The way you describe it you make it sound awful, but actually I think simulations are great and that you shouldn’t think that there’s a difference between being in a simulation and being in base reality (whatever that means). Simple argument: if there’s no experiment that you could ever possibly do to distinguish between two situations, then I don’t think that those two situations should be morally distinct.
Well, there could be ways to distinguish, but it could be like a dream, where much of your reasoning is extremely poor, but you’re very confident in it anyway. Like maybe you believe that your loved ones in your dream saying the word “pizza” is overwhelming evidence of their consciousness and love for you. But if you investigated properly, you could find out they’re not conscious. You just won’t, because you’ll never question it. If value is totally subjective and the accuracy of beliefs doesn’t matter (as would seem to be the case on experientialist accounts), then this seems to be fine.
Do you think simulations are so great that it’s better for people to be put into them against their wishes, as long as they perceive/judge it as more meaningful or fulfilling, even if they wouldn’t find it meaningful/fulfilling with accurate beliefs? Again, we can make it so that they don’t find out.
Similarly, would involuntary wireheading or drugging to make people find things more meaningful or fulfilling be good for those people?
Or, something like a “meaning” shockwave, similar to a hedonium shockwave, — quickly killing and replacing everyone with conscious systems that take no outside input or even have sensations (or only the bare minimum) other than to generate feelings or judgements of meaning, fulfillment, or love? (Some person-affecting views could avoid this while still matching the rest of your views.)
Of course, I think there are good practical reasons to not do things to people against their wishes, even when it’s apparently in their own best interests, but I think those don’t capture my objections. I just think it would be wrong, except possibly in limited cases, e.g. to prevent foreseeable regret. The point is that people really do often want their beliefs to be accurate, and what they value is really intended — by their own statements — to be pointed at something out there, not just the contents of their experiences. Experientialism seems like an example of Goodhart’s law to me, like hedonism might (?) seem like an example of Goodhart’s law to you.
I don’t think people and their values are in general replaceable, and if they don’t want to be manipulated, it’s worse for them (in one way) to be manipulated. And that should only be compensated for in limited cases. As far as I know, the only way to fundamentally and robustly capture that is to care about things other than just the contents of experiences and to take a kind of preference/value-affecting view.
Still, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad or worse for someone to not care about anything but the contents of their experiences. And if the state of the universe was already hedonium or just experiences of meaning, that wouldn’t be worse. It’s the fact that people do specifically care about things beyond just the contents of their experiences. If they didn’t, and also didn’t care about being manipulated, then it seems like it wouldn’t necessarily be bad to manipulate them.
The way you describe it you make it sound awful, but actually I think simulations are great and that you shouldn’t think that there’s a difference between being in a simulation and being in base reality (whatever that means). Simple argument: if there’s no experiment that you could ever possibly do to distinguish between two situations, then I don’t think that those two situations should be morally distinct.
Well, there could be ways to distinguish, but it could be like a dream, where much of your reasoning is extremely poor, but you’re very confident in it anyway. Like maybe you believe that your loved ones in your dream saying the word “pizza” is overwhelming evidence of their consciousness and love for you. But if you investigated properly, you could find out they’re not conscious. You just won’t, because you’ll never question it. If value is totally subjective and the accuracy of beliefs doesn’t matter (as would seem to be the case on experientialist accounts), then this seems to be fine.
Do you think simulations are so great that it’s better for people to be put into them against their wishes, as long as they perceive/judge it as more meaningful or fulfilling, even if they wouldn’t find it meaningful/fulfilling with accurate beliefs? Again, we can make it so that they don’t find out.
Similarly, would involuntary wireheading or drugging to make people find things more meaningful or fulfilling be good for those people?
Or, something like a “meaning” shockwave, similar to a hedonium shockwave, — quickly killing and replacing everyone with conscious systems that take no outside input or even have sensations (or only the bare minimum) other than to generate feelings or judgements of meaning, fulfillment, or love? (Some person-affecting views could avoid this while still matching the rest of your views.)
Of course, I think there are good practical reasons to not do things to people against their wishes, even when it’s apparently in their own best interests, but I think those don’t capture my objections. I just think it would be wrong, except possibly in limited cases, e.g. to prevent foreseeable regret. The point is that people really do often want their beliefs to be accurate, and what they value is really intended — by their own statements — to be pointed at something out there, not just the contents of their experiences. Experientialism seems like an example of Goodhart’s law to me, like hedonism might (?) seem like an example of Goodhart’s law to you.
I don’t think people and their values are in general replaceable, and if they don’t want to be manipulated, it’s worse for them (in one way) to be manipulated. And that should only be compensated for in limited cases. As far as I know, the only way to fundamentally and robustly capture that is to care about things other than just the contents of experiences and to take a kind of preference/value-affecting view.
Still, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad or worse for someone to not care about anything but the contents of their experiences. And if the state of the universe was already hedonium or just experiences of meaning, that wouldn’t be worse. It’s the fact that people do specifically care about things beyond just the contents of their experiences. If they didn’t, and also didn’t care about being manipulated, then it seems like it wouldn’t necessarily be bad to manipulate them.