RobinZ comments on A Less Wrong singularity article? - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 17 November 2009 02:15PM

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Comment author: RobinZ 19 November 2009 12:57:06AM 2 points [-]

The problem here is that "should" is already bound fairly tightly to certain concepts, no matter what sort of verbal definitions people think they're deploying, and if they expand the verbal label beyond that, it has consequences for e.g. how they think aliens and AIs will work, and consequences for how they emotionally experience their own moralities.

I see, and that is an excellent point. Daniel Dennett has taken a similar attitude towards qualia, if I interpret you correctly - he argues that the idea of qualia is so inextricably bound with its standard properties (his list goes ineffable, intrinsic, private, and directly or immediately apprehensible by the consciousness) that to describe a phenomenon lacking those properties by that term is as wrongheaded as using the term elan vital to refer to DNA.

I withdraw my implied criticism.