Actually for the last few days I’ve been thinking about emailing you, because I’ve been planning on writing a long exegesis explaining my ideas about decision theory and theology, but you’ve stated that you don’t think it’s generally useful to proselytize about your intuitions before you have solid formally justified results that resulted from your intuitions. Although I’ve independently noticed various ideas about decision theory (probably due to Steve’s influence), I haven’t at all contributed any new insights, and the only thing I would accomplish with my apologetics is to convince other people that I’m not obviously crazy. You, Nesov, and Steve have made comments that indicate that you recognize that various of my intuitions might be correct, but of course that in itself isn’t anything noteworthy: it doesn’t help us build FAI. (Speaking of which, do you have any ideas about a better name than “FAI”? ‘Friendliness’ implies “friendly to humans”, which itself is a value judgment. Justified Artificial Intelligence, maybe? Not Regrettable Artificial Intelligence? I was using “computational axiology” for awhile a few years ago, but if there’s not a fundamental distinction between epistemology and axiology then that too is sort of misleading.)
Now, I personally think that certain results about decision theory should actually affect what we think of as morally justified, and thus I think my intuitions are actually important for not being damned (whatever that means). But I could easily be wrong about that.
The reason I’ve made references to theology is actually a matter of epistemology, not decision theory: I think LessWrong and others’ contempt for theology and other kinds of academic philosophy is unjustified and epistemically poisonous. (Needless to say, I am extremely skeptical of arguments along the lines of “we only have so much time, we can’t check out every crackpot thesis that comes our way”: in my experience such arguments are always, without exception the result of motivated cognition.) I would hold this position about normative epistemology even if my intuitions about decision theory didn’t happen to support various theological hypotheses.
Anyway, my default position is to write up the aforementioned exegesis in Latin; that way only people that already give my opinions a substantial amount of weight will bother to read it, and I won’t be seen as unfairly proselytizing about my own justifiably-ignorable ideas.
(I’m pretty drunk right now, apologies for errors. I might respond to your comment again when I’m sober.)
my default position is to write up the aforementioned exegesis in Latin
OK, so now you’re just taking the piss.
Writing it in Latin selects to some extent for people who respect your opinions, but more strongly for people who happen to know quite a lot of Latin. It sounds as if what you actually want is to be able to say you’ve written up your position, without anyone actually reading it. I hope that isn’t really what you actually want.
(I’m pretty stupid; apologies for any mistakes I make.)
(Part of this stems from my looking for an excuse to manipulate myself into learning Latin. Thus far I’ve used a hot Catholic chick and a perceived moral obligation to express myself incoherently—a quite potent combination.)
It sounds as if what you actually want is to be able to say you’ve written up your position, without anyone actually reading it.
That actually sounds a lot like me. Could be true. Yay double negative moral obligations—they force us to be coherent on a higher level, and about more important things!
you’ve stated that you don’t think it’s generally useful to proselytize about your intuitions before you have solid formally justified results that resulted from your intuitions
I will generally explain my intuitions but try not to waste too much time arguing for them if other people do not agree. So I think if you have any ideas that you have not already clearly explained, then you should do so. (And please, not in Latin.)
Speaking of which, do you have any ideas about a better name than “FAI”?
How about Minimally Wrong AI? :)
The reason I’ve made references to theology is actually a matter of epistemology, not decision theory: I think LessWrong and others’ contempt for theology and other kinds of academic philosophy is unjustified and epistemically poisonous.
Making off-hand references to theology is not going to change our minds about this. Do you have an actual plan to do so? If not, you’re just wasting your credibility and make it less likely for us to take your other ideas seriously.
So I think if you have any ideas that you have not already clearly explained, then you should do so. (And please, not in Latin.)
Okay, thanks for the advice. I haven’t yet clearly explained most of my ideas. (Hm, “my” ideas?—I doubt any of them are actually “mine”.) Not sure I want to do so (hence the Latin), but it sort of seems like a moral imperative, so I guess I have to. bleh bleh bleh
Making off-hand references to theology is not going to change our minds about this. Do you have an actual plan to do so?
