Can’t speak for Said Achmiz, but I guess for me the main stumbling block is the unreality of the hypothetical, which you acknowledge in the section “This is not a literal description of reality” but don’t go into further. How is it possible for me to imagine what “I” would want in a world where by construction “I” don’t exist? Created Already in Motion and No Universally Compelling Arguments are gesturing at a similar problem, that there is no “ideal mind of perfect emptiness” whose reasoning can be separated from its contingent properties. Now, I don’t go that far—I’ll grant at least that logic and mathematics are universally true even if some particular person doesn’t accept them. But the veil-of-ignorance scenario is specifically inquiring into subjectivity (preferences and values), and so it doesn’t seem coherent to do so while at the same time imagining a world without the contingent properties that constitute that subjectivity.
Are you able to imagine things you will want in the future? But assuming the universe isn’t just a big 4d-block, that version of you doesn’t exist, so wouldn’t imagining that be incoherent? Why wouldn’t the unreality of that be a stumbling block?
This is indeed neither a universally compelling argument nor is it possible to be an “ideal mind of perfect emptiness”. Think of this post as more along the lines of asking “if I was much more impartial and viewed all sentient beings as morally relevant, how would I want the world to look, what values would I have?”. Some people would answer “I don’t care about group X, if I was one of them I’d hope I get treated poorly like they do” and if they were being honest, this could not change their mind
Can’t speak for Said Achmiz, but I guess for me the main stumbling block is the unreality of the hypothetical, which you acknowledge in the section “This is not a literal description of reality” but don’t go into further. How is it possible for me to imagine what “I” would want in a world where by construction “I” don’t exist? Created Already in Motion and No Universally Compelling Arguments are gesturing at a similar problem, that there is no “ideal mind of perfect emptiness” whose reasoning can be separated from its contingent properties. Now, I don’t go that far—I’ll grant at least that logic and mathematics are universally true even if some particular person doesn’t accept them. But the veil-of-ignorance scenario is specifically inquiring into subjectivity (preferences and values), and so it doesn’t seem coherent to do so while at the same time imagining a world without the contingent properties that constitute that subjectivity.
Are you able to imagine things you will want in the future? But assuming the universe isn’t just a big 4d-block, that version of you doesn’t exist, so wouldn’t imagining that be incoherent? Why wouldn’t the unreality of that be a stumbling block?
This is indeed neither a universally compelling argument nor is it possible to be an “ideal mind of perfect emptiness”. Think of this post as more along the lines of asking “if I was much more impartial and viewed all sentient beings as morally relevant, how would I want the world to look, what values would I have?”. Some people would answer “I don’t care about group X, if I was one of them I’d hope I get treated poorly like they do” and if they were being honest, this could not change their mind