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TAG's Shortform 2020-08-13T09:30:22.058Z

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Comment by TAG on Celiefs · 2024-03-17T17:02:03.598Z · LW · GW

If you have a meta belief that none of your beliefs are certain, does that make all your beliefs celiefs?

Comment by TAG on Many arguments for AI x-risk are wrong · 2024-03-15T15:06:25.132Z · LW · GW

That argument doesn't work well.in its own terms: we have extinguished far fewer species than we have not.

Comment by TAG on Evolution did a surprising good job at aligning humans...to social status · 2024-03-13T14:26:38.358Z · LW · GW

So humans are "aligned" if humans have any kind of values? That's not how alignment is usually used.

Comment by TAG on Deconstructing Bostrom's Classic Argument for AI Doom · 2024-03-12T15:02:27.132Z · LW · GW

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.

Comment by TAG on Scientific Method · 2024-03-08T02:08:38.157Z · LW · GW

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?

Comment by TAG on Many arguments for AI x-risk are wrong · 2024-03-07T16:54:00.464Z · LW · GW

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.

Comment by TAG on Even if we lose, we win · 2024-03-05T23:34:05.834Z · LW · GW

That would be a philosophical problem...

Comment by TAG on Agreeing With Stalin in Ways That Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles · 2024-03-04T15:07:53.727Z · LW · GW

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.

Comment by TAG on Wei Dai's Shortform · 2024-03-02T23:40:29.623Z · LW · GW

"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.

Comment by TAG on On the abolition of man · 2024-03-01T22:47:42.283Z · LW · GW
Comment by TAG on On the abolition of man · 2024-03-01T22:31:14.621Z · LW · GW

Either the Tao can influence the world in the present, in which case the conditioners can never *really *prevent it from reasserting itself; or it can’t, in which case how did we first find it anyway; or it controlled the beginning as first cause in which case whatever happens anywhere ever is what it intended; or it intended something different but it’s not very good at it’s job.

Or it influences the world in proportion to how much it is recognised, and how much you influence the world is proportional to how much you recognise it. The Tao that controls you is not the Tao: the Tao you control is not the Tao. The Tao that does everything is not the Tao; the Tao that does nothing is not the Tao.

Comment by TAG on How is Chat-GPT4 Not Conscious? · 2024-03-01T13:58:14.029Z · LW · GW

Footnotes three and four are the sources behind today today’s understanding of consciousness as including “any kind of cognition....” as well as “awareness”.

The wikipedia quote doesn't to show that independence is necessary for consciousness, and your arguments from the behaviour of the LLM don't to show that there is any awareness, or anything beyond forms of cognition.

I think of cognition as involving the process of reasoning.

The question is the relationship between cognition and consciousness, not reasoning. Your quotes show that, at best, cognition is necessary but insufficient for consciousness.

If I google “define Independent,” the first definition that comes up is “free from outside control; not depending on another’s authority.”

Independence in an absolute sense might be impossible: any deterministic system can be controlled if you know how it works , and you can set the initial conditions.

Right now, my computer is running programs, but that is based on programming from someone else’s cognition. The key here is that, if we dissect Chat-GPT4, I don’t believe you would find Python/Java/C++ or any known programming language that a programmer used in order to tell GPT4 how to solve the particular problems I gave it in the four sessions (from my original post and my own reply/addendum to my original post).

That seems to be the heart of the issue. No, its responses are not explictly programmed in. Yes, its reponses show the ability to learn and synthesise. Which means...minimally...that's it actually is an AI .... not a glorified search engine. That's what AI is supposed to do.

The question is whether there is a slope from

*Shows learning and synthesis in cognition *Has independent cognition *Is conscious. *(Has personhood?....should be a citizen...?)

If your think that learning and synthesis in cognition are sufficient for consciousness conscious, you are effectively assuming that all AIs are conscious. But, historically, Artificial Consciousness has been regarded as a much higher bar than artificial intelligence.

Comment by TAG on How is Chat-GPT4 Not Conscious? · 2024-02-29T16:32:10.826Z · LW · GW

most definitions of consciousness indicate that—if a being has independent cognition (i.e. a stream of consciousness)--then the being is conscious.

I don't think that's true. For instance, none of the definitions given in the LW wiki give that definition. And the whole argument rests on that claim-- which rests on the meaning of "independent". What is "independent", anyway?

Comment by TAG on Why you, personally, should want a larger human population · 2024-02-28T04:42:07.851Z · LW · GW

I assume it isn't always like a bell curve, because smaller and poorer societies can't afford the deadweight of useless knowledge.

