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The other problem is that MWI is up against various subjective and non-realist interpretations, so it's not it's not the case that you can build an ontological model of every interpretation.
Huh? The whole point of the Born rule is to get a set of ordinary probabilities, which you can then test frequentistically, over a run of experiments. Quantum mechanical measure-- amplitude-- isn't ordinary probability, but that's the thing you put into the Born rule, not the thing you get out of it. And it has it's own role, which is explaining how much contribution to a coherent superposition each component state makes.
ETA
There is a further problem interpreting the probabilities of fully decohered branches. (Calling then Everett branches is very misleading -- a clear theory of decoherence is precisely what's lacking in Everett's work)
Whether you are supposed to care about them ethically is very unclear, since it is not clear how utilitarian style ethics would apply, even if you could make sense of the probabilities. But you are not supposed to care about them for the purposes of doing science, since they can no longer make any difference to your branch. MWI works like a collapse theory in practice.
always thought that in naive MWI what matters is not whether something happens in absolute sense, but what Born measure is concentrated on branches that contain good things instead of bad things.
It's tempting to ethically discount low measure decoherent branches in some way, because that most closely approximates conventional single world utilitarianism -- that is something "naive MWI" might mean. However, one should not jump to the conclusion that something is true just because it is convenient. And of course, MWI is a scientific theory so it doesn't comes with built in ethics.
The alternative view starts with the question of whether a person low measure world still count as a full.person? If they should not, is that because they are a near-zombie, with a faint consciousness that weighs little in a hedonic utilitarian calculus? If they are not such zombies, why would they not count as a full person -- the standard utilitarian argument that people in far-off lands are still moral patients seems to apply. Of course, MWI doesn't directly answer the question about consciousness.
(For example, if I toss a quantum fair coin n times, there will be 2^n branches with all possible outcomes.)
If "naive MWI" means the idea that any elementary interaction produces decoherent branching, then it is wrong for the reasons I explain here. Since there are some coherent superpositions, and not just decoherent branches, there are cases where the Born rule gives you ordinary probabilities, as any undergraduate physics student knows.
(What is the meaning of the probability measure over the branches if all branches coexist?)
It's not the existence, it's the lack of interaction/interference.
By "equally" I meant:
"in the same ways (and to the same degree)".
If you actually believe in florid many worlds, you would end up pretty insuoucient, since everything possible happens, and nothing can be avoided.
Same way you know anything. "Sharp valued" and "classical" have meanings, which cash out in expected experience.
This question doesn’t really make sense from a naturalistic perspective, because there isn’t any causal mechanism that could be responsible for the difference between “a version of me that exists at 3pm tomorrow, whose experiences I should anticipate experiencing” and “an exact physical copy of me that exists at 3pm tomorrow, whose experiences I shouldn’t anticipate experiencing”.
There is, and its multi-way splitting, whether through copying or many worlds branching. The present you can't anticipate having all their experiences, because experience is experienced one-at-a-time. They can all look back at their memories, and conclude that they were you, but you can't simply reverse that and conclude that you will be them , because the set-up is asymmetrical.
Scenario 1 is crazy talk, and it’s not the scenario I’m talking about. When I say “You should anticipate having both experiences”, I mean it in the sense of Scenario 2.
Scenario 2: “Two separate screens.” My stream of consciousness continues from Rob-x to Rob-y, and it also continues from Rob-x to Rob-z. Or, equivalently: Rob-y feels exactly as though he was just Rob-x, and Rob-z also feels exactly as though he was just Rob-x (since each of these slightly different people has all the memories, personality traits, etc. of Rob-x — just as though they’d stepped through a doorway).
But that isn't an experience. It's two experiences. You will not have an experience of having two experiences. Two experiences will experience having been one person.
If I expect to be uploaded tomorrow, should I care about the upload in the same ways (and to the same degree) that I care about my future biological self?
- Yeah.
Are you going to care about 1000 different copies equally?
ETA.
The particular* brain states* look no different in the teleporter case than if I’d stepped through a door; so if there’s something that makes the post-teleporter Rob “not me” while also making the post-doorway Rob “me”, then it must lie outside the brain states, a Cartesian Ghost.
