Ape in the coat

Karma: 1,397

Ape in the coat 31 Jul 2025 10:08 UTC
5 points
0
on: My Empathy Is Rarely Kind
Don’t go bullshitting me about how a kind and compassionate life of mediocrity is a “different kind of strength” or some such cope.
There is, in fact, no reason why being compassionate should doom you to a life of mediocrity. A lot of very compassionate people manage to simultaneously be extremely self-critical, even beyond the point where it’s helpful for their productivity.
What is a “cope”, is an idea that you are either nice or brilliant. And you seem to be a victim of it. So in the spirit of tsuyoku naritai, stop coming up with excuses not to learn a valuable skill, deluding yourself into thinking that it somehow going to make you less successful in other domains and go put some effort into acquiring it.
When I try to empathize with that woman
That’s because you are not actually empathizing with the woman. You are empathizing with a man who notices the nail in the head. This is understandable because the point of the video is to make you do exactly that, it frames the situation in this particular manner that makes empathizing with the woman very hard, while empathizing with the man as easy as possible. Essentially you are being manipulated into empathizing with whoever the author of the video wants.
As a practicum of empathy and withstanding this sort of manipulation, try to re-frame the situation in such a way, where it’s the woman who is in the right. And no, just switching genders of the characters won’t do—that’s not the point of the exercise. The point is to come up with a situation in which a complaining character who wants to be listened to, is obviously in the right, while a character who is proposing a solution is obviously in the wrong. Just like in the video it’s obvious that the woman with the nail in the hand is wrong and stupid.

Ape in the coat 26 Jul 2025 5:44 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Wei Dai’s comment on: The Absent-Minded Driver
I believe I’ve solved the problem. I’m going to include this in my next post on probability theory fundamentals but here is the gist of it.
The problem is to come up with a general decision algorithm that both works (in the sense of making the right decisions) and (if possible) makes epistemic sense.
The meta-problem here is that people were looking for the answer in the wrong place, searching for a different decision making algorithm while what we actually needed is a satisfying epistemological account. The core crux isn’t in decision theory, but on a previous step—in probability theory.
UDT works but it doesn’t compute or make use of “probability of being at X” so epistemically it doesn’t seem very satisfying.
That should be a clue that “probability of being at X” isn’t, in fact, a thing. That event “I’m at X and not at Y” is ill defined. In other words, that the problem is with our intuition that mistakenly assumes that there should be such an event, and with the lack of a strict epistemological framework that would allow us to answer questions such as “Does this mathematical model fit the setting?” and “Is this event well-defined?”
Here I provide this framework. An event is a conditional statement of a belief updating algorithm, that has to return clear True or False in every iteration of probability experiment, approximating some process to the best of our knowledge—in our case Absent-Minded Driver problem. Statement “I’m at X and not at Y” doesn’t satisfy this condition for Absent-Minded Driver as in some iterations of the experiment the driver will be at both. Therefore it’s not an event, and can not lead to conditionalization.
The event that is well defined in every iteration of the experiment is “I’m at X or Y”. This event has probability 1 which means trivial conditionalization—on its realization credences of the driver do not change. Therefore everything adds up to normality.

Ape in the coat 23 Jul 2025 14:20 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: TAG’s comment on: Zombies! Substance Dualist Zombies?
To show that physicalism isn’t necessarily true, I only need to show there is some plausibility to the existence of intrinsic subjectivity.
I’m not saying dualism is necessarily true, I’m saying physicalism isn’t necessarily true. The one is not a corollary of the other.
Okay, I think we have a long-going misunderstanding here, so let’s try to clear it once and for all.
We are, in fact, both in agreement that physicalism is not necessary true. Likewise, we are in agreement that dualism is also not necessary true.
Now consider these two statements:
1. Weak Zombie Argument: Zombies are conceivable, therefore physicalism is not necessary true
2. Strong Zombie Argument: Zombies are conceivable therefore physicalism is necessary false
I think the confusion that goes on between the two of us, is that when I say “Zombie Argument” I mean the strong one, while when you say “Zombie Argument”, you mean the weak one. If you agree that Strong Zombie Argument is wrong, then there is in fact, no substantial disagreement between the two of us on this matter!
So, are we in agreement here?

