Matthew_Opitz

• Matthew_Opitz 15 Apr 2014 15:49 UTC

  0 points

  on: Com­plete­ness of simulations

  This dilemma could not possibly exist because: the map must be smaller than the territory. (Has this concept ever been formalized anywhere on lesswrong before? I can’t seem to find it. Maybe it should?).

  Every time you add a scenario of the form:

  “The subject is confronted with the evidence that his wife is also his mother, and additionally with the fact that this GLUT predicts he will do X”

  Where the GLUT itself comes into play, you increase the scenarios that the GLUT must compute by one.

  Now the GLUT needs to factor in not just situation “n,” but also situation “n + GLUT.” The GLUT that simulates this new “n + 1” complex of situations is now the new “GLUT-beta,” and it is a more-complex lookup table than the original GLUT.

  So, yes, GLUT-beta can simulate “person + interaction with GLUT” and come up with a unique prediction X.

  What GLUT-beta CANNOT DO is simulate “person + interaction with GLUT-beta” because “person + GLUT-beta” is more complex than “GLUT-beta” by itself, in the same way that “n + 1″ will always be larger than n. The lookup table that would simulate “person + interaction with GLUT-beta” would have to be an even more complex lookup table...call it “GLUT-gamma,” perhaps.

  The problem is that a Giant Lookup Table is a map, but it is not a very compressed map. In fact, it is the least compressed map that is possible. It is a map that is already as complex as the territory that it is mapping.

  A Giant Lookup Table is like making a 1:1 scale model of the Titanic. What you end up with is just the original Titanic. Likewise, a 1:1 map of England would be...a replica of England.

  Now, a 1:1 Giant Lookup Table can still be useful because you can map from one medium to another. This is what a Giant Lookup Table does. If you think of learning a foreign language as learning a Giant Lookup Table of 1:1 vocabulary translations (which is not a perfect description of foreign language learning, but just bear with the thought-experiment for a moment), we can see how a Giant Lookup Table could still be useful even though it is not compressing the information at all.

  So your 1:1 replica of the Titanic might be made out of cardboard rather than steel, and your 1:1 map of England might be made out of paper rather than dirt. But your 1:1 cardboard replica of the Titanic is still going to have to be hundreds of meters in length, and your 1:1 map of England is still going to have to be hundreds of kilometers across.

  Now, let’s say you come to me wanting to create a 1:1 replica of “the Titanic + a 1:1 replica of the Titanic.” Okay, fine. You end up basically with two 1:1 replicas of the Titanic. This is our “GLUT-beta.”

  Now, let’s say you demand that I make a 1:1 replica of “the Titanic + a 1:1 replica of the Titanic,” but you only have room in your drydock for 1 ship, so you demand that the result be compressed into the space of 1 Titanic. It cannot be done. You will have to make the drydock (the territory) larger, or you will have to compress the replicas somehow (in other words, go from a 1:1 replica to a 1:2 scale-model).

  This is the same dilemma you get from asking the GLUT to simulate “person + GLUT.” Either the GLUT has to get bigger (in which case, it is no longer simulating “person + itself,” but rather, “person + earlier simpler version of itself”), or you have to replace the 1:1 GLUT with a more efficient (compressed) prediction algorithm.

  Likewise, if you ask a computer to perfectly, quark-by-quark, in 1:1 fashion, simulate the entire universe, it can’t be done because the computer would have to simulate “itself + the rest of the universe,” and a 1:1 simulation of itself is already as big as itself, so it in order to simulate the rest of the universe, it has to get bigger, in which case it has more of itself to model, so that it must get bigger, in which case it has even more of itself to model, etc. in an infinite regress.

  The map must always be less than or equal to the territory (and if the map is equal to the territory, then it is not really a “map” as we ordinarily use the term, but more like 1:1 scale model). So all of this can be simplified by saying:

  The map must be smaller than the territory.

  Or perhaps, this saying should be further refined to:

  The map must be less complex than the territory.

  That is because, after all, one could create a map of England that was twice as big as the original England. However, such a map would not be able to exceed the complexity of the original England. Everywhere in the original England where there was 1 quark, you would have 2 quarks on your map. You wouldn’t get increasingly complex configurations of quarks in the larger map of England. If you did, it would not be a faithful map of the original England.

