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A first lesson in meta-rationality

metarationality.com

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Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#41

Post by lisper »

tlb wrote: post #7

An interesting category of problems are like Bongard problems in that you have to deduce the rule from examples, but the examples are presented one at a time at random long intervals so you have to work from memory. Most real-world learning is like this. When working from memory, it's normal for your memory to have already parsed the previous situation into features. As some of the later examples in the blog illustra…

This is exactly right, and it is exactly what makes quantum mechanics and relativity so hard to wrap your brain around because by the time you get around to learning them you have almost certainly deeply internalized a classical model of the world. It's just obvious that classical mechanics is "correct", that the world consists of objects embedded in a three-dimensional space that exist in specific places at specific times, and even talking about a world where this is not true doesn't even make sense, let alone qualify as a viable candidate for actual truth.

It is equally "obvious" that the heavens are governed by different laws of physics than the earth, because things on earth fall down if unsupported and naturally come to rest and things in the heavens don't. And of course all of these things are equally wrong.

One can and should apply the same lesson to social and political statements. For example, people get hung up on arguing about things like whether or not "God exists" as if they were arguing about a question of objective fact when actually what they are arguing about is the meaning of the words "God" and "exists."

I wrote a longer take on all this about six years ago:

http://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.ht...

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#42

Post by zeroonetwothree »

chubot wrote: post #39
throwamon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's my refutation of the (silly IMO) "simulation argument" I'm not one of these people, but your rebuttal wouldn't convince me if I were. Maybe we are the SimCity of a much more complex universe.

OK, but I'm saying the burden of proof is on who think that simulation is possible. It's not at all obvious that it is. As far as I can tell, the idea was basically made popular by movies [1], and there is no science behind it. All the science I know of points the other way -- simulating anything is incredibly hard and slow. It requires approximations and shortcuts to make it work for specific cases, and it doesn't w…

It seems to be purely an issue of computing power, not feasibility. That’s why it’s conceivable that future advances would make it feasible.

Like if in 1950 you looked at a computer and thought “there’s no way to make realistic 3D graphics”.

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#43

Post by zeroonetwothree »

chubot wrote: post #23

From the Church-Turing Thesis, we know there’s nothing special going on! We know humans can’t do anything more than a computer can. I see people making such claims about human cognition all the time, and I have no idea how it follows. (note the author is paraphrasing "people" here) The Church-Turing Thesis says nothing about human cognition. It is perfectly plausible that a human can do things a computer can't. (Scot…

> The burden of proof is on people who claim that human cognition can be simulated by computer, not the other way around. To me, it seems far more likely that it can't.

C-T makes a claim about computable functions on natural numbers. It seems strange to argue that humans can perform such computations on a fundamental level better than a computer, thus we might assume the same is true of more complex computations. So while I suppose you could take the position that the burden of proof is to show every individual method of computation is equivalent, since there are infinitely many methods this seems a bit unfair.

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#44

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

chubot wrote: post #39
throwamon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's my refutation of the (silly IMO) "simulation argument" I'm not one of these people, but your rebuttal wouldn't convince me if I were. Maybe we are the SimCity of a much more complex universe.

OK, but I'm saying the burden of proof is on who think that simulation is possible. It's not at all obvious that it is. As far as I can tell, the idea was basically made popular by movies [1], and there is no science behind it. All the science I know of points the other way -- simulating anything is incredibly hard and slow. It requires approximations and shortcuts to make it work for specific cases, and it doesn't w…

There's an important misconception here.

The part you're right about is that simulating what we understand about our own reality on some subset of that reality (e.g. some kind of computer) is really, really hard, possibly verging on impossible.

But that's not really the simulation hypothesis at all.

It's relatively easy to build a simulation of a simplified or (and this is important) a different reality in some subset of our own. Trivial examples like Conway's Game of Life come to mind, but also (somewhat obviously) SimCity.

The simulation hypothesis is that our reality is a simulation running in some subset of a different reality. Given what we know about building simulations in our own reality, the hypothesis implicitly recognizes that the meta-reality in which which our reality is a simulation is necessarily different (and likely more complex) than our own.

There's an even deeper notion to the simulation hypothesis. If our reality is a "simulation", given the richness that we see around us, what is the difference between a "simulation" and something that isn't a simulation? Based on what I said above, the different "levels" would necessarily need to differ in terms of their own complexity. But is a reality in which our own could be simulated really any "better" than our own?

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#45

Post by rrmm »

jxf wrote: post #37
rrmm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the solution of these problems is in some sense satisfying also has a lot to do with the fact that the people making these problems are Western systematic-thinkers. They think like us (because we were trained by them). That's not to say there isn't value in learning this way of thinking, it's gotten society a long way.

