@Ben Jones: “Say half the population takes a pill that makes them really, truly believe that murder is right. The way I understand Eliezer’s assertion that his morals aren’t relative, he’d say ‘no, murder is still wrong’, and would probably assert the same even if 100% of the population took the pills. The pill-takers would assert, and absolutely believe, that they were right. Not p-right, but right. I’d love to hear proof that the pill-takers are wrong, and that everyone else is right. Not p-right, but right.”
This comment underlines the fact that Eliezer’s use of language is not the standard one. According to Eliezer’s usage, it is not possible to opine that murder is right, in the same way that it is not possible to opine that 22 is prime. Eliezer has defined “right” to be a specific constant set of terminal values. Unfortunately, he hasn’t ever specified that constant fully, just like if I said “x is the real number 8.1939… etc”. [What comes after the dots?]
Asking whether the pill-takers are “right” is, in Eliezer’s terminology, like asking if x = 0, where x is simply defined to be the real number 8.1939.. etc: it’s false in an obvious way. Nothing is right, except what Eliezer has in mind when he writes lists of values followed by ”...”, just like no real number is equal to 8.1939… etc, except, um, 8.1939… etc.
This is, of course, not the way most people use the word “right”. They use it as the name of a variable to hold the answer to the question “how shall I live?”.
@Ben Jones: “Say half the population takes a pill that makes them really, truly believe that murder is right. The way I understand Eliezer’s assertion that his morals aren’t relative, he’d say ‘no, murder is still wrong’, and would probably assert the same even if 100% of the population took the pills. The pill-takers would assert, and absolutely believe, that they were right. Not p-right, but right. I’d love to hear proof that the pill-takers are wrong, and that everyone else is right. Not p-right, but right.”
This comment underlines the fact that Eliezer’s use of language is not the standard one. According to Eliezer’s usage, it is not possible to opine that murder is right, in the same way that it is not possible to opine that 22 is prime. Eliezer has defined “right” to be a specific constant set of terminal values. Unfortunately, he hasn’t ever specified that constant fully, just like if I said “x is the real number 8.1939… etc”. [What comes after the dots?]
Asking whether the pill-takers are “right” is, in Eliezer’s terminology, like asking if x = 0, where x is simply defined to be the real number 8.1939.. etc: it’s false in an obvious way. Nothing is right, except what Eliezer has in mind when he writes lists of values followed by ”...”, just like no real number is equal to 8.1939… etc, except, um, 8.1939… etc.
This is, of course, not the way most people use the word “right”. They use it as the name of a variable to hold the answer to the question “how shall I live?”.