I feel compelled to point out here that selection pressure pointing towards genetic/memetic fitness doesn’t necessarily imply explicit values oriented towards the same goal, merely values correlated with it, and even that can sometimes get fuzzy based on moral fashion or political forces. Explicitly legacy-oriented values clearly do exist, but they’re far from universal: compare Havamal 75 to Analects of Confucius 1:11 to Epicurus’ letter to Menoeceus to get three very different perspectives on the general topic of an enduring legacy.
Humans’ “explicit values” are not to be trusted either. Humans invent all kinks of bullshit stories about their values for the purpose of signalling to prospective partners how great they are so as to better manipulate them. They are like the priests who preach chastity and fidelity—and then roger the altar boy in “a moment of weakness”.
Sure, but the same goes for anyone talking about how life is meaningless because of the period at the end. We’re generally pretty terrible at making our explicit values consistent with out implicit objectives, but it doesn’t do much good to invoke an implicit goal to resolve explicit existential angst if we don’t acknowledge that goal in the first place.
I feel compelled to point out here that selection pressure pointing towards genetic/memetic fitness doesn’t necessarily imply explicit values oriented towards the same goal, merely values correlated with it, and even that can sometimes get fuzzy based on moral fashion or political forces. Explicitly legacy-oriented values clearly do exist, but they’re far from universal: compare Havamal 75 to Analects of Confucius 1:11 to Epicurus’ letter to Menoeceus to get three very different perspectives on the general topic of an enduring legacy.
Humans’ “explicit values” are not to be trusted either. Humans invent all kinks of bullshit stories about their values for the purpose of signalling to prospective partners how great they are so as to better manipulate them. They are like the priests who preach chastity and fidelity—and then roger the altar boy in “a moment of weakness”.
By their works ye shall know them.
Sure, but the same goes for anyone talking about how life is meaningless because of the period at the end. We’re generally pretty terrible at making our explicit values consistent with out implicit objectives, but it doesn’t do much good to invoke an implicit goal to resolve explicit existential angst if we don’t acknowledge that goal in the first place.