How would you characterize the opposite of (or alternative to) "systematic" thinking?

Not an alternative to systematization, but different systems. Just that the analogies or groups that make sense to one group may not make sense to others.

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#46

Post by glaukopis »

mckirk wrote: post #12

Am I the only one that gets driven kind of crazy by these kinds of problems? I'm not completely sure so far what it is, but I'm guessing it's the frustration of having to find a needle in a haystack of essentially infinite size, as depending on how complicated you want to see the problem, there's an infinitude of potential 'solutions' and you never really know which level of complexity the author had in mind. I love…

I feel similarly; the author mentions spending ten minutes trying to solve one of these puzzles, and I can’t imagine doing that and enjoying it. Maybe it’s the case that spending more time on the ones that stumped me would yield fruit, but I have the impression that on this class of problem, if I don’t see the solution within two minutes then I probably won’t be able to figure it out in ten, which disincentivizes investing time in them. I’d be interested in knowing if the people who /can/ solve all the problems in the article do so by investing time in them and being methodical or if they just “see it” eventually, which is how I feel solving the easier ones.

There’s also the factor that some Bongard problems, independent of their difficulty factor, are just more satisfying than others. Spoiler for the fourth one, with pairs of circles: its solution is that the entries on the left have $property while the ones on the right...don’t. This makes the right side virtually useless except to check the rule that you derived from the left side.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t have research experience, and am thus unsteeled against problems that seem impenetrable, or maybe I just don’t have the mindset to be good at these, but I agree the really difficult ones can be frustrating.

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#47

Post by pontifier »

chubot wrote: post #39
throwamon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's my refutation of the (silly IMO) "simulation argument" I'm not one of these people, but your rebuttal wouldn't convince me if I were. Maybe we are the SimCity of a much more complex universe.

OK, but I'm saying the burden of proof is on who think that simulation is possible. It's not at all obvious that it is. As far as I can tell, the idea was basically made popular by movies [1], and there is no science behind it. All the science I know of points the other way -- simulating anything is incredibly hard and slow. It requires approximations and shortcuts to make it work for specific cases, and it doesn't w…

This all assumes that the limitations of our universe are the same as the limitations on the hardware outside the simulation.

We can run Conway's game, but a being inside that simulation, contemplating it's existence, would have no way to even begin to think about quantum computing.

The rules are just too different.

That being said, I almost look at the finite speed of light, and quantum effects as shortcuts to simulation.

The light speed limit allows greater parallelization by reducing the number of particles inside the local light cone. Likewise, quantum effects seem like a compiler optimization where a calculation isn't performed until the result is needed.

It's fun to think about, but I doubt we will ever know for sure either way.

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#48

Post by beaconstudios »

fouc wrote: post #38
beaconstudios wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's existing terminology for this idea. Rationalists are positivists and meta-rationalists are constructivists. These are terms from the philosophy of science, and directly relate to how one treats the map-territory relationship. They also relate directly to the philosophies of materialism and emergentism.

Those two terms don't seem to map like you suggest? Doing good science is basically the same as solving Bongard problems. Good positivist science relies on meta-rationality.

Yes, Bongard problems are synonymous with the process of creating mental models, which is the process of science. Logical positivism and constructivism are both scientific - constructivism is a superset of positivist tools and better accommodates systemic/emergent properties.

Positivism is analytic/materialist, which is to say that it purports that you can understand a thing by understanding the behaviour of its smallest pieces. This denies emergent properties, which cannot be understood from the parts. Constructivism allows for multiple distinct (ie, irreconcilable) models to be used in reference to the same subject, depending on the properties that are of interest. It does not require all models to be reconciled into a hierarchy.

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#49

Post by EE84M3i »

mikhailfranco wrote: post #15

For the third I got: triangle never in circle - circle never in triangle compared to the given answer: triangle bigger than circle - circle bigger than triangle My solution is more general (worse), because it ignores size in non-containment arrangements, but also slightly more specific (better), because it constrains the single containment example in each set. Neither of the rules say anything about overlapping cases…

>The contents of the six boxes on the left all have something in common. The six on right also all have something in common, which is the opposite of the ones on the left.

I think you and the author might disagree on the meaning of "opposite" here. I think they mean logical negation and you are using a more colloquial interpretation.

Re: A first lesson in meta-rationality

#50

Post by zeroonetwothree »

I don’t see how Bongard problems are human complete if the author can’t even solve half of them. Does that mean he doesn’t have human intelligence?

I think a better candidate for human complete is “knowing what other humans are thinking”. AKA “theory of mind”.

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