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Luke_A_Somers comments on Beware Selective Nihilism - Less Wrong Discussion

39 Post author: Wei_Dai 20 December 2012 06:53PM

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Comment author: Emile 21 December 2012 01:24:24PM 2 points [-]

I agree with your main conclusion, though I would like to propose a different analogy: on which side of the road should one drive?

If faced with the knowledge that physical continuity doesn't exist in the real world at the level of fundamental physics, one might conclude that it's crazy to continue to value it

"The right side of the road" doesn't exist in the real world either at the level of fundamental physics; though that doesn't make it crazy to care about it. Things like social norms and contract and informal agreements are about well-defined concepts in the realm of everyday human experience.

Sure, there are some differences between things we are "built-in" to value, and explicit social norms, but if we can tolerate some "imprecision" for some, why not for the others?

Comment author: MugaSofer 24 January 2013 10:44:08AM -2 points [-]

I don't know about you, but I am neither willing nor able to change my terminal values based on knowledge of physics, only to extrapolate them better.