Interesting. The main thing that pops out for me is that it feels like your story is descriptive while we try to be normative? I.e. it’s not clear to me from what you say whether you would recommend to humans to act in this cooperative way towards distant aliens, but you seem to expect that they will do/are doing so. Meanwhile, I would claim that we should act cooperatively in this way but make no claims about whether humans actually do so.
Does that seem right to you or am I misunderstanding your point?
My arguments attempts to provide a descriptive explanation of why all evolved intelligence do have a tendency towards ECL, but it provide no basis to argue such intelligence should have such a tendency in a normative sense.
Still somehow as an individual (with such tendencies), I find the idea that other distant intelligence will also have a tendency towards ECL does provide some personal motivation. I don’t feel like such a “sucker” if I spend energy on an activity like this, since I know others will to, and it is only “fair” that I contribute my share.
Notice, I still have a suspicion that this way of thinking in myself is a product of my descriptive explanation. But that does not diminish the personal motivation is provides me.
In this end, this is still not really a normative explanation. At best is could be a MOTIVATING explanation, for the normative behavior you are hoping for.
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For me, however, the main reason I like such a descriptive explanation is that it feels like it could one day be proved true. We could potentially verify that ECL follows from evolution as a statement about the inherent and objective nature of the universe. Such objective statements are of great interest to me, as they feel like I am understanding a part of reality itself.
Interesting. The main thing that pops out for me is that it feels like your story is descriptive while we try to be normative? I.e. it’s not clear to me from what you say whether you would recommend to humans to act in this cooperative way towards distant aliens, but you seem to expect that they will do/are doing so. Meanwhile, I would claim that we should act cooperatively in this way but make no claims about whether humans actually do so.
Does that seem right to you or am I misunderstanding your point?
Chi, I think that is correct.
My arguments attempts to provide a descriptive explanation of why all evolved intelligence do have a tendency towards ECL, but it provide no basis to argue such intelligence should have such a tendency in a normative sense.
Still somehow as an individual (with such tendencies), I find the idea that other distant intelligence will also have a tendency towards ECL does provide some personal motivation. I don’t feel like such a “sucker” if I spend energy on an activity like this, since I know others will to, and it is only “fair” that I contribute my share.
Notice, I still have a suspicion that this way of thinking in myself is a product of my descriptive explanation. But that does not diminish the personal motivation is provides me.
In this end, this is still not really a normative explanation. At best is could be a MOTIVATING explanation, for the normative behavior you are hoping for.
~
For me, however, the main reason I like such a descriptive explanation is that it feels like it could one day be proved true. We could potentially verify that ECL follows from evolution as a statement about the inherent and objective nature of the universe. Such objective statements are of great interest to me, as they feel like I am understanding a part of reality itself.
Interesting topic!