GBM
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Eliezer, thank you for this clear explanation. I'm just now making the connection to your calculator example, which struck me as relevant if I could only figure out how. Now it's all fitting together.
How does this differ from personal preference? Or is it simply broader in scope? That is, if an individual's calculation includes "self-interest" and weighs it heavily, personal preference might be the result of the calculation, which fits inside your metamoral model, if I'm reading things correctly.
I'm going to need some help with this one.
It seems to me that the argument goes like this, at first:
Even this little bit creates a lot of questions. I've been following Eliezer's writings for the past little while, although I may well have missed some key point.
Why is this computation a 1-place function? Eliezer says at first "Here we are treating morality as a 1-place function." and then jumps to "Since what's right is a 1-place function..." without justifying that status.
What values does this computation... (read more)
Richard, I don't know anything about moral theorists, but this series of posts has helped me understand my own beliefs better than anything I've ever read, and they've coalesced mostly while reading this post. "Meta" was a concept missing from my toolbox, at least in the case of morality, and Eliezer's pointing it out has been immensely productive for me.
behemoth, I think the point you make about the second generation is an important one. Because children are both irrational and bad at listening to their intuitions when it's inconvenient to do so, having some form of metamorality is useful to serve as a vessel for morality. The problem is, in doing that, people bind the vessel and its contents, and can't pour the contents into some other vessel if theirs turns out to be leaky. Which is why rationalism is important.
Not hard at all, Caledonian.
Also, stop trolling. Offer some insight, or go away.
Another thing way to look at this idea of math being a tool that exists only in the mind has occurred to me:
Does addition happen outside the mind? What is something "plus" something else? If we've got a quantity of two sheep, and a quantity of three sheep, and they're standing next to each other, then we can consider the two quantities together, and count five sheep. But let's say a quantity of two sheep wander through a meadow until they come across a quantity of three sheep, and then stop. Where did the actual addition happen? Outside the mind, there are only quantities.
I think the problem I have with the math example, and it may be that this is extensible to morality, is this:
If I have a certain quantity of apples, or sheep, or whatever, my mind has a tool (a number) ready to identify some characteristic about that quantity (how many it is). But that's all that number is: a tool. A reference.
Eliezer is right in saying that the teacher's teaching "2+3=5" doesn't make it true any more than the teacher's teaching "2+3=6" makes it true. But that's not because two plus three "actually" equals five. It's because we, as learning animals, have learned definitions of these concepts, and we conceive of them... (read more)
If you believe that there is any kind of stone tablet in the fabric of the universe, in the nature of reality, in the structure of logic - anywhere you care to put it - then what if you get a chance to read that stone tablet, and it turns out to say "Pain Is Good"? What then?
Well, Eliezer, since I can't say it as eloquently as you:
"Embrace reality. Hug it tight."
"It is always best to think of reality as perfectly normal. Since the beginning, not one unusual thing has ever happened."
If we find that Stone Tablet, we adjust our model accordingly.
Z. M. Davis: Thank you. I get it now.
Roland and Ian C. both help me understand where Eliezer is coming from. And PK's comment that "Reality will only take a single path" makes sense. That said, when I say a die has a 1/6 probability of landing on a 3, that means: Over a series of rolls in which no effort is made to systematically control the outcome (e.g. by always starting with 3 facing up before tossing the die), the die will land on a 3 about 1 in 6 times. Obviously, with perfect information, everything can be calculated. That doesn't mean that we can't predict the probability of a specific event.
Also, I didn't get a response to the... (read more)
Eliezer, this explanation finally puts it all together for me in terms of the "computation". I get it now, I think.
On the other hand, I have a question. Maybe this indicates that I don't truly get it; maybe it indicates that there's something you're not considering. In any case, I would appreciate your explanation, since I feel so close to understanding what you've been saying.
When I multiply 19 and 103, whether in my head, or using a pocket calculator, I get a certain result that I can check: In theory, I can gather a whole bunch of pebbles, lay them out in 103 rows of 19, and then count them individually. I... (read more)