Comment by atomicnature | Hacker News Reader

Comment by atomicnature | Hacker News Reader

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> I as a physical agent may very well be short-lived myself...

You are explaining potential implementation methods, but I think implementation method is a secondary consideration. The more interesting question is what is the simpler and more likely explanation. I think envisoning thought as a sprawling system (through space/time), creating temporary localized identities, through clustering & evolving preferences is simpler than the one with non-mutating preferences. It is non-dualistic, doesn't require multiple layers, etc.

> That substance, though having a changing state, is governed by immutable (as we notice so far) laws of physics

You are mixing layers - substance & laws it seems to be governed by (law is a "meta" substance if you will, or properties derived from a given set of observations). To create immutability out of mutability, you need to build sophisticated layers... That makes it a more complex explanation (and less likely explanation).

Moreover, having a mutable/evolving identity doesn't preclude it from being governed by immutable laws.

Just a matter of applying occam's razor.

Am I right that you want to apply certain apriori ideas, like preference of simpler models, in order to build semantic interpretation of reality? I don't believe that any set of such apriori ideas should be universal for all minds. As for me, I built my framework because I seek to define meaning of activity. This framework is the result of my preconception of meaning together with some other relevant philosophy. I want to tell about it to any people who have same objectives and prelimimaries and anyone else interested and learn criticism.

My model requires immutable identities: without them, there is no temporally consistent individual meaning. As I know that time is always passing, temporal consistency is required. Although my body may disappear without a trace of its contents, my identity is recorded in history/spacetime.

I also know that people can disagree on politics, from which follows that there can be multiple different non-nested identities. If you want, you may still combine conflicting identities into a "conflicting superidentity" to achieve an algebraic style. At the boundary of conflict, though, communication is unlike that inside the volume of agreeing or orthogonal agents. Cooperation is replaced by either trade or fight.

> less likely explanation

It is less likely for you only because you prefer simpler ones. My evaluation of ideas, for example, is not so straightforward.

> Am I right that you want to apply certain apriori ideas, like preference of simpler models, in order to build semantic interpretation of reality? I don't believe that any set of such apriori ideas should be universal for all minds.

Your first question about my views was - whether it could be scientific or not. If you subscribe to the scientific method in any serious manner, then you must by necessity subscribe to preferring simpler models in describing phenomena. If two models can produce identical results given a particular purpose, the one with lesser number of components, lesser relations among components, the one easier to comprehend must be considered superior/preferred. Preference for the simpler explanation is a cardinal doctrine within the scientific method.

Rest of your comments - I have further thoughts/comments about them but this thread has already gone too deep, and HN is not the right forum for it. So I let it be. Thanks :)

But "semantic interpretation of reality", or meaning, is in the domain of philosophy. In this case, models are used not to just predict independent real events, but to generate opinion on meaning and create a framework on which the whole of understanding will be built and whole of activity will depend. Two models not only don't have similar results, but your model is unusable for me at all. My framework is not an empirical science to which scientific method could apply. This part of philosophy consists of definitions and opinion, what the content of the system of concepts in question should be, backed at most by non-rigorous arguments and considerations. Doesn't look like science for me. Scientificness does not apply to one's philosophical base; even to use logic, you first have to decide to accept it.

> HN is not the right forum for it

why :o HN is literally a website for intellectual curiosities... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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