• Matthew_Opitz 2 May 2014 12:08 UTC

  0 points

  on: Iden­tity and Death

  I wish there were an article that dealt more precisely with “Experience and Death,” rather than “identity and death,” because maintaining an experience is what really interests me. After all, we already don’t stay the same person from moment to moment. We acquire new neural structures, associations, and memories (and lose some old ones that we aren’t even aware of losing), and that doesn’t particularly bother me. So maintaining a particular “identity” does not seem to me to be the problem worth really worrying about.

  In fact, let’s suppose that I was about to die due to some brain tumor, and there was one medical procedure that could save me, but it would entail destroying a lot of my existing memories, incidentally creating some new ones, re-arranging a lot of neural associations, and generally changing my whole personality in a drastic way.

  If death and non-experience were not threatening me, then all other things being equal (meaning, assuming this personality will be relatively as happy and functional as my current self), my current self would NOT prefer to undergo this procedure (although the preference is not a particularly strong one. It’s more of an “avoiding Buridan’s Ass, risk-averse, all other things being equal, might as well stick with this current personality that I already know about” preference). However, if this procedure involving a lot of relatively neutral changes to my personality meant the difference between having future experiences of any sort and not having future experiences of any sort, then I would absolutely jump onboard with the procedure.

  Let’s kick it up one notch further, though. Let’s say there’s a brain procedure that will change a lot of memories and associations in such a way that I will be a happier and more successful/​functional person. Let’s say the procedure will raise my IQ by 100 points, increase my willpower, and so on. Then my current self would absolutely elect to undergo the procedure, even without being threatened with death otherwise.

  When it comes to the classic teleporter thought-experiment, what really interests me is not the usual question people focus on of “will society recognize the duplicate as me,” or “will I ‘identify’ with my future duplicate self,” but rather, “will I experience my future duplicate self.” I do not want the teleporter to be a suicide machine as far as my first-person experience is concerned.

  When people usually try to address this question, I often hear things like, “your first-person experience will continue if you want to identify with that duplicate” or statements that imply something similar. This just doesn’t make any sense to me.

  Here’s why: imagine a teleporter experiment, except in this case when your first body steps into the teleporter chamber and gets vaporized, two duplicates get re-constructed in different neighboring rooms.

  The first duplicate gets re-constructed in a torture chamber, where it will get tortured for the rest of its life.

  The second duplicate gets re-constructed in a normal waiting room, gets handed a billion dollars, and is set free back into society.

  Now, if it is at all possible, I would like to experience the experiences of the second duplicate. How can I make sure that that happens? From what I have read, people make it sound like it is as easy as making your pre-teleporter self pre-commit to not caring about duplicates of yourself that get materialized in the torture chamber rather than the waiting room.

  That just doesn’t make sense to me. Normally reality doesn’t work like that. I can try to pre-commit to not caring about the pain signals coming from my finger before I smash it with a hammer, but pain I will feel nonetheless. Granted, as of now I don’t have full control over the self-modification of my own source code /​ nerves and neurons. If I did, I suppose I could re-program myself to not to feel pain or care about pain in that circumstance.

  Still, this only goes so far. If I wanted to experience Neil deGrasse Tyson’s experience, or experience his brain (because maybe I perceived him as having higher IQ than me or more interesting memories than me or more wealth than me), I cannot just go to sleep tonight and pre-commit to caring only about Neil deGrasse Tyson and expect to wake up tomorrow morning experiencing Neil deGrasse Tyson’s reality, with all of his memories, feeling as if I had always been Neil deGrasse Tyson, with no memory of ever having experienced anything different.

  Or maybe I can? How would I know that I have not repeatedly done this? How do I know that I did not just do this 5 seconds ago? I guess I don’t know. But...it just doesn’t FEEL LIKE I have.

  Okay, NOW I am experiencing Matthew Opitz. And...NOW I am experiencing Matthew Opitz. And...NOW I am experiencing Matthew Opitz.

  How could I seriously believe that I really just started experiencing Matthew Opitz after the 2nd “NOW” just now, and the first two “NOWs” are just false memories that I now have?

