Phillip_Huggan

Another example of a real-world Moral quandry that the real world would love H+ disucssion lists to take on, is the issue of how much medical care to invest in end-of-life patients. Medical advances will continue to make more expensive treatment options available. In Winnipeg, there was a case recently where a patient in a terminal coma had his family insist on not taking him off life support. In Canada in the last decade or so, the decision was based on a doctor's prescription. Now it also encompases family and the patient's previous wishes. 3 doctors... (read more)

(ZMDavis wrote:) "But AGI is [...] not being a judge or whoever writes laws."

If Eliezer turns out to be right about the power of recursive self-improvement, then I wouldn't be so sure."

Argh. I didn't mean that as a critique on EY's prowess as an AGI theorist or programmer. I doubt Jesus would've wanted people to deify him, just to be nice to eachother. I doubt EY meant for his learning of philosophy to be interpreted as some sort of Moral code, he was just arrogant enough not to state he was sometimes using his list to as a tool to develo... (read more)

Yes, EY's past positions about Morality are closer to Subhan's than Obert's. But AGI is software programming and hardware engineering, not being a judge or whoever writes laws. I wouldn't suggest deifying EY if your goal is to learn ethics.

"Why the obsession with making other people happy?"

Not obsessed. Just pointing out the definition of morality. High morality is making yourself and other people happy.

Phillip Huggan: "Or are you claiming such an act is always out of self-interest?" (D.Bider:) Such acts are. Stuff just is. Real reasons are often unknowable; and if known, would be trivial, technical, mundane.

That's deep.

"Stuff is. Fitting stuff that happens into a moral framework? A hopeless endeavor for misguided individuals seeking to fulfil the romantic notion t... (read more)

(Subhan wrote:) "And if you claim that there is any emotion, any instinctive preference, any complex brain circuitry in humanity which was created by some external morality thingy and not natural selection, then you are infringing upon science and you will surely be torn to shreds - science has never needed to postulate anything but evolution to explain any feature of human psychology -" Subhan: "Suppose there's an alien species somewhere in the vastness of the multiverse, who evolved from carnivores. In fact, through most of their evoluti... (read more)

Sorry TGGP I had to do it. Now replace the word "charity" with "taxes".

(Constant quoted from someone:)"What we know about the causal origins of our moral intuitions doesn't obviously give us reason to believe they are correlated with moral truth."

Yes, but to a healthy intelligent individual not under duress, these causal origins (I'm assuming the reptilian or even mammalian brain centres are being referenced here) are much less a factor than is abstract knowledge garnered through education. I may feel on some basic level like killing someone that gives me the evil eye, but these impulses are easily subsumed by soci... (read more)

"I think the meaning of "it is (morally) right" may be easiest to explain through game theory."

Game theory may be useful here, but it is only a low-level efficient means to an ends. It might explain social heirachies on our past or in other species and it might explain the evolution of law, and it might be the highest up the Moral ladder some stupid or mentally impaired individuals can achieve. For instance, a higher Morality system than waiting for individuals to turn selfish before punishing them, is to ensure parents aren't abusive... (read more)

The difference between duty and desire, is that some desires might harm other people while duty (you can weasily change the definition to mean Nazi duty but then you are asking an entirely different question) always helps other people. "Terminal values" as defined, are pretty weak. There are e=mc^2 co-ordinates that have maximized happiness values. Og may only be able to eat tubers, but most people literate are much higher on the ladder, and thus, have a greater duty. In the future presumably, the standards will be even higher. At some point ... (read more)

Wow, what a long post. Subhan doesn't have a clue. Tasting a cheesburger like a salad, isn't Morality. Morality refers to actions in the present that can initiate a future with preferred brain-states (the weasily response would be to ask what these are, as if torture and pleasure weren't known, and initiate a conversation long enough to forget the initial question). So if you hypnotize yourself to make salad taste like cheeseburgers for health reasons, you are exercising Morality. I've got a forestry paper open in the other window. It is very dry, but ... (read more)

