Semi-Daily Journal

Completely off-topic, but it's amusing to see that the Google Ad for this entry is:

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"my principal Design was to Inform,
and not to amuse thee"

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels

http://www.jaffebros.com/lee/gulliver/contents.html

PART IV.

A VOYAGE TO THE COUNTRY OF THE HOUYHNHNMS.

CHAPTER VI.

A Continuation of the State of England. The Character of a first Minister.*

"...MY MASTER was yet wholly at a Loss to understand what Motives could incite this Race of Lawyers to perplex, disquiet, and weary themselves, and engage in a Confederacy of Injustice, merely for the Sake of injuring their Fellow-Animals; neither could he comprehend what I meant in saying they did it for Hire. Whereupon I was at much Pains to describe to him the Use of Money, the Materials it was made of, and the Value of the Metals, that when a Yahoo had got a great Store of this precious Substance, he was able to purchase whatever he had a Mind to; the finest Cloathing, the noblest Houses, great Tracts of Land, the most costly Meats and Drinks, and have his choice of the most beautiful Females. Therefore since Money alone, was able to perform all these Feats, our Yahoos thought, they could never have enough of it to spend or save, as they found themselves inclined from their natural Bent either to Profusion or Avarice. That the Rich Man enjoyed the Fruit of the Poor Man's Labour, and the Latter were a thousand to one in Proportion to the Former. That the Bulk of our People were forced to live miserably, by labouring every Day for small Wages to make a few live plentifully. I enlarged myself much on these and many other Particulars to the same Purpose: But his Honour was still to seek: For he went upon a Supposition that all Animals had a Title to their share in the Productions of the Earth, and especially those who presided over the rest. Therefore he desired I would let him know, what these costly Meats were, and how any of us happened to want them. Whereupon I enumerated as many sorts as came into my Head, with the various Methods of dressing them, which could not be done without sending Vessels by Sea to every Part of the World, as well for Liquors to Drink, as for Sauces, and innumerable other Conveniences. I assured him, that this whole Globe of Earth must be at least three times gone round, before one of our better Female Yahoos could get her Breakfast or a Cup to put it in. He said, That must needs be a miserable Country which cannot furnish Food for its own Inhabitants. But what he chiefly wondered at was how such vast Tracts of Grounds as I described should be wholly without Fresh-water, and the People put to the Necessity of sending over the Sea for Drink. I replied, that England (the dear Place of my Nativity) was computed to produce three times the Quantity of Food, more than its Inhabitants are able to consume, as well as Liquors extracted from Grain, or pressed out of the Fruit of certain Trees, which made excellent Drink, and the same Proportion in every other Convenience of Life. But in order to feed the Luxury and Intemperance of the Males, and the Vanity of the Females, we sent away the greatest Part of our necessary Things to other Countries, from whence in return we brought the Materials of Diseases, Folly, and Vice, to spend among ourselves. Hence it follows of Necessity, that vast Numbers of our People are compelled to seek their Livelihood by Begging, Robbing, Stealing, Cheating, Pimping, Forswearing, Flattering, Suborning, Forging, Gaming, Lying, Fawning, Hectoring, Voting, Scribbling, Stargazing, Poysoning, Whoring, Canting, Libelling, Free-thinking, and the like Occupations: Every one of which Terms, I was at much Pains to make him understand...."

http://www.jaffebros.com/lee/gulliver/bk4/chap4-6.html

Why "post-human"? If they created the universe that spawned us (humans), wouldn't that make them pre-human?

Why "post-human"? If they created the universe that spawned us (humans), wouldn't that make them pre-human?

1) Omega Point anyone?

2) some Satanists have a different perspective.

3) I have a memory of a fleeting reading about some opinion of the Marquis de Sade: the "supera" are sadists...

