Rather, it is using a different definition of ‘better’ (or, you could argue, ‘objectively’) than you are. Byrnema’s usage may not be sophisticated or the most useful way to carve reality but it is a popular usage and his intended meaning is clear.
Some states are really objectively better than other states. The trick is, “better” originates from your own preference, not God-given decree.
That is the framework I use. I agree that byrnema could benefit from an improved understanding of this kind of philosophy. Nevertheless, byrnema’s statement is a straightforward use of language that is easy to understand, trivially true and entirely unhelpful.
I’m pretty sure I can’t be confused about the real-world content of this discussion, but we are having trouble communicating. As a way out, you could suggest reasonable interpretations of “better” and “objectively” that make byrnema’s “no state of the universe is objectively any “better” than any other state” into a correct statement.
I’m pretty sure I can’t be confused about the real-world content of this discussion
You appear to have a solid understanding of the deep philosophy. Your basic claims in the twoancestors are wrong and trivially so at about the level of language parsing and logic.
It doesn’t work for most of any reasonable definition, because you’d need “better” to mean “absolute indifference”
Far from being required, “absolute indifference” is doesn’t even work as a meaning in the context: “No state of the universe is objectively any “absolute indifference” than any other state”. If you fixed the grammar to make the meaning fit it would make the statement wrong.
As a way out, you could suggest reasonable interpretations of “better” and “objectively” that make byrnema’s “no state of the universe is objectively any “better” than any other state” into a correct statement.
I’m not comfortable making any precise descriptions for a popular philosophy that I think is stupid (my way of thinking about the underlying concepts more or less matches yours). But it would be something along the lines of defining “objectively better” to mean “scores high in a description or implementation of betterness outside of the universe, not dependent on me, etc”. Then, if there is in fact no such ‘objectively better’ thingumy (God, silly half baked philosophy of universal morality, etc) people would say stuff like byrnema did and it wouldn’t be wrong, just useless.
“No state of the universe is objectively any “absolute indifference” than any other state”.
“According to a position of absolute indifference, no state of the universe is preferable to any other.”
I’m not comfortable making any precise descriptions for a popular philosophy that I think is stupid
That “stupid” for me got identified as “incorrect”, not a way to correctly interpret the byrnema’s phrase to make it right (but a reasonable guess about the way the phrase came to be).
“According to a position of absolute indifference, no state of the universe is preferable to any other.”
And this I think is why people find moral non-cognitivism so easy to misunderstand—people always try to parse it to understand which variety of moral realism you subscribe to.
“There is no final true moral standard.”
“Ah, so you’re saying that all acts are equally good according to the final true moral standard?”
“No, I’m saying that there is no final true moral standard.”
“Oh, so all moral standards are equally good according to the final true moral standard?”
“No, I’m saying that there is no final true moral standard.”
“Oh, so all moral judgements are equally good according to the final true moral standard?”
I like to use the word “transcendent”, as in “no transcendent morality”, where the word “transcendent” is chosen to sound very impressive and important but not actually mean anything.
However, you can still be a moral cognitivist and believe that moral statements have truth-values, they just won’t be transcendent truth-values. What is a “transcendent truth-value”? Shrugs.
It’s not like “transcedental morality” is a way the universe could have been but wasn’t.
Yes, I think that transcendent is a great adjective for this concept of morality I’m attached to. I like it because it makes it clear why I would label the attachment ‘theistic’ even though I have no attachment that I’m aware of to other necessarily ‘religious’ beliefs.
Since I do ‘believe in’ physical materialism, I expect science to eventually explain that morality can transcend the subjective/objective chasm in some way or that if morality does not, to identify whether this fact about the universe is consistent or inconsistent with my particular programming. (This latter component specifically is the part I was thinking you haven’t covered; I can only say this much now because the discussion had helped develop my thoughts quite a bit already.)
“According to a position of absolute indifference, no state of the universe is preferable to any other.”
That is a description that you can get to using your definition of ‘better’ (approximately, depending on how you prefer to represent differences between human preferences). It still completely does away with the meaning Byrnema conveyed.
That “stupid” for me got identified as “incorrect”, not a way to correctly interpret the byrnema’s phrase to make it right (but a reasonable guess about the way the phrase came to be).
That was clear. But no matter how superior our philosophy we are still considering straw men if we parse common language with our own idiosyncratic variant. We must choose between translating from their language, forcing them to use ours, ignoring them or, well, being wrong a lot.
