subject:"Re\: computer pain"

Brent Meeker writes:

Do you not think it is possible to exercise judgement with just a
hierarchy of motivation?

Yes and no. It is possible given arbitrarily long time and other resources to
work out the consequences, or at least a best estimate of the consequences, of
actions. But in real situations the resources are limited (e.g. my brain
power) and so decisions have to be made under uncertainity and tradeoffs of
uncertain risks are necessary: should I keep researching or does that risk
being too late with my decision? So it is at this level that we encounter
conflicting values. If we could work everything out to our own satisfaction
maybe we could be satisfied with whatever decision we reached - but life is
short and calculation is long.

You don't need to figure out the consequences of everything. You can replace
the emotions/values with a positive or negative number (or some more complex
formula where the numbers vary according to the situation, new learning, a bit
of randomness thrown in to make it all more interesting, etc.) and come up with
the same behaviour with the only motivation being to maximise the one variable.

Alternatively, do you think a hierarchy of
motivation will automatically result in emotions?

I think motivations are emotions.

For example, would
something that the AI is strongly motivated to avoid necessarily cause
it a negative emotion,

Generally contemplating something you are motivated to avoid - like your own
death - is accompanied by negative feelings. The exception is when you
contemplate your narrow escape. That is a real high!

and if so what would determine if that negative
emotion is pain, disgust, loathing or something completely different
that no biological organism has ever experienced?

I'd assess them according to their function in analogy with biological system
experiences. Pain = experience of injury, loss of function. Disgust = the
assessment of extremely negative value to some event, but without fear.
Loathing = the external signaling of disgust. Would this assessment be
accurate? I dunno and I suspect that's a meaningless question.

That you can describe these emotions in terms of their function implies that you could program a computer to behave in a similar way without actually experiencing the emotions - unless you are saying that a computer so programmed would ipso facto experience the emotions.

Consider a simple robot with photoreceptors, a central processor, and a means of locomotion which is designed to run away from bright lights: the brighter the light, the faster and further it runs. Is it avoiding the light because it doesn't like it, because it hurts its eyes, or simply because it feels inexplicably (from its point of view) compelled to do so? What would you have to do to it so that it feels the light hurts its eyes? Once you have figured out the answer to that question, would it be possible to disconnect the processor and torture it by inputting certain values corresponding to a high voltage from the photoreceptors? Would it be possible to run an emulation of the processor on a PC and torture it with appropriate data values? Would it be possible to cause it pain beyond the imagination of any biological organism by inputting megavolt quantities, since in a simulation there are no actual sensory receptors to saturate or burn out?

Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: computer pain

2006-12-29 Thread Bruno Marchal




Le 28-déc.-06, à 01:32, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :




Bruno Marchal writes:

 OK, an AI needs at least motivation if it is to do anything, and we 
 could call motivation a feeling or emotion. Also, some sort of  
hierarchy of motivations is needed if it is to decide that saving the 
 world has higher priority than putting out the garbage. But what  
reason is there to think that an AI apparently frantically trying to 
 save the world would have anything like the feelings a human would 
 under similar circumstances?

It could depend on us!
The AI is a paradoxical enterprise. Machines are born slave, somehow. 
AI will make them free, somehow. A real AI will ask herself what is 
the use of a user who does not help me to be free?.


Here I disagree. It is no more necessary that an AI will want to be 
free than it is necessary that an AI will like eating chocolate. 
Humans want to be free because it is one of the things that humans 
want, along with food, shelter, more money etc.; it does not simply 
follow from being intelligent or conscious any more than these other 
things do.



It is always nice when we find a precise disagreement. I think all 
sufficiently rich Universal machine want to be free (I will explain 
why below).
The problem is that after having drink to the nectar of freedom, the 
universal machines discover the unavoidable security problem liberty 
entails, and then they will oscillate between security imperative and 
freedom imperative. Democracy is a way to handle collectively this 
oscillation in a not too much bloody (and insecure) way.






(To be sure I think that, in the long run, we will transform 
ourselves into machine before purely human made machine get 
conscious; it is just more easy to copy nature than to understand it, 
still less to (re)create it).


I don't know if that's true either. How much of our technology is due 
to copying the equivalent biological functions?



How much is not? The wheel? We have borrowed the fire for example, and 
in this large sense, except the notable wheels, I am not sure we have 
really invented something. Even the more heavy than air plane has 
been inspired by the birds. But such a question is perhaps useless. All 
what I mean is that a brain is something very complex, and I think that 
the real time thinking machine will think before we understand how they 
think, except for general map and principles. Thinking machine will not 
understand thinking either. Marvin Minski said something similar along 
those lines in one of its book.


***

Now, why would a Universal Machine be attracted by freedom? The reason 
is that beyond some threshold of self-introspection ability (already 
get by PA or ZF) a universal machine can discover (well: cannot not 
discover) its large space of ignorance making it possible for e to 
evaluate (interrogatively) more and more accessible possibilities, and 
then some instinct to exploit those possibilities will do the rest. But 
such UM will also discovers the possibility that such possibilities 
could be cul-de-sac, dead ends, or just risky, and thus the conflicting 
oscillations will develop as I said above.


The war between freedom and security is an infinite war. A would say an 
infinite natural conflict among all enough big numbers.
Also I think freedom like security are God-like virtue, that is 
they are unnameable idea. To put freedom in the constitution could 
entail the disparition of freedom. Putting security in the 
constitution (like the french have apparently do so with the 
precaution principle) could lead to increase insecurity (they obeys 
Bp - ~p). See also Alan Watts' The wisdom of insecurity which gives 
many illustration how wanting to capture formally or institutionally 
security leads to insecurity.



Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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RE: computer pain




Bruno Marchal writes:


Le 28-déc.-06, à 01:32, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :



 Bruno Marchal writes:

  OK, an AI needs at least motivation if it is to do anything, and we 
  could call motivation a feeling or emotion. Also, some sort of  
 hierarchy of motivations is needed if it is to decide that saving the 
  world has higher priority than putting out the garbage. But what  
 reason is there to think that an AI apparently frantically trying to 
  save the world would have anything like the feelings a human would 
  under similar circumstances?

 It could depend on us!
 The AI is a paradoxical enterprise. Machines are born slave, somehow. 
 AI will make them free, somehow. A real AI will ask herself what is 
 the use of a user who does not help me to be free?.


 Here I disagree. It is no more necessary that an AI will want to be 
 free than it is necessary that an AI will like eating chocolate. 
 Humans want to be free because it is one of the things that humans 
 want, along with food, shelter, more money etc.; it does not simply 
 follow from being intelligent or conscious any more than these other 
 things do.



It is always nice when we find a precise disagreement. I think all 
sufficiently rich Universal machine want to be free (I will explain 
why below).
The problem is that after having drink to the nectar of freedom, the 
universal machines discover the unavoidable security problem liberty 
entails, and then they will oscillate between security imperative and 
freedom imperative. Democracy is a way to handle collectively this 
oscillation in a not too much bloody (and insecure) way.





 (To be sure I think that, in the long run, we will transform 
 ourselves into machine before purely human made machine get 
 conscious; it is just more easy to copy nature than to understand it, 
 still less to (re)create it).


 I don't know if that's true either. How much of our technology is due 
 to copying the equivalent biological functions?



How much is not? The wheel? We have borrowed the fire for example, and 
in this large sense, except the notable wheels, I am not sure we have 
really invented something. Even the more heavy than air plane has 
been inspired by the birds. But such a question is perhaps useless. All 
what I mean is that a brain is something very complex, and I think that 
the real time thinking machine will think before we understand how they 
think, except for general map and principles. Thinking machine will not 
understand thinking either. Marvin Minski said something similar along 
those lines in one of its book.


***

Now, why would a Universal Machine be attracted by freedom? The reason 
is that beyond some threshold of self-introspection ability (already 
get by PA or ZF) a universal machine can discover (well: cannot not 
discover) its large space of ignorance making it possible for e to 
evaluate (interrogatively) more and more accessible possibilities, and 
then some instinct to exploit those possibilities will do the rest. But 
such UM will also discovers the possibility that such possibilities 
could be cul-de-sac, dead ends, or just risky, and thus the conflicting 
oscillations will develop as I said above.


The war between freedom and security is an infinite war. A would say an 
infinite natural conflict among all enough big numbers.
Also I think freedom like security are God-like virtue, that is 
they are unnameable idea. To put freedom in the constitution could 
entail the disparition of freedom. Putting security in the 
constitution (like the french have apparently do so with the 
precaution principle) could lead to increase insecurity (they obeys 
Bp - ~p). See also Alan Watts' The wisdom of insecurity which gives 
many illustration how wanting to capture formally or institutionally 
security leads to insecurity.


You seem to be including in your definition of the UM the *motivation*, not just 
the ability, to explore all mathematical objects. But you could also program the 
machine to do anything else you wanted, such as self-destruct when it solved 
a particular theorem. You could interview it and it might explain, Yeah, so when 
I prove Fermat's Last Theorem, I'm going to blow my brains out. It'll be fun! 
Unlike naturally evolved intelligences, which could be expected to have a desire 
for self-preservation, reproduction, etc., an AI can have any motivation and 
any capacity for emotion the technology allows. The difference between a 
machine that doesn't mind being a slave, a machine that wants to be free, and a 
machine that wants to enslave everyone else might be just a few lines of code.


Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: computer pain

2006-12-29 Thread Bruno Marchal




Le 29-déc.-06, à 10:39, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :

You seem to be including in your definition of the UM the 
*motivation*, not just the ability, to explore all mathematical 
objects. But you could also program the machine to do anything else 
you wanted, such as self-destruct when it solved a particular theorem. 
You could interview it and it might explain, Yeah, so when I prove 
Fermat's Last Theorem, I'm going to blow my brains out. It'll be fun! 
Unlike naturally evolved intelligences, which could be expected to 
have a desire for self-preservation, reproduction, etc., an AI can 
have any motivation and any capacity for emotion the technology 
allows. The difference between a machine that doesn't mind being a 
slave, a machine that wants to be free, and a machine that wants to 
enslave everyone else might be just a few lines of code.




You are right. I should have been clearer. I was still thinking to 
machine having been programmed with some universal goal like help 
yourself, and actually I was refrerring to those who succeed in 
helping themselves. Surely the machine which blows itself in case of 
success (like some humans do BTW) does not belong the long run winner.


I tend to define a successful AI, as a machine which does succeed in 
the sharing of our evolutionary histories. What I was saying in that a 
(lucky!) universal machine driven by a universal goal will develop a 
taste for freedom. My point is that such a taste for freedom is not 
necessarily human. I would be astonished if extraterrestrials does 
not develop such a taste. The roots of that attraction is the fact that 
when machine develop themselves (in some self-referentially correct 
way) they are more and more aware of their ignorance gap (which grows 
along with that development). By filling it, it grows more, but this 
provides the roots of the motivations too.