DSW

What the hell kind of PC Bible are you reading from, Brad? "Heavenly Mother": yeah, whatever. It's almost as bad as this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0718003586/qid=1063830383/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-3839604-5621549?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

An observation by the great Charles Fort comes to mind: "If there is truly a guiding intelligence to the universe, must it be sane?"

brains, which are emergent products of natural evolution are analog pattern recognition devices, not digital computational devices. their output consists in pattern categories and rules, which emerge when the recognition of an intial patterned condition results in the elaboration of high-order pattern-matching processes with behavioural import. (notre that decisions generated by the brain in this way can be purely physiological in import, such as releasing digestive juices in the stomache, as well a those that contain what we think of as a mental component- "neutral monism"). there is no prior code and no prior programmer required for this, which is way brains must be of some such nature, for darwinian evolution is precisely the opposite of any argument from design. any programs that emerge such as e.g. instinctual programs of chained behaviors are purely the contingent product of evolutionary interactions. what is strange about these cyber-philosophers is the elementary sorts of errors they take their departure from, ones long since criticized in the philosophical tradition. we know that there are perceptual illusions, since "always or for the most part" our perceptual statements hold good. if all our perceptions were illusions, we would have no concept of perceptual illusion. similarly, the idea that ou perceptions are purely mental events, with out reference to an external physical world is a piece of undigested old empiricism. we know oor perceptions are of an external physical world because we communicate with eachother about them and our communicative acts are themselves contingent events within and across the external physical world. if they could produce a program that would simulate the disruptive shock of others on the sheer continuity of our phenomenal experience and the unpredictable and innovative content their communications bring about, then they might have a point.

Not to be snotty, but brains also figured out that it's a good idea to seperate idea streams by topic for ease of understanding.

Y'know, paragraphs.

Pascal's Wager is, for me, right up there in the Top 10 Really Stupid Arguments with Anselm's Ontological Proof for the Existence of God. *Why* assume that the universe is benign? Because we'd like it to be?

"But is it likely that an ATPHE interested in creating whole planets full of humans would be so inhuman, have such icy unconcern for her creations? I mean, something that creates humans has to be somewhat interested in them, and somewhat humanlike, right?"

No. What a stupid assumption. You're smarter than this, Brad.

There's a quotation I can't remember exactly, something about Economics being a set of ever more sophisticated arguments justifying the selfishness and inhumanity of the rich and powerful. Robin Hanson's argument seems to be a logical continuation of this trend.

The main argument for there being a significant chance we live in a simulation is that with continued economic growth, our descendants are likely to be able to make such similuations within a century or two. Yet what are the chances that such growth will give our descendants Jesus-like empathy, and sympathy for the creatures they create? And is it obvious that it is far crueler to create many such creatures with short lives, who are somewhat mislead about the world they live in, rather than fewer creatures with longer lives, who are less misled? [And how do you put paragraph breaks into these posts, anyway? Html fails.]

The main argument for there being a significant chance we live in a simulation is that with continued economic growth, our descendants are likely to be able to make such similuations within a century or two. Yet what are the chances that such growth will give our descendants Jesus-like empathy, and sympathy for the creatures they create? And is it obvious that it is far crueler to create many such creatures with short lives, who are somewhat mislead about the world they live in, rather than fewer creatures with longer lives, who are less misled? [And how do you put paragraph breaks into these posts, anyway? Html fails.]

>>what are the chances that such growth will give our descendants Jesus-like empathy, and sympathy for the creatures they create?<<

I hereby give public warning to *all* George Mason University graduate students not to:

(a) Ask Robin Hanson for bread.
(b) Ask Robin Hanson for a fish.
(c) Ask Robin Hanson for an egg.

Clearly the consequences might be very dire indeed.

:-)

Jesus's point was precisely that it did not require *superhuman* or *transcendant* empathy to give bread instead of stone, fish instead of serpent, and egg instead of scorpion. It only required normal human empathy. Tit-for-tat and empathy are built into humans at a very deep and basic level, and it is hard to see how they could possibly be excised from any post-human entity still interested in simulating humans.

As I said, Blaise Pascal's looks like the bet with the greater expected value.

john Haslasz: if i take you right; evolution demonstrates the absence of a designer and unpredictable communications demonstrates the lack of merit of virtual existence by the cyber philosophers. I think you may be wrong on both counts but at best 50/50. I think Pascal's wage is still a decent bet.

Pattern recognition implies "we do not need a designer" "there is no prior code or no prior programmer required for this which is (why) brains must be of some such nature for darwinian evolution is precisely the opposite of any argument from design".

if darwinian selection is the design wrapped up in the design of subatomic rules governing the big bang, why would evolved pattern recognition rule out the designer.

why does: "perceptions are of an external physical world because we communicate with each other about them and our communicative acts are themselves contingent events within and across the external physical world" belie a virtual existence. Nothing here rules out virtual existence.

