(I am currently on the path of learning how values actually work and figuring out what I should really do.)
It has been a few days since I read this post so I may be misrepresenting you, but I think this post committed a similar mistake to people who think that arguing with another person to change their mind is meaningless given that we don’t have free will, because given a deterministic future, that person will just automatically change their mind. But it doesn’t work like that, because the act of arguing is part of the deterministic process that eventually causes the person to change their mind. (I could not find the exact EY post that this appeared on: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/free-will-solution) Similarly, even though we can let our values drift freely, controlling how the values drift is also part of the drifting process.
I eventually got less confused about values. I still think there’s something unnecessary in worry about value drift, and I could probably make a better argument for that now but I’ve got other projects on my plate.
Anyway, since you’re thinking about how values actually work, this post captures a bunch of what I figured out and links to other things, but it’s also now a couple years old and I’d probably say things differently than I did at the time.
(I am currently on the path of learning how values actually work and figuring out what I should really do.)
It has been a few days since I read this post so I may be misrepresenting you, but I think this post committed a similar mistake to people who think that arguing with another person to change their mind is meaningless given that we don’t have free will, because given a deterministic future, that person will just automatically change their mind. But it doesn’t work like that, because the act of arguing is part of the deterministic process that eventually causes the person to change their mind. (I could not find the exact EY post that this appeared on: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/free-will-solution) Similarly, even though we can let our values drift freely, controlling how the values drift is also part of the drifting process.
I eventually got less confused about values. I still think there’s something unnecessary in worry about value drift, and I could probably make a better argument for that now but I’ve got other projects on my plate.
Anyway, since you’re thinking about how values actually work, this post captures a bunch of what I figured out and links to other things, but it’s also now a couple years old and I’d probably say things differently than I did at the time.