From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Mon Jun 24 2002 - 05:40:01 MDT
On Mon, 24 Jun 2002, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> I try my best. That's not what I'm asking, however. I am asking *you*,
> specifically, one individual with one viewpoint, whether you consider your
> present sympathy with humans to be irrational, and if so, why you keep on
> doing it; or, if it is not irrational, why you expect that you would lose
> this sympathy as an eventual Power. I am not asking you whether you believe
There is no dichotomy. I currently profit from transactions with people
because they're mutually profitable. If one party undergoes a
transformation completely breaking that initial symmetry the transaction
becomes essentially unilateral, since there is no meaningful reciprocation
possible, and hence sees negative fitness.
This only poses a problem if you argue that the morality metric is
observer-invariant, which is clearly wrong. (Existing consensus says it's
okay to slaughter and roast a piglet, it is not okay to do that to a human
baby).
> that all sentient beings must think the same way, or all humanborn Powers; I
> am asking whether *you personally* think that you are presently being
> immoral by the correct standards of your future self, or whether your future
> self is being immoral by the correct standards of your present self.
> Correct from whose viewpoint? Why, yours, of course. You can talk about
> the observer-dependence of morality all you like, but I assume that you
> personally have a morality of some kind. Is your future self being immoral?
> Or are you being immoral? You can't both be moral under any single moral
> standard. So, under your single moral standard as a single individual,
> who's wrong?
You are, because you postulate a single viewpoint-invariant moral
standard. Both me-current and me-future are acting morally (in the
rational selfishness sense), it's the metric which has shifted smoothly.
> > What is the mechanism asserting conservation of specific frame of morality
> > over subjective geological time scale in face of speciation, radiation
> > driven by Lamarckian/Darwinian evolution?
>
> Darwinian evolution, speciation, and radiation apply only to populations; I
Lamarckian evolution (self engineering) applies to individuals. It is
ridiculous to assume that me-current will be completely conserved over
three subjective megayears. (I would not survive three subjective
megayears otherwise, hence the ball will be completely out of my hands).
> was asking about *you* as an individual.
Populations exert pressure on decisions of an individual. Most people
don't play all their day with bugs. Symmetric-transaction expectation when
dealing with asymmetric transactions are *not* a selection-neutral trait.
You do that long enough, you lose.
I'm a bit at loss that I need to explain this. Isn't this obvious?
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