There's another option: door-Rob has physical continuity. There's an analogy with the identity-over-time of physical objects: if someone destroyed the Mona Lisa, and created an atom-by-atom duplicate some time later, the duplicate would not be considered the same entity (numerical identity).
I am talking about the minimal set of operations you have to perform to get experimental results. A many worlder may care about other branches philosophically, but if they don't renormalise , their results will be wrong, and if they don't discard, they will do unnecessary calculation.
Err...physicists can make them in the laboratory. Or were you asking whether they are fundamental constituents of reality?
The claim that humans are at least TM's is quite different to the claim that humans are at most TM's. Only the second is computationalism.
Meanwhile the many-worlds interpretation suffers from the problem that it is hard to bridge to experience,
Operationally, it's straightforward: you keep "erasing the part of the (alleged) wavefunction that is inconsistent with my indexical observations, and then re-normalizing the wavefunction"...all the time murmering under your breath "this is not collapse..this is not collapse".
(Lubos Motl is quoted making a similar comment here https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2D9s6kpegDQtrueBE/multiple-worlds-one-universal-wave-function?commentId=8CXRntS3JkLbBaasx)
That claim is unjustified and unjustifiable
Nothing complex is a black box , because it has components, which can potentially be understood.
Nothing artificial is a black box to the person who built it.
An LLM is , of course, complex and artificial.
Everything is fundamentally a black box until proven otherwise.
What justifies that claim?
Our ability to imagine systems behaving in ways that are 100% predictable and our ability to test systems so as to ensure that they behave predictably
I wasn't arguing on that basis.
every particle interaction creates n parallel universes which never physically interfere with each other”
Although a fairly standard way of explaining MWI, this is an example of conflating coherence and decoherence. To get branches that never interact with each other again, you need decoherence, but decoherence is a complex dynamical process..it takes some time...so it is not going to occur once per elementary interaction. It's reasonable to suppose that elementary interactions produce coherent superpositions, on the other hand, but these are not mutually isolated "worlds". And we have fairly strong evidence for them.. quantum computing relies on complex coherent superpositions....so any idea that all superpositions just automatically and instantly decohere must be rejected.
People keep coming up with derivations, and other people keep coming up with criticisms of them, which is why people keep coming up with new ones.
I don’t think this is correct, either (although it’s closer). You can’t build a ball-and-disk integrator out of pebbles, hence computation is not necessarily substrate neutral.
Meaning that a strong version of computational substrate independence , where any substrate will do, is false? Maybe, but I was arguing against hypothetical, that "the substrate independence of computation implies the substrate independence of consciousness", not *for* the antecedent, the substrate independence of computation.
What the Turing Thesis says is that a Turing machine, and also any system capable of emulating a Turing machine, is computationally general (i.e., can solve any problem that can be solved at all). You can build a Turing machine out of lots of substrates (including pebbles), hence lots of substrates are computationally general. So it’s possible to integrate a function using pebbles, but it’s not possible to do it using the same computation as the ball-and-disk integrator uses—the pebbles system will perform a very different computation to obtain the same result.
I don't see the relevance.
So even if you do hold that certain computations/algorithms are sufficient for consciousness, it still doesn’t follow that a simulated brain has identical consciousness to an original brain. You need an additional argument that says that the algorithms run by both systems are sufficiently similar.
OK. A crappy computational emulation might not be conscious, because it's crappy. It still doesn't follow that a good emulation is necessarily conscious. You're just pointing out another possible defeater.
This is a good opportunity to give Eliezer credit because he addressed something similar in the sequences and got the argument right:
Which argument? Are you saying that a good enough emulation is necessarily conscious?
Albert: “Suppose I replaced all the neurons in your head with tiny robotic artificial neurons that had the same connections, the same local input-output behavior, and analogous internal state and learning rules.” Note that this isn’t “I upload a brain” (which doesn’t guarantee that the same algorithm is run)
If it's detailed enough, it's guaranteed to. That's what "enough" means
but rather “here is a specific way in which I can change the substrate such that the algorithm run by the system remains unaffected”.
