I was just reading though the Eliezer article. I'm not sure I understand. Is he saying that my computer actually does have goals?
Isn't there a difference between simple cause and effect and an optimization process that aims at some specific state?
Maybe it would help to "taboo" the word "goal".
A process can progress towards some end state even without having any representation of that state. Imagine a program that takes a positive number at the beginning, and at each step replaces the current number "x" with value "x/2 + 1/x". Regardless of the original number, the values will gradually move towards a constant. Can we say that this process has a "goal" or achieving the given number? It feels wrong to use this word here, because the constant is nowher...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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