This is something I’ve thought about recently. Even if you cannot identify your goals, you still have to make choices. The difficult part is in determining the distribution of possible M. In the end, I think the best I’ve been able to do is to follow convergent instrumental goals that will maximize the probability of fulfilling any goal, regardless of the actual distribution of goals. It is necessary to let go of any ego as well, since you cannot care about yourself more than another person if you don’t care about anything, now can you?
Yeah, I think for general activities we can make a list of things that have a positive utilities for most cases. For example:
Always care about your health and life. It is a base of everything. You can’t do much if you are sick or dead.
Don’t do anything illegal. You can’t do much if you are in prison.
Keep good relationships with everybody if that does not take much effort. Social status and connections are useful for almost anything.
Money and time is a universal currency. Try to maximize your hourly income, but leave enough space for other things from the list.
Keep your mind in a good shape. Mind degradation can be very fast if you don’t care. And you need it for rationality.
Spend some time for research of the M problem. Not too much because you will lose other items from list, but enough to make progress otherwise you will spend all your life in this goal-less loop and end regretting that you never spent enough effort to break out.
This is something I’ve thought about recently. Even if you cannot identify your goals, you still have to make choices. The difficult part is in determining the distribution of possible M. In the end, I think the best I’ve been able to do is to follow convergent instrumental goals that will maximize the probability of fulfilling any goal, regardless of the actual distribution of goals. It is necessary to let go of any ego as well, since you cannot care about yourself more than another person if you don’t care about anything, now can you?
Yeah, I think for general activities we can make a list of things that have a positive utilities for most cases. For example:
Always care about your health and life. It is a base of everything. You can’t do much if you are sick or dead.
Don’t do anything illegal. You can’t do much if you are in prison.
Keep good relationships with everybody if that does not take much effort. Social status and connections are useful for almost anything.
Money and time is a universal currency. Try to maximize your hourly income, but leave enough space for other things from the list.
Keep your mind in a good shape. Mind degradation can be very fast if you don’t care. And you need it for rationality.
Spend some time for research of the M problem. Not too much because you will lose other items from list, but enough to make progress otherwise you will spend all your life in this goal-less loop and end regretting that you never spent enough effort to break out.
etc. I think this can be a very wide list.