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Eugine_Nier comments on Our Phyg Is Not Exclusive Enough - Less Wrong
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If we assume some kind of mathematical realism (which seems to be necessary for "abstract computation" and "uniqueness" to have any meaning) then there exist objectively true statements and computations that generate them. At some point there are Goedelian problems, but at least all of the computations agree on the primitive-recursive truths, which are therefore universal, objective, unique, and true.
Any rational agent (optimization process) in any world with some regularities would exploit these regularities, which means use math. A reflective self-optimizing rational agent would arrive to the same math as us, because the math is unique.
Of course, all these points are made by a fallible human brain and so may be wrong.
But there is nothing even like that for morality. In fact, when a moral statement seems universal under sufficient reflection, it stops being a moral statement and becomes simply rational, like cooperating in the Prisoner's Dilemma when playing against the right opponents.
Assuming it started with the same laws of inference and axioms. Also I was mostly thinking of statements about the world, e.g., physics.
Or equivalent ones. But no matter where it started, it won't arrive at different primitive-recursive truths, at least according to my brain's current understanding.
Is there significant difference? Wherever there are regularities in physics, there's math (=study of regularities). Where no regularities exist, there's no rationality.
What about the poor beings with an anti-iductive prior? More generally read this post by Eliezer.
I think the poor things are already dead. More generally, I am aware of that post, but is it relevant? The possible mind design space is of course huge and contains lots of irrational minds, but here I am arguing about universality of rationality.
My point, as I stated above, is that every argument I've heard against universality of morality applies just as well to rationality.
I agree with your statement:
I would also agree with the following:
The possible mind design space is of course huge and contains lots of immoral minds, but here I am arguing about universality of morality.
But rationality is defined by external criteria - it's about how to win (=achieve intended goals). Morality doesn't have any such criteria. Thus, "rational minds" is a natural category. "Moral minds" is not.