Ape in the coat 21 Jul 2025 5:19 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: JeffJo’s comment on: What’s the Deal with Logical Uncertainty?
Since what I said was that probability theory makes no restrictions on how to assign values, but that you have to make assignments that are reasonable based on things like the Principle of Indifference
That’s not what you’ve said at all. Re-read our comment chain. There is not a single mention of principle of indifference by you there. I’ve specifically brought up an example of a fair coin about which we know nothing else and yet you agreed that any number from 0 to 1 is the right answer to this problem. The first time you’ve mentioned principle of indifference under this post is in an answer to another person, which happened after my alleged misrepresentation of yours.
Now, I’m happy to assume that you’ve meant this all the time and just was unable to communicate your views properly. Please do better next time. But for now let me try to outline your views as far as I understand them, which do appear less ridiculous now:
You believe that probability theory only deals with whether something is a probability space at all—does it fit the axioms or not. And the question which valid probability space is applicable to a given problem based on some knowledge level, doesn’t have a “true” answer. Instead there is a completely separate category of “reasonableness” and some probability spaces are reasonable to a given problem based on the principle of uncertainty, but this is a completely separate domain from probability theory.
Please correct me, what I got wrong and then I hope we will be able to move forward.
You claim that “the probability that the nth digit of pi, in base 10, is ¹⁄₁₀ for each possible digit,” is assigning a non-zero probability to nine false statements, and probability that is less than 1 to one true statement.
No, I don’t. I’m ready to entertain this framework, but then I don’t see any difference compared to an example with empirical uncertainty. Do you see this difference? Do you think there is some fundamental reason why we can say that probability of a coin to be Heads is ¹⁄₂ and yet we can’t say the same about the probability of a particular unknown to us digit of pi to be even?
I am saying that it such probabilities apply only if we do not apply the formula that will determine that digit.
You mean, before we apply the formula, right? Suppose we are going to apply the formula in a moment, we can still say that before we applied it the probability for any digit is ¹⁄₁₀, can we? And after we applied the formula we know which digit it is so it’s 1 for this particular digit and 0 for all the rest.
I claim that the equivalent statement, when I flip a coin but place my hand over it before you see the result, is “the probability that the coin landed Heads is ¹⁄₂, as is the probability that it landed Tails.” And that the truth of these two statements is just as deterministic, if I lift my hand. Or if I looked before I hid the coin. Or if someone has a x-ray that can see it. That the probability in question is about the uncertainty when no method is applied that determine the truth of the statements, even when we know such methods exist.
No disagreement here. Do you agree that the scenarios with logical and empirical uncertainty work exactly the same way?
I’m saying that this is not a question in epistemology
If it’s neither the question of probability theory nor epistemology, what is it a question of? How long are you going to pass the buck of it before engaging with this question? And what is the answer?

