Discarding false mathematical and scientific conjectures is indeed much easier than discarding false moral conjectures. However, as Eliezer pointed out in an earlier post, a scientist who can come up with a hypothesis that has a 10% chance of being true has already gone most of the way from ignorance to knowledge. I would argue that hypothesis generation is a poorly-understood nonrational process in all three cases. A mathematician who believes he has found truth can undertake the further steps of writing a formal proof and submitting his work to public review, greatly improving his reliability. A man confronted with a moral dilemma must make a decision and move on.
I think that the universal tendency towards religion is indeed evidence in favor of the existence of God, but not very strong evidence. The adaptive advantage of discerning correct metaphysics was minimal in the ancestral environment.
Richard C:
I think if you try to use your “general capacity for systematizing judgments” to make moral decisions, you’ll restrict yourself to moral systems which are fully accessible to human reason.
Robin:
Discarding false mathematical and scientific conjectures is indeed much easier than discarding false moral conjectures. However, as Eliezer pointed out in an earlier post, a scientist who can come up with a hypothesis that has a 10% chance of being true has already gone most of the way from ignorance to knowledge. I would argue that hypothesis generation is a poorly-understood nonrational process in all three cases. A mathematician who believes he has found truth can undertake the further steps of writing a formal proof and submitting his work to public review, greatly improving his reliability. A man confronted with a moral dilemma must make a decision and move on.
I think that the universal tendency towards religion is indeed evidence in favor of the existence of God, but not very strong evidence. The adaptive advantage of discerning correct metaphysics was minimal in the ancestral environment.
Richard C:
I think if you try to use your “general capacity for systematizing judgments” to make moral decisions, you’ll restrict yourself to moral systems which are fully accessible to human reason.