I think it’s correct, but it’s definitely not detailed; some major questions, like “how to weight and reconcile conflicting preferences”, are skipped entirely.
I think it’s correct, but it’s definitely not detailed;
What do you believe to be the reasons? Didn’t he try or fail? I’m trying to fathom what kind of person is a sufficiently clear thinker. If not even EY is a sufficiently clear thinker, then your statement that such a person could come up with a detailed metaethics in a month seems self-evident. If someone is a sufficiently clear thinker to accomplish a certain task then they will complete it if they try. What’s the point? It sounds like you are saying that there are many smart people that could accomplish the task if they only tried. But if in fact EY is not one of them, that’s bad.
Yesterday I read In Praise of Boredom. It seems that EY also views intelligence as something proactive:
...if I ever do fully understand the algorithms of intelligence, it will destroy all remaining novelty—no matter what new situation I encounter, I’ll know I can solve it just by being intelligent...
No doubt I am a complete layman when it comes to what intelligence is. But as far as I am aware it is a kind of goal-oriented evolutionary process equipped with a memory. It is evolutionary insofar as it still needs to stumble upon novelty. Intelligence is not a meta-solution but an efficient searchlight that helps to discover unknown unknowns. Intelligence is also a tool that can efficiently exploit previous discoveries, combine and permute them. But claiming that you just have to be sufficiently intelligent to solve a given problem sounds like it is more than that. I don’t see that. I think that if something crucial is missing, something you don’t know that it is missing, you’ll have to discover it first and not invent it by the sheer power of intelligence.
So Yudkowsky came up with a correct and detailed metaethics but failed to communicate it?
I think it’s correct, but it’s definitely not detailed; some major questions, like “how to weight and reconcile conflicting preferences”, are skipped entirely.
What do you believe to be the reasons? Didn’t he try or fail? I’m trying to fathom what kind of person is a sufficiently clear thinker. If not even EY is a sufficiently clear thinker, then your statement that such a person could come up with a detailed metaethics in a month seems self-evident. If someone is a sufficiently clear thinker to accomplish a certain task then they will complete it if they try. What’s the point? It sounds like you are saying that there are many smart people that could accomplish the task if they only tried. But if in fact EY is not one of them, that’s bad.
Yesterday I read In Praise of Boredom. It seems that EY also views intelligence as something proactive:
No doubt I am a complete layman when it comes to what intelligence is. But as far as I am aware it is a kind of goal-oriented evolutionary process equipped with a memory. It is evolutionary insofar as it still needs to stumble upon novelty. Intelligence is not a meta-solution but an efficient searchlight that helps to discover unknown unknowns. Intelligence is also a tool that can efficiently exploit previous discoveries, combine and permute them. But claiming that you just have to be sufficiently intelligent to solve a given problem sounds like it is more than that. I don’t see that. I think that if something crucial is missing, something you don’t know that it is missing, you’ll have to discover it first and not invent it by the sheer power of intelligence.