I enjoyed reading the Temptation of Christ article. One thing that struck me is that the Jesus character responded far more reasonably than your typical deluded person does when asked questions which challenge their beliefs, at least in my experience.
In my experience, when a person’s beliefs are driven by emotion, he tends to have much more of a “concede nothing” mentality—even if he is sane. Can Jesus in the story use this as evidence that he really is Jesus? Again we run into the problem that irrationality blinds the irrational to their own irrationality. But it’s still worth considering I think.
One of my pieces of evidence that I’m not schizophrenic and hallucinating my whole life is that from what I can tell from anecdotes, being schizophrenic involves a lot more getting yelled at, pushed around, and generally denied agency than I experience.
I’ve spent a cursory couple of minutes hunting for the original, but I can’t find it.
Belief one is the President of the United States is a common delusion of grandeur. Anyone waking up in the morning believing they’re the President of the United States is probably wrong about this fact, but I still want the President of the United States to do his job.
I like that quote, but it occurs to me that you can subdivide this belief into two categories:
Believing that you are the U.S. President AND believing the people you meet generally recognize this fact about you.
Believing that you are the U.S. President AND believing the people you meet won’t accept that you are president.
I’m not an expert on delusions, but I would think that of insane people who are deluded about being President, pretty much all of them fall into the latter category. e.g. if you asked one of them, he would tell you there is an imposter in the White House who has deceived everyone into thinking he (the imposter) is President. Or something along those lines. And he would honestly believe it.
So if you wake up believing you are the President, and the people around you seem to be calling you “Mr. President” and following your orders, and you seem to be living in the White House, then probably you should get out of bed, get dressed, and do your job (as President). On the other hand, if nobody will accept that you are President, and there are no pretty interns trying to flirt with you, then my advice is not to worry about doing your job as President.
This isn’t about Jesus Christ, and it isn’t about schizophrenia. It isn’t even about religion. It’s about the Simulation Argument.
If we have good reason to believe that we will be reliably simulated many times in the future, than we can trivially conclude that we are almost certainly inone of the simulations.
This isn’t about Jesus Christ, and it isn’t about schizophrenia. It isn’t even about religion. It’s about the Simulation Argument.
Well what it’s about is obviously open to interpretation. But I do think there is a distinction between “Am I in the Matrix?” and “Am I insane?” For one thing, we KNOW (or do we?) that there are a lot of people out there who suffer from big-time delusions. There isn’t the same certainty about the existence of simulations.
For another, suppose you are presented with compelling evidence that you are in a simulation. e.g. the simulator shows up; tells you that’s it a simulation; defies the laws of physics; and gives you some “cheat codes” which seem to work reliably. In that case, a reasonable person would update the probability that he is in a simulation to make it a good deal higher. Unless of course he seriously doubted his sanity. So the question of sanity would seem even more fundamental than the simulation question.
A reasonable person would update both the probability that he is in a simulation and the probability that he is insane to be a good deal higher, at the expense of the hypothesis “I am sane and not in a simulation”. That fact probably wouldn’t be changed much if he doubted his sanity already.
A reasonable person would update both the probability that he is in a simulation and the probability that he is insane to be a good deal higher, at the expense of the hypothesis “I am sane and not in a simulation”.
Yes I agree. But if he already thinks there is a good chance he is insane, then it seems to me most of the extra probability will go to that hypothesis alone.
For example, if you think there is a 1 in 100 chance that you are in a simulation and a 1 in 10 chance that you are insane; and then you get a visit from Mr. Simulator, then arguably you should conclude that there is a very high probability you are insane, perhaps 90%. Anyway, the main point is that these two issues—insanity and simulation—can be conceptually separated to a large extent.
Well, it depends what you mean by “most of the extra probability”—a change from 50% to 60% probability represents a smaller change in perceived amount of evidence than from 1% to 5%. I think meeting one of the dark lords of the matrix should probably weigh more as evidence for being in a simulation than for being insane, or at worst it should be 50⁄50 for each hypothesis.
Certainly the concepts can be conceptually separated (unless you put more meaning into that than I’m seeing), although I object to calling the one question more fundamental than the other.
Well, it depends what you mean by “most of the extra probability”—a change from 50% to 60% probability represents a smaller change in perceived amount of evidence than from 1% to 5%. I think meeting one of the dark lords of the matrix should probably weigh more as evidence for being in a simulation than for being insane, or at worst it should be 50⁄50 for each hypothesis.
I disagree, although admittedly I am too lazy to do the actual calculation. Basically you can divide things up into 3 possibilities: (1) you are sane and not in a simulation; (2) you are sane and in a simulation; and (3) you are insane and not in a simulation. (Another possibility is that you are both insane AND in a simulation, but using the probabilities I assigned, this is sufficiently unlikely that I will ignore it.)
As noted above, if you are visited by Mr. Simulator, the probability of (1) goes from high to basically zero and that amount will be distributed between (2) and (3). To determine how much goes to each, I think you need to reverse the conditional probabilities. So, (1) assuming that you are insane, what is the probability of perceiving a visit by Mr. Simulator; and (2) assuming that you are in a simulation, what is the probability of being visited by Mr. Simulator? Both of these are pretty low and I don’t see any reason to believe that one is a good deal higher than the other. So my intuition is that the insanity hypothesis is roughly as favored as before vis-a-vis the simulation hypothesis, i.e. much more likely based on my assumptions.
Certainly the concepts can be conceptually separated (unless you put more meaning into that than I’m seeing), although I object to calling the one question more fundamental than the other.
Well that’s just a matter of semantics, but let me ask you this: Who is more likely to have a shot at developing a decent mental model of the universe? Someone who is delusional or someone who is in the Matrix? Both will have a difficult time of it but the former situation is basically hopeless.
