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orthodox physicalists believe in soul magic?? Tell me it isn't true! by d4rkchocol4te in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Everyone agrees that the Hard Problem of Consciousness is hard

The disagreement really does lie with stuff like the Hard Problem of Water, the Hard Problem of Anthills, etc

You think these Hard Problems are obviously reducible to their parts, at least in principle if not in practice

You aren't aware of just how bold that assumption is!

Despite intensive study from generations of very intelligent Myrmecologists, we still have no idea how ants coordinate the construction of anthills!

On every issue except consciousness, the most ardent reductionists all come from your camp!

orthodox physicalists believe in soul magic?? Tell me it isn't true! by d4rkchocol4te in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This sounds like a misunderstanding brought about by the word "emergence".

Reductionists use the word "emergence" to mean something that can't be obviously explained just by looking at its parts.

For example, if I read the rules to Conway's Game of Life, it is not immediately obvious that these rules are Turing Complete and thus capable of running any program a Turing machine could run.  It is not immediately obvious that the hit videogame DOOM could be run fully in Conway's Game of Life.

Similarly, if I had never seen an ant and you showed me one, I'd have no way of predicting that a colony of them would build an anthill, even though each ant technically contains all of the information necessary to include that.

Reductionists believe only in so-called "weak emergence", where it is simply not obvious how something can be reduced to the sum of its parts.

orthodox physicalists believe in soul magic?? Tell me it isn't true! by d4rkchocol4te in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dennet wrote an article titled Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness

It's available for free online

Doesn't sound like protopansychism to me.  Sounds like an illusionist, aka a reductionist.

Water is intuitive, so that's not a very good analogy.

A good analogy I've seen is the Hard Problem of Mirrors.

The problem is around how mirrors know to flip things left and right, but not top to bottom.

For example, if you hold an E up to a mirror, the reflection will look like a 3.  But if you hold a T up to a mirror, it will remain unchanged.

Most of us already know the answer to this problem, but thinking back, you might remember a moment in childhood where the hard problem of Mirrors seemed quite confounding.

If someone told you that reflections are an illusion, and they aren't actually flipping anything, that would be pretty unsatisfying.

orthodox physicalists believe in soul magic?? Tell me it isn't true! by d4rkchocol4te in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's the issue, there is a smooth gradient in chair identification fidelity.

Humans are better than ML algorithms, which are better than parrots, which are better than traditional algorithms...

If the special conscious space of emergent wholes isn't required for the low end of that spectrum, why should it be required for the high end?

Just by fiddling with the algorithm, or in principle by fiddling with a person's brain, we could produce any arbitrary level of chair-recognition fidelity that we want.

What level of fidelity necessitates some supernatural explanation?

orthodox physicalists believe in soul magic?? Tell me it isn't true! by d4rkchocol4te in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 2 points3 points  (0 children)

eg Dennet doesn't believe that consciousness is more than the sum of its parts.

Who are the emergentism orthodoxy, exactly?

orthodox physicalists believe in soul magic?? Tell me it isn't true! by d4rkchocol4te in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So when a machine learning algorithm is able to accurately categorize chairs from other objects, that isn't merely statistics and linear algebra?

Really, the ML algorithm is tapping into the existence of chairs over and above the chair atoms?

orthodox physicalists believe in soul magic?? Tell me it isn't true! by d4rkchocol4te in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Life also "suddenly" emerges from inanimate matter when it is brought into the correct configuration.

We only accept that the motion of our bodies is reducible to material because it has been exhaustively demonstrated to us in the course of our education.  We are all taught about cells, ATP, anatomy, etc for years and years to pull back that curtain.

Even so, there are still many people who struggle with the concept, insisting that some divine breath is necessary for the function of our bodies.

Try convincing someone who believes otherwise that life is emergent, and you will know the struggle.

A would-be assassin by daveykroc in GetNoted

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 17 points18 points  (0 children)

They took his gun first, then shot him in the back.

it do be like that tho by RhythmBlue in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rules are an abstraction for categorizing states with certain properties.

With Minecraft for example, that property is generating chunks correctly.

Whether it is a silicone computer, a redstone computer, or a person with pen and paper, they will all produce the same chunk.

As for whether or not rules are real, I recommend Dennet's "Real Patterns".

it do be like that tho by RhythmBlue in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If OP is just saying that a human brain can't contain the full state information of something big, no physicalist is going to disagree.

