This post is an introspection into the nature of evil, which is relevant to the development of moral understanding for people and AI.
Humans only discover knowledge and truth by observing its cross sections, projections, shadows, and developing intuition about the nature of the higher dimensional whole which can’t be observed all at once. We understand physical reality by piecing together independent input from multiple senses. We break down our complex reality into abstractions that can be studied in simple hypothetical universes which might approximate how our universe behaves. For instance, Linear Algebra studies the universe of points and lines.
We’re limited in what we can perceive and understand because we can only ever observe and know a cross section of the truth. Yet our limited understanding is all we have when we make moral decisions. When people make conflicting moral judgments which can lead in violent confrontation, on countless important occasions both sides believe they’re in the right. Whereas in reality, both sides are acting on their knowledge of different parts of the same truth. The beliefs of both sides are false because their knowledge and understanding is incomplete and it is will always be incomplete because of our limitations. Many people perceived to be evil actually understand the value of love and life are only flawed in a natural way. If one side of a conflict wins, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re in the right because the truth is in the combination of both sides.
Given our limitations, if the necessary unfolding of the truth is a fundamental part of the way the universe evolves, then it might be a necessary reality that there will forever be conflicts in the guise of good vs evil, when in fact it’s just a competition between incomplete truths.
The Process of Unfolding Truth and its Relations with Morality
This post is an introspection into the nature of evil, which is relevant to the development of moral understanding for people and AI.
Humans only discover knowledge and truth by observing its cross sections, projections, shadows, and developing intuition about the nature of the higher dimensional whole which can’t be observed all at once. We understand physical reality by piecing together independent input from multiple senses. We break down our complex reality into abstractions that can be studied in simple hypothetical universes which might approximate how our universe behaves. For instance, Linear Algebra studies the universe of points and lines.
We’re limited in what we can perceive and understand because we can only ever observe and know a cross section of the truth. Yet our limited understanding is all we have when we make moral decisions. When people make conflicting moral judgments which can lead in violent confrontation, on countless important occasions both sides believe they’re in the right. Whereas in reality, both sides are acting on their knowledge of different parts of the same truth. The beliefs of both sides are false because their knowledge and understanding is incomplete and it is will always be incomplete because of our limitations. Many people perceived to be evil actually understand the value of love and life are only flawed in a natural way. If one side of a conflict wins, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re in the right because the truth is in the combination of both sides.
Given our limitations, if the necessary unfolding of the truth is a fundamental part of the way the universe evolves, then it might be a necessary reality that there will forever be conflicts in the guise of good vs evil, when in fact it’s just a competition between incomplete truths.