dclayh 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: dclayh 19 November 2009 08:16:40PM 8 points [-]

I should write a post at some point about how we should learn to be content with happiness instead of "true happiness", truth instead of "ultimate truth", purpose instead of "transcendental purpose", and morality instead of "objective morality".

When you put those together like that it occurs to me that they all share the feature of being provably final. I.e., when you have true happiness you can stop working on happiness; when you have ultimate truth you can stop looking for truth; when you know an objective morality you can stop thinking about morality. So humans are always striving to end striving.

(Of course whether they'd be happy if they actually ended striving is a different question, and one you've written eloquently about in the "fun theory" series.)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 November 2009 08:35:52PM 3 points [-]

That's actually an excellent way of thinking about it - perhaps the terms are not as meaningless as I thought.