Vladimir_Nesov comments on Which Parts Are "Me"? - Less Wrong

30 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 October 2008 06:15PM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 30 June 2010 10:17:54AM *  6 points [-]

If death is horrible then I should fight death, not fight my own grief.

Yes, but how do you tell whether death is horrible or not?

In other words, how is one supposed to know which of the following is true?

  1. Preventing death is the real terminal value. Grief is a rational feeling that has instrumental value (for motivating oneself to fight death).
  2. Avoiding grief is the real terminal value. Preventing death is just a subgoal of avoiding grief (and one should fight grief directly if that's easier/more effective).
Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 30 June 2010 02:05:40PM 2 points [-]

Both are terminal values to some extent. Where the "consequentialist" evolution had a single (actual) outcome in mind, any instrumental influence on that process had a chance of getting engraved in people's minds. Godshatter can't clearly draw the boundaries, assert values applying only to a particular class of situations and not at all to other situations. Any given psychological drive influences moral value of all situations (although of course this influence could be insignificant on some situations and defining on the other). Where we are uncertain, the level of this influence is probably non-trivial.