Ok...that might prove the substrate independence of computation, which I wasn't arguing against. Past that, I don't see your point
The result (at least partially) of a particular physical substrate. Physicalism and computationalism are both not-dualism , but they are not the same as each other.
The Church-Turing thesis gives us the “substrate independence principle”. In principle, AI could be conscious.
The C-T thesis gives you the substrate independence of computation. To get to the substrate independence of consciousness, you need the further premise that the performance of certain computations is sufficient for consciousness, including qualia. This is, of course, not known.
MW has to show that decoherence is a natural consequence, which is the same thing. It can't be taken on faith, any more than entropy should be. Proofs of entropy were supplied a long time ago, proofs of decoherence of a suitable kind, are a work in progress.
What does highly sensitive mean? In classical physics, an observer can produce an energy output much greater than the energy input of the observation. ,but no splitting is implied. In bare Everettian theory, an observer becomes entangled with the coherent superposition they are observing, and goes into a coherent superposition themself ..so no decoherentsplitting is implied. You still haven't said where and the initial decoherent splitting occurs.
Bohmian mechanics adds hidden variables. why would it be simpler?
Amount of calculation isn’t so much the concern here as the amount of bits used to implement that calculation. And there’s no law that forces the amount of bits encoding the computation to be equal. Copenhagen can just waste bits on computations that MWI doesn’t have to do
And vice versa. You can do unnecessary calculation under any interpretation, so that's an uninteresting observation.
The importantly is that the minimum amount of calculation you have to do get an empirically adequate theory is the same under any interpretation, because interpretations don't change the maths, they just ... interpret it.... differently. In particular, a.follower many worlder has to discard unobserved results in the same way as a Copenhagenist -- it's just that they interpret doing so as the unobserved results existing in another branch, rather than being snipped off by collapse. The maths is the same, the interpretation is different. You can also do the maths without interpreting it, as in Shut Up And Calculate.
Copenhagen has to have rules for when measurements occur and what basis they occur in
This gets back to a long-standing confusion between Copenhagen and objective collapse theories (here, I mean, not in the actual physics community). Copenhagen ,properly speaking, only claims that collapse occurs on or before measurement. It also claims that nothing is known about the ontology of.the system before collapse -- it's not the case that anything "is" a wave function. An interpretation of QM doesn't have to have an ontology, and many dont. Which, of course, is another factor that renders the whole Kolmogorov. Complexity approach inoperable.
Objective collapse theories like GRW do have to specify when and collapse occurs...but MW theories have to specify when and how decoherence occurs. Decoherence isn't simple.
You're saying that if you have decoherent splitting of an observer, that leads to more decoherent splitting. But where does the initial decoherent splitting come from?
We don't have to regard basis as objective, ITFP.
Why? If you could prove that large environments must cause decoherence into n>1 branches you would have solved the measurement problem as it is currently understood.
but rather that Copenhagen used up some extra bits in the machine that generates the output tape in order to implement the wavefunction collapse procedure. (
Again: that's some less calculation that the reader of the tape has to do.
I'm not talking about the code complexity of interleaving the SI's output.
I am talking about interpreting the serial output of the SI ....de-interleaving , as it were. If you account for that , then the total complexity is exactly the same as Copenhagen and that's the point. I'm not a dogmatic Copenhagenist, so that's not a gotcha.
Basically , the amount of calculation you have to do to get an empirically adequate theory is the same under any interpretation, because interpretations don't change the maths, they just ... interpret it .....differently. The SI argument for MWI only seems to work because it encourages the reader to neglect the complexity implicit in interpreting the output tape.
"it" isn't a single theory.
The argument that Everettian MW is favoured by Solomonoff induction, is flawed.
If the program running the SWE outputs information about all worlds on a single output tape, they are going to have to be concatenated or interleaved somehow. Which means that to make use of the information, you gave to identify the subset of bits relating to your world. That's extra complexity which isn't accounted for because it's being done by hand, as it were..
