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The Case Against Reality

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Case Against Reality

#41

Post by jcoffland »

cubano wrote: post #22

I've read this article twice now, and both times the same thought struck me. How much, really, are his "insights" much different from Plato's Allegory of Cave philosophy? Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from things passing in front of a fire behind them, and they begin…

I also had the sense that it was a bunch of old ideas dressed up in new ones. I like the comparison with Plato's forms.

I also felt that his model of reality influenced by Turing machines was way too close to an actual Turing machine. Really he just added a few more variable spaces to make it a abstract enough to fit.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#42

Post by onli »

maldusiecle wrote: post #23

I get really suspicious when I see quantum physics used in this way. It seems like a misdirection. Given the information in the article, it's impossible to evaluate his claims--we don't have access to the computer models he uses, or the expertise to evaluate his proofs. But there are a lot of gigantic red flags all throughout. Like when he says he's mathematically proved that "an organism that sees reality as it is w…

> I get really suspicious when I see quantum physics used in this way. It seems like a misdirection.

Because it is. It is the usual physics-inspired pseudophilosophical blabla without any real grounding in philosophy, physics or intelligent thought. It caters to the "intellectual" esoteric wishing for a meta-universe, for some kind of god, for something apart from reality. It is rubbish, and on the same level as the ted-talk of the lunatic claiming to have found the perpetuum mobile and faster than light travel thanks to some circle-based mathematics given to him by his enlightened professor.

At the same time funny, sad and highly annoying if it comes up on places like here.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#43

Post by trgn »

noahlt wrote: post #38
bsmith89 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An evolutionary argument like the one he uses is _always_ a big, stinky, red flag.

The way you say this makes it sounds like you have examples of times when evolutionary arguments have been used in the past. I'd love to hear some examples.

Women go to the bathroom together because in our hunter gatherer days roaming the Savannah, if you squatted to pee you couldn't see a predator coming in the long grass. So you needed somebody to stand up on the lookout.

And if evolutionary psychology is not your style, here's a take on the selfish gene. The purpose of the human organism is for shit to make more shit.

(btw, these were just jokes, I don't think anybody makes these in earnest)

Re: The Case Against Reality

#45

Post by djsumdog »

ccallebs wrote: post #33

If I may make a shitty analogy... Most humans see reality through the lens of high-level languages. A hyper-defined DSL of Ruby. Our everyday interactions and understanding of the world are both informed by that DSL. However, as people specialize into various areas they realize that there exists something deeper, something closer to the metal. Eventually, Julie the scientist discovers that our language can be broken…

Computer languages are much more precise and deterministic than natural language. The machine is actually quite simple compared to our biology.

People once believed the world was flat, that the Earth orbited the sun. Today some think the universe is at least 13 billion years old, others only 10,000. People on both sides think the other side is misguided, ignorant or just plain stupid.

Think we're in a simulation? Put down your fucking bong hippie. Also get a job. Those are important for some reason and determine your self worth. Also self worth is a thing .. that you should have.

Evolutionary fitness has led humanity to believe powerful myths. Even you, yes you the rational atheist computer scientist on hacker news, believe many many myths right now. Many which don't matter, many you will never know are myths.

In a million years, we will either be able to create computer simulations powerful enough to simulate part of our universe, or we'll go extinct. Humanity will be a spec on our 13 billion year+ universe. Either that or someone will press the reset switch and start us over with some other parameters.

It's not a lot of comfort to people who die in Chinese factories to give us cell phones, or to Chesley Manning sitting in prison.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#47

Post by acqq »

onli wrote: post #42
maldusiecle wrote: post #23

I get really suspicious when I see quantum physics used in this way. It seems like a misdirection. Given the information in the article, it's impossible to evaluate his claims--we don't have access to the computer models he uses, or the expertise to evaluate his proofs. But there are a lot of gigantic red flags all throughout. Like when he says he's mathematically proved that "an organism that sees reality as it is w…

> I get really suspicious when I see quantum physics used in this way. It seems like a misdirection. Because it is. It is the usual physics-inspired pseudophilosophical blabla without any real grounding in philosophy, physics or intelligent thought. It caters to the "intellectual" esoteric wishing for a meta-universe, for some kind of god, for something apart from reality. It is rubbish, and on the same level as the…

Somebody can also check who this "scientist" really is. Those making such claims often represent themselves as much more qualified than they really are.

The claims in the article are annoyingly unscientific.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#48

Post by haberman »

Yes I think this guy goes too far. But to take a more moderate stance, I think it's really interesting that while we can perceive EM waves and sound, we can do so only within limited frequency bands. The reality we perceive is a subset of the available data. And we are also much more sensitive to motion, for example, than gradual change. So I think a much weaker version of the article's point is true and interesting.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#49

Post by esoteric_nonces »

cubano wrote: post #22

I've read this article twice now, and both times the same thought struck me. How much, really, are his "insights" much different from Plato's Allegory of Cave philosophy? Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from things passing in front of a fire behind them, and they begin…

Thank you for the link!

I found 'Return to the Cave' particularly interesting.

The prisoners, according to Socrates, would infer from the returning man's blindness that the journey out of the cave had harmed him and that they should not undertake a similar journey. Socrates concludes that the prisoners, if they were able, would therefore reach out and kill anyone who attempted to drag them out of the cave.

That's the sort of quote that inspires one to study philosophy. It illustrates perfectly the difficulty we have as humans in informing each other.

Re: The Case Against Reality

#50

Post by jcoffland »

Imagine two neutral networks trained on different data. Their internal data is likely completely different yet, for the most part, they can still agree on the classification of new observations when they both observe a common external reality regardless of how they model that reality internally.

This completely destroys the evolution argument in the article that concludes that reality is subjective. An organism may learn to perceive more or less water as a color rather than a quantity because the internal representation does not matter a bit.

To me it was already obvious that your red is not the same as mine. If your internal model which represents red is more like my internal model for quantity of water it does not matter at all as long as we can still make the same distinctions of little water vs a lot of water that allow is to survive. The article's conclusion that this means reality is observer dependent does not follow.

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