Vladimir_Nesov comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! - Less Wrong

48 Post author: MBlume 16 April 2009 09:06AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 16 April 2009 09:07:07PM *  3 points [-]

Most of the people in this community (notably Eliezer) assign intrinsic value to the thousand shards of desire, but I am indifferent to them except for their instrumental value.

Not so. You don't assign value to your drives because they were inbuilt in you by evolution, you don't value your qualities just because they come as a package deal, just because you are human [*]. Instead, you look at what you value, as a person. And of the things you value, you find that most of them are evolution's doing, but you don't accept all of them, and you look at some of them in a different way from what evolution intended.

[*] Related, but overloaded with other info: No License To Be Human.

Comment author: rhollerith 16 April 2009 10:13:14PM *  0 points [-]

Nesov points out that Eliezer picks and chooses rather than identifying with every shard of his desire.

Fair enough, but the point remains that it is not too misleading to say that I identify with fewer of the shards of human desire than Eliezer does -- which affects what we recommend to other people.