Carinthium comments on Fundamental Doubts - Less Wrong

24 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 July 2008 05:21AM

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Comment author: Carinthium 06 August 2013 02:12:23PM 0 points [-]

Effectively, of course, this is a sort of faith (metaphorically at least). Like many philosophers, you seem to have the implicit assumption that the Total Skeptical argument should be assumed false... just because. Seems a pretty good case for being a Total Skeptic.

In addition, to an extent it is possible to take Doubt further than you do, if in a minor way, without running into true pragmatic difficulties. The argument goes like this:

-What if my senses are a total illusion? If memory and Induction remain unquestioned, the conclusion here is that you have a consistent world you can affect to affect yourself and your "well-being" in terms of pleasure and pain anyway. A potential argument for selfishness.

For an AI there is no reason that isn't mind-bogglingly stupid to program this as part of their core philosophy. However, for human beings it is at least credible enough to consider.