1 ) That human beings are all individual instances of the exact same mind. You’re really the same person as any random other one, and vice versa. And of course that single mind had to be someone blind enough not to chance upon that fact ever, regardless of how numerous he was.
2 ) That there are only 16 real people, of which you are, and that this is all but a VR game. Subsequently results in all the players simultaneously being still unable to be conscious of that fact, AND asking that you and the AI be removed from the game. (Inspiration : misunderstanding situation in page 55-56 of Iain Banks’s Look to Windwards).
3 ) That we are in the second age of the universe : time has been running backwards for a few billion years. Our minds are actually the result of the original minds of previous people being rewound, their whole life to be undone, and finally negated into oblivion. All our thoughts processes are of course horribly distorted, insane mirror versions of the originals, and make no sense whatsoever (in the original timeframe, which is the valid one).
4 )
5 ) That our true childhood is between age 0 and ~ 50-90 (with a few exceptional individuals reaching maturity sooner or later). If you thought the ‘adult conspiracy’ already lied a lot, and well to ‘children’, prepare yourself for a shock in a few decades.
6 ) That the AI just deduced that the laws of physics can only be consistent with us being eternally trapped in a time loop. The extent of the time loop is : thirty two seconds spread evenly around now. Nothing in particular can be done about it. Enjoy your remaining 10 seconds.
7 ) Causality doesn’t exist. Not only is the universe timeless, but causality is an epiphenomenon, which we only believe because of a confusion of our ideas. Who ever observed a “causation” ? Did you, like, expect causation particles jumping between atoms or something ? Only correlation exists.
8 ) We actually exist in a simulation. The twist is : somewhere out there, some people really crossed the line with the ruling AI. We’re slightly modified versions of these people : modified in a way as to experience the maximum amount of their zuul feeling, which is the very worst nirdy you could imagine.
9 ) The universe has actually 5 spatial macro dimensions, of which we perceive only 3. Considering what we look like if you take the other 2 into account, this obliviousness may actually not be all too surprising.
10 ) That any single human being has actually a 22 % probability of not being able to be conscious of one or more of these 9 statements above.
Well, kidding aside, your argument, taken from Pearl, seems elegant. I’ll however have to read the book before I feel entitled to having an opinion on that one, as I haven’t grokked the idea, merely a faint impression of it and how it sounds healthy.
So at this point, I only have some of my own ideas and intuitions about the problem, and haven’t searched for the answers yet.
Some considerations though :
Our idea of causality is based upon a human intuition. Could it be that it is just as wrong as vitalism, time, little billiard balls bumping around, or the yet confused problem of consciousness ? That’s what would bug me if I had no good technical explanation, one provably unbiased by my prior intuitive belief about causality (otherwise there’s always the risk I’ve just been rationalizing my intuition).
Every time we observe “causality”, we really only observe correlations, and then deduce that there is something more behind those. But is that a simple explanation ? Could we devise a simpler consistent explanation to account for our observation of correlations ? As in, totally doing away with causality ? Or at the very least, redefining causality as something that doesn’t quite correspond to our folk definition of it ?
Grossly, my intuition, when I hear the word causality is something along the lines of
″ Take event A and event B, where those events are very small, such that they aren’t made of interconnected parts themselves—they are the parts, building blocks that can be used in bigger, complex systems. Place event A anywhere within the universe and time, then provided the rules of physics are the same each time we do that, and nothing interferes in, event B will always occur, with probability 1, independantly of my observing it or not.”
Ok, so could (and should ?) we say that causality is when a prior event implies a probability of one for a certain posterior event to occur ? Or else, is it then not probability 1, just an arbitrarily very high probability ?
In the latter case with less than 1 probability, then that really violates my folk notion of causality, and I don’t really see what’s causal about a thing that can capriciously choose to happen or not, even if the conditions are the same.
In the former case, I can see how that would be a very new thing, I mean, probability 1 for one event implying that another will occur ? What better, firmer foundation to build an universe upon ? It feels really, very comfortable and convenient, all too comfortable in fact.
Basically, neither of those possibilities strike me as obviously right, for those reasons and then some, the idea I have of causality is confused at best. And yet, I’d say it is not too unsophisticated or pondered as it stands.
Which makes me wonder how people who’d have put less thought in it (probably a lot of people) can deservedly feel any more comfortable with saying it exists with no afterthought (almost everyone), even as they don’t have any good explanation for it (which is a rare thing), such as perhaps the one given by Pearl.
