Mere Reality

Mere Reality is the fourth book contained in the ebook Rationality: From AI to Zombies, by Eliezer Yudkowsky. It focuses on practical and philosophical questions related to science and the character of physical law.

Mere Reality contains six sequences of thematically connected essays, plus the stand-alone essay A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation. These are all collected in the Rationality: From AI to Zombies ebook, but the essay names below also link to the original blog posts.

The previous book in the series is The Machine in the Ghost, and the next book is Mere Goodness.

 

 

O. Lawful Truth

181. Universal Fire

182. Universal Law

183. Is Reality Ugly?

184. Beautiful Probability

185. Outside the Laboratory

186. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition

187. Perpetual Motion Beliefs

188. Searching for Bayes-Structure

P. Reductionism 101

189. Dissolving the Question

190. Wrong Questions

191. Righting a Wrong Question

192. Mind Projection Fallacy

193. Probability is in the Mind

194. The Quotation is not the Referent

195. Qualitatively Confused

196. Think Like Reality

197. Chaotic Inversion

198. Reductionism

199. Explaining vs. Explaining Away

200. Fake Reductionism

201. Savanna Poets

Q. Joy in the Merely Real

202. Joy in the Merely Real

203. Joy in Discovery

204. Bind Yourself to Reality

205. If You Demand Magic, Magic Won't Help

206. Mundane Magic

207. The Beauty of Settled Science

208. Amazing Breakthrough Day: April 1st

209. Is Humanism a Religion-Substitute?

210. Scarcity

211. The Sacred Mundane

212. To Spread Science, Keep It Secret

213. Initiation Ceremony

R. Physicalism 201

214. Hand vs. Fingers

215. Angry Atoms

216. Heat vs. Motion

217. Brain Breakthrough! It's Made of Neurons!

218. When Anthropomorphism Became Stupid

219. A Priori

220. Reductive Reference

221. Zombies! Zombies?

222. Zombie Responses

223. The Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle

224. GAZP vs. GLUT

225. Belief in the Implied Invisible

226. Zombies: The Movie

227. Excluding the Supernatural

228. Psychic Powers

S. Quantum Physics and Many Worlds

229. Quantum Explanations

230. Configurations and Amplitude

231. Joint Configurations

232. Distinct Configurations

233. Collapse Postulates

234. Decoherence is Simple

235. Decoherence is Falsifiable and Testable

236. Privileging the Hypothesis

237. Living in Many Worlds

238. Quantum Non-Realism

239. If Many-Worlds Had Come First

240. Where Philosophy Meets Science

241. Thou Art Physics

242. Many Worlds, One Best Guess

T. Science and Rationality

243. The Failures of Eld Science

244. The Dilemma: Science or Bayes?

245. Science Doesn't Trust Your Rationality

246. When Science Can't Help

247. Science Isn't Strict Enough

248. Do Scientists Already Know This Stuff?

249. No Safe Defense, Not Even Science

250. Changing the Definition of Science

251. Faster Than Science

252. Einstein's Speed

253. That Alien Message

254. My Childhood Role Model

255. Einstein's Superpowers

256. Class Project