So if I wanted to respond to the person dying of a horrible disease who is refusing antibiotics, I might say something like “you are confused about what you actually value and about the meaning of the word ‘natural.’ If you understood more about about science and medicine and successfully resolved the relevant confusions, you would no longer want to make this decision.” (I might also say something like “however, I respect your right to determine what kind of substances enter your body.”)
I suppose you want me to say that Eliezer is also confused about what he actually values, namely that he thinks he values science but he only values the ability of science to increase human happiness. (I don’t think he’s confused about the meaning of any of the relevant words.)
I disagree. One reason to value science, even from a purely hedonistic point of view, is that science corrects itself over time, and in particular gives you better ideas about how to be a hedonist over time. If you wanted to actually design a process that turned people into orgasmium, you’d have to science a lot, and at the end of all that sciencing there’s no guarantee that the process you’ve come up with is hedonistically optimal. Maybe you could increase the capacity of the orgasmium to experience happiness further if you’d scienced more. Once you turn everyone into orgasmium, nobody’s around to science anymore, so nobody’s around to find better processes for turning people into orgasmium (or, science forbid, find better ethical arguments against hedonistic utilitarianism).
In short, the capacity for self-improvement is lost, and that would be terrible regardless of what direction you’re trying to improve towards.
I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t decide that. I’m not arguing any kind of “should.”
I’m just saying, if you do decide that, you’re kind of dumb. And by analogy Eliezer was being kind of dumb in his article.
Okay. What do you mean by “dumb”?
In this case: letting bias and/or intellectual laziness dominate your decision-making process.
So if I wanted to respond to the person dying of a horrible disease who is refusing antibiotics, I might say something like “you are confused about what you actually value and about the meaning of the word ‘natural.’ If you understood more about about science and medicine and successfully resolved the relevant confusions, you would no longer want to make this decision.” (I might also say something like “however, I respect your right to determine what kind of substances enter your body.”)
I suppose you want me to say that Eliezer is also confused about what he actually values, namely that he thinks he values science but he only values the ability of science to increase human happiness. (I don’t think he’s confused about the meaning of any of the relevant words.)
I disagree. One reason to value science, even from a purely hedonistic point of view, is that science corrects itself over time, and in particular gives you better ideas about how to be a hedonist over time. If you wanted to actually design a process that turned people into orgasmium, you’d have to science a lot, and at the end of all that sciencing there’s no guarantee that the process you’ve come up with is hedonistically optimal. Maybe you could increase the capacity of the orgasmium to experience happiness further if you’d scienced more. Once you turn everyone into orgasmium, nobody’s around to science anymore, so nobody’s around to find better processes for turning people into orgasmium (or, science forbid, find better ethical arguments against hedonistic utilitarianism).
In short, the capacity for self-improvement is lost, and that would be terrible regardless of what direction you’re trying to improve towards.