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byrnema comments on The Wannabe Rational - Less Wrong
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I'm not sure to what extent terminal values can be chosen or not, but it seems to me that (the following slightly different than what you were describing) if you become absolutely convinced that your values aren't important, then it would be difficult to continue thinking your values are important. Maybe the fact that I can't be convinced of the unimportance of my values explains why I can't really be convinced there's no Framework of Objective Value, since my brain keeps outputting that this would make my values unimportant. But maybe, by the end of this thread, my brain will stop outputting that. I'm willing to do the necessary mental work.
By the way, Furcas seemed to understand the negation of value I'm experiencing via an analogy of solipsism.
One last time, importance ≠ universality.
If we had been Babyeaters, we would think that eating babies is the right-B thing to do. This doesn't in any way imply we should be enthusiastic or even blasé about baby-eating, because we value the right thing, not the right-B thing that expresses the Babyeaters' morality!
I understand that you can't imagine a value being important without it being completely objective and universal. But you can start by admitting that the concept of important-to-you value is at least distinct from the concept of an objective or universal value!
Imagine first that there is an objective value that you just don't care about. Easy, right? Next, imagine that there is something you care about, deeply, that just isn't an objective value, but which your world would be awful/bland/horrifying without. Now give yourself permission to care about that thing anyway.
This the best (very) short guide to naturalistic metaethics I've read so far.
This is very helpful. The only thing I would clarify is that the lesson I need to learn is that importance ≠ objectivity. (I'm not at all concerned about universality.)
I'm not sure. With a squirrel in the universe, I would have thought the universe was better with more nuts than with less. I can understand there being no objective value, but I can't understand objective value being causally or meaningfully distinct from the subjective value.
Hm. I have no problem with 'permission'. I just find that I don't care about caring about it. If it's not actually horrible, then let the universe fill up with it! My impression is that intellectually (not viscerally, of course) I fail to weight my subjective view of things. If some mathematical proof really convinced me that something I thought subjectively horrible was objectively good, I think I would start liking it.
(The only issue, that I mentioned before, is that a sense of moral responsibility would prevent me from being convinced by a mathematical proof to suddenly acquire beliefs that would cause me to do something I've already learned is immoral. I would have to consider the probability that I'm insane or hallucinating the proof, etc.)