I may be a bit too paranoid but it occurred to me that I should doublecheck the apparent nature of 4. So I copy and pasted the entire text segment into an automatic ROT 13 window (under the logic that my filter wouldn’t try to censor that text and so if I saw gibberish next to 4 just like with the others I’d know that there was a serious problem). I resolved that I would report a positive result here if I got one before I tried to read the resulting text, to prevent the confabulation from completely removing my recognition of the presence of text. I can report a negative result.
Number 6 is unfortunately one of the self-undermining ones: if it were true, then there’d be no reason why your memories of having examined the AI should be evidence for the AI’s reliability.
I had the idea for 3) myself recently in the context of an SF story. Specifically it would be about how life, the universe and everything look when times goes the other way. The cutest part was that whenever you do something and don’t know why you did it, it’s because the time-reversed consciousness which shares your atoms exercised his free will.
Also, the laws of physics mention only correlation.
I cannot think of a single law of physics that mentions correlation. F = ma. F = G m1 m2/r^2. The wave equation. The diffusion equation. Conservation of energy. Equipartition. Schrödinger’s equation. Boyle’s law. Hooke’s law. Conservation of momentum. Lorentz invariance. No, correlation is not mentioned in any of these. Look in the index of any textbook on physics for “correlation”. I have not performed the experiment, but I predict that if the word appears at all, it will only be in discussions of either (1) how to handle experimental error, or (2) Bell’s inequality.
Unless this is some strange new definition of “mention”, along the lines of “not actually mentioned at all, but implied by a certain philosophy of science not actually held by any substantial number of scientists, variously known as ‘positivism’ or ‘empiricism’, which holds that statements of physical law are nothing more than a compression of experience, and are not assertions about the supposed mechanisms of a supposed real world.”
This makes sense, as it’s all we can really measure.
I take a ruler, and measure the height of my monitor...403mm.
1 ) That human beings are all individual instances of the exact same mind. You’re really the same person as any random other one, and vice versa. And of course that single mind had to be someone blind enough not to chance upon that fact ever, regardless of how numerous he was.
2 ) That there are only 16 real people, of which you are, and that this is all but a VR game. Subsequently results in all the players simultaneously being still unable to be conscious of that fact, AND asking that you and the AI be removed from the game. (Inspiration : misunderstanding situation in page 55-56 of Iain Banks’s Look to Windwards).
3 ) That we are in the second age of the universe : time has been running backwards for a few billion years. Our minds are actually the result of the original minds of previous people being rewound, their whole life to be undone, and finally negated into oblivion. All our thoughts processes are of course horribly distorted, insane mirror versions of the originals, and make no sense whatsoever (in the original timeframe, which is the valid one).
4 )
5 ) That our true childhood is between age 0 and ~ 50-90 (with a few exceptional individuals reaching maturity sooner or later). If you thought the ‘adult conspiracy’ already lied a lot, and well to ‘children’, prepare yourself for a shock in a few decades.
6 ) That the AI just deduced that the laws of physics can only be consistent with us being eternally trapped in a time loop. The extent of the time loop is : thirty two seconds spread evenly around now. Nothing in particular can be done about it. Enjoy your remaining 10 seconds.
7 ) Causality doesn’t exist. Not only is the universe timeless, but causality is an epiphenomenon, which we only believe because of a confusion of our ideas. Who ever observed a “causation” ? Did you, like, expect causation particles jumping between atoms or something ? Only correlation exists.
8 ) We actually exist in a simulation. The twist is : somewhere out there, some people really crossed the line with the ruling AI. We’re slightly modified versions of these people : modified in a way as to experience the maximum amount of their zuul feeling, which is the very worst nirdy you could imagine.
9 ) The universe has actually 5 spatial macro dimensions, of which we perceive only 3. Considering what we look like if you take the other 2 into account, this obliviousness may actually not be all too surprising.
10 ) That any single human being has actually a 22 % probability of not being able to be conscious of one or more of these 9 statements above.
I really don’t think I could believe #4. I mean, sure, one hippo, but all of them?
I liked #11.
Why was this voted down to −5? I thought it was a clever comment.
I agree. (4) was good too.
But all that correlation has to be caused by something!
Well, kidding aside, your argument, taken from Pearl, seems elegant. I’ll however have to read the book before I feel entitled to having an opinion on that one, as I haven’t grokked the idea, merely a faint impression of it and how it sounds healthy.
So at this point, I only have some of my own ideas and intuitions about the problem, and haven’t searched for the answers yet.