This thread between you and Vladimir_Nesov is fascinating, because you’re talking about exactly what I don’t understand. Allusions to my worldview being unsophisticated, not useful, stupid and incorrect fill me with the excitement of anticipation that there is a high probability of there being something to learn here.
Some comments:
(1) It appears that the whole issue of what I meant when I wrote, “no state of the universe is objectively any “better” than any other state,” has been resolved. We agree that it is trivially true, useless and on some level insane to be concerned with it.
(2) Vladimir_Nesov wrote, “You care about getting the world to be objectively better [in the way you define better], while a pebble-sorter cares about getting the world to be objectively more prime [the way he defines better].”
This is a good point to launch from. Suppose it is true that there is no objective ‘better’, so that the universe is no more improved by me changing it in ways that I think are better or by the pebble-sorter making things more prime, than either of us doing nothing or not existing. Then I find I don’t place any value on whether we are subjectively improving the universe in our different ways, doing nothing or not existing. All of these things would be equivalently useless.
For what it’s worth, I understand that this value I’m lacking—to persist in caring about my subjective values even if they’re not objectively substantiated—is a subjective value. While I seem to lack it, you guys could very reasonably have this value in great measure.
So. Is this a value I can work on developing? Or is there some logical fallacy I’m making that would make this whole dilemma moot once I understood it?
This is connected to the Rebelling Within Nature post: have you considered that your criterion “you shouldn’t care about a value if it isn’t objective”, is another value that is particular to you as a human? A simple Paperclip Maximizer wouldn’t have the criterion “stop caring about paperclips if it turns out the goodness of paperclips isn’t written into the fabric of the universe”. (Nor would it have the criterion of respecting other agents’ moralities, another thing which you value.)
This is a good point to launch from. Suppose it is true that there is no objective ‘better’, so that the universe is no more improved by me changing it in ways that I think are better or by the pebble-sorter making things more prime, than either of us doing nothing or not existing. Then I find I don’t place any value on whether we are subjectively improving the universe in our different ways, doing nothing or not existing. All of these things would be equivalently useless.
Have a look at Eliezer’s posts on morality and perhaps ‘subjectively objective’. (But also consider Adelene’s suggestion on looking into whether your dissociation is the result of a neurological or psychological state that you could benefit from fixing.)
For what it’s worth, I understand that this value I’m lacking—to persist in caring about my subjective values even if they’re not objectively substantiated—is a subjective value.
Meanwhile I think you do, in fact, have this subjective measure. Not because you must for any philosophical reason but because your behaviour and descriptions indicate that you do subjectively care about your subjective value. Even thought you don’t think you do. To put it another way, your subjective values are objective facts about the state of the universe and your part thereof and I believe you are wrong about them.
Rather, it is using a different definition of ‘better’ (or, you could argue, ‘objectively’) than you are. Byrnema’s usage may not be sophisticated or the most useful way to carve reality but it is a popular usage and his intended meaning is clear.
That is the framework I use. I agree that byrnema could benefit from an improved understanding of this kind of philosophy. Nevertheless, byrnema’s statement is a straightforward use of language that is easy to understand, trivially true and entirely unhelpful.
It doesn’t work for most of any reasonable definition, because you’d need “better” to mean “absolute indifference”, which doesn’t rhyme.
No it wouldn’t. You are confused.
I’m pretty sure I can’t be confused about the real-world content of this discussion, but we are having trouble communicating. As a way out, you could suggest reasonable interpretations of “better” and “objectively” that make byrnema’s “no state of the universe is objectively any “better” than any other state” into a correct statement.
You appear to have a solid understanding of the deep philosophy. Your basic claims in the two ancestors are wrong and trivially so at about the level of language parsing and logic.
Far from being required, “absolute indifference” is doesn’t even work as a meaning in the context: “No state of the universe is objectively any “absolute indifference” than any other state”. If you fixed the grammar to make the meaning fit it would make the statement wrong.
I’m not comfortable making any precise descriptions for a popular philosophy that I think is stupid (my way of thinking about the underlying concepts more or less matches yours). But it would be something along the lines of defining “objectively better” to mean “scores high in a description or implementation of betterness outside of the universe, not dependent on me, etc”. Then, if there is in fact no such ‘objectively better’ thingumy (God, silly half baked philosophy of universal morality, etc) people would say stuff like byrnema did and it wouldn’t be wrong, just useless.
