6 ms·
Play fair. > His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality "We should be allowed to live as long as we want to." Emphasis on
by maaku 12y ago
Play fair.
> His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality
"We should be allowed to live as long as we want to." Emphasis on the want. I don't find that very controversial.
> that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of dust from the eye of every other person on Earth
No, the setup was one person's torture for 50 years (not death), or specks of dust in the eyes of 3^^^3 people. How much is 3^^^3 people?
* 3^3 = 27.
* 3^^3 = (3^(3^3)) = 3^27 = 7625597484987.
* 3^^^3 = (3^^(3^^3)) = 3^^7625597484987 = (3^(3^(3^(... 7625597484987 times ...)))).
"3^^^3 is an exponential tower of 3s which is 7,625,597,484,987 layers tall. You start with 1; raise 3 to the power of 1 to get 3; raise 3 to the power of 3 to get 27; raise 3 to the power of 27 to get 7625597484987; raise 3 to the power of 7625597484987 to get a number much larger than the number of atoms in the universe, but which could still be written down in base 10, on 100 square kilometers of paper; then raise 3 to that power; and continue until you've exponentiated 7625597484987 times. That's 3^^^3. It's the smallest simple inconceivably huge number I know." [1]
That's a monumentally different setup than mere 7 billion humans on Earth. And it's making a point about the cold cruel calculus of moral utilitarianism, a very common and popular ethical position. Your disgust is precisely his rhetorical point...
(Edit: ...about human heuristics and biases getting in the way of the moral calculus of utilitarianism. If you are a utilitarianist, there is some cutoff of X independent people -- for some very large X -- for which it is better to save that many people a slight inconvenience at the expense of 50 years of torture for one individual. This follows straight from the math of finite utilitarianism. Yudkowsky's position of trusting the math over intuition may not be intuitive for most people, but I'd be surprised if a HN reader did not agree at least with the methodology.)
[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/
- id 12y agoSo annoying 3^^^3 people "for a fraction of a second, barely enough to make them notice" is worse than horribly torturing a single person for 50 years? Keep in mind that the 3^^^3 dust specks are spread across 3^^^3 people and their annoyance can't be simply added together.
- maaku 12y ago> and their annoyance can't be simply added together Why not? EDIT: Serious question. If I save two lives that is twice as good as saving one, right? Why is this situation different?
- id 12y agoIt's easier for two people to cope with one bad experience each than for one guy to cope with two bad experiences.
- maaku 12y agoAssumed independence. You are talking about a strictly different setup. Assume that these individuals don't know each other.
- shawnz 12y agoI don't think he is making the assumption that they know each other. Each individual has a tolerance of what they can comfortably cope with. If 3^^^3 people were all experiencing a pain that is below that tolerance, nobody would be prevented from happiness. However in the other situation, the tortured individual clearly would be.
- maaku 12y agoThat's an example of infinite or unbounded utility functions: no matter how many specks of dust in the eye, it will never add up to a single person being tortured for 50 years. Even 3^^^^^^^^^^^3 specks of dust. Unfortunately the mathematics of infinite and/or unbounded utility functions doesn't work out well. It leads to some seriously messed up edge cases. (So does finite utilitariansm, to be fair -- [Pascal's mugging](http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/pascal.pdf http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/pascal.pdf) -- but these are fully dealt with by decision theory, whereas the infinite or unbounded cases are not). It's not very strong, but it is evidence that we should be accepting of the calculations of finite utilitarianism since the formalization works out better in cases which are within the realm of our experience.
- walterbell 12y agoIf your friend has dust in their eye, do you feel the urge to help or comfort them? Is that good, bad, utilitarian? If you personally torture someone, would that have any effect on you? Is that good, bad, utilitarian? Is there a recursive relationship between observers and observed systems? If so, does the intention of an observation matter?
- maaku 12y agoWhat do you mean "good, bad, utilitarian"? Good and bad are descriptions we attach to causal causes which lead to outcomes with higher (good) or lower (bad) utility. Having either my friend have dust in his eye or some stranger tortured are outcomes with less utility in my book than the counterfactual default. Actions which lead to these outcomes are bad, actions which prevent or provide restitution are good. I don't know what you are getting at with a recursive relationship between observers and observed systems.
- walterbell 12y ago> What do you mean "good, bad, utilitarian"? I'm asking if emotion (e.g. desire to help friend) has higher or lower utility. > recursive relationship berween observers and observed systems See page 2 onward in this cybernetics paper http://www.nomads.usp.br/pesquisas/design/objetos_interativos/arquivos/restrito/glanville_purpose_of_2nd-order_cybernetics.pdf http://www.nomads.usp.br/pesquisas/design/objetos_interativo...