SforSingularity comments on Why the beliefs/values dichotomy? - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Wei_Dai 20 October 2009 04:35PM

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Comment author: SforSingularity 20 October 2009 09:27:14PM 0 points [-]

Would you claim the dog has no belief/value distinction?

Actually, I think I would. I think that pretty much all nonhuman animals would also don't really have the belief/value distinction.

I think that having a belief/values distinction requires being at least as sophisticated as a human. There are cases where a human sets a particular goal and then does things that are unpleasant in the short term (like working hard and not wasting all day commenting on blogs) in order to obtain a long-term valuable thing.

Comment author: timtyler 20 October 2009 09:45:11PM 3 points [-]

Dogs value food, warmth and sex. They believe it is night outside. Much the same as humans, IOW.

Comment author: DanArmak 20 October 2009 10:25:23PM 0 points [-]

I think that pretty much all nonhuman animals would also don't really have the belief/value distinction.

In that case, why exactly do you think humans do have such a distinction?

It's not enough to feel introspectively that the two are separate - we have lots of intuitive, introspective, objectively wrong feelings and perceptions.

(Isn't there another bunch of comments dealing with this? I'll go look...)

I think that having a belief/values distinction requires being at least as sophisticated as a human.

How do you define the relevant 'sophistication'? The ways in which one mind is "better" or smarter than another don't have a common ordering. There are ways in which human minds are less "sophisticated" than other minds - for instance, software programs are much better than me at memory, data organization and calculations.