Let’s just remind ourselves of a few real things first. About 100,000 people were crushed to death or buried alive in Haiti a few months ago. The same thing has happened to millions of others throughout history. It will happen again; it could happen to me or to you if we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is something that is terrible and true. For a person with the bad luck to be in a specifically vulnerable state of mind, thinking about this could become an obsession that destroys their life. Are we going to avoid all discussion of the vulnerabilities of the human body for this reason—in order to avoid the psychological effects on a few individuals?
On this website we regularly talk about the possibility of the destruction of the world and the extinction of the human species. We even talk about scenarios straight out of the Hell of tradition religious superstition—being tortured forever by a superior being. I don’t see any moves to censor direct discussion of such possibilities. But it is being proposed that we censor discussion of various arcane and outlandish scenarios which are supposed to make someone obsessed with those possibilities in an unhealthy way. This is not a consistent attitude.
Are we going to avoid all discussion of the vulnerabilities of the human body for this reason—in order to avoid the psychological effects on a few individuals?
Imagine this was an OCD self-help board and there was a special spot on the body fussing around with extendedly could cause excruciating pain for some people, and some OCs just couldn’t resist fussing around with that spot after learning where it is.
Some members of the board dispute the existence of the spot and openly mention some very general information about it that has previously been leaked even when asked not to. They aren’t going to be convinced by any arguments that don’t include enough information to find the spot (which many members will then not be able to resist to pursue), and might not even then if they aren’t among the people vulnerable, so they might spread knowledge of the spot.
The ones who know about the location think science currently has nothing more to learn from it and include at least one relevant expert. The chance of the spot causing any danger without knowledge about it is effectively zero.
Non-OCDs are unlikely to be in danger, but knowledge would lower the status of OCDs severly.
Are you seriously suggesting he created some sort of basilisk hack or something? That seems rather dubious to me; what exactly was it that he came up with?
By the way, I doubt it’ll seriously alter my belief structures; I already believe an eternity to torture in Hell is better than ceasing to exist (though of course an eternity of happiness is much better), so I could totally see a Friendly AI coming to the same conclusion.
I already believe an eternity [of] torture in Hell is better than ceasing to exist
The idea that literally anything is better than dying is a piece of psychological falseness that I’ve run across before. Strange7 here says it, the blogger Hopefully Anonymous says it, no doubt thousands of people throughout history also said it. It’s the will to live triumphing over the will to truth.
Any professional torturer could make you choose death fairly quickly. I’m thinking of how North Korea tortured the crew of the American spy ship USS Pueblo. As I recall, one elementary torture involved being struck across the face with a metal bar or maybe a heavy block of wood, hard enough to knock out teeth, and I remember reading of how one crewman shook with fear as their captors prepared to strike him again. I may have the details wrong but that’s irrelevant. If you are forced to experience something really unbearable often enough, eventually you will want to die, just to make it stop.
Evolved creatures should rarely want to die . There are a few circumstances. If they can give their resources to their offspring, and that’s the only way to do it. Some spiders do this by letting their offspring eat them—and there’s the Praying Mantis. Or if they are infected with a plague that will kill everyone they meet—but that’s hardly a common occurance.
Torture would not normally be expected to be enough—the creatures should normally still feel the ecstacy of being alive—and prefer that to dying. While there’s life there’s hope.
Actually wanting to die—as opposed to just executing a behavior which leads to your death—requires that you have the concept of your own death. Is there any evidence that any other species even has that concept?
The idea of personally dying—the knowledge of death, not just as a phenomenon occurring to those external beings that aren’t you, but as something that you, the subject of experience, can undergo—is one of hundreds of psychological and cognitive potentialities that apparently all came to the human race in a bundle, as a result of our extra intelligence or consciousness or whatever it is that made the difference. I strongly doubt that selection has had an opportunity to finetune the elements of that bundle, specifically so as to strengthen the conscious will to live or the ecstasy of being alive. There’s certainly been memetic selection within historical times, but these higher complexities of subjectivity are so many, so multigenic in their origin, and so ambiguous in their effects, that I just don’t see a sharp selective gradient.
