To explain my perspective, let me turn your example around by using a fictional alien species called humans. Instead of spending their childhoods contemplating the holy key, these humans would spend some of their childhoods being taught to recognize a simple shape with three sides, called a ‘triangle’.
To them, when the blob forms a holy key shape, it would mean nothing, but if it formed a triangle they would recognize it immediately!
Your theory becomes simpler when you have a triangle, a key, a lock that accepts a triangle, and lock that accepts a holy key. The key and the triangle are the theories and therefore feel intrinsic. The locks (our brains) are the reality and therefore feel extrinsic.
We want to have a true theory of morality (A true holy key ;)). But the only tool we have to deduce the shape of the key is our own moral intuitions. Alieneizer’s theory of meta ethics, is that you need to look at the evidence until you have a theory that is satisfying on reflection and at no point require you to eat babies or anything like that. Some people find the bottom up approach to ethics unsatisfying, but we’ve been trying the top down approach of: propose a morality system, then see if it works perfectly in the real world for a long time without success.
I think this should satisfy your intuitions, like how our brains seem to accept a morality key because it is a lock, morality not changing even if your mind changes (because your mind will fit a new key), how our morality was shaped by evolution but also somehow both abstract and real, and why I think that calling Alieneizer a relativist is silly. He made it his job to figure out if morality is triangle shaped, key shaped, or 4th dimensional croissant shaped so he could make an AI with that shaped ethics.
To explain my perspective, let me turn your example around by using a fictional alien species called humans. Instead of spending their childhoods contemplating the holy key, these humans would spend some of their childhoods being taught to recognize a simple shape with three sides, called a ‘triangle’.
To them, when the blob forms a holy key shape, it would mean nothing, but if it formed a triangle they would recognize it immediately!
Your theory becomes simpler when you have a triangle, a key, a lock that accepts a triangle, and lock that accepts a holy key. The key and the triangle are the theories and therefore feel intrinsic. The locks (our brains) are the reality and therefore feel extrinsic.
We want to have a true theory of morality (A true holy key ;)). But the only tool we have to deduce the shape of the key is our own moral intuitions. Alieneizer’s theory of meta ethics, is that you need to look at the evidence until you have a theory that is satisfying on reflection and at no point require you to eat babies or anything like that. Some people find the bottom up approach to ethics unsatisfying, but we’ve been trying the top down approach of: propose a morality system, then see if it works perfectly in the real world for a long time without success.
I think this should satisfy your intuitions, like how our brains seem to accept a morality key because it is a lock, morality not changing even if your mind changes (because your mind will fit a new key), how our morality was shaped by evolution but also somehow both abstract and real, and why I think that calling Alieneizer a relativist is silly. He made it his job to figure out if morality is triangle shaped, key shaped, or 4th dimensional croissant shaped so he could make an AI with that shaped ethics.
P.S. I stand by everything I said, but I’m pretty sure I only finished the reply so I could make an Alienizer pun.