the meta level of thinking about whether what you’re doing makes sense.
Wouldn’t that imply human life as we currently live it makes sense, with coherent terminal goals, neat ways of getting subgoals from the terminal goals, and a full awareness of both those things for everyone?
I don’t see how Nancy’s comment implies the existence of known or set goals and strategies. Even without knowing what societies goals will be in the future, there are certainly instrumental values that will probably be highly valued (general honesty, restraint from casual physical violence, etc.). Likewise, without knowing what specifically my children will value, I can teach them some basic skills that will likely be useful for getting what they value (and of course, teaching instrumental skills also increases the likelihood that the child will grow to value things that utilize those skills anyway).
Wouldn’t that imply human life as we currently live it makes sense, with coherent terminal goals, neat ways of getting subgoals from the terminal goals, and a full awareness of both those things for everyone?
I don’t see how Nancy’s comment implies the existence of known or set goals and strategies. Even without knowing what societies goals will be in the future, there are certainly instrumental values that will probably be highly valued (general honesty, restraint from casual physical violence, etc.). Likewise, without knowing what specifically my children will value, I can teach them some basic skills that will likely be useful for getting what they value (and of course, teaching instrumental skills also increases the likelihood that the child will grow to value things that utilize those skills anyway).