Comment by TAG on The Pointer Resolution Problem · 2024-02-28T03:04:24.777Z · LW · GW

How do we use Bayes to find kinds of truth other than predictiveness?

Comment by TAG on Rawls's Veil of Ignorance Doesn't Make Any Sense · 2024-02-27T17:57:34.846Z · LW · GW

And really the conditions of the OP are actively contrary to good decision-making, e.g. that you don’t know your particular conception of the good (??) or that you’re essentially self-interested. . .

Well, they're inimical to good personal self-interested decision making, but why would that matter? Do you think justice and self interested rationality are the same? If they are differerent, what's the problem? Rawl's theory would not necessarily predict the behaviour of a self interested agent , but it's not supposed to. It's a normative theory: justly is how people should behave, not how they invariably do. If they have their own theories of ethics, well they are theories and not necessarily correct. Mere disagreement between the front-of-the-veil and behind-the-veil versions of a person doesn't tell you much.

There’s no reason to think, generally, that people disagree with John Rawls only because of their social position or psychological quirks

They might have a well constructed case against him, he might have a well constructed case against them.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-27T04:29:03.279Z · LW · GW

If it only takes five minutes, it is like buying a loaf of bread.

Comment by TAG on Why you, personally, should want a larger human population · 2024-02-25T13:43:22.386Z · LW · GW

Does the world seem better to young people who are unable to afford housing?

Comment by TAG on Why you, personally, should want a larger human population · 2024-02-24T16:32:36.210Z · LW · GW

Most knowledge is useless. Many people have heads filled with sport results and entertainment trivia. 50 years ago, people used to fix their own cars and make their own clothes.

Comment by TAG on Why you, personally, should want a larger human population · 2024-02-24T16:11:44.712Z · LW · GW

There's a powerful argument for smaller populations you didn't mention at all: it would mean that there are more inelastic resources to go round. More land, so less of a housing crisis, fossil fuels that last longer. Note that while.high population worlds have them own advantage, in being able supply products that depend on economies of scale, those products are things advanced semi conductors, which are something of a luxury compared to land and energy

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-22T16:27:27.837Z · LW · GW

He doesn't give The Answer. That's one of the problems. I've read the sequences, and I don't think his approach is that good. The other problem is that doing high-cost things at random, in the hope that they will pay off, is very inefficient.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-22T05:29:22.026Z · LW · GW

Answers to such questions as the OP’s cannot be given, like a loaf of bread sold in a shop. They must be learned, like taking a course in calculus

The problem with that theory is that you can invest years in something , and still not get the answer.

Comment by TAG on Lessons from Failed Attempts to Model Sleeping Beauty Problem · 2024-02-21T15:06:49.334Z · LW · GW

But the separation between probabilities and credences is not helpful. They have to be one and the same, otherwise something unlawful is going on.

I don't see why. If someone is messing with you, eg. by wiping your memory, then your subjective credences could depart from objective probabilities.

Comment by TAG on The Pointer Resolution Problem · 2024-02-20T20:28:09.502Z · LW · GW

It's about one of the things "truth" means. If you want to apply it to ontology, you need a kind of evidence that's relevant to ontology -- that can distinguish hypotheses that make similar predictions.

Comment by TAG on One True Love · 2024-02-19T23:08:58.141Z · LW · GW

The usual explanation is alcohol related death among russian men.

Comment by TAG on The Pointer Resolution Problem · 2024-02-19T19:46:51.451Z · LW · GW

I'm not saying they don't work at all. I have no problem with prediction.

I notice that you didn't tell me how the methods of rationality work in this particular case. Did you notice that I conceded that they work in others?

If this website is about believing things that cannot be proven, and have never been explained, then it is "rationalist" not rationalist.

Comment by TAG on The Pointer Resolution Problem · 2024-02-19T18:27:46.973Z · LW · GW

What do we care about if not souls? Suffering. What is suffering? A quale. What are qualia? Err....

Comment by TAG on The Pointer Resolution Problem · 2024-02-18T22:14:40.151Z · LW · GW

Directly, no. But the process of science (like any use of Bayesian reasoning) is intended to gradually make our ontology a better fit to more of reality

Yes, ,it is intended to. Whether , and how it works , are other questions.

There's also nothing about Bayesianism that guarantees incrementally better ontological fit, in addition to incrementally improving predictive power.

