Interview with Scott Aaronson • Hacker News Board

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#41

Post by Xcelerate » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

typon wrote: post #23

privong wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are systematic biases in the social sciences, and there are systematic biases in physics. Read Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics. As they are social systems, they will always be biased. And the most dangerous bias is the one that claims itself unbiased, fully objective. I never claimed physics was bias-free. I just said that political affiliation likely imparts less bias on physics than it does on sociolo…

But that's pretty much what Aaronson is implying. That physics can be cold, calculating, unbiased while the social sciences are the opposite. There is plenty of dogma in the physics world as well. For example, just look at the way people defend their favorite interpretation of quantum mechanics as absolute truth.

> just look at the way people defend their favorite interpretation of quantum mechanics as absolute truth.

Yeah, but these people are rarely actual physicists. A physicist might discuss "interpretations of quantum mechanics" over lunch with a colleague in a fun, speculative way, but it makes little difference on the research they perform. More importantly, it doesn't affect the predictions that their research makes. This is not the case with the social sciences.

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#42

Post by drumdance » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

fitzwatermellow wrote: post #35

cowsandmilk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the focus had been on pure science rather than military technologies? I find your question a little funny in that Aaronson has said the DOD is where much of the funding for his research will come from for the next 5 years[1]. So, the $4 billion in Texas likely funded his recruitment package, but it is the military that is funding his research. [1] http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2687

What constitutes a "good return" on research dollars spent? Is it mere value created? Or a breakthrough in fundamental human understanding? I'm actually quite intrigued now to mine some real data!

I don't know that's really measurable except over very long periods of time. A discovery may be "interesting but useless" for many decades until engineering catches up, whether through improvements in engineering technology or subsequent discoveries that make the first discovery more actionable.

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#43

Post by wfo » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #36

The discussion of whether or not we have free will strikes me as confused. Aaronson suggests that we would clearly not have free will in a scenario where “Everything [we] did could be fully traced to causal antecedents external to [us], plus pure randomness—not in some philosophical imagination, but for real, and on a routine basis”. The caveat “external to [us]” is doing a lot of work here, but it really has no disc…

Yes, very well put. I really enjoyed his technical answers, but when he dives into the philosophy I was disappointed to see the same very naive and narcissistic attitudes so many scientists have (that are even alluded to at the beginning of the article): you don't need to try to understand philosophy, just use your superior STEM brain and technical intuitions and if you think about it for a few minutes, with a healthy splash of "assuming my thesis, it is obvious my thesis is correct" , the problem is trivial -- why have people been thinking about it for centuries?

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#44

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #36

The discussion of whether or not we have free will strikes me as confused. Aaronson suggests that we would clearly not have free will in a scenario where “Everything [we] did could be fully traced to causal antecedents external to [us], plus pure randomness—not in some philosophical imagination, but for real, and on a routine basis”. The caveat “external to [us]” is doing a lot of work here, but it really has no disc…

The caveat “external to [us]” is doing a lot of work here

I think it's just sloppy discussion.

Any hard-determinist will say that every interaction is pre-determined based on a previous interaction. The compatibilist approach tries to reconcile hard-determinism with the illusion of free will in a reference frame of the individual - but I think falls apart. I think Aaronson is trying to convey this particular philosophy.

"if you knew the complete state of the universe, you could use it to calculate [either deterministically or probabilistically] everything I’d do in the future."

Fortunately for us, Godel explored this exhaustively and concluded (though did not prove) that this is not possible. See also the Munchhausen Trilemma of proofs for problems proving any epistemological inquiry.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

[3]http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/

[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#45

Post by Rylinks » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 6:44 PM UTC

privong wrote: post #25

Rylinks wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics can collect so much data that the generally accepted standard for results is five sigma. There are biases in physics, but it's much harder to delude yourself into a five sigma result than a two sigma one--in the end the right answer becomes obvious.

> Physics can collect so much data that the generally accepted standard for results is five sigma. There are biases in physics, but it's much harder to delude yourself into a five sigma result than a two sigma one--in the end the right answer becomes obvious. That's in the case of clear-cut predictions from theory or empirical relations. But bias generally arises in a more subtle fashion than statistics on measuremen…

>That's in the case of clear-cut predictions from theory or empirical relations. But bias generally arises in a more subtle fashion than statistics on measurements, though. Even if you have a "5-sigma result", it still needs to be interpreted, and that's where biases can rear their heads.

