Evolution designed us to value things but it didn’t (can’t) give us a reason to value those things.
Sure it did. The reason to value our terminal values is that we value our terminal values. For example, I want to exist. Why should I continue to want to exist? Because if I stop wanting to exist, I’ll probably stop existing, which would be bad, because I want to exist.
Yes, this is a justificatory loop, but so what? This isn’t a rhetorical question. So what? Such loops are neither illogical nor incoherent.
The incoherence is that I also value purpose. An inborn anti-Sisyphus value.
Sisyphus could have been quite happy about his task; pushing a rock around is not intrinsically so bad, but he was also given the awareness that what he did was purposeless. It’s too bad he didn’t value simply existing more than he did. Which is the situation in which I’m in, in which none of my actions will ever make an objective difference in a completely neutral, value-indifferent universe.
(If this is a simulation I’m in, you can abort it now I don’t like
I know, but assuming you’re a human and no aliens have messed with your brain, it’s highly unlikely that this value is a terminal one. You may believe it’s terminal, but your belief is wrong. The solution to your problem is simple: Stop valuing objective purpose.
I found that I wasn’t able to make any progress in this direction.
(Recall the problem was the possibility of “true” meaning or purpose without objective value, and the solution proposed was to “stop valuing objective value”. That is, find value in values that are self-defined.)
However, I wasn’t able to redefine (reparametrize?) my values as independent of objective value. Instead, I found it much easier to just decide I didn’t value the problem. So I find myself perched indifferently between continuing to care about my values (stubbornly) and ‘knowing’ that values are nonsense.
I thought I had to stop caring about value or about objective value .. actually, all I had to do was stop caring about a resolution. I guess that was easier.
I consider myself having ‘progressed’ to the stage of wry-and-superficially-nihilist. (I don’t have the solution, you don’t either, and I might as well be amused.)
Thank you, but honestly I don’t feel distressed. I guess I agree it sucks for rationality in some way. I haven’t given up on rationality though—I’ve just given up on [edited] excelling at it right now. [edited to avoid fanning further discussion]
I consider myself having ‘progressed’ to the stage of wry-and-superficially-nihilist. (I don’t have the solution, you don’t either, and I might as well be amused.)
If my experience is any guide, time will make a difference; there will be some explanation you’ve already heard that will suddenly click with you, a few months from now, and you’ll no longer feel like a nihilist. After all, I very much doubt you are a nihilist in the sense you presently believe you are.
First, I’m not claiming any magical non-reducibility. I’m just claiming to be human. Humans usually aren’t transparently reducible. This is the whole idea behind not being able to reliably other-optimize. I’m generally grateful if people try to optimize me, but only if they give an explanation so that I can understand the context and relevance of their advice. It was Orthonormal that—I thought was—claiming an unlikely insider understanding without support, though I understand he meant well.
I also disagree with the implicit claim that I don’t have enough status to assert my own narrative. Perhaps this is the wrong reading, but this is an issue I’m unusually sensitive about. In my childhood, understanding that I wasn’t transparent, and that other people don’t get to define my reality for me, was my biggest rationality hurdle. I used to believe people of any authority when they told me something that contradicted my internal experience, and endlessly questioned my own perception. Now I just try to ask the commonsense question: whose reality should I choose—their’s or mine? (The projected or the experienced?)
Later edit: Now that this comment has been ‘out there’ for about 15 minutes, I feel like it is a bit shrill and over-reactive. Well… evidence for me that I have this particular ‘button’.
Your objection is reasonable. It is often considered impolite to analyze people based on their words, especially in public. It is often taken to be a slight on the recipient’s status, as you took it.
As an actual disagreement with Vladimir you are simply mistaken. In the raw literal sense humans are non-mysterious, reducible objects. More importantly, in the more practical sense that Vladimir makes the claim you are, as a human being, predictable in many ways. Your thinking can be predicted with some confidence to operate with known failure modes that are consistently found in repeated investigations of other humans. Self reports in particular are known to differ from reliable indicators of state if taken literally and their predictions of future state are even worse.
If you told me, for example, that you would finish a project two weeks before the due date I would not believe you. If you told me your confidence level in a particular prediction you have made on a topic in which you are an expert then I will not believe you. I would expect that you, like that majority of experts, were systematically overconfident in your predictions.