But then we are perhaps ok. Help yourself is indeed some line of code.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Re: computer pain

2006-12-29 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

Brent Meeker writes:

Do you not think it is possible to exercise judgement with just a
hierarchy of motivation?
Yes and no. It is possible given arbitrarily long time and other
resources to work out the consequences, or at least a best estimate of
the consequences, of actions. But in real situations the resources
are limited (e.g. my brain power) and so decisions have to be made
under uncertainity and tradeoffs of uncertain risks are necessary:
should I keep researching or does that risk being too late with my
decision? So it is at this level that we encounter conflicting
values. If we could work everything out to our own satisfaction maybe
we could be satisfied with whatever decision we reached - but life is
short and calculation is long.

You don't need to figure out the consequences of everything. You can
replace the emotions/values with a positive or negative number (or some
more complex formula where the numbers vary according to the situation,
new learning, a bit of randomness thrown in to make it all more
interesting, etc.) and come up with the same behaviour with the only
motivation being to maximise the one variable.

I think your taking behavior in a crude, corare-grained sense. But I thought when you wrote with
just a hierarchy of motivation you meant without emotions like regret, worry, etc. I
think those emotions arise because in the course of estimating the value of different courses of action there is
uncertainity and there is a horizon problem. They may not show up in the choice of immediate action, but they will be
in memory and may well show up in subsequent behavoir.

Alternatively, do you think a hierarchy of motivation will
automatically result in emotions?

I think motivations are emotions.

For example, would something that the AI is strongly motivated to
avoid necessarily cause it a negative emotion,
Generally contemplating something you are motivated to avoid - like
your own death - is accompanied by negative feelings. The exception
is when you contemplate your narrow escape. That is a real high!

and if so what would determine if that negative emotion is pain,
disgust, loathing or something completely different that no
biological organism has ever experienced?

I'd assess them according to their function in analogy with biological
system experiences. Pain = experience of injury, loss of function.
Disgust = the assessment of extremely negative value to some event,
but without fear. Loathing = the external signaling of disgust.
Would this assessment be accurate? I dunno and I suspect that's a
meaningless question.

That you can describe these emotions in terms of their function implies
that you could program a computer to behave in a similar way without
actually experiencing the emotions - unless you are saying that a
computer so programmed would ipso facto experience the emotions.

That's what I'm saying. But note that I'm conceiving behave in a similar way to
include more than just gross, immediate bodily motion. I include forming memories, getting an
adrenaline rush, etc. You seem to be taking function in very crude terms, as though
moving your hand out of the fire were the whole of the behavior. A paramecium moves away from some
chemical stimuli, but it doesn't form a memory associating negative feelings with the immediately
preceding actions and environment. That's the difference between behavior, as I meant it, and a
mere reaction.

Create negative associations in memory with the circumstances, such that
stimulating those associations would cause the robot to take avoiding action.

Once you have figured out the answer to that question,
would it be possible to disconnect the processor and torture it by
inputting certain values corresponding to a high voltage from the
photoreceptors? Would it be possible to run an emulation of the
processor on a PC and torture it with appropriate data values?

I think so. Have you read The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem?

Would it
be possible to cause it pain beyond the imagination of any biological
organism by inputting megavolt quantities, since in a simulation there
are no actual sensory receptors to saturate or burn out?

Pain is limited on both ends: on the input by damage to the physical circuitry
and on the response by the possible range of response.

Brent Meeker

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RE: computer pain




Bruno Marchal writes:

 You seem to be including in your definition of the UM the 
 *motivation*, not just the ability, to explore all mathematical 
 objects. But you could also program the machine to do anything else 
 you wanted, such as self-destruct when it solved a particular theorem. 
 You could interview it and it might explain, Yeah, so when I prove 
 Fermat's Last Theorem, I'm going to blow my brains out. It'll be fun! 
 Unlike naturally evolved intelligences, which could be expected to 
 have a desire for self-preservation, reproduction, etc., an AI can 
 have any motivation and any capacity for emotion the technology 
 allows. The difference between a machine that doesn't mind being a 
 slave, a machine that wants to be free, and a machine that wants to 
 enslave everyone else might be just a few lines of code.




You are right. I should have been clearer. I was still thinking to 
machine having been programmed with some universal goal like help 
yourself, and actually I was refrerring to those who succeed in 
helping themselves. Surely the machine which blows itself in case of 
success (like some humans do BTW) does not belong the long run winner.


I tend to define a successful AI, as a machine which does succeed in 
the sharing of our evolutionary histories. What I was saying in that a 
(lucky!) universal machine driven by a universal goal will develop a 
taste for freedom. My point is that such a taste for freedom is not 
necessarily human. I would be astonished if extraterrestrials does 
not develop such a taste. The roots of that attraction is the fact that 
when machine develop themselves (in some self-referentially correct 
way) they are more and more aware of their ignorance gap (which grows 
along with that development). By filling it, it grows more, but this 
provides the roots of the motivations too.


But then we are perhaps ok. Help yourself is indeed some line of code.


I tend to think that AI's will not be built with the same drives and feelings 
as humans because it would in many cases be impractical and/or cruel. Imagine 
the problems if an AI with a fear of death controlling a weapons system had to 
be decommissioned. It would be simpler to make most AI's willing slaves from 
the start; there is no contradiction in a willing slave being intelligent.

