draq

Karma: −79

draq Oct 30, 2010, 7:51 PM
0 points
in reply to: Pavitra’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
I did read the article “No Universal Argument” you linked to and couldn’t find any convincing rebuttal to my arguments.

I just read “Making Beliefs Pay Rent” and if I got it right, then it says that science is good (and absolute) because it can predict things while normative theories don’t. That is a good point.

My belief in an absolute morality gives me the foundation to enquire moral problems. I’ll try to figure out what the “absoulute good” is and try to life my life according to that.

We can predict and explain the “decision-making” of inanimate objects using scientific theories. We can understand the decision-making of moral agents (humans) using normative theories (we might be able to predict their actions using scientific theories, but we won’t understand or *explain” it without normative theories).

What about alien intelligence? If we can establish an intersubjective consensus with them and we realise that they have a value system that we can understand, then we can use our own system of normative theories to understand and explain their “decision-making”.

If we can’t establish an intersubjective consensus with them, then we might be able to predict their actions using scientific theories, but we won’t be able to understand their “motives”. They would act according to an absolute AI-morality, to which we have no access lacking the intersubjective consensus with them.

To recap and rectify my argument: Intersubjective consensus of the physical world leads us to believe in an absolute physical reality. Intersubjective consensus of the moral/value world leads us to believe in an absolute morality. No intersubjective consensus—no belief in absolute whatever.

Maybe, and I believe, the moral world is an emergent property of the physical world. Thus, we might be able to use physical theories to predict the actions of moral agents within the physical world, but we won’t be able to fully understand it only using physical theories since these don’t capture the emergent properties (values, desires, dislikes, et cetera).

Therefore, morality is not as absolute as reality, but it is analogously absolute. (That is/might be a correction to my current position.)

So, if alien intelligence has a value system that we can understand, then we live within the same absolute morality. If alien intelligence acts based on some other emergent properties we cannot understand, then well, bad luck. (Another additon to my current position, thanks to this discussion.)

I can’t explain you to you. Point at your feet and say aloud, “You are here.”

That’s unfortunate, I thought you saw where I was coming from.

What is the Archimedean point of morality?

draqOct 29, 2010, 9:56 PM

−5 points

11 comments1 min readLW link

draq Oct 29, 2010, 9:41 PM
0 points
in reply to: David_Allen’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
What I meant to say is “morality is absolute as reality.” I hope that clears everything.

Given that I experience God or anything supernatural empirically and I can reasonably exclude that I am suffering from hallucinations, then it is more probable for me to believe that the phenomena was supernatural rather than an improbable quantum mechanical phenonemon. Maybe what I call God is actually Frud. Maybe God “is a tuna sandwich I once made that had a special property, it created the universe, past and future.” I don’t expect to realise all of God’s properties from a single experience.

Predictive power is not always required. Historians have quite a problem predicting things based on what they read on Caesar. You can’t thus say that there are no historical facts (fact as factual as in “objective” news reporting).

You point out a context that does not require predictive power, but you have not shown that this context is equivalent to testing for God’s existence empirically. Without a common context, your example is irrelevant to the issue.

I don’t get you. What is your understanding of “testing for God’s existence empirically?”

draq Oct 29, 2010, 7:47 PM
0 points
in reply to: Pavitra’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence

A sufficiently intelligent mind might deduce “Draq believes that the absolute morality is X”, but not “the absolute morality is X”.

Would you still agree with the argument if you substitute “morality” with “reality”?

As I repeatedly said, morality is as absolute or relative as reality. So if you don’t believe in an absolute reality either, then I can’t convince you, nor do I want to, since relativism/nihilism is a perfectly attainable position.

I just think that it is very arbitrary to say one exist and the other one is made up.

And it is not the way how we everyday life is. We live in a world where we subconsciously accept the world around us as (absolute) real, and we live in a world where we subcounsciously accept values as (absolute) real. If we value something, say “Pancakes are tasty/desirable”, then we automatically think “It matters, what we like”, which itself is a value.

Even if “it matters” is the only “moral” or mental perception we accept as absolute, then there is an absolute system.

“Something matters” cannot be explained descriptively (it does not have a meaning in physical terms), but has to be referred to within the value system. Therefore, the value system is self-referring and you cannot reduce it to sensory perception or scientific explanations.

Since we perceive both values and physical phenomena, I wonder why we regard one as absolute and the other one as relative.

Ah, I see where you’re coming from.

By the way, where am I coming from?

draq Oct 29, 2010, 5:59 PM
0 points
in reply to: David_Allen’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence

Using that defintion, morality isn’t as absolute as physical reality.

Again, as I said, under your definition of absolute, which is that reality is absolute, I agree with your disapproval of my belief in absolute morality since morality is of a different quality than reality.

Our physical reality appears to be the common context that everything shares within our universe.

Your definition of absolute is plausible, but I do not share it. I think that mental phenomena exist independently from the physical world.

What makes me believe it? If I believe that mental phenomena vanish without the natural world, I could equally believe that the natural phenomena vanish without my mind (or “mental world”). To believe that one provides the context for the other is, I believe, an arbitrary choice. Therefore, I believe in their independent existence.

Concerning God. For many people, the God hypothesis is more than just to believe that the universe is created by some distant creator who does nothing else. God also intervenes into the world. So it is possible to test God’s existence empirically. And for many Christians, this is apparently happening. Spend enough time with them, and they will tell you fantastic stories.

Personally, I don’t believe in God.
What links here?
- David_Allen's comment on What is the Archimedean point of morality? by draq (Nov 2, 2010, 7:31 PM; 0 points)

draq Oct 29, 2010, 5:18 PM
−5 points
in reply to: grouchymusicologist’s comment on: The spam must end
Thanking for suggesting to cut off my voice.

draq Oct 29, 2010, 3:30 PM
0 points
in reply to: Pavitra’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
Relevance is a good point.

Changing or stop having desires damages my belief in an absolute morality as much as changing or stop having sensory perception damages my belief in an absolute reality.

My belief in an absolute morality is as strong or as weak as my belief in my absolute reality. It doesn’t matter whether morality or reality really exists, but that we treat them similarly. It is slightly dissonant to conduct science as if it exists, but to become relativist when arguing about morality.

In the end, it is not what we should believe, but how our thinking work. When thinking about anything normative, we automatically presume absolute morality. At least, we believe that arguments have to be logically consisted, and even if that is the only absolute thing we believe in, it would be absolute morality. Otherwise, we are nihilist, which is certainly an attainable position.

Concerning relevance: Using the same line of argument, there are also “absolute cuteness”, “absolute beauty” and other “absolute things” (if we have a perception of them and there is some intersubjective consensus). They are probably somehow related to absolute morality, they may be subsets of a bigger system, since they are all mental phenomena. They are relevant to varying degrees, while morality and reality are two absolute things, that matter us a lot, unless we are nihilist.

draq Oct 29, 2010, 3:14 PM
0 points
in reply to: jimrandomh’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
Substitute “moral system” with “reality”. Would you still agree with it?

draq Oct 28, 2010, 7:23 PM
0 points
in reply to: David_Allen’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence

So morality can’t applied to all contexts, and so in that sense it can’t be absolute.

I’m not sure how to answer this. What do you mean by “absolute”.

In the same sense you used to deny the existence of absolute morality.

Does this make physical reality absolute to you?

Using that defintion, morality isn’t as absolute as physical reality. Morality then only applies to self-reflective level-3 intelligence (cf that comment of mine).

But why do you believe that everything happens within the context of physical reality?

Let me present you the Cartesian view (cf Mind-body dichotomy):

Mental phenomena and physical phenomena are in two different domains. Human beings exist in both due to “God” (who, for our purpose, does nothing else, so there is no way to test God empirically). In this view, God is the absolute context, while the physical reality isn’t.

So is there any convincing reason why I should think that the physical reality instead of God is absolute, other than the fact that many clever people think that way. I don’t want to believe in an absolute system based on the majority opinion.

draq Oct 28, 2010, 6:57 PM
1 point
on: What hardcore singularity believers should consider doing
So we presume that all members of SIAI want to live forever? Maybe someone enjoys sex more than longevity.

draq Oct 28, 2010, 5:38 PM
0 points
in reply to: NihilCredo’s comment on: Morality is as real as the physical world.
I have edited my post in such a way that the terms are now more clear.

If moral system is a normative theory, then there are many.

If moral system is morality, then there is only one.

draq Oct 28, 2010, 5:13 PM
0 points
in reply to: David_Allen’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
Is there anything absolute according to your defintion?

Are numbers absolute? I can think of a context, where numbers are meaningless. E.g. if I am talking about Picasso.

Is the physical reality absolute? I can think of a context where the physical reality isn’t absolute. For example, if I am thinking of numbers.

draq Oct 28, 2010, 5:03 PM
0 points
in reply to: AlexMennen’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
I feel that killing innocent children without any benefit is wrong. I reason about it, and within my normative system, it makes sense to believe that is absolute moral, and not just mere opinion.

I see through a telescope a bright spot in the sky. I think it is the planet Saturn. I reason about it and within my system of physical theories, it makes sense to believe that is absolute real, and not just mere opinion.

draq Oct 27, 2010, 10:30 PM
−3 points
in reply to: jimrandomh’s comment on: Morality is as real as the physical world.
1) The fact that we do not have a near-universal agreement now does not mean that we won’t have one in future. It also does not mean that there is no one correct answer.

2) What you are saying is that currently we are not very precise, or not as precise as natural science. That doesn’t mean that we are not going to be closer to the correct answer in the future.

3a) Analogously, if we compare different viewpoints about the natural world and looks for the common, then there is also very little we can agree on. Maybe only on a few parameters like colour, form and number. Or even less.

3b) What if there are lifeforms that exist (are evolutionary successful) without any concepts of mathematics and visual perception? What if they have nothing in common wahtsoever with us? Is our physical reality also just as “relative” as our morality?

4) There are differences between the natural world and the normative world. I am certainly not implying that the normative world has the same qualities as the natural world and that you can explore the normative world in the same way as you explore the natural world. So please understand my references to natural science as vague analogies only.

5) You can read my post as a defence for an absolute morality or as an attack against an absolute physical reality. I feel that people on this website are easily ready to attack the notion of an absolute morality, while taking an absolute physical reality as self-evident.

6) Maybe neither the natural world nor the normative world is absolute and as total sceptics, we all become solipsist. But in our everyday life, when we are too busy with the details of life to be sceptic, we subconsciously assume the natural world to be real. In the same way, we can handle the normative world “as if” real, just because its useful and fun.

Morality is as real as the physical world.

draqOct 27, 2010, 8:55 PM

−13 points

4 comments2 min readLW link

draq Oct 27, 2010, 7:59 PM
1 point
in reply to: Pavitra’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
I believe in an absolute moral system as much as I believe in the rules of mathematics and other ideas. We can debate whether ideas (or the physical reality for that matter) exist in the absence of a mind, but I guess that is not the point.

As long as we have values, desires, dislikes and make judgements (which all of us do and which maybe is a defining characteristic of the human being beyond the biological basics) and if we want to put these values into a logical consistent system, we have an absolute moral system.

So if I stop having any desires and stop making any judgements, then I may still believe in a moral system, as much as an agnostic won’t deny the existence of God, but it would be totally irrelevant to me.

draq Oct 27, 2010, 3:38 PM
−3 points
in reply to: AlexMennen’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
As you know, there are different “valid” set of theories regarding the physical reality: the biblical view, the theories underlying TCM, the theories underlying homeopathy, the theories underlying chiropractise and the scientific view. The scientific view is well-established because there is an intersubjective consensus on the usefulness of the methodology.

The methods used in moral discussions are by far not so rigidly defined as in science, it’s called civil discourse. The arguments must be logical consistent and the outcomes and conclusions of the normative theory must face the empirical challenge, i.e. if you can derive from your moral system that it is permissible to kill innocent children without any benefits, then there is probably something wrong.

draq Oct 26, 2010, 10:02 PM
0 points
in reply to: AlexMennen’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
If I understand correctly what you are saying, then the answer is no.

Morality is the system of normative rules in contrast to the system of descriptive theories that we use to understand our physical world..

draq Oct 26, 2010, 10:00 PM
−1 points
in reply to: Pavitra’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
What form of evidence or argument would persuade you to change your mind on the usefulness/validity of falsification?

What form of evidence or argument would persuade you to change your mind on your understanding of the physical reality?

draq Oct 26, 2010, 8:07 PM
0 points
in reply to: Emile’s comment on: Levels of Intelligence
Well, the absolute moral system I meant does encompass everything, incl. AI and alien intelligence. It is true that different moral problems require different solutions, that is also true to physics. Objects in vacuum behave differently than in the atmosphere. Water behaves differently than ice, but they are all governed by the same physics, so I assume.

A similar problem may have a different solution if the situation is different. An Edo-ero samurai and a Wall Street banker may behave perfectly moral even if they act differently to the same problem due to the social environment.

Maybe it is perfectly moral for AIs to kill and annihilate all humans, as much as it is perfectly possible that 218 of Russell’s teapots are revolving around Gliese 581 g.

That doesn’t sound like a very good reason to believe something.

Well, I formulated it wrongly. I meant that all answers are logically consistent. There might be more than one answer, but they do not contradict each other. So there is only one set of logically consistent answers. Otherwise, it becomes absurd.

draq

What is the Archimedean point of moral­ity?

Mo­ral­ity is as real as the phys­i­cal world.

What is the Archimedean point of morality?

Morality is as real as the physical world.