fubarobfusco comments on Please Don't Fight the Hypothetical - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (65)
Eliezer commented on this back in "Ends Don't Justify Means (Among Humans)", attempting to reconcile consequentialism with the possibility (observed in human politics) that humans may be running on hardware incapable of consequentialism accurate enough for extreme cases:
I have to admit, though, this does seem uncomfortably like the old aphorism quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi — "what is permitted to Jupiter is not permitted to a cow."
It occurs to me that many (maybe even most) hypotheticals require you to accept an unreasonable epistemic state. Even something so simple as trusting that Omega is telling the truth [and that his "fair coin" was a quantum random number generator rather than, say, a metal disc that he flipped with a deterministic amount of force, but that's easier to grant as simple sloppy wording]
In general, thought experiments that depend on an achievable epistemic state can actually be performed and don't need to remain thought experiments.
They can depend on an achievable epistemic state, but be horribly impractical or immoral to set up (hello trolley problems).