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Nihilism is probably not a very helpful evolutionary strategy for an individual or group so no surprises there isn’t much of it around. Better to believe in an

Nihilism is probably not a very helpful evolutionary strategy for an individual or group so no surprises there isn’t much of it around. Better to believe in anything however pointless and get doing something productive.

im3w1l 5y ago
I love how this basically turns the paperclip optimizer on its head. Traditionally "optimizing paperclips" is seen as a metaphor for some useful industrial process and taking over the universe is seen as a catastrophe. But your argument is basically that humans are in the same situation except for us the paperclips are pointless and their only purpose is to motivate us to take over the universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence
- acituan 5y ago
  The difference is paperclip optimizer's existence does not depend on the paperclips. For any organism, being able to correctly read their subset of "reality" is the only thing that increases their chance of survival - and over time their genes. It is a genetic algorithm deeply tested against reality; there is no skirting around it. Human consciousness is able extend projections into the future or to other humans and thus have a greater capacity for conformance to reality. It has horrible failure modes and room for self deception - nihilism being one - but even though this proliferation looks like the paper clip maximizer that was never the goal but the side effect. Now that we're tasting the unadaptive consequences of over-proliferation we will see how well our reality conforming machinery can overcome our collective self-deception modes.
weatherlight 5y ago
Our consciousness is the "parent of all horrors, an evolutionary defect that has doomed us to a futile search for meaning while our survival hinges on the response to pain, the fear of death, and the instinct to procreate. Awareness of this absurdity pushes us to shut it out, trapping us on a proverbial hamster wheel where we busy ourselves with whatever will keep those thoughts away—religion, hedonism, even the distractions of art and music.
- ip26 5y ago
  “parent of all horrors I feel like unclosed quotation marks have to rate pretty high on the list too twitch
  - weatherlight 5y ago
    I wish, I were, too, so easily distracted by missing punctuation.
- bspammer 5y ago
  When reading stuff like this I often think “so what”? All of the above is true, but life is still fun. I’m glad I was born into this absurdity.

im3w1l 5y ago

I love how this basically turns the paperclip optimizer on its head. Traditionally "optimizing paperclips" is seen as a metaphor for some useful industrial process and taking over the universe is seen as a catastrophe. But your argument is basically that humans are in the same situation except for us the paperclips are pointless and their only purpose is to motivate us to take over the universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence

acituan 5y ago
The difference is paperclip optimizer's existence does not depend on the paperclips. For any organism, being able to correctly read their subset of "reality" is the only thing that increases their chance of survival - and over time their genes. It is a genetic algorithm deeply tested against reality; there is no skirting around it. Human consciousness is able extend projections into the future or to other humans and thus have a greater capacity for conformance to reality. It has horrible failure modes and room for self deception - nihilism being one - but even though this proliferation looks like the paper clip maximizer that was never the goal but the side effect. Now that we're tasting the unadaptive consequences of over-proliferation we will see how well our reality conforming machinery can overcome our collective self-deception modes.

weatherlight 5y ago

Our consciousness is the "parent of all horrors, an evolutionary defect that has doomed us to a futile search for meaning while our survival hinges on the response to pain, the fear of death, and the instinct to procreate. Awareness of this absurdity pushes us to shut it out, trapping us on a proverbial hamster wheel where we busy ourselves with whatever will keep those thoughts away—religion, hedonism, even the distractions of art and music.

ip26 5y ago
“parent of all horrors I feel like unclosed quotation marks have to rate pretty high on the list too twitch
- weatherlight 5y ago
  I wish, I were, too, so easily distracted by missing punctuation.
bspammer 5y ago
When reading stuff like this I often think “so what”? All of the above is true, but life is still fun. I’m glad I was born into this absurdity.