All of Kip_Werking's Comments + Replies

Note that there's a similar problem in the free will debate:

Incompatilist: "Well, if a godlike being can fix the entire life story of the universe, including your own life story, just by setting the rules of physics, and the initial conditions, then you can't have free will."

Compatibilist: "But in order to do that, the godlike being would have to model the people in the universe so well, that the models are people themselves. So there will still be un-modeled people living in a spontaneous way that wasn't designed by the godlike being. (An... (read more)

The "problem" seems based on several assumptions:

  1. that there is objectively best state of the world, to which a Friendly should steer the universe
  2. pulling the plug on a Virtual Universe containing persons is wrong
  3. there is something special about "persons," and we should try to keep them in the universe and/or make more of them

I'm not sure any of these are true. Regarding 3, even if there is an X that is special, and that we should keep in the universe, I'm not sure "persons" is it. Maybe it is simpler: "pleasure-fee... (read more)

Michael Anissimov, August 14, 2008 at 10:14 PM asked me to expound.

Sure. I don't want to write smug little quips without explaining myself. Perhaps I'm wrong.

It's difficult to engage Eliezer in debate/argument, even in a constructive as opposed to adversarial way, because he writes so much material, and uses so many unfamiliar terms. So, my disagreement may just be based on an inadequate appreciation of his full writings (e.g. I don't read every word he posts on overcomingbias; although I think doing so would probably be good for my mind, and I eagerly ... (read more)

I find Eliezer's seemingly-completely-unsupported belief in the rightness of human benevolence, as opposed to sorting pebbles, pretty scary.

"I can't abjure my own operating system."

We don't need to get into thorny issues involving free will and what you can or can't do.

Suffice it to say that something's being in our DNA is neither sufficient nor necessary for it to be moral. The tablet and our DNA are relevantly similar in this respect.

I should add: when discussing morality, I think it's important to give the anti-realist's position some consideration (which doesn't seem to happen in the post above). See Joshua Greene's The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth About Morality and What To Do About It, and J.L. Mackie's Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong.

As far as I can tell, Eliezer is concluding that he should trust part of his instincts about morality because, if he doesn't, then he won't know anything about it.

There are multiple arguments here that need to be considered:

  1. If one doesn't know anything about morality, then that would be bad; I wanna know something about morality, therefore it's at least somewhat knowable. This argument is obviously wrong, when stated plainly, but there are hints of it in Eliezer's post.

  2. If one doesn't know anything about morality, then that can't be morality, because m

... (read more)

This is one of my favorite quotes (and one of only two I post on my facebook page, the other being "The way to love something is to realize that it might be lost", which is cited at the top of the scarcity chapter in Cialdini's Influence).

I'm not sure if I interpret it the same way as Schopenhauer (who was batsh** crazy as far as I can tell), but I take it to mean this:

Control bottoms out. In the race between A, "things influencing/determining how you decide/think/act" and B, "your control over these things that influence/determin... (read more)

I'm already convinced that nothing is right or wrong in the absolute sense most people (and religions) imply.

So what do I do? Whatever I want. Right now, I'm posting a comment to a blog. Why? Not because it's right. Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. I just want to.

"You might as well say that you can't possibly choose to run into the burning orphanage, because your decision was fully determined by the future fact that the child was saved."

I don't see how that even begins to follow from what I've said, which is just that the future is fixed2 before I was born. The fixed2 future might be that I choose to save the child, and that I do so. That is all consistent with my claim; I'm not denying that anyone chooses anything.

"If you are going to talk about causal structure, the present screens off the past.&... (read more)

Eliezer,

The subtle ambiguity here is between two meanings of "is fixed":

  1. going from a state of being unfixed to a state of being fixed
  2. being in a state of being fixed

I think you were are interpreting me to mean 1. I only meant 2, and that's all that I need. That the future is fixed2, before I am born, is what disturbs people, regardless of when the moment of fixing1 happens (if any).

KTW

Eliezer,

"I am not attached to the phrase "free will", though I do take a certain amount of pride in knowing exactly which confusion it refers to, and even having saved the words as still meaning something. Most of the philosophical literature surrounding it - with certain exceptions such as your own work! - fails to drive at either psychology or reduction, and can be discarded without loss."

Your modesty is breathtaking!

"Fear of being manipulated by an alien is common-sensically in a whole different class from fear of being determin... (read more)

Eliezer,

You may be referring to my draft paper "THE VIEW FROM NOWHERE THROUGH A DISTORTED LENS: THE EVOLUTION OF COGNITIVE BIASES FAVORING BELIEF IN FREE WILL". I don't think I've bothered to keep the paper online, but I remember you having read at least part of it, and the latest draft distinguishes between "actual control" and "novelist control". I believe earlier drafts referred to "control" and "control*".

I'm really glad to see someone as bright as you discussing free will. Here are some comments on ... (read more)

-4[anonymous]
RIP

This is a great post. I just want to add: we might fail to understand physics and mass murderers for different reasons. When a terrorist slams a jet into a skyscraper, someone can say "I don't understand why that person did that? It's bizarre." But they seem to fail in understand because victims have a biased recall of transgressions (according to the work by Baumeister on the myth of pure evil). Perpetrators seem to actually have more accurate and complete understandings of transgressions. This is one of my favorite findings from social science.

In contrast, we seem to think physics is bizarre for different reasons.

As someone who seems to have "thrown the kitchen sink" of cognitive biases at the free will problem, I wonder if I've suffered from this meta-bias myself. I find only modest reassurance in the facts that: (i) others have agreed with me and (ii) my challenge for others to find biases that would favor disbelief in free will has gone almost entirely unanswered.

But this is a good reminder that one can get carried away...

Good point. Robin's comment, and Eliezer's post, reminds me of this excellent article at The Situationist:

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/dispositionist-situational-characters/

Excellent post. And very relevant, after Valentine's Day.