Amanojack

Karma: 406

Amanojack May 25, 2011, 8:59 AM
1 point
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory

It is useful to talk about objective reality and objectively right or wrong beliefs most of the time, but when you really drill down there are only beliefs that predict my experience more reliably or less reliably

How do you know that?

Why do I think that is a useful phrasing? That would be a long post, but EY got the essential idea in Making Beliefs Pay Rent.

If disagreeing mean it is good to entertain useless beliefs, then no. If disagreeing means that instrumental utility is not the ultimate value , then yes.

Well, what use is your belief in “objective value”?

So it’s still true. Not caring is not refutation.

Ultimately, that is to say at a deep level of analysis, I am non-cognitive to words like “true” and “refute.” I would substitute “useful” and “show people why it is not useful,” respectively.

Amanojack May 25, 2011, 8:49 AM
0 points
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
Yeah, I said it’s not an argument. Yet again I can only ask, “So what?” (And this doesn’t make me amoral in the sense of not having moral sentiments. If you tell me me it is wrong to kill a dog for no reason, I will agree because I will interpret that as, “We both would be disgusted at the prospect of killing a dog for no reason.” But you seem to be saying there is something more.)

That doesn’t constitute an argument unless you can explain why your winning is the only thing that should matter.

The wordings “affect my winning” and “matter” mean the same thing to me. I take “The world is round” seriously because it matters for my actions. I do not see how “I’m morally in the wrong”* matters for my actions. (Nor how “I’m pan-galactically in the wrong” matters. )

*EDIT: in the sense that you seem to be using it (quite possibly because I don’t know what that sense even is!).

Amanojack May 25, 2011, 8:35 AM
0 points
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory

As far as objective value, I simply don’t understand what anyone means by the term.

Objective truth is what you should believe even if you don’t.

“Should” for what purpose?

Where the groundwork is about 90% of the job...

I certainly agree there. The question is whether it is more useful to assign the label “philosophy” to groundwork+theory or just the theory. A third possibility is that doing enough groundwork will make it clear to all discussants that there are no (or almost no) actually theories in what is now called “philosophy,” only groundwork, meaning we would all be in agreement and there is nothing to argue except definitions.

Imagine you are arguing with someone who doesn’t “get” rationality. If they believe in instrumental values, you can persuade they they should care about rationality because it will enable them to achieve their aims. If they don’t, you can’t.

I may not be able to convince them, but at least I would be trying to convince them on the grounds of helping them achieve their aims. It seems you’re saying that, in the present argument, you are not trying to help me achieve my aims (correct me if I’m wrong). This is what makes me curious about why you think I would care. The reasons I do participate, by the way, are that I hold out the chance that you have a reason why I would care (which maybe you are not articulating in a way that makes sense to me yet), that you or others will come to see my view that it’s all semantic confusion, and because I don’t want to sound dismissive or obstinate in continuing to say, “So what?”

Amanojack May 25, 2011, 8:18 AM
1 point
in reply to: endoself’s comment on: Metacontrarian Metaethics
Are you losing sleep over the daily deaths in Iraq? Are most LWers? That’s all I’m saying. I consider myself pretty far above-average empathy-wise, to the extent that if I saw someone be tortured and die I’d probably be completely changed as a person. If I spent more time thinking about the war I probably not be able to sleep at all, and eventually if I steeped myself in the reality of the situation I’d probably go insane or die of grief. The same would probably happen if I spent all my time watching slaughterhouse videos. So I’m not pretending to be callous. I’m just trying to inject some reality into the discussion. If we cared as much as we signal we do, no one would be able go to work, or post on LW. We’d all be too grief-stricken.

So although it depends on what exactly you mean by “unbounded utility function,” it seems that no one’s utility function is really unbounded. And it also isn’t immediately clear that anyone would really want their utility function to be unbounded (unless I’m misinterpreting the term).

Also, point taken about my scenario not being a Pascal’s mugging situation.

Amanojack May 25, 2011, 8:00 AM
0 points
in reply to: BobTheBob’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory

I took a slightly different tack, which is maybe moot given your admission to being a solipsist

Solipsism is an ontological stance: in short, “there is nothing out there but my own mind.” I am saying something slightly different: “To speak of there being something/nothing out there is meaningless to me unless I can see why to care.” Then again, I’d say this is tautological/obvious in that “meaning” just is “why it matters to me.”

