CannibalSmith comments on Open Thread: April 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Unnamed 08 April 2010 03:09AM

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Comment author: CannibalSmith 08 April 2010 04:26:40PM 0 points [-]

If that distinction exists, my three formulations are not identical. Yes?

Comment author: Document 11 April 2010 04:42:56AM *  1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: Matt_Simpson 08 April 2010 04:34:43PM 0 points [-]

Your 3 formulations should be identical. Here's your argument:

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

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?