So if I want to improve the world, it makes sense for me to care about “my own” … well-being—even though future instances of “me” are actually distinct systems … because A) I care about the well-being of minds in general, and B) they share at least part of my goals, and are thus more likely to carry them out.
I think it’s clear that there is also terminal value in caring about the well-being of “me”. As with most other human psychological drives, it acts as a sloppily optimized algorithm of some instrumental value, but while its purpose could be achieved more efficiently by other means, the particular way it happens to be implemented contributes an aspect of human values that is important in itself, in a way that’s unrelated to the evolutionary purpose that gave rise to the psychological drive, or to instrumental value of its present implementation.
It’s not clear to me. To get us to behave selfishly, evolution could have instilled false aliefs to the effect that other people’s mental processes aren’t as real as ours, in which case we may want to just disregard those. Even if there’s no such issue, there’s not necessarily any simple one-to-one mapping from urges to components of reflected preference, especially when the urges seem to involve concepts like “me” that are hard to extend beyond a low-tech human context. (If I recall correctly, on previous occasions when you’ve made this argument, you were thinking of “me” in terms of similarity in person-space, which is not as hard to make sense out of as the threads of experience being discussed in this thread.)
I don’t personally endorse it as a terminal value, but it’s everyone’s own decision whether to endorse it or not.
I don’t believe it is, at least it’s relatively easy to decide incorrectly, so the fact of having (provisionally) decided doesn’t answer the question of what the correct decision is. “It’s everyone’s own decision” or “everyone is entitled to their own beliefs” sounds like very bad epistemology.
I cited what seems to me like a strong theoretical argument for antipredicting terminal indifference to personal well-being. Your current conclusion being contrary to what this argument endorses doesn’t seem to address the argument itself.
I thought that your previous comment was simply saying that
1) in deciding whether or not we should value the survival of a “me”, the evolutionary background of this value is irrelevant 2) the reason why people value the survival of a “me” is unrelated to the instrumental benefits of the goal
I agree with those claims, but don’t see them as being contrary to my decision not to personally endorse such a value. You seem to be saying that the question of whether or not a “me” should be valued is in some sense an epistemological question, while I see it as a choice of personal terminal values. The choice of terminal values is unaffected by epistemological considerations, otherwise they wouldn’t be terminal values.
You seem to be saying that the question of whether or not a “me” should be valued is in some sense an epistemological question, while I see it as a choice of personal terminal values. The choice of terminal values is unaffected by epistemological considerations, otherwise they wouldn’t be terminal values.
Wait—what? Are you partly defining terminal values via their being unaffected by epistemic considerations? This makes me want to ask a lot of questions for which I would otherwise take answers for granted. Like: are there any terminal values? Can a person choose terminal values? Do choices express values that were antecedent to the choice? Can a person have “knowledge” or some closely related goal as a personal terminal value?
(Interestingly, seditious values deathist that I am, I am not inclined to believe in “terminal value” of ecologically-contingent approximations of actual morality (i.e., the actually justified decision policy, i.e., God); but God seems to care about those hasty approximations on their own terms, and so I end up caring, by transitivity, about me qua me and individuals qua individuals. So the humanist and the theist end up in the same non-Buddhist place. Ave meta!)
Such comments remind me of Time Cube with a dash of sanity, if only you would strip out the nonsense words (about 90 percent of the content) and clearly define everything that’s left.
I think it’s clearly not nonsense, but deserves to be downvoted anyway for casually assuming weird god stuff that he hasn’t really properly explained anywhere. Still interesting to the W_N connoiseur, and the parentheses are a mitigating factor.
I think it’s clear that there is also terminal value in caring about the well-being of “me”. As with most other human psychological drives, it acts as a sloppily optimized algorithm of some instrumental value, but while its purpose could be achieved more efficiently by other means, the particular way it happens to be implemented contributes an aspect of human values that is important in itself, in a way that’s unrelated to the evolutionary purpose that gave rise to the psychological drive, or to instrumental value of its present implementation.
(Relevant posts: Evolutionary Psychology, Thou Art Godshatter, In Praise of Boredom.)
It’s not clear to me. To get us to behave selfishly, evolution could have instilled false aliefs to the effect that other people’s mental processes aren’t as real as ours, in which case we may want to just disregard those. Even if there’s no such issue, there’s not necessarily any simple one-to-one mapping from urges to components of reflected preference, especially when the urges seem to involve concepts like “me” that are hard to extend beyond a low-tech human context. (If I recall correctly, on previous occasions when you’ve made this argument, you were thinking of “me” in terms of similarity in person-space, which is not as hard to make sense out of as the threads of experience being discussed in this thread.)
Fair enough. I don’t personally endorse it as a terminal value, but it’s everyone’s own decision whether to endorse it or not.
I don’t believe it is, at least it’s relatively easy to decide incorrectly, so the fact of having (provisionally) decided doesn’t answer the question of what the correct decision is. “It’s everyone’s own decision” or “everyone is entitled to their own beliefs” sounds like very bad epistemology.
I cited what seems to me like a strong theoretical argument for antipredicting terminal indifference to personal well-being. Your current conclusion being contrary to what this argument endorses doesn’t seem to address the argument itself.
I thought that your previous comment was simply saying that
1) in deciding whether or not we should value the survival of a “me”, the evolutionary background of this value is irrelevant
2) the reason why people value the survival of a “me” is unrelated to the instrumental benefits of the goal
I agree with those claims, but don’t see them as being contrary to my decision not to personally endorse such a value. You seem to be saying that the question of whether or not a “me” should be valued is in some sense an epistemological question, while I see it as a choice of personal terminal values. The choice of terminal values is unaffected by epistemological considerations, otherwise they wouldn’t be terminal values.
Wait—what? Are you partly defining terminal values via their being unaffected by epistemic considerations? This makes me want to ask a lot of questions for which I would otherwise take answers for granted. Like: are there any terminal values? Can a person choose terminal values? Do choices express values that were antecedent to the choice? Can a person have “knowledge” or some closely related goal as a personal terminal value?
(Interestingly, seditious values deathist that I am, I am not inclined to believe in “terminal value” of ecologically-contingent approximations of actual morality (i.e., the actually justified decision policy, i.e., God); but God seems to care about those hasty approximations on their own terms, and so I end up caring, by transitivity, about me qua me and individuals qua individuals. So the humanist and the theist end up in the same non-Buddhist place. Ave meta!)
Such comments remind me of Time Cube with a dash of sanity, if only you would strip out the nonsense words (about 90 percent of the content) and clearly define everything that’s left.
I think it’s clearly not nonsense, but deserves to be downvoted anyway for casually assuming weird god stuff that he hasn’t really properly explained anywhere. Still interesting to the W_N connoiseur, and the parentheses are a mitigating factor.