Comment by gabemart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gabemart | Hacker News Reader

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I find this interesting. I particularly enjoy the idea of proscribed words in Taboo leaking information that helps describe the taboo word. It reminds me of a pentester checking robots.txt to see what parts of a website the admin doesn't want crawlers to see.

However, I disagree with the "tree falls in the forest" example. The thought experiment was formed in a time when the only way to measure acoustic vibrations was with the human ear. I don't think it's any great leap to extend the conceit of the experiment to cover all forms of measuring acoustic vibrations.

Albert may claim:

    A tree falling in a deserted forest matches [membership test:
    this event generates pressure waves in a material medium].

And Barry could quite reasonably reply:

    How can we be sure those pressure waves are generated if we
    don't have any wave detectors in the forest?

In other words, I don't think this is a case where ambiguous language is the source of the apparent disagreement. No matter how far down the abstraction-chain you go, the detection of acoustic waves always requires an observer of some fashion, which brings us back to the sense of the original thought experiment.

I think it changes a lot of peoples thoughts about the question. It moves it from a "let's play with the concept of sound" to a basic question of induction and physics. At that point, why not ask how can we be sure the tree actually fell at all?

If you chase that rabbit hole, it probably devolves into arguing about what "know" and "is" and "sure" "actually mean".

I disagree. I don't think the original plays with the concept of sound, I think it plays with the concept of an objective reality. I don't think the thought experiment is substantially different in effect if it's changed to "does a tree fall in the forest if no-one is there to see it" or "does a tree have rough bark in the forest if no-one is there to feel it".

Or "do bears shit in the woods?"

The theory "A tree falling in a deserted forest does not generate pressure waves in the air" is a theory that makes falsifiable predictions. I do not think anyone seriously believes it. If they did, you'd soon be able to convince them that the theory is false.

If you ever encounter someone proposing that theory, they're liable to be anticipating-as-if a tree falling in a deserted forest DOES generate pressure waves, and know perfectly well what the result of any of your proposed expirements will be. They'll do fast footwork to make up excuses as to why your suggested expirements are invalid or miss the point.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/i4/

Taboo'ing is especially helpful when you find yourself arguing over definitions, and want to get at the heart of the difference in actual models of the world, rather than just the difference in labels. If there is any actual disagreement on expectations.

>The theory "A tree falling in a deserted forest does not generate pressure waves in the air" is a theory that makes falsifiable predictions

I do not believe that the theory "A completely unobserved and unrecorded tree does not generate pressure waves in the air when it falls" is falsifiable. How would you falsify it?

I do agree that no-one seriously believes it.

I don't think anything intelligent can be said about a "completely unobserved and unrecorded tree." We do not know an object that has the qualities of being unobserved and we can never know, because then it wouldn't be unobserved any more. That's the idealist argument against materialism.

This is where the Less Wrong post on Occam's Razor [1] comes in handy. It helps make clear how to respond to someone who argues that backward perspective.

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/jp/occams_razor/

Whether or not it was a reasonable debate at one point, I've still seen it personally between people who were quite aware that vibrations and auditory sensations were different things that could each be measured.

"Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?"

Define wave detector

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