Correct me if I’m wrong, but does this seem like an affirmation of religious morality and denouncement of consequentialism? I’m failing to see the rationality here.
He probably means that in a Big World of certain kinds, he thinks, TDT/UDT leads to unpopular conclusions. E.g. that we should believe in all deities who punish disbelief if they exist in some possible world.
This seems close to the reason I rejected the mathematical macrocosm hypothesis, even before Someone Who’s Probably Not Will Newsome explained part of his position. If Tegmark IV either does not constrain anticipation, or calls you a Boltzmann Brain equivalent, then it fails as an explanation. And upon close inspection, I don’t think I reject Boltzmann just by applying decision theory. It seems logically absurd to say, “I am likely a Boltzmann Brain, but acting like a real boy has more expected value.” The first clause means I shouldn’t trust my reasoning and should likely just think happy thoughts. I think the best theory of reality will say a random (real) mind would likely benefit from rationality, to at least the extent that we appear to benefit.
Rationality in: Recognition of timeless/timeful distinction (Law of God, Law of Man), Emphasizing timeless effects even when they’re heavily discountable, Pointing out that history tends to make fools of the temporally good, Touching on the touchy theme of consent, Proposing arguments about when it is or is not justified to take-into-account or ignore the arguments of others who seem to be acting in good faith.
Also, even a simple counter-affirmation to local ideology is itself useful if it’s sufficiently eloquently-stated.
Conditional on the existence of a Law of God (and the sort of god in whom Eliot believed) that’s not so very unreasonable. It’s worth distinguishing between “irrational” and “rational but based on prior assumptions I find very improbable”.
(None the less, I don’t think there’s much rationality in the lines Will_Newsome quoted, though it does gesticulate in the general direction of an important difficulty with consequentialism: a given action has a lot of consequences and sorting out the net effect is difficult-to-impossible; so we have to make do with a bunch of heuristic approximations to consequentialism. I’ll still take that over a bunch of heuristic approximations to the law of a probably-nonexistent god, any day.)
Wait, it explicitly says that his decision (if you call that “decision” to which his whole being gives entire consent) to give his life to the Law of God should (and is to) be taken timelessly (“out of time”). …I don’t see how that’s not clear. Most of the time when people complain about equivocation/syncretism it’s because the (alleged) meaning is implicit or hidden one layer down, but that’s not the case here.
That’s definitely not an error. Have you read much T. S. Eliot? He was obsessed with the timeful/timeless local/global distinction. Read Four Quartets.
That’s definitely not an error. Have you read much T. S. Eliot? He was obsessed with the timeful/timeless local/global distinction. Read Four Quartets.
I wasn’t trying to imply you misrepresented T.S.Eliot’s obsession. Just that you make an error in advocating it as an example of a “Rationality Quote”. Because it’s drivel.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but does this seem like an affirmation of religious morality and denouncement of consequentialism? I’m failing to see the rationality here.
He probably means that in a Big World of certain kinds, he thinks, TDT/UDT leads to unpopular conclusions. E.g. that we should believe in all deities who punish disbelief if they exist in some possible world.
This seems close to the reason I rejected the mathematical macrocosm hypothesis, even before Someone Who’s Probably Not Will Newsome explained part of his position. If Tegmark IV either does not constrain anticipation, or calls you a Boltzmann Brain equivalent, then it fails as an explanation. And upon close inspection, I don’t think I reject Boltzmann just by applying decision theory. It seems logically absurd to say, “I am likely a Boltzmann Brain, but acting like a real boy has more expected value.” The first clause means I shouldn’t trust my reasoning and should likely just think happy thoughts. I think the best theory of reality will say a random (real) mind would likely benefit from rationality, to at least the extent that we appear to benefit.
Rationality in: Recognition of timeless/timeful distinction (Law of God, Law of Man), Emphasizing timeless effects even when they’re heavily discountable, Pointing out that history tends to make fools of the temporally good, Touching on the touchy theme of consent, Proposing arguments about when it is or is not justified to take-into-account or ignore the arguments of others who seem to be acting in good faith.
Also, even a simple counter-affirmation to local ideology is itself useful if it’s sufficiently eloquently-stated.
(Pretty drunk, apologies for any errors.)
You mean the part where you equate ‘timeless’ considerations with the Law of God?
Conditional on the existence of a Law of God (and the sort of god in whom Eliot believed) that’s not so very unreasonable. It’s worth distinguishing between “irrational” and “rational but based on prior assumptions I find very improbable”.
(None the less, I don’t think there’s much rationality in the lines Will_Newsome quoted, though it does gesticulate in the general direction of an important difficulty with consequentialism: a given action has a lot of consequences and sorting out the net effect is difficult-to-impossible; so we have to make do with a bunch of heuristic approximations to consequentialism. I’ll still take that over a bunch of heuristic approximations to the law of a probably-nonexistent god, any day.)
Wait, it explicitly says that his decision (if you call that “decision” to which his whole being gives entire consent) to give his life to the Law of God should (and is to) be taken timelessly (“out of time”). …I don’t see how that’s not clear. Most of the time when people complain about equivocation/syncretism it’s because the (alleged) meaning is implicit or hidden one layer down, but that’s not the case here.
That’s definitely not an error. Have you read much T. S. Eliot? He was obsessed with the timeful/timeless local/global distinction. Read Four Quartets.
I wasn’t trying to imply you misrepresented T.S.Eliot’s obsession. Just that you make an error in advocating it as an example of a “Rationality Quote”. Because it’s drivel.
0_o
/sigh...
What is the empirical difference between a person who is temporally vs timelessly good?