I agree, interpretation is the tricky thing. The difference is that in social sciences, both the result and the interpretation are suspect.

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#46

Post by eachro » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 8:44 PM UTC

Does anyone know why he's leaving MIT for UT Austin?

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#47

Post by moultano » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

ced wrote: post #26

moultano wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can assess this using funnel plots. If publication bias were not a factor, then you expect effect size to be uncorrelated from sample size. If they are correlated, then it's likely publication bias is having some effect on the results.

Clever solution. Is there a more general principle? I thought that most MNAR problems were hopeless, but maybe not.

It helps that we have a rough model of the publication process that we can correct for. It's kinda like assessing the underlying distribution with only access to the tail of it, which isn't ideal, but can be done.

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#48

Post by zodiac » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 9:02 PM UTC

eachro wrote: post #46

Does anyone know why he's leaving MIT for UT Austin?

He has a blog post about it - http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2620

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#49

Post by davmre » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 9:22 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #36

The discussion of whether or not we have free will strikes me as confused. Aaronson suggests that we would clearly not have free will in a scenario where “Everything [we] did could be fully traced to causal antecedents external to [us], plus pure randomness—not in some philosophical imagination, but for real, and on a routine basis”. The caveat “external to [us]” is doing a lot of work here, but it really has no disc…

I think you're missing the point somewhat. Yes, Aaronson assumes that something like physicalism is true, which I think is fairly defensible as a 21st-century scientist. But the argument isn't as simple as "physicalism entails the absence of free will". His point is that even if our actions are (probabilistically) determined by a set of underlying physical laws, it may still be that the character of those laws is such that it is fundamentally impossible to predict future actions, in which case we would still have meaningful free will.

The main form of prediction-impossibility he mentions is that our minds might depend meaningfully on quantum states, which are governed by the no-cloning theorem and therefore impossible even in principle to extract. Whether or not this is true is an open question, but the characterization of free will in terms of the concrete question "is it possible to build a prediction machine?" seems like a useful and novel contribution that doesn't just reduce to the old question of "is physicalism true".

Re: Interview with Scott Aaronson

#50

Post by davmre » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

davmre wrote: post #49

foldr wrote: post #36

The discussion of whether or not we have free will strikes me as confused. Aaronson suggests that we would clearly not have free will in a scenario where “Everything [we] did could be fully traced to causal antecedents external to [us], plus pure randomness—not in some philosophical imagination, but for real, and on a routine basis”. The caveat “external to [us]” is doing a lot of work here, but it really has no disc…

I think you're missing the point somewhat. Yes, Aaronson assumes that something like physicalism is true, which I think is fairly defensible as a 21st-century scientist. But the argument isn't as simple as "physicalism entails the absence of free will". His point is that even if our actions are (probabilistically) determined by a set of underlying physical laws, it may still be that the character of those laws is suc…

To follow up: I personally see some extra subtlety here, in that even if a prediction machine did exist, we could still have a meaningful form of free will, because that machine would be governed by Rice's theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice's_theorem), which says that in general the only way to predict the outcome of a computation is to run the computation. (this is closely related to the halting problem).

That is, even if I could capture the relevant aspects of your mind state on a computer, i.e., the no-cloning theorem is not a barrier, it's still the case that the only way for me to predict what you will do in two minutes' time is to actually run your mind inside the computer for two minutes of subjective time. This would constitute a prediction machine in Aaronson's sense, assuming the computer could run faster than realtime. But since the computation that occurs is literally following your thought process step by step (Rice's theorem says there are no shortcuts), there's a real sense in which the decision was not determined until you -- the version inside the computer -- actually made it.

Of course this account depends on a functionalist/computational theory of mind, which can be quibbled with in all sorts of ways. But it does seem important for the philosophical discussion on free will to at least take into account the things we now know about the nature of computation, the character of physical law, and other scientific/mathematical questions, that were not known decades or centuries ago when the philosophical battle lines were being drawn. Yes, scientists can be arrogant and are often just wrong or deeply misinformed on philosophical questions. But that doesn't remove the responsibility of philosophers to engage with the frontiers of knowledge on these issues, which means engaging with people like Scott rather than just dismissing them as "confused". (as if anyone thinking about free will has ever not been confused!)