From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Aug 12 2002 - 22:50:06 MDT
Mike writes
> > > Again, so-called "altruistic" behaviors are motivated by a desire
> > > for the subjective experience of reward. This means they are not
> > > performed "without expecting a reward."
> Eliezer writes
> > Please explain an altruist who actually sacrifices his or her
> > life in the course of altruism, at sufficient speed that there
> > is no time for brain-reward. Please also explain why altruists
> > will forgo much larger brain-rewards (measured in total neuro-
> > transmitter brain release or whatever you like) in order to
> > gain the small brain-reward of altruism.
>
> Getting something in return for your self sacrificial action can be
> quite intangible. If you die believing your death has made the world
> more like YOU selfishly want it to be, and perhaps not as a majority of
> those who survive might want it to be, then that self sacrifice is
> selfish in nature, because you achieved some degree of personal
> satisfaction by your action.
But I say that you *did not* take the action *because* of
the personal satisfaction you obtain. Eliezer is quite
correct here: the amount of personal satisfaction may be
quite miniscule compared to what you are sacrificing. Certain
people have---with infinite dread in their bones---stood up for
a cause knowing that it would result in their imprisonment,
torture, and death, possibly protracted over years. Moreover,
one can imagine that their actions could take place a second
before vicious drugs and painful stimuli began their work.
To explain an unselfish act as brain mechanism explains nothing.
We're all machines, period.
Eliezer had also written
> Your statement, that altruistic desires are always motivated by the
> subjective expectation of reward, is simply not true. People are
> perfectly capable of conceiving of altruism as an ideal apart from its
> evolutionary implementation and using that knowledge to refine their
> behavior toward the ideal and away from maximal brain-reward.
Humans can be in the grip of memes that completely transcend
anticipated rewards. Certain ideological fanatics are willing
to make any sacrifices necessary as a step towards the goals
they approve of. I can just see you at a veteran's convention
as the blind and crippled pilot, who had returned to the dogfight
knowing that he'd almost certainly die, enters the hall amid the
cheering. "He did it for a selfish reason, you know," you
whisper to the next person.
> For example, choosing to engage in long-term, highly leveraged
> altruism which brings maximum benefit to a maximum number of
> people (Singularity Institute), rather than blindly investing
> all altruistic resources to maximize instinctive brain-reward...
> Maybe there aren't *enough* of those people, but there are some.
Or there may be too many such people. After all, you have only
your own intelligence and good judgment to separate you from the
fanatic I mentioned above.
Mike again:
> If such activity is to be considered truly altruistic, then it is as,
> or no more, altruistic than the satisfaction of taking out as many of
> the 'bad guys' with your death, and I doubt that those on the list who
> believe in the unselfish nature of altruism would consider this to be such.
Well, I do! True altruism by definition is unselfish; what is
debated is whether it exists. The evidence suggests that it
does exist (I won't give the list of books again here), and
there do exist evolutionary explanations for how it arose.
Taking out bad guys, or even H-bombing an enemy city, could
very well be an act of unselfish, genuine altruism, if it
entailed severe personal loss.
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:02 MST