“According to a position of absolute indifference, no state of the universe is preferable to any other.”
That “stupid” for me got identified as “incorrect”, not a way to correctly interpret the byrnema’s phrase to make it right (but a reasonable guess about the way the phrase came to be).
And this I think is why people find moral non-cognitivism so easy to misunderstand—people always try to parse it to understand which variety of moral realism you subscribe to.
“There is no final true moral standard.”
“Ah, so you’re saying that all acts are equally good according to the final true moral standard?”
“No, I’m saying that there is no final true moral standard.”
“Oh, so all moral standards are equally good according to the final true moral standard?”
“No, I’m saying that there is no final true moral standard.”
“Oh, so all moral judgements are equally good according to the final true moral standard?”
\whimper**
I like to use the word “transcendent”, as in “no transcendent morality”, where the word “transcendent” is chosen to sound very impressive and important but not actually mean anything.
However, you can still be a moral cognitivist and believe that moral statements have truth-values, they just won’t be transcendent truth-values. What is a “transcendent truth-value”? Shrugs.
It’s not like “transcedental morality” is a way the universe could have been but wasn’t.
Yes, I think that transcendent is a great adjective for this concept of morality I’m attached to. I like it because it makes it clear why I would label the attachment ‘theistic’ even though I have no attachment that I’m aware of to other necessarily ‘religious’ beliefs.
Since I do ‘believe in’ physical materialism, I expect science to eventually explain that morality can transcend the subjective/objective chasm in some way or that if morality does not, to identify whether this fact about the universe is consistent or inconsistent with my particular programming. (This latter component specifically is the part I was thinking you haven’t covered; I can only say this much now because the discussion had helped develop my thoughts quite a bit already.)
Er, did you actually read the Metaethics sequence?
That is a description that you can get to using your definition of ‘better’ (approximately, depending on how you prefer to represent differences between human preferences). It still completely does away with the meaning Byrnema conveyed.
That was clear. But no matter how superior our philosophy we are still considering straw men if we parse common language with our own idiosyncratic variant. We must choose between translating from their language, forcing them to use ours, ignoring them or, well, being wrong a lot.
This thread between you and Vladimir_Nesov is fascinating, because you’re talking about exactly what I don’t understand. Allusions to my worldview being unsophisticated, not useful, stupid and incorrect fill me with the excitement of anticipation that there is a high probability of there being something to learn here.
Some comments:
(1) It appears that the whole issue of what I meant when I wrote, “no state of the universe is objectively any “better” than any other state,” has been resolved. We agree that it is trivially true, useless and on some level insane to be concerned with it.
(2) Vladimir_Nesov wrote, “You care about getting the world to be objectively better [in the way you define better], while a pebble-sorter cares about getting the world to be objectively more prime [the way he defines better].”
This is a good point to launch from. Suppose it is true that there is no objective ‘better’, so that the universe is no more improved by me changing it in ways that I think are better or by the pebble-sorter making things more prime, than either of us doing nothing or not existing. Then I find I don’t place any value on whether we are subjectively improving the universe in our different ways, doing nothing or not existing. All of these things would be equivalently useless.
For what it’s worth, I understand that this value I’m lacking—to persist in caring about my subjective values even if they’re not objectively substantiated—is a subjective value. While I seem to lack it, you guys could very reasonably have this value in great measure.
So. Is this a value I can work on developing? Or is there some logical fallacy I’m making that would make this whole dilemma moot once I understood it?
This is connected to the Rebelling Within Nature post: have you considered that your criterion “you shouldn’t care about a value if it isn’t objective”, is another value that is particular to you as a human? A simple Paperclip Maximizer wouldn’t have the criterion “stop caring about paperclips if it turns out the goodness of paperclips isn’t written into the fabric of the universe”. (Nor would it have the criterion of respecting other agents’ moralities, another thing which you value.)
Have a look at Eliezer’s posts on morality and perhaps ‘subjectively objective’. (But also consider Adelene’s suggestion on looking into whether your dissociation is the result of a neurological or psychological state that you could benefit from fixing.)
Meanwhile I think you do, in fact, have this subjective measure. Not because you must for any philosophical reason but because your behaviour and descriptions indicate that you do subjectively care about your subjective value. Even thought you don’t think you do. To put it another way, your subjective values are objective facts about the state of the universe and your part thereof and I believe you are wrong about them.