My “position” (really a meta-position about philosophical positions) is just that language obscures what is going on. It may take a while to make this clear, but if we continue I’m sure it will be.

I’m assuming you subscribe to what you consider to be a rigorously scientific world-view

I’m not a naturalist. I’m not skeptical of “objective” because of such reasons; I am skeptical of it merely because I don’t know what the word refers to (unless it means something like “in accordance with consensus”). In the end, I engage in intellectual discourse in order to win, be happier, get what I want, get pleasure, maximize my utility, or whatever you’ll call it (I mean them all synonymously).

If after engaging in such discourse I am not able to do that, I will eventually want to ask, “So what? What difference does it make to my anticipations? How does this help me get what I want and/or avoid what I don’t want?”

Amanojack May 25, 2011, 7:37 AM
0 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory

For example, if you kill someone, then your fate is going to depend (probabilistically) on whether you were in the right (e.g. he attacked and you were defending your life) or in the wrong (e.g. you murdered him when he caught you burgling his house).

You’re interpreting “I’m morally in the wrong” to mean something like, “Other people will react badly to my actions,” in which case I fully agree with you that it would affect my winning. Peterdjones apparently does not mean it that way, though.

Amanojack May 25, 2011, 7:31 AM
0 points
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory

The fact that you are not going to worry about morality, does not make morality a) false b) meaningless or c) subjective. Can I take it you are no longer arguing for any of claims a) b) or c) ?

I’ve never argued (a), I’m still arguing (actually just informing you) that the words “objective morality” are meaningless to me, and I’m still arguing (c) but only in the sense that it is equivalent to (b): in other words, I can only await some argument that morality is objective. (But first I’d need a definition!)

You have not succeeded in showing that winning is the most important thing.

I’m using the word winning as a synonym for “getting what I want,” and I understand the most important thing to mean “what I care about most.” And I mean “want” and “care about” in a way that makes it tautological. Keep in mind I want other people to be happy, not suffer, etc. Nothing either of us have argued so far indicates we would necessarily have different moral sentiments about anything.

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 6:33 PM
3 points
on: What bothers you about Less Wrong?
I’d like to see more people questioning orthodox assumptions, and generally more radical arguments, yet without compromising LW standards of rigor. I feel like people are too afraid to stick their necks out and seriously argue something that goes against the majority/high-status views.

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 6:25 PM
2 points
on: How to (un)become a crank
I don’t like how much “crank” sounds like “heretic.” In EY’s case he kept trying to wage war on the established result even after he noticed his mistake, but the mere act of questioning—even publicly—an established result should not be called crankery.

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 6:12 PM
1 point
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory

You can choose to do wrong. But it doesn’t constitute any kind of argument.

Indeed it is not an argument. Yet I can still say, “So what?” I am not going to worry about something that has no effect on my happiness. If there is some way it would have an effect, then I’d care about it.

Someone can elect to ignore the roundness of the world for some perverse reason, but that doesn’t make ”!he world is round” false or meaningless or subjective.

The difference is, believing “The world is round” affects whether I win or not, whereas believing “I’m morally in the wrong” does not.

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 6:06 PM
1 point
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
First of all, I should disclose that I don’t find ultimately any kind of objectivism coherent, including “objective reality.” It is useful to talk about objective reality and objectively right or wrong beliefs most of the time, but when you really drill down there are only beliefs that predict my experience more reliably or less reliably. In the end, nothing else matters to me (nor, I expect, anyone else—if they understand what I’m getting at here).

You should be motivated by a desire to get things right in general. The anticipation thing is just a part of that. It’s not an ultimate

So you disagree with EY about making beliefs pay rent? Like, maybe some beliefs don’t pay rent but are still important? I just don’t see how that makes sense.

You should be moral by the definition of “moral”and “should”.

This seems circular.

If there is no personal gain from morality, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be moral.

What if I say, “So what?”

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 5:55 PM
11 points
0
in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Newcomb’s Problem and Regret of Rationality
Ultimately you either interpret “superintelligence” as being sufficient to predict your reaction with significant accuracy, or not. If not, the problem is just a straightforward probability question, as explained here, and becomes uninteresting.