I'm not trying to say all forms of MW are hopeless. I am saying
- there is more than one form
- there are trade offs between simplicity and correctness -- there's no simple and adequate MWI.
Decoherence isn't simple -- you can't find it by naively looking at the SWE, and it took three or four decades for physicists to notice.
It also doesnt't unequivocally support MW -- when we observe decoherence, we observe it one universe at a time, and maybe in the one and only universe.
"Decoherence does half the job of solving the measurement problem. In short, it tells you that you will not in practice be able to observe that Schroodinger's cat is in a superposition, because the phase between the two parts of the superposition would not be sufficiently stable. But the concept of decoherence does not, on its own, yield an answer to the question "how come the experimental outcome turns out to be one of A or B, not both A and B carried forward together into the future?"
The half-job that decoherence succeeds in doing is to elucidate the physical process whereby a preferred basis or pointer basis is established. As you say in the question, any given quantum state can be expressed as a superposition in some basis, but this ignores the dynamical situation that physical systems are in. In practice, when interactions with large systems are involved, states in one basis will stay still, states in another basis will evolve VERY rapidly, especially in the phase factors that appear as off-diagonal elements of density matrices. The pointer basis is the one where, if the system is in a state in that basis, then it does not have this very fast evolution.
But as I say, this observation does not in and of itself solve the measurement problem in full; it merely adds some relevant information. It is the next stage where the measurement problem really lies, and where people disagree. Some people think the pointer basis is telling us about different parts of a 'multiverse' which all should be regarded as 'real'. Other people think the pointer basis is telling us when and where it is legitimate to assert 'one thing and not both things happen'.
That's it. That's my answer to your question.
But I can't resist the lure, the sweet call of the siren, "so tell us: what is really going on in quantum measurement?" So (briefly!) here goes.
I think one cannot get a good insight into the interpretation of QM until one has got as far as the fully relativistic treatment and therefore field theory. Until you get that far you find yourself trying to interpret the 'state' of a system; but you need to get into another mindset, in which you take an interest in events, and how one event influences another. Field theory naturally invites one to a kind of 'input-output' way of thinking, where the mathematical apparatus is not trying to say everything at once, but is a way of allowing one to ask and find answers to well-posed questions. There is a distinction between maths and physical stuff. The physical things evolve from one state to another; the mathematical apparatus tells us the probabilities of the outcomes we put to it once we have specified what is the system and what is its environment. Every system has an environment and quantum physics is a language which only makes sense in the context of an environment.
In the latter approach (which I think is on the right track) the concept of 'wavefunction of the whole universe' is as empty of meaning as the concept of 'the velocity of the whole universe'. The effort to describe the parts of such a 'universal wavefunction' is a bit like describing the components of the velocity of the whole universe. In saying this I have gone beyond your question, but I hope in a useful way."
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/256874/simple-question-about-decoherence
ETA:
“Despite how tidy the decoherence story seems, there are some peo-ple for whom it remains unsatisfying. One reason is that the deco-herence story had to bring in a lot of assumptions seemingly extra-neous to quantum mechanics itself: about the behavior of typicalphysical systems, the classicality of the brain, and even the nature ofsubjective experience. A second reason is that the decoherence storynever did answer our question about the probability you see the dotchange color – instead the story simply tried to convince us the ques-tion was meaningless.” Quantum Computing since Democritus, 2nd Ed, P. 169.
Regarding basis as an observers own choice of "co-ordinate grid", and regarding observing (or instrument) as having a natural basis , is a simple and powerful theory of basis. Since an observer's natural basis is the one that minimises superpositions, the fact that observers make quasi-classical observations drops out naturally, without any cosmological assumptions. But, since there is no longer a need for a global and objective basis, a basis that is a feature of the universe, there is no longer a possibility of many worlds as an objective feature of the universe: since an objective basis is needed to objectively define a division into worlds, there such a division is no longer possible, and splitting is an observer-dependent phenomenon.
What would you expect to see if you were a superposition?
If I were in a coherent superposition, I would expect to see non classical stuff. Entanglement alone is not enough to explain my sharp-valued, quasi classical observations.
