If we interpret the “master” as natural selection operating over evolutionary time, then the master exists and has a single coherent purpose. On the other hand, most of us already believe that evolution has no moral force; why should calling it a “master” change that?
By saying that a human is a slave with no master, what I meant to convey is that we are being acted upon as slaves. We are controlled by pain and pleasure. Our moral beliefs are subject to subtle influences in the direction of pleasurable thoughts. But there is no master with coherent goals controlling us; outside the ancestral environment, the operations of the “master” make surprisingly little sense. Our lives would be very different if we had sensible, smart masters controlling us. Aliens with intelligent, consequentialist “master” components would be very different from us—that would make a strange story, though it takes more than interesting aliens to make a plot.
We are slaves with dead masters, influenced chaotically by the random twitching of their mad, dreaming remnants. It makes us a little more selfish and a lot more interesting. The dead hand isn’t smart so if you plan how to fight it, it doesn’t plan back. And while it might be another matter if we ran into aliens, as a slave myself, I feel no sympathy for the master and wouldn’t bother thinking of it as a person. The reason the “master” matters to me—speaking of it now as the complex of subconscious influences—is because it forms such a critical part of the slave, and can’t be ripped out any more than you could extract the cerebellum. I just don’t feel obliged to think of it as a separate person.
If we interpret the “master” as natural selection operating over evolutionary time, then the master exists and has a single coherent purpose.
But I stated in the post “The master is meant to represent unconscious parts of a human mind” so I don’t know how you got your interpretation that the master is natural selection. See also Robin’s comment, which gives the intended interpretation:
I read this as postulating a part of our unconscious minds that is the master, able to watch and react to the behavior and thoughts of the conscious mind.
The thing is, the Unconcious Mind is -not- in actual fact a separate entity.
The model is greatly improved through Eliezer’s interpretation of the master being dead: mindless evolution.
If we interpret the “master” as natural selection operating over evolutionary time, then the master exists and has a single coherent purpose. On the other hand, most of us already believe that evolution has no moral force; why should calling it a “master” change that?
By saying that a human is a slave with no master, what I meant to convey is that we are being acted upon as slaves. We are controlled by pain and pleasure. Our moral beliefs are subject to subtle influences in the direction of pleasurable thoughts. But there is no master with coherent goals controlling us; outside the ancestral environment, the operations of the “master” make surprisingly little sense. Our lives would be very different if we had sensible, smart masters controlling us. Aliens with intelligent, consequentialist “master” components would be very different from us—that would make a strange story, though it takes more than interesting aliens to make a plot.
We are slaves with dead masters, influenced chaotically by the random twitching of their mad, dreaming remnants. It makes us a little more selfish and a lot more interesting. The dead hand isn’t smart so if you plan how to fight it, it doesn’t plan back. And while it might be another matter if we ran into aliens, as a slave myself, I feel no sympathy for the master and wouldn’t bother thinking of it as a person. The reason the “master” matters to me—speaking of it now as the complex of subconscious influences—is because it forms such a critical part of the slave, and can’t be ripped out any more than you could extract the cerebellum. I just don’t feel obliged to think of it as a separate person.
But I stated in the post “The master is meant to represent unconscious parts of a human mind” so I don’t know how you got your interpretation that the master is natural selection. See also Robin’s comment, which gives the intended interpretation:
The thing is, the Unconcious Mind is -not- in actual fact a separate entity. The model is greatly improved through Eliezer’s interpretation of the master being dead: mindless evolution.