Scott, I swapped "mysterian" for "anti-reductionist", since you're correct that the term "mysterian" has been used to refer specifically to those who think consciousness can't be explained.

However, if you google on, for example, "objections to materialism", the second google hit will turn up a page that includes a short list of "objections to materialism in general", of which the first is, verbatim:

(1) If materialism is correct, then even materialist philosophy is nothing other than the motion of matter. It can hardly be said to be "true" or to "explain" anything, then, for an explanation of something (seemingly) would be different from that which it claims to explain.

I really am not attacking a strawman here! If you already understand scientific reductionism, that's great. Not everyone does.

The pattern that seems to be playing out repeatedly is: Eliezer begins a series of posts on a topic -> Commenters complain that the topic is straying from the nominal topic of the blog, i.e. bias -> Eliezer brings the topic around and shows how it applies to bias. In this case, though, the connection to bias seems pretty clear.

On a side note, does it feel weird to anybody else to refer to Eliezer as Eliezer, like you're on a first name basis with him? I mean, blogging is an informal style of writing, and one would expect that to carry over into the comments, but I still feel like I should be referring to him as "The Master" or something. :)

Silas, you seem to have an exaggerated idea of how mysterious visual recognition is to modern neuroscience. (An idea that was probably exaggerated by someone posting Jeff Hawkins's work in reply, as if Jeff Hawkins were anything more than one guy with a semi-interesting opinion about the general cerebral cortex, and a much larger marketing budget than is usual in science. Nothing to compare to the vast edifice of known visual neuroscience.)

Around a third of the 471 articles in the MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences seem to be about vision, although that may just be a subjective impression. Should you be interested in how, specifically, the brain carries out the operations of vision generally and object recognition, you could do worse than to pick up a copy of MITECS and start reading through it - it would give you a good idea of where to look for further information.

There isn't the tiniest reason to believe it's magic.

Furthermore, while I couldn't do it off the top of my head, I have some idea where to look up how to build a standard narrow-AI object-recognition system that could, if you insist, "objectively" (if with poorer accuracy) verify visually through a known algorithm whether I was wearing the objects I call "socks".

Your objection seems genuinely pointless on multiple grounds and I am confused as to why you make it.

If I see our relationship as a status contest, and you are doing analysis and are better at it than I am, I might attempt to move the contest away from analysis and onto, say, aesthetics, or professions of faith, or rhetoric, or athleticism, or cooking, or some other area where I feel stronger.

I usually interpret objections like Keats' (and, more famously if more elliptically, Whitman's Learn'd Astronomer) as a status move along these lines.

I sometimes refer to this as "choosing to reign in Hell." If I can't win at a game worth playing, the temptation to play a game I'm better at rather than accept my loss is enormous.

Of course, if there is no reason to choose one game over another, then this is a perfectly sensible strategy: I get to play a game I can win, and I lose nothing of value by doing so.

On the other hand, if it turns out that there are good reasons to analyze a system rather than, say, hit it with a stick, or worship it, or sing about it... well, in that case I am losing something of value.

In those cases, it is often useful to re-evaluate my original framing of the relationship as a status contest.

One man's modus tollens is another man's modus ponens. Reductionism is true; therefore, there is, in fact, no "free will" in the sense that Ian C. seems to be implying. ;)

I can't predict the tomorrow's weather; does that mean atmospheres have free will?

The other antireductionism argument I can think of looks a little like this:

Anti-reductionist: "If the laws of physics are sufficient to explain reality, then that leaves no room for God or the soul. God and souls exist, therefore reductionism is false."

And the obvious counterargument, is of course...

Reductionist: "One man's modus tollens is another man's modus ponens. Reductionism is true; therefore, there is, in fact, no God."

At this point, the anti-reductionist gathers a lynch mob and has the reductionist burned at the stake for heresy.

KEATS: Explanations of gnomes and rainbows take away the sense of wonder they give me.

YUDKOWSKY: Gnomes aren't real.

KEATS: You don't say.

YUDKOWSKY: We should get a sense of wonder from accurate explanations.

KEATS: Speak for yourself.

As a general point about reductionism the essay may stand up well. As criticism of that poem, not so much. I for one enjoy both magical and "merely real" explanations, and see no contradiction in that. The sort of ideas people enjoy are a matter of taste.

• Sarah is hypnotized and told to take off her shoes when a book drops on the floor. Fifteen minutes later a book drops, and Sarah quietly slips out of her loafers. “Sarah,”, asks the hypnotist, “why did you take off your shoes?” “Well . . . my feet are hot and tired.”, Sarah replies. “It has been a long day”. • George has electrodes temporarily implanted in the brain region that controls his head movements. When neurosurgeon José Delgado (1973) stimulates the electrode by remote control, George always turns his head. Unaware of the remote stimulation, he offers a reasonable explanation for it: “I’m looking for my slipper.” “I heard a noise.” “I’m restless.” “I was looking under the bed.”

The point is: That's how the brain works, always. It is only in special circumstances, like the ones described, that the fallaciousness of these "explanations from hindsight" becomes obvious.

