Parochial because he mistook a local property of mindspace for a global one; unimaginative because he never thought of frumfulness when considering what things a mind might value. “Good” is no more to a Tyvar than “frumful” to Clippy or “clipful” to a human.
this is silly. Good is a quite useful concept that easily stretches to cover entities with different preferences, but even if it does not, it’s STILL meaningful, and your clippy example shows us exactly why. The meaning of clipful, something like “causes there to be more paperclips” or whatever, is perfectly clear to if not really valued by humankind.
Is “good” what many sorts of intelligent beings strive to do? Then “good” is such things as self-improvement, rationality, survival of one’s values, anti-counterfeiting of value, personal survival, and resource acquisition. For any intelligent being that does not expend energy to survive will be washed away by entropy. And so, “good” is universal. (The sage Omohundro does not call it “good”, though; that is a novice’s word.)
Is “good” the noise that one group of one species of social creatures say when they comfort and praise their tribemates? Then “good” is such things as singing with a regular melody and rhythm, or setting up certain sorts of economic deals among tribemates and others; or leading the tribe’s warriors to dismember the others instead of being dismembered themselves; and it is parochial.
Ah, I see I was unclear. By “is no more to a Tyvar” I meant “is no more significant to a Tyvar” rather than “is no more comprehensible to a Tyvar.” Sorry; my fault.
How is this a failure of imagination? Why is the question parochial?
Parochial because he mistook a local property of mindspace for a global one; unimaginative because he never thought of frumfulness when considering what things a mind might value. “Good” is no more to a Tyvar than “frumful” to Clippy or “clipful” to a human.
this is silly. Good is a quite useful concept that easily stretches to cover entities with different preferences, but even if it does not, it’s STILL meaningful, and your clippy example shows us exactly why. The meaning of clipful, something like “causes there to be more paperclips” or whatever, is perfectly clear to if not really valued by humankind.
Is “good” what many sorts of intelligent beings strive to do? Then “good” is such things as self-improvement, rationality, survival of one’s values, anti-counterfeiting of value, personal survival, and resource acquisition. For any intelligent being that does not expend energy to survive will be washed away by entropy. And so, “good” is universal. (The sage Omohundro does not call it “good”, though; that is a novice’s word.)
Is “good” the noise that one group of one species of social creatures say when they comfort and praise their tribemates? Then “good” is such things as singing with a regular melody and rhythm, or setting up certain sorts of economic deals among tribemates and others; or leading the tribe’s warriors to dismember the others instead of being dismembered themselves; and it is parochial.
Ah, I see I was unclear. By “is no more to a Tyvar” I meant “is no more significant to a Tyvar” rather than “is no more comprehensible to a Tyvar.” Sorry; my fault.