Some considerations though :
Our idea of causality is based upon a human intuition. Could it be that it is just as wrong as vitalism, time, little billiard balls bumping around, or the yet confused problem of consciousness ? That’s what would bug me if I had no good technical explanation, one provably unbiased by my prior intuitive belief about causality (otherwise there’s always the risk I’ve just been rationalizing my intuition).
Every time we observe “causality”, we really only observe correlations, and then deduce that there is something more behind those. But is that a simple explanation ? Could we devise a simpler consistent explanation to account for our observation of correlations ? As in, totally doing away with causality ? Or at the very least, redefining causality as something that doesn’t quite correspond to our folk definition of it ?
Grossly, my intuition, when I hear the word causality is something along the lines of
″ Take event A and event B, where those events are very small, such that they aren’t made of interconnected parts themselves—they are the parts, building blocks that can be used in bigger, complex systems. Place event A anywhere within the universe and time, then provided the rules of physics are the same each time we do that, and nothing interferes in, event B will always occur, with probability 1, independantly of my observing it or not.” Ok, so could (and should ?) we say that causality is when a prior event implies a probability of one for a certain posterior event to occur ? Or else, is it then not probability 1, just an arbitrarily very high probability ?
In the latter case with less than 1 probability, then that really violates my folk notion of causality, and I don’t really see what’s causal about a thing that can capriciously choose to happen or not, even if the conditions are the same.
In the former case, I can see how that would be a very new thing, I mean, probability 1 for one event implying that another will occur ? What better, firmer foundation to build an universe upon ? It feels really, very comfortable and convenient, all too comfortable in fact.
Basically, neither of those possibilities strike me as obviously right, for those reasons and then some, the idea I have of causality is confused at best. And yet, I’d say it is not too unsophisticated or pondered as it stands. Which makes me wonder how people who’d have put less thought in it (probably a lot of people) can deservedly feel any more comfortable with saying it exists with no afterthought (almost everyone), even as they don’t have any good explanation for it (which is a rare thing), such as perhaps the one given by Pearl.
I may be a bit too paranoid but it occurred to me that I should doublecheck the apparent nature of 4. So I copy and pasted the entire text segment into an automatic ROT 13 window (under the logic that my filter wouldn’t try to censor that text and so if I saw gibberish next to 4 just like with the others I’d know that there was a serious problem). I resolved that I would report a positive result here if I got one before I tried to read the resulting text, to prevent the confabulation from completely removing my recognition of the presence of text. I can report a negative result.
You mean #5, right?
Why did you include number 4? Who disagrees with that?
Number 6 is unfortunately one of the self-undermining ones: if it were true, then there’d be no reason why your memories of having examined the AI should be evidence for the AI’s reliability.
Why’d you leave numbers 2 and 4 blank, though?
2 and 4 aren’t blank, dude. Congratulations on your newfound anosognosia...
5) Nine-word horror story:
“We’ve had puberty, yes. But what about second puberty?”
2) is also an episode of Red Dwarf.
I had the idea for 3) myself recently in the context of an SF story. Specifically it would be about how life, the universe and everything look when times goes the other way. The cutest part was that whenever you do something and don’t know why you did it, it’s because the time-reversed consciousness which shares your atoms exercised his free will.
4) is just awesome.
Number 9 was pretty funny.
Very clever with #10.
The idea of Evidential Decision Theory is related to causality not existing. You only use correlation in your decision.
Also, the laws of physics mention only correlation. This makes sense, as it’s all we can really measure.
I cannot think of a single law of physics that mentions correlation. F = ma. F = G m1 m2/r^2. The wave equation. The diffusion equation. Conservation of energy. Equipartition. Schrödinger’s equation. Boyle’s law. Hooke’s law. Conservation of momentum. Lorentz invariance. No, correlation is not mentioned in any of these. Look in the index of any textbook on physics for “correlation”. I have not performed the experiment, but I predict that if the word appears at all, it will only be in discussions of either (1) how to handle experimental error, or (2) Bell’s inequality.
Unless this is some strange new definition of “mention”, along the lines of “not actually mentioned at all, but implied by a certain philosophy of science not actually held by any substantial number of scientists, variously known as ‘positivism’ or ‘empiricism’, which holds that statements of physical law are nothing more than a compression of experience, and are not assertions about the supposed mechanisms of a supposed real world.”
I take a ruler, and measure the height of my monitor...403mm.
What correlation did I measure?
Number 1 is the core of the Buddhist religion. Coincidence? I think NOT.