
The Simple Truth (2008) - 001sky
http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth
======
jrajav
I normally would not make a comment that adds nothing to the conversation, but
I feel I need to in this case. If you are one of those who reads the comments
before the links, a warning:

This does not have much of a point. It goes on forever. It's really not that
great, and doesn't give much of a take-away for its length. Even if you just
want to satisfy your curiosity, you will probably walk away disappointed. The
foreword contains the only real content.

Yes, there is somewhat of a point to the metaphor, but I think more horses
died than sheep.

~~~
diego
I was going to post something similar earlier. I was put off by what I
perceived as a very condescending tone in the essay. I got the impression that
the author envisioned his audience as children, or unintelligent adults.

~~~
Firehed
Well to be fair, if you're the type that is sure that you can simply will your
beliefs into becoming reality (preferably without recognizing the concept of
reality), then you almost certainly fit into one of those two groups.

~~~
Tenoke
The essay is not about willing beliefs into reality, it is about showing the
relationships between our beliefs and reality and how the former should be
based on the latter. Or to put it in another way that a true statement is a
statement that corresponds to what is going on in the real world. (for the
record, I haven't re-read this essay in a long time, there might be some sort
of a revision done on it, but I doubt that much has changed)

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smsm42
I'm feeling positively stupid - I read through the whole thing and the only
point I got from it is that author paints one of the characters as some kind
of very dumb postmodernist philosopher and then kills him. But in service of
which point and how the point is being proven? And why after declaring that
it's "too simple" author proceeds with 6000+ word parable the point of which
is not exactly crystal clear? Anybody could give me a TLDR version (I actually
did read, but that didn't help) of the point of it?

~~~
hypersoar
You're right, I think, in complaining that this is too verbose. Yudkowsky has
some very good writings, but this isn't among them. The key point, I think, is
here:

"'I can’t create my own reality in the lab, so I must not understand it yet.
But occasionally I believe strongly that something is going to happen, and
then something else happens instead. I need a name for whatever-it-is that
determines my experimental results, so I call it ‘reality’. This ‘reality’ is
somehow separate from even my very best hypotheses. Even when I have a simple
hypothesis, strongly supported by all the evidence I know, sometimes I’m still
surprised. So I need different names for the thingies that determine my
predictions and the thingy that determines my experimental results. I call the
former thingies ‘belief’, and the latter thingy ‘reality’."

I don't think the essay as a whole communicates much more than that point, but
it's not a bad one.

~~~
Evgeny
_Yudkowsky has some very good writings, but this isn't among them._

I would be very thankful if you could point me towards his better writings!

~~~
woodchuck64
Lot of stuff here: <http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences>

It's less about the quality of writing or how quickly you can absorb it and
much, much more about fascinating ideas and concepts.

And I have thoroughly enjoyed "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"
<http://www.elsewhere.org/rationality/>

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manamana
This post is very long and probably not worth the time of HN's readership. On
this thread[1], there's an explanation of why it is like this:

 _"The Simple Truth" was generated by an exercise of this discipline to
describe "truth" on a lower level of organization, without invoking terms like
"accurate", "correct", "represent", "reflect", "semantic", "believe",
"knowledge", "map", or "real"._

And a summary:

 _The only way you can be sure your mental map accurately represents reality
is by allowing a reality-controlled process to draw your mental map.

A sheep-activated pebble-tosser is a reality-controlled process that makes
accurate bucket numbers.

The human eye is a reality-controlled process that makes accurate visual
cortex images.

Natural human patterns of thought like essentialism and magical thinking are
NOT reality-controlled processes and they don't draw accurate mental maps.

Each part of your mental map is called a "belief". The parts of your mental
map that portray reality accurately are called "true beliefs".

Q: How do you know there is such a thing as "reality", and your mental map
isn't all there is? A: Because sometimes your mental map leads you to make
confident predictions, and they still get violated, and the prediction-
violating thingy deserves its own name: reality._

[1] <http://lesswrong.com/lw/66u/rewriting_the_sequences/4cj6>

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3pt14159
I always felt that the "there is no such thing as truth" argument was easily
dispatched with the following logic:

1 - There is no such thing as truth

2 - If [1] is correct it follows that it is internally inconsistent. Something
cannot be _true_ if truth has no meaning.

3 - Therefore [1] is not correct.

~~~
baddox
Do "correct" and "true" identical meanings?

~~~
smsm42
I think that's what Yudkowsky is essentially claiming, if I got it right -
that _true_ map is the one that gives _correct_ description of the territory -
meaning, if we make a prediction using this map and then actually interact
with the territory and the prediction turns out to be correct, then it's the
supporting evidence for the map being true, and vice versa. I derive it from
the links given here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4961488>

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friendofasquid
You can download the essay in audio format here:
[http://castify.co/channels/3-eliezer-yudkowsky-the-simple-
tr...](http://castify.co/channels/3-eliezer-yudkowsky-the-simple-truth)

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finnw
This is from 2008 (should probably be mentioned in the title.)

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CalvinCopyright
My head hurts.

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fideloper
"Better Nate than lever."