Orthonormal may be mistaken in his prediction about your nihilist tendencies but Vladimir is absolutely correct that you are a non-mysterious human being, with all that it entails.
I used to believe people of any authority when they told me something that contradicted my internal experience, and endlessly questioned my own perception.
It gives me a warm glow inside whenever I hear of someone breaking free from that trap.
How odd. I remember that one of the key steps for me was realizing that if my drive for objective purpose could be respectable, than so could all of my other terminal values like having fun and protecting people. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone else identify that as their key step until now… assuming we are talking about the same mental step.
It seems like there’s just a big library of different “key insights” that different people require in order to collapse transcendent morality to morality.
This helps me understand why my own transition from objective to subjective morality was easier than yours. I didn’t experience what you’re experiencing because I think my moral architecture sort of rewired itself instantaneously.
First, it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing evolution would select for. Our brains may be susceptible to making the kind of mistake that leads one to believe in the existence of (and the need for) objective morality, but that would be a bias, not a terminal value.
Second, we can simply look at the people who’ve been through a transition similar to byrnema’s, myself included. Most of us have successfully expunged (or at least minimized) the need for an Objective Morality from our moral architecture, and the few I know who’ve failed are badly, badly confused about metaethics. I don’t see how we could have done this if the need for an objective morality was terminal.
Of course I suppose there’s a chance that we’re freaks.
First, it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing evolution would select for. Our brains may be susceptible to making the kind of mistake that leads one to believe in the existence of (and the need for) objective morality, but that would be a bias, nor a terminal value.
I think you’re wrong here. It is possible for evolution to select for valuing objective morality, when the environment contains memes that appear to be objective morality and those memes also help increase inclusive fitness.
An alternative possibility is that we don’t so much value objective morality, as disvalue arbitrariness in our preferences. This might be an evolved defense mechanism against our brains being hijacked by “harmful” memes.
Second, we can simply look at the people who’ve been through a transition similar to byrnema’s, myself included.
I worry there’s a sampling bias involved in reaching your conclusion.
Sure it did. The reason to value our terminal values is that we value our terminal values. For example, I want to exist. Why should I continue to want to exist? Because if I stop wanting to exist, I’ll probably stop existing, which would be bad, because I want to exist.
Yes, this is a justificatory loop, but so what? This isn’t a rhetorical question. So what? Such loops are neither illogical nor incoherent.
The incoherence is that I also value purpose. An inborn anti-Sisyphus value.
Sisyphus could have been quite happy about his task; pushing a rock around is not intrinsically so bad, but he was also given the awareness that what he did was purposeless. It’s too bad he didn’t value simply existing more than he did. Which is the situation in which I’m in, in which none of my actions will ever make an objective difference in a completely neutral, value-indifferent universe.
(If this is a simulation I’m in, you can abort it now I don’t like
I know, but assuming you’re a human and no aliens have messed with your brain, it’s highly unlikely that this value is a terminal one. You may believe it’s terminal, but your belief is wrong. The solution to your problem is simple: Stop valuing objective purpose.
Bravo! We came up with this solution simultaneously—possibly the most focused solution to theism we have.
My brain is happy with the proposed solution. I’ll see if it works...
I’m updating this thread, about a month later.
I found that I wasn’t able to make any progress in this direction.
(Recall the problem was the possibility of “true” meaning or purpose without objective value, and the solution proposed was to “stop valuing objective value”. That is, find value in values that are self-defined.)
However, I wasn’t able to redefine (reparametrize?) my values as independent of objective value. Instead, I found it much easier to just decide I didn’t value the problem. So I find myself perched indifferently between continuing to care about my values (stubbornly) and ‘knowing’ that values are nonsense.
I thought I had to stop caring about value or about objective value .. actually, all I had to do was stop caring about a resolution. I guess that was easier.
I consider myself having ‘progressed’ to the stage of wry-and-superficially-nihilist. (I don’t have the solution, you don’t either, and I might as well be amused.)
I don’t know what to say except, “that sucks”, and “hang in there”. :)
Thank you, but honestly I don’t feel distressed. I guess I agree it sucks for rationality in some way. I haven’t given up on rationality though—I’ve just given up on [edited] excelling at it right now. [edited to avoid fanning further discussion]
If my experience is any guide, time will make a difference; there will be some explanation you’ve already heard that will suddenly click with you, a few months from now, and you’ll no longer feel like a nihilist. After all, I very much doubt you are a nihilist in the sense you presently believe you are.
