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Idol Words

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271 pointsandromaton37 comments

What a fun exploration of an idea! That if we're living in a universe with a creator (simulation or otherwise), even if we're blocked from knowledge of higher purposes, we might be able to pick up some hints from looking at the nature of the universe itself.

And the three items Scott points out are clever: (a) there are secret depths that pay rewards in exchange for structured intelligence, aka math and science, (b) many religious and psychedelic experiences report similar experiences of interconnectedness and higher meaning, (c) the world is set up in such a way that almost everyone experiences certain important things: love, suffering, growth, family, etc.

I'm sure this has been discussed to death in some branch of metaphysics - can anyone share pointers to interesting material? I feel like Bostrom's simulation hypothesis opens up a lot of space here that hasn't been fully explored yet (but I could be wrong).

Well, Scott's Unsong is the obvious thing to read if you are into this kind of stuff.

Given the nature of the post, you might also like some of the Taoist writings by Raymond Smullyan himself.

Eg https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTa... or his book 'The Tao is Silent'.

>What a fun exploration of an idea! That if we're living in a universe with a creator (simulation or otherwise), even if we're blocked from knowledge of higher purposes, we might be able to pick up some hints from looking at the nature of the universe itself.

This is "Natural Theology". Here's a century's worth of lectures on it: https://www.giffordlectures.org/content/youtube-channel

and a quick precis: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-theology/

But "observe the world; back out a telos" is _really_ baked into our world-view.

It's also the theme of Carl Sagan's Contact. Skip the movie in favor of the book, which is much better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel)

But that's a very human-centric view of reality, isn't it? Sure, we are humans, so we can't (don't want to?) think in a different way. Other living entities in this planet do not experiment all the 3 points above (or at least that's what we know). Who knows what other living entities experiment out there in the universe?

It's difficult to extrapolate meaning about reality with a sample of N=1 (humanity), but I guess we can't do better for the moment.

From a different, Christian perspective: human-centered view of reality is defined by the Creator of humans. Who also deems that humans are responsible / stewards of all other living entities on the planet. So, not human-centric in sense of we determine our own reality, but is human-centric in that humans are placed in a position of responsibility.

"Go to the ant" means "learn from the ant" not "abandon human-like thinking and always see reality as the ant does" (human-centric) because God says to do so (not human-centric).

In ideal world quantum entanglement is possible at any scale, but because their resources are limited, we can entangle only very small objects. They just don't have the resources to entangle larger objects so they introduced decoherence to keep entangled area small.

That was a fun read. Thanks for the recommendation. Scott Alexander will make for a fine science fiction writer someday, if not already.

His full-length online novel was the funnest thing I've read in the last decade: https://unsongbook.com/ (a little googling will also turn up Kindle/ePub versions)

I went in skeptical, but I was quickly won over. I almost wonder if this is the next incarnation of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. And author seems young too. If I ever see hope for humanity, it is with works such as these.

Going through 'Unsong' now.

Same, I didn't know what to expect when I started reading. Initially, (for the first two petitioners) I was expecting this to be one of those "how to optimise yourself" blogs that have been quite popular on HN and the author was using the idols for some sort of allegory to make a point. I'm glad I continued reading, what a delightful story.

It turns out the way to get good at writing is to write, a lot. Scott fits the bill.

Interpretations of I-Ching divination seem to show the same: you can't gain "useful information", but you absorb background knowledge and understand your own motives better(like rubber duck debugging forces you to reify your mental model)

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

If you liked that, you'll love this piece by the same author:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/02/and-i-show-you-how-dee...

> Finally they transfer you to an easier assignment in the Moscow embassy. You make Vladimir Putin’s phone start ringing at weird hours of the night so that he never gets enough sleep to think entirely clearly. It’s an easy job, but rewarding, and no assassins ever bother you again.

Man... I really wish they hadn't..!

For a moment I thought this was about Idle Words [0].

[0]: https://idlewords.com/

I think both are referencing the phrase "idle words," meaning "empty rhetoric or insincere or exaggerated talk" (from Google).

I came here to write that I don't know whether it is an intentional wordplay (and a tribute to idlewords?).

Maybe this should be my question to the idols.

Well that's one helluva meet cute

From the title, I was hoping this would be some parody about pop idols, kind of like First and Last Idol -- https://j-novel.club/series/last-and-first-idol .

But pleasantly disappointed and going to check out more of the author's work later.

A very enjoyable story indeed.

I think it would be improved by adding at the end:

"No."

That would ruin the joke though. By asking the idols three questions the keeper learns "something worth knowing" - the girl's phone number.

Yes, but it would be entirely in keeping with the idols' behaviour for him not to actually learn anything useful in the end.

It seems to me like the idols do reward serious or worthy petitioners with useful hints.

Bear in mind that Scott is a big fan of puns. It might not be the phone number that is worth knowing.

Raymond Smullyan would be proud, and amused!

I wondered what his questions would be.

PENGUIN MONKEY TACO.

That's all.

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