On the other hand, while “post-utopian” is linked to “colonial alienation” and vice versa, these two elements don’t connect to the rest of the causal fabric—so that must not be a universe.
If I really want to, there’s an easy way for me to sidestep this. I just postulate something called “post-consciousness” which is caused both by colonial alienation and by particular arrangements of neurons in the brains of particular people (in a similar way to that in which epiphenomenalists would say consciousness is caused). Presto! A causal chain from my familiar causal fabric to colonial alienation.
In fact, we can add an extra node to any causal diagram without affecting the probabilities of observations only involving the other nodes, by making it an effect of all other nodes but not a cause of anything. By so doing we can connect the diagram up. Thus although we can’t subvert the approach in Eliezer’s post by postulating an ultimate cause (God), we can always subvert it by postulating an ultimate effect.
What I have said isn’t normally a problem in real-life applications of the test `is it part of this connected causal fabric’, since very often no such causal connection is postulated. My point is that this test can’t in-principle rule out anything. It can only serve as an in-practice test by which we can temporarily rule out objects for which no such causal connection has been postulated.
I think it makes more sense to say that this test rules out ideas that can’t actually be tested as hypotheses. An idea can only be tested by observation once it is formulated as a causal network. Once it’s formulated as a testable hypothesis, you can simply discard this epiphenomenal example by Solomonoff induction.
If I really want to, there’s an easy way for me to sidestep this. I just postulate something called “post-consciousness” which is caused both by colonial alienation and by particular arrangements of neurons in the brains of particular people (in a similar way to that in which epiphenomenalists would say consciousness is caused). Presto! A causal chain from my familiar causal fabric to colonial alienation.
In fact, we can add an extra node to any causal diagram without affecting the probabilities of observations only involving the other nodes, by making it an effect of all other nodes but not a cause of anything. By so doing we can connect the diagram up. Thus although we can’t subvert the approach in Eliezer’s post by postulating an ultimate cause (God), we can always subvert it by postulating an ultimate effect.
What I have said isn’t normally a problem in real-life applications of the test `is it part of this connected causal fabric’, since very often no such causal connection is postulated. My point is that this test can’t in-principle rule out anything. It can only serve as an in-practice test by which we can temporarily rule out objects for which no such causal connection has been postulated.
I think it makes more sense to say that this test rules out ideas that can’t actually be tested as hypotheses. An idea can only be tested by observation once it is formulated as a causal network. Once it’s formulated as a testable hypothesis, you can simply discard this epiphenomenal example by Solomonoff induction.