What I meant by “50/50 for each hypothesis” was the conditional probabilities for each being the same, so I don’t think we disagree very much there, except that I intuitively feel that meeting the simulator and having him try to convince you you’re in a simulation really should be evidence that prefers the hypothesis that you’re in a simulation.
I enjoyed reading the Temptation of Christ article. One thing that struck me is that the Jesus character responded far more reasonably than your typical deluded person does when asked questions which challenge their beliefs, at least in my experience.
In my experience, when a person’s beliefs are driven by emotion, he tends to have much more of a “concede nothing” mentality—even if he is sane. Can Jesus in the story use this as evidence that he really is Jesus? Again we run into the problem that irrationality blinds the irrational to their own irrationality. But it’s still worth considering I think.
One of my pieces of evidence that I’m not schizophrenic and hallucinating my whole life is that from what I can tell from anecdotes, being schizophrenic involves a lot more getting yelled at, pushed around, and generally denied agency than I experience.
I’ve spent a cursory couple of minutes hunting for the original, but I can’t find it.
I like that quote, but it occurs to me that you can subdivide this belief into two categories:
Believing that you are the U.S. President AND believing the people you meet generally recognize this fact about you.
Believing that you are the U.S. President AND believing the people you meet won’t accept that you are president.
I’m not an expert on delusions, but I would think that of insane people who are deluded about being President, pretty much all of them fall into the latter category. e.g. if you asked one of them, he would tell you there is an imposter in the White House who has deceived everyone into thinking he (the imposter) is President. Or something along those lines. And he would honestly believe it.
So if you wake up believing you are the President, and the people around you seem to be calling you “Mr. President” and following your orders, and you seem to be living in the White House, then probably you should get out of bed, get dressed, and do your job (as President). On the other hand, if nobody will accept that you are President, and there are no pretty interns trying to flirt with you, then my advice is not to worry about doing your job as President.
This isn’t about Jesus Christ, and it isn’t about schizophrenia. It isn’t even about religion. It’s about the Simulation Argument.
If we have good reason to believe that we will be reliably simulated many times in the future, than we can trivially conclude that we are almost certainly inone of the simulations.
Well what it’s about is obviously open to interpretation. But I do think there is a distinction between “Am I in the Matrix?” and “Am I insane?” For one thing, we KNOW (or do we?) that there are a lot of people out there who suffer from big-time delusions. There isn’t the same certainty about the existence of simulations.
For another, suppose you are presented with compelling evidence that you are in a simulation. e.g. the simulator shows up; tells you that’s it a simulation; defies the laws of physics; and gives you some “cheat codes” which seem to work reliably. In that case, a reasonable person would update the probability that he is in a simulation to make it a good deal higher. Unless of course he seriously doubted his sanity. So the question of sanity would seem even more fundamental than the simulation question.
A reasonable person would update both the probability that he is in a simulation and the probability that he is insane to be a good deal higher, at the expense of the hypothesis “I am sane and not in a simulation”. That fact probably wouldn’t be changed much if he doubted his sanity already.
Yes I agree. But if he already thinks there is a good chance he is insane, then it seems to me most of the extra probability will go to that hypothesis alone.
For example, if you think there is a 1 in 100 chance that you are in a simulation and a 1 in 10 chance that you are insane; and then you get a visit from Mr. Simulator, then arguably you should conclude that there is a very high probability you are insane, perhaps 90%. Anyway, the main point is that these two issues—insanity and simulation—can be conceptually separated to a large extent.
Well, it depends what you mean by “most of the extra probability”—a change from 50% to 60% probability represents a smaller change in perceived amount of evidence than from 1% to 5%. I think meeting one of the dark lords of the matrix should probably weigh more as evidence for being in a simulation than for being insane, or at worst it should be 50⁄50 for each hypothesis.
Certainly the concepts can be conceptually separated (unless you put more meaning into that than I’m seeing), although I object to calling the one question more fundamental than the other.
I disagree, although admittedly I am too lazy to do the actual calculation. Basically you can divide things up into 3 possibilities: (1) you are sane and not in a simulation; (2) you are sane and in a simulation; and (3) you are insane and not in a simulation. (Another possibility is that you are both insane AND in a simulation, but using the probabilities I assigned, this is sufficiently unlikely that I will ignore it.)
As noted above, if you are visited by Mr. Simulator, the probability of (1) goes from high to basically zero and that amount will be distributed between (2) and (3). To determine how much goes to each, I think you need to reverse the conditional probabilities. So, (1) assuming that you are insane, what is the probability of perceiving a visit by Mr. Simulator; and (2) assuming that you are in a simulation, what is the probability of being visited by Mr. Simulator? Both of these are pretty low and I don’t see any reason to believe that one is a good deal higher than the other. So my intuition is that the insanity hypothesis is roughly as favored as before vis-a-vis the simulation hypothesis, i.e. much more likely based on my assumptions.
Well that’s just a matter of semantics, but let me ask you this: Who is more likely to have a shot at developing a decent mental model of the universe? Someone who is delusional or someone who is in the Matrix? Both will have a difficult time of it but the former situation is basically hopeless.
What I meant by “50/50 for each hypothesis” was the conditional probabilities for each being the same, so I don’t think we disagree very much there, except that I intuitively feel that meeting the simulator and having him try to convince you you’re in a simulation really should be evidence that prefers the hypothesis that you’re in a simulation.
(did you forget to include a link?)
It’s right on the front page of Lesswrong—I would have commented at the link but the comment section is drowning in spam.
Anyway here is the link:
http://squid314.livejournal.com/324957.html