I see no reason why a sufficiently clear thinker couldn’t finish a correct and detailed metaethics in a month.
I suppose if you let “sufficiently clear thinker” do enough work this is just trivial.
But it’s a sui generis problem… I’m not sure what information a time table could be based on other than the fact that it has been way longer than a month and no one has succeeded yet.
It is also worth keeping in mind, that scientific discoveries routinely impact the concepts we use to understand the world. The computational model of the human brain was generated as a hypothesis until after we had built computers and could see what they do, even though, in principle that hypothesis could have been invented at nearly any point in history. So it seems plausible the crucial insight needed for a successful metaethics will come from a scientific discovery that someone concentrating on philosophy for a month wouldn’t make.
But it’s a sui generis problem… I’m not sure what information a time table could be based on other than the fact that it has been way longer than a month and no one has succeeded yet.
Supposing anyone had already succeeded, how strong an expectation do you think we should have of knowing about it?
Not all that strong. It may well be out there in some obscure journal but just wasn’t interesting enough for anyone to bother replying to. Hell, it multiple people may have succeeded.
But I think “success” might actually be underdetermined here. Some philosophers may have had the right insights, but I suspect that if they had communicated those insights in the formal method necessary for Friendly AI the insights would have felt insightful to readers and the papers would have gotten attention. Of course, I’m not even familiar with cutting edge metaethics. There may well be something like that out there. It doesn’t help that no one here seems willing to actually read philosophy in non-blog format.
It may well be out there in some obscure journal but just wasn’t interesting enough for anyone to bother replying to. Hell, it multiple people may have succeeded.
The computational model of the human brain was generated as a hypothesis until after we had built computers and could see what they do, even though, in principle that hypothesis could have been invented at nearly any point in history.
I suppose if you let “sufficiently clear thinker” do enough work this is just trivial.
But it’s a sui generis problem… I’m not sure what information a time table could be based on other than the fact that it has been way longer than a month and no one has succeeded yet.
It is also worth keeping in mind, that scientific discoveries routinely impact the concepts we use to understand the world. The computational model of the human brain was generated as a hypothesis until after we had built computers and could see what they do, even though, in principle that hypothesis could have been invented at nearly any point in history. So it seems plausible the crucial insight needed for a successful metaethics will come from a scientific discovery that someone concentrating on philosophy for a month wouldn’t make.
Supposing anyone had already succeeded, how strong an expectation do you think we should have of knowing about it?
Not all that strong. It may well be out there in some obscure journal but just wasn’t interesting enough for anyone to bother replying to. Hell, it multiple people may have succeeded.
But I think “success” might actually be underdetermined here. Some philosophers may have had the right insights, but I suspect that if they had communicated those insights in the formal method necessary for Friendly AI the insights would have felt insightful to readers and the papers would have gotten attention. Of course, I’m not even familiar with cutting edge metaethics. There may well be something like that out there. It doesn’t help that no one here seems willing to actually read philosophy in non-blog format.
Yep:
Related question: suppose someone handed us a successful solution, would we recognize it?
Yep.