...The think-tank money would include futurism like SIAI and this blog's topics. For longevity research, I think the best way to promote it might be to screen what health/pharma/biotech companies spend the most on R+D in relavent sub-fields. Money would only come in handy to market such a portfolio as "boomer-ethical". I'd want to give R.Freitas money to do diamond surface chemistry computer sims, but given that they come down in price every year I wouldn't be sure the optimal amount. Think-tanks is pretty vague. You'd want to look into the s... (read more)

I agree with A.Madden. If the question was phrased $10 trillion in physical wealth that didn't exist before, it would be different. I wouldn't trust myself to manage more than a few hundred billion, and I'd destroy the other $9.6 trillion. Maybe a $75000 investment trust for myself and about twice that for family and friends. Most of my investment strategies (Grahamian Value modified to account for future demographic, geopolitical, cultural and technological trends) breakdown at such high valuations. I like the CDI index and I like P.Martin's initiative ... (read more)

I'm glad to see this was going somewhere. I'd say yes, if humans have free will, than an AGI could too. If not on present semiconductor designs, than with some 1cc electrolyte solution or something. But free will without the human endocrine system isn't the type of definition most people mean when they envision free will. But I suppose a smart enough AGI could deduce and brute force it. Splitting off world-lines loses much of the fun without a mind, even if it can technically be called free will. I'd want to read some physics abstracts before commenting further about free will.

"Lets say we, as humans, placed some code on every server on the net that mimics a neuron. Is that going to become sentient? I have no idea. Probably not."

Ooo, even better, have the code recreate a really good hockey game. Have the code play the game in the demolished Winnipeg Arena, but make the sightlines better. And have the game between Russia and the Detroit Redwings. Have Datsyuk cloned and play for both teams. Of course, programs only affect the positions of silicon switches in a computer. To actually undemolish a construction site you... (read more)

"No, you have to be the ultimate source of your decisions. If anything else in your past, such as the initial condition of your brain, fully determined your decision, then clearly you did not."

Once again, a straw man. Free will might not exist but it won't be disproved by this reasoning. People that claim free will don't claim 100% free will; actions like willing your own birth. Free will proponents generally believe the basis for free will is choosing from among two or more symbolic brain representations. If the person read a book about the... (read more)

"...Also, your last two comments are almost completely off-topic."

I was just playing the Devil's Advocate, screwing around to "help" others build debating skills while not telling them I was wasting their time :)

About Devil's Advocacy, it is fine as long as it is stated. Don't go claiming the Holocaust was a good thing and should be completed this time around, without mentioning the part about just wanting to heighten the quality of debating skills.

TGGP, if present rates of US prison incarceration existed historically, the USA would never have been a superpower. $100000 a person annually, at 3 million people. You do the math. The worst part is they are all black and poor. They are being imprisoned because: 1) they can't afford lawyers, 2) they are black, 3) on... (read more)

"Tangential argument: existential risk maximizing actors, thank goodness, don't exist, nor do more than a tiny number of people seeking to destroy humanity. Beware the Angry Death Spiral."

I think I'll stand by my words and qualify the statement maybe GWB could start WWIII single-handedly and isn't, so this is only pertaining to the threat global warming. S.Harper couldn't be misplaying the threat worse. Canada's governing structure has a provision where the Queen of England is the real head of state, and the Governer General would almost certain... (read more)

"But with anyone in this state of mind, I would sooner begin by teaching them that policy debates should not appear one-sided." I think you have to qualify this statement with "unresolved" policy debates.

I'll take the positions: 1) another Holocaust would be a bad thing. 2) global warming is real and S.Harper and GWB are real existential risk maximizing actors. 3) the US prison economy (construction, staffing and forced prison labour), now consuming more resources than Universities in your retarded country, is a conflict of interest. It... (read more)

The nature of time has been covered by many great minds from a religious viewpoint, as mentioned by nick. It is also an active research topic among mainstream universities. I'm not particularly interested in the question, but the best analysis I've read comes from a few N.Bostrom papers, and a book I once read called "Time Machines". The book supposes a block universe, but states very clearly that this may not be the way the universe operates. From what I understand, this means the opposite of what EY wrote. It means the Copenhagen determina... (read more)