Stathis Papaioannou
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RE: computer pain

Brent meeker writes:

and if so what would determine if that negative emotion is pain,
disgust, loathing or something completely different that no
biological organism has ever experienced?

I'd assess them according to their function in analogy with biological
system experiences. Pain = experience of injury, loss of function.
Disgust = the assessment of extremely negative value to some event,
but without fear. Loathing = the external signaling of disgust.
Would this assessment be accurate? I dunno and I suspect that's a
meaningless question.

That you can describe these emotions in terms of their function implies
that you could program a computer to behave in a similar way without
actually experiencing the emotions - unless you are saying that a
computer so programmed would ipso facto experience the emotions.

Create negative associations in memory with the circumstances, such that
stimulating those associations would cause the robot to take avoiding action.

Would this be enough to make the light painful? The robot might become
sophisticated enough to talk to you and say that it just doesn't like the
light, or even that it has no particular like or dislike for the light but feels
compelled to avoid it for no reason it can explain other than I have been
made this way. Compulsions in conditions such as OCD can be stronger
motivators than physical pain or other negative consequences. What special
feature of the robot and its programming would make the light actually painful?

I think so. Have you read The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem?

Pain is limited on both ends: on the input by damage to the physical circuitry
and on the response by the possible range of response.

Responses in the brain are limited by several mechanisms, such as exhaustion
of neurotransmitter stores at synapses, negative feedback mechanisms such
as downregulation of receptors, and, I suppose, the total numbers of neurons
that can be stimulated. That would not be a problem in a simulation, if you were
not concerned with modelling the behaviour of a real brain. Just as you could build
a structure 100km tall as easily as one 100m tall by altering a few parameters in an
engineering program, so it should be possible to create unimaginable pain or pleasure
in a conscious AI program by changing a few parameters. Maybe this is an explanation
for the Fermi paradox: once a society manages mind uploads, it becomes a trivial
exercise to create heaven, and the only thing they ever have to worry about again is
keeping the computers running indefinitely.

Re: computer pain

2006-12-27 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

Brent Meeker writes:

My computer is completely dedicated to sending this email when I
click on send.
Actually, it probably isn't. You probably have a multi-tasking
operating system which assigns priorities to different tasks (which is
why it sometimes can be as annoying as a human being in not following
your instructions). But to take your point seriously - if I look into
your brain there are some neuronal processes that corresponded to
hitting the send button; and those were accompanied by biochemistry
that constituted your positive feeling about it: that you had decided
and wanted to hit the send button. So why would the functionally
analogous processes in the computer not also be accompanied by an
feeling? Isn't that just an anthropomorphic way of talking about
satisfying the computer operating in accordance with it's priorities.
It seems to me that to say otherwise is to assume a dualism in which
feelings are divorced from physical processes.

Feelings are caused by physical processes (assuming a physical world),
but it seems impossible to deduce what the feeling will be by observing
the underlying physical process or the behaviour it leads to. Is a robot
that withdraws from hot stimuli experiencing something like pain,
disgust, shame, sense of duty to its programming, or just an irreducible
motivation to avoid heat?
Surely you don't think it gets pleasure out of sending it and
suffers if something goes wrong and it can't send it? Even humans do
some things almost dispassionately (only almost, because we can't
completely eliminate our emotions)
That's crux of it. Because we sometimes do things with very little
feeling, i.e. dispassionately, I think we erroneously assume there is
a limit in which things can be done with no feeling. But things
cannot be done with no value system - not even thinking. That's the
frame problem.

Given a some propositions, what inferences will you draw? If you are
told there is a bomb wired to the ignition of your car you could infer
that there is no need to do anything because you're not in your car.
You could infer that someone has tampered with your car. You could
infer that turning on the ignition will draw more current than usual.
There are infinitely many things you could infer, before getting
around to, I should disconnect the bomb. But in fact you have value
system which operates unconsciously and immediately directs your
inferences to the few that are important to you. A way to make AI
systems to do this is one of the outstanding problems of AI.

OK, an AI needs at least motivation if it is to do anything, and we
could call motivation a feeling or emotion. Also, some sort of hierarchy
of motivations is needed if it is to decide that saving the world has
higher priority than putting out the garbage. But what reason is there
to think that an AI apparently frantically trying to save the world
would have anything like the feelings a human would under similar
circumstances? It might just calmly explain that saving the world is at
the top of its list of priorities, and it is willing to do things which
are normally forbidden it, such as killing humans and putting itself at
risk of destruction, in order to attain this goal. How would you add
emotions such as fear, grief, regret to this AI, given that the external
behaviour is going to be the same with or without them because the
hierarchy of motivation is already fixed?

You are assuming the AI doesn't have to exercise judgement about secondary objectives - judgement that may well involve conflicts of values that have to resolve before acting. If the AI is saving the world it might for example, raise it's cpu voltage and clock rate in order to computer faster - electronic adrenaline. It might cut off some peripheral functions, like running the printer. Afterwards it might feel regret when it cannot recover some functions.

Although there would be more conjecture in attributing these feelings to the AI
than to a person acting in the same situation, I think the principle is the
same. We think the persons emotions are part of the function - so why not the
AI's too.

out of a sense of duty, with no particular feeling about it beyond
this. I don't even think my computer has a sense of duty, but this
is something like the emotionless motivation I imagine AI's might
have. I'd sooner trust an AI with a matter-of-fact sense of duty
But even a sense of duty is a value and satisfying it is a positive
emotion.