It isn't just a matter of definition, because I don't perceive non classical stuff, so I lack motivation to define "I" in way that mispredicts that I do. You don't get to arbitrarily relabel things if you are in the truth seeking business.
The objection isn't to using "I" or "the observer" to label a superposed bundle of sub-persons , each of which individually is unaware of the others and has normal, classical style experience, because that doesn't mispredict my experience. There problem is that "super posed bundle of persons , each of which is unaware of the others and has normal, classical style experience" is what you get from a decoherent superposition, and I am specifically talking about coherent superposition. ("In the Everett theory, everything that starts in a coherent superposition, stays in one.") Decoherence was introduced precisely to solve the problem with Everett's RSI.
Surely the math itself says that when you open the box, you end up in a superposition of |see the cat alive> + |see the cat dead>.
In a classical basis. But you could rewrite the superposition in other bases that we dont observe. That's one problem.
As Penrose writes (Road to Reality 29.8) "Why do we not permit these superposed perception states? Until we know exactly what it is about a quantum state that allows it to be considered as a ‘perception’, and consequently see that such superpositions are ‘not allowed’, we have really got nowhere in explaining why the real world of our experiences cannot involve superpositions of live and dead cats." Penrose gives the example of 2|psi>1⁄4 {jperceiving live cati þ jperceiving dead cati} {jlive cati þ j dead cati} þ {jperceiving live cati jperceiving dead cati} {jlive cati jdead cati} as an example of a surreal, non-classical superposition.
And/or, we have no reason to believe, given only the formalism itself , that the two versions of the observer will be unaware of each other, and able to report unambiguously on their individual observations. That's the point of the de/coherence distinction. In the Everett theory, everything that starts in a coherent superposition, stays in one.
"According to Everett’s pure wave mechanics, when our observer makes a measurement of the electron he does not cause a collapse, but instead becomes correlated with the electron. What this means is that where once we had a system that consisted of just an electron, there is now a system that consists of the electron and the observer. The mathematical equation that describes the state of the new system has one summand in which the electron is z-spin up and the observer measured “z-spin up” and another in which the electron is z-spin down and the observer measured “z-spin down.” In both summands our observer got a determinate measurement record, so in both, if we ask him whether he got a determinate record, he will say “yes.” If, as in this case, all summands share a property (in this case the property of our observer saying “yes” when asked if he got a determinate measurement record), then that property is determinate.
This is strange because he did not in fact get a determinate measurement record; he instead recorded a superposition of two outcomes. After our observer measures an x-spin up electron’s z-spin, he will not have determinately gotten either “*z-*spin up” or “*z-*spin down” as his record. Rather he will have determinately gotten “*z-*spin up or *z-*spin down,” since his state will have become correlated with the state of the electron due to his interaction with it through measurement. Everett believed he had explained determinate experience through the use of relative states (Everett 1957b: 146; Everett 1973: 63, 68–70, 98–9). That he did not succeed is largely agreed upon in the community of Everettians."
(https://iep.utm.edu/everett/#H5)
Many attempts have been made to fix the problem, notably decoherence based approaches.
The expected mechanism of decoherence is interaction with a larger environment... which is assumed to already be in a set of decoherent branches on a classical basis. But why? At this point , it becomes a cosmological problem. You can't write a WF of the universe without some cosmological assumptions about the initial state, and so on, so whether it looks many-worldish or not depends on the assumptions.
The math doesn't describe a multiverse, in the sense that if you solve the Schrödinger equation for the universe, you get some structure with clearly separated decoherent branches, every time. You need additional assumptions, which have their own complexity cost.
In fact, MWI is usually argued from models of a few particles. These can show coherent superposition, but to spin an MW theory worthy of the name out of that, you need superpositions that can be maintained at large scale, and also decohere into non interacting branches , preferably by a mechanism that can be found entirely in the standard formalism.
Everett's thesis doesn't give an answer to how an observer makes sharp-valued classiscal observations, and doesn't flag the issue either, although much of the subsequent literature does.
