Non-cognitivism strictly speaking doesn't imply the orthogonality thesis. For instance, one could consistently hold that increased intelligence leads to a convergence of the relevant non-cognitive attitudes. Admittedly, such a position appears implausible, which might explain the fact (if it is a fact) that non-cognitivists are more prone to accept the orthogonality thesis.
I don't think Sweden is significantly more transhumanist than several other western European countries. The fact that two influential transhumanists (Bostrom and Sandberg) are Swedish could be due to chance. Once they became known, they may have attracted a disproportionate number of Swedes to adopt similar views, but that number is still trivial compared to the population as a whole. In fact, it could be that the general egalitarian sentiment makes Swedes less likely to accept certain transhumanist positions (even though that sentiment is arguably weaker today than it was a few decades ago).
You can prove everything from a contradiction, but you can't prove everything from a false premise. I take it that you mean that we can derive a contradiction from the assumption of moral realism. That may be true (although I'd hesitate to call either moral realism or free will logically impossible), but I doubt many arguments from moral realism to other claims (e.g. the denial of the orthogonality thesis) rely on the derivation of a contradiction as an intermediate step.
If moral realism is simply the view that some positive moral claims are true, without further metaphysical or conceptual commitments, then I can't see how it could be at odds with the orthogonality thesis. In itself, that view doesn't entail anything about the relation between intelligence levels and goals.
On the other hand, the conjunction of moral realism, motivational judgment internalism (i.e. the view that moral judgments necessarily motivate), and the assumption that a sufficiently intelligent agent would grasp at least some moral truths is at odds with the orthogonality thesis. Other combinations of views may yield similar results.
I'm not familiar with his writings on the foundations of quantum mechanics, but in addition to his work on causality, the three volumes on measurement he co-authored have also been hugely influential. His intellectual autobiography (pdf) might be worth a look.
Just came across the book Behavior Modification in Applied Settings, which I don't think has been mentioned on Less Wrong previously. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks like it could be useful for those of us interested in boosting productivity and personal effectiveness.
Not sure whether I do think otherwise. But if Luke had written "smarter-than-human machine intelligence" instead, I probably wouldn't have reacted. In comparison, "machine superintelligence singleton" is much more specific, indicating both (i) that the machine intelligence will be vastly smarter than us, and (ii) that multipolar outcomes are very unlikely. Though perhaps there are very convincing arguments for both of these claims.
a machine superintelligence singleton is largely inevitable
So do you think that while we can't be very confident about when AI will be created, we can still be quite confident that it will be created?
A few points:
Indeed, even this quote is way below 140 characters :-)
By the way, you're off by a year: the February 2013 thread is here.
Knowing that you've abandoned moral realism, how would you respond to someone making an analogous argument about preferences or duties? For instance, "When a preference of mine is frustrated, I come to see this as a state of affairs that ought not to exist," or "When someone violates a duty, I come to see this as a state of affairs that ought not to exist." Granted, the acquaintance may not be as direct as in the case of intense suffering. But is that enough to single out pleasure and suffering?
You could estimate the amount of time spent procrastinating. If you're at a computer, RescueTime or similar software might help you do that. You could also try to count how often you feel like procrastinating, and how often you actually do procrastinate. Of course, this might be tricky to do accurately.
Among all hypotheses consistent with the observations, the simplest is the most likely.
I think this statement of Occam's razor is slightly misleading. The principle says that you should prefer the simplest hypothesis, but doesn't say why. As seen in the SEP entry on simplicity, there have been several different proposed justifications.
Also, if I understand Solomonoff induction correctly, the reason for preferring simpler hypotheses is not that such theories are a priori more likely to be true, but rather that using Solomonoff's universal prior means tha...
Sorry, I didn't realize you had to create an account there. I've now uploaded the file to Rapidshare here.
Enoch (2005) argues that idealization is problematic for subjectivist theories:
...The reading of the watch tracks the time—which is independent of it—only when all goes well, the perceptual impression tracks relative height—which is independent of this perception—only when all goes well. So there is reason to make sure—by idealizing—that all does go well. But had we taken the other Euthyphronic alternative regarding these matters things would have been very different. Had the time depended on the reading of my watch, had the reading of my watch made certain
In some instances, I use citations for pointing to relevant studies, without intending to imply that this is settled science. But I now realize that it does carry that implication, and that the wording of the sentence is particularly unfortunate. I have updated the first and other footnotes to take this into account.
By "thinks is fine", I didn't mean some arbitrary personal standard, but precisely the kind of epistemic abilities that you mention.
I understand your revision and thank you for pointing in out, so I can keep trying harder.
Sorry about that. I've now added all the PDFs I found. At the moment I'm unable to host the ones that are still missing, but it might be worth investing in.
Oops, looks like I accidentally cited Peters 1978 when I meant to cite a paper that article pointed me to. Fixed now.
I have read at least abstracts of all cited articles, which the authors of the paper you link to seem to think is fine:
we adopt a much more generous view of a “reader” of a cited paper, as someone who at the very least consulted a >trusted source (e.g., the original paper or heavily-used and authenticated databases) inputting together the citation list.
Most of my remarks about form still stand, and I'm stil very uncomfortable with your updated citation (Evans 1971).
Citation form functions here as a rhetorical device. I mean this as in "dark arts" rhetorical: its intent is to make a non-academic publication look more like an academic publication. The subtext is "look how well researched my claims are", or perhaps more generously "this is settled science".
What happens if we rewrite your claim, erasing the academic form, and reinstating the context?
What you write expands to the...
For those interested, the CMU philosophy department organizes an annual summer school in logic and formal epistemology.
I don't think it's fair to say that "nobody understood induction in any kind of rigorous way until about 1968." The linked paper argues that Solomonoff prediction does not justify Occam's razor, but rather that it gives us a specific inductive assumption. And such inductive assumptions had previously been rigorously studied by Carnap among others.
But even if we grant that assumption, I don't see why we should find it surprising that science made progress without having a rigorous understanding of induction. In general, successfully engaging in so... (read more)