Erik Orrje
@erik-orrje·Member since September 2025
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#3040·Dennis HackethalOP revised about 2 months agoMy Conjecture
Conjecture: addiction is the result of the entrenchment of a conflict between two or more preferences in a mind.
Picture a smoker who wants to give up smoking but also really enjoys smoking. Those preferences conflict.
If the conflict is entrenched, then both preferences get to live on indefinitely. The entrenchment will not let the smoker give up smoking. He will become a chain smoker.
Solutions for the conflict may need to be found creatively, case by case. It depends on the nature of the particular entrenchment and the preferences involved. A more overarching answer for how to cure addiction might involve Randian ideas around introspection and getting one’s reason and emotions in the proper order.
Elaboration:
The conflict in addiction is between short-term and long-term solutions.
The preference for short-term in addiction is caused by uncertainty/an inability to make predictions based on explanations.
This uncertainty can be real (e.g. increased heroin addiction during the Vietnam War) or learned from insecurity during one's early years.
#3521·Dennis HackethalOP, 8 days agoSome minds with lots of coercive memes are more like dictatorships.
Doesn’t a dictatorship mean there’s only a single actor at the top? If there’s lots of coercive memes, that sounds like multiple actors.
Yes, here's a new version:
Some minds with one coercive memeplex are more like dictatorships.
#3522·Dennis HackethalOP, 8 days ago[P]eople with set preferences for less self are more like communist societies. That's a kind of coerced decentralisation.
Aren’t communist societies totalitarian and highly centralized?
In practice, yeah, but the end goal is decentralised ownership and control. According to the Britannica dictionary:
"Like most writers of the 19th century, Marx tended to use the terms communism and socialism interchangeably. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), however, Marx identified two phases of communism that would follow the predicted overthrow of capitalism: the first would be a transitional system in which the working class would control the government and economy yet still find it necessary to pay people according to how long, hard, or well they worked, and the second would be fully realized communism—a society without class divisions or government, in which the production and distribution of goods would be based upon the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Marx’s followers, especially the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilich Lenin, took up this distinction.""
#3514·Dennis HackethalOP, 11 days agoIf … the mind is a decentralized system, does the mind have something like a price system for its different parts to communicate?
But the mind isn’t a decentralized system. It has a central ‘I’ sitting at the top. So it’s more like a company with a CEO than a fully decentralized system.
Just as nations can have different forms of governance, minds can too.
For example: Most probably have that CEO-sense of self.
Some minds with lots of coercive memes are more like dictatorships.
People with "smaller egos" (less anti-rational memes) are more like libertarian societies.
But people with set preferences for less self are more like communist societies. That's a kind of coerced decentralisation.
Split personalities would be akin to a highly polarised society that switches governance back and forth.
#3503·Dennis HackethalOP, 14 days agoI don’t think so, no.
The BoI chapter 1 glossary defines empiricism as “The misconception that we ‘derive’ all our knowledge from sensory experience.” I’m not saying empirical fields derive knowledge from sensory experience.
There’s a difference between ‘empiricism’ and ‘empirical’.
Cool, would you say then that it is only in empirical fields we can deduce facts/truth?
If so: In what way is this different from Wittgenstein saying we can't reach any truths in philosophy (which makes it meaningless)?
#3418·Dennis HackethalOP, 17 days agoI think of it in terms of error correction: all fields where progress is possible allow us to identify and correct errors.
Empirical fields use facts. In empirical fields, error identification involves finding a discrepancy between theories and observation.
I’d consider aesthetics and economics at least partly empirical since you can make testable predictions. You can test an economic policy, for example, and see whether its predictions match (correspond to) outcomes. In music, things can sound unpleasant.
I see, interesting. If only empirical fields can correspond to facts/truth, isn't that a form of empiricism?
#3405·Dennis HackethalOP, 21 days agoSorry for the late reply. I don’t know. I don’t think the aim of math is correspondence to physical facts like in science. But maybe it’s correspondence to mathematical facts.
No worries :-). Yeah, this is the part that confuses me about correspondence:
Which fields (apart from science) have "facts", and which consist merely of useful/adapted knowledge?
For instance, are there musical facts, economic facts, aesthetic facts, etc?
#2579·Benjamin Davies revised 2 months agoIt is one thing to explain why a particular god spread more than others in the past, but it is another thing to claim that your specific god of choice will spread more than others in the future.
