[extropy-chat] Engineered Religion-- Your Mom and the Machine

[Jef Allbright]

At 11:45 AM 3/25/2005 -0600, John Wright wrote:


> RULE ONE: the rule of evidence for any proposition is that it is 
> trustworthy to the degree that the testamony of the senses supports,
> or, at least, fails to contradict it.
> 
> The machine says Rule One is itself not open to empirical
> verification or denial. No possible test or combination of tests will
> bring to the sense impressions confirmation of a positive universal
> statement.

Rule One, stating that determination of "truth" shall be empirically 
based, is nearly fundamental and a fine foundation for a meta-ethics. 
It follows that we also require the concept of an actor: Self, and that 
with which Self interacts: Other. Then, as the machine points out, we 
require the concept of inherently limited context of reality: subjectivity.

> RULE TWO: any moral proposition which does not have the property of
> being a universal moral legislation is bad. If you would not want to
> be pulverized for your raw materials, you should not do it unto
> others, please.

Updating Kant, this can be more effectively stated as follows:  That 
which is found to be "true" within a given context, may always be 
superseded by a greater "truth" within a larger encompassing context.

This is the essence of what I refer to as the Arrow of Morality.  It's a 
ratchet effect; like entropy, it tends to work in only one direction due 
to its synergetic nature.

Given Rule One, we judge the "goodness" of a model by how well it 
matches empirical reality.  A model that maps to a greater space of 
reality is a model that works better, and is thus subjectively valued as 
*better* than a model that works well only within a more limited context.

A god's-eye view, a context encompassing interactions among all actors 
over all time, would provide the ultimate moral viewpoint.

The above is the essence of a rational basis for morality, while 
avoiding the well-known Naturalistic Fallacy.


> RULE THREE: Listen to your mother. What I say goes.

This rule is superfluous given Rules One and Two above, and ultimately 
dangerous.  It is effective only in the case that Self's context of 
awareness is smaller than, and encompassed within Mother's context of 
awareness, as is commonly and currently the case with small children.

An interesting side note on this, however, is that we are all children 
within the context of our environment of evolutionary adaptation, and 
there is a great deal of "wisdom" yet to be exploited from the structure 
of our environment.  Probably the clearest reason I know to retain some 
humility.

- Jef
http://www.jefallbright.net