Ape in the coat

Replying toStone Age Billionaire Can't Words Good

Coming after those billionaires isn’t just bad for those billionaires. It is revoking the Code of Honorable Wealth. It is returning to Rule of the Violent, and slave economies, and grinding global poverty. Protecting the Code is incredibly important NOT because it serves some billionaires, but because it serves every single person in our society that lives above the level of a 16th century peasant.

In a nutshell, this is slippery slope argument. "First they came for the billionaires..." And I don't think this argument works in this case.

Slopes are slippery only when people have trouble arriving to a stable coordination equilibrium without the general restriction, for instance:

Murder is illegal. Legalization of murder... (read more)

Replying toStone Age Billionaire Can't Words Good

Ape in the coat1d

Stone Age Billionaire Can't Words Good

Yes, but important caveats are in order:

Individual people having billions of dollars for steering the world, while others struggling with basic needs is inherently undemocratic situation.
If you actually manage to get to a position where you have billions of dollars to spare, most of your networth would be going into optimizing Moloch's values and not your own.

Replying toLack of Social Grace Is an Epistemic Virtue

Ape in the coat3d

Lack of Social Grace Is an Epistemic Virtue

Person #2 effectively doesn't exist. That's what it feels like to be person #3;

That's a non sequitur. The fact that many #3 feel like #2 doesn't imply that #2 effectively do not exist.

for 95% of people, you're wrong.

I don't think this is true and you didn't provide any evidence in favor of this statement. But lets for the sake of the argument assume that it's true. So what? How does it changes anything? Even if #2 is extremely rare it's still the best of both worlds and something that we all should aspire too, isn't it?

I'm skeptical of #4, too

If you apply your cynicism in a less motivated manner, the same reasoning... (read more)

-2

Replying toA Perfect Resurrection

Ape in the coat5d

A Perfect Resurrection

I don't think question of identity is relevant to physicalism at all.

Suppose it's impossible to invert qualia without changing something physical in the brain. It's still currious which one of two people I'd be in "creating a perfect copy" experiment.

Replying toObservations and Complexity

Ape in the coat5d

Observations and Complexity

This is fine. We just need to see how well the encodings which treat AB as a one symbol and as two symbols tend to systematically work in figuring out which things are likely to be true and compare the results. This is what I'm talking about here:

Consider how we came to the modern notion of computational complexity in the first place. Occam’s Razor used to be a theistic argument. There were times when saying “God did it!” was universally considered extremely simple. And while nowadays there are still some people confused by it, the sanity waterline has risen tremendously. How did that happen, I wonder?

Observations and Complexity

Ape in the coat

It may seem that there are to separate drives in the pursuit of truth.

The first one is observation - our theories are supposed to correspond to reality and, therefore, fit the observable evidence. The theory that fit the evidence is in some sense better than a theory that doesn’t.

The second drive is complexity. A simpler theory is in some (other?) sense better than a more complex one.

But suppose we have a simple theory that doesn’t fit some of the evidence and a more complex one that does. Which one is better? How much correspondence to evidence outweighs how much complexity?

Maybe no amount of complexity can outweigh theory not fitting the evidence? We... (read 617 more words →)

Replying toThe Meta-Anthropic Argument

Ape in the coat10d

The Meta-Anthropic Argument

Providing a link to Doomsday Argument and the False Dilemma of Anthropic Reasoning where I solve this anthropic issue. We can collapse all the meta-levels of anthropic reasoning into a simple principle: make sure that the map that you use actually corresponds to the territory.

My actual point (for anyone still wondering whether I have one) is that the correct way for a Bayesian to look at a counterfactual is , which is generally very near 1 — certainly it is for the Hoyle resonance.

You should be careful here as it's very easy to overestimate how much you actually know. Anthropic problems like Sleeping Beauty and Abscent Minded Driver are confusing specifically because of that.

There is also nothing illegal about noticing that P(X) is very low even though you already know that X is realized. If your model claims that some event X is low probable, but you've just observed it being realized, it's very probable that your model is wrong.

Replying toThe Meta-Anthropic Argument

Ape in the coat10d

The Meta-Anthropic Argument

Do you know like the streets you see tend to be more crowded, airplanes have more seats taken, more people in restaurants on average from your observations, compared with how they actually are on average?

You are mixing together situations where a person can be correctly approximated as a random sample from some population with situation where it's not the case.

