ChristianKl comments on The Moral Void - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: entirelyuseless 21 July 2016 11:36:47AM *  0 points [-]

It is not irrelevant. Physics does not contain axioms that have the word "apple" in them, and so you cannot logically go from the axioms of physics to "apples tend to fall if you drop them." That does not prevent you from making a reasonable argument that if the axioms of physics are true, then apples will fall, and it does not prevent you from arguing for morality.

Comment author: dxu 21 July 2016 04:28:23PM *  0 points [-]

This is an equivocation. "Apple" is a term we use to refer to a large collection of atoms arranged in a particular manner. The same goes for the word "bridge" that you mentioned in your other comment. The fact that we can talk about such collections of atoms and refer to them using shorthands ("apple", "bridge", etc.) does not change the fact that they are still made of atoms, and hence subject to the laws of physics. This fact has precisely no bearing on the issue of whether it is possible to deduce morality from physics.

EDIT: Speaking of whether it's possible to deduce morality from physics, I actually already linked to (what in my mind is) a fairly compelling argument that it's not, but I note that you've (unsurprisingly) neglected to address that argument entirely.

Comment author: ChristianKl 22 July 2016 09:35:52AM 1 point [-]

People spoke of apples before they knew anything about atoms. Someone did discover at sometime that the entities that we call apples are made out of atoms.

If I would have a teleporter and exchange the atoms one-by-one with other atoms it would also stay the same apple. Especially when it comes to bridges I think there are actual bridges that had nearly total atom exchange but as still considered to be the same bridge.

Comment author: dxu 26 July 2016 07:43:06PM 1 point [-]

Your comment is true, but it doesn't address the original issue of whether it is possible to deduce morality from physics. If your intent was to provide a clarification, that's fine, of course.