I would similarly assert that it’s unlikely that there has been genetic selection driven by the advantage of having a consciously pro-natal attitude in the human race (except perhaps in historical time, as an adjunct to the much more obvious memetic selection in favor of reproduction; i.e. populations who are genetically more apt to host pro-natal memes should find their genes favored, though that might result from factors other than conscious life-affirmation). The superficial attractions which get young males and young females together, and the addictive pleasure of sex, look more like the work of selection. Those are traits where enhancement is clearly reproductively advantageous, and where it should be relatively easy for a mutation to affect their strength. Even if “degree of joy in life” were as easily re-set by simple mutation as those other traits, I don’t think there has been remotely comparable opportunity for selection to act upon it. It sounds like a trait that matters most under conditions of civilization and a society of highly self-aware individuals, for whom abstract reflections can affect whether they breed, and whether they live or die. If we imagine instead two groups of hominids, scarcely even at a hunter-gatherer stage, and imagine one group zesty and the other group glum, it’s not at all clear that zestiness beats glumness. The glum ones might be more thoughtful and thus better problem-solvers.
Actually wanting to die—as opposed to just executing a behavior which leads
to your death—requires that you have the concept of your own death. Is there
any evidence that any other species even has that concept?
That seems pretty obvious to me—animals are not stupid—but I don’t really know what type of evidence you would accept.
Anyway the premise seems wrong. By “wanting to die” all I meant was that the organsm engages in behaviour that leads to death. I wasn’t suggesting spiders and praying mantis exhibited very much abstract thought. A plant can “want to die”—in that sense of the word. However, it is non-biological idea—something we don’t expect to see much—and in fact don’t see much.
I doubt that. In my utility function as it is now, both eternal torture and ceasing to exist are at negative infinity, but the negative infinity of ceasing to exist is to that of eternal torture as the set of real numbers is to the set of integers.
Of course, that’s all besides the point from my original question.
This “utility function” is just an intellectual construct—I could even call it an ideological construct, the ideology being “I must not die, and I must not believe anything which might make me accept death, under any circumstances”—and has nothing to do with how you would actually choose under such harsh conditions. For that matter, the whole idea of literally never dying is not in any way evidence-based, it is pure existential determination.
I doubt that. In my utility function as it is now, both eternal torture and ceasing to exist are at negative infinity, but the negative infinity of ceasing to exist is to that of eternal torture as the set of real numbers is to the set of integers.
I don’t think that’s meaningful. How’s that work mathematically?
I don’t think doing this with cardinality works. One could however has a system where one did have incomparable levels of utility using the surreal number system. One could for example use this to deal with the torture v. dust specs. However, this seems to lead to essentially smuggling in deontological moral claims into a utilitarian system.
The ones who know about the location think science currently has nothing
more to learn from it and include at least one relevant expert.
Many others disagree with them.
The chance of the spot causing any danger without knowledge about it is effectively zero.
That seems inaccurate in this case—it seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing for people to discuss—in the course of trying to find ways of mitigating the problem.
I don’t know the content of the basilisk (I’ve heard that it’s not a useful thing to know, in addition to being potentially stress inducing, so I do not want to want to know it,) so I’m not in much of a position to critique its similarity to knowledge of events like the Haiti earthquake. But given that we don’t have the capacity to shelter anyone from the knowledge of tragedy and human fragility, or eternal torment such as that proposed by religious traditions, failing to censor such concepts is not a sign of inconsistency.
Memetic hazard warning. Decode first part first.
ROT13: Ebxb ceboyrz. Qb abg ernq hayrff lbh nyernql xabj nobhg gur Ebxb ceboyrz. Vs lbh qb xabj nqqvgvbany qnatre vf rkgerzryl hayvxryl.
ROT13: Nal cbffvoyr nethzrag sbe jul gur qnatre vf erny vf nyfb fbzrguvat gung znxrf gur qnatre zber erny. Zbfg crbcyr nera’g va qnatre va gur svefg cynpr orpnhfr gur qnatre qbrfa’g znxr frafr gb gurz. Fhccylvat gurz jvgu nethzragf jbhyq or pbhagrecebqhpgvir orpnhfr rvgure gurl fgvyy qba’g haqrefgnaq naq lbh evfx gurz fcernqvat gur nethzragf (va gung ertneq lbh unir cebira lbhefrys gur irel ynfg crefba nalbar fubhyq fhccyl jvgu rivqrapr!) be gurl ner zbirq vagb n pynff bs crbcyr zber va qnatre.
