How do you gain knowledge of other people’s terminal values, or even your own?
I don’t believe status is my terminal value. I don’t think it’s a value at all. I think it’s a useful umbrella term for all the lower level optimization processes that the blind idiot god decided to throw in.
Do you not value praise or criticism?
Do you not care if you’re useful to others?
Do you not care if you get to delegate instead of DIY?
Do you not care if you get to choose your sexual partners?
Etc...
I cautiously suggest some of these hint at the actual terminal values under the umbrella.
How do you gain knowledge of other people’s terminal values, or even your own?
Be in an extreme situation that involves a devastating turn of events like a serious illness or losing everything in a disaster. As examples, Victor Frankl had some great insights into his own and other’s terminal values after experiencing a concentration camp (that people seek meaning and get meaning from ideals, not power or survival or pleasure) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had a deep insight into what makes people happy (flow state).
In my case, I have experienced a devastating turn of events, so I am pretty sure of what my terminal values are: closeness, and changing the world to make it more ideal.
I am not sure why I want them, but they are what I live for—I’m completely sure of that.
Your instrumental values changed dramatically and very visibly, so you confused them for your terminal values.
Your terminal values changed, and you didn’t gain any insight to what they were before.
Your terminal values didn’t change, but are weighed differently now.
Your terminal values didn’t change, you’re still optimizing for the same things you did before, and are just using different kind of language.
As an exercise, what kinds of smaller parts can the terminal values you mentioned be chopped into?
Anyways, I’m pretty reluctant to use “instrumental” and “terminal” for humans anymore. People’s values seem so volatile and thickly veiled that it’s not a useful distinction.
How do you gain knowledge of other people’s terminal values, or even your own?
Well, observation. If a person routinely acquires status even though it DOESN’T further any of their goals, they presumably value status as a terminal value. If someone only acquires status WHEN it’s instrumentally valuable, then it’s presumably not a terminal goal.
Sort of like how I eat chocolate because it’s pleasant, not because I’m hungry :)
A lot of the examples you gave are instrumentally valuable. From someone trustworthy, I prefer criticism because it helps me improve, but praise is important for gauging that I HAVE improved and I’m not just wasting effort.
Being useful to others makes them useful to me. I state this explicitly to my friends—I am generous because it encourages them to be generous back. I also find that it’s simply EASIER to be generous, because I like happy friends more than disappointed friends, and because “yes” rarely gets me pestered to change my mind.
I would be annoyed if I was forced to make a suboptimal decision between delegating and DIY, because I value efficiency. I also really, really, hate being forced to do stupid things. I’ve enjoyed delegating but I largely prefer DIY, which is why I’m not a manager anymore.
I’m near-asexual, so being denied sexual partners doesn’t bother me. Rape would provoke serious violence, it’s not something I associate with low status.… (I’m simplifying vastly here, since a full discussion seems irrelevant :))
Well, observation. If a person routinely acquires status even though it DOESN’T further any of their goals, they presumably value status as a terminal value. If someone only acquires status WHEN it’s instrumentally valuable, then it’s presumably not a terminal goal.
This seems slightly circular to me. For both of the observations to work, you’d already have to know some of the person’s terminal values. I believe this doesn’t get any easier even if you’re observing yourself.
For the other points, I appreciate your elaboration, but I was more like hoping to invoke the consideration that social status is a very fuzzy concept, and probably too high level to be optimized by evolution anyway. Once you invent the concept, then I guess you can shortcut some social computation… and get some cognitive biases as a side effect.
Status is fuzzy, but so is intelligence. Given that dominance and hierarchies are important to many primates, I’d consider the DEFAULT assumption to be that humans DO value all of that, and you’d need to present evidence that humans are somehow exceptional...
How do you gain knowledge of other people’s terminal values, or even your own?
I don’t believe status is my terminal value. I don’t think it’s a value at all. I think it’s a useful umbrella term for all the lower level optimization processes that the blind idiot god decided to throw in.
Do you not value praise or criticism? Do you not care if you’re useful to others? Do you not care if you get to delegate instead of DIY? Do you not care if you get to choose your sexual partners? Etc...
I cautiously suggest some of these hint at the actual terminal values under the umbrella.
Be in an extreme situation that involves a devastating turn of events like a serious illness or losing everything in a disaster. As examples, Victor Frankl had some great insights into his own and other’s terminal values after experiencing a concentration camp (that people seek meaning and get meaning from ideals, not power or survival or pleasure) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had a deep insight into what makes people happy (flow state).
In my case, I have experienced a devastating turn of events, so I am pretty sure of what my terminal values are: closeness, and changing the world to make it more ideal.
I am not sure why I want them, but they are what I live for—I’m completely sure of that.
Alternatives:
Your instrumental values changed dramatically and very visibly, so you confused them for your terminal values. Your terminal values changed, and you didn’t gain any insight to what they were before. Your terminal values didn’t change, but are weighed differently now. Your terminal values didn’t change, you’re still optimizing for the same things you did before, and are just using different kind of language.
As an exercise, what kinds of smaller parts can the terminal values you mentioned be chopped into?
Anyways, I’m pretty reluctant to use “instrumental” and “terminal” for humans anymore. People’s values seem so volatile and thickly veiled that it’s not a useful distinction.
Well, observation. If a person routinely acquires status even though it DOESN’T further any of their goals, they presumably value status as a terminal value. If someone only acquires status WHEN it’s instrumentally valuable, then it’s presumably not a terminal goal.
Sort of like how I eat chocolate because it’s pleasant, not because I’m hungry :)
A lot of the examples you gave are instrumentally valuable. From someone trustworthy, I prefer criticism because it helps me improve, but praise is important for gauging that I HAVE improved and I’m not just wasting effort.
Being useful to others makes them useful to me. I state this explicitly to my friends—I am generous because it encourages them to be generous back. I also find that it’s simply EASIER to be generous, because I like happy friends more than disappointed friends, and because “yes” rarely gets me pestered to change my mind.
I would be annoyed if I was forced to make a suboptimal decision between delegating and DIY, because I value efficiency. I also really, really, hate being forced to do stupid things. I’ve enjoyed delegating but I largely prefer DIY, which is why I’m not a manager anymore.
I’m near-asexual, so being denied sexual partners doesn’t bother me. Rape would provoke serious violence, it’s not something I associate with low status.… (I’m simplifying vastly here, since a full discussion seems irrelevant :))
This seems slightly circular to me. For both of the observations to work, you’d already have to know some of the person’s terminal values. I believe this doesn’t get any easier even if you’re observing yourself.
For the other points, I appreciate your elaboration, but I was more like hoping to invoke the consideration that social status is a very fuzzy concept, and probably too high level to be optimized by evolution anyway. Once you invent the concept, then I guess you can shortcut some social computation… and get some cognitive biases as a side effect.
Status is fuzzy, but so is intelligence. Given that dominance and hierarchies are important to many primates, I’d consider the DEFAULT assumption to be that humans DO value all of that, and you’d need to present evidence that humans are somehow exceptional...