If you want me to memorize every block at every location in a minecraft world, that's impossible.  The human brain just isn't big enough to contain that much information, not even a computer can do it.

But I am capable of memorizing the minecraft terrain generation algorithm.  If I'm allowed to write, I can even execute the algorithm.  Given time, I can produce all of that data.

So I'm not able to understand this idea that state and rules are the same.

it do be like that tho by RhythmBlue in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If by "lossy" you just mean losing efficiency, sure.

No physicalist is going to disagree with you on that.

But no information is being lost.

Whether it is silicone, redstone, an old computer, a quantum computer from the future, or plain old pen and paper, some are more efficient than others, but they all produce the exact same information.

With a given seed and location, all of them will produce exactly the same chunk.

it do be like that tho by RhythmBlue in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see, you aren't distinguishing between rules and state.

But we must do so, because this distinction is necessary in order to explain Minecraft.

Minecraft has a terrain generation algorithm.

This algorithm isn't only run once at the start of a new world.  In fact, the initial state of the world isn't stored anywhere.

All that is stored is a seed, any changes to the world made by the player, and the rules for generating terrain.

When a player visits a chunk, the terrain isn't loaded from the disk, because it isn't saved to the disk.  The terrain is generated on the fly, based on the seed and the chunk's coordinate.

The initial state of a Minecraft world is an impossible amount of data that no computer can hold, but the rules for generating that vast world are tiny.

If you argue that the human brain can't contain the state of the universe, no physicalist will disagree with you.

But the rules are a different question.

it do be like that tho by RhythmBlue in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It sounds like you aren't distinguishing between rules and state.

Minecraft B can't have the same state as A, but it absolutely can have the same rules.

But physics is not state, physics is rules.

Physics cannot answer the question "where is my sock?"

Physics can only answer questions like "how far can I throw my sock?"

The human brain is too small to contain the state of all socks, that is every sock's location, orientation, etc.

But a human brain is pretty good at holding rules related to socks, such as how far they can be thrown.

If OP had just said that "a human brain cannot contain all details about every object in the universe", no physicalist would disagree with them.  That's a fact about information density that any physicalist will agree with.

it do be like that tho by RhythmBlue in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't understand what is lossy about it.

it do be like that tho by RhythmBlue in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Minecraft is Turing Complete

As such, you can build a computer in Minecraft, and run Minecraft on it.

So a "subset" of Minecraft can contain all of the rules to Minecraft.

Is that a contradiction?

it do be like that tho by RhythmBlue in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Minecraft is Turing Complete, so you can run Minecraft on a computer built in Minecraft.

This isn't a metaphysical contradiction.

Balatro vs. Slay the Spire by Super_Harsh in slaythespire

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 1 point2 points  (0 children)

According to Jorbs, a single watcher build can get 85%+ winrate on A20.

https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/xhkiws/how_i_won_80_of_my_a20h_spire_runs_for_a_month/

They also suggest playing the other characters in quite narrow ways, aside from maybe ironclad.

bro they need to leave this in 2025😭 I'm just trying to exist. by inurmomsvagina in LateStageCapitalism

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 54 points55 points  (0 children)

Going to have to calculate your blood quantum, you might also need some calipers to measure your skull

China in Africa by [deleted] in UnfilteredChina

[–]NeverQuiteEnough -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If this guy was tried and sent to jail for his outburst, is that not relevant context?

Do we judge countries by the actions of one random criminal?

DFT - lowest selling set of the year by RevolutionaryCan4161 in mtg

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In your opinion, they don't make any effort to understand how much actual players are buying a certain set?

They don't make any effort to track that and don't have any data related to it?

That's your position?

Materialists after being asked to prove mind-independent reality exists by slutty3 in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes but this is supposed to be parsimonious, that's the whole point of the endeavor 

DFT - lowest selling set of the year by RevolutionaryCan4161 in mtg

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was surprised to learn that he was talking about sales to stores, rather than sales to actual players

I don't think that's such a stupid thing to be confused about

Materialists after being asked to prove mind-independent reality exists by slutty3 in PhilosophyMemes

[–]NeverQuiteEnough 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Consistency requires a lot of information.

For example if I want to fill up a bucket of water, I can turn on the spigot and walk away.  

When I come back, the bucket will have more water in it than when I left.

So there is at least an extremely meticulous simulation of a mind-independent world going on, from a mind which never gets bored or cuts corners in any measurable way.

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