Eliezer, I don’t think your reality fluid is the same thing as my continuous dials, which were intended as an alternative to your binary check marks. I think we can use algorithmic complexity theory to answer the question “to what degree is a structure (e.g. a mind-history) implemented in the universe” and then just make sure valuable structures are implemented to a high degree and disvaluable structures are implemented to a low degree. The reason most minds should expect to see ordered universes is because it’s much easier to specify an ordered universe and then locate a mind within it, than it is to specify a mind from scratch. If this commits me to believing funny stuff like people with arrows pointing at them are more alive than people not with arrows pointing at them, I’m inclined to say “so be it”.
Eliezer, I don’t think your reality fluid is the same thing as my continuous dials, which were intended as an alternative to your binary check marks. I think we can use algorithmic complexity theory to answer the question “to what degree is a structure (e.g. a mind-history) implemented in the universe” and then just make sure valuable structures are implemented to a high degree and disvaluable structures are implemented to a low degree. The reason most minds should expect to see ordered universes is because it’s much easier to specify an ordered universe and then locate a mind within it, than it is to specify a mind from scratch. If this commits me to believing funny stuff like people with arrows pointing at them are more alive than people not with arrows pointing at them, I’m inclined to say “so be it”.