Comment by TAG on The Pointer Resolution Problem · 2024-02-18T19:45:58.244Z · LW · GW

Agreed. But the observed slowing down (since, say, a century ago) in the rate of the paradigm shifts that are sometimes caused by things like discovering a new particle does suggest that out current ontology is now a moderately good fit to a fairly large slice of the world

How can you tell? Again, you only have a predictive model. There is no way of measuring ontological fit directly.

Comment by TAG on The Pointer Resolution Problem · 2024-02-18T04:50:07.659Z · LW · GW

Being able to detect new particles isn't proof of ontological progress. Any hypothesised particle is a bundle of observable properties, so it's phenomenology, not ontology. Giant 21st century atom smashers aren't going to tell you what a Higgs boson really is, any more than early ones are going to tell you what electron really is.

Historically,physics was very self-satisfied in the late nineteenth century...just before it was revolutionised.

The particular subjects you are writing about --ethics and consciousness -- are poorly understood, and can't be settled just by appealing to current physics.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-17T19:43:58.844Z · LW · GW

Yes, agreed, that is one of the points of disagreement about free will. I find it more strange to think the future is more steerable in a world where you can’t predict the outcomes of actions even in principle.

Determinism doesn't give you perfect predictive ability, since you can still have limitations of cognition and information Indeterminism doesn't have to take it away, either: it's a feature of two-stage theories that the indeterminism is mostly at the decision making stage, not the decision-executing stage.

In the case of steering the future and AI, the thing in question is more about who is doing the steering, less about the gears-level question of how steering works as a concept.

Says who? If we are predetermined to be killed bi ASI, that's that -- all outr current efforts are in vain.

Free will isn’t a point of difference among options,

No, it's a point about whether there are options.

It’s also very different from retaining the ability to continue to steer and course correct.

Which you can't "retain", since you never had it, under determinism.

Comment by TAG on The Pointer Resolution Problem · 2024-02-17T19:21:30.724Z · LW · GW
  1. "Caring about" and "existing in the territory" aren't independent.

  2. You are much too confident that "we" have an almost-correct ontology.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-17T01:54:20.272Z · LW · GW

Yes, and determinism isn’t the thing I want freedom from. External control is, mostly.

Values differ. But it's strange for rationalists not to care about the openness of the future when the whole AI safety thing is about steering towards a non dystopian future.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-15T12:51:20.404Z · LW · GW
Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-15T12:51:09.787Z · LW · GW

If I am deterministically selecting among options generated within myself by an indeterministic process,

I didn't say that was the case any more than indeterministically choosing between deterministically generated options.

sure that’s possible, and I appreciate that it’s an actual question we could find an answer to. But, I’ve never been able to see why I might prefer that situation to deterministically choosing among states generated by any other process that’s outside my control, whether it happens inside by body or not, whether it’s deterministic or not

In the big picture, this is happening in an indeterministic universe. So.what you get is really being able to change things ..to bring about futures that aren't inevitable; and you being able to change things..the causal chain begins at you.

Why does the question of whether my choice is free or not depend on whether the process that generated the list of options is deterministic or not?

Indeterminism is, tautologously, freedom from determinism. The standard argument against libertarian free will depends on the universe working in a certain way, ie. being deterministic. The claim that libertarian free will depends on the universe being indeterministic is a corollary.

But it is also a deterministic fact about the world that at some point in the future, that lifeline may be invoked

Why would it be a deterministic fact in an indeterministic world?

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-11T17:55:21.684Z · LW · GW

Indeterminism makes the problem harder; randomness means there is no part of “me” (physical or otherwise) deciding what I do,

It means there is no one part of you deciding everything, no ghostly string-puller. But naturalistic determinism means that, too.

The scientific question of free will becomes the question of how the machine behaves, whether it has the combination of unpredictability, self direction, self modification and so on, that might characterise free will... depending on how you define free will.

(Or may be hung op on the idea that if there is one little bit of randomnesss, then everything is attributable to that).

I’ve looked, and having seen anything that would even suggest a shape of what such a thing could look like.

I don't know what you mean by "I've looked" but Robert Kane and Tony Dore have such theories.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-11T16:11:30.354Z · LW · GW

If what you want is to act for reasons, then determinism doesn’t take that away.”

Neither does indeterminism. But determinism takes away an open, changeable future.

because what I needed was to be beaten over the head with the point that it wasn’t actually mysterious.

