I don't get why you're posting this in a surprised manner. Yes, these philosophical debates have been happening for many, many years (and when they do happen th

I don't get why you're posting this in a surprised manner. Yes, these philosophical debates have been happening for many, many years (and when they do happen they often happen with famous philosophical questions such as the tree-forest-sound one). Yudkowsky wasn't making a novel philosophical discovery, he was just putting particular philosophical debates and meta-debates together into an essay.