the anti-orthogonalist position [my position] is therefore that Omohundro drives [general instrumental goals] exhaust the domain of real purposes. Nature has never generated a terminal value except through hypertrophy of an instrumental value. To look outside nature for sovereign purposes is not an undertaking compatible with techno-scientific integrity
I remember being a young organism, struggling to answer the question, what’s the point, why do we exist. We all know what it is now, people tried to tell me, “to survive and reproduce”, but that answer didn’t resonate with any part of my being. They’d tell me what I was, and I wouldn’t even recognise it as familiar.
If our goals are hypertrophied versions of evolution’s instrumental goals, I’m fairly sure they’re going to stay fairly hypertrophied, maybe forever, and we should probably get used to it.
Any intelligence using itself to improve itself will out-compete one that directs itself towards any other goals whatsoever
Unless the ones with goals have more power, and can establish a stable monopoly on power (they do, and they might)
Can Nick Land at least conceive of a hypothetical universe where a faction fighting for non-omohudro values ended up winning, (and then presumably, using the energy they won to have a big non-omohundro value party that lasts until the heat death of the universe) is it that he just think that humans in particular, in their current configuration, are not strong enough for our story to end that way?
An agency can put its end-goals away for later, without pursuing them immediately, save them until it has its monopoly.
It’s not that difficult to imagine. Maybe an argument will come along that it’s just too hard to make a self-improving agency with a goal more complex than “understand your surroundings and keep yourself in motion”, but it’s a hell of a thing to settle for.
against orthogonality is interesting
I remember being a young organism, struggling to answer the question, what’s the point, why do we exist. We all know what it is now, people tried to tell me, “to survive and reproduce”, but that answer didn’t resonate with any part of my being. They’d tell me what I was, and I wouldn’t even recognise it as familiar.
If our goals are hypertrophied versions of evolution’s instrumental goals, I’m fairly sure they’re going to stay fairly hypertrophied, maybe forever, and we should probably get used to it.
Unless the ones with goals have more power, and can establish a stable monopoly on power (they do, and they might)
Can Nick Land at least conceive of a hypothetical universe where a faction fighting for non-omohudro values ended up winning, (and then presumably, using the energy they won to have a big non-omohundro value party that lasts until the heat death of the universe) is it that he just think that humans in particular, in their current configuration, are not strong enough for our story to end that way?
more than the ones optimizing for increasing their power? i find it doubtful.
An agency can put its end-goals away for later, without pursuing them immediately, save them until it has its monopoly.
It’s not that difficult to imagine. Maybe an argument will come along that it’s just too hard to make a self-improving agency with a goal more complex than “understand your surroundings and keep yourself in motion”, but it’s a hell of a thing to settle for.