When Eliezer writes about the “miracle” of evolved morality, he reminds me of that bit from H.M.S. Pinafore where the singers are heaping praise on Rafe Rackstraw for being born an Englishman “despite all the temptations to belong to other nations”. We can imagine that they might have sung quite a similar song in French.
“Because it’s only a miracle from the perspective of the morality that was produced, thus explaining away all of the apparent coincidence from a merely causal and physical perspective?”
Well… I suppose you could interpret the term that way, yes. I just meant something that was immensely surprising and wonderful on a moral level, even if it is not surprising on a physical level.
When Eliezer writes about the “miracle” of evolved morality, he reminds me of that bit from H.M.S. Pinafore where the singers are heaping praise on Rafe Rackstraw for being born an Englishman “despite all the temptations to belong to other nations”. We can imagine that they might have sung quite a similar song in French.
In The Salmon of Doubt, Douglas Adams employs the metaphor of a puddle of water marveling that the pothole it inhabits seems perfectly suited for it.
The Gift We Give To Tomorrow:
i dub thee the weak anthropic morality principle.