  But still, it could be possible, when I look at the issue from the vantage point of this new NOW.

  Really, when you think about it, the experience of time does not make any sense at all...

• Matthew_Opitz 20 May 2014 18:55 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: [link] Scott Aaron­son on free will

  TheOtherDave, you seem to be implying that Locaha is unusual in not being able to experience Bill Gates’s reality, and that in principle it should be possible to “identify with” Bill Gates and then suddenly “wake up” in Bill Gates’s body with all of his memories and whatnot, thinking that you had always been Bill Gates and being none the wiser that you had just been experiencing a different body’s reality a moment ago.

  If that is possible, then how do we know that we aren’t doing this all the time? Also, if this were possible, then we would not really have to worry about death necessarily entailing non-existence. We would just “wake up” as someone else that next second with all of that person’s memories, thinking that we had always been that person. (Of course, then that begs the question: who would we wake up as? Perhaps the person with the most similar brain as our former one, since that seems to be how we stick with our existing brain as it changes incrementally from moment to moment?)

• Matthew_Opitz 25 May 2014 14:44 UTC

  6 points

  on: Dis­solv­ing the Thread of Per­sonal Identity

  Here’s a thought experiment:

  Let’s say evil sadistic scientists kidnap you, bring you into their laboratory, and give you two options:

  A: they incinerate your brain.

  OR

  B: they selectively destroy almost all of the neurons in your brain associated with memories and somehow create new connections to create different memories.

  Which option would you choose?

  If you see any reason to choose option B over option A, then it would seem to me that you don’t really buy into “pattern identity theory” because pattern identity theory would suggest that you have effectively died in scenario B just as much as scenario A. The pattern of you from just before the operation has just had a discontinuously abrupt end.

  Yet, I would still choose option B because I would still anticipate waking up as something or somebody that next morning, even if it were someone with a completely different set of memories, preferences, and sense of self, and surely that would be better than death. (Perhaps the evil scientists could even be so kind as to implant happier memories and healthier preferences in my new self).

  Is this anticipation correct? I don’t see how it could be wrong. Our memories change a little bit each night during sleep, and still we don’t NOT wake up as at least someone (a slightly different person than the night before). I fail to see how the magnitude and/​or rapidity of the change in memory could produce a qualitative difference in this regard. If it could, then where would the cut-off line be? How much would someone have to change my memories so that I effectively did not wake up the next morning as someone?

  Note that this discussion is not just academic. It would determine one’s decision to use a teleporter (especially if it was, let’s say, a “1st generation” teleporter that still had some kinks in it and didn’t quite produce a 100% high-fidelity copy at the other end). Would such a 99% accurate teleporter be a suicide machine, or would your subjective experience continue at the other end?

  In any case, pattern identity theory (which says the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to a continuation of a particular pattern of information) seems out the window for me.

  Nor does some sort of “physical identity theory” (that posits that the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to the continuation of a particular set of atoms) make any sense because of how patently false that is. (Atoms are constantly getting shuffled out of our brains all the time).

  Nor does some sort of “dualism” (that posits that the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to some sort of metaphysical “soul”) make any sense to me.

  So at this point, I have no idea about under what conditions I will continue to have subjective experiences of some sort. Back to the drawing board....

• Matthew_Opitz 29 May 2014 22:02 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Brillyant’s comment on: Dis­solv­ing the Thread of Per­sonal Identity

  I agree that Option B is essentially making a choice to be “born” into existence, but wouldn’t that appeal to you more than non-existence? Perhaps I am just operating on that age-old human fear of the unknown, but I think I would take a generically decent existence over non-existence any day of the week, even if that new existence were not the one I was used to having.

  Don’t we continually choose to be “re-born” into existence as someone minutely different every moment we try to stay alive? I suppose committing suicide is like choosing Option A. So if you are the sort of person who would contemplate suicide, then Option A might have some appeal I suppose....

• Matthew_Opitz 29 May 2014 22:03 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: chaosmage’s comment on: Dis­solv­ing the Thread of Per­sonal Identity

  Hmmmm, do “I” get to experience any of those “traces” of myself if my brain dies? If not, then why would I care that they continue? Call me a hedonist, but all I really care about is what I can experience. Perhaps that is why the idea of wireheading appeals to me....