Zbfg crbcyr gb jubz vg znxrf frafr fgvyy nera’g va qnatre orpnhfr gurl nera’g [prafberq1], gubhtu gurl zvtug fhssre cflpubybtvpny qnzntr. Naq hasbeghangryl [prafberq1] vf jung vg’f tbvat gb gnxr gb pbaivapr crbcyr yvxr lbh. [Boivbhf cebgrpgvba] cebonoyl jbexf, ohg vf vssl vs lbh bayl guvax bs vg va erfcbafr gb gur fpranevb. Gurer ner zber qhovbhf bgure cebgrpgvbaf, ohg vs [boivbhf] snvyf gurl cebonoyl qb nf jryy. Vg’f cerggl zhpu vzcbffvoyr gb fnl jurgure nalbar [prafberq1] jub snvyf [boivbhf] npghnyyl vf va erny qnatre, ohg cflpubybtvpny qnzntr frrzf cerggl zhpu hanibvqnoyr ng gung cbvag naq gurer vf ab tbbq ernfba gb gnxr gung evfx, gurer vf ab cbffvoyr tbbq bhgpbzr erfhygvat sebz vg!! Naq ab, nethzragf qvffbyivat gur ceboyrz nera’g yvxryl, zbfg bs gurz ner tbvat gb rvgure zvff gur cbvag be or jrnxre guna [boivbhf].
Let’s just remind ourselves of a few real things first. About 100,000 people were crushed to death or buried alive in Haiti a few months ago. The same thing has happened to millions of others throughout history. It will happen again; it could happen to me or to you if we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is something that is terrible and true. For a person with the bad luck to be in a specifically vulnerable state of mind, thinking about this could become an obsession that destroys their life. Are we going to avoid all discussion of the vulnerabilities of the human body for this reason—in order to avoid the psychological effects on a few individuals?
On this website we regularly talk about the possibility of the destruction of the world and the extinction of the human species. We even talk about scenarios straight out of the Hell of tradition religious superstition—being tortured forever by a superior being. I don’t see any moves to censor direct discussion of such possibilities. But it is being proposed that we censor discussion of various arcane and outlandish scenarios which are supposed to make someone obsessed with those possibilities in an unhealthy way. This is not a consistent attitude.
I’m suspicious that this entire [Forbidden Topic] is a (fairly deep) marketing ploy.
Imagine this was an OCD self-help board and there was a special spot on the body fussing around with extendedly could cause excruciating pain for some people, and some OCs just couldn’t resist fussing around with that spot after learning where it is.
Some members of the board dispute the existence of the spot and openly mention some very general information about it that has previously been leaked even when asked not to. They aren’t going to be convinced by any arguments that don’t include enough information to find the spot (which many members will then not be able to resist to pursue), and might not even then if they aren’t among the people vulnerable, so they might spread knowledge of the spot.
The ones who know about the location think science currently has nothing more to learn from it and include at least one relevant expert. The chance of the spot causing any danger without knowledge about it is effectively zero.
Non-OCDs are unlikely to be in danger, but knowledge would lower the status of OCDs severly.
If anyone actually thinks this is a problem for them, write to me and I will explain how [redacted] can make it go away.
Are you seriously suggesting he created some sort of basilisk hack or something? That seems rather dubious to me; what exactly was it that he came up with?
By the way, I doubt it’ll seriously alter my belief structures; I already believe an eternity to torture in Hell is better than ceasing to exist (though of course an eternity of happiness is much better), so I could totally see a Friendly AI coming to the same conclusion.
The idea that literally anything is better than dying is a piece of psychological falseness that I’ve run across before. Strange7 here says it, the blogger Hopefully Anonymous says it, no doubt thousands of people throughout history also said it. It’s the will to live triumphing over the will to truth.
Any professional torturer could make you choose death fairly quickly. I’m thinking of how North Korea tortured the crew of the American spy ship USS Pueblo. As I recall, one elementary torture involved being struck across the face with a metal bar or maybe a heavy block of wood, hard enough to knock out teeth, and I remember reading of how one crewman shook with fear as their captors prepared to strike him again. I may have the details wrong but that’s irrelevant. If you are forced to experience something really unbearable often enough, eventually you will want to die, just to make it stop.
