TimFreeman comments on Quantum Mechanics and Personal Identity - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 June 2008 07:13AM

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Comment author: Jiro 26 October 2013 06:14:03PM -2 points [-]

The argument you made was that copy-and-destroy is not bad because a world where that is done is not worse than our own. In turn, your belief that it is not worse than our own is, as far as I can tell, based on the belief that you can compare that world to our own by comparing whether it is good for the people who remain alive, and ignoring whether it is good for the people who are killed. This implies that the fact that the person is killed doesn't count towards making the world worse because being dead, he can't know that he has been harmed, and because the other people don't feel the loss they would feel that goes with a normal death. This amounts to blissful ignorance (although I suppose the dead person can be more accurately described as having 'uncaring ignorance', since dead people aren't very blissful).

Check out Argumentum ad Populum. With all the references to "most people", you seem to be committing that fallacy so often that I am unable to identify anything else in what you say.

Pointing out that your definition of something, like harm, is shared by few people is not argumentum ad populum, it's pointing out that you are trying to sound like you're talking about something people care about but you're really not.

Comment author: TimFreeman 27 October 2013 07:39:51PM -1 points [-]

Well, I suppose it's an improvement that you've identified what you're arguing against.

Unfortunately the statements you disagree with don't much resemble what I said. Specifically:

The argument you made was that copy-and-destroy is not bad because a world where that is done is not worse than our own.

I did not compare one world to another.

Pointing out that your definition of something, like harm, is shared by few people is not argumentum ad populum, it's pointing out that you are trying to sound like you're talking about something people care about but you're really not.

I did not define "harm".

The disconnect between what I said and what you heard is big enough that saying more doesn't seem likely to make things better.

The intent to make a website for the purpose of fostering rational conversation is good, and this one is the best I know, but it's still so cringe-inducing that I ignore it for months at a time. This dialogue was typical. There has to be a better way but I don't know what it is.

Comment author: Jiro 28 October 2013 12:45:52AM *  1 point [-]

I did not compare one world to another.

Um.

you should be able to describe the important way in which this hypothetical world where copy-and-destroy is useful is different from our own.

(I suppose you could quibble that you didn't say it was not worse, but "not different" is a subset of "not worse"; you certainly did compare one world to another.)