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Lumifer comments on 2013 Survey Results - Less Wrong
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Comments (558)
Doesn't take much to shock you :-)
Sure. Let's say there is a particular physical place (say, a specific big boulder on the shore of a lake) where I, for some reason, feel unusually calm, serene, and happy. It probably triggers some childhood memories and associations. I like this place. I should spend more time there.
No two people are the same. Besides, the importance different people attach to the same reasons varies greatly.
And, of course, to bind another with your "should" requires you to know this other very very well. To the degree I would argue is unattainable.
So say this place also makes me feel calm, serene, and happy. It also triggers in me some childhood memories and associations. I like the place. I also have (like you) no reasons not to go there. Lets say (however unlikely it might be) we have all the same reasons, and we weigh these reasons exactly the same. Nevertheless, it's not the case that I should spend more time there. Have I just told you a coherent story?
So lets say you're very thirsty. Around you, there's plenty of perfectly potable water. And lets say I know you're not trying to be thirsty for some reason, but that you've just come back from a run. I think I'm in a position to say that you should drink the water. I don't need to know you very well to be sure of that. What am I getting wrong here?
That's a rather crucial part. I am asserting that not only two people will not have the same reasons and weight them exactly the same, but you also can't tell whether a person other than you has the same reasons and weights them exactly the same.
You're basically saying "let's make an exact copy of you -- would your personal "shoulds" apply to that exact copy?"
The answer is yes, but an exact copy of me does not exist and that's why my personal shoulds don't apply to other people.
You can say, of course. But when I answer "no, I don't think so", is your "should" stronger than my "no"?
Ahh, okay, it looks like we are just misunderstanding one another. I originally asked you whether there are ultimately personal shoulds, and by this I meant that shoulds that are binding on me but not you for no reason other than you and I are numerically different people.
But it seems to me your answer to this is in fact 'no', there are no such ultimately personal shoulds. All shoulds bind everyone subject to the reasons backing them up, it's just that those reasons rarely (if ever) coincide.
Yes. You're wrong that you shouldn't drink. The only should on the table is my correct one. Your 'no' has no strength at all.
What's "numerically different"?
And what did you mean by "ultimately", then? In reality all people are sufficiently different for my personal shoulds to apply only to me and not necessarily to anyone else. The set of other-than-me people to which my personal should must apply is empty. Is that insufficiently "ultimately"?
I beg to disagree. Given that you have no idea about reasons that I might have for not drinking, I don't see why your "should" is correct. Speaking of which, how do you define "correct" in this situation, anyway? What makes you think that the end goals you imagine are actually the end goals that I am pursuing?
I just mean something like 'there are two of them, rather than one'. So they can have all the same (non-relational) properties, but not be the same thing because there are two of them.
Well, that's an empirical claim, for which we'd need some empirical evidence. It's certainly possible that my personal 'should' could bind you too, since it's possible (however unlikely) that we could be subject to exactly the same reasons in exactly the same way.
This is an important point, because it means that shoulds bind all and every person subject to the reasons that back them up. It may be true that people are subject to very different sets of reasons, such that in effect 'shoulds' only generally apply to one person. I think this empirical claim is false, but that's a bit beside the point.
It's part of the hypothetical that I do know the relevant reasons and your aims: you're thirsty, there's plenty of water, and you're not trying to stay thirsty. Those are all the reasons (maybe the reality is never this simple, though I think it often is...again, that's an empirical question). Knowing those, my 'you should drink' is absolutely binding on you.
I don't need to define 'correct'. You agree, I take it, that the above listed reasons can in principle be sufficient to determine that one should drink. That's all I mean by correct: that it's true to say 'if X, Y, Z, then you should drink'.
You really want evidence that there are no exact copies of me walking around..?
No, I don't think it is possible. At this point it is fairly clear that we are not exact copies of each other :-D
Nope, I don't think so. You keep on asserting, basically, that if you find a good set of reasons why I should do X and I cannot refute these reasons, I must do X. That is not true. I can easily tell you to go jump into the lake and not do X.
And another crucial part -- no, you can not know all of my relevant reasons and my aims. We are different people and you don't have magical access to the machinations of my mind.
Yes, you do need to define "correct". The reasons may or may not be sufficient -- you don't know.
It does seem we have several very basic disagreements.
I deny the premise on which this is necessary: I think most people share the reasons for most of what they do most of the time. For example, when my friend and I come in from a run, we share reasons for drinking water. The 'should' that binds me, binds him equally. I think this is by far the most common state of affairs, the great complexity and variety of human psychology notwithstanding. The empirical question is whether our reasons for acting are in general very complicated or not.
I think you do, since I'm sure you think it's possible that we are (in the relevant ways) identical. Improbable, to be sure. But possible.
I think I would describe it as you, being in similar situations, each formulate a personal "should" that happens to be pretty similar. But it's his own "should" which binds him, not yours.
But I don't suppose you would say this about answering a mathematical problem. If I conclude that six times three is eighteen, and you conclude similarly, isn't it the case that we've done 'the same problem' and come to 'the same answer'? Aren't we each subject to the same reasons, in trying to solve the problem?
Or did each of us solve a personal math problem, and come to a personal answer that happens to be the same number?
That fails to include weighing of that against other considerations. If you're thirsty, there's plenty of water, and you're not trying to stay thirsty, you "should drink water" only if the other considerations don't mean that drinking water is a bad idea despite the fact that it would quench your thirst. And in order to know that someone's other considerations don't outweigh the benefit of drinking water, you need to know so much about the other person that that situation is pretty much never going to happen with any nontrivial "should".
By hypothesis, there are no other significant considerations. I think most of the time, people's rational considerations are about as simple as my hypothetical makes them out to be. Lumifer thinks they're generally much more complicated. That's an empirical debate that we probably can't settle.
But there's also the question of whether or not 'shoulds' can be ultimately personal. Suppose two lotteries. The first is won when your name is drawn out of a hat. Only one name is drawn, and so there's only one possible winner. That's a 'personal' lottery. Now take an impersonal lottery, where you win if your chosen 20 digit number matches the one drawn by the lottery moderators. Supposing you win, it's just because your number matched theirs. Anyone whose number matched theirs would win, but it's very unlikely that there will be more than one winner (or even one).
I'm saying that, leaving the empirical question aside, 'shoulds' bind us in the manner of an impersonal lottery. If we have a certain set of reasons, then they bind us, and they equally bind everyone who has that set of reasons (or something equivalent).
Lumifer is saying (I think) that 'shoulds' bind us in the manner of the personal lottery. They apply to each of us personally, though it's possible that by coincidence two different shoulds have the same content and so it might look like one should binds two people.
A consequence of Lumifer's view, it seems to me, is that a given set of reasons (where reasons are things that can apply equally to many individuals) is never sufficient to determine how we should act. This seems to me to be a very serious problem for the view.
Correct, I would agree to that.
Why so?