Emile comments on 2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Yvain 01 November 2011 06:28PM

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Comment author: lessdazed 07 November 2011 06:57:04AM 0 points [-]

...hand. Confirm/deny?

Confirm

emotional consequences of bloody deaths.

There are emotional consequences to apparent perfection that we intellectually know isn't real, so there is no neutral framework.

claimed to have internal structure and be constructed from more fundamental parts

That's not a complete enough back story because they could be the agents of something else. If they don't say more than this,15% might not worship them as more than angels. Let's say they claim to have evolved from goop, just like all animals on Earth except humans, which they claim to have created. Then, I think "Nobody wants to worship mere fellow creatures" applies, though by "nobody" I mean "only certainly tens of millions", and I'm not too confident in the 15% figure.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 07 November 2011 01:16:53PM 0 points [-]

Agreed that there's no neutral framework in the sense I think you mean it: however that meeting goes, it has emotional consequences.

We're bouncing several scenarios around, so to avoid confusion I will label them... A is where they show up and don't announce their ontological nature, B is where they show up and take a bloody pratfall, C is where they announce their non-basic ontological nature, D is where they show up and announce they evolved via natural selection of random modification.

If I understand what you mean by "worship them as angels," I agree that, in C, most of the worshippers would likely do that. If that's not what you meant by "worship" then I might agree with your original claim; I'm not sure.

I agree that most of the people who would worship them in C would not worship them in D. If D is what you meant by "fellow creatures" then I probably agree with your original claim.