I’ve debated the meta-level issue of epistemic “charity” and how much importance we should assign it in our decision calculi a few times on LessWrong before, e.g. in a few debates with Nesov. You were involved in at least one of them. I think what eventually happened is that I became afraid I was committing typical mind fallacy in advocating a sort of devil-may-care attitude to looking at weird or low-status beliefs; Nesov claimed that doing so had been harmful to him in the past, so I decided I’d rather collect more data before pushing my epistemic intuitions. Unfortunately I don’t know of an easy way to collect more data, so I’ve sort of stalled out on that particular campaign. The making references to theism thing is a sort of middleground position I’ve taken up, presumably to escape various aversions that I don’t have immediate introspective access to. There’s also the matter of not going out of my way to not appear discreditable.
The making references to theism thing is a sort of middleground position I’ve taken up, presumably to escape various aversions that I don’t have immediate introspective access to.
FWIW, I think this “middleground position” is the worst of both worlds.
There’s also the matter of not going out of my way to not appear discreditable.
Your comments have made me wonder if I’ve been too creditable, i.e., to the extent of making people take my ideas more seriously than they should. But it seems like a valid Umeshism that if there isn’t at least one person who has taken your ideas too seriously, then you’re not being creditable enough. I may be close to (or past) this threshold already, but you seem to still have quite a long way to go, so I suggest not worrying about this right now. Especially since credibility is much harder to gain than to lose, so if you ever find yourself having too much credibility, it shouldn’t be too late to do something about it then.
Your comment seems to me to be modally implicitly self-contradictory. For you say that you are worried that you’ve caused yourself to be too creditable, and yet the reason you are considering that hypothesis is that I, a mere peasant, have implicitly-suggested-if-only-categorically that that might be the case. If I am wrong to doubt the wisdom of my self-doubting, then by your lights I am right, and not right to do so! You’ve taken me seriously enough to doubt yourself—to some extent this implies that I have impressed my self too strongly upon you, for you and I and everyone else thinks that you are more justified than I. Again, modally—not necessarily self-contradictory, but it leans that way, at least connotationally-implicitly.
(Really quite drunk, again, apologies for errors, again.)
Damn it, why am I giving you advice on the proper level of credibility, when I should be telling you to stop drinking so much? Talk about cached selves...
Apologies in advance for the emotivist interpretation of morality espoused by this comment.
because I’ve been planning on writing a long exegesis explaining my ideas about decision theory and theology,
Yay!
but you’ve stated that you don’t think it’s generally useful to proselytize about your intuitions before you have solid formally justified results that resulted from your intuitions.
Boo.
I think LessWrong and others’ contempt for theology and other kinds of academic philosophy is unjustified and epistemically poisonous. (Needless to say, I am extremely skeptical of arguments along the lines of “we only have so much time, we can’t check out every crackpot thesis that comes our way”: in my experience such arguments are always, without exception the result of motivated cognition.)
YAAAAAY!
Anyway, my default position is to write up the aforementioned exegesis in Latin; that way only people that already give my opinions a substantial amount of weight will bother to read it, and I won’t be seen as unfairly proselytizing about my own justifiably-ignorable ideas.
Actually for the last few days I’ve been thinking about emailing you, because I’ve been planning on writing a long exegesis explaining my ideas about decision theory and theology, but you’ve stated that you don’t think it’s generally useful to proselytize about your intuitions before you have solid formally justified results that resulted from your intuitions. Although I’ve independently noticed various ideas about decision theory (probably due to Steve’s influence), I haven’t at all contributed any new insights, and the only thing I would accomplish with my apologetics is to convince other people that I’m not obviously crazy. You, Nesov, and Steve have made comments that indicate that you recognize that various of my intuitions might be correct, but of course that in itself isn’t anything noteworthy: it doesn’t help us build FAI. (Speaking of which, do you have any ideas about a better name than “FAI”? ‘Friendliness’ implies “friendly to humans”, which itself is a value judgment. Justified Artificial Intelligence, maybe? Not Regrettable Artificial Intelligence? I was using “computational axiology” for awhile a few years ago, but if there’s not a fundamental distinction between epistemology and axiology then that too is sort of misleading.)
Now, I personally think that certain results about decision theory should actually affect what we think of as morally justified, and thus I think my intuitions are actually important for not being damned (whatever that means). But I could easily be wrong about that.
