nhamann comments on Hard problem? Hack away at the edges. - Less Wrong

45 Post author: lukeprog 26 September 2011 10:03AM

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Comment author: nhamann 27 September 2011 12:39:47AM 1 point [-]

I agree on most of this, but would you mind explaining why you think neuroscience is "mostly useless?" My intuition is the opposite. Also agreed that pure mathematics seems useful.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 29 September 2011 04:26:31PM *  3 points [-]

Even if we knew everything about brains, right now we lack conceptual/philosophical insight to turn that data into something useful. In turn, neuroscience is not even primarily concerned with getting such data, it develops its own generalizations that paint a picture of roughly how brains work, but this picture probably won't be detailed enough to capture the complexity of human (extrapolated) value, even if we knew how to interpret it, which we don't.

Comment author: vallinder 27 September 2011 04:09:31PM 1 point [-]

I was also wondering about neuroscience. If we take a CEV approach, wouldn't neuroscience be useful for actually determining the volitions to be extrapolated?