Re: The role of consciousness (Re: The GLUT and functionalism)

From: Jeff L Jones (jeff@spoonless.net)
Date: Mon Apr 07 2008 - 19:46:55 MDT


On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 6:41 PM, Jeff L Jones <jeff@spoonless.net> wrote:
> But this isn't a question about rational utility, it's a question
> about ethics. In my opinion, it's unethical to torture people,
> regardless of whether that fits with what you're calling the
> "rational" strategy. In other words, if I get $1000 for torturing
> random person in African, and only $1 for not torturing them... you
> might say that rationally, I should chose the $1000. But that would
> be unethical.

Should read: "for torturing a random person in Afria"... sometimes my
fingers get ahead of my brain while I'm typing.

Another way to say this is that I've been programmed with the
"friendliness meme" at some point. Which causes me to behave
"irrationally" according to your purely self-interest strategy. I
would argue that my behavior is not actually irrational, it's just
that my goals involve more than just simple self-interest.

Jeff



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:01:02 MDT