″… all our science and all our probability theory was built on top of a chain of appeals to our instinctive notion of “truth”.”
Our mental concept of “probability” may be based on our mental concept of “truth”, but that in turn is based on “what works”: we have a natural tendency (but only a tendency) to respect solid evidence and to consider well supported prepositions to be “true” due to evolution. Thus, our mental concept of “truth” is part the way down this chain; it’s not the source.
A similar argument can be made for morality. It’s a product of both genetic and cultural evolution. It’s what allowed us and our tribes to succeed: by loving our children, cooperating with our peers, avoiding a war with the neighbouring tribe if you could, and fighting against them if you had to.
Since then we have gone from isolated tribes to a vast interconnected global community due to rapidly changing technology. The evolution of our cultural morality, and even more so our instinctive morality, has not kept pace with the rate at which technology has been engineered. Loving your children and your neighbour are still very useful, but if your sense of fighting for your “tribe” risks turning into global nuclear war, that’s now a serious risk for the whole system. The solution then is to intelligently engineer our morality to ensure the successful and stable harmonious existence of ourselves as a global tribe.
″… all our science and all our probability theory was built on top of a chain of appeals to our instinctive notion of “truth”.”
Our mental concept of “probability” may be based on our mental concept of “truth”, but that in turn is based on “what works”: we have a natural tendency (but only a tendency) to respect solid evidence and to consider well supported prepositions to be “true” due to evolution. Thus, our mental concept of “truth” is part the way down this chain; it’s not the source.
A similar argument can be made for morality. It’s a product of both genetic and cultural evolution. It’s what allowed us and our tribes to succeed: by loving our children, cooperating with our peers, avoiding a war with the neighbouring tribe if you could, and fighting against them if you had to.
Since then we have gone from isolated tribes to a vast interconnected global community due to rapidly changing technology. The evolution of our cultural morality, and even more so our instinctive morality, has not kept pace with the rate at which technology has been engineered. Loving your children and your neighbour are still very useful, but if your sense of fighting for your “tribe” risks turning into global nuclear war, that’s now a serious risk for the whole system. The solution then is to intelligently engineer our morality to ensure the successful and stable harmonious existence of ourselves as a global tribe.