Ape in the coat 20 Jul 2025 7:53 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: JeffJo’s comment on: What’s the Deal with Logical Uncertainty?
Yes, you can make a valid probability space where the probability of Heads is any such number. What you can’t do, is say that probability space accurately represents the system.
Probability Theory only determines the requirements for such a space. It makes no mention of how you should satisfy them. And I assumed you would know the difference, and not try to misrepresent it.
What kind of misrepresentation you are talking about? You have literally just claimed that there is no way to know whether a particular probabilistic model correctly represents the system.
Frankly, I have no idea what is going on with your views. There must be some kind of misunderstanding but to clear it up I’ve came up with the clearest demonstration of the absurdity of your position and you decided to bite the bullet anyway.
Do you really not see that it completely invalidates all epistemology? That if we can only say that a map is valid but never able to claim anything about its soundness towards a particular territory, then the map is useless at navigation?
Because of responses like that last one, and this:
Okay, I misspoke. Because I also assumed you would at least try to understand.
So you came to a wrong conclusion about my views because you misspoke? And you misspoke because you assumed that I will be trying to understand? Okay, look, I think we need to calm down a bit, make a deep breath and one step back. This conversation seems entangled in combatitiveness and it affects your ability to explain yourself clearly and my ability to understand what you are talking about and probably vice versa. I’m happy to assume that you mean something reasonable by the things you are saying and it’s just the issue of miscommunication, if you are ready to give the same courtesy to me. I would be glad to understand your position. I promise to give my best effort to do that. But you also need to make your best effort in explaining yourself. I will probably keep misunderstanding you in all kind of ways, anyway, not because of ill intent, but simply because of inferential distances and some unresolved cruxes of disagreement to which we can’t get until we understand each other.
You need complete knowledge of an assumed (Baysean) or actual (Frequentist) system that can produce different results. But lack at least some knowledge of the one instance of the system in question; that is, one particular result.
Okay I definitely agree with “lack at least some knowledge” part. If we had a perfect map, then there would be no point in approximating the territory with probabilistic models.
And that’s exactly my point. In both logical and empirical uncertainty we do lack some knowledge. Therefore we use the approximate probability theoretic model and get an approximate result. So what is the problem? Where is the difference between logical and empirical uncertainty, that so many people are struggle with?
The system in the SB problem
Please, put the poor Beauty to rest for now. It has nothing to do with the topic of discussion and using it as an example to explain your point is very counterproductive as it’s probably one of the most controversial example between the two of us. Take something more simple like a fair coin toss or a dice roll.
And again, I don’t see how you can first claim that
What you can’t do, is say that probability space accurately represents the system.
But then start talking about a probabilistic description of the system, which I, suppose, you assume to be accurate? Or are you just saying: this is a valid probability space that satisfies the axioms, regardless of any actual process that can happen in the real world. - This I can agree with. It’s just a very weak statement and you seem to behave as if you mean something much stronger.
Because the system is “a digit in {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} is selected in a manner that is completely hidden from us at the moment, even if it could be obtained. The probability refers to what the result of calculating the nth digit could be when we do not apply n to the formula for pi, not when we do.
Well yes, exactly! We don’t know what digit is the one that an algorithm would produce, and we don’t have any reason to expect any particular digit better than chance, therefore we are indifferent between all the digits so ¹⁄₁₀ for every of them. Just as if we were dealing with empirical uncertainty.
If what you are suggesting were true, then the correct answer to “What is a probability of a fair coin toss, about which you know nothing else, to come Heads?”, would be: “It is either 0 or 1, but we can’t tell.
What? No, absolutely not! It would be: we lack any reason to expect any outcome more than another, so we are indifferent between both outcomes so ¹⁄₂ for both of them. The exact same kind of reasoning for both logical and empirical uncertainty.
I’m starting to suspect that we are actually in complete agreement about logical uncertainty and you simply didn’t properly read my opening post and assumed that I have an opposite position to yours for some reason. Could you, please, outline your model of my views on the subject? What do you think my stance on logical uncertainty is?

Ape in the coat 13 Jul 2025 12:28 UTC
4 points
2
in reply to: JeffJo’s comment on: What’s the Deal with Logical Uncertainty?
Well, it is true
Were it true, then the correct answer to “What is a probability of a fair coin toss, about which you know nothing else, to come Heads?”, would be: “Any real number between zero and one”.
And the same would go for any other probability theory problem, turning the whole domain pretty useless.
This is what probability is supposed to be—a measure of your lack of knowledge about a result, not a measure of absolute truth.
I have no idea how you managed to come to the conclusion that I don’t understand that probability is about lack of knowledge.
On the other hand, this distinction:
It is not about what what can be shown, deterministically, to be true when we have perfect knowledge of a system. It is about the different outcomes that could be true when your knowledge is imperfect.
Makes little sense. Things that we consider to be possible while our knowledge is imperfect can very well be shown to be either true or false, when our knowledge is perfect.
That’s kind of the point of the third axiom. After all the knowledge is acquired and all the conditionalizations are done, the resulting sample space consists of a single outcome and its probability is one, which, if you want to be dramatic about, you can call “absolute truth”.
Anyway, back to the actual question.
Consider your “opaque box” problem. You are not “assigning non-zero probability to a false statement,” you are assigning it to a possibility that could be true based on the incomplete knowledge you have.
And how is it different from the initial example with googolth digit of pi? Why can’t we say that we are not assigning non-zero probability to a false statement but to a possibility that could be true based on the incomplete knowledge that we have?

