Re: Geddes's 'Moral Perturbation Theory'

From: Eliezer Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Jun 21 2004 - 01:01:19 MDT


Marc Geddes wrote:
>
> Looking at the characteristics making up Eliezer's
> volition, I'd expect to find less variation across the
> mulltiverse. Most of the alternative Elizer's are
> still altruistic, believe in the multiverse, are
> Libertarian leaning, believe in Bayesian reasoning etc
> etc etc. On the other hand, looking at the volition
> of the Indian laborer across the multiverse should
> expose a much higher degree of variation. In some
> branches the Indian believes in astrology, in other's
> he's a believer in reading tea leaves and so on and so
> on.
>
> The point is that looking at Eliezer's volition should
> yield a higher frequency of mental characteristics
> that converge across the multiverse.

Perhaps this is true today. I am not so sure that it is a *good* thing, in
the sense of the moral lesson you seem to take from it. At some point, a
sufficiently smart mind must discover the answers to questions of simple
fact, whether those questions are simple or complex; and your emotions that
bind to the believed answers will change accordingly. But larger minds
should also have more room for variation, be more interestingly
specialized. It doesn't work that way for the humans of this day, but I
hope it begins to work that way, afterward.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://intelligence.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence


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