Above, I gave the example of making a distinction between “extrapolating” from means to ends, and “extrapolating” current ends to new ends given a process of reflective equilibrium and other mental changes. That’s a useful distinction that philosophers make because there are many properties of the first thing not shared by the second, and vice versa. Conflating the two doesn’t carve reality at its joints terribly well.
Could you write up the relevant distinction, as applied to CEV, perhaps as a discussion post? I don’t know the terminology, but expect that given the CEV ambition to get a long way towards the normative stuff, the distinction becomes far less relevant than when you discuss human decision-making.
(Prompted by the reference you made in this comment.)
Yes, I read it, and it’s still not clear. Recent discussion made a connection with terminal/instrumental values, but it’s not clear in what context they play a role.
I expect I could research this discussion in more detail and figure out what you meant, but that could be avoided and open the issue to a bigger audience if you make, say, a two-paragraph self-contained summary. I wouldn’t mention this issue if you didn’t attach some significance to it by giving it as an example in a recent comment.
I’m not sure what to say beyond what I said in the post. Which part is unclear?
In any case, it’s kind of a moot point because Eliezer said that it is a useful distinction to make, he just chose not to include it in his CEV paper because his CEV paper doesn’t deep enough into the detailed problems of implementing CEV where the distinction I made becomes particularly useful.
Could you write up the relevant distinction, as applied to CEV, perhaps as a discussion post? I don’t know the terminology, but expect that given the CEV ambition to get a long way towards the normative stuff, the distinction becomes far less relevant than when you discuss human decision-making.
(Prompted by the reference you made in this comment.)
Did you read the original discussion post to which the linked comment is attached? I go into more detail there.
Yes, I read it, and it’s still not clear. Recent discussion made a connection with terminal/instrumental values, but it’s not clear in what context they play a role.
I expect I could research this discussion in more detail and figure out what you meant, but that could be avoided and open the issue to a bigger audience if you make, say, a two-paragraph self-contained summary. I wouldn’t mention this issue if you didn’t attach some significance to it by giving it as an example in a recent comment.
I’m not sure what to say beyond what I said in the post. Which part is unclear?
In any case, it’s kind of a moot point because Eliezer said that it is a useful distinction to make, he just chose not to include it in his CEV paper because his CEV paper doesn’t deep enough into the detailed problems of implementing CEV where the distinction I made becomes particularly useful.