The reason I’ve made references to theology is actually a matter of epistemology, not decision theory: I think LessWrong and others’ contempt for theology and other kinds of academic philosophy is unjustified and epistemically poisonous. (Needless to say, I am extremely skeptical of arguments along the lines of “we only have so much time, we can’t check out every crackpot thesis that comes our way”: in my experience such arguments are always, without exception the result of motivated cognition.) I would hold this position about normative epistemology even if my intuitions about decision theory didn’t happen to support various theological hypotheses.
Anyway, my default position is to write up the aforementioned exegesis in Latin; that way only people that already give my opinions a substantial amount of weight will bother to read it, and I won’t be seen as unfairly proselytizing about my own justifiably-ignorable ideas.
(I’m pretty drunk right now, apologies for errors. I might respond to your comment again when I’m sober.)
OK, so now you’re just taking the piss.
Writing it in Latin selects to some extent for people who respect your opinions, but more strongly for people who happen to know quite a lot of Latin. It sounds as if what you actually want is to be able to say you’ve written up your position, without anyone actually reading it. I hope that isn’t really what you actually want.
(I’m pretty stupid; apologies for any mistakes I make.)
(Part of this stems from my looking for an excuse to manipulate myself into learning Latin. Thus far I’ve used a hot Catholic chick and a perceived moral obligation to express myself incoherently—a quite potent combination.)
That actually sounds a lot like me. Could be true. Yay double negative moral obligations—they force us to be coherent on a higher level, and about more important things!
I will generally explain my intuitions but try not to waste too much time arguing for them if other people do not agree. So I think if you have any ideas that you have not already clearly explained, then you should do so. (And please, not in Latin.)
How about Minimally Wrong AI? :)
Making off-hand references to theology is not going to change our minds about this. Do you have an actual plan to do so? If not, you’re just wasting your credibility and make it less likely for us to take your other ideas seriously.
(Side note: This self-sabotage is purposeful, for reasons indicated by, e.g., this post.)
Okay, thanks for the advice. I haven’t yet clearly explained most of my ideas. (Hm, “my” ideas?—I doubt any of them are actually “mine”.) Not sure I want to do so (hence the Latin), but it sort of seems like a moral imperative, so I guess I have to. bleh bleh bleh
I’ve debated the meta-level issue of epistemic “charity” and how much importance we should assign it in our decision calculi a few times on LessWrong before, e.g. in a few debates with Nesov. You were involved in at least one of them. I think what eventually happened is that I became afraid I was committing typical mind fallacy in advocating a sort of devil-may-care attitude to looking at weird or low-status beliefs; Nesov claimed that doing so had been harmful to him in the past, so I decided I’d rather collect more data before pushing my epistemic intuitions. Unfortunately I don’t know of an easy way to collect more data, so I’ve sort of stalled out on that particular campaign. The making references to theism thing is a sort of middleground position I’ve taken up, presumably to escape various aversions that I don’t have immediate introspective access to. There’s also the matter of not going out of my way to not appear discreditable.
FWIW, I think this “middleground position” is the worst of both worlds.
Your comments have made me wonder if I’ve been too creditable, i.e., to the extent of making people take my ideas more seriously than they should. But it seems like a valid Umeshism that if there isn’t at least one person who has taken your ideas too seriously, then you’re not being creditable enough. I may be close to (or past) this threshold already, but you seem to still have quite a long way to go, so I suggest not worrying about this right now. Especially since credibility is much harder to gain than to lose, so if you ever find yourself having too much credibility, it shouldn’t be too late to do something about it then.
Your comment seems to me to be modally implicitly self-contradictory. For you say that you are worried that you’ve caused yourself to be too creditable, and yet the reason you are considering that hypothesis is that I, a mere peasant, have implicitly-suggested-if-only-categorically that that might be the case. If I am wrong to doubt the wisdom of my self-doubting, then by your lights I am right, and not right to do so! You’ve taken me seriously enough to doubt yourself—to some extent this implies that I have impressed my self too strongly upon you, for you and I and everyone else thinks that you are more justified than I. Again, modally—not necessarily self-contradictory, but it leans that way, at least connotationally-implicitly.
(Really quite drunk, again, apologies for errors, again.)
Damn it, why am I giving you advice on the proper level of credibility, when I should be telling you to stop drinking so much? Talk about cached selves...
It’s okay, I ran out of rum. But now I’m left with an existential question: Why is the rum gone?
Apologies in advance for the emotivist interpretation of morality espoused by this comment.
Yay!
Boo.
YAAAAAY!
Boo.