Reading http://lesswrong.com/lw/t1/arbitrary/ makes me think that a rational agent, even if its greatest motivation is to maximize its paperclip production, would be able to determine that its desire for paperclips was more arbitrary than its tools for rationality. It could perform simulations or thought experiments to determine its most likely origins and find that while many possible origins lead to the development of rationality there are only a few paths that specifically generate paperclip maximization. Equally likely are pencil maximization and smiley-face maximization, and even some less likely things like human-friendliness maximization will use the same rationality framework because it works well in the Universe. There’s justification for rationality but not for paperclip maximization.
That also means that joy and happiness are not completely arbitrary for humans because they are tools used to maximize evolutionary fitness, which we can identify as the justification for the development of those emotions. Some of the acquired tastes, fetishes, or habits of humans might well be described as arbitrary, though.
Reading http://lesswrong.com/lw/t1/arbitrary/ makes me think that a rational agent, even if its greatest motivation is to maximize its paperclip production, would be able to determine that its desire for paperclips was more arbitrary than its tools for rationality. It could perform simulations or thought experiments to determine its most likely origins and find that while many possible origins lead to the development of rationality there are only a few paths that specifically generate paperclip maximization. Equally likely are pencil maximization and smiley-face maximization, and even some less likely things like human-friendliness maximization will use the same rationality framework because it works well in the Universe. There’s justification for rationality but not for paperclip maximization.
That also means that joy and happiness are not completely arbitrary for humans because they are tools used to maximize evolutionary fitness, which we can identify as the justification for the development of those emotions. Some of the acquired tastes, fetishes, or habits of humans might well be described as arbitrary, though.