Yes, and no, it does not boil down to Chalmer’s argument. (as Aaronson makes clear in the paragraph before the one you quote, where he cites the Chalmers argument!) The argument from complexity is about the nature and complexity of systems capable of playing chess—which is why I think you need to carefully read the entire piece and think about what it says.
But as a small rejoinder, if we’re talking about playing a single game, the entire argument is ridiculous; I can write the entire “algorithm” a kilobyte of specific instructions. So it’s not that an algorithm must be capable of playing multiple counterfactual games to qualify, or that counterfactuals are required for moral weight—it’s that the argument hinges on a misunderstanding of how complex different classes of system need to be to do the things they do.
PS. Apologies that the original response comes off as combative—I really think this discussion is important, and wanted to engage to correct an important point, but have very little time to do so at the moment!
As far as I can tell, Scott’s argument does not argue against the possibility that a waterfall could execute a single forward pass of a chess playing algorithm, if you defined a gerrymandered enough map between the waterfall and logical states.
When he defines the waterfall as a potential oracle, implicit in that is that the oracle will respond correctly to different inputs—counterfactuals.
Viewing the waterfall’s potential oracleness as an intrinsic property of that system is to view counterfactual waterfalls as also intrinsic.
as Aaronson makes clear in the paragraph before the one you quote, where he cites the Chalmers argument!
Different arguments aren’t always orthogonal. They are often partial refraimings of the same generators. Maybe I was too clumsy when I said his boils down to the chalmers response, what I really meant to say was his argument is vulnerable to the same issues as the chalmers response (counterfactuals are not intrinsic to the waterfall), which is why I don’t think it solves the problem.
if we’re talking about playing a single game, the entire argument is ridiculous; I can write the entire “algorithm” a kilobyte of specific instructions.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here.
PS. Apologies that the original response comes off as combative
Yes, and no, it does not boil down to Chalmer’s argument. (as Aaronson makes clear in the paragraph before the one you quote, where he cites the Chalmers argument!) The argument from complexity is about the nature and complexity of systems capable of playing chess—which is why I think you need to carefully read the entire piece and think about what it says.
But as a small rejoinder, if we’re talking about playing a single game, the entire argument is ridiculous; I can write the entire “algorithm” a kilobyte of specific instructions. So it’s not that an algorithm must be capable of playing multiple counterfactual games to qualify, or that counterfactuals are required for moral weight—it’s that the argument hinges on a misunderstanding of how complex different classes of system need to be to do the things they do.
PS. Apologies that the original response comes off as combative—I really think this discussion is important, and wanted to engage to correct an important point, but have very little time to do so at the moment!
As far as I can tell, Scott’s argument does not argue against the possibility that a waterfall could execute a single forward pass of a chess playing algorithm, if you defined a gerrymandered enough map between the waterfall and logical states.
When he defines the waterfall as a potential oracle, implicit in that is that the oracle will respond correctly to different inputs—counterfactuals.
Viewing the waterfall’s potential oracleness as an intrinsic property of that system is to view counterfactual waterfalls as also intrinsic.
Different arguments aren’t always orthogonal. They are often partial refraimings of the same generators. Maybe I was too clumsy when I said his boils down to the chalmers response, what I really meant to say was his argument is vulnerable to the same issues as the chalmers response (counterfactuals are not intrinsic to the waterfall), which is why I don’t think it solves the problem.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here.
Thanks, I appreciate this :)
I’ve written my point more clearly here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zxLbepy29tPg8qMnw/refuting-searle-s-wall-putnam-s-rock-and-johnson-s-popcorn