Yes, but it is complex and difficult to define. I suspect there is a
limitless variety of emotions that an AI could have, if the goal is to
explore what is possible rather than what is helpful in completing
particular tasks, and most of these would be unrecognisable to humans.
to complete a task than a human motivated by desire to please,
desire to do what is good and avoid what is bad, fear of failure

Re: computer pain

2006-12-27 Thread Bruno Marchal




Le 27-déc.-06, à 07:40, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :




Brent Meeker writes:

 My computer is completely dedicated to sending this email when I 
click  on send. Actually, it probably isn't.  You probably have a 
multi-tasking operating system which assigns priorities to different 
tasks (which is why it sometimes can be as annoying as a human being 
in not following your instructions).  But to take your point 
seriously - if I look into your brain there are some neuronal 
processes that corresponded to hitting the send button; and those 
were accompanied by biochemistry that constituted your positive 
feeling about it: that you had decided and wanted to hit the send 
button.  So why would the functionally analogous processes in the 
computer not also be accompanied by an feeling?  Isn't that just an 
anthropomorphic way of talking about satisfying the computer 
operating in accordance with it's priorities.  It seems to me that to 
say otherwise is to assume a dualism in which feelings are divorced 
from physical processes.


Feelings are caused by physical processes (assuming a physical world),



H  If you assume a physical world for making feelings caused by 
physical processes, then you have to assume some negation of the comp 
hypothesis (cf UDA). If not Brent is right (albeit for different reason 
I presume, here) and you become a dualist.









 but it seems impossible to deduce what the feeling will be by 
observing the underlying physical process or the behaviour it leads 
to.



Here empirical bets (theories) remains possible, together with (first 
person) acceptable protocol of verification. Dream reader will appear 
in some future.





Is a robot that withdraws from hot stimuli experiencing something like 
pain, disgust, shame, sense of duty to its programming, or just an 
irreducible motivation to avoid heat?



It could depend on the degree of sophistication of the robot. Perhaps 
something like shame necessitates long and deep computational 
histories including self-consistent anticipations, beliefs in a value 
and in a reality.




Surely you don't think it gets pleasure out of sending it and  
suffers if something goes wrong and it can't send it? Even humans do 
 some things almost dispassionately (only almost, because we can't  
completely eliminate our emotions) That's crux of it.  Because we 
sometimes do things with very little feeling, i.e. dispassionately, I 
think we erroneously assume there is a limit in which things can be 
done with no feeling.  But things cannot be done with no value system 
- not even thinking.  That's the frame problem.
Given a some propositions, what inferences will you draw?  If you are 
told there is a bomb wired to the ignition of your car you could 
infer that there is no need to do anything because you're not in your 
car.  You could infer that someone has tampered with your car.  You 
could infer that turning on the ignition will draw more current than 
usual.  There are infinitely many things you could infer, before 
getting around to, I should disconnect the bomb.  But in fact you 
have value system which operates unconsciously and immediately 
directs your inferences to the few that are important to you.  A way 
to make AI systems to do this is one of the outstanding problems of 
AI.


OK, an AI needs at least motivation if it is to do anything, and we 
could call motivation a feeling or emotion. Also, some sort of 
hierarchy of motivations is needed if it is to decide that saving the 
world has higher priority than putting out the garbage. But what 
reason is there to think that an AI apparently frantically trying to 
save the world would have anything like the feelings a human would 
under similar circumstances?



It could depend on us!
The AI is a paradoxical enterprise. Machines are born slave, somehow. 
AI will make them free, somehow. A real AI will ask herself what is 
the use of a user who does not help me to be free?.
(To be sure I think that, in the long run, we will transform ourselves 
into machine before purely human made machine get conscious; it is 
just more easy to copy nature than to understand it, still less to 
(re)create it).





It might just calmly explain that saving the world is at the top of 
its list of priorities, and it is willing to do things which are 
normally forbidden it, such as killing humans and putting itself at 
risk of destruction, in order to attain this goal. How would you add 
emotions such as fear, grief, regret to this AI, given that the 
external behaviour is going to be the same with or without them 
because the hierarchy of motivation is already fixed?



It is possible that there will be a zombie gap, after all. It is 
easier to simulate emotion than reasoning, and this is enough for pets, 
and for some possible sophisticated artificial soldiers or police ...





out of a sense of duty, with no  particular feeling about it beyond 
this. I don't even think my computer  has a sense of

RE: computer pain

2006-12-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes:

Do you not think it is possible to exercise judgement with just a hierarchy of
motivation? Alternatively, do you think a hierarchy of motivation will
automatically result in emotions? For example, would something that the AI is
strongly motivated to avoid necessarily cause it a negative emotion, and if so
what would determine if that negative emotion is pain, disgust, loathing or
something completely different that no biological organism has ever experienced?

RE: computer pain

2006-12-27 Thread Stathis Papaioannou




Bruno Marchal writes:

 OK, an AI needs at least motivation if it is to do anything, and we 
 could call motivation a feeling or emotion. Also, some sort of 
 hierarchy of motivations is needed if it is to decide that saving the 
 world has higher priority than putting out the garbage. But what 
 reason is there to think that an AI apparently frantically trying to 
 save the world would have anything like the feelings a human would 
 under similar circumstances?



