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Will_Sawin comments on Rationality Quotes: June 2011 - Less Wrong
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I have read some mainstream philosophy. I have read much of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, and nothing else by Nozick.
My view of LW is that the aspects of philosophy that I am interested in, that I have not already learned enough about from LW or other sources to satisfy me, are areas where LW pretty clearly beats mainstream philosophy.
No one proved consequentialism, and yet consequentialism is right. Who proved Occam's Razor?
I have read a lot of mainstream philosophy and I find LW is flawed in some areas, and I can say why.
Why should I believe what you say about consequentualism absent proof? What if I say that phyiscalism and reductionism are just plumb wrong. Would you believe me?
No, because physicalism and reductionism aren't wrong.
I'm not telling you to believe me, I'm just pointing out that you should believe me, because I'm right.
Do you not believe in consequentialism? I could provide some arguments for it.
There;s no appreciable difference between "telling me to do X" and "pointing out I should do X".
What I mainly believe in is the necessity or arguing for claims. But we seem to have made a little progress there.
There is some. The former adds an implicit authority claim, whereas the latter could be said in language that does not imply one.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia is the least relevant of Nozick's books to LessWrongers. Try The Nature of Rationality (here is a decent summary of the content) and Invariances instead.
I'm not really sure what your saying here, but if you get a higher marginal benefit from reading reading Less Wrong than reading philosophy books, then by all means continue reading Less Wrong. On the other hand, if you have completed the Sequences and read most of the other important discussions here, then you might want to check out what individuals in other intellectual communities have to say about these topics.
It's only irrelevant because his assumption is held as false by lesswrongers. ASU is to deontology as Fun Theory is to consequentialism, or something along those lines. It would be very relevant if we agreed with deontology!
Why do we disagree? Are we wrong, or is he?
Is he wrong?
Why should I read the book of someone who is wrong on such an important matter when there are so many books I could read?
No it isn't. It is less relevant because it deals mostly with political theory (mind-killer territory and usually avoided on Less Wrong) while his other books cover epistemology, decision theory, and philosophy of science.
Firstly, ASU contains Nozick's least developed ethical thought. Secondly, like I said before,
I made this point earlier in the thread here. Is rule-utilitarianism not a kind of consequentialism?
I think so, but I also think the Less Wrong ethical doctrine is wrong. At this point non-cognitivism seems more probable than consequentialism (ask me next week and I might not, I am known to go back and forth on the issue).
I don't know your preferences, so perhaps you shouldn't. I was merely offering some friendly advice on a course of action that has benefited me. If you are like me in the relevant respects, then you will probably benefit too.
Is fun theory not relevant to lesswrongers?
What is the difference between fun theory and political theory?
ETA: Did you edit your comment? I didn't see some of the stuff at first.
but it's still not consequentialist, whereas, consequentialism is correct.
I still believe in consequentialism, as do most (presumably?) people on Less Wrong.
What do you mean by this? I know it doesn't mean that humans should generally use consequentialist reasoning, for example.
It means that the right way to come up with deontological rules for humans is by thinking of them in the framework discussed in that post.
Okay, that and your belief that rule-utilitarianism isn't consequantialism leads me to think that your version of consequentialism is roughly "if you're attempting to be an FAI and you're not doing lots of multiplication then you're doing it wrong". Too far off?
Instrumental vs terminal goals. Consequentialism is the ideal, but can't implement it so we have to approximate it with deontological rules due to limitations of our brains. The rules don't get their moral authority from nowhere, they depend on being useful for reaching the actual goal. Or: the only reason we follow the rules is because we know that we'll get a worse outcome if we don't.
It's the difference between - a priori rules and a posteori rules, I guess?
I'm all for a posteori rules, but not a priori rules.