Erratum for "From AI to Zombies"

Believe it or not, what I am doing is charitable interpretation...I am trying to make sense of what he said.

You may be trying to be charitable. You are not succeeding, partly because what you consider to be "making sense" does not make sense.

But also partly because you're routinely failing to acknowledge that you're putting our own spin on things. There is a big difference between "Eliezer said X" and "I don't know what Eliezer was trying to say, but my best guess is that he meant X".

After you say "Eliezer said X" and I say "I don't think Eliezer was trying to say X, I think he was trying to say Y", there's a big difference between "Y implies X" and "okay, I guess I don't really know what he was trying to say, but it seems to me that X follows from Y so my best guess is he meant X".

If this is your idea of charitable interpretation, I wish you would be less charitable.

If he thinks Bayes is systematically better than science, that would imply “Bayes is better than science, so replace science with Bayes”, because that makes more sense than “Bayes is better than science, so don’t replace Science with Bayes”.

I have explained why this is wrong.

Sally-Anne is only a fallacy where the meaning is clear.

This seems exactly wrong. Deciding "someone believes P, and P implies Q, so they must believe Q" is a fallacy because it is possible for someone to believe P, and for P to imply Q, and yet for the person not to believe Q. It's possible even if they additionally believe that P implies Q; people have been known to be inconsistent.

This inference may be correct, mind you, and certainly someone believing P (which implies Q) is reason to suspect that they believe Q. "Fallacies as weak Bayesian evidence" and so forth. But it's still a fallacy in the same way as "P implies Q; Q; therefore P". It is not a valid inference in general.

That's where the meaning is clear. Where the meaning is unclear... what you're doing instead is "someone kind of seems to believe P? I dunno though. And P implies Q. So they definitely believe Q". Which is quite clearly worse.

I am engaging in probablistic reasoning.

Are you, really? Can you point to anything you've said which supports this?

Like, skimming the conversation, as far as I can tell I have not once seen you express uncertainty in your conclusions. You have not once said anything along the lines of "I think Eliezer might have meant this, and if so then... but on the other hand he might have meant this other thing, in which case..."

You have, after much goading, admitted that you can't be sure you know what Eliezer meant. But I haven't seen you carry that uncertainty through to anything else.

I don't know what's going on in your head, but I would be surprised if "probabilistic reasoning" was a good description of the thing you're doing. From the outside, it looks like the thing you're doing might be better termed "making a guess, and then forgetting it was a guess".

Why should I make any attempt to provide evidence, when you are going to reject it out of hand.

I didn't reject the evidence? I agree that it is evidence someone else interpreted Eliezer in the same way you did, which as far as I can tell is what you were trying to show when you presented the evidence?

I still think it's a misinterpretation. This should not be a surprise. It's not like the other person gave me any more reason than you have, to think that Eliezer meant the thing you think he meant. Neither you nor he appears to have actually quoted Eliezer, for example, beyond his titles. (Whereas I have provided a quote which suggests your interpretation is wrong, and which you have all-but ignored.)

And I still don't know what I'm to make of it. I still don't know why you think "someone else also interpreted EY in this way" is particularly relevant.

No, but he could do a lot better. (An elephant-in-the-room issue here is that even though he is still alive, no-one expects him to pop up and say something that actually clarifies the issue).

Perhaps he could, but like... from my perspective you've made an insane leap of logic and you're expecting him to clear up that it's not what he meant. But there are an awful lot of possible insane leaps of logic people can make, and surely have made when reading this essay and others. Why would he spend his time clearing up yours specifically?

It’s about the most basic principle of epistemology, and one which the rationalsphere accepts: lucky guesses stopped clocks are not knowledge, even when they are right, because they are not reliable and systematic.

I still don't know what you mean by "systematically". If you expected this example to help, I don't know why you expected that.

Obviously, that would be the stuff that science is already doing, since EY has argued, at immense length, that it gets quantum mechanics right,.

What stuff specifically? Science is doing a lot of things. Is Bayes supposed to be better than science at producing jobs for grant writers?

And, I point out that this is you replying to what was mostly an aside, while ignoring the bits that seemed to me more important. You've ignored where I said "even if we specify that, I don’t see...". You've ignored where I said "I'm not sure what clear statement you expect me to make". You've ignored where I said "I don't know why you'd care whether or not I make it".

If there is some objective factor about a person that makes them incapable of understanding Bayes , then a Bayesian should surely identify it. But where else has EY ever so much as hinted that some people are un-Bayesian?

I don't know why you're asking the question, but I'm pretty sure it rests on a confused premise in ways that I've explained, so I'm not going to try to figure this out.

Why do I have to tell you what I think in order for you to tell me what you think?

I don't think I've been coy about what I think? I don't know what you're getting at here. My best guess is that you wanted me to explain why I thought "individuals should be willing to trust in Bayes over science" does not imply "we should replace science-the-institution with Bayes", and you were unwilling to answer my questions until I answered this?

If that's what you wanted, then I'd point out firstly that I did give a brief explanation, "Bayes might give some people better answers than science, and not give other people better answers than science". Apparently my brief answer didn't satisfy you, but, well... why should I give a more in depth answer when you've been refusing to answer my questions? I'm not convinced there's any relationship between these things (whether or not I should answer your questions and whether or not you've answered mine; and whether or not you should answer my questions and whether or not I've answered yours). But if there is, I guess I think I feel like the ball's in your court and has been for a while.

But also, I repeatedly said that I thought it was besides the point. "I do not know how it intends to engage with my comment." "I think you’re wrong, but even if you’re right… okay, so what?" "I’m not inclined to engage on that further, because I don’t think it’s particularly relevant". "I think this is wrong. But even if it’s right, I do not think your reply engaged with the comment it was replying to."

If you thought it was not besides the point, you had ample opportunity to try to convince me? As far as I can tell you did not try.

And also, recall that you started this thread by leveling an accusation. I was asking my questions to try to get you to elaborate on what you had said, because I did not know what accusation you were making. If you refuse to explain the meaning of your terms, until the person asking for clarification answers other questions you ask of them...

...and if you do this while complaining about someone else not writing as clearly as you might hope, and not popping in to clarify his meanings...

then, honestly, I cannot help but wonder what you think is happening, here. It does not feel, for example, like your accusation was coming from a place of "here is a mistake LW is making, I will try to help LW see that they are making this mistake, and that will make LW a better place".

Here’s the exchange:

Me: Do you think LessWrong-at-large currently thinks “individuals should be willing to trust in Bayes over science”?

You: Dunno if you think this either, also probably not super relevant.

What? This exchange has not happened. I asked that question, and when you declined to answer, I wrote the second line too. I hope you already know this? (Honestly though, I'm genuinely not sure that you do.) But I have no idea what you're trying to say.

(Are you asking me whether I think LW-at-large currently thinks that? If so the answer is "yes, I already said that I think that, that's why I mentioned Covid content.")

I am now tapping out. I guess I might make low-effort comments going forwards, if I think that will serve my purposes. But I won't expend significant energy talking to you on this subject unless I somehow become convinced it will be worth my time. (I hope not to expend significant energy talking to you on any subject, in fact.)

I am strong-downvoting your original accusation. I was reluctant to do so at first, because I don't want LW to be an echo chamber; I wanted to check whether the accusation had merit. I am satisfied it has little-to-none.