• Matthew_Opitz 30 May 2014 1:41 UTC

  0 points

  on: The Use­ful Defi­ni­tion of “I”

  “The teleporter to Mars does not kill you in the most important sense (unless somehow your location on Earth is a particularly core part of your identity).”

  My location on Earth is not a particularly core part of my identity. If I traveled to Mars in a space shuttle in several months, I would still consider myself to be the same person.

  But my being able to experience what my body is experiencing, or what replicas of my body are experiencing, is a core part of my identity—perhaps the core part of my identity, personally.

  If I teleport to Mars, do “I” get to experience what that body then experiences on Mars? If not, then yes, I would consider that teleporter to be a suicide machine.

• Matthew_Opitz 31 May 2014 12:59 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: David_Gerard’s comment on: The Use­ful Defi­ni­tion of “I”

  When you (or the sequences) say that two copies of me “should” feel the same to me, is that word “should” being used in a normative or a descriptive sense? What I mean is, am I being told that I “ought” to adopt this perspective that the other copy is me, or am I being told that I will naturally experience that other copy’s sensory input as if it were the input going into my original body?

• Matthew_Opitz 3 Jun 2014 12:16 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: David_Gerard’s comment on: The Use­ful Defi­ni­tion of “I”

  Okay, thank you for clarifying that. In that case, though, I fail to see the support for that normative claim. Why “should” my copy of me feel like me (as if I have any control over that in the first place)? As far as I see it, even if my copy of me “should” feel like me in a normative sense, then that won’t matter in a descriptive sense because I have no way of affecting which copy of me I experience. Descriptively, I either experience one or the other, right? Either the teleporter is a suicide machine or it isn’t, right?

  Things can be in a super-position of states while there is still uncertainty, but at some point it will come down to a test. Let’s say the teleporter makes a copy of me on Mars, but doesn’t destroy the original. Instead, scientists have to manually shoot the original a few minutes after the teleportation experiment. What do I experience? Do I immediately wake up on Mars? Do I wake up still on Earth and get shot, and my experience of anything ceases? Do I wake up on Earth and get shot, and then my subjective experiencing instantly “teleports” to the only copy of me left in the universe, and I wake up on Mars with no memory or knowledge that the other me just got shot? What do you predict that I will experience?

• Matthew_Opitz 4 Jun 2014 16:41 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: David_Gerard’s comment on: The Use­ful Defi­ni­tion of “I”

  For the people for whom it does seem to make sense to identify with copies of themselves, do those people come to that conclusion because they anticipate being able to experience the input going into all of those copies somehow? Or is there some other reason that they use?

• Matthew_Opitz 5 Jun 2014 13:56 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: CAE_Jones’s comment on: The Use­ful Defi­ni­tion of “I”

  In the case of non-destructive copying, which copy will I end up experiencing? If it is a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ chance of experiencing either copy, then in cases where the copy would inhabit a more advantageous spatial location than the one I was currently in (such as, if I were stuck on Mars and wanted to go back to Earth), it would be in my interest to copy myself many many times via a Mars-Earth teleporter in order to give myself a good probability that I would end up back on Earth where I wanted to be.

  Let’s say I valued being back home on Earth more than anything else, and I was willing to split whatever legal property I had back on Earth with 100 other copies of me. Then it would make sense for my original self on Mars to tell the scientists: “Copy me 100 times onto Earth. No more, no less, regardless of whatever I, the copy on Mars, say after this, and regardless of whatever the copies on Earth say after this.”

  I would end up with a very high probability of experiencing one of those copies back on Earth. Of course, all of the copies on Earth would insist that THEY were the successful case of subjective teleportation and that no further teleportation would be required. But they would always say that, regardless of whether I was really one of those experiencing them. That is why I pre-committed to copying 100 times, even if the first copy reports, “Yay! The teleportation was a success! No need to make the other 99 copies!” Because at that point, there is still a 50% chance that I am still experiencing the copy back on Mars—too high for my tastes.

