I see this discussion over the last several months bouncing around, teasingly close to a coherent resolution of the ostensible subjective/objective dichotomy applied to ethical decision-making. As a perhaps pertinent meta-observation, my initial sentence may promulgate the confusion with its expeditious wording of “applied to ethical decision-making” rather than a more accurate phrasing such as “applied to decision-making assessed as increasingly ethical over increasing context.”
Those who in the current thread refer to the essential element of empathy or similarity (of self models) come close. It’s important to realize that any agent always only expresses its nature within its environment—assessments of “rightness” arise only in the larger context (of additional agents, additional experiences of the one agent, etc.)
Our language and our culture reinforce an assumption of an ontological “rightness” that pervades our thinking on these matters. An even greater (perceived) difficulty is that to relinquish ontological “rightness” entails ultimately relinquishing an ontological “self”. But to relinquish such ultimately unfounded beliefs is to gain clarity and coherence while giving up nothing actual at all.
“Superrationality” is an effective wrapper around these apparent dilemmas, but even proponents such as Hofstadter confused description with prescription in this regard. Paradox is always only a matter of insufficient context. In the bigger picture all the pieces must fit. [Or as Eliezer has taken to saying recently: “It all adds up to normalcy.”
Apologies if my brief pokings and proddings on this topic appear vague or even mystical. I can only assert within this limited space and bandwidth that my background in science, engineering and business is far from that of one who could harbor vagueness, relativism, mysticism, or postmodernist patterns of thought. I appreciate the depth and breadth of Eliezer’s written explorations of this issue whereas I lack the time to do so myself.
I see this discussion over the last several months bouncing around, teasingly close to a coherent resolution of the ostensible subjective/objective dichotomy applied to ethical decision-making. As a perhaps pertinent meta-observation, my initial sentence may promulgate the confusion with its expeditious wording of “applied to ethical decision-making” rather than a more accurate phrasing such as “applied to decision-making assessed as increasingly ethical over increasing context.”
Those who in the current thread refer to the essential element of empathy or similarity (of self models) come close. It’s important to realize that any agent always only expresses its nature within its environment—assessments of “rightness” arise only in the larger context (of additional agents, additional experiences of the one agent, etc.)
Our language and our culture reinforce an assumption of an ontological “rightness” that pervades our thinking on these matters. An even greater (perceived) difficulty is that to relinquish ontological “rightness” entails ultimately relinquishing an ontological “self”. But to relinquish such ultimately unfounded beliefs is to gain clarity and coherence while giving up nothing actual at all.
“Superrationality” is an effective wrapper around these apparent dilemmas, but even proponents such as Hofstadter confused description with prescription in this regard. Paradox is always only a matter of insufficient context. In the bigger picture all the pieces must fit. [Or as Eliezer has taken to saying recently: “It all adds up to normalcy.”
Apologies if my brief pokings and proddings on this topic appear vague or even mystical. I can only assert within this limited space and bandwidth that my background in science, engineering and business is far from that of one who could harbor vagueness, relativism, mysticism, or postmodernist patterns of thought. I appreciate the depth and breadth of Eliezer’s written explorations of this issue whereas I lack the time to do so myself.