What we need to do is look at every situation trying to come up with an appropriate probabilistic model that describes it to the best of our knowledge. A map that fits the territory.

What mainstream anthropic reasoning is doing is assuming that this model has to always be the same in every situation and then trying to bite ridiculous bullets when it predictably leads to bizarre conclusions.

-1

Replying toGive Skepticism a Try

Ape in the coat1mo

Give Skepticism a Try

The point of the exercise is to add skepticism to normality. Skepticism is the starting point. Justified uncertainty is the goal. The journey between the two is the exercise.

Replying toGive Skepticism a Try

Ape in the coat1mo

Give Skepticism a Try

Personally, I think that pointing out the self defeating nature of skepticism in the way it's described here is indeed a good argument against it

"This statement is a false" - is a paradox.

"This statement is unprovable" - is not.

We can say that both are self-defeating if we want to, but that doesn't really change anything.

We can say with confidence that they are curved and that our experience of them depends on our velocity and position.

Let's just say that Kant didn't see that coming. He essentially made a very confident prediction about the nature of space an time that was later shown wrong.

This seems unfair to philosophers because the very nature of their

... (read more)

Replying toGive Skepticism a Try

Ape in the coat1mo

Give Skepticism a Try

Invoking the anthropic principle makes me uncomfortable.

I commend you for feeling uncomfortable about it.

if everything I observe is a demonic illusion, I admit defeat, and so I gain more utility by focusing on the worlds where I expect my actions can, in principle, lead to more utility.

Kind of, but consider how much defeat do you actually need to admit?

https://substack.com/@apeinthecoat102771/note/c-117316511

A similar principle applies to trusting my tools of logical analysis.

I'll be talking more about Münchhausen trilemma in future posts.

Give Skepticism a Try

Ape in the coat

1mo

Philosophy has a weird relationships with skepticism. On one hand, skepticism is a legitimate philosophical view with no good arguments against.

On the other hand, it’s usually treated as an obviously wrong view. An absurdity which, nevertheless has to be entertained. Skeptic arguments and conclusions are almost never directly engaged with. Instead, they are treated as bogeymans that would somehow destroy all reason and, quite ironically, as justifications for dogmas.

Consider how Descartes arrived to a theistic conclusion. Whatever the observations, it’s always possible that those are just illusions imposed by evil demon. Which means that no observations can be fully justified. Unless... there is a God that prevents evil demon from his misdeeds.

Now,... (read 817 more words →)

No God Can Help You

Ape in the coat

2mo

There is a standard pattern in philosophical conversations. People stumble upon their epistemological limitations and then assume that God’s existence somehow would’ve solved the problem.

For instance, suppose we are talking about Münchhausen trilemma, demonstrating the inability to have completely certain foundation for knowledge. We inspect different horns of the trilemma and then conclude with a sigh:

“Oh well, it seems there is no absolute certainty in our world. Unless, of course, God Himself would tell us that something is true”.

This is deeply related to the idea of curiosity-stoppers. Standard non-answers that make people pretend that the problem is solved and, therefore, cease any further investigation. Naturally, saying “God!” is a very popular one.

But... (read 643 more words →)

The Joke

Ape in the coat

3mo

There is a joke format which I find quite fascinating. Let’s call it Philosopher vs Engineer.

It goes like this: the Philosopher raises some complicated philosophical question, while the Engineer gives a very straightforward applied answer. Some back and forth between the two ensues, but they fail to cross the inferential gap and solve the misunderstanding.

It doesn’t have to be literal philosopher and engineer, though. Other versions may include philosopher vs scientist, philosopher vs economist, human vs AI, human vs alien and so on. For instance:

One thing that I love about it is that the joke is funny, regardless of whose side you are on. You can laugh at how much the engineers... (read 1185 more words →)

PTF 102: Conditionalization and Events

Ape in the coat

7mo

In the previous post we've established the notion of a probability experiment and had a brief glance how it can be used to describe knowledge states and Bayesian updates. Now let's talk about it in more details and see how all our standard probability theoretic concepts can be derived from it.

And as a starting point, let's talk about conditionalization.

Usually to do it, we're required to perform some preparations beforehand:

Define Sample Space $Ω$
Define Event Space $F$
Define Probability function $P : F \to [0; 1]$
Define conditional probability through probability of joint intersection of events:
$P (A | B) = P (A \cap B) / P (B)$

As far as mathematical formalism goes, this is fine. But if we look at a typical case in the real world, this is backwards. We almost never start... (read 2208 more words →)

Prediction Markets Are Mediocre

Ape in the coat

10mo

The fantasy of prediction markets is that we can use them for policy proposals to inform people about the consequences of their actions. Conditional prediction market "Will X lead to terrible consequence Y" theoretically can give helpful insights and prevent X from happening, if $P (Y | X)$ is high enough.