Ape in the coat 8 Jul 2025 2:22 UTC
3 points
1
on: Sleeping Beauty and the Forever Muffin
Good overall, but you are making a serious mistake: confusing single halfism, with double halfism.
SSA is a generalized single halfism reasoning. It’s very obviously wrong in Sleeping Beauty as it implies that if the Beauty knows that she is awakened on Monday, she expects that there is ³⁄₂ chance that the coin is Heads. Generally if you actually do the math, SSA can’t produce correct betting odds for Sleeping Beauty problem. It’s, in a sense, even worse than SIA for SB, but ultimately both of them are based on the flawed and unjustified framework of “centred possible worlds”.
Double halfism is the correct approach and has no problem with correct betting odds. All your argument in favor of halfism are, in fact, double halfer reasoning. However you mistakenly credit them to SSA.

Ape in the coat 5 Jul 2025 12:07 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: TAG’s comment on: Probability Theory Fundamentals 102: Territory that Probability is in the Map of
So if a the territory is branching , the map.should, too.
Of course not. The territory can be made of rocks and dirt, but it doesn’t mean that the map also has to be.
That’s a disadvantage, because the same map can’t represent any territory.
I’m not saying that it represents every territory. I’m saying that it represents a more general class of territories without loosing any advantages of the framework of possible worlds.
In the post I’ve even specifically outlined what are the territories that my framework can represent:
“So the territory that probability is in the map of is...”
All the processes in the real world, such that my knowledge state about them works like a weighted sample of n elements.
( there may be an ontological neutral way of doing probability calculations, but it’s not a map, for that reason....more of a tool)
Now it seems that you are finally starting to get it. It is a map, of course, but that’s really beside the point. If you want to put it in a separate category of “tools” (as if a map is not a tool?) then whatever suits your needs. Yes, what I’m doing is providing an ontologically neutral framework for probability theory that works better than a framework of possible worlds.
The problem is the implied ontology.
Once again, no ontology is actually implied. It’s absolutely trivial to describe behavior of indetermenistic processes in terms of probability experiment. I’m concentrating on deterministic cases simply because they are trickier.
If there is a referent for it in the territory, it is entirely reasonable to say “possible worlds exist”.
I’m not saying that it’s unreasonable to say, conditionally on using this term. I’m saying that usage of the term, to begin with, is a bad idea as it keeps leading people doing probability theory astray.
Is it really a win to admit the substance of existing possible worlds, but under a different name?
When your goal is to separate the substance from the harmful rubbish, it absolutely is a win.

Ape in the coat 5 Jul 2025 7:07 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: TAG’s comment on: Probability Theory Fundamentals 102: Territory that Probability is in the Map of
You keep missing the point. It’s as if you haven’t even read the post and simply noticed a couple of key words.
The map that corresponds to a deterministically branching multiversal has possible worlds.
Some do.
I’m proposing a better map, capable to talk about knowledge states and uncertainty, in any circumstances, having all the advantages of maps using the concept of possible worlds, without their weak point.
If you think that the framework of probability experiment that I’m outlining in the post fails to account for something that the frameworks of possible worlds manage to account for—please specify it. Bring up a setting in which you think my framework fails to describe the territory.
Refusing to.ever talk about possible worlds is dangerous, because they might exist (they do in MWI ) and they might be useful otherwise.
Possible world is a term from a map. There may be a referent for it in a territory, true. But it doesn’t mean that we have to use this particular term to talk about this referent. We may have a better term, instead.

Ape in the coat 3 Jul 2025 5:08 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: TAG’s comment on: Probability Theory Fundamentals 102: Territory that Probability is in the Map of
If..it was pointed out a long time ago that (a form of) probability being in the mind doesn’t imply (a firm of) it isn’t in the territory as well.
That not true because fundamental determinism is true , or because effective determinism at the macroscopic level is true.
This is beside the point that I’m making. Which is: even if we grant that the universe is utterly deterministic and therefore probability is fully in the map, this map still has to correspond to the territory for which you have to go an look. And we still have to be able to construct a meaningful framework for it.
Armchair arguments can’t prove anything about the territory...you have to look.
Exactly.
You may be beating a dead horse there. Talk of possible worlds doesn’t have to imply realism about possible worlds, just as mathematical anti-realists can talk about numbers without committing to their mind independent existence.
I’m not saying that it does. For instance here I specifically outline alternative option:
“Well, you don’t necessary have to believe that there are parallel worlds as real as ours in which the coin comes differently, though it’s a respectable position about the nature of counterfactuals. Probability is in the mind, remember? You can simply imagine alternative worlds that are logically consistent with your observations.”
What I’m saying is that even the talk itself about “possible worlds”—without assumption of their realism—is harmful as this framework leaves us unable to reason about logical uncertainty and doesn’t provide proper guardrails against absurdities, most noticeably in indexical uncertainty.
A better way is to talk about iterations of probability experiment which solves all these issues.

