One very common pitfall here that you mention, and that is inherited from Eliezer’s writings, is related to the potential infinite universes and many worlds. “But many worlds implies...” No, it doesn’t. Whether some physical model of the world that is believed to be the one truth by the site founder gets some experimental evidence for or against some day need not affect your morality here and now. Or ever, for that matter, unless there is some day a proven way to interact with those hypothetical selves. The effects of your actions are limited to a tiny part of the observable universe, and that is only if you believe that you have free will. Which is another pitfall, “but if I don’t have free will, nothing matters.” Nothing objectively matters anyway, the meaning is inside the algorithm that is your mind. Hopefully that algorithm is robust enough to resist the security holes in it, called here infohazards and such.
It seems implausible that a physical theory of the universe, especially one so fundamental to our understanding of matter, would have literally no practical implications. The geocentric and heliocentric model of the solar system give you the same predictions about where the stars will be in the sky, but the heliocentric model gives some important implications for the ethics of space travel. Other scientific revolutions have similarly had enormous effects on our interpretation of the world.
Can you point to why this physical dispute is different?
Without heliocentrism (and its extension to other stars), it seems that the entire idea of going to space and colonizing the stars would not be on the table, because we wouldn’t fundamentally even understand what stuff was out there. Since colonizing space is arguably the number one long-term priority for utilitarians, heliocentrism is therefore a groundbreaking theory of immense ethical importance. Without it, we would not have any desire to expand beyond the Earth.
I tend to prefer dealing with applications, not implications
One very common pitfall here that you mention, and that is inherited from Eliezer’s writings, is related to the potential infinite universes and many worlds. “But many worlds implies...” No, it doesn’t. Whether some physical model of the world that is believed to be the one truth by the site founder gets some experimental evidence for or against some day need not affect your morality here and now. Or ever, for that matter, unless there is some day a proven way to interact with those hypothetical selves. The effects of your actions are limited to a tiny part of the observable universe, and that is only if you believe that you have free will. Which is another pitfall, “but if I don’t have free will, nothing matters.” Nothing objectively matters anyway, the meaning is inside the algorithm that is your mind. Hopefully that algorithm is robust enough to resist the security holes in it, called here infohazards and such.
It seems implausible that a physical theory of the universe, especially one so fundamental to our understanding of matter, would have literally no practical implications. The geocentric and heliocentric model of the solar system give you the same predictions about where the stars will be in the sky, but the heliocentric model gives some important implications for the ethics of space travel. Other scientific revolutions have similarly had enormous effects on our interpretation of the world.
Can you point to why this physical dispute is different?
What are those implications? I tend to prefer dealing with applications, not implications, so not sure what you mean.
Without heliocentrism (and its extension to other stars), it seems that the entire idea of going to space and colonizing the stars would not be on the table, because we wouldn’t fundamentally even understand what stuff was out there. Since colonizing space is arguably the number one long-term priority for utilitarians, heliocentrism is therefore a groundbreaking theory of immense ethical importance. Without it, we would not have any desire to expand beyond the Earth.
Colonizing the universe is indeed an application.
Well, if you have a space program and you’re dealing with crystal spheres...
Then exploring these crystal spheres without crashing into them might be a thing to do. Applications.