It seems to me that the argument goes like this, at first:
There is a huge blob of computation; it is a 1-place function; it is identical to right.
This computation balances various values.
Our minds approximate that computation.
Even this little bit creates a lot of questions. I’ve been following Eliezer’s writings for the past little while, although I may well have missed some key point.
Why is this computation a 1-place function? Eliezer says at first “Here we are treating morality as a 1-place function.” and then jumps to “Since what’s right is a 1-place function...” without justifying that status.
What values does this computation balance? Why those values?
What reason do we have to believe that our minds approximate that computation?
Sorry if these are extremely basic questions that have been answered in other places, or even in this article—I’m trying and having a difficult time with understanding how Eliezer’s argument goes past these issues. Any help would be appreciated.
Maybe what’s really really right is an idealised form of the Big Blob of Computation. That would be moral realism (or a least species-level relativism).
Maybe it isn’t and everybody’s personal BBoC is where the moral buck stops. That would be subjectivism.
Those are two standard positions in metaethics. Nothing has been solved, because we don’t know which one is right, and nothing has been dissolved. The traditional problem has just been restated in more sciencey terms.
I’m going to need some help with this one.
It seems to me that the argument goes like this, at first:
There is a huge blob of computation; it is a 1-place function; it is identical to right.
This computation balances various values.
Our minds approximate that computation.
Even this little bit creates a lot of questions. I’ve been following Eliezer’s writings for the past little while, although I may well have missed some key point.
Why is this computation a 1-place function? Eliezer says at first “Here we are treating morality as a 1-place function.” and then jumps to “Since what’s right is a 1-place function...” without justifying that status.
What values does this computation balance? Why those values?
What reason do we have to believe that our minds approximate that computation?
Sorry if these are extremely basic questions that have been answered in other places, or even in this article—I’m trying and having a difficult time with understanding how Eliezer’s argument goes past these issues. Any help would be appreciated.
Maybe what’s really really right is an idealised form of the Big Blob of Computation. That would be moral realism (or a least species-level relativism).
Maybe it isn’t and everybody’s personal BBoC is where the moral buck stops. That would be subjectivism.
Those are two standard positions in metaethics. Nothing has been solved, because we don’t know which one is right, and nothing has been dissolved. The traditional problem has just been restated in more sciencey terms.