I think this is really important: If an idea is new to you, if you’re still in the stage of deciding whether to consider it more, that’s a stage where you haven’t explored its implications much at all, you cannot at that stage say “it isn’t going to have important implications”, so if you find yourself saying that about a claim you’ve just encountered, you’re probably bullshitting
If you find yourself saying “but it definitely doesn’t matter” about a claim with the same magnitude of “there are gods”, you’re almost certainly bullshitting. You might be right, but you can’t be justified.
One example of a claim that’s not being explored enough for anyone to understand why it matters because it’s not being explored because nobody understands why it matters, is simulationism. As far as I’m aware, most of us are still saying “but it doesn’t matter”. We’ll say things like “but we can’t know the simulator well enough to bargain with it or make any predictions about ways it might intervene”, but I’m fairly sure I’ve found some really heavy implications by crossing it with AGI philosophy and physical eschatology.
I’m going to do a post about that, maybe soon, maybe this week, but I don’t think you really need to see the fruits of the investigation to question the validity of whatever heuristic convinced you there wouldn’t be any. You wont fall for that any more, will you? The next time someone who hasn’t looked in the box says “but there’s nothing in the box, can you see anything inside the box? Don’t bother to open it, you can’t see anything so there must not be anything there”, you will laugh at them, wont you?
I think this is really important: If an idea is new to you, if you’re still in the stage of deciding whether to consider it more, that’s a stage where you haven’t explored its implications much at all, you cannot at that stage say “it isn’t going to have important implications”, so if you find yourself saying that about a claim you’ve just encountered, you’re probably bullshitting
If you find yourself saying “but it definitely doesn’t matter” about a claim with the same magnitude of “there are gods”, you’re almost certainly bullshitting. You might be right, but you can’t be justified.
One example of a claim that’s not being explored enough for anyone to understand why it matters because it’s not being explored because nobody understands why it matters, is simulationism. As far as I’m aware, most of us are still saying “but it doesn’t matter”. We’ll say things like “but we can’t know the simulator well enough to bargain with it or make any predictions about ways it might intervene”, but I’m fairly sure I’ve found some really heavy implications by crossing it with AGI philosophy and physical eschatology.
I’m going to do a post about that, maybe soon, maybe this week, but I don’t think you really need to see the fruits of the investigation to question the validity of whatever heuristic convinced you there wouldn’t be any. You wont fall for that any more, will you? The next time someone who hasn’t looked in the box says “but there’s nothing in the box, can you see anything inside the box? Don’t bother to open it, you can’t see anything so there must not be anything there”, you will laugh at them, wont you?