  Likewise, the pre-commitment to copy myself no more than 100 times is important because you have to draw the line somewhere. If I had $100,000 in a bank account back on Earth, I’d like to start out with at least $1,000 of that. If you leave it up to the original Mars copy to decide, then the teleportation copying will go on forever. Even after the 100th copying (by which point I might have already been fortunate to get my subjective experience transferred onto maybe the 55th Earth copy or the 78th Earth copy or the 24th Earth copy or the 3rd Earth copy, who knows?), the copy on Mars will still insist, “No! no! no! The entire experiment has been a huge stroke of bad luck! 100 times I have tried to copy myself, and 100 times the coin has landed on tails, so to speak. We must make some more copies until my subjective experience gets transferred over!” At this point, the other copies would say, “That’s just what we would expect you to always say. You will never say that the experiment was a success. Very likely the original Matthew Opitz’s subjective experience got transferred over to one of us. Which one, nobody can tell from the outside by any experiment, as we will all claim to be that success. But the odds are in favor of one of us being the one that the original Matthew Opitz is subjectively experiencing right now, which is what he wanted all along when he set up this experiment. Sorry!”

  But then, what if tails really had come up 100 times in a row? What if one’s subjective experience really was still attached to the Martian copy? Or what if this idea of a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ chance is total bunk in the first place, and subjective experience simply cannot transfer to spatially-separated copies? That would suck.

  What if, as the original you on Mars before any of the teleportation copying, you had a choice between using your $100,000 back on Earth to fund a physical rescue mission that would have a 10% chance of success, versus using that $100,000 back on Earth to fund a probe mission that would send a non-destructive teleportation machine to Mars that would make a copy of you back on Earth? If you believe that such an experiment would give you a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ chance of waking up as the Earth copy, then it would make more sense to do that. However, if you believe that such an experiment would give you a 0% chance of waking up as the Earth copy, then it would make more sense just to do the physical rescue mission attempt.

  These questions really do have practical significance. They are not just sophistry.

• Matthew_Opitz 22 Aug 2014 20:47 UTC

  1 point

  on: An ex­am­ple of deadly non-gen­eral AI

  Doesn’t a concept such as “mortality” require some general intelligence to understand in the first place?

  There’s no XML tag that comes with living beings that says whether they are “alive” or “dead” at one moment or another. We think this is a simple binary thing to see whether something is alive or dead, mainly because our brains have modules (modules whose functioning we don’t understand and can’t yet replicate in computer code) for distinguishing “animate” objects from “inaminate” objects. But doctors know that the dividing line between “alive” and “dead” is a much murkier one than deciding whether a beam of laser light is closer to 500 nm or 450 nm in wavelength (which would be a task that a narrow-intelligence AI could probably figure out). Already the concept of “mortality” is a bit too advanced for any “narrow AI.”

  It’s a bit like, if you wanted to design a narrow intelligence to tackle the problem of mercury pollution in freshwater streams, and you came up with the most simple way of phrasing the command, like: “Computer: reduce the number of mercury atoms in the following 3-dimensional GPS domain (the state of Ohio, from 100 feet below ground to 100 feet up in the air, for example), while leaving all other factors untouched.

  The computer might respond with something to the effect of, “I cannot accomplish that because any method of reducing the number of mercury atoms in that domain will require re-arranging some other atoms upstream (such as the atoms comprising the coal power plant that is belching out tons of mercury pollution).”

  So then you tell the narrow AI, “Okay, try to figure out how to reduce the number of mercury atoms in the domain, and you can modify SOME other atoms upstream, but nothing IMPORTANT.” Well, then we are back to the problem of needing a general intelligence to interpret things like the word “important.”

  This is why we can’t just build an Oracle AI and command it to, “Tell us a cure for X disease, leaving all other things in the world unchanged.” And the computer might say, “I can’t keep everything else in the world the same and change just that one thing. To make the medical devices that you will need to cure this disease, you are going to have to build a factory to make the medical devices, and you are going to have to employ workers to work in that factory, and you are going to have to produce the food to feed those workers, and you are going to have to transport that food, and you are going to have to divert some gasoline supplies to the transportation of that food, and that is going to change the worldwide price of gasoline by an average of 0.005 cents, which will produce a 0.000006% chance of a revolution in France....” and so on.

  So you tell the computer, “Okay, just come up with a plan for curing X disease, and change as little as possible, and if you do need to change other things, try not to change things that are IMPORTANT, that WE HUMANS CARE ABOUT.”

