Constant comments on Holy Books (Or Rationalist Sequences) Don’t Implement Themselves - Less Wrong

32 Post author: calcsam 10 May 2011 07:15AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (149)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: [deleted] 11 May 2011 10:52:09PM 3 points [-]

I can see handoflixue's logic, and your appeal to popularity does not defeat it. It makes LW seem to be irrational. To directly answer the logic, remind handoflixue that goals form a hierarchy of goals and subgoals, and a subgoal can be incorrect relative to a goal. Similarly, emotions can be subservient to goals. For example, anger can serve the goal of self-protection. A specific feeling of anger can then be judged as correct or incorrect depending on whether it serves this goal.

Finally, all of our conscious goals can be judged from the standpoint of natural selection. And conversely, a person may judge natural selection from the point of view of his conscious goals.

Comment author: Swimmer963 12 May 2011 12:27:16AM 0 points [-]

To directly answer the logic, remind handoflixue that goals form a hierarchy of goals and subgoals, and a subgoal can be incorrect relative to a goal.

That...seems true. I guess I've never divided my goals into a hierarchy, and I often find my emotions annoying and un-useful. I think my comment holds more true for emotions than for goals, anyway. I'll have to think about this for a while. It's true that although I have tried to modify my top-level goals in the past, I don't necessarily do it because of rationality.