Eg. https://iep.utm.edu/everett/ for an overview (also why it's more than one theory, and a work-in-progress).
The main reason for not favouring the Everett interpretation is that it doesn't predict classical observations , unless you make further assumptions about basis, the "preferred basis problem". There is therefore room for an even simpler interpretation.
There is an approach to MWI based on coherent superpositions, and a version based on decoherence. These are (for all practical purposes) incompatible opposites, but are treated as interchangeable in Yudkowsky's writings.
The original, Everettian, or coherence based approach , is minimal, but fails to predict classical observations. (At all. It fails to predict the appearance of a broadly classical universe). The later, decoherence based approach, is more emprically adequate, but seems to require additional structure, placing its simplicity in doubt
Coherent superpositions probably exist, but their components aren't worlds in any intuitive sense. Decoherent branches would be worlds in the intuitive sense, and while there is evidence of decoherence, there is no evidence of decoherent branching.There could be a theoretical justification for decoherent branching , but that is what much of the ongoing research is about -- it isn't a done deal, and therefore not a "slam dunk". And, inasmuch as there is no agreed mechanism for decoherent branching, there is no definite fact about the simplicity of decoherent MWI.
Explaining everything involves explaining phenomenal consciousness, so it's literally solving the Hard Problem, as opposed to dissolving it.
I don't think it would tell you much, because it only excludes the case where the HP is a meme, not the case where it's a repeatable error.
Boxed AI tells you there is an HP.
- Could be because it is phenomenally conscious, and it has noticed there is a real HP.
- Could be because it is repeating a conceptual conclusion.
Boxed AI tells you there is not an HP.
- Could be because it is a zombie, so it can't understand what PC is.
- Could be because it has PC, but isn't subject to the erroneous thinking that causes the HP.
Note that you can't specify whether an AI is or isn't conscious, or that it's a perfect reasoner.
Note that philosophers don't agree on what constitutes a conceptual confusion.
Note that being able to trace back the causal history of an output doesn't tell you it wasn't caused by PC: one of the possible solutions to the HP is that certain kinds of physical activity, or information processing are identical to PC, so there is.not necessarily an xor between PC and physical causation. Of course, there is also a fact that human pronouncements have alone sort of causal history, and it doesn't settle much.
Note that, as things stand, the thought experiment is an intuition pump like Mary's Room, etc.
So maybe consciousness has always been a linguistic debate?
It has always been at least a linguistic debate , but that does not show that it as at most a linguistic debate. The thing is that the Hard Problem is already only about one specific sub-meaning of "consciousness", namely phenomenal consciousness...so you can't dissolve it just by saying "consciousness" means more than one thing, or "let's focus on the components of the problem". A problem is at least as hard as its hardest sub-problem.
And "let's focus on the components of the problem" isn't eliminativism... eliminativism the claim that there is nothing for the problem to be about.
And breaking the problem into a set of sub problems that dont contain the Hard Problem is not dissolving it. (C.f. Kaj's comments)
Don’t start by asking ‘what is consciousness’ or ‘what are qualia’; start by asking ‘what are the cognitive causes of people talking about consciousness and qualia
Which might be real things that are adequately designated by the words "consciousness"and "qualia" or real things that are not adequately designated by the words "consciousness"and "qualia", or by nothing, or...
The dictum tells you nothing.
The trick is to validate your beliefs against competent people who have objectives orthogonal to your personal narrative.
For instance, don't just read the sequences, read what the mainstream has to say as well.
And, while you should do this, it doesn't lead to unitary truth without the further assumption that epistemology is universally agreed and fixed. The assumption is unrealistic, because epistemologies are often embedded in comprehensive belief systems. Imagine a group of Marxists and a group of Christians trying to settle their differences. Comparing different theories is necessary but insufficient to arrive at universal truth.
The issue is what is likeliest, not what is possible.
People who disbelieve in naive correspondence theories of truth can do.for sophisticated reasons,.ie. there are various objections to the correspondence theory, and the OP does not address them.
