gwern comments on An Abortion Dialogue - Less Wrong

10 Post author: gwern 12 February 2011 01:20AM

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Comment author: gwern 23 January 2013 03:49:17PM 0 points [-]

Could't the Contrarian just as easily have accepted that different entities have different "levels" of personhood? The odds of a skin cell becoming sentient is quite low, after all. Of course, this would render abortion more palatable based on miscarriage rates, but at least they could have avoided claiming that GAIs aren't people

I based the C character on the thoughts that 'a materialistic sophisticated Christian' evoked in my head; he didn't go with a multi-category scheme, just the ordinary binary. I don't think I've seen any such scheme seriously offered by a Christian philosopher, and I don't think it really deals with the slippery slope because you still have sharp discontinuities between each "level".

On the other hand, the Apologist seems a little too quick to bite the infanticide bullet.

As opposed to what?

Comment author: MugaSofer 24 January 2013 12:08:25PM -1 points [-]

I based the C character on the thoughts that 'a materialistic sophisticated Christian' evoked in my head; he didn't go with a multi-category scheme, just the ordinary binary.

Fair enough. It's your character, you know better than me what he'd say. My strawman sense is tingling, but then you've stated that you didn't intend either of them to be right so I guess it's unfair to demand an ironman of either side.

As opposed to what?

More discussion of where, exactly, such a line should be drawn. I'm not saying he shouldn't have bitten it eventually, mind.

Comment author: gwern 24 January 2013 05:21:55PM 2 points [-]

More discussion of where, exactly, such a line should be drawn. I'm not saying he shouldn't have bitten it eventually, mind.

If you draw the line anywhere, you've bitten the bullet. The rest is just applied economics - as the joke about the woman goes, we've already established what Apologist is and now that'd just be setting his price.

Comment author: MugaSofer 25 January 2013 09:20:02AM -2 points [-]

True. You didn't make that point in the dialog, however, which is a shame because it's a good one. (I am not a fan of infanticide.)

Comment author: gwern 25 January 2013 05:33:19PM 1 point [-]

I'll add some version of that, then, since you like it.

Comment author: Fronken 23 January 2013 09:29:28PM 0 points [-]

'a materialistic sophisticated Christian'

I liked the dialog you wrote but it seems strange that he still judges based on the soul when he's sophisticated and materialist ,:-. though MS seems to have his own idea in mind that I didn't think of at least. Also didn't the sophisticated Christians in the Vatican say aliens could have souls so "human" as criteria seems more restrictive than them. Just my thoughts it's your character just might be worth updating small details of your Christian model if I'm right :)

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