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Here is my understanding of what Deutsch and the paper by Popper/Miller are trying to say. There are three concepts involved: an evidence "e", for example "I e

Here is my understanding of what Deutsch and the paper by Popper/Miller are trying to say. There are three concepts involved: an evidence "e", for example "I extracted 1 black ball"; a hypothesis "h", for example "the urn does not contain only white balls"; a theory "h <- e" that, by means of logic or otherwise, deduces the hypothesis from the evidence. Your (qsort) theory is that if you see a black ball then the hypothesis is correct. Everybody, including you, me, and Deutsch, agree that if the probability of the evidence goes up, then the probability of the hypothesis goes up as well. What Deutsch and Popper/Miller are also saying, however, is that if the probability of the evidence goes up then the probability of the theory goes down (proof in the paper). I need to study the paper more carefully, because I am not 100% sure that it is strictly correct (there are many factors that would transform a < into <= if they were 1, and I suspect that some are), but I believe the weaker statement that if the evidence goes up the probability of the theory does not go up at all. In any case, this conclusion is consistent with what all scientists have believed forever: the only way to increase confidence in a theory is to try to break it. Or at least they believed this until fact checkers and censorship came along and threw the baby away with the bathwater.

o_nate 4y ago
This is the best explanation I’ve seen yet of what Deutsch was getting at. I think he actually has a good point. The problem with misapplications of Bayesian probability is that they tend to produce a bogus sense of progress while eliding the interesting questions. For example take the hypothetical statement: “The news that a supercomputer has defeated the reigning Go champion has increased the probability that machines are capable of consciousness.” The form of this statement completely obscures the interesting question, which is: What is the causal connection between being good at Go and consciousness. There is an unspoken theory that the two are connected, but the statement offers no evidence for it, and hence is meaningless.
- goatlover 4y ago
  For some reason, the Go example reminds me of the monolith in Clarke's 3001 and the protomolecule in The Expanse. The book authors describe both as very advanced technology that lack consciousness. They do what they're designed to do, but they do not experience doing it, and thus lack the advantage of a certain kind of relfective awareness the conscious constructs they create, such as Dave or Miller, do possess. The Star Trek holodeck also sometimes accomplishes this. I have no idea whether it's possible to create a machine that can generate conscious simulations without itself being conscious. But there's no Bayesian reasoning to apply to such scenarios, since we have no idea as of yet. They're philosophical arguments. And applying to that to current technology is misplaced.

o_nate 4y ago

This is the best explanation I’ve seen yet of what Deutsch was getting at. I think he actually has a good point. The problem with misapplications of Bayesian probability is that they tend to produce a bogus sense of progress while eliding the interesting questions. For example take the hypothetical statement: “The news that a supercomputer has defeated the reigning Go champion has increased the probability that machines are capable of consciousness.” The form of this statement completely obscures the interesting question, which is: What is the causal connection between being good at Go and consciousness. There is an unspoken theory that the two are connected, but the statement offers no evidence for it, and hence is meaningless.

goatlover 4y ago
For some reason, the Go example reminds me of the monolith in Clarke's 3001 and the protomolecule in The Expanse. The book authors describe both as very advanced technology that lack consciousness. They do what they're designed to do, but they do not experience doing it, and thus lack the advantage of a certain kind of relfective awareness the conscious constructs they create, such as Dave or Miller, do possess. The Star Trek holodeck also sometimes accomplishes this. I have no idea whether it's possible to create a machine that can generate conscious simulations without itself being conscious. But there's no Bayesian reasoning to apply to such scenarios, since we have no idea as of yet. They're philosophical arguments. And applying to that to current technology is misplaced.