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CannibalSmith comments on Open Thread: April 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong
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Help me, LessWrong. I want to build a case for
These phrasings should mean the exact same thing. Correct me if they don't.
Elaboration: Most people readily agree that most information is good most of the time. I want to see if I can go all the way and build a convincing argument that all information is good all of the time, or as close to it as I can get. That misuse of information is problem about the misuser and not the information ("guns don't kill people"). Specific cases include: endangered species (DNA is best stored in living organisms), viruses (all three kinds), forbidden books, child pornography and other shocking information, free speech, Archive.org, The Rosetta Project, research on race.
Please post arguments and counterarguments in their own comments and separately from general discussion comments.
We cannot know what information we might need in the future, therefore we must gather as much as we can and preserve all of it. Especially since much (most?) of it cannot be recreated on demand.
That's not an argument for information as a terminal value since it depends on the consequences of information, but it's a decent argument for gathering and preserving information.
If that distinction exists, my three formulations are not identical. Yes?
Not sure. "Inherently good" could mean "good for its own sake, not good for a purpose", but it seems like it could also mean "by its very nature, it's (instrumentally) good". And the fact that you said "gather or preserve" makes me want to come up with a value system that only cares about gathering or only cares about preserving.
I'm not sure one couldn't find similarly sized semantic holes in anything, but there they are regardless.
Your 3 formulations should be identical. Here's your argument:
My first thought when I read this is, Why are we gathering information? The answer? Because we may need it in the future. What will we need it for? Presumably to attain some other (terminal) end, since if information was a terminal end the argument wouldn't be "we may need it in the future," it would be "we need it."
Maybe I am just misunderstanding you?