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

[Damien Broderick]

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 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.

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

All rules of this kind are (can fruitfully be regarded as) prudential 
heuristics. The test of their worth is pragmatic success or effectiveness 
as guides to conduct in the world we seem to share.

Damien Broderick