Otherwise, if you interpret “superintelligence” as being sufficient to predict your reaction with significant accuracy (especially a high accuracy like >99.5%), the words of this sentence...

And the twist is that Omega has put a million dollars in box B iff Omega has predicted that you will take only box B.

...simply mean “One-box to win, with high confidence.”

Summary: After disambiguating “superintelligence” (making the belief that Omega is a superintelligence pay rent), Newcomb’s problem turns into either a straightforward probability question or a fairly simple issue of rearranging the words in equivalent ways to make the winning answer readily apparent.

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 4:42 PM
0 points
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
What if I don’t care about being wrong (if that’s really the only consequence I experience)? What if I just want to win?

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 4:38 PM
0 points
in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: Newcomb’s Problem and Regret of Rationality
Is there something wrong with my argument above?

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 4:26 PM
0 points
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
I’m not saying non-subjective value is contradictory, just that I don’t know what it could mean. To me “value” is a verb, and the noun form is just a nominalization of the verb, like the noun “taste” is a nominalization of the verb “taste.” Ayn Rand tried to say there was such a thing as objectively good taste, even of foods, music, etc. I didn’t understand what she meant either.

As for anticipations: believing morality is objective entails that some of your beliefs may be wrong by objective standards, and believing it is subjective does not entail that. So the belief in moral objectivity could lead to a revision of your aims and goals, which will in turn lead to different experiences.

But before I would even want to revise my aims and goals, I’d have to anticipate something different than I do now. What does “some of your beliefs may be wrong by objective standards” make me anticipate that would motivate me to change my goals? (This is the same as the question in the other comment: What penalty do I suffer by having the “wrong” moral sentiments?)

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 4:12 PM
0 points
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
I don’t claim moral sentiments are correct, but simply that a person’s moral sentiment is their moral sentiment. They feel some emotions, and that’s all I know. You are seeming to say there is some way those emotions can be correct or incorrect, but in what sense? Or probably a clearer way to ask the question is, “What disadvantage can I anticipate if my emotions are incorrect?”

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 3:55 PM
0 points
in reply to: endoself’s comment on: Metacontrarian Metaethics
I thought of a way that I could be mugged Pascal-style: If I had to watch even one simulated person being tortured in gratuitous, holodeck-level realistic detail even for a minute if I didn’t pay $5, I’d pay. I also wouldn’t self-modify to make me not care about seeing simulated humans tortured in such a way, because I’m afraid that would make my interactions with people I know and care about very strange. I wouldn’t want to be callous about witnessing people tortured, because I think it would take away part of my enjoyment of life. (And there are ways to amp up such scenarios to me it far worse, like if I were forced to torture to death 100 simulations of the people I most care about in a holodeck in order to save those actual people...that would probably have very bad consequences for me, and self-modifying so that I wouldn’t care would just make it worse.)

But let’s face it, the vast majority of people are indeed pretty callous about the actual deaths happening today, all the pain experienced by livestock as they’re slaughtered, and all the pain felt by chronic pain sufferers. People decry such things loudly, but few of those who aren’t directly connected to the victims are losing sleep over such suffering, even though there are actions they could conceivably take to mitigate it. It is uncomfortable to acknowledge, but it seems undeniable.

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 3:42 PM
0 points
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
“Morality is subjective”: Each person has their own moral sentiments.

“Morality is not subjective”: Each person does not have their own moral sentiments. Or there is something more than each person’s moral sentiments that is worth calling “moral.” <--- But I ask, what is that “something more”?

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 3:34 PM
2 points
in reply to: BobTheBob’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
As far as objective value, I simply don’t understand what anyone means by the term. And I think lukeprog’s point could be summed up as, “Trying to figure out how each discussant is defining their terms is not really ‘doing philosophy’; it’s just the groundwork necessary for people not to talk past each other.”

As far as making beliefs pay rent, a simpler way to put it is: If you say I should believe X but I can’t figure out what anticipations X entails, I will just respond, “So what?”

To unite the two themes: The ultimate definition would tell me why to care.

Amanojack May 23, 2011, 3:19 PM
0 points
in reply to: Peterdjones’s comment on: Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory
By incoherent I simply mean “I don’t know how to interpret the words.” So far no one seems to want to help me do that, so I can only await a coherent definition of objective ethics and related terms. Then possibly an argument could start. (But this is all like deja vu from the recent metaethics threads.)