I expected that this discussion would not achieve anything.
Simply put, the mistake both of you are making was already addressed by the meta-ethics sequence. But for a non-LW reference, see Speakers Use Their Actual Language. “Wrong” does not refer to “whatever ‘wrong’ means in our language at the time”. That would be circular. “Wrong” refers to some objective set of characteristics, that set being the same as those that we in reality disapprove of. Modulo logical uncertainty etc etc.
I expected this would not make sense to you since you can’t cash out objective characteristics in terms of predictive black boxes.
I expected that this discussion would not achieve anything.
Congratulations on a successful prediction. Of course, if you had made it before this conversation commenced, you could have saved us all the effort; next time you know something would fail, speaking up would be helpful.
Simply put, the mistake both of you are making was already addressed by the meta-ethics sequence. But for a non-LW reference, see Speakers Use Their Actual Language. “Wrong” does not refer to “whatever ‘wrong’ means in our language at the time”. That would be circular. “Wrong” refers to some objective set of characteristics, that set being the same as those that we in reality disapprove of. Modulo logical uncertainty etc etc.
I think shminux is claiming that this set of characteristics changes dynamically, and thus it is more useful to define “wrong” dynamically as well. I disagree, but then we already have a term for this (“unacceptable”) so why reurpose “wrong”?
I expected this would not make sense to you since you can’t cash out objective characteristics in terms of predictive black boxes.
Who does “you” refer to here? All participants in this discussion? Sminux only?
we already have a term for this (“unacceptable”) so why reurpose “wrong”?
Presumably shminux doesn’t consider it a repurposing, but rather an articulation of the word’s initial purpose.
next time you know something would fail, speaking up would be helpful.
Well, OK.
Using relative terms in absolute ways invites communication failure.
If I use “wrong” to denote a relationship between a particular act and a particular judge (as shminux does) but I only specify the act and leave the judge implicit (e.g., “murder is wrong”), I’m relying on my listener to have a shared model of the world in order for my meaning to get across. If I’m not comfortable relying on that, I do better to specify the judge I have in mind.
Presumably shminux doesn’t consider it a repurposing, but rather an articulation of the word’s initial purpose.
Is shiminux a native English speaker? Because that’s certainly not how the term is usually used. Ah well, he’s tapped out anyway.
Well, OK.
Using relative terms in absolute ways invites communication failure.
If I use “wrong” to denote a relationship between a particular act and a particular judge (as shminux does) but I only specify the act and leave the judge implicit (e.g., “murder is wrong”), I’m relying on my listener to have a shared model of the world in order for my meaning to get across. If I’m not comfortable relying on that, I do better to specify the judge I have in mind.
Oh, I can see why it failed—they were using the same term in different ways, each insisting their meaning was “correct”—I just meant you could use this knowledge to help avoid this ahead of time.
I just meant you could use this knowledge to help avoid this ahead of time.
I understand. I’m suggesting it in that context.
That is, I’m asserting now that “if I find myself in a conversation where such terms are being used and I have reason to believe the participants might not share implicit arguments, make the argumentsexplicit” is a good rule to follow in my next conversation.
Congratulations on a successful prediction. Of course, if you had made it before this conversation commenced, you could have saved us all the effort; next time you know something would fail, speaking up would be helpful.
Sorry. I guess I was feeling too cynical and discouraged at the time to think that such a thing would be helpful.
Who does “you” refer to here? All participants in this discussion? Sminux only?
In this case I meant to refer to only shminux, who calls himself an instrumentalist and does not like to talk about the territory (as opposed to AIXI-style predictive models).
I expected that this discussion would not achieve anything.
Simply put, the mistake both of you are making was already addressed by the meta-ethics sequence. But for a non-LW reference, see Speakers Use Their Actual Language. “Wrong” does not refer to “whatever ‘wrong’ means in our language at the time”. That would be circular. “Wrong” refers to some objective set of characteristics, that set being the same as those that we in reality disapprove of. Modulo logical uncertainty etc etc.
I expected this would not make sense to you since you can’t cash out objective characteristics in terms of predictive black boxes.
Congratulations on a successful prediction. Of course, if you had made it before this conversation commenced, you could have saved us all the effort; next time you know something would fail, speaking up would be helpful.
I think shminux is claiming that this set of characteristics changes dynamically, and thus it is more useful to define “wrong” dynamically as well. I disagree, but then we already have a term for this (“unacceptable”) so why reurpose “wrong”?
Who does “you” refer to here? All participants in this discussion? Sminux only?
Presumably shminux doesn’t consider it a repurposing, but rather an articulation of the word’s initial purpose.
Well, OK.
Using relative terms in absolute ways invites communication failure.
If I use “wrong” to denote a relationship between a particular act and a particular judge (as shminux does) but I only specify the act and leave the judge implicit (e.g., “murder is wrong”), I’m relying on my listener to have a shared model of the world in order for my meaning to get across. If I’m not comfortable relying on that, I do better to specify the judge I have in mind.
Is shiminux a native English speaker? Because that’s certainly not how the term is usually used. Ah well, he’s tapped out anyway.
Oh, I can see why it failed—they were using the same term in different ways, each insisting their meaning was “correct”—I just meant you could use this knowledge to help avoid this ahead of time.
I understand. I’m suggesting it in that context.
That is, I’m asserting now that “if I find myself in a conversation where such terms are being used and I have reason to believe the participants might not share implicit arguments, make the argumentsexplicit” is a good rule to follow in my next conversation.
Makes sense. Upvoted.
Sorry. I guess I was feeling too cynical and discouraged at the time to think that such a thing would be helpful.
In this case I meant to refer to only shminux, who calls himself an instrumentalist and does not like to talk about the territory (as opposed to AIXI-style predictive models).
You might have been right, at that. My prior for success here was clearly far too high.