First, I agree with you that trying to ignore time or designing agents that are time-independent is probably not that sensible since time is a fundamental aspect of the world created by our experience of it. I think the current reasons for preferring this, though, is that it offers a way to solve some tricky decision theory problems that need solving if we were to build a maximizing agent and want it to be aligned.
Second, on the issue of the project of determining what makes us happy or how humans measure value, I recommend the work of the Qualia Research Institute. I’m not sure they have the answer yet, but they are working on the issue.
Finally, as to the hard problem of consciousness, my own suspicion is that this problem doesn’t really exist and instead masks a different problem we might call the hard problem of existence, i.e. why does anything exist? I actually think we might have an answer for that, too, but it’s not very satisfying. I’ve not taken the time to write up my thoughts on this issue specifically but you can find the foundations of where my thinking will go on this topic in my introduction to noematology.
Couple of comments.
First, I agree with you that trying to ignore time or designing agents that are time-independent is probably not that sensible since time is a fundamental aspect of the world created by our experience of it. I think the current reasons for preferring this, though, is that it offers a way to solve some tricky decision theory problems that need solving if we were to build a maximizing agent and want it to be aligned.
Second, on the issue of the project of determining what makes us happy or how humans measure value, I recommend the work of the Qualia Research Institute. I’m not sure they have the answer yet, but they are working on the issue.
Finally, as to the hard problem of consciousness, my own suspicion is that this problem doesn’t really exist and instead masks a different problem we might call the hard problem of existence, i.e. why does anything exist? I actually think we might have an answer for that, too, but it’s not very satisfying. I’ve not taken the time to write up my thoughts on this issue specifically but you can find the foundations of where my thinking will go on this topic in my introduction to noematology.