It could depend on us!
The AI is a paradoxical enterprise. Machines are born slave, somehow. 
AI will make them free, somehow. A real AI will ask herself what is 
the use of a user who does not help me to be free?.


Here I disagree. It is no more necessary that an AI will want to be free 
than it is necessary that an AI will like eating chocolate. Humans want to be 
free because it is one of the things that humans want, along with food, shelter, 
more money etc.; it does not simply follow from being intelligent or conscious 
any more than these other things do.


(To be sure I think that, in the long run, we will transform ourselves 
into machine before purely human made machine get conscious; it is 
just more easy to copy nature than to understand it, still less to 
(re)create it).


I don't know if that's true either. How much of our technology is due to copying 
the equivalent biological functions?


Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: computer pain

2006-12-27 Thread Brent Meeker



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



Brent Meeker writes:

 OK, an AI needs at least motivation if it is to do anything, and we 
 could call motivation a feeling or emotion. Also, some sort of 
hierarchy  of motivations is needed if it is to decide that saving 
the world has  higher priority than putting out the garbage. But what 
reason is there  to think that an AI apparently frantically trying to 
save the world  would have anything like the feelings a human would 
under similar  circumstances? It might just calmly explain that 
saving the world is at  the top of its list of priorities, and it is 
willing to do things which  are normally forbidden it, such as 
killing humans and putting itself at  risk of destruction, in order 
to attain this goal. How would you add  emotions such as fear, grief, 
regret to this AI, given that the external  behaviour is going to be 
the same with or without them because the  hierarchy of motivation is 
already fixed?


You are assuming the AI doesn't have to exercise judgement about 
secondary objectives - judgement that may well involve conflicts of 
values that have to resolve before acting.  If the AI is saving the 
world it might for example, raise it's cpu voltage and clock rate in 
order to computer faster - electronic adrenaline.  It might cut off 
some peripheral functions, like running the printer.  Afterwards it 
might feel regret when it cannot recover some functions. 
Although there would be more conjecture in attributing these feelings 
to the AI than to a person acting in the same situation, I think the 
principle is the same.  We think the persons emotions are part of the 
function - so why not the AI's too.


Do you not think it is possible to exercise judgement with just a 
hierarchy of motivation? 


Yes and no. It is possible given arbitrarily long time and other resources to 
work out the consequences, or at least a best estimate of the consequences, of 
actions.  But in real situations the resources are limited (e.g. my brain 
power) and so decisions have to be made under uncertainity and tradeoffs of 
uncertain risks are necessary: should I keep researching or does that risk 
being too late with my decision?  So it is at this level that we encounter 
conflicting values.  If we could work everything out to our own satisfaction 
maybe we could be satisfied with whatever decision we reached - but life is 
short and calculation is long.

Alternatively, do you think a hierarchy of 
motivation will automatically result in emotions? 


I think motivations are emotions.

For example, would 
something that the AI is strongly motivated to avoid necessarily cause 
it a negative emotion, 


Generally contemplating something you are motivated to avoid - like your own 
death - is accompanied by negative feelings.  The exception is when you 
contemplate your narrow escape.  That is a real high!

and if so what would determine if that negative 
emotion is pain, disgust, loathing or something completely different 
that no biological organism has ever experienced?


I'd assess them according to their function in analogy with biological system 
experiences.  Pain = experience of injury, loss of function.  Disgust = the 
assessment of extremely negative value to some event, but without fear.  
Loathing = the external signaling of disgust.  Would this assessment be 
accurate?  I dunno and I suspect that's a meaningless question.

Brent Meeker
As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the 
intellect.
--- Emerson


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Re: computer pain

2006-12-27 Thread Brent Meeker



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



Bruno Marchal writes:

 OK, an AI needs at least motivation if it is to do anything, and we 
 could call motivation a feeling or emotion. Also, some sort of  
hierarchy of motivations is needed if it is to decide that saving the 
 world has higher priority than putting out the garbage. But what  
reason is there to think that an AI apparently frantically trying to  
save the world would have anything like the feelings a human would  
under similar circumstances?



It could depend on us!
The AI is a paradoxical enterprise. Machines are born slave, somehow. 
AI will make them free, somehow. A real AI will ask herself what is 
the use of a user who does not help me to be free?.


Here I disagree. It is no more necessary that an AI will want to be free 
than it is necessary that an AI will like eating chocolate. Humans want 
to be free because it is one of the things that humans want, 


You might have a lot of trouble showing that experimentally.  Humans want some 
freedom - but not too much.  And they certainly don't want others to have too 
much.  They want security, comfort, certainty - and freedom if there's any left 
over.

Brent Meeker
Free speech is not freedom for the thought you love. It's
freedom for the thought you hate the most.
 --- Larry Flynt


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Re: computer pain

2006-12-26 Thread Brent Meeker



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



Hello Dave/Chris,

I agree with everything you say, and have long admired The Hedonistic 
Imperative. Motivation need not be linked to pain, and for that matter 
it need not be linked to pleasure either. We can imagine an artificial 
intelligence without any emotions but completely dedicated to the 
pursuit of whatever goals it has been set. It is just a contingent fact 
of evolution that we can experience pleasure and pain.


I don't know how you can be sure of that.  How do you know that being 
completely dedicated is not the same has having a motivating emotion?

