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Rescuing the utility function

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[-]Sonata Green7y*10

(Edit: looks like I should have selected more anchor text.)

Leif K-Brooks presented this general idea as follows (with intended application to 'free will' in particular):

This image URL seems to be broken/expired. Does someone have access to a copy that they could rehost somewhere more reliable?

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[-]Manuel Te9y*10

As a mathematician (in college) I see Mathematics as a reliable solution to the issue. In Mathematics we take all our proven knowledge & with that create a proof to a Problem. If we now were to find that the correct proof uses thing we didn't expect to be used we take these Elements & incorporate them into our new set of proven Knowledge. Hence Math people are somewhat of a Agent 3.

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[-]Daniel Satanove9y*30

Another solution to the problem is that heat as heat is ontologically basic, because it is part of our "native representation". Because that is how we experience heat. It is heat-as-disordered-kinetic-energy which is just a model, not ontologically basic, and is one constrained and domain-specific way of looking at things.

Don't you find it strange that it's your ontology that keeps changing, yet there is always this native representation sitting there unchanged, and that it is thing upon which all of your cognition is based?

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[-]Nebu Pookins9y*10

It may be worth reading https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Shut_up_and_multiply as well, as the concepts in these two articles overlap somewhat, and it may be a useful exercise to think about whether the two articles contradict each other or not, and why or why not.

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[-]Nebu Pookins9y*10

"turn the universe into paperclips" is an in-reference and might not be suitable in a short article meant to introduce "rescuing the utility function" in isolation. At the very least, we should turn that into a link to an article on paper clip maximizers so that unfamiliar readers can know what the heck that sentence is supposed to mean. Alternatively, we could use a different example that doesn't rely on that background knowledge.

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[-]Eric Rogstad9y*10

The page grows long. Perhaps it should be split into two or three pages?

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[-]Eric Rogstad9y*10

Are the them's in this sentence referring to different things? My guess is we're rescuing the theories and being nice to the people, but the differing them's are confusing.

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[-]Eric Rogstad9y*10

Suggest modifying the first clause (possibly by moving the 'only' from the second into the first) to make clearer that "dealing with preverbal intuitions" is being contrasted with the situation in the previous sentence where not rescuing was an option.

Or just splitting this paragraph. I was starting to lose track of where I was by the end of it.

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[-]Eric Rogstad9y*10

Did you mean to use "caloric" instead of "caloric fluid" here (and many following places)? I keep reading it like it's an adjective and expecting a following noun.

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[-]So8res9y*20

FYI, it's either "X is composed of Y" or "X comprises Y" (according to the dictionary definition, at least; the line between the two words is blurring in common tongue as "comprised" becomes a synonym for "composed").

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[-]Eric Rogstad9y*20

This is helpful! I don't think I've seen a clearer description of the assumptions behind CEV or what your metaethics are all about.

Candidate for my favorite piece of Eliezer-writing for the past 12 months.

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