Be cautious with sequences-style “words don’t matter, only anticipations matter.” (At least, this is an impression I got from the sequences, and could probably back this up.) Words do matter insofar as they affect how your internal values bind. If you decide that… (searches for non-political example) monkeys count as “people”, that will substantially affect your future decisions via e.g. changing your internal “person” predicate, which in turn will change how different downstream shards activate (like “if person harmed, be less likely to execute plan”, at a very simple gloss). All this, even though you don’t anticipate any different experiences.
EDIT: The sequences do indeed mark this consideration to some extent:
Or consider the fight to blend together blacks and whites as “people.” This would not be a time to generate two words—what’s at stake is exactly the idea that you shouldn’t draw a moral distinction.
even though you don’t anticipate any different experiences.
You probably do, though! Thinking of a monkey as a “person” means using your beliefs about persons-in-general to make predictions about aspects of the monkey that you haven’t observed.
Be cautious with sequences-style “words don’t matter, only anticipations matter.” (At least, this is an impression I got from the sequences, and could probably back this up.) Words do matter insofar as they affect how your internal values bind. If you decide that… (searches for non-political example) monkeys count as “people”, that will substantially affect your future decisions via e.g. changing your internal “person” predicate, which in turn will change how different downstream shards activate (like “if person harmed, be less likely to execute plan”, at a very simple gloss). All this, even though you don’t anticipate any different experiences.
EDIT: The sequences do indeed mark this consideration to some extent:
You probably do, though! Thinking of a monkey as a “person” means using your beliefs about persons-in-general to make predictions about aspects of the monkey that you haven’t observed.
Right, good point!