Dude, this post is amazing (though I could probably articulate (or resolve in the process) a few quibbles I have with it, if I had time for that)! You should seriously consider rewriting some of Eliezer’s stuff.
I noticed that “reality is normal” and “reality is weirdly normal” both commit the mind projection fallacy. However, this is OK (though probably not optimal) if the reader has a technical understanding of what you mean (which is more likely to be true for someone who is reading this than for someone who is not).
That being said, I have a challenge for you. Since I think that this exposition is better than Eliezer’s, I challenge you to rewrite this post without any direct dependencies on his work (of course, you will have to formally cite any pages of his whose ideas you consult). Write it so that a competent person who has never heard of Less Wrong could understand it in as close to a technical way as is possible with as abstract a concept as this (and you’ve inspired me to try the same!).
Thanks, notsonewuser! Do tell me some of your quibbles if you have time.
Perhaps I’ll add a cautionary link to the Mind Projection Fallacy where I explicitly allude to this—“the cosmos as it sees itself”.
I like your challenge a lot! I’ll rewrite this for a more general audience and post it to my blog. Possibly as two separate posts, the first introducing ‘Reality is normal’ and the unusualness koan, the second discussing Egan’s Law. I’ll try to remove ‘dependencies’ in the sense of prerequisites for comprehension, but I don’t think I’ll try to remove the large number of intellectual connections to what Eliezer’s written. What Eliezer’s written is too useful, and part of my reason to make this more accessible is so new people will check out the Sequence posts I link.
Dude, this post is amazing (though I could probably articulate (or resolve in the process) a few quibbles I have with it, if I had time for that)! You should seriously consider rewriting some of Eliezer’s stuff.
I noticed that “reality is normal” and “reality is weirdly normal” both commit the mind projection fallacy. However, this is OK (though probably not optimal) if the reader has a technical understanding of what you mean (which is more likely to be true for someone who is reading this than for someone who is not).
That being said, I have a challenge for you. Since I think that this exposition is better than Eliezer’s, I challenge you to rewrite this post without any direct dependencies on his work (of course, you will have to formally cite any pages of his whose ideas you consult). Write it so that a competent person who has never heard of Less Wrong could understand it in as close to a technical way as is possible with as abstract a concept as this (and you’ve inspired me to try the same!).
I can feel the void.
Thanks, notsonewuser! Do tell me some of your quibbles if you have time.
Perhaps I’ll add a cautionary link to the Mind Projection Fallacy where I explicitly allude to this—“the cosmos as it sees itself”.
I like your challenge a lot! I’ll rewrite this for a more general audience and post it to my blog. Possibly as two separate posts, the first introducing ‘Reality is normal’ and the unusualness koan, the second discussing Egan’s Law. I’ll try to remove ‘dependencies’ in the sense of prerequisites for comprehension, but I don’t think I’ll try to remove the large number of intellectual connections to what Eliezer’s written. What Eliezer’s written is too useful, and part of my reason to make this more accessible is so new people will check out the Sequence posts I link.