Ape in the coat 30 Jun 2025 12:29 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Crazy philosopher’s comment on: Probability Theory Fundamentals 102: Territory that Probability is in the Map of
I don’t see problems here.
The problem is that according to the framework of “possible worlds” we technically need to be able to do a thing that we can’t do. The solution to this problem is to use a better framework—the one of probability experiments.
You should imagine a part of the world, not the whole world, including orbits of start in an other galaxy.
My point exactly. In actuality we simply approximate a particular process of our universe to the best of our knowledge, instead of imagining all the universal permutations and then filtering from them the ones logically consistent with our knowledge.

Ape in the coat 30 Jun 2025 12:17 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Crazy philosopher’s comment on: Reflections on anthropic principle
Disagree. For example, if you have a dice that is symmetric by form and by weight with 4 sides, you are sure that if you roll it 100 times you will have around 25 results for each side.
And this belief of mine is grounded in actual behavior of dice in our physical reality, which I would never be able to get without going and checking the way reality works. I don’t think we actually have any disagreement here.
I don’t see which direct experiment you can use to figure out whether we are in a simulation or not that isn’t extremely dangerous (searching for bugs in the simulation? Suicide?), so we should use other methods.
The point isn’t that we can perform some kind of experiment to distinguish between simulation/no simulation conditionally on its result. The point is what kind of prior one should use—what mathematical model is appropriate for the situation that we are talking about. And the answer is: the kind of model that approximate the behavior of the universe.
I still don’t see. Can you be even more direct?
The reason why we can say that picking a stone from a bag is a random sample from all the stones in a bag is because there is an actual causal process determining which stone will be picked from the stones in the bag, which we approximate to the level of our knowledge.
But there is no such process for your being alive in simulation or no simulation. There is no God, who from beyond time considered whether creating you in actual 21st century or its future simulation based on the total number of people there. That’s not how our universe works to the best of our knowledge. The existence of such process would contradict relativity as it would be sending information back in time. And so we can’t assume a random sample from all the people.

Ape in the coat 28 Jun 2025 5:59 UTC
4 points
2
in reply to: Crazy philosopher’s comment on: Reflections on anthropic principle
“Stones” is not a good class with clearly defined boundaries (like humans or potatoes)
Nothing is. We are dealing with abstractions and approximations of reality, in probability theory especially. And yet some approximations are correct while others are not.
Reference class “all stones in the bag” use all information we have, so it’s the best.
We’ve been through that already. We have all kind of information, but still truly take in account only some of it, while constructing our mathematical models.
In fact, reference class should be the space of possibilities.
I fully agree. The whole term “reference class” is very misleading with its apparent arbitrariness. What we actually need to be talking about is the sample space, consisting of mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive outcomes of a probability experiment.
P. S.: can you just write your argument directly? It took too much time to ask questions, so it’s inefficient.
My apologies. From now on I’m going to be direct.
Probability is in the map but this map has to correspond to the territory. And the only way to have a relation of map territory correspondence also known as “truth” is to go and check.
So how do we know which outcomes are possible in a particular real world situation? We conduct an experiment. We blindly pick a stone from the bag multiple times and notice that every time this is a stone from the bag and not a stone from somewhere else on the planet Earth. This isn’t just a fact about our knowledge state. It’s the way reality actually works. If physics was different, say there was a portal in the bag leading to stones in some far away place, then your experiment would produce different results. On the other hand, if you simply believed very very strongly that there is a portal, while in fact there were none, you would still simply get one of the stones from the bag.
So when we say that something is a random sample from something or that something is a possible outcome, we mean, that reality actually works this way. That there is a certain causal process that leads to you getting a stone from the bag and not from somewhere else when you follow a particular experimental procedure. And you are describing this behavior of reality, to a certain approximation, with math. Here I talk about it in more details.
With that in mind, do you see why you are not a random sample from all people who has ever thought or will be thinking that they live in 21st century, while a stone blindly picked from the bag is a random sample from all the stones in the bag?