  And we are right back to the problem of having to be sure that we have successfully encoded all of human morality and values into this Oracle AI.

• Matthew_Opitz 24 Aug 2014 14:38 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Gunnar_Zarncke’s comment on: Me­mory is Every­thing

  You seem to be objecting that this is an unfair thought experiment because humans were not designed to contemplate these extreme cases.

  But that’s precisely the point! These extreme cases might not have been present in our ancestral environment. They might not be present now. But there is a decent chance that they are coming...that, someday, we will be literally offered this choice or something analogous to it by a superintelligence AI who, even if friendly, honestly just wants to ascertain our preferences. Perhaps the superintelligent AI can create a utopia for us, but during the week in which it is being constructed by nano-robots, the Earth’s surface will be scoured to bits and resemble a living hell. Would we still want it?

  That’s why this post poses a good, relevant question. And I see that most people seem to just want to squirm in their seats and complain about the tough question rather than answer it.

  Me, I would take option 2, assuming that the billion dollars I would get afterwards would enable more than a week of bliss of a magnitude in the positive direction equal to or greater than the magnitude of suffering I would experience for that horrible week.

  Plus, no matter how back that first week of torture is, I will know in the back of my head during all of that that I can look forward to a billion dollars at the end of it. Now, if part of the torture involves temporarily deleting my memory of having made the deal and making me confused about why I am being tortured and how long it will last (possibly forever), it would make me think a bit harder about the deal, but I would still take option 2.

• Matthew_Opitz 26 Aug 2014 14:02 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Gunnar_Zarncke’s comment on: Me­mory is Every­thing

  I think if we rephrase the scenario to be slightly more plausible and familiar, it will become clearer to people:

  Imagine that some eccentric millionaire approaches you with the following deal: she will give you a million dollars if: You agree to go to a dentist and undergo a root canal operation without anesthesia (nevermind the fact that you probably don’t need a root canal), BUT: You DO get to have a heaping dose of Versed, which, while it won’t dull the pain during the operation, will prevent you from remembering anything about it after the fact.

  Would you take the million dollars and do the operation? I would!

  Now, as to the question of whether the person undergoing the root canal operation is the real me, I would say, YES! I will experience it. Now, is the copy of the pre-operation me that gets restored after the operation also me? I say YES! I will also experience that body.

  Ultimately, the deciding factor for me ends up being the fact that the root canal will only take an hour or two of extreme pain, but the million dollars will bring me enjoyment for far longer. The fact that I won’t remember the root canal operation does nothing to influence my estimation of how bad the root canal operation will be. The fact that I won’t remember the root canal operation only changes my estimation of how pleasant the post-root canal experience will be (because I will know that I won’t be haunted by nightmares of root canal pain while I am enjoying my million dollars).

  Even though the memory of the root canal operation will cease to exist for me at some point, the experience still factors into my overall calculations of utility. It’s just that normal events that we remember factor into our calculations of utility in two discrete terms: how nice/​bad they are in the moment + how nice/​bad their memory after-effects are. In the case of amnesia, you are just lopping off the right hand side of that sum.

• Matthew_Opitz 28 Aug 2014 2:00 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Gunnar_Zarncke’s comment on: Me­mory is Every­thing

  Okay...but why wouldn’t you treat the narcotized you as a different person, but you would treat the memory-erased you as a different person in the other scenario? Is this not being inconsistent? The same thing is being done in both scenarios—your memory is being erased—but by different means.

“NRx” vs. “Prog” As­sump­tions: Lo­cat­ing the Sources of Disagree­ment Between Ne­o­re­ac­tionar­ies and Pro­gres­sives (Part 1)

• Matthew_Opitz 4 Sep 2014 18:06 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: “NRx” vs. “Prog” As­sump­tions: Lo­cat­ing the Sources of Disagree­ment Between Ne­o­re­ac­tionar­ies and Pro­gres­sives (Part 1)

  I am not trying to describe the value system of American progressives (whom I would call “social democrats” to use terminology that is consistent with European nomenclature). I am using the word “progressive” in a much broader, more philosophical sense—close to the sense in which neoreactionaries use the term.

