5 ms·
That post is part of a sequence called "Map and Territory" [1] in which Eliezer explains that your beliefs are a map, which may or may not correspond to reality
by gelisam 14y ago
That post is part of a sequence called "Map and Territory" [1] in which Eliezer explains that your beliefs are a map, which may or may not correspond to reality, the territory which the map is supposed the represent.
In this post, Eliezer is mocking philosophical arguments about the meaning of "truth", to illustrate that truth isn't that complicated: a belief is true if and only if it corresponds to reality. Eliezer has recently written a much clearer version of this viewpoint [2], in which he again uses the idea of walking off a cliff to illustrate the difference between strong beliefs and true beliefs.
[1] http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_Territory_(sequence) http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_Territory_(sequence)
[2] http://lesswrong.com/lw/eqn/the_useful_idea_of_truth/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/eqn/the_useful_idea_of_truth/
- smsm42 14y agoOK, this latter link explains a lot. Now I see where the cliff argument fits - it's actually not the argument about proofs, but an illustration of truth being defined as match between expectations and actual results. Also explains where the shoelaces thing fits in, thanks.
- fatbird 14y agoDoes he have an original take on the correspondence theory of truth or is he rehashing things from early 20th century philosophy?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- gelisam 14y agoI don't know much about philosophy, but I know that Less Wrong's opinion of it is pretty low [3]. Eliezer probably talks about quantum mechanics more than most philosophers, so his recent explanation [4] of how statements about day-to-day objects can be true despite the fact that only fundamental particles really exist is probably original. [3] http://lesswrong.com/lw/frp/train_philosophers_with_pearl_and_kahneman_not/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/frp/train_philosophers_with_pearl_an... [4] http://lesswrong.com/lw/frz/mixed_reference_the_great_reductionist_project/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/frz/mixed_reference_the_great_reduct...
- fatbird 14y agoAs far as I can tell, the introduction of a lot of terms from physics doesn't fundamentally change what he's doing philosophically, which is largely a rehash of logical positivism. I could be wrong, but he's setting off all sorts of "don't waste your time here" bells in my head, so I'm not going to really dig into him and see whether it's a waste of time to do so.
- nshepperd 14y agoDon't logical positivists usually assuming only testable assertions are meaningful? See: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ss/no_logical_positivist_i/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/ss/no_logical_positivist_i/
- fatbird 14y agoAs someone in the comments notes, he incorrectly dismisses his own example that illustrates why he's not a logical positivist. A momentary cake in the heart of the sun would have physical consequences in the universe that a (sufficiently advanced) being could detect (or not detect), so a logical positivist would agree with him that the statement is meaningful. I don't know that it's fair to say he's just a logical positivist. But he seems intent on layering LP with a lot of jargon from physics and information theory to create distinctions without difference.
- mrpsbrk 14y agoTo me, it all his arguments about "truth" boil down to "I'm into AI and don't bother me with Sociology", which is a terrible shame once he actually tries going into sociology. Since, you know, his own advice of following who has done the research is contradicted here. All he does is dismissing every argument he does not like as "discussing politics". Which is fine if you are an AI researcher, but very very poor advice to the other 99.999% of the world's population.