I notice that such terms as “real”, “objective” and their opposites are pretty bad at capturing the nuances of philosophical positions. It’s one of the issues of conventional philosophy, the lexicon is flawed thus there are these endless arguments about definitions.
Classical LW framework of map-territory distinction is more helpful here. Some elements of the map can be wrong—have no referent on the territory and serve no utility. Some can directly (1 to 1) reference the elements of the territory. Some can reference the elements of more detailed maps, be useful and make sense in the context of a map, have some kind of referent on the territory in principle, but in a convoluted way.
This framework isn’t perfect. But it’s better. Less wrong, if you will. And this is my general experience as a person who has been engaged with philosophy since my early teens. LW philosophy just seems to be generally better at actually resolving confusion.
Anyway. Here are couple of mistakes that you make.
We can’t accept that morality is real the same way we assume that reality is real. With reality we have an optimisation process, ensuring that our senses correspond to the outer world. With morality—not so much. There is no causal history to explain why our ethical feelings would correspond to some external moral truths of the universe.
Also, not sure whether you are already biting this bullet or not, but you have the same reasons to assume that aesthetics is real as with ethics.
As for zombie argument and qualia inversion, it was already mentioned in the comments that they are begging the question. Your attempt to make a stronger non-epiphenomenal version of zombism also fails. As soon as you add a new physical law that makes zombies behave as if they are consciousness without actually having consciousness in a zombie world, you have destroyed the symmetry between two words. Now we can’t say that they are physically the same. Btw, Eliezer mentioned this case, calling it zombie master.
I notice that such terms as “real”, “objective” and their opposites are pretty bad at capturing the nuances of philosophical positions. It’s one of the issues of conventional philosophy, the lexicon is flawed thus there are these endless arguments about definitions.
Classical LW framework of map-territory distinction is more helpful here. Some elements of the map can be wrong—have no referent on the territory and serve no utility. Some can directly (1 to 1) reference the elements of the territory. Some can reference the elements of more detailed maps, be useful and make sense in the context of a map, have some kind of referent on the territory in principle, but in a convoluted way.
This framework isn’t perfect. But it’s better. Less wrong, if you will. And this is my general experience as a person who has been engaged with philosophy since my early teens. LW philosophy just seems to be generally better at actually resolving confusion.
Anyway. Here are couple of mistakes that you make.
We can’t accept that morality is real the same way we assume that reality is real. With reality we have an optimisation process, ensuring that our senses correspond to the outer world. With morality—not so much. There is no causal history to explain why our ethical feelings would correspond to some external moral truths of the universe.
Also, not sure whether you are already biting this bullet or not, but you have the same reasons to assume that aesthetics is real as with ethics.
As for zombie argument and qualia inversion, it was already mentioned in the comments that they are begging the question. Your attempt to make a stronger non-epiphenomenal version of zombism also fails. As soon as you add a new physical law that makes zombies behave as if they are consciousness without actually having consciousness in a zombie world, you have destroyed the symmetry between two words. Now we can’t say that they are physically the same. Btw, Eliezer mentioned this case, calling it zombie master.