  I know that that game of re-defining terms sounds like a cop-out, but there’s not really another word I could use to describe this worldview that I am trying to sketch and compare with neoreaction.

• Matthew_Opitz 4 Sep 2014 22:04 UTC

  −2 points

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: “NRx” vs. “Prog” As­sump­tions: Lo­cat­ing the Sources of Disagree­ment Between Ne­o­re­ac­tionar­ies and Pro­gres­sives (Part 1)

  Good question. I think the best representative of “progressivism” in the sense that I am using it would be Karl Marx. When Marx says at the end of chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto, “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” he is painting a picture of a society where each individual will have the freedom and ability to pursue the things that he/​she subjectively values (insofar as it is compatible with others doing likewise).

  The novel thing about Marx is, the idea that this would be a good state of affairs needs no justification beyond itself. Marx just says, “Wouldn’t this be nice?” He does not say, “This is the perfection of man that God commands.” He does not say, “This is what Natural Law commands.” (Of course, Marx did not trust such appeals to universal absolutes, always seeing class motivations lurking underneath such language.) Marx just says, “Doesn’t this sound nice? Let’s do it.”

  You can find this idea among other Enlightenment thinkers. I guess the closest synonym to “progressivism” would be “the Enlightenment.” For example, Thomas Jefferson’s “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Yes, I know that Jefferson is justifying this by appealing to a “Creator,” but that’s him throwing a bone to the religious of his time to make it more palatable. Did Jefferson really believe that his Deist version of the “Creator” would have any bearing on this stuff? No. Earlier he says that these truths are “self-evident,” which I think is Jefferson’s real justification. Once again, subjectivism. And I know that “pursuit of happiness” is a last minute replacement for “property,” which sounded to petty and narrow. Even so, the idea that life is about the “pursuit of happiness” is one that has widely caught on all the same, and this I consider to be synonymous with subjective values and the road to wireheading (“happiness” being conceived in the most all-encompassing sense).

  If you want another person expressing “progressivist” ideas about normative value being subjective, I would point you to Jean-Paul Sartre or any of the existentialist and their idea that we create our own meaning in life.

  Finally, there’s the constant message of capitalist advertising to “enjoy yourself” as the ultimate purpose in life, as that brilliant fraud Slavoj Zizek has done the service of pointing out and dissecting.

  So, although it is difficult to pin down very many people who fit the ideal type of a “progressive” in all of its facets that I have drawn here, we are all more or less swimming in “progressive” notions insofar as we are swimming in Enlightenment, existentialist, and/​or capitalist ideological messages about life having no ultimate meaning beyond one’s enjoyment.

  Edit: I would add secular humanism as another source of what I am calling “progressivism.” For example, the secular humanist idea of, “Just be good for goodness’ sake.”—what can that vapid phrase even mean, beyond “Do good things because they will promote things that you find good in the long run”?

• Matthew_Opitz 4 Sep 2014 22:33 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: jaime2000’s comment on: “NRx” vs. “Prog” As­sump­tions: Lo­cat­ing the Sources of Disagree­ment Between Ne­o­re­ac­tionar­ies and Pro­gres­sives (Part 1)

  Good to know! It would be interesting for someone to write an “Intellectual History of LessWrong.” I know there was this: http://​​slatestarcodex.com/​​2014/​​03/​​13/​​five-years-and-one-week-of-less-wrong/​​ But, as nice as this summary is, it focuses more on the questions that got solved and the culminating successes, and is less of a balance “history” that follows every trend, fad, and intellectual dead end (not to imply that neoreaction is necessarily a “dead end,” but it doesn’t make the list in this account).

• Matthew_Opitz 4 Sep 2014 22:36 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: scientism’s comment on: “NRx” vs. “Prog” As­sump­tions: Lo­cat­ing the Sources of Disagree­ment Between Ne­o­re­ac­tionar­ies and Pro­gres­sives (Part 1)

  Yes, the common thread is the Enlightenment. See my response to Lumifer regarding who are the “progressives” I am talking about. They are not necessarily the people in America who flock to the Democratic Party. I don’t think neoreactionaries are just complaining about democrats when they go after “progressivism.” They have a far more broad target in mind—the Enlightenment, I guess, more or less.