Quan Tesla wrote: > > A sidenote; Occam's Razor may be great for a quick research-population > poll, as a "thumbsuck" knowledge indicator, but not as a valid and reliable > derivation of the most-correct Algorithmic Information Set for a boundaried > system under consideration. Polling results offer useful insight and a > refetential parking space for future checks and balances, e.g., "But most > of you agreed how in your performance reality, "A" logically causes "B". > The intrinsic system seems to differ." ??? >
That's not how AIT works. Occam's Razor and AIT says that the shortest theory that is consistent with past data makes the best predictions. For example, Hume's guillotine has a database of county level crime and income statistics with a negative correlation, meaning by knowing one, you can predict (and compress) the other. What it does not show is which causes which. Consider the following 4 theories: 1. Poverty causes crime. 2. Crime causes poverty. 3. Racism causes crime and poverty. 4. Low IQ causes crime and poverty. The data is consistent with all 4. AIT says 1 and 2 are more likely than 3 or 4 because the statements can be written using fewer bits (168 vs 256). Now there is a separate study in Finland (and a few in the US) showing that 1 is false. Giving money to people has no effect on the rate that they are arrested or convicted of crimes. Therefore 2 is most likely. Now if another study disproves 2, say by randomly choosing to not arrest people and compare their incomes, then 3 and 4 are equally likely. Now it becomes political, because there is no way to experimentally control for racism or IQ. What normally happens next is that we guess which one is correct and search for evidence that confirms our beliefs and ignore evidence that refutes them. Not because we want to be right, but because human brains have a maximum learning rate of 10 bits per second short term and 1 bps long term to avoid filling up our 10^9 bit storage capacity. It takes more bits to store evidence that refutes our beliefs than evidence that confirms them. As a scientist, I should know better. I should be looking for evidence that refutes my theories, but I know that doing so means I have to sacrifice learning something else. At 71 my brain is nearly full and learning slows down, which only makes it harder to be objective or change my political views. Every political issue has evidence supporting both sides because evidence is not proof. There is more evidence that the world is round than flat, but you cannot prove that to a Flat Earther. LLMs learn a million times faster than humans, so I expect them to consider all the evidence in their answers. -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T0ea44555ed99e6e4-M6493446a6406a2263ee51104 Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