Your claim is that Zcash is the next money, which is analogous to claiming your niche god of choice is under-appreciated and will be the next big one.
Yes. But again, because it solves certain problems with existing money. There could similarly be good and bad explanations why certain religions would spread in the future.
#2574·Benjamin Davies, 2 months agoMoney needs to be a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.
Features that support a price floor create the conditions where one can expect that their wealth won’t completely evaporate for one reason or another. Something that has no features supporting a price floor is not good money.
If gold no longer has features supporting a price floor at some point in the future (as you claim might happen), then gold would also not be good money in that future.
Zcash has nothing going for it that makes it a store of value. To the degree that it is ‘worth’ anything in the future, it is because of the dynamics I refer to in #2497.
I agree that it would be optimal if Zcash and Bitcoin had such price floors. But couldn't it still be the best alternative in certain jurisdictions, e.g. where it's impossible/impractical to own gold, and the local currency gets inflated away?
#2417·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoAre you asking if there can be correspondence between two abstractions? Or between a physical object and an abstraction?
Between two abstractions (ambiguous statements made by us, and perfectly precise propositions).
#2496·Benjamin Davies, 2 months agoThe part that is easy to vary is that an arbitrary amount of different cryptos can be made with the same features.
The features themselves can be as specific as you like but the overall argument is still extremely easy to vary, because it is an argument for a specific cryptocurrency.
It is the same as arguing for a specific god because the god you like has specific features. The god itself is still easy to vary.
It is the same as arguing for a specific god because the god you like has specific features. The god itself is still easy to vary.
I could still see someone with knowledge of psychology and theology provide a good explanation as to why certain gods and religions have spread in favour of others. All ideas are solutions to some problem.
#2496·Benjamin Davies, 2 months agoThe part that is easy to vary is that an arbitrary amount of different cryptos can be made with the same features.
The features themselves can be as specific as you like but the overall argument is still extremely easy to vary, because it is an argument for a specific cryptocurrency.
It is the same as arguing for a specific god because the god you like has specific features. The god itself is still easy to vary.
The part that is easy to vary is that an arbitrary amount of different cryptos can be made with the same features.
There's never an arbitrary amount of solutions to a specific problem. In this case, the problems are the centralisation and the lack of privacy of our current money. They may not be problems for you specifically (e.g. if you live in a high-trust jurisdiction), but I'd like to hear arguments as to why nobody in the world would consider them problems.
#2497·Benjamin Davies, 2 months agoDurability, Portability, Divisibility, Fungibility, and Stability
These are all secondary values.
The durability of something is irrelevant if the thing itself is useless.
The portability of something is irrelevant if the thing itself is useless.
The divisibility of something is irrelevant if the thing itself is useless.
Etcetera, etcetera.The only demand for something like this comes from either a mistaken understanding of what ‘value’ is/means (e.g. believing that the ‘durability’ of something otherwise useless makes it valuable), or from the Keynesian Beauty Contest linked above.
This dynamic makes cryptos wonderful as instruments of speculation, but they will never be money unless they are backed by some independently useful commodity (which IIRC some actually are), or are made legal tender by some government (which defeats the point).
Value comes from solving a problem.
Money solves (among other things) the problem of barter by being a medium of exchange. Different media solve this problem better than others. That determines its value.
I still don't see why there has to be a price floor set by the commodity's utility (for other things than being money)? Also, the value could still go to zero if that utility was no longer needed: Gold isn't guaranteed to be valued in industry or jewellry in the future.
#2509·Dennis Hackethal, 2 months agoNew arguments may not belong at the bottom of the criticism chain. Depending on context, it may need to be either a new sibling at the top of the chain or a completely new standalone idea.
I didn’t check this exchange in detail to say for sure. But I recommend checking, so I’m marking this as a criticism. If you think the new argument can remain as is, leave a counter-criticism to neutralize my criticism.
#2427·Benjamin Davies revised 2 months agoWhy not some other cryptocurrency that also has those features?
For example, why not an existing or future fork of Zcash?“[Insert favoured cryptocurrency] will become the next money” is an extremely easy to vary statement.
Is "it contains bitcoin's solutions to fiat, and also solves bitcoin's lack of privacy" easy to vary? Could be made harder to vary by explaining the technicals of zero-knowledge proofs as well (though I'm not konwledgeable enough to do that here).
