dxu comments on The Moral Void - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 June 2008 08:52AM

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

Comments (105)

Sort By: Old

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

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 20 July 2016 03:36:28PM 0 points [-]

How do you get a statement about how you should build a bridge so it doesn't fall down?

Comment author: dxu 20 July 2016 06:11:50PM 1 point [-]

Presumably, you get such a statement from the laws of physics, which allow you deduce things about quantities like force, stress, gravity, etc. I see no evidence that the laws of physics allow you to deduce similar things about morality.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 21 July 2016 11:38:20AM *  -2 points [-]

No, because the axioms of physics do not contain the word "bridge."

(Also, note that TheAncientGeek deliberately included the word "should" in his bridge statement, so you just effectively contradicted yourself by saying that a statement involving "should" can be deduced from physics.)

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 22 July 2016 03:05:57PM *  -2 points [-]

You seem to have conceded that you can get shoulds out of descriptions. The trick seems to be that if there is something you want to achieve, there are things you should and should not do to achieve it.

If the purpose of morality is, for instance, to achieve cooperative outcomes, and avoid conflict over resources, then there are things people should and shouldn't do to support that. Although something like game theory , rather than physics, would supply the details

.