Eliezer- Please update your thinking re: evolution to include the observed evolution of the tuberculosis bacteria strain w. This sort of evolution (in which organisms presented with a stressor trade and create new DNA sequences quickly- not at random at all) is going to be found to be ubiquitous. Perhaps this explains the difficulty in finding the “transitional forms” in the fossil record—there aren’t the expected transitional forms in the evolution of tuberculosis, and that is based on observation of something real- not a theory. (Another name for this phenomena is called competent cells) The purposefulness may not be so illusionary afterall. The “blind watchmaker” does not fit the evidence, and the sooner we admit that the sooner we will be able to overcome this bias. This is not just a theoretical problem—the use of the old theory didn’t give us a cure for tuberculosis, but it was a receipe for creating an incureable disease. How many times do we want to see that scenario play out?
douglas
“Many Christians who’ve stopped really believeing...” Apparently many Christians have changed their minds in the face of new evidence. “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather it opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Max Planck Did Max find the belief structure of scientists to be more irrational (unchangable in light of new evidence) than Eliezer has found the belief structure of Christians? Is the belief in scientific knowledge more blinding than the belief in the Bible? What am I to make of this evidence?
J Thomas—try www.wasdarwinwrong.com Best place for the info. because it presents the problems without demanding any particular solution. outeast- good point about the speculations, but thought experiments can be off-the-wall and still be of value because they are designed to help see the world in a different or new way. Sometimes the off-the-wall ones are best for that reason IMO.
J Thomas—What you say fits well with the neo-Darwin model of evolution. One example you might be interested in that clearly does not is the tuberculosis bacteria. Google ‘tuberculosis strain w’ for more info. It turns out this sort of thing happens more than was previously thought (of course it wasn’t thought to happen at all until fairly recently) This is a case of motivated continuation on my part- the old model predicted a cure that turned out to be a recipe for making an incurable disease—uh I want to understand better.
J Thomas- I’m not sure what your expertise- and this question is a little off post, but important to me and my personal biases, would you say the evidence today seems to indicate that the ‘watchmaker’ isn’t blind? (maybe myopic...)
The philosophy of refusing to come to a conclusion is called skeptcism. The word skeptic comes from the Greek to examine. While I understand the need to make decisions, I’m not so sure that it should trump the desire to not accept answers (keep looking). As has been pointed out in earlier posts, once a decision is made it often is hard to dislodge. For example, many people today accept neo-Darwinism as an answer to evolution. Yet the evidence from biology would indicate that neo-Darwinism is either false or incomplete. (Try dislodging that one) So while I agree that one often has to make decisions quickly based on incomplete and conflicting evidence, I don’t think the question you posed in ‘torture vs. dust specks’ was framed in such a way as to demand that type of decision.
By the way, someone who has made up their mind about religion or the existence of para-psychological phenomena is not a skeptic in the historical meaning of the word.
It is clearly not so easy to have a non-subjective determination of utility.
After some thought I pick the torture. That is because the concept of 3^^^3 people means that no evolution will occur while that many people live. The one advantage to death is that it allows for evolution. It seems likely that we will have evovled into much more interesting life forms long before 3^^^3 of us have passed.
What’s the utility of that?
The non-linear nature of ‘qualia’ and the difficulty of assigning a utility function to such things as ‘minor annoyance’ has been noted before. It seems to some insolvable. One solution presented by Dennett in ‘Consciousness Explained’ is to suggest that there is no such thing as qualia or subjective experience. There are only objective facts. As Searle calls it ‘consciousness denied’. With this approach it would (at least theoretically) be possible to objectively determine the answer to this question based on something like the number of ergs needed to fire the neurons that would represent the outcomes of the two different choices. The idea of which would be the more/less pleasant experience is therefore not relevant as there is no subjective experience to be had in the first place. Of course I’m being sloppy here- the word choice would have to be re-defined to include that each action is determined by the physical configuration of the brain and that the chooser is in fact a fictional construct of that physical configuration. Otherwise, I admit that 3^^^3 people is not something I can easily contemplate, and that clouds my ability to think of an answer to this question.
g- Perhaps a more rigorous paper would be appropriate. Try PCE Stamp (2006) It’s on the web. After covering many new experiments and discussion of the current formulations the conclusion goes something like this: “Decoherence, according to the older ideas, is supposed to explain away the quantum measurement problem...” “There are many things we still do not understand about decoherence and what causes it, and it should now be clear this is a pressing problem.” (Some people use the ‘measurement problem’, others the ‘observer problem’—it depends on their philosophical bent) The bigger and more important point is this: ignorance and mystery are what makes good science. They give us something to learn. Knowing and no mystery are comforting and give us religion. I don’t have any problem with religion, as long as we don’t turn science into one. I doubt that was the point of the original post—but when I read ‘science knows’ I just getting a yucky feeling, and I was using this example of why it’s not such a good phrase.
g- Nobody has suggested treating people other than with respect and love. It seems to be a fairly common thread in the things I’m reading here. Instead of asking “what group has a lower or higher IQ?”, why not ask, “How do we raise an indiviual’s IQ?” I may be misreading Job, I see more like- “don’t forget the beauty that surrounds you”
Perhaps I misunderstand the purpose of this web site, but why not just stop categorizing people and look at each individual as they are in the present with love and respect? Eliezer-excuse me if this is inappropriate, but have you read the book of Job? I don’t mean as the word of God that must be believed at all costs, but as an insightful look at the human condition. (I’m not religious, but that doesn’t mean I have to discount the wisedom that does show up in the Bible or other religious texts, does it?)