"if they could produce a program that would simulate the disruptive shock of others on the sheer continuity of our phenomenal experience and the unpredictable and innovative content their communications bring about, then they might have a point." The fact that virtual reality creators are not sophisticated enough to make a virtual world with surprises like insights that the world is not flat nor that we are the center of the solar system simply demonstrates that the virtual world creators are still primitive and not sophisticated enough to build code such that surprises like this can evolve or mutate.

It might all be virtual with the designer running down the variations deriving from the designs. That doesn't mean we can't take it seriously. I think Pascal's wage may still be a reasonable one. What do you think?

john Haslasz: if i take you right; evolution demonstrates the absence of a designer and unpredictable communications demonstrates the lack of merit of virtual existence by the cyber philosophers. I think you may be wrong on both counts but at best 50/50. I think Pascal's wage is still a decent bet.

Pattern recognition implies "we do not need a designer" "there is no prior code or no prior programmer required for this which is (why) brains must be of some such nature for darwinian evolution is precisely the opposite of any argument from design".

if darwinian selection is the design wrapped up in the design of subatomic rules governing the big bang, why would evolved pattern recognition rule out the designer.

why does: "perceptions are of an external physical world because we communicate with each other about them and our communicative acts are themselves contingent events within and across the external physical world" belie a virtual existence. Nothing here rules out virtual existence.

"if they could produce a program that would simulate the disruptive shock of others on the sheer continuity of our phenomenal experience and the unpredictable and innovative content their communications bring about, then they might have a point." The fact that virtual reality creators are not sophisticated enough to make a virtual world with surprises like insights that the world is not flat nor that we are the center of the solar system simply demonstrates that the virtual world creators are still primitive and not sophisticated enough to build code such that surprises like this can evolve or mutate.

It might all be virtual with the designer running down the variations deriving from the designs. That doesn't mean we can't take it seriously. I think Pascal's wage may still be a reasonable one. What do you think?

yes alcibiades, you have a point. there were two paragraphs there. but i'm still working on all the typos. next step CAPITALS! as for pascal's wager, wasn't pascal an augustinian and did not his wager refer to salvation from a world of predestined corruption? i hardly think he would have appreciated 'hard-wired empathy" nor the reduction of the moral recognition of the otherness of others, which is quite helpless, to tit-for-tat.

honza:
darwinian evolution, as a basic norm of the theory, precludes any argument from pre-existent design:the entire process of evolution, if one were to choose to punctuate the matter that way, is non-teleological, and all "design" or structure are emergent from the evolutionary process, given the prior phyio-chemical laws of the environment from which it "begins". this is not something to be proven or demonstrated, simply a basic norm of the whole theoretical approach: you either accept it or you don't, and i have no interest in compelling such acceptance by fiat. but once accepted, then so-called "mind"
as an emergent property (or rather set of properties and capacities) of underlying brain function emerges from a "mindless" process for originally physical and physiological reasons, without any outside inputs or extraneous design. it is for this reason that brains and the "minds" that they generate "must" in the first instance operate in the mode of analog processing. (how such brains later come to be capable of digital forms of thinking such as mathematics and formal logic is another matter. the beginnings of an answer would lie in the advent of natural language
which is both an analog and a digital system, but this is itself an endless topic.) (by the way, what darwinian evolution definitely is not is an "algorythic" process, a reiteration of fixed rules, as daniel dennett claims in his effort to foist a computationalist theory of mind onto darwinism. aside from this being a rather bizarre way to describe biological reproduction, it is an instance of projecting a preferred theory of mind on to the external world to support said theory, the very fallacy of "skyhooks" with which he lambastes others.)
the point i was making about perception, necessarily briefly, was wittgensteinian in force.
having perused the web site in question, i recognized that it was based on the "skepticism" that wittgenstein ought to have - and effectively did- purged from philosophical thought a long time ago. there are of course perceptual claims that can be mistaken. in such cases, we can either
repeat the perceptual experience to check it out or if that is not possible, consult collateral perceptual claims that are implicated with it. failing that, the perceptual claim fails, but there is no other way to attain unconditional certainty on the matter. and this exceptional instance does not thereby authorize some sort of "ufo epistemology" by which a specific failure authorizes a general or universal claim about the nature or status of our knowledge. the fact of the matter is that in our ordinary cognitive practices perceptual claims have a certain positional weight, ( which is not to say that all knowledge has its source in perception, an old saw going back at least to st. thomas who wrongly attributed it to aristotle, since all knowledge to count as such must be mediated through meanings or concepts- perception just being the most minimal sort of cognitive claim). if this were not so, then something else would have to take up that positional weight, perhaps procedures of instrumental action combined with ascertainment of outcomes, as imagined in pragmatist or positivist/operationalist epistemologies. but such epistemological theories
are precisely compensatory fantasies, based upon a failure to appreciate how our cogitive practices do in fact work. as wittgenstein constantly emphasizes, everything is in order as it is. it is our misconstruals of that and our compensatory and distorted need to go beyond our actual knowledge that leads us astray and is the object of wittgenstein's philosophical therapy. not only is it important to appreciated the limits of our knowledge, (since it is on the basis of its boundedness that it has its specific distinctive validity- on this wittgenstein and kant are broadly in agreement-,) but it is important to appreciate the limits of what our knowledge would get us, as well. for our knowledge
will certainly not get use everything we would wish, but, to the contrary, can serve as a basis for criticizing our wishes and better constuing our true (collective) need. this is the lesson of existential finitude.
as to the last point about computers as yet being unable to simulate the disruption and innovation of encounters with others, it was meant ironically; i'm sorry if i did not make that clearer. openness to the otherness of others, their irreducibility to our egoistic intentionality, is a condition of language and communication. it also involves being thrown with them upon a physical world in which there is a real potential for suffering, which can imprint and transform our sense of experience. simulating this on the basis of a thousand monkeys typing for a thousand years is rather otiose, don't you think? it is rather a matter of attempting to face this world in which we happen to find ourselves with as much alertness as our heritage, knowledge and ability affords us. perhaps some day, disembodied computerized intelligences will be singing hosannas to each other in an unimaginable ether, but that would do nothing to redeem the sufferings of this world, any more than
the attainment of communist utopia would annul the modern history of genocide. i live, however tenuously on this earth, and i have no desire to be fossilized/immortalized into a heaven of ideas.

