gRR comments on Our Phyg Is Not Exclusive Enough - Less Wrong

25 [deleted] 14 April 2012 09:08PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (513)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 18 April 2012 04:14:52AM 1 point [-]

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.

Assuming it started with the same laws of inference and axioms. Also I was mostly thinking of statements about the world, e.g., physics.

Comment author: gRR 18 April 2012 12:39:46PM 0 points [-]

Assuming it started with the same laws of inference and axioms

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.

Also I was mostly thinking of statements about the world, e.g., physics.

Is there significant difference? Wherever there are regularities in physics, there's math (=study of regularities). Where no regularities exist, there's no rationality.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 18 April 2012 11:19:05PM 1 point [-]

What about the poor beings with an anti-iductive prior? More generally read this post by Eliezer.

Comment author: gRR 18 April 2012 11:29:50PM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 19 April 2012 02:08:05AM 1 point [-]

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:

The possible mind design space is of course huge and contains lots of irrational minds, but here I am arguing about universality of rationality.

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.

Comment author: gRR 19 April 2012 03:45:30AM *  0 points [-]

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.