Silas- I like your example of interrogation. You rabble rouser, and I say that with utmost respect and love. I’ve had to throw out a couple of deeply cherished beliefs in my time, and it can be brutal. I try to go back to the question, “What does the evidence indicate?”, and then I have to be willing to look at evidence that I had neglected because I was to fixed or bias to consider it. I must admit, when I look at the state of the world, I don’t have a hard time believing that much of what currently passes as sense is actually nonsense. Ya know?
g- I think you’ve misread the article. There is nothing to worry about, of course, there are only possibilities to consider. The point the article makes is not dependant on any particular notion of free will. Stapp advocates the von Nuemann, Wigner formulation of QM, the only existing formulation that produces a rationally coherent idea of the reality that lies behind our experiences. IMHO Of course, one problem that people have with this formulation is that it agrees with with the experienced fact that our thoughts can influence our actions. Would anyone reading this post, or studying decision theory, or trying to overcome a bias, deny that?
Matt- I’m seldom careful. The advantages of being carefree are too numerous to list, but one of the disadvantages is that I have to admit mistakes. You are not being overly pedantic. I’d probably make a lousy Bayesian. (I wonder what the prior probability of that is?) By the way, what do you think of a decision making protocol that assumes that the data gathering is random?
TGGP- there is a paper by Rosenblum and Kutter on arxiv.org that goes into this. I believe they make a convining case that no existent theory does away with the problem. I like this paper because it goes into the problems without too much jargon. You could google “observer problem decoherence” (or words to that effect) and you will find any number of papers written and a somewhat lively debate on the subject. The von Nuemann- Wigner interpretation of QM is often refered to as the “standard” interpretation, and it has as a basic that the observer injects a bit of information into the system with each subjective experience. The “quantum erasure” is an example of an experiment that might lead one to consider that the problem has not been solved. If you are technically minded, Stapp (you can just google stapp to get to his web page with its numerous papers) is a good source of information as to validity of various claims for various “interpretions” of QM. He’s my personal favorite because he’s been at it forever and knows the stuff cold. Need more?
g- you ask good questions. My point about AI and religion is that rather than pretending that one is related to the other, AI would benefit from clearing up this confusion. (So would the religious) Perhaps the way Elizer went about it was OK I would define “soul” as a non-corporeal being that exists separable from the body and that survives body death. (I want to say something about the soul being the true source of consciousness and ability—OK, I said it)
Ignorance is the basic foundation of science. Without things we are ignorant of there is no point to science. Mystery (and the desire solve it) is the motavation that drives most scientists to do the hard (often unrewarding) work that makes science. “Because God made it that way,” can be the end of curiosity and therefore harmful to further discovery. “What has God wrought?” on the other hand has been the question that motavated men like Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein. “Decoherence solved the observer problem in physics,” is an example of an incorrect statement that hinders people from looking into and, hopefully, solving some of the greastest myseries of the universe. Ignorance of ignorance is the greatest problem for science of them all. (By the way, the phrase ‘what science really knows’ made me think this post was a parody at first)
g- the man said, “I don’t believe AI is possible because only God can make a soul.” ”...If I can make an AI it proves your religion false?” Somebody in this exchange has equated the making of an AI with the making of a soul. That’s why I would suggest that the words have been confused. An AI is not a soul would be useful in this discussion because it would clarify that the making of one would not invalidate the existence of the other or the statement that “only God can make a soul”. Comparing the two notions would not be a problem, equating them is. You seem somewhat willing to (at least partially)accept the existence of AI based on bizarre hypothesis. If you would give me some idea of what sort of evidence you would accept for the existence of a soul, I would be happy to supply it if I can. Thank-you for your interesting comment re: Aumann.
Before using Aumann one should ask, “What does this guy know that I don’t?”
tggp-1) google—tuberculosis strain w evolution of 2) down the page go to the amazon book review of “Quantum Evolution” by Johnjoe Mcfadden. This will call up a page that includes the most relevent info. I realize that the info on this is not well advertised. Of course when a theory that is promoted for so long as the explanation of everything (See Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”) predicts a cure and produces an incureable disease with an ever increasing pile of dead bodies—This is a real life example of the problem and dangers of bias.