It’s very annoying to have people project their experiences and feelings on you. I’m me and you’re you.
You’re right. Sorry.
You are also a non-mysterious human being.
I disagree with this comment.
First, I’m not claiming any magical non-reducibility. I’m just claiming to be human. Humans usually aren’t transparently reducible. This is the whole idea behind not being able to reliably other-optimize. I’m generally grateful if people try to optimize me, but only if they give an explanation so that I can understand the context and relevance of their advice. It was Orthonormal that—I thought was—claiming an unlikely insider understanding without support, though I understand he meant well.
I also disagree with the implicit claim that I don’t have enough status to assert my own narrative. Perhaps this is the wrong reading, but this is an issue I’m unusually sensitive about. In my childhood, understanding that I wasn’t transparent, and that other people don’t get to define my reality for me, was my biggest rationality hurdle. I used to believe people of any authority when they told me something that contradicted my internal experience, and endlessly questioned my own perception. Now I just try to ask the commonsense question: whose reality should I choose—their’s or mine? (The projected or the experienced?)
Later edit: Now that this comment has been ‘out there’ for about 15 minutes, I feel like it is a bit shrill and over-reactive. Well… evidence for me that I have this particular ‘button’.
Your objection is reasonable. It is often considered impolite to analyze people based on their words, especially in public. It is often taken to be a slight on the recipient’s status, as you took it.
As an actual disagreement with Vladimir you are simply mistaken. In the raw literal sense humans are non-mysterious, reducible objects. More importantly, in the more practical sense that Vladimir makes the claim you are, as a human being, predictable in many ways. Your thinking can be predicted with some confidence to operate with known failure modes that are consistently found in repeated investigations of other humans. Self reports in particular are known to differ from reliable indicators of state if taken literally and their predictions of future state are even worse.
If you told me, for example, that you would finish a project two weeks before the due date I would not believe you. If you told me your confidence level in a particular prediction you have made on a topic in which you are an expert then I will not believe you. I would expect that you, like that majority of experts, were systematically overconfident in your predictions.
Orthonormal may be mistaken in his prediction about your nihilist tendencies but Vladimir is absolutely correct that you are a non-mysterious human being, with all that it entails.
It gives me a warm glow inside whenever I hear of someone breaking free from that trap.
How odd. I remember that one of the key steps for me was realizing that if my drive for objective purpose could be respectable, than so could all of my other terminal values like having fun and protecting people. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone else identify that as their key step until now… assuming we are talking about the same mental step.
It seems like there’s just a big library of different “key insights” that different people require in order to collapse transcendent morality to morality.
That was totally awesome to watch. Thanks byrnema and Furcas!
Cool. :D
This helps me understand why my own transition from objective to subjective morality was easier than yours. I didn’t experience what you’re experiencing because I think my moral architecture sort of rewired itself instantaneously.
If these are the three steps of this transition:
1) Terminal values --> Objective Morality --> Instrumental values
2) Terminal values --> XXXXXXXXXXXXX --> Instrumental values
3) Terminal values --> Instrumental values
… I think I must have spent less than a minute in step 2, whereas you’ve been stuck there for, what, weeks?
Can you expand on this please? How do you know it’s highly unlikely?
First, it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing evolution would select for. Our brains may be susceptible to making the kind of mistake that leads one to believe in the existence of (and the need for) objective morality, but that would be a bias, not a terminal value.
Second, we can simply look at the people who’ve been through a transition similar to byrnema’s, myself included. Most of us have successfully expunged (or at least minimized) the need for an Objective Morality from our moral architecture, and the few I know who’ve failed are badly, badly confused about metaethics. I don’t see how we could have done this if the need for an objective morality was terminal.
Of course I suppose there’s a chance that we’re freaks.
I think you’re wrong here. It is possible for evolution to select for valuing objective morality, when the environment contains memes that appear to be objective morality and those memes also help increase inclusive fitness.
An alternative possibility is that we don’t so much value objective morality, as disvalue arbitrariness in our preferences. This might be an evolved defense mechanism against our brains being hijacked by “harmful” memes.
I worry there’s a sampling bias involved in reaching your conclusion.