#2425·Benjamin Davies, 2 months agoUtility is not a necessary aspect of money.
Money without other use cases only holds value to the degree it can continuously win a Keynesian Beauty Contest in the market.
In other words, it has no underlying value.
Thanks for the criticism. New argument: Utility (besides usefulness as money) is not strictly necessary, although it may be nice to have. The value of a currency is set by supply and demand.
Supply: A limited supply (scarcity) may increase the value.
Demand: Demand is set determined by how well people percieve the currency's features as a store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account. Important factors include: Durability, Portability, Divisibility, Fungibility, and Stability. Gold has had most of these features (importantly scarcity, only 2% inflation from mining). However, it severely lacks in portability due to being a metal, compared to hard digital assets.
So the value of a currency is mostly determined by its perceived usefulness as money, not its utility for other things.
Thanks. Do you think there's correspondence for abstractions as well (such as mathematics, as DD seems to suggest)? As I understood, you only think we need it to explain progress in science.
Thanks. Do you think the aim in abstract fields (such as mathematics) is correspondence as well? (As Deutsch seems to argue with the idea of perfect propositions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ-opI-jghs).
Thanks Dennis
The reason to back a currency with gold or some other commodity is that the commodity has other utility aside from being used as money. This sets a floor on the price, making it a store of value.
- Utility is not a necessary aspect of money. Only 5-10% of gold's value is tied to its industrial use (per chatgpt). This floor is not so reassuring then if the asset would plummet 90-95%. Other commodities, such as silver, have a greater industrial utility. That makes it less suitable as money since its value becomes tied to commodity cycles.
The reason to back a currency with gold or some other commodity is mainly due to its scarcity, which puts a limit on money creation (done through fractional reserve bankning).
The reason to back a currency with gold or some other commodity is that the commodity has other utility aside from being used as money. This sets a floor on the price, making it a store of value.
Utility is not a necessary aspect of money. Only 5-10% of gold's value is tied to its industrial use (https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sectorshare/#:~:text=The%20jewelry%20industry%20accounted%20for,China%2C%20Russia%2C%20and%20Australia). Another 40% is used for jewellery.
This floor is not so reassuring if the asset were to plummet 50%. Other commodities, such as silver, have a greater industrial utility. That makes it less suitable as money since its value becomes tied to commodity cycles.
The reason to back a currency with gold or some other commodity is mainly due to its scarcity, which puts a limit on money creation (done through fractional reserve banking).
In a gold standard society, gold doesn't need to be backed by anything. The same would be true for Bitcoin and Zcash.
In a gold standard society, gold doesn't need to be backed by anything. The same would be true for Bitcoin and Zcash. The US Federal Reserve Notes used to be backed by gold to prevent excessive money creation, gold itself, Bitcoin and ZCash won't need to be backed by anything due to their inherent scarcity.
#2411·Benjamin Davies, 2 months agoThe reason to back a currency with gold or some other commodity is that the commodity has other utility aside from being used as money. This sets a floor on the price, making it a store of value.
Bitcoin and Zcash have no utility beyond their transferability. The only way either would ever be money is if a government made it their legal tender, forcing transactions to be done with it exclusively.
To use US Dollar as an example again, the only reason it is money is that it has the alternative utility function of being the only thing the government will accept for tax payments. In that sense it is the only currency that keeps you out jail if you use it in its designated geographical area (!). If that weren’t the case then people would quickly swap to using something else—something that isn’t being manipulated by the government.
(To prevent any confusion, please understand that I believe governments should be completely agnostic to how people carry out their transactions, including allowing them to use any currency and even old-school barter if they wish.)
TL;DR The only way for the US Dollar, or Bitcoin, or Zcash (or any other unbacked currencies) to be useful as money is if a government makes them legal tender, and prohibits anything else being used in transactions.
The reason to back a currency with gold or some other commodity is that the commodity has other utility aside from being used as money. This sets a floor on the price, making it a store of value.
- Utility is not a necessary aspect of money. Only 5-10% of gold's value is tied to its industrial use (per chatgpt). This floor is not so reassuring then if the asset would plummet 90-95%. Other commodities, such as silver, have a greater industrial utility. That makes it less suitable as money since its value becomes tied to commodity cycles.
The reason to back a currency with gold or some other commodity is mainly due to its scarcity, which puts a limit on money creation (done through fractional reserve bankning).