Ape in the coat 22 Jun 2025 19:39 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: TAG’s comment on: Zombies! Substance Dualist Zombies?
You are perhaps interpreting his interactive dualism as substance dualism
You seem to be nitpicking definitions. Let’s try to grasp the substance. Eliezer was initially distinguishing between two types of dualism:
1. Where consciousness is causally ineffective
2. Where consciousness has causal effects
His Zombie post were about the first one. This post is about the second one.
If you want to talk about some sub-type of the second that manages to evade the argument in this post—be my guest.
The point of arguing for zombies is to argue for non physicalism. Zombies are not the only way to argue for nonphysicalism. Assuming non physicalism to argue against zombies is therefore a pointless way of arguing for physicalism.
I’m not sure what this has to do with the citation.
You seem to be arguing that interactive dualism must be disguised physicalism.
It’s not yet an argument, just a vibe according to which we can arrive to one. The actual argument is presented further below.
But that can be disproved by putting forward a non arbitrary criterion of the physical and non physical, as we shall see.
A non-arbitrary criterion would indeed be helpful for rescuing Zombie argument from this particular critique. But merely saying the word “subjective” doesn’t help much. You need to actually prove that such subjective things exist in a sense where they are not also objective and have a method to discern whether a particular thing is subjective or objective in this sense. Otherwise, one can just say that electrons are “subjective” and we are back to square one.
“Physics” doesnt mean “the only way the world could possible be”. Physics focuses on objective (because results need to be confirmed by multiple scientists) and quantifiable (because physics uses maths as its language). If it happen to be the case that there is something in the universe that is subjective or unquantifiable,then physics can’t get a grip on it.
I think you are confusing physics-map and physics-territory here. For the sake of Zombie-argument we care about the territory—the actual way the matter in the universe behave, regardless of our epistemological limitations.
Imagine a fully materialistic universe strictly following some laws, which are such that no agent from inside the universe is able to fully comprehend them. Would you say that it is enough to declare that such universe is dualistic in nature, even if there are no qualia involved?
And Chalmers has a version of this argument, in The Conscious Mind...he characterises the physical as the structural/functional.
I would appreciate if you present this argument here or in a separate post, showing how it refutes my point, instead of simply proclaiming it. With a proper definition of “functional” and “structural” in this context, of course.
It’s actually contradiction, not falsehood.
Naturally, falsehoods being true is a contradiction.
Recent discussion:
Sadly I’m not able to access Astral Codex now, so if you posted something relevant there in the comments—I would appreciate if you re-posted it here.

Ape in the coat 22 Jun 2025 18:33 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Crazy philosopher’s comment on: Reflections on anthropic principle
There is no such thing as The One Truly Perfect Class. All of these are rough estimations; some are better than others. It’s better to use “all stones in the multiverse” than to use nothing, but if you have a choice between all stones in the multiverse and all stones on Earth, use the latter as the reference class.
But why is one reference class more preferable than the other? What does determine it? How do we know that it’s better to use “all the stones on Earth” than “all the stones in the multiverse”? And even better still to use “all the stones in this particular bag in this particular moment”? But not better to use “two specific stones from the bag”?
Probabilities are in the mind, and you use a reference class because you can’t calculate the trajectories of stones in the bag — and you have good reasons to believe there is an equal probability for each stone to be chosen (since they’re all in the bag).
True. Probability is in the map. Which is an approximation of the territory. And yet some maps are more accurate than the others. Some do correspond to the territory—approximate it correctly to the degree that they claim to, and some do not. How do we know whether a particular map corresponds to the particular territory? And what is the territory for probability theory, to begin with?