Naturalistic libertarian free will isn't mysterious, and isn't recommended in the Sequences either. The sequences do not give a unique solution.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-09T14:45:18.588Z · LW · GW

Everyone else’s answers (and I assume you’ve also already read the free will sequence? If not, it’s a good idea)

But it would be better to read something written by an expert like this:-

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#ArguForRealFreeWill

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-09T08:19:35.277Z · LW · GW

That doesn't show that the future will be deterministic, or that the past came about deterministcally.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-09T05:52:58.717Z · LW · GW

I can filter or gatekeep as many deterministic neural events as I can indeterministic neural events

Of course.

But to the extent free will exists as emergent agency in the (partially!) indeterminate situation, it also exists in the deterministic situation, for the same reasons.

No, because there is no longer the ability to have done otherwise.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-08T03:44:07.974Z · LW · GW

I “could” have chosen something else in the first case

But not in reality. "Could", not could.

The random variation was not meaningfully under my control

It's true that you can't pre-determine an internal dice roll as if you an extra-physical entity that controls the physical events in your brain, but deteminism doesnt give you that kind of control either. If you are your brain , the question is whether your brain has freedom, control , etc, not whether "you" control "it", as if you were two separate entities. And as a physical self, basicaly identical to the brain, you can still exert after-the-fact control over an internal coin toss...filter or gatekeep it, as it were. The entire brain is not obliged to make a response based on a single deterministic neural event, so it's not obliged to make a response based on a single indeterministic neural event.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-08T02:35:33.754Z · LW · GW

I’m not meaningfully choosing B more in the second option more than the first option.

Yes you are, because you could have chosen something else in the second case. A choice between one isn't a choice

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-08T01:03:10.433Z · LW · GW

But you can't impact the future in any greater sense. You can call the two things by the same name, but they're ni the same.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-08T00:01:31.742Z · LW · GW

If determinism is true and control means choosing one real possibility over another, there is no 1.

But there is still causation...the machine needs it's cogs.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-07T23:59:21.020Z · LW · GW

Whether or not the world is deterministic, we still live with a single, deterministic history

Why?

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-07T23:56:53.201Z · LW · GW

Everything still adds up to normality.

Except some things are mistakes or illusions.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-07T23:53:25.649Z · LW · GW

Maybe you could hone in on the posting that disproves the fatalistic response to determinism.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-07T23:51:02.194Z · LW · GW

The fact that I know there is a future result which will happen based on my actions and state empowers me to act in the present, in order to have impact on the future.

The fact that your state, your actions are, and the results of your actions are all determined, means that you can't impact the future in the sense of helping to bring about one non-inevitable future rather than another.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-07T23:44:09.216Z · LW · GW

Yes, stochastic processes would have a probability distribution. The question is how that connects to the issues of free will and nihilism.

Like if we implemented a 1% chance of spawning a particle every minute; that particle spawned because there was a 1% chance of spawning a particle; rather than “for no reason”.

So there is a reason in that particular sense.

Causal determinism is a form of causality, clearly enough. But not all causality is deterministic , since indeterministic causality can be coherently defined. For instance: "An indeterministic cause raises the probability of its effect, but doesn't raise it to certainty". Far from being novel, or exotic, this is a familiar way of looking at causality. We all know that smoking causes cancer, and we all know that you can smoke without getting cancer...so the "causes" in "smoking causes cancer" must mean "increased the risk of".

Something cannot occur without a necessary cause or precondition. Something cannot fail to occur if it has a sufficient cause. An example of a necessary cause is oxygen in relation to fires: no fire can occur without oxygen, but oxygen can occur without a fire. It would strange to describe a fire as starting because of oxygen -- necessary causes aren't the default concept of causality. The determinism versus free will debate is much more about sufficient causes, because a sufficient cause has to bring about its effect, making it inevitable.

But why would a libertarian worry about the lack of a cause that isnt a sufficient cause?Libertarians dont have to object to necessary causes, or probablistic causes, because neither removes their "elbow room", or ability to have done otherwise.

Comment by TAG on How to deal with the sense of demotivation that comes from thinking about determinism? · 2024-02-07T22:37:59.315Z · LW · GW

Determinism and non-determinism both fully allow for free agency

Determinism doesn't allow for agency free from... determinism.

metaphysically, it doesn’t feel much different from the perfectly predictable universe from the inside

But it's different from the outside, because the future is no longer predetetmined and inevitable.

This would not easily be part of a universe we could design ourselves, because implementing ‘and things happen for no reason’ contains an inherent paradox; the feature inherently has to exist without implementation.

Are you saying that we can't build a genuinely stochastic simulated universe within a determinist universe?

Essentially, I do not think nihilism as a perspective can be dissolved either by determinism or by a lack of determinism

If meaningfulness, non-nihilism, depends on being able to make a difference, determinism stymies it.