Alicorn comments on Rationality Quotes: April 2011 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: benelliott 04 April 2011 09:55AM

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Comment author: Alicorn 06 April 2011 04:16:22AM 10 points [-]

A python script that indefinitely calculates pi would think it immoral

I'm sorry what? Why would it think about morality at all? That would take valuable cycles away from the task of calculating pi.

Comment author: shokwave 07 April 2011 08:18:03AM *  0 points [-]

True but irrelevant. I was illustrating the hidden human-centric assumptions matt1 was making about morality. If you go back and read the post I responded to it's quite clear that he thinks "morally wrong to terminate human, morally neutral to terminate program" says something about a quality humans have (as if morality was woven into the physical universe), where really it says something about a quality morality has (that it is produced by humans). By making obvious python-centric assumptions, the hidden assumptions matt1 is making ought to become clearer to him.