#2407·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoSee here. Lucas had asked:
Can you say more about why we need correspondence to make sense of the concept of self-similarity? I don't see why. And it seems to me that self-similarity is all we need to make sense of the universality of computation.
My response below. For others reading this, Erik has also since started a dedicated discussion on the topic of correspondence: https://veritula.com/discussions/is-correspondence-true-in-cr
The FoR glossary entry on self-similarity from chapter 4 reads:
self-similarity Some parts of physical reality (such as symbols, pictures or human thoughts) resemble other parts. The resemblance may be concrete, as when the images in a planetarium resemble the night sky; more importantly, it may be abstract, as when a statement in quantum theory printed in a book correctly explains an aspect of the structure of the multiverse.
The way I read that, it means the images in the planetarium correspond to the night sky. Otherwise we wouldn’t consider them similar.
From chapter 6, on the universality of computation and how “various parts of reality can resemble one another”:
The set of all behaviours and responses of that one object exactly mirrors the set of all behaviours and responses of all other physically possible objects and processes.
That means there is one-to-one correspondence between the behaviors and responses of the first object and those of all the other objects. This is basically another way to describe the self-similarity property of the universe.
From chapter 10, in the context of mathematics (italics mine):
… the physical behaviour of the symbols corresponds to the behaviour of the abstractions they denote.
(The same is true of the physical parts of a Turing machine harnessing the self-similarity property of the universe to correspond to other physical objects.)
From chapter 14, in the context of the creation of scientific knowledge (which, AFAIK, DD views as increasing correspondence):
The creation of useful knowledge by science … must be understood as the emergence of the self-similarity that is mandated by a principle of physics, the Turing principle.
It’s been ages since I read FoR so I’m relying on word searches in the ebook but it’s full of these links between self-similarity and correspondence.
Thanks. Do you think there's correspondence for abstractions as well (such as mathematics, as DD seems to suggest)? As I understood, you only think we need it to explain progress in science.
#2378·Benjamin Davies revised 2 months ago“Bitcoin is not backed by anything” can also be stated as “Bitcoin is not redeemable in anything”.
“POW” or “computational work” or “encryption” are not things you can redeem if you own bitcoin.
This is in contrast to gold-backed currencies, for example, which are currencies which can be redeemed in gold. The United States Federal Reserve Note only became fiat when it was no longer redeemable in gold.
In a gold standard society, gold doesn't need to be backed by anything. The same would be true for Bitcoin and Zcash.
#2364·Benjamin Davies revised 3 months agoPure genetic knowledge could colonise the galaxy, it'd take much longer than with memes.
Deutsch disagrees. Quote:
The difference between biological evolution and human creative thought is that biological evolution is inherently limited in its range. That’s because biological evolution has no foresight. It can’t see a problem and conjecture a solution.
and quote:
The bombardier beetles squirt boiling water at their enemies. You can easily see that just squirting cold water at your enemies is not totally unhelpful. Then making it a bit hotter and a bit hotter. Squirting boiling water no doubt required many adaptations to make sure the beetle didn’t boil itself while it was making this boiling water. That happened because there was a sequence of steps in between, all of which were useful. But with campfires, it’s very hard to see how that could happen.
Humans have explanatory creativity. Once you have that, you can get to the moon. You can cause asteroids which are heading towards the earth to turn around and go away. Perhaps no other planet in the universe has that power, and it has it only because of the presence of explanatory creativity on it.
Sure it's hard to see. But I don't think it's impossible. For example, life could spread beyond the biosphere by asteroids, or aviating organisms slowly ascending upwards to eventually set off to space. Unlikely for sure, but again, why would it be impossible?
Erik Orrje updated discussion ‘Criticisms of Zcash’.
The ‘About’ section changed as follows:
Have seen a lot on X recently about Zcash becoming the next digital currency. Would be fun to hear criticisms of why it would not. Arguments could be philosophical, technical etc. :)
Have seen a lot on X recently about Zcash becoming the next digital currency. Would be fun to hear criticisms of why it would not. Arguments of any kind are welcome. :)
Have seen a lot on X recently about Zcash becoming the next digital currency. Would be fun to hear criticisms of why it would not. Arguments could be philosophical, technical etc. :)
Zcash will become the next money. That's because it contains bitcoin's solutions to fiat, and also solves bitcoin's lack of privacy.