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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).

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.

In a gold standard society, gold doesn't need to be backed by anything. The same would be true for Bitcoin and Zcash.

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?

Zcash will become the next money. That's because it contains bitcoin's solutions to fiat, and also solves bitcoin's lack of privacy.

They are the same knowledge in terms of encoding knowledge about the environment, and possible transformations based on that. That knowledge can differ in reach (context independence/how fundamental it is).

Their mode of replication differs, as each new guess in genes must be neutral or positive for the vehicle. This makes genes slower, but that's IMO a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one. Pure genetic knowledge could colonise the galaxy, it'd take much longer than with memes.

They are the same knowledge in terms of encoding knowledge about the environment, and possible transformations based on that. That knowledge can differ in reach (context independence/how fundamental it is).

Their mode of replication differ, as each new guess in genes must be neutral or positive for the vehicle. This makes genes slower, but that's IMO a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one. Pure genetic konwledge could colonize the galaxy, it'd take much longer than with memes.

Guess: All those "facts about reality" are just knowledge about regularities in the gene's environment. Some regularities are more context-independent than others, but we can't draw a firm line between parochial knowledge of its niche and knowledge corresponding to the facts.

Memes and genes are the same type of knowledge. Since we can "let our theories die in our place", we can make faster iterations and expand the environment to which the idea is adapted (including potentially the whole universe). There's no need for correspondance, just more reach and adaptation across contexts.

Would you say there's correspondence for some knowledge in genes as well?

Memes and genes are the same type of knowledge. Since we can "let ideas die in their place", we can make faster iterations and expand the environment to which the idea is adapted (including potentially the whole universe). There's no need for correspondance, just more reach and adaptation across contexts.

Most people (except in Alzheimer's, etc.) don't run out of memory in the brain. The reason most people don’t (permanently) run out memory (of either kind) isn’t that memory isn’t scarce, but that there’s a pruning mechanism in the mind. And there’s competition.

Thanks for clarifying

CR is an evolutionary theory. There's no need for correspondence in Darwinism. Therefore, we don't need it in CR either.

Guess: We can generalise economics further and let it be subsumed by epistemology.

When we choose to try to solve certain problems, we always make trade-offs from a place of scarcity. Likewise, our conjectures wouldn't evolve without the competition enabled by scarcity in our minds.

Wait, I've probably misunderstood but in #2228 it seemed like you thought pruning was needed for scarcity, which is needed for competition between ideas and their evolution.

And you equated pruning with the meta algorithm.

And now you say the meta algoritm/pruning is not needed for the evolution of ideas?

By the same logic, wouldn't neo-Darwinism also disqualify as a strand, since it's subsumed by Popperian epistemology?

Yeah nice, seems true. There's no objective explicit/inexplicit ratio for knowledge, it depends on the person's background knowledge.

May have misunderstood, but do you mean that explanatory knowledge corresponds to truth, whereas biological/evolutionary knowledge doesn't?

I think that was refuted by Lucas Smalldon and others: https://barelymorethanatweet.com/

Hmm never thought of that, interesting! I think since the disease involves continuous loss of brain volume, hardware decay seems like the best explanation.

In general I think it makes sense to speak of diseases in neurology (e.g. Alzheimer's, Parkinsons, stroke) as bad hardware and psychiatric disease as bad software. But it could very well be that some of those diagnoses are miscategorised.

Most people (except in Alzheimer's, etc.) don't run out of memory in the brain. If there's no scarcity for the space of ideas, why do they have to compete?

Yeah that's definitely a possible medical condition, e.g. in psychosis or after having ECT. Don't think it's the best explanation for Alzheimer's though, where the loss of brain volume is so apparent.

Alright, I remember the meta algorithm from your book but can't recall if you adress this criticism: If there's no need for a meta algorithm in biological evolution, why must there be one for the evolution of ideas?

Wait, do you view the pruning as separate from the mere competition of ideas, or simply its hardware consequences?

Haha not a programmer so understood maybe half of it, but I think I see what you mean. There'll always be inexplicit parts to every explanation. My concept of explanations is that there must be at least some explicit part for it to be called an explanation. That's why genes aren't explanations.