Wire-heading, drug-addicition, lobotomy, black-box, all seem similar morally to me. Heck, my own personal black box would need nothing more than to have me believe that the universe is just a little more absurd than I already believe, that the laws of physics and the progress of humanity are a fever-dream, an hallucination. From there I would lower my resistance to wire-heading, drug-addiction. Even if I still craved the “truth” (my utility function was largely unchanged), these new facts would lead me to believe there was less of a possibility of utility from pursuing that, and so the rather obvious utility of drug or electronic induced pleasure would win my not-quite-factual day.
The white box and a Nazi colonel-dentist with his tools laid out, talking to me about what he was going to do to me until I chose the black box are morally similar. I do not know why the Nazis/Omega want me to black box it. I do not know the extent of the disutility the colonel-dentist will actually inflict upon me. I do know m fear is at minimum nearly overwhelming, and may indeed overwhelm me before the day is done.
Being broken in the sense that those who torture you for a result, and choosing the black box, are morally equivalent to me. Abandoning a long-term principle of commitment to the truth in favor of a short term but very high utility of giving up, the short term utility of totally abandoning myself in to the control of an evil god to avoid his torture is what I am being asked to do in choosing the black box.
Its ALWAYS at least a little scary to choose reality over self-deception, over the euphoria of drugs and pain killers. The utility one derives from making this choice is much colder than the utility one derives from succumbing: it comes more, it seems, from the neo-cortex and less from the limbic system or lizard brain of fast fear responses.
My utility AFTER I choose the white box may well be less than if I chose the black box. The scary thing in the white box might be that bad. But my life up to now has rewarded me vastly for resisting drug addiction, for resisting gorping my own brain in the pursuit of non-reality-based pleasure. Indeed, it has rewarded me for resisting fear.
So before I have made my choice, I do not want to choose the lie in order to get the dopamine, or the epinephrine or whatever it is that the wire gives me. That is LOW utility to me before I make the choice. Resisting choosing that out of fear has high utility to me.
WIll I regret my choice afterwards? Maybe, since I might be a broken destroyed shell of a human subject to brain patterns for which I had no evolutionary preparation.
Would I admire someone who chose the black box? No. Would I admire someone who had chosen the white box? Yes. Doing things that I would admire in others is a strong source of utility in me (and in many others of course).
Do you think your omega problem contains elements that go beyond the question: would you abandon your principled commitment to truth and choose believing a lie and wire-heading under the threat of an unknown future torture inflicted upon you by a powerful entity you cannot and do not understand?
Wire-heading, drug-addicition, lobotomy, black-box, all seem similar morally to me. Heck, my own personal black box would need nothing more than to have me believe that the universe is just a little more absurd than I already believe, that the laws of physics and the progress of humanity are a fever-dream, an hallucination. From there I would lower my resistance to wire-heading, drug-addiction. Even if I still craved the “truth” (my utility function was largely unchanged), these new facts would lead me to believe there was less of a possibility of utility from pursuing that, and so the rather obvious utility of drug or electronic induced pleasure would win my not-quite-factual day.
The white box and a Nazi colonel-dentist with his tools laid out, talking to me about what he was going to do to me until I chose the black box are morally similar. I do not know why the Nazis/Omega want me to black box it. I do not know the extent of the disutility the colonel-dentist will actually inflict upon me. I do know m fear is at minimum nearly overwhelming, and may indeed overwhelm me before the day is done.
Being broken in the sense that those who torture you for a result, and choosing the black box, are morally equivalent to me. Abandoning a long-term principle of commitment to the truth in favor of a short term but very high utility of giving up, the short term utility of totally abandoning myself in to the control of an evil god to avoid his torture is what I am being asked to do in choosing the black box.
Its ALWAYS at least a little scary to choose reality over self-deception, over the euphoria of drugs and pain killers. The utility one derives from making this choice is much colder than the utility one derives from succumbing: it comes more, it seems, from the neo-cortex and less from the limbic system or lizard brain of fast fear responses.
My utility AFTER I choose the white box may well be less than if I chose the black box. The scary thing in the white box might be that bad. But my life up to now has rewarded me vastly for resisting drug addiction, for resisting gorping my own brain in the pursuit of non-reality-based pleasure. Indeed, it has rewarded me for resisting fear.
So before I have made my choice, I do not want to choose the lie in order to get the dopamine, or the epinephrine or whatever it is that the wire gives me. That is LOW utility to me before I make the choice. Resisting choosing that out of fear has high utility to me.
WIll I regret my choice afterwards? Maybe, since I might be a broken destroyed shell of a human subject to brain patterns for which I had no evolutionary preparation.
Would I admire someone who chose the black box? No. Would I admire someone who had chosen the white box? Yes. Doing things that I would admire in others is a strong source of utility in me (and in many others of course).
Do you think your omega problem contains elements that go beyond the question: would you abandon your principled commitment to truth and choose believing a lie and wire-heading under the threat of an unknown future torture inflicted upon you by a powerful entity you cannot and do not understand?