leads anywhere.”
How about trying to leave a line of retreat and imagine what the world would be like if the theory Will is proposing were correct?
(E.g., imagine a transhumanly intelligent agent who only hangs out with you when it knows that no one will believe that it hung out with you. This means that when it hangs out with you it can do arbitrarily magical things, but you’ll never be able to tell anyone about it, because the agent went out of its way to keep that from happening, and it’s freakin’ transhumanly intelligent so you know that any apparent chance of convincing others of its visit is probably not actually a chance. Is this theory improbable? Absolutely. But supposing that the agent actually does hang out with you and does arbitrarily magical stuff, you don’t have any way of convincing others that the theory is a posterior probable, and you’ll probably just end up making a fool out of yourself if you try, as the agent predicted.
I think a problem might be when people think of psi they think ‘ability to shoot fireballs’ rather than ‘convincing superintelligences to act on your behalf’ (note that that’s just one possible mechanism of many and we shouldn’t privilege any hypotheses yet). If people thought they were dealing with intelligent agents then they’d use the parts of their brain designed for dealing with agents, and those parts are pretty good at what they do. Note we only want to use those parts because, at least in my opinion, psi as a relatively passive phenomenon seems to be a falsified hypothesis, or at the very least it doesn’t explain a ton of things that seem just as real as passive psi phenomena.)
Oh, you mean Bill Murray.
That’s my point, I don’t expect to be able to make consistently differing observations! If his theory is correct, we still wouldn’t be able to reliably exploit that feature.
I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m saying even if it’s right it’s useless to believe.
I mean if there is some form of reliable Psi I’ll have a party because that’d be awesome.
I think you should look more closely at the arguments I made above: my hypothesis makes testable predictions, but if verified the evidence isn’t reliably communicable to other people. By my hypothesis psi is perhaps “exploitable” but I cringe at the thought of trying to “exploit” a little-understood agentic process in the case that it actually exists.
Why?
A safety heuristic. Just say no to demons, for the same reason you should say no to drugs until you figure out what they are, what they do, and the intentions of the agent offering them to you.