Evolved creatures should rarely want to die . There are a few circumstances. If they can give their resources to their offspring, and that’s the only way to do it. Some spiders do this by letting their offspring eat them—and there’s the Praying Mantis. Or if they are infected with a plague that will kill everyone they meet—but that’s hardly a common occurance.
Torture would not normally be expected to be enough—the creatures should normally still feel the ecstacy of being alive—and prefer that to dying. While there’s life there’s hope.
Actually wanting to die—as opposed to just executing a behavior which leads to your death—requires that you have the concept of your own death. Is there any evidence that any other species even has that concept?
The idea of personally dying—the knowledge of death, not just as a phenomenon occurring to those external beings that aren’t you, but as something that you, the subject of experience, can undergo—is one of hundreds of psychological and cognitive potentialities that apparently all came to the human race in a bundle, as a result of our extra intelligence or consciousness or whatever it is that made the difference. I strongly doubt that selection has had an opportunity to finetune the elements of that bundle, specifically so as to strengthen the conscious will to live or the ecstasy of being alive. There’s certainly been memetic selection within historical times, but these higher complexities of subjectivity are so many, so multigenic in their origin, and so ambiguous in their effects, that I just don’t see a sharp selective gradient.
I would similarly assert that it’s unlikely that there has been genetic selection driven by the advantage of having a consciously pro-natal attitude in the human race (except perhaps in historical time, as an adjunct to the much more obvious memetic selection in favor of reproduction; i.e. populations who are genetically more apt to host pro-natal memes should find their genes favored, though that might result from factors other than conscious life-affirmation). The superficial attractions which get young males and young females together, and the addictive pleasure of sex, look more like the work of selection. Those are traits where enhancement is clearly reproductively advantageous, and where it should be relatively easy for a mutation to affect their strength. Even if “degree of joy in life” were as easily re-set by simple mutation as those other traits, I don’t think there has been remotely comparable opportunity for selection to act upon it. It sounds like a trait that matters most under conditions of civilization and a society of highly self-aware individuals, for whom abstract reflections can affect whether they breed, and whether they live or die. If we imagine instead two groups of hominids, scarcely even at a hunter-gatherer stage, and imagine one group zesty and the other group glum, it’s not at all clear that zestiness beats glumness. The glum ones might be more thoughtful and thus better problem-solvers.
That seems pretty obvious to me—animals are not stupid—but I don’t really know what type of evidence you would accept.
http://www.inquisitr.com/44905/amazing-photo-of-a-chimpanzee-funeral/
Anyway the premise seems wrong. By “wanting to die” all I meant was that the organsm engages in behaviour that leads to death. I wasn’t suggesting spiders and praying mantis exhibited very much abstract thought. A plant can “want to die”—in that sense of the word. However, it is non-biological idea—something we don’t expect to see much—and in fact don’t see much.
I doubt that. In my utility function as it is now, both eternal torture and ceasing to exist are at negative infinity, but the negative infinity of ceasing to exist is to that of eternal torture as the set of real numbers is to the set of integers.
Of course, that’s all besides the point from my original question.
This “utility function” is just an intellectual construct—I could even call it an ideological construct, the ideology being “I must not die, and I must not believe anything which might make me accept death, under any circumstances”—and has nothing to do with how you would actually choose under such harsh conditions. For that matter, the whole idea of literally never dying is not in any way evidence-based, it is pure existential determination.
You are unusual in having wilfully chosen both Christianity and transhumanist immortalism. I know another transhumanist who converted to Islam, so maybe this combination of traditional religion and secular techno-transcendence has a future sociologically.
I don’t think that’s meaningful. How’s that work mathematically?
I don’t think doing this with cardinality works. One could however has a system where one did have incomparable levels of utility using the surreal number system. One could for example use this to deal with the torture v. dust specs. However, this seems to lead to essentially smuggling in deontological moral claims into a utilitarian system.
Many others disagree with them.
That seems inaccurate in this case—it seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing for people to discuss—in the course of trying to find ways of mitigating the problem.
I don’t know the content of the basilisk (I’ve heard that it’s not a useful thing to know, in addition to being potentially stress inducing, so I do not want to want to know it,) so I’m not in much of a position to critique its similarity to knowledge of events like the Haiti earthquake. But given that we don’t have the capacity to shelter anyone from the knowledge of tragedy and human fragility, or eternal torment such as that proposed by religious traditions, failing to censor such concepts is not a sign of inconsistency.