Discussion of beliefs that do not make observable predictions is unproductive (Making Beliefs Pay Rent), and discussion of beliefs that do not make ANY predictions about ANYTHING EVER is literally meaningless (the different versions of reality are not meaningfully distinguishable).
That said… ethics poses an exception to this rule, because although ethical beliefs don’t make predictions (for anything ever), they still have implications for how you should behave. This is entirely unique to ethical beliefs.
As much as I’d love to do away with the infinite rambling debates over predictionless beliefs, ethics stands in the way. They are beliefs that pay rent not in the currency of predictions to be used to achieve your goals, but in the form of the very goals themselves—an offer so irresistible to instrumental rationalists such as myself, that we will trample far past our ordinary epistemic boundaries to grasp at it.
Ethics is (infuriatingly) unique in this aspect.
Discussion of beliefs that do not make observable predictions is unproductive (Making Beliefs Pay Rent), and discussion of beliefs that do not make ANY predictions about ANYTHING EVER is literally meaningless (the different versions of reality are not meaningfully distinguishable).
That said… ethics poses an exception to this rule, because although ethical beliefs don’t make predictions (for anything ever), they still have implications for how you should behave. This is entirely unique to ethical beliefs.
As much as I’d love to do away with the infinite rambling debates over predictionless beliefs, ethics stands in the way. They are beliefs that pay rent not in the currency of predictions to be used to achieve your goals, but in the form of the very goals themselves—an offer so irresistible to instrumental rationalists such as myself, that we will trample far past our ordinary epistemic boundaries to grasp at it.