Objective values are NOT specifications of what agents SHOULD do. They are simply explanatory principles. The analogy here is with the laws of physics. The laws of physics *per se* are NOT descriptions of future states of matter. The descriptions of the future states of matter are *implied by* the laws of physics, but the laws of physics themselves are not the descriptions. You don't need to specify future states of matter to understand the laws of physics. By analogy, the objective laws of morality are NOT specifications of optimization targets. These specifications are *implied by the laws* of morality, but you can understand the laws of morality well without any knowledge of optimization targets.
Thus it simply isn't true that you need to precisely specify an optimization target ( a 'goal') for an effective agent (for instance an AI). Again, consider the analogy with the laws of physics. Imperfect knowledge of the laws of physics, doesn't prevent scientists from building scientific tools to better understand the laws of physics. This is because the laws of physics are explanatory principles, NOT direct specifications of future states of matter. Similarly, an agent (for instance an AI) does not require a precisely specified goal , since imperfect knowledge of objective laws of morality is sufficient to produce behaviour which leads to more accurate knowledge. Again, the objective laws of morality are NOT optimization targets, but explanatory principles. The other claim of the objective value sceptics was that proposed objective values can't be empirically tested. Wrong. Again, the misunderstanding stems from the mistaken idea that objective values would be optimization targets. They are not. They are, as explained, explanatory principles. And these principles CAN be tested. The test is the extent to which these principles can be used to understand agent motivations - in the sense of emotional reactions to social events. If an agent experiences a negative emotional reaction, mark the event as 'agent sees it as bad'. If an agent experience a positive emotional reaction, mark the event as 'agent sees it as good'. Different agents have different emotional reactions to the same event, but that doesn't mean there isn't a commonality averaged across many events and agents . A successful 'theory of objective values' would abstract out this commonality to explain why agents experienced generic negative or positive emotions to generic events. And this would be *indirectly* testable by empirical means. Finally, the proof that objective values exist is quite simple. Without them, there simply could be no explanation of agent motivations. A complete physical description of an agent is NOT an explanation of the agent's teleological properties (ie the agent motivations). The teleological properties of agents (their goals and motivations) simply are not physical. For sure, they are dependent on and reside in physical processes, but they are not identical to these physical processes. This is because physical causal processes are concrete, where as teleological properties cannot be measured *directly* with physical devices (they are abstract) . The whole basis of the scientific world view is that things have objective explanations. Physical properties have objective explanations (the laws of physics). Teleological properties (such as agent motivations) are not identical to physical properties. Something needs to explain these teleological properties. QED objective 'laws of teleology' (objective values) have to exist. What forms would objective values take? As explained, these would NOT be 'optimization targets' (goals or rules of the form 'you should do X'). They couldn't be, because ethical rules differ according to culture and are made by humans. What they have to be are inert EXPLANATORY PRINCIPLES, taking the form: 'Beauty has abstract properties A B C D E F G'. 'Liberty has abstract properties A B C D E F G' etc etc. None the less, as explained, these abstract specifications would still be amenable to indirect empirical testing to the extent that they could be used to predict agent emotional reactions to social events. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
