I donât think Scott is claiming itâs arbitrary, I think heâs claiming itâs subjective, which is to say instrumental. As Eliezer kept pointing out in the morality debates, subjective things are objective if you close over the observerâhuman (ie. specific humansâ) morality is subjective, but not arbitrary, and certainly not unknowable.
But also I donât think that phylo categorization is stronger per se than niche categorization in predicting animal behavior, especially when it comes to relatively mutable properties like food consumption. Behavior, body shape etc are downstream of genes, but genes are cyclical with niche. And a lot of animals select their food opportunistically.
Phylo reveals information that niche doesnât. But niche also reveals information that is much harder to predict from phylo. I think Scottâs objection goes against the absolutizing claim that âphylo is all you need.â
I donât think Scott is claiming itâs arbitrary, I think heâs claiming itâs subjective, which is to say instrumental. As Eliezer kept pointing out in the morality debates, subjective things are objective if you close over the observerâhuman (ie. specific humansâ) morality is subjective, but not arbitrary, and certainly not unknowable.
But also I donât think that phylo categorization is stronger per se than niche categorization in predicting animal behavior, especially when it comes to relatively mutable properties like food consumption. Behavior, body shape etc are downstream of genes, but genes are cyclical with niche. And a lot of animals select their food opportunistically.
Phylo reveals information that niche doesnât. But niche also reveals information that is much harder to predict from phylo. I think Scottâs objection goes against the absolutizing claim that âphylo is all you need.â