Every interpretation yields the same results. There’s no known way of rejigging the initial conditions-to-laws-of-evolution balance that does better.
Exactly. The fact that multiple conceptually distinct rule-sets yield the same results is what makes it degenerate. In the same way that a single policy can be described exactly by multiple degenerate reward functions of similar complexity, the evolution of the universe can be described exactly by multiple sets of physical laws of similar complexity. Sure the randomness the best we can do in terms of prediction but the underlying way that randomness is produced is degenerate:
1. The next state of the universe is evolved from the current state by a combination of details about the current state and a random fluctuation that just happened
2. The next state of the universe is evolved from the current state by a combination of details about the current state and a set of events by the laws of the universe which only appear random to us
3. The next state of the universe is evolved from the current state by a combination of details about the current state and a set of observationally random events that were chosen to occur in sequence before the beginning of the universe
and so on...
I personally like quantum mechanics though. I’m just picking on it because, while many formulations of deterministic laws exist, people can always make the argument that their “different” interpretations are just different mathematical reformulations of a single concept. In contrast, it’s easy to pick conceptually different ways in which observationally random events are produced.
In science, the distinction between 1, 2 and 3 don’t matter since they all predict the same things. But similar distinctions in terms of reward functions matter greatly because they, intuitively, imply different “subjective” experiences. But, the upshot is that the article’s claim that “physics being degenerate” is a controversial idea isn’t something I believe.
The fact that multiple conceptually distinct rule-sets yield the same results is what makes it degenerate.
What does the singular “it” refer to? You could claim that QM is degenerate because multiple formulations lead to the same result, but you seemed to have a specific beef with Copenhagen.
But similar distinctions in terms of reward functions matter greatly because they, intuitively, imply different “subjective” experiences.
Much more than that. There is a lot of moral concern about whether someone is doing something bad as a result of trying to do something good incompetently, or doing something bad intentionally.
What does the singular “it” refer to? You could claim that QM is degenerate because multiple formulations lead to the same result but you seemed to have a specific beef with Copenhagen
I picked Copenhagen because it involves collapsing a wave-function to a random state for a specific universe (ie, the universe evolves in a way that is partially random). If you’re a many worlds theorist, you could plausibly claim that, since the probability distribution describes how frequently different kinds of worlds happen with respect to each other, the universe doesn’t evolve randomly at all—what we perceive as randomness describes an deterministic distribution of all possible worlds.
To me, it looks easy to rebut this argument—you just point out that there is still randomness in your subjective perspective of the world. But then someone else might question that because your “subjective perspective” becomes a matter of anthropics and then the whole conversation gets into some confusing weeds that would dramatically lengthen the amount of time I need to think about things. So I picked Copenhagen specifically as a short-cut.
So yeah, I was picking on Copenhagen because it’s easier to establish in the context of the point I was trying to make (quantum mechanics is degenerate). But I wasn’t picking on it because other interpretations of QM are less problematic than Copenhagen.
Also to clarify:
specific beef with Copenhagen
I don’t have a beef with Copenhagen or with QM. I just think its a degenerate world model and, with the definition I’m using, degenerate world models of the kind that QM is aren’t a bad thing.
Much more than that. There is a lot of moral concern about whether someone is doing something bad as a result of trying to do something good incompetently, or doing something bad intentionally.
As a sidenote: One might try to solve this problem by just applying Occam’s Razor (doesn’t it seem more likely and more simple that someone is acting in ways reflective of their preferences rather than incompetence?). But whether this actually works seems unlikely to me because
-The paper this article is trying to rebut indicates that Occam’s Razor will miss people’s actual preferences because most preferences are unlikely to be the most simple explanation
-This article tries to rebut by pointing out that the paper’s argument proves too much by implying that physics models are degenerate
-I think that physics models are pretty obviously degenerate and I’m okay with us having degenerate models of physics. I’m not okay in general with degenerate models of what people prefer
Exactly. The fact that multiple conceptually distinct rule-sets yield the same results is what makes it degenerate. In the same way that a single policy can be described exactly by multiple degenerate reward functions of similar complexity, the evolution of the universe can be described exactly by multiple sets of physical laws of similar complexity. Sure the randomness the best we can do in terms of prediction but the underlying way that randomness is produced is degenerate:
1. The next state of the universe is evolved from the current state by a combination of details about the current state and a random fluctuation that just happened
2. The next state of the universe is evolved from the current state by a combination of details about the current state and a set of events by the laws of the universe which only appear random to us
3. The next state of the universe is evolved from the current state by a combination of details about the current state and a set of observationally random events that were chosen to occur in sequence before the beginning of the universe
and so on...
I personally like quantum mechanics though. I’m just picking on it because, while many formulations of deterministic laws exist, people can always make the argument that their “different” interpretations are just different mathematical reformulations of a single concept. In contrast, it’s easy to pick conceptually different ways in which observationally random events are produced.
In science, the distinction between 1, 2 and 3 don’t matter since they all predict the same things. But similar distinctions in terms of reward functions matter greatly because they, intuitively, imply different “subjective” experiences. But, the upshot is that the article’s claim that “physics being degenerate” is a controversial idea isn’t something I believe.
What does the singular “it” refer to? You could claim that QM is degenerate because multiple formulations lead to the same result, but you seemed to have a specific beef with Copenhagen.
Much more than that. There is a lot of moral concern about whether someone is doing something bad as a result of trying to do something good incompetently, or doing something bad intentionally.
I picked Copenhagen because it involves collapsing a wave-function to a random state for a specific universe (ie, the universe evolves in a way that is partially random). If you’re a many worlds theorist, you could plausibly claim that, since the probability distribution describes how frequently different kinds of worlds happen with respect to each other, the universe doesn’t evolve randomly at all—what we perceive as randomness describes an deterministic distribution of all possible worlds.
To me, it looks easy to rebut this argument—you just point out that there is still randomness in your subjective perspective of the world. But then someone else might question that because your “subjective perspective” becomes a matter of anthropics and then the whole conversation gets into some confusing weeds that would dramatically lengthen the amount of time I need to think about things. So I picked Copenhagen specifically as a short-cut.
So yeah, I was picking on Copenhagen because it’s easier to establish in the context of the point I was trying to make (quantum mechanics is degenerate). But I wasn’t picking on it because other interpretations of QM are less problematic than Copenhagen.
Also to clarify:
I don’t have a beef with Copenhagen or with QM. I just think its a degenerate world model and, with the definition I’m using, degenerate world models of the kind that QM is aren’t a bad thing.
Even more dramatically than that, we can reverse this to get another important implication! If you’re trying to figure out what’s good for a person based on the consequences they seem to be seeking out, you can’t tell whether that person actually wants the consequences of their behavior (ie the consequences are subjectively good) or whether they want something else but are going about it in an irrational and ineffective way (ie the consequences are subjectively indeterminate). This is really bad for AI alignment.
As a sidenote: One might try to solve this problem by just applying Occam’s Razor (doesn’t it seem more likely and more simple that someone is acting in ways reflective of their preferences rather than incompetence?). But whether this actually works seems unlikely to me because
-The paper this article is trying to rebut indicates that Occam’s Razor will miss people’s actual preferences because most preferences are unlikely to be the most simple explanation
-This article tries to rebut by pointing out that the paper’s argument proves too much by implying that physics models are degenerate
-I think that physics models are pretty obviously degenerate and I’m okay with us having degenerate models of physics. I’m not okay in general with degenerate models of what people prefer
If you want to explain why the multiple interpretations of QM are degenerate,the minimum number of examples you need is 2 not 1.