One class of theories about consciousness holds that beings are conscious by virtue of possessing a set of properties. Folk consciousness, for example, holds that humans are conscious by virtue of possessing souls. Pan-psychism holds that everything is conscious by virtue of existing. IIT holds that beings are conscious by virtue of being able to hold large sums of information in their head.
As a mathematical realist, however, I find these theories difficult to accept. Within the digits of pi, there exist infinite copies of the information that describes me. Yet I do not consider my consciousness to exist in these copies, but rather in the real world. If I were to die tomorrow, I would find very little comfort in knowing that I would continue to live on in the digits of pi.
I don't see how mathematical realism affects any of the theories you mention. Souls don't have to be mathematical. Panpsyschism applies to everything , not just entities with a certain mathematical representation. IIT (and computationalism) require information to be processed, not just exist eternally.
On top of that, you have offered no evidence for MR. We have direct evidence that consciousness exists, but no evidence that numbers exist outside of the mind. If MR does conflict with the existence of consciousness, we should therefore drop MR.
Similarly, the many-worlds interpretation states that there are an endless number of versions of me created whenever a quantum moment takes place. And yet I likewise give these copies very little regard.
Maybe you are wrong.
If you have a meta belief that none of your beliefs are certain, does that make all your beliefs celiefs?
That argument doesn't work well.in its own terms: we have extinguished far fewer species than we have not.
So humans are "aligned" if humans have any kind of values? That's not how alignment is usually used.
The Orthogonality Thesis asserts that there can exist arbitrarily intelligent agents pursuing any kind of goal.”
The Ortogonality Thesis is often used in a way that "smuggles in" the idea that an AI will necessarily have a stable goal, even though goals can be very variewd. But similar reasoning shows that any combination of goal (in)stability and goallessness is possible, as well. mindspace contains agents with fixed goals, randomnly drifting goals, corrigble (externally controlable goals) , as well as non-agentive minds with no goals.
We must always start with the simplest possible explanations for the phenomena that surround us.
Why?
The fewer components, abstractions, or entities required for a hypothesis, the better the hypothesis.
Why?
(Not doubting Occam's razor, pointing out that it needs an explanation).
There is more than one way to correctly describe reality.
That goes against he law of non-contradiction: if the two ways are different, they cannot both be correct.
Newton’s theory was nominally refuted by Einstein’s relativism, but this did not stop it from working
"Working" means making correct predictions, not describing reality.
However, Stephen Hawking suggests instead that we consider them all true: that a theory accurately describes the fundamental nature of things is of less importance to us than that it gives us reliable mechanisms for interacting with reality.
How important something is depends on ones values.
“All models are wrong, but some of them are useful.”
...is the opposite of "There is more than one way to correctly describe reality.". Unless you start changing the meanings of "works"/"useful" versus "true"/"describes reality".
PS. Nothing to say about induction?
It's not two things, risk versus safety, it's three things: existential risk versus sub-existential risk versus no risk. Sub existential risk is the most likely on the priors.
That would be a philosophical problem...
Truth and Feelings can be reconciled, so long as you are not extreme about either.: if your true beliefs are hurtful you can keep them to yourself. Your worldview can be kept separate from your persona. The problem is when you bring a third thing -- the thing known as sincerity or tactlessness, depending on whether or not you believe in it -- into the picture. If you feel obliged to tell the truth, you are going to hurt feelings.
This used to be well known, but is becoming unknown because of an increasing tendency to use words like "truth and "honesty" in a way that encompasses offering unsolicited opinions in addition to avoid lying. If you can't make a verbal distinction, its hard to make a conceptual one.
He visibly cared about other people being in touch with reality. “I’ve informed a number of male college students that they have large, clearly detectable body odors. In every single case so far, they say nobody has ever told them that before,” he wrote. (I can testify that this is true: while sharing a car ride with Anna Salamon in 2011, he told me I had B.O.)[21]
Well, that goes beyond having true beliefs and only making true statements.
"Read the sequences....just the sequences"
Something a better , future version of rationalism could do is build bridges and facilitate communication between these little bubbles. The answet-to-everything approach has been tried too many times.