Larry D’Anna: “And it doesn’t do any good to say that they aren’t defective. They aren’t defective from a human, moral point of view, but that’s not the point. From evolutions view, there’s hardly anything more defective, except perhaps a fox that voluntarily restrains it’s own breeding.”
Why is it “not the point”? In this discussion we are talking about differences in moral computation as implemented within individual humans. That the blind idiot’s global optimization strategy defines homosexuality as a defect is of no relevance.
Larry D’Anna: “I’m not sure if I see where the complex adaptation is here. Some people have more empathy, some less. Even if the difference is supposed to be genetic, there seem to be a lot of these flexible parameters in our genome.”
I wasn’t claiming a complex adaptation. I was claiming “other computations that could exhibit a superficial unity, but with a broad spread.”
I think we are already in substantial agreement, and having seen Eliezer’s last comment, I see that much of what I’ve been rambling on about comes from reading more than was warranted into the last paragraphs of his blog entry.
Larry D’Anna: “And it doesn’t do any good to say that they aren’t defective. They aren’t defective from a human, moral point of view, but that’s not the point. From evolutions view, there’s hardly anything more defective, except perhaps a fox that voluntarily restrains it’s own breeding.”
Why is it “not the point”? In this discussion we are talking about differences in moral computation as implemented within individual humans. That the blind idiot’s global optimization strategy defines homosexuality as a defect is of no relevance.
Larry D’Anna: “I’m not sure if I see where the complex adaptation is here. Some people have more empathy, some less. Even if the difference is supposed to be genetic, there seem to be a lot of these flexible parameters in our genome.”
I wasn’t claiming a complex adaptation. I was claiming “other computations that could exhibit a superficial unity, but with a broad spread.”
I think we are already in substantial agreement, and having seen Eliezer’s last comment, I see that much of what I’ve been rambling on about comes from reading more than was warranted into the last paragraphs of his blog entry.