[extropy-chat] Reductionism (was: Structure of AI)

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Samantha Atkins wrote:
> I do not agree with your reductionism.  I don't agree that everything 
> real is fully reducible to physics unless much of what is meaningful to 
> critters like us is lost in the process.   In particular I don't believe 
> that lack of having come up with a test for "free will" means that the 
> existence of free will is in doubt.   I don't believe that all that is 
> real or important can be reduced to "testable physical predicates".

John Keats:

"Do not all charms fly
  At the touch of cold philosophy?
  Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
  Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
  Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine–
  Unweave a rainbow...”

I think that most of the emotional problems with reductionism arise from 
failure to *see* why the reduction works, and instead being only *told* 
that it works.  Someone may have told Keats that Newton explained the 
rainbow, but I doubt Keats ever studied the math.  Suppose that instead of 
reading that entire, careful mathematical explanation of Bayes' Theorem and 
how it relates to rationality, you knew only that the marvelous miracle of 
Reason was reducible to a mere couple of equations, seemingly meaningless 
on the page.  How sad; and it seemed so wonderful up until then.

To know and understand and see how Bayesian reasoning explains rationality 
is to explain rationality; to be merely *told* that Bayesian reasoning 
explains rationality is to *explain away* rationality.  There is a 
difference between explaining, and explaining away.

To be *told* that a rainbow is mere water droplets, when you've grown up 
believing that it's a sign of God's compact with Noah, may seem sad and 
disappointing - if "physics" is something foreign and external about which 
little is known save that it is the epitome of the mundane.  I confess I 
don't know the specific equations of the rainbow, but I know what it feels 
like to understand a truth of physics.  What you want is not to be told 
that the rainbow is mere water droplets, but to work the relevant 
equations, until your breath catches and you see that the water droplets 
are the rainbow!

People don't give physics enough credit.  When I say that something is 
reducible to physics, the correct response is not "How sad" but "Wow, really?"

The most unrealistic part of Star Wars isn't the Force, it's that people 
notice the Force as unusual.  If the Force really existed, no one would 
care.  You could lift mountains and they'd say, "Oh, that's just the 
Force."  If dragons existed it would be no more fun to believe in dragons 
than to believe in zebras.

We live in a normal universe.  If we cannot learn to be excited by the 
mundane, the physical, the merely true, our lives will be empty indeed; for 
since the beginning of time, not one unusual thing has ever happened.

 > Furthermore, I don't believe that you fully and consistently believe
 > this either.

Them's fighting words, Samantha.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence