Fixed now, sorry!
Julia_Galef
Karma: 1,049
New applied rationality workshops (April, May, and July)
Fixed! Thanks, I apparently didn’t understand how links worked in this system.
Not sure what kind of evidence you’re looking for here; that’s just a description of our selection criteria for attendees.
Preferring utilitarianism is a moral intuition, just like preferring Life Extension. The former’s a general intuition, the latter’s an intuition about a specific case.
So it’s not a priori clear which intuition to modify (general or specific) when the two conflict.
Right—I don’t claim any of my moral intuitions to be true or correct; I’m an error theorist, when it comes down to it.
But I do want my intuitions to be consistent with each other. So if I have the intuition that utility is the only thing I value for its own sake, and I have the intuition that Life Extension is better than Replacement, then something’s gotta give.
When our intuitions in a particular case contradict the moral theory we thought we held, we need some justification for amending the moral theory other than “I want to.”
I agree, and that’s why my intuition pushes me towards Life Extension. But how does that fact fit into utilitarianism? And if you’re diverging from utilitarianism, what are you replacing it with?
Excellent.
One doesn’t have to be better than the other. That’s what’s in dispute.
I think making this comparison is important philosophically, because of the implications our answer has for other utilitarian dilemmas, but it’s also important practically, in shaping our decisions about how to allocate our efforts to better the world.
Thanks—but if I’m reading your post correctly, your arguments hinge on the utility experienced in Life Extension being greater than that in Replacement. Is that right? If I stipulate that the utility is equal, would your answer change?
Ah, true! I edited it again to include the original setup, so that people will know what Logos01 and drethelin are referring to.
Thanks—I fixed the setup.
Life Extension versus Replacement
My framing was meant to be encouraging you to disproportionately question beliefs which, if false, make you worse off. But motivated skepticism is disproportionately questioning beliefs that you want to be false. That’s an important difference, I think.
Are you claiming that my version is also a form of motivated skepticism (perhaps a weaker form)? Or do you think my version’s fine, but that I need to make it clearer in the text how what I’m encouraging is different from motivated skepticism?
How rationality can make your life more awesome
Incidentally, the filmmaker didn’t capture my slide with the diagram of the revised model of rationality and emotions in ideal human* decision-making, so I’ve uploaded it.
The Straw Vulcan model of ideal human* decisionmaking: http://measureofdoubt.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/screen-shot-2011-11-26-at-3-58-00-pm.png
My revised model of ideal human* decisionmaking: http://measureofdoubt.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/screen-shot-2011-11-26-at-3-58-14-pm.png
*I realize now that I need this modifier, at least on Less Wrong!
Great point, in many cases, such as when you’re trying to decide what school to go to, and you make the decision deliberatively but taking into account the data from your intuitive reactions to the schools.
But in other cases, such as chess-playing, aren’t you mainly just deciding based on your System 1 judgments? (Admittedly I’m no chess player; that’s just my impression of how it works.)
I agree you need to use System 2 for your meta-judgment about which system to use in a particular context, but once you’ve made that meta-judgment, I think there are some cases in which you make the actual judgment based on System 1.
Am I correctly understanding your point?
Yup, I went through the same reasoning myself—I decided on “system 1” and “system 2″ for their neutral tone, and also because they’re Stanovich’s preferred terms.
If it makes you feel less hesitant, we’ve given refunds twice. One person at a workshop last year who said he’d expected polish and suits, and another who said he enjoyed it but wasn’t sure it was going to help enough with his current life situation to be worth it.