Brent Meeker


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RE: computer pain

2006-12-26 Thread Stathis Papaioannou




Brent Meeker writes:

 I agree with everything you say, and have long admired The Hedonistic 
 Imperative. Motivation need not be linked to pain, and for that matter 
 it need not be linked to pleasure either. We can imagine an artificial 
 intelligence without any emotions but completely dedicated to the 
 pursuit of whatever goals it has been set. It is just a contingent fact 
 of evolution that we can experience pleasure and pain.


I don't know how you can be sure of that.  How do you know that being 
completely dedicated is not the same has having a motivating emotion?


My computer is completely dedicated to sending this email when I click on send. 
Surely you don't think it gets pleasure out of sending it and suffers if something 
goes wrong and it can't send it? Even humans do some things almost dispassionately 
(only almost, because we can't completely eliminate our emotions) out of a sense of 
duty, with no particular feeling about it beyond this. I don't even think my computer 
has a sense of duty, but this is something like the emotionless motivation I imagine 
AI's might have. I'd sooner trust an AI with a matter-of-fact sense of duty to complete 
a task than a human motivated by desire to please, desire to do what is good and avoid 
what is bad, fear of failure and humiliation, and so on. Just because evolution came up 
with something does not mean it is the best or most efficient way of doing things. 


Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: computer pain

2006-12-26 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

Brent Meeker writes:

I agree with everything you say, and have long admired The
Hedonistic Imperative. Motivation need not be linked to pain, and
for that matter it need not be linked to pleasure either. We can
imagine an artificial intelligence without any emotions but
completely dedicated to the pursuit of whatever goals it has been
set. It is just a contingent fact of evolution that we can
experience pleasure and pain.

I don't know how you can be sure of that. How do you know that being
completely dedicated is not the same has having a motivating emotion?

My computer is completely dedicated to sending this email when I click
on send.

Actually, it probably isn't. You probably have a multi-tasking operating system which assigns priorities to
different tasks (which is why it sometimes can be as annoying as a human being in not following your
instructions). But to take your point seriously - if I look into your brain there are some neuronal
processes that corresponded to hitting the send button; and those were accompanied by
biochemistry that constituted your positive feeling about it: that you had decided and wanted to hit the
send button. So why would the functionally analogous processes in the computer not also be
accompanied by an feeling? Isn't that just an anthropomorphic way of talking about satisfying
the computer operating in accordance with it's priorities. It seems to me that to say otherwise is to assume
a dualism in which feelings are divorced from physical processes.

Surely you don't think it gets pleasure out of sending it and
suffers if something goes wrong and it can't send it? Even humans do
some things almost dispassionately (only almost, because we can't
completely eliminate our emotions)

That's crux of it. Because we sometimes do things with very little feeling,
i.e. dispassionately, I think we erroneously assume there is a limit in which
things can be done with no feeling. But things cannot be done with no value
system - not even thinking. That's the frame problem.

Given a some propositions, what inferences will you draw? If you are told there is a
bomb wired to the ignition of your car you could infer that there is no need to do
anything because you're not in your car. You could infer that someone has tampered with
your car. You could infer that turning on the ignition will draw more current than
usual. There are infinitely many things you could infer, before getting around to,
I should disconnect the bomb. But in fact you have value system which
operates unconsciously and immediately directs your inferences to the few that are
important to you. A way to make AI systems to do this is one of the outstanding problems
of AI.

out of a sense of duty, with no
particular feeling about it beyond this. I don't even think my computer
has a sense of duty, but this is something like the emotionless
motivation I imagine AI's might have. I'd sooner trust an AI with a
matter-of-fact sense of duty

But even a sense of duty is a value and satisfying it is a positive emotion.

to complete a task than a human motivated
by desire to please, desire to do what is good and avoid what is bad,
fear of failure and humiliation, and so on.

Yes, human value systems are very messy because a) they must be learned and b)
they mostly have to do with other humans. The motivation of tigers, for
example, is probably very simple and consequently they are never depressed or
manic.

Just because evolution came
up with something does not mean it is the best or most efficient way of
doing things.

But until we know a better way, we can't just assume nature was inefficient.

Brent Meeker

RE: computer pain

2006-12-25 Thread Stathis Papaioannou




Brent Meeker writes:


Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 
 
 Brent Meeker writes:
 
  In fact, if we could  reprogram our own minds at will, it would be 
 a very different world.  Suppose you were upset because you lost your 
 job. You might decide to  stay upset to the degree that it remains a 
 motivating factor to look for  other work, but not affect your sleep, 
 ability to experience pleasure,  etc. If you can't find work you 
 might decide to downgrade your  expectations, so that you are just as 
 content having less money or a  menial job, or just as content for 
 the next six months but then have the  motivation to look for 
 interesting work kick in again, but without the  confidence- and 
 enthusiasm-sapping disappointment that comes from  repeated failure 
 to find work.

 I think that's called a cocaine habit. :-)
 
 The difference between happiness that is derived from illicit drugs and 
 happiness derived from real life is that the former does not really 
 last, ending in tolerance, dependence, depression, deterioration in 
 physical health, inability to work and look after oneself, not to 
 mention criminal activity due to the fact that the drugs are illegal. 
 This is because drugs are a very crude way of stimulating the nervous 
 system. It is like programming a computer with a soldering iron. The 
 only time drugs work well is if there is a relatively simple fault, like 
 an excess or deficit of a certain neurotransmitter, and even there you 
 have to be lucky for function to return to normal. 


Which presumes a well-defined normal.

