I was thinking more in terms of moral concerns, so I should have specified to ignore health as well.
I think asking whether or not to value biodiversity is the same sort of question—it reduces to personal preference.
UnclGhost
Karma: 448
Related question: Independent of any ecological or economic concerns, should a rationalist be a vegetarian?
I attended a lecture by noted theologian Alvin Plantinga, about whether miracles are incompatible with science. Most of it was “science doesn’t say it’s impossible, so there’s still a chance, right?”-type arguments. However, later on, his main explanation for why it wasn’t impossible that God could intervene from outside a closed system and still not violate our laws of physics was that maybe God works through wavefunction collapse. Maybe God creates miracles by causing the right wavefunction collapses, resulting in, say, Jesus walking on water, rising from the dead, unscrambling eggs, etc.
Recalling this article, I wrote down and asked this question when the time came:
“The Many-Worlds Interpretation is currently [I said “currently” because he was complaining earlier about other philosophers misrepresenting modern science] one of the leading interpretations of quantum mechanics. The universe splits off at quantum events, but is still deterministic, and only appears probabilistic from the perspective of any given branch. Every one of the other branches still exists, including ones where Jesus doesn’t come back. If true, how does this affect your argument?”
I wanted to see if he would accept a falsifiable version of his belief. Unfortunately, he said something like “Oh, I don’t like that theory, I don’t know how it would work with a million versions of me out there” and ignored the “if” part of the question. (I would have liked to point this out, but the guy before me had abused his mic privileges so I had to give it back.)
(Also, is that a fair layman’s representation of many-worlds? I’m normally very wary of using any sort of quantum physics-based reasoning as a non-quantum physicist, but, well, he started it.)
Sheesh, who knew even productivity could be destroyed by the truth?
Doesn’t seem to work for me.
Looks like File > Exit works. Still, though, having to go to the File menu can work as a minor barrier to impulsiveness.
Also, AD, the saved session feature in Firefox 4 is kind of the opposite of Firefox 3--it asks you if you want to open your last session when you start, instead of asking if you want to save when you quit, in case you were wondering.
Sad but true. Often, I find that it helps to open a new window for things that I need to read, fill out, etc., because 1), it makes it harder to be distracted by the “fun” tabs I also have open, and 2), Firefox (at least) can’t save all of your tabs when you have two windows open, so you have to close one of them, and the “serious” window is a way to force yourself to finish everything in that window before you close your browser and do something else.
Having said that, LW usually takes up most of my saved “fun” tabs...
Maybe I should work on reducing the “value” part of the equation for distracting activities. (For example, reading negative reviews of “The Secret” on Amazon)
Maybe Superman doesn’t risk much when he goes around being heroic, but it takes a certain strength of morality for Superman not to take over the world and use it to his own ends.
I’ve seen it said here a lot that overconfidence is a problem, but so is underconfidence. If you think your certainty (or more ideally, near-certainty) is justified, and you can explain why with reasons, any social pressure to be less confident you might be perceiving would be misplaced.
Great example of ways to feel good without actually doing anything right here:
http://no2mininginpalawan.com/2011/04/01/5-ways-you-can-help-save-palawan-right-now/
To “come the uncle over someone” means, according to this highly-trustworthy-looking site, to “overdo your privilege of reproving or castigating” someone.
Sam Harris expands on his view of morality in his recent book The Moral Landscape, but it hardly addresses this question at all. I attended a talk he gave on the book and when an audience member asked whether it would be moral to just give everyone cocaine or some sort of pure happiness drug, Harris basically said “maybe.”
I contribute cycles, as part of team #186453 (Less Wrong).
Missing word in 28th paragraph—“A good (?) easier”.
Hi! I first came here a couple of months ago through MoR (through TV Tropes), which seems to have been a gateway drug of sorts for many of us here. Right now I’m reading my way through the sequences and other posts. I find it surprising how much difference it’s made in my thought processes in just the short time I’ve been reading to just have the Litany of Gendlin available and verbalized, or making my beliefs pay rent. I think I’ve always been very analytical, but the most helpful things I’ve read on Less Wrong so far have been ways to focus that analysis and make it useful. My biggest complaint so far has been finding my browser somehow full of unread but saved Less Wrong tabs every time I open it. How does that keep happening, I wonder...
I’m also one of the (presently, six) members of the Less Wrong Folding@Home team, in case you were wondering.
I haven’t read as much Vonnegut as I’d like to, but I read that theme of Cat’s Cradle as being closer to the disconnect “normal” people feel from scientists who are seen as not just inscrutable creators of technology but also moral authorities (reflected in characters like the secretary and general IIRC).
Mainly though, it’s less science-destroys-wonder and more directionless-science-destroys-everything, which no one will prevent if they don’t know they should. (I just read Three Worlds Collide today and the plot point introduced near the end about what happened with the mathematical constant is a more optimistic version of events for a similar discovery.) From what I have read of Vonnegut, the non-resentful characters are still non-resentful in order to convey part of the message, even if they are common.
Reminds me of the part of Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut where a couple of people in a bar are talking about how scientists have discovered the secret to life, which turns out to be “proteins.” If memory serves though, the characters aren’t rueful about this fact and resentful toward science for spoiling the mystery of the “rainbow” of life; rather, they’re just casually disinterested, as they would be if “scientists” had discovered a planet millions of lightyears away, since all they really know is that the password is “proteins.” I think their attitude may be more healthy than Keats’s, because if you’re going to not understand something, it makes more sense to be indifferent than resentful.
Something else that humans generally value is autonomy. Why not just make an optional colony of superhappiness?
Great post. I’ve had a similar idea for a while but didn’t realize just how far it could be generalized.
I especially noticed this idea while reading C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, which seems to posit the hierarchy as being something like “Belief in Christianity because of social pressures / Disbelief in Christianity because who needs social pressures / Belief in Christianity because of comprehension of its ‘true meaning’ (or something)”.
I guess when there are potentially a lot of layers of meta-contrarianism like in Matt_Simpson’s example, that can easily lead to strawman arguments when you try to argue against a higher-level even (or odd) number as if it was a lower-level even (or odd) number.