If I’ve made a good moral choice and saved humanity I absolutely should feel happy about it—it means my feelings are aligned with my preferences (and even if the two were independent, other things being equal I’d rather be happy than sad).
I think the correct response to l-zombies is the same as that to p-zombies—that they really are impossible, and thus, contemplating their consequences is likely to lead us astray rather than yield valuable insights.
Yes, but I think most people think l-zombies and p-zombies are impossible for different reasons.
If you think “All minds exist in Tegmark 4 with different amounts of reality fluid, and therefore logical zombies do not exist,” that seems categorically different from saying, “Philosophical zombies are a meaningless concept.”
My current position is that L-zombies are just as meaningless as P-zombies, because there is no “existence” we are all just computations that would be thinking what we are thinking if run, but none of us are ever run.
I think most people think l-zombies and p-zombies are impossible
I doubt this holds even for LW regulars. (I feel confident it does not hold for all visitors.)
To my way of thinking, we have no reason to believe in a mathematical macrocosm. Naive Tegmark 4 gives false predictions. Now this could reflect our confusion about anthropic probabilities or “reality fluid”, but the same confusion could make Tegmark 4 seem more attractive than it actually is. (I don’t think that last point applies to MWI, which I more-or-less believe because it seems like the natural reading of a successful theory.)
I tried not to say everyone is an L-zombie, because Benja’s definition said that L-zombies are not conscious.
I believe that L-zombie is meaningless like P-zombie, because something with the traits of L-zombie gets consciousness for free (just like with P-zombie).
Everyone is whatever the conscious version of an L-zombie is.
I wrote a post to try to put my neck out on this claim. It looks like you consider this an extreme claim, so please help me out and let me know what you think.
Because the concept is incoherent. In particular there’s no (empirical) way to distinguish between an l-zombie and a normal person—by definition, an l-zombie acts exactly like a normal person. Or put another way, I assert that you’re already an l-zombie.
Thanks for explaining. However, an l-zombie would act exactly like a normal person (would actually be a normal person, even) if it physically existed somewhere and did stuff. But it doesn’t, by definition of “l-zombie”. I think trist and satt and learnmethis are making similar points to what I am trying to say here, in their comments. If I have failed to explain my objection adequately, those comments might help.
If I’ve made a good moral choice and saved humanity I absolutely should feel happy about it—it means my feelings are aligned with my preferences (and even if the two were independent, other things being equal I’d rather be happy than sad).
I think the correct response to l-zombies is the same as that to p-zombies—that they really are impossible, and thus, contemplating their consequences is likely to lead us astray rather than yield valuable insights.
Yes, but I think most people think l-zombies and p-zombies are impossible for different reasons.
If you think “All minds exist in Tegmark 4 with different amounts of reality fluid, and therefore logical zombies do not exist,” that seems categorically different from saying, “Philosophical zombies are a meaningless concept.”
My current position is that L-zombies are just as meaningless as P-zombies, because there is no “existence” we are all just computations that would be thinking what we are thinking if run, but none of us are ever run.
I doubt this holds even for LW regulars. (I feel confident it does not hold for all visitors.)
To my way of thinking, we have no reason to believe in a mathematical macrocosm. Naive Tegmark 4 gives false predictions. Now this could reflect our confusion about anthropic probabilities or “reality fluid”, but the same confusion could make Tegmark 4 seem more attractive than it actually is. (I don’t think that last point applies to MWI, which I more-or-less believe because it seems like the natural reading of a successful theory.)
I’m either extremely confused or parsing your post wrong: You appear to be saying that everyone is an L-zombie (“none of us are ever run”).
I am saying that.
I tried not to say everyone is an L-zombie, because Benja’s definition said that L-zombies are not conscious.
I believe that L-zombie is meaningless like P-zombie, because something with the traits of L-zombie gets consciousness for free (just like with P-zombie).
Everyone is whatever the conscious version of an L-zombie is.
I wrote a post to try to put my neck out on this claim. It looks like you consider this an extreme claim, so please help me out and let me know what you think.
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/jn2/preferences_without_existence/
I’m extremely confused in this whole area. My intuition doesn’t like your claim, but I don’t trust my intuition here.
Why would l-zombies be impossible? Can you provide links to some arguments?
Because the concept is incoherent. In particular there’s no (empirical) way to distinguish between an l-zombie and a normal person—by definition, an l-zombie acts exactly like a normal person. Or put another way, I assert that you’re already an l-zombie.
Thanks for explaining. However, an l-zombie would act exactly like a normal person (would actually be a normal person, even) if it physically existed somewhere and did stuff. But it doesn’t, by definition of “l-zombie”. I think trist and satt and learnmethis are making similar points to what I am trying to say here, in their comments. If I have failed to explain my objection adequately, those comments might help.