Re: Shock level 4 (was Re: META SL4)

From: Nick Tarleton (nickptar@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Apr 24 2008 - 16:26:07 MDT


On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 3:34 PM, Matt Mahoney <matmahoney@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 1. Consciousness does not exist. There is no "me". The brain is a computer.

The first two statements do not follow from the last.

> 3. There is no "good" or "bad", just ethical beliefs.

Preferences don't need to be validated by the universe to be
personally important, or even to be right or wrong (they may follow a
coherentist theory of truth).

> I can only do this in an abstract sense. I pretend there is a version of me
> that thinks in this strict mathematical sense while the rest of me pursues
> normal human goals in a world that makes sense. It is the only way I can do
> it. Otherwise I would have no reason to live. Fortunately human biases
> favoring survival are strong, so I can do this safely.

This is not a "bias". See
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/11/whats_a_bias_ag.html .

> - A singularity may already have happened, and the world we observe is the
> result. We have no way to know.

See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/08/absence-of-evid.html .

> Discussions about friendliness, risks, uploading, copying, self identity, and
> reprogramming the brain are SL3. SL4 makes these issues irrelevant.

SL4 does not imply nihilism.



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