I should note it here too:

It occurs to me that verbal overshadowing of feelings may be some of what people are complaining of when they consider explaining to constitute explaining away: where a good verbal description pretty much screens off one's own memories. This is part of the dangerous magic the good art critic wields - and why it's possibly more dangerous to an artist's art to read their positive reviews than their negative ones. It's a mechanism by which the explanation does, in fact, overshadow the feelings. So I have more sympathy for Keats having learnt of verbal overshadowing than I did before.

This seems related to Dennett's greedy reductionism. HT Doug S.

Doug S., we get the point, nothing that Ian could say would pry you away from your version of reductionism, there's no need to make any more posts with Fully General Counterarguments. "I defy the data" is a position, but does not serve as an explanation of why you hold that position, or why other people should hold that position as well.

Sorry. :(

Anyway, my own introspection seems to tell me that, although I can "choose the choice that I want", my ability to choose the preferences that provide the underlying reasons for the choice are far more limited. For example, it would be extremely difficult for me to consciously change which flavors of ice cream I like. On some level, I feel that I'm similar to that chess playing program; I make decisions, but there's a level on which the decisions really don't seem to be "freely chosen."

That's where introspection gets me, anyway, and it doesn't seem incompatible with "reduction to atoms." Your mileage may vary.

Doug S., we get the point, nothing that Ian could say would pry you away from your version of reductionism, there's no need to make any more posts with Fully General Counterarguments. "I defy the data" is a position, but does not serve as an explanation of why you hold that position, or why other people should hold that position as well.

I would agree with reductionism, if phrased as follows:

1. When entity A can be explained in terms of another entity B, but not vice-versa, it makes sense to say that entity A "has less existence" compared to the fundamental entities that do exist. That is, we can still have A in our models, but we should be aware that it's only a "cognitive shortcut", like when a map draws a road as a homogeneous black line instead of showing microscopic detail.

2. The number of fundamental entities is relatively small, as we live in a lawful universe. If we see a mysterious behavior, our first guess should be that it's probably a result of the known entities, rather than a new entity. (Occam's razor)

3. Reductionism, as a philosophy, doesn't itself say what these fundamental entities are; they could be particles, or laws of nature, or 31 flavors of ice cream. If every particle were composed of smaller particles, then there would be no "fundamental particle", but the law that states how this composition occurs would still be fundamental. If we discover tomorrow that unicorns exist and are indivisible (rather than made up of quarks), then this is a huge surprise and requires a rewrite of all known laws of physics, but it does not falsify reductionism because that just means that a "unicorn field" (which seems to couple quite strongly with the Higgs boson) gets added to our list of fundamental entities.

4. Reductionism is a logical/philosophical rather than an empirical observation, and can't be falsified as long as Occam's razor holds.

Standard disclaimer: Eliezer does great work and writing here.

Useful criticism: Elizier, less foil seeking (strawmen or not here) and more attempts to understand reality and our perceptual/analytical skews from reality. I think foil-seeking is a weakness on your end which to a degree diminishes your utility to us (or at least to me). There are enough polemicists out there that are either providing entertainment or countering less useful models to understanding reality. We don't need you to counter "anti-reductionists", or fundamentalists or any other groups, in my opinion, as much as we (I) need you innovating improved conceptual and bias-reducing approaches to understanding reality.

That's my opinion, anyways.

My chess playing software considers options and makes a decision. Does it have free will?

If an abstract theory (such as the whole universe being governed by billiard ball causation) contradicts a direct observation, you don't say the observation is wrong, you say the theory is.

I defy the data.

"I can't predict the tomorrow's weather; does that mean atmospheres have free will?"

It's not the fact that you can't predict other people's actions that proves the existence of free will, it's that you observe your own self making choices. You can introspect and see yourself weighing the options and then picking one.

Frank Hirsch: "I don't think you can name any observations that strongly indicate (much less prove, which is essentially impossible anyway) that people have any kind of "free will" that contradicts causality-plus-randomness at the physical level."

More abstract ideas are proven by reference to more fundamental ones, which in turn are proven by direct observation. Seeing ourselves choose is a direct observation (albeit an introspective one). If an abstract theory (such as the whole universe being governed by billiard ball causation) contradicts a direct observation, you don't say the observation is wrong, you say the theory is.

Nominull: I believe Eliezer would rather be called Eliezer...

Ian C.: We observe a lack of predictability at the quantum level. Do quarks have a free will? (Yup a shameless rip-off of Dougs argument, tee-hee! =) Btw. I don't think you can name any observations that strongly indicate (much less prove, which is essentially impossible anyway) that people have any kind of "free will" that contradicts causality-plus-randomness at the physical level.

"If we cannot learn to take joy in the merely real, our lives will be empty indeed."

It's true... but... why do we read sci-fi books then? Why should we? I don't think that after reading a novel about intelligent, faster-than-light starships the bus stopping at the bus stop nearby will be as interesting as it used to be when we were watching it on the way to the kindergarten... Or do you think it is? (Without imagining starships in place of buses, of course.)

So what non-existing things should we imagine to be rational (= to win), and how? I hope there will be some words about that in tomorrow's post, too...