Peterdjones comments on The Amazing Virgin Pregnancy - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 December 2007 02:00PM

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Comment author: Peterdjones 11 May 2011 04:17:58PM 0 points [-]

And there is no sense in which either party has an objective "rightness" that the other > lacks. They are each referring to the utility functions they care about.

There is a sense in which one party is objectively wrong. The aliens do not want to be exterminated so they should not exterminate.

Comment author: NMJablonski 11 May 2011 04:24:37PM *  1 point [-]

So, we're working with thomblake's definition of "wrong" as those actions which reduce utility for whatever function an agent happens to care about. The aliens care about themselves not being exterminated, but may actually assign very high utility to humans being wiped out.

Perhaps we would be viewed as pests, like rats or pigeons. Just as humans can assign utility to exterminating rats, the aliens could do so for us.

Exterminating humans has the objectively determinable outcome of reducing the utility in your subjectively privileged function.

Comment author: Peterdjones 11 May 2011 04:31:17PM -1 points [-]

Inasmuch as we are talking about objective rightness we are talking are not talking about utility functions, because not everyone is running of the same utility function, and it makes sense to say some UFs are objectively wrong.

Comment author: NMJablonski 11 May 2011 04:33:10PM 1 point [-]

What would it mean for a utility function to be objectively wrong? How would one determine that a utility function has the property of "wrongness"?

Please, do not answer "by reasoning about it" unless you are willing to provide that reasoning.

Comment author: Peterdjones 11 May 2011 04:41:43PM *  -1 points [-]

I did provide the reasoning in the alien example.

There is a sense in which one party is objectively wrong. The aliens do not want to be exterminated so they should not exterminate.

Comment author: NMJablonski 11 May 2011 04:52:43PM 2 points [-]

Let's break this all the way down. Can you give me your thesis?

I mean, I see there is a claim here:

The aliens do not want to be exterminated so they should not exterminate.

... of the format (X therefore Y). I can understand what the (X) part of it means: aliens with a preference not to be destroyed. Now the (Y) part is a little murky. You're saying that the truth of X implies that they "should not exterminate". What does the word should mean there?