Yelsgib
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"If I do not disregard it then I must consider it on equal grounds with all "accounts" of creation and concede the utter impossibility of making a decision."
"stupid postmodernists" would suggest a separate solution. Namely - the bible presents an account of creation which is "true" w/r/t certain cultural contexts.
Now, all "truth" in this sense is "equivalent" in that it is merely statements within a cultural or philosophical context. However, this is not the standard by which you, I, or anyone (since we are all necessarily IN a cultural/philosophical context) judge truth.
So you are free to say "I disregard the bible as an accurate account of creation because I belong to a... (read more)
Can we make statements of the form "X is Y" without the statement "X exists" being true? Because Eliezer does about reality - therefore I assume there is some sense in which he believes it to "exist." Note that my questions were directed towards his definition, not the claim itself (since I still obviously don't understand the way that Eliezer uses words).
To answer your questions:
"Where is the universe?"
Right here.
"What color is half-past three?"
For certain definitions of color in certain logical frameworks involving the entities "color" and "half-past three," half-past three is colorless.
"How many zeros does it take to make a baker's dozen?"
Thirteen (duh).
Do you think it's possible that the word "exist" is overloaded?
In what sense does snow "existA" but love does not "existA?"
In what sense does "reality exist?" Is this tautology? If so, state it.
"This is the point missed by the postmodernist folks screaming, "But how do you know your beliefs are true?""
Does setting up straw men serve some sort of emotional purpose? Why do you keep doing it? You haven't performed an analysis of the "postmodernist position" - you just keep pointing fingers and saying "they're dumb."
The (non-moron) post-modernist folks are screaming "How do we even know that 'reality exists?' Obviously we do not -know- so it must be definition embedded in cultural/computational context. Therefore when we make statements like "snow is white" what we really -mean- is the set of cultural/computational primitives that that statement can be reduced to. There is no other sense in which the word "mean" makes sense."
What about self-referent phenomena? Are you actually claiming that no beliefs are disjoint from so-called "logical definitions?"
I agree with Robin that there needs to be meta-analysis of what's been going on in Eliezer's recent posts and replies to those posts.
As a concrete example, Eliezer continually sets up the "silly post-modernist professor" archtype, but I haven't seen anything even vaguely resembling a critique of more serious post-modern thought (like Foucault, for instance). In any case, post-modernism makes sense under some interpretations - e.g. if it is taken to mean that "truth" is dependent on context (since statements cannot have meaning without relation to a set of semantic primitives).
As a direct reformulation - Eliezer has not addressed how I personally think about consciousness/why I personally think it is a hard... (read more)
"But an Artificial Intelligence programmer who knows how to create a chess-playing program out of base matter, has taken a genuine step toward crossing the gap. If you understand concepts like consequentialism, backward chaining, utility functions, and search trees, you can make merely causal/mechanical systems compute plans."
The space of algorithms to play chess "well" is large. That space is not equivalent to the space of "intelligence."
Your conjecture seems to be that the Problem of Chess requires intelligence.
I also don't see how you can claim that understanding utility functions helps you understand the brain. Do you think that such functions are explicitly represented in the brain? Do you have ANY reason to believe this?
I guess it seems to me that you're claiming that you have reason to believe you understand something about what intelligence is - but then you go on to talk about some crappy models we have for it.
Are you seriously even thinking about condemning/censuring emotional reaction? I don't understand what the -content- of any of the above is, at all. Things are the way they are - including people. They act the way they do. I'm not being reductionist - I'm saying that (in my world) it is only the power of dropping the context which gives your statements a semblance of meaningfulness.
If you do not give your statements basis will lose people (e.g. me) from different philosophical/intellectual backgrounds.
Now here's something to sink the teeth into - a sort of challenge - can we do better?
I guess my reaction to this post is a sort of microcosm of my reaction to most of the content of this blog - I think that our biases are -necessary-, in fact, I think they are the way that we think. They are easily exposed and routed out in our interactions with very basic things, but can you tell me how to get rid of my biases in thinking about Category Theory? How do I get rid of my biases when reading the works of Foucault?
Our biases are a consequence of our computational contexts. We... (read more)
Let me suggest a mechanism which explains Keat's (and my own - and every adult's [?]) "loss of wonder."
Part of what we do in using language is pointing to things and making noises so that other people who are experiencing the same thing (presumably) associate the noise to the thing. Now we have a nice way to refer to the "same thing."
The word "rainbow" then corresponds to more than just the visual input - it is all things associated with the rainbow. It is many things not explicitly associated with. It is a -loose- association. It feels free. It allows room for imagination. It is not serious. The point is that the... (read more)
I actually don't understand your point at all.
Before Keats found out about what rainbows "really are" he experienced wonder while looking at them. After, he didn't.
What else is the man supposed to do? He's got to try to investigate his experience, right? Where did he go wrong?
You are reducing his cognitive processes to those of a bumbling fool. They're complex, you just don't understand them. It doesn't seem like you're making enough of an effort.
To what extent do you think:
1.) Culture itself evolves and follows the same principles of evolution as humans and honeybees?
2.) Culture defines worldview and horizon of knowledge/decision/ideation?
3.) Culture's means of communicating information to infants (e.g. "My First Big Book of A B C's") are evolving/changing to encode "more correct" ideas of the human organism (i.e. teach better)?
You seem to be avoiding theorizing on how society/culture -does- affect our maturation?. Can we bound this? Can we say anything effective about it?