The reality of prediction markets is this:

We may say, that this is not bad at all. The market is clearly reacting to the news and updating its estimate. It aggregates uncertainty of multiple people into a single probability estimate. It's doing its job. Now it's very confident in tariffs, and it has never been too low.

The problem is that knowing that Trump will almost certainly impose large... (read 658 more words →)

Probability Theory Fundamentals 102: Territory that Probability is in the Map of

Ape in the coat

11mo

If probability is in the map, then what is the territory? What are we mapping when we apply probability theory?

"Our uncertainty about the world, of course."

Uncertainty, yes. And sure, every map is, in a sense, a map of the world. But can we be more specific? Say, for a fair coin toss, what particular part of the world do we map with probability theory? Surely it's not the whole world at the same time, is it?

"It is. You map the whole world. Multiple possible worlds, in fact. In some of them the coin is Heads in the others it's Tails, and you are uncertain which one is yours."

Wouldn't that mean that I... (read 2628 more words →)

Probability Theory Fundamentals 102: Source of the Sample Space

Ape in the coat

11mo

The usual explanation of probability theory goes like this:

There is this thing called Probability Space, which consists of three other things:

Sample Space - some non-empty set
Event Space - a set of subsets of the Sample Space
Probability Function - a measure function over the elements of the Event Space.

And then several examples of how we can merge this mathematical model with a real world situations are given.

For instance, for a dice roll the appropriate sample space would be {1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6}. For an Event Space we can use a superset of the Sample Space and probability function has to give every elementary event equal value:

$P (1) = P (2) = P (3) = P (4) = P (5) = P (6) = 1 / 6$

The point of such examples is... (read 1853 more words →)

Zombies! Substance Dualist Zombies?

Ape in the coat

Introduction

In the classical Zombies! Zombies? post, Eliezer has thoroughly analyzed the so called Zombie Argument and demonstrated its absurdity. So what else can even be said here? Case closed.

Well, not so fast. Apparently, a lot of people, including David Chalmers himself, still manage to take the argument seriously, even though they are familiar with Eliezer's analysis. They believe that Eliezer only argued against a weak - Epiphenomenalist - version of Zombie Argument. But that there is also a stronger Substance Dualist version of it, that is not refuted by Eliezer's reasoning.

In this post we will analyze this version of the argument and use it as a practical exercise for aspiring rationalists.

Understanding the

... (read 1616 more words →)

What's the Deal with Logical Uncertainty?

Ape in the coat

Ape in the coat, quetzal_rainbow

I notice that reasoning about logical uncertainty does not appear more confusing to me than reasoning about empirical one. Am I missing something?

Consider the classical example from the description of the tag:

Is the googolth digit of pi odd? The probability that it is odd is, intuitively, 0.5. Yet we know that this is definitely true or false by the rules of logic, even though we don't know which. Formalizing this sort of probability is the primary goal of the field of logical uncertainty.
The problem with the 0.5 probability is that it gives non-zero probability to false statements. If I am asked to bet on whether the googolth digit of pi is odd,

... (read 424 more words →)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

Anthropical Paradoxes are Paradoxes of Probability Theory

Doomsday Argument and the False Dilemma of Anthropic Reasoning

What's the Deal with Logical Uncertainty?

The Joke

Ape in the coat

Observations and Complexity

Give Skepticism a Try

No God Can Help You

The Joke

PTF 102: Conditionalization and Events

Prediction Markets Are Mediocre

Probability Theory Fundamentals 102: Territory that Probability is in the Map of

Probability Theory Fundamentals 102

Ape in the coat

Anthropical Paradoxes are Paradoxes of Probability Theory

Doomsday Argument and the False Dilemma of Anthropic Reasoning

What's the Deal with Logical Uncertainty?

The Joke

Ape in the coat

Observations and Complexity

Give Skepticism a Try

No God Can Help You

The Joke

PTF 102: Conditionalization and Events

Prediction Markets Are Mediocre

Probability Theory Fundamentals 102: Territory that Probability is in the Map of

Probability Theory Fundamentals 102

Introduction

Understanding the