Re: FAI: Collective Volition

From: Marc Geddes (marc_geddes@yahoo.co.nz)
Date: Wed Jun 02 2004 - 01:45:27 MDT


 --- Wei Dai <weidai@weidai.com> wrote: > What does
"knew more" mean? For example, the
> majority of human beings in
> existence today do not "know" that humans are the
> product of biological
> evolution. As another example, they believe that
> their own religious
> beliefs are correct and that the religious beliefs
> of most other people
> are incorrect. In trying to extrapolate their true
> volitions, would you
> replace their belief in creationism with belief in
> evolution? Would you
> replace their belief in a particular God with a
> Bayesian probability
> distribution over a wide range of possible gods? If
> the answer is "yes",
> how would you then convince them that the
> extrapolated volitions is in any
> sense *theirs*?

Right Wei! The whole idea of things working out for
the best seems to me to imply an objective answer of
what constitutes 'best'.

For instance clearly a belief in evolution is
objectively more likely to be true than a belief in
creationism. A belief in Bayesian probablity
distribution over a wide range of possible gods is
objectively more likely to be true than belief in a
particualr god and so forth.

Volition just evades the question of what in fact are
the objectively best answers.

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