"In my view, game and set to Pascal. If Robin Hanson really does think it possible that he lives in a simulation, it is highly irrational for him not to make Pascal's Wager."

Umm, not really. Pascal's basic assumption is that the Creator's reasons for creating are the same as a woman's reasons for procreating. That is a highly irrational assumption. Pascal then goes on to assume that the emotional reactions to the process and the products are also equivalent in both cases.
It certainly is an alluring notion but that doesn't make it rational. :)

"When a man ceases to believe in God, he does not believe in nothing; he will believe in anything".

(attributed to GK Chesterton, though notoriously difficult to confirm).

"...Tit-for-tat and empathy are built into humans at a very deep and basic level..."

Capuchins Don't Settle for Any Monkey Business

Wed Sep 17, 2003

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - When it comes to fair play, capuchin monkeys don't settle for any funny business.

They demand their equal share of food or rewards for tasks they've done. They won't settle for an injustice and are miffed when they think they have been cheated, researchers said Wednesday.

"It's the first time a sense of fairness has been found in any nonhuman, at least to our knowledge," Sarah Brosnan, a researcher at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, said in an interview.

She and her colleague Frans de Waal uncovered the sense of fair play in a study of the small brown primates from central and South America while giving pairs of monkeys who knew each other well jobs to perform.

They received food in exchange for doing a certain task. But each partner did not always get the same quantity or quality of food for equal amounts of effort.

"We showed the subjects compared their rewards with those of their partners and refused to accept a lower-value reward if their partners received a high-value reward," said Brosnan.

If both members of the pair did not get the same reward, the monkey that was short-changed refused to accept it or threw it away, in a reaction similar to that of humans.

"That active response toward reward is really unusual. They were clearly not pleased with the way things were going," Brosnan added.

"In humans, it is proposed that this sense of fairness is actually what makes cooperation work well."

She suspects other animals also have a sense of fairness but chose to study capuchins because they are known from field studies to be a cooperative species and to have a very tolerant society.

"They have a reasonable expectation of getting a food reward if a food bonanza is found or if they help in a cooperative hunt," said Brosnan.

She believes the findings, which are reported in the science journal Nature, settle the question of whether a sense of fairness is something that is taught or an evolved behavior.

"Finding this in capuchin monkeys does indicate that a sense of fairness has evolved. Clearly it is an extremely beneficial behavior," Brosnan added.

