Dynamically_Linked comments on Is Morality Given? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 July 2008 08:12AM

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Comment author: Dynamically_Linked 06 July 2008 08:49:05PM 0 points [-]

Constant wrote: So one place where one could critique your argument is in the bit that goes: "conditioned on X being the case, then our beliefs are independent of Y". The critique is that X may in fact be a consequence of Y, in which case X is itself not independent of Y.

Good point, my argument did leave that possibility open. But, it seems pretty obvious, at least to me, that game theory, evolutionary psychology, and memetics are not contingent on anything except mathematics and the environment that we happened to evolve in.

So if I were to draw a Bayesian net diagram, it would look it this:

math --- --- game theory ------------ \ / \ --- evolutionary psychology - moral perceptions / \ / environment -- --- memetics ---------------

Ok, one could argue that each node in this diagram actually represents thousands of nodes in the real Bayesian net, and each edges is actually millions of edges. So perhaps the following could represent a simplification, for a suitable choice of "morality":

math --- - game theory ------------ \ / \ -- morality -- evolutionary psychology --- moral perceptions / \ / environment -- - memetics ---------------

Before I go on, do you actually believe this to be the case?