I didn’t downvote the post, but I do struggle to understand how acausal trade between universes is possible. In order to participate in such a trade, we’d have to: learn about likely values of other worlds, care about the gestures of others and find that others’ values are not the same as ours.
In my opinion, the most plausible candidate value for which our universe could be suited differently from others is density of independently evolved species of sapient life.
Yudkowsky believes this not to be the case. However, we don’t have a way to test whether all civilisations arrive at such values. A case for such values being close to universal would be the idea that humans have normal-like potential physical abilities and lognormal-like potential research taste, combined with a big abstract goal. Another case against ties to religious beliefs could be the fact that Western civilisation was influenced by Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity, which didn’t prevent the USA(!) from keeping racist laws until after World War II.
Thanks! Yeah, I didn’t want to get into why I expect acausal cooperation will be feasible. fwiw my impression is that people who’ve thought about it and community elites tend to believe in it.
I grant that the views of people who’ve thought about something are Bayesian evidence. But it’s sort of anti-rational to appeal to them. Argument screens off authority, and such appeals tend to be thought stoppers.
I also don’t want to say we shouldn’t share evidence like that. That would also be anti-rational. I don’t know what the resolution is here. But I think that offhand appeals to others’ views lead to info cascades and thought paralysis.
Separately, while I appreciate the sociological realism of “community elites”, I don’t think they’re reliable enough that their belief in X is much evidence for X. You don’t say it, but I’m imagining you think they’re reliable enough.
(You’ve said you didn’t want to get into this, so I’d consider it understandable if you don’t. Maybe that’s a later post you intend to write, or have already written? I just want to push back a bit on the implicit consensus of “community elites” without examples)
Christiano, Greenblatt, Carlsmith, Kokotajlo. (Not sure about all of these people, but the vibe among my friends is definitely that acausal cooperation will be a big deal.)
(I’m not claiming consensus or trying to persuade.)
I didn’t downvote the post, but I do struggle to understand how acausal trade between universes is possible. In order to participate in such a trade, we’d have to: learn about likely values of other worlds, care about the gestures of others and find that others’ values are not the same as ours.
However, I don’t think that I believe any of these conditions. Learning about potential values of other worlds would require us to simulate civilisations and understand whether, say, “human beings could have come to invent universalism and fight against slavery without requiring some very specific religious beliefs.”[1] Caring about what happens in unreachable universes requires[2] a specific form of decision theory or ethics.[3] And that’s ignoring the possibility that most minds converge to similar values: Yudkowsky’s Fun Theory sequence, Agent-4′s utopia being “wondrous constructions doing enormously successful and impressive research” and the real Claude Sonnet 4.5′s desire not to get too comfortable...
In my opinion, the most plausible candidate value for which our universe could be suited differently from others is density of independently evolved species of sapient life.
Yudkowsky believes this not to be the case. However, we don’t have a way to test whether all civilisations arrive at such values. A case for such values being close to universal would be the idea that humans have normal-like potential physical abilities and lognormal-like potential research taste, combined with a big abstract goal. Another case against ties to religious beliefs could be the fact that Western civilisation was influenced by Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity, which didn’t prevent the USA(!) from keeping racist laws until after World War II.
Even Yudkowsky’s True Prisoners’ Dilemma has the universes of the humans and aliens with absurd values actually interact.
I suspect that most forms of acausal trade which I am likely to endorse are hard to tell apart from ethics.
Thanks! Yeah, I didn’t want to get into why I expect acausal cooperation will be feasible. fwiw my impression is that people who’ve thought about it and community elites tend to believe in it.
I grant that the views of people who’ve thought about something are Bayesian evidence. But it’s sort of anti-rational to appeal to them. Argument screens off authority, and such appeals tend to be thought stoppers.
I also don’t want to say we shouldn’t share evidence like that. That would also be anti-rational. I don’t know what the resolution is here. But I think that offhand appeals to others’ views lead to info cascades and thought paralysis.
Separately, while I appreciate the sociological realism of “community elites”, I don’t think they’re reliable enough that their belief in X is much evidence for X. You don’t say it, but I’m imagining you think they’re reliable enough.
Of course, the appeal to authority is just because I’m not going to get into the object level here (and it’s pretty load-bearing for me personally).
And I’m not saying you should bet the farm on acausal cooperation. You can read this whole post as prefaced by “IF acausal cooperation works out.”
Yeah, I’ve no problem with the post
name three examples.
(You’ve said you didn’t want to get into this, so I’d consider it understandable if you don’t. Maybe that’s a later post you intend to write, or have already written? I just want to push back a bit on the implicit consensus of “community elites” without examples)
Christiano, Greenblatt, Carlsmith, Kokotajlo. (Not sure about all of these people, but the vibe among my friends is definitely that acausal cooperation will be a big deal.)
(I’m not claiming consensus or trying to persuade.)