The scientists are now testing chimpanzees to see if they have the same reaction to fair play.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&ncid=585&e=5&u=/nm/20030917/sc_nm/science_monkey_dc

By the way, my paper does cover the `Pascal's wager' scenario:

"If our descendants like to play a moral God with their simulations, punishing and rewarding people in the simulation based on how they lived their lives, you might do well to live what they will consider praiseworthy lives. Of course you'll have to figure out the common features of morality in descendants who are willing to play God. (It would seem inconsistent of them to greatly emphasize humility, for example. Inconsistency and morality are hardly strangers though.)"

The general result is that you should estimate a probability distribution over the different possible simulations you might live in and maximize expected utility accordingly. I'll only argue that you, in addition to the Jesus scenarios (which Brad calls "normal human empathy"), should seriously other scenarios (which I'll call "normal human selfishness").

Whether DeLong or Hanson is right is at least partially testable. How? Look at how people play The Sims.

"The main argument for there being a significant chance we live in a simulation is that with continued economic growth, our descendants are likely to be able to make such similuations within a century or two."

We're still very far away from being able to provide enough input to make a 15-second simulation of an infinitesimal slice of the world convincing enough to fool a single being of human-level intelligence. Who has calculated the likelihood that in a century or two we will be able to make an entire world and its history convincing enough to fool a huge set of interacting beings of human-level intelligence? Offhand it would seem that some monstrous, galactic-sized degree of input would be required.

And that's assuming there are no obstacles to the creation of sentient programs in the first place, which is hardly a trivial assumption.

Finally, and most significantly, I can't believe I'm the first pedantic know-it-all to point out that it is Gloucester, not King Lear, who says "as flies to wanton boys..."

Robin Hanson reminds me of the Heaven's Gate guy (I see you upthread, but you do here, sorry). I guess people actually buy and read this stuff.

"But is it likely that an ATPHE interested in creating whole planets full of humans would be so inhuman, have such icy unconcern for her creations? I mean, something that creates humans has to be somewhat interested in them, and somewhat humanlike, right?"

Humans create atom bombs, computer viruses, genocide on their own neighbors, they wipe out entire species and trample on the downtrodden.

We're just as "evil" as we are "good."

Mothers sometimes kill their own children, and I'm not talking abortion here, I'm talking drowning pre-adoloescents [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1869000/1869963.stm ], backing over five year olds with cars [ http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/content_objectid=13380129_method=full_siteid=106694_headline=-MUM-KILLS-HER-TWIN-SON-IN-CAR-TRAGEDY-name_page.html ], 55-year old women killing their 39 year old sons because they don't like their girlfriends [ http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1409782,00.html ]. What sort of being could "be so inhuman, have such icy unconcern for her creations."

I don't happen to believe that we live in a simulation, and I do happen to believe that people should, to the extent possible, help out other people and animals. I don't like cruelty or murder, and I hate it when people victimize others for their personal gain, but that doesn't mean that everyone else here is like that. I'm not willing to go out on a limb and assume that something I've never knowingly interfaced with is similar to me in any way, let alone only similar to the tendencies of my species that I prefer.

the reactionary/ functionalist german philosophical anthropologist arnold gehlen argued the the structures of "archaic-natural" cultural institutions permitted their members "disemburdenment", the release of the moral tensions arising from the plasticity/lack of definite instinctual structure of our underlying biological nature, and that modernity had woefully dirupted all this. i can only imagine the gales of hellish bitter laughter that this high-tech/artificial version of "disemburdenment" would have evoked in him.

i forgot to mention that one of the consequences of the breakdown of traditional cultural structures in modernity, according to a. gehlen, is a compensatory psychological inflation of self.
this world seem to apply to the post-modernist aesthetist ludists, now in techno-geek garb. its deja vu all over again!

"The general result is that you should estimate a probability distribution over the different possible simulations you might live in "

This doesn't make any sort of sense for anyone with even a moderately sophisticated understanding of what a probability distribution is. You have no guarantee at all that any such distribution exists, and even if it does, no guarantee that it has moments.

D^2 say "This doesn't make any sort of sense for anyone with even a moderately sophisticated understanding of what a probability distribution is."

Would you please elaborate? I have a pretty good understanding of what a probability distribution is, and my reaction was that estimating a usefully close probability distribution over the different possible simulations one might live in is not a computationally tractable task, and that there is a very good chance of not even thinking of all the relevant dimensions. Nonetheless, I don't doubt that versions of this probability distribution exist. Why do you think it may not, and why do you think it may exist, but have no moments?

Also, I'm pretty sure that Robin Hanson is approaching this from a Baysian perspective.