Ape in the coat 11 Jun 2025 6:00 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Crazy philosopher’s comment on: Reflections on anthropic principle
Maybe you have to consider all the info you have, so you can’t use all the stones in the multiverse as a reference class if you already know what’s in the bag?
Consider the information you have:
- There are stones in this particular bag
- There are stones in many other bags
- There may be other stones in this bag in the future
- There are stones in your neighbourhood within R meters
- There are stones in your country
- There are stones on your continen
- There are stones on the planet Earth
- …
- There are stones all around the multiverse throughout time and space
And yet from all this information about stones—mind you, we haven’t even begun talking about all information you have—what is relevant to the problem of blindly picking a stone from a particular bag is specifically the information about composition of stones inside it at the moment of picking and not anywhere and anywhen else in space and time.
But how do we know what is relevant? What is the principle that determines it? And is this principle solely about your knowledge state—in the map - or does it have something to do with the territory that your map is trying to approximate?
And the stones in this bag strongly influence the chance of picking one, unlike stones in a different bag.
Good, I think you are looking in the right direction. Now let’s taboo the words “influence” and “chance”. Try to formulate the same idea in terms of physical laws of the universe and processes that go accoding to these laws.

Ape in the coat 10 Jun 2025 18:46 UTC
4 points
2
in reply to: Crazy philosopher’s comment on: Reflections on anthropic principle
Why I am not a randomly sampled person?
≈all peoples who believe they live in 21st century actually don’t. I believe that I live in 21nd century, so I don’t live in the 21st century. It sounds like perfect logic.
In be honest, I don’t understand your counterargument right now.
Okay, let’s start from the beginning. What does it mean to be randomly sampled? How do we know that some things are randomly sampled from some set of things and why this set of things in particular?
Suppose you have a bag of stones. When you blindly pick a stone from this bag why are we justified to assume that it’s a random sample from all the stones from this particular bag at this particular moment and not from some completely different bag? Or from this bag but from two months in the future when it may be filled with different stones instead? Or a random sample from all the stones that exists in the universe? Or even multiverse?
There is some kind of rational principle here, that allows to systematically make maps representing the territory, whether we are talking about stones or people.

Ape in the coat 10 Jun 2025 18:26 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: James Stephen Brown’s comment on: Emergence Spirals—what Yudkowsky gets wrong
I’m afraid you didn’t make it clearer what you mean by “complexity” with your explanation. Could you taboo the word?
Are you using “comlex” and “emergent” simply as synonims to “having low entropy”? Or is there some more nuanced relations between them?
By “aligned with” I mean not merely related to but, “following the same pattern as”
Okay then putting it into the sentence in question we get:
a system more closely follows the pattern of a macroscopic phenomenon than its components.
I’m afraid this is also not particularly comprehensible. What you seem to be saying is that macroscopic phenomenon that the system produces is more important than which components the system has. But this sounds as a map-territory confusion. Indeed we can talk about a system with a high level map and get some utility from it for our purposes. But that’s not a sole property of the system but also of our minds and values. And in the end all the properties of the system are reducible to the properties of it’s individual parts.

Ape in the coat 10 Jun 2025 6:53 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: Doomsday Argument and the False Dilemma of Anthropic Reasoning
Glad that you’ve enjoyed the post and thank you for your kind words.
In case you’ve also missed it, I’m currently working on a sequence about general probability theoretic reasoning to provide a clear framework which would not produce this kind of confusions in the first place.

Ape in the coat 10 Jun 2025 5:49 UTC
4 points
2
in reply to: Crazy philosopher’s comment on: Reflections on anthropic principle
if peoples of future spend 0.01% of their time in simulation of the Earth of 21st century, most of peoples, who think they are living in 21st century are wrong.
Granted.
Therefore, if you were a randomly sampled person from all people who has ever thought or will be thinking that they live in 21st century you should think that there is only a small chance that you indeed live in 21st century.
But, as you are not, in fact, a randomly sampled person, this whole reasoning is unsound.
It’s like you have 2 bag of numbered pieces of paper, in the first one there are 1 million of them, and 1% of them have number 6. An other bag have 10 pieces of paper and they are numbered correctly. Each piece of paper have equal chance to be taken. You take one, and you see 6. From which bag did you take the paper?
Likewise here without the “Each piece of paper have equal chance to be taken” condition your reasoning doesn’t work. It’s a crucial assumption, and you are not justified to make it in anthropic scenario.