Pretty much anything can be right or wrong. It depends on the context. Murder is the deliberate killing of a human being in violation of the law. A French civilian killing an SS agent in 1943 constitutes murder, but is not an open-and-shut case of immorality.
The statement “murder is wrong” is too vague to assign a truth value to. It’s like saying “chemistry is immoral”. It depends what you’re using it for.
As for confidences…
Confidences like 100% and 99.99% are not fundamental physical things like protons and photons. They’re not even as concrete as cats and dogs. Confidences are abstractions created by people to make sense of the world we inhabit. A useful first step to unconfusing your disagreement with your friend might be to define exactly what you mean by “confidence”.
Yes, ethics often deals with stuff that is not clear cut and obvious.
I guess my conception of confidences might be flawed, do you have any recommended reading or some video clearing up what confidences are exactly? It seems that a lot of disagreements boil down to using some term in a different way, right? Isn’t this what Yudkowsky wrote about?
There are two issues: One of them is using the same term in different ways. The deeper mistake is believing words have well-defined meanings at all. I think the deeper issue is the more important one. If you solve the deeper issue then the first issue might solve itself.
A good (thought not perfect) definition of confidence is what odds you would bet on. That’s why so many readers of this website are interested in betting markets and the Kelly Criterion.
Pretty much anything can be right or wrong. It depends on the context. Murder is the deliberate killing of a human being in violation of the law. A French civilian killing an SS agent in 1943 constitutes murder, but is not an open-and-shut case of immorality.
The statement “murder is wrong” is too vague to assign a truth value to. It’s like saying “chemistry is immoral”. It depends what you’re using it for.
As for confidences…
Confidences like 100% and 99.99% are not fundamental physical things like protons and photons. They’re not even as concrete as cats and dogs. Confidences are abstractions created by people to make sense of the world we inhabit. A useful first step to unconfusing your disagreement with your friend might be to define exactly what you mean by “confidence”.
Yes, ethics often deals with stuff that is not clear cut and obvious.
I guess my conception of confidences might be flawed, do you have any recommended reading or some video clearing up what confidences are exactly? It seems that a lot of disagreements boil down to using some term in a different way, right? Isn’t this what Yudkowsky wrote about?
There are two issues: One of them is using the same term in different ways. The deeper mistake is believing words have well-defined meanings at all. I think the deeper issue is the more important one. If you solve the deeper issue then the first issue might solve itself.
Yudkowsky’s Disputing Definitions is a good place to start. Other good readings along these lines is How to Do Philosophy by Paul Graham and The Specificity Sequence by Liron.
A good (thought not perfect) definition of confidence is what odds you would bet on. That’s why so many readers of this website are interested in betting markets and the Kelly Criterion.