People who do feel that intuition run into trouble. This is because “I ought to do X’ does not refer to anything that exists. How can you make a statement that doesn’t refer to anything that exists?
It refers to my preferences which are physically encoded in my brain. It feels like it doesn’t refer to anything that exists because I don’t have complete introspective access to the mechanisms by which my brain decides that it wants something.
On top of that, ought refers to lots of different things, and as far as I can tell, most ought statements are summaries of specific preferences (and some signals) rather than the even more complicated description of what I’m actually going to choose to do.
This is all irrelevant to atucker’s comment, unless you’re denying that preferences are patterns in your brain. If his definition sounds similar to yours, good, that means you don’t believe “ought does not refer to anything that exists.”
It’s all irrelevant if his answer is “from your actions”. Is it obvious that it is? If so, I apologize.
Here are some problems:
The correlates of a phrase are not its meaning. If I say “X will happen”, I’m not saying “The current physical world has a pattern that is likely to cause X to happen”, I’m just saying “X is going to happen”.
If I say “you should do X, but I know you’re going to do Y” it doesn’t seem like I mean “Parts of your brain want to do X but the rest will overrule them” or “In your situation, I would do X” or “I will punish you for doing Y”
You don’t accurately describe internal reasoning. There are many X such that I prefer to do X because of my explicit belief that X is right, not vice versa.
Intuitively, I feel like I have various competing desires/preferences floating around in my head that I process further in order to decide what to do. They’re actually physically encoded, but that’s just asserting that they exist for real.
Some salient desires of mine right now are:
The desire to eat (I want my breakfast)
The desire to finish this comment
The desire to scratch my stomach
The desire to look up when graduation rehearsal is
As you can see, many of these are contradictory, so you can’t infer all of them from my actions.
Some of these desires are fairly basic, like the one to eat. Neural circuitry controlling hunger has been found.
Others are far more complicated, like the one about finishing this comment. I think that that is probably aggregated from various smaller desires, like “explain myself clearly”, “get karma points”, or “contribute to Less Wrong”.
I think that desires might be packaged by my unconscious mind so that my conscious mind can figure out how to accomplish them, without me needing to think through what I should want before doing anything.
The word preference/desire probably refers to multiple things.
For many of my preferences, you could infer them by changing the world to fulfill them, and then seeing if I’m happier. Normally I will be happier/more satisfied (a physical arrangement of my brain) as a result of my preferences being fulfilled.
Other preferences like “speak in English” or “always be nice to people” seem to be more like imperatives that I should follow for coordination or signalling purposes. But they still feel pretty much the same as my normal preferences.
But it’s all still physically encoded in my brain, and does refer to the world-as-is, even if it doesn’t feel like it does.
It refers to my preferences which are physically encoded in my brain. It feels like it doesn’t refer to anything that exists because I don’t have complete introspective access to the mechanisms by which my brain decides that it wants something.
On top of that, ought refers to lots of different things, and as far as I can tell, most ought statements are summaries of specific preferences (and some signals) rather than the even more complicated description of what I’m actually going to choose to do.
What is a preference? How do you suggest I infer your preferences?
If it is from your actions, then your definition sounds very similar to mine.
If it is from your statements, then your definition is circular.
If it is from your emotions, then how do people express moral beliefs that contradict their emotions?
Is it something else?
This is all irrelevant to atucker’s comment, unless you’re denying that preferences are patterns in your brain. If his definition sounds similar to yours, good, that means you don’t believe “ought does not refer to anything that exists.”
It’s all irrelevant if his answer is “from your actions”. Is it obvious that it is? If so, I apologize.
Here are some problems:
The correlates of a phrase are not its meaning. If I say “X will happen”, I’m not saying “The current physical world has a pattern that is likely to cause X to happen”, I’m just saying “X is going to happen”.
If I say “you should do X, but I know you’re going to do Y” it doesn’t seem like I mean “Parts of your brain want to do X but the rest will overrule them” or “In your situation, I would do X” or “I will punish you for doing Y”
You don’t accurately describe internal reasoning. There are many X such that I prefer to do X because of my explicit belief that X is right, not vice versa.
Intuitively, I feel like I have various competing desires/preferences floating around in my head that I process further in order to decide what to do. They’re actually physically encoded, but that’s just asserting that they exist for real.
Some salient desires of mine right now are:
The desire to eat (I want my breakfast)
The desire to finish this comment
The desire to scratch my stomach
The desire to look up when graduation rehearsal is
As you can see, many of these are contradictory, so you can’t infer all of them from my actions.
Some of these desires are fairly basic, like the one to eat. Neural circuitry controlling hunger has been found.
Others are far more complicated, like the one about finishing this comment. I think that that is probably aggregated from various smaller desires, like “explain myself clearly”, “get karma points”, or “contribute to Less Wrong”.
I think that desires might be packaged by my unconscious mind so that my conscious mind can figure out how to accomplish them, without me needing to think through what I should want before doing anything.
The word preference/desire probably refers to multiple things.
For many of my preferences, you could infer them by changing the world to fulfill them, and then seeing if I’m happier. Normally I will be happier/more satisfied (a physical arrangement of my brain) as a result of my preferences being fulfilled.
Other preferences like “speak in English” or “always be nice to people” seem to be more like imperatives that I should follow for coordination or signalling purposes. But they still feel pretty much the same as my normal preferences.
But it’s all still physically encoded in my brain, and does refer to the world-as-is, even if it doesn’t feel like it does.
Do you contribute to charity? Do you make explicit long-term plans about how you will help the world? (Or other, similar things)
What is this sentence asking? Is actions supposed to be preferences?
Yes.