From: Matt Mahoney (matmahoney@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Apr 24 2008 - 18:10:20 MDT
--- Nick Tarleton <nickptar@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
My point is that the actual existence or nonexistence of consciousness is
irrelevant.
> > 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).
There is a difference between saying "X will destroy humanity" and "we should
not do X". The correct line of reasoning is "humans do not want to destroy
humanity, therefore they will desire not to do X".
With regard to consciousness: humans believe they are conscious and want to
preserve their consciousness, therefore they will strive to build computers
that contain a copy of their memories.
> > - 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 .
There is evidence that the universe is simulated. It has a finite state, is
Turing computable, and obeys Occam's Razor.
-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
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