Once upon a time, a younger Eliezer had a stupid theory. Let's say that Eliezer₁₈'s stupid theory was that consciousness was caused by closed timelike curves hiding in quantum gravity. This isn't the whole story, not even close, but it will do for a start.

And there came a point where I looked back, and realized:

I had carefully followed everything I'd been told was Traditionally Rational, in the course of going astray. For example, I'd been careful to only believe in stupid theories that made novel experimental predictions, e.g., that neuronal microtubules would be found to support coherent quantum states.
Science would have been perfectly fine with my spending ten years trying to test my stupid theory, only to get a negative experimental result, so long as I then said, "Oh, well, I guess my theory was wrong."

From Science's perspective, that is how things are supposed to work—happy fun for everyone. You admitted your error! Good for you! Isn't that what Science is all about?

But what if I didn't want to waste ten years?

Well... Science didn't have much to say about that. How could Science say which theory was right, in advance of the experimental test? Science doesn't care where your theory comes from—it just says, "Go test it."

This is the great strength of Science, and also its great weakness.

Gray Area asked:

Eliezer, why are you concerned with untestable questions?

Because questions that are easily immediately tested are hard for Science to get wrong.

I mean, sure, when there's already definite unmistakable experimental evidence available, go with it. Why on Earth wouldn't you?

But sometimes a question will have very large, very definite experimental consequences in your future—but you can't easily test it experimentally right now—and yet there is a strong rational argument.

Macroscopic quantum superpositions are readily testable: It would just take nanotechnologic precision, very low temperatures, and a nice clear area of interstellar space. Oh, sure, you can't do it right now, because it's too expensive or impossible for today's technology or something like that—but in theory, sure! Why, maybe someday they'll run whole civilizations on macroscopically superposed quantum computers, way out in a well-swept volume of a Great Void. (Asking what quantum...

Mother_Teresa

Mother_Teresa