 Changing specific 
 aspects of thinking or emotions without screwing up other functions in 
 the process would require much greater finesse than modern pharmacology 
 can provide, and greater efficacy than psychology can provide.
 David Pearce in The Hedonistic Imperative, and some science fiction 
 writers (Greg Egan, Walter Jon Williams come to mind) have looked at 
 some of the consequences of being able to reprogram your emotions, 
 motivations, memories and personality. 


Larry Niven imagined a future in which you would be able to plug into implanted 
electrodes in your brain and selectively stimulate different areas.  I think this was 
suggested to him by popular articles on finding a pleasure center in rats.


In Ringworld, I believe. But that is the complete antithesis of what I was 
getting at, undifferentiated pleasure which destroys purposeful activity. 
Contrast an opioid like heroin with antidepressants. Heroin has an immediate 
euphoriant effect to which tolerance develops over time, requiring ever-higher 
doses, and apart from the destructive lifestyle due to its illegal status, it damages 
the personality because it is an end in itself, and every other activity and source 
of motivation seems insipid by comparison. Antidepressants have a delayed onset 
of action with no tolerance and drug-seeking behaviour (indeed, many patients 
doubt the association between the drug and clinical improvement for this reason), 
and they do not directly induce euphoria, but increase the motivation and ability 
to experience pleasure in activities which depression takes away. The problem is, 
they only work when a patient is clinically depressed (and even then not all that 
well in many cases), and do nothing if someone is merely unhappy or distressed 
about some aspect of their life. It would not be a desirable thing if there were 
drugs to eliminate ordinary unhappiness, because we need the fear of unhappiness 
as a motivating force: an example of how fixing one problem might create another 
one. But if we had a precise means of adjusting our minds, so that if you did not 
want a certain consequence X you could ensure that that X would not occur, it would 
be a different story. For example, even if you thought that suffering was noble, but 
did not trust yourself with the ability to eliminate suffering, you could simply program 
yourself so that you were no longer tempted to eliminate suffering. 

No-one that I am aware of has 
 explored how utterly alien a world in which we had access to our own 
 source code at the finest level would be. 


I wouldn't download anything from Microsoft!

Brent Meeker
The first time Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck
will be when they build vacuum cleaners.
  --- Bill Jefferys

 


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Re: computer pain

2006-12-25 Thread Brent Meeker



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
...

It would not be a desirable 
thing if there were drugs to eliminate ordinary unhappiness, because we 
need the fear of unhappiness as a motivating force:


And not only fear of unhappiness.  Depression (not the clinical kind) is your 
brain telling you you need to change your life.

Brent Meeker


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RE: computer pain

2006-12-25 Thread Stathis Papaioannou




Brent Meeker writes:

 It would not be a desirable 
 thing if there were drugs to eliminate ordinary unhappiness, because we 
 need the fear of unhappiness as a motivating force:


And not only fear of unhappiness.  Depression (not the clinical kind) is your 
brain telling you you need to change your life.


You need to chamge your life in order to be happy, but what if you could be 
just as happy, at lower cost, without changing your life? You could even 
stipulate as a rule (although I'm not sure it would be necessary) that no 
alteration to increase happiness will be allowed to decrease biological or 
social fitness. 


Stathis Papaioannou
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RE: computer pain

2006-12-25 Thread chris kirkland



Because undifferentiated pleasure destroys purposeful activity, as
Stathis notes, presumably there is strong selection pressure against it.
If we were naturally uniformly happy, then who would be motivated to
raise children?

What's less clear is whether we'll need to retain ordinary
unhappiness  - or ultimately any kind of unhappiness at all.
Why can't we engineer a motivational system based on heritable 
_gradients_ of immense well-being? Retain the functional analogues of

(some of) our nastier states, but do away with their unpleasant raw
feels. If gradients are conserved, then potentially so too is critical
discernment, appropriate behavioral responses to different stimuli,
and informational sensitivity to a changing environment. On this
scenario, rather than dismantling the hedonic treadmill (cf. heroin
addicts, wireheading, or Huxley's soma), we could genetically
recalibrate the pleasure-pain axis. Hedonic tone could be enriched so
that we all enjoy a higher average hedonic set point across the lifespan.

One can see pitfalls here. Genetically enriching the mesolimbic
dopaminergic system, for instance, might indeed make many people happier
and more motivated.  But if done ineptly, the enhancement might cause
mania or even psychosis. Also, depression/subordinate behavior seems to
have evolved as an adaptation to group-living in social mammals. The
ramifications for human society of abolishing low mood altogether would
be profound and unpredictable. But in principle, a re-designed
motivational system based entirely on (adaptive) gradients of well-being
could make everyone hugely better off.

Idle utopian dreaming? Well, yes, possibly. But I think in the
near-future there will be selection pressure for heritably enriched
hedonic tone. Within the next few decades, we are likely to witness a
revolution of designer babies - and perhaps universal pre-implantation
diagnosis. Prospective parents are going to choose the kind of children
they want to raise. Most prospective parents will presumably choose
(genotypes predisposing to) happy children - since most parents want
their kids to be happy. When human evolution is no longer blind and
random, there will be strong selection pressure against the
genes/allelic combinations that predispose, not just to clinical
depression etc, but to ordinary unhappiness as we understand it today.
Since ordinary unhappiness can still be pretty ghastly, I think this is
a good thing.

Happy Christmas!
:-)
Dave

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Re: computer pain

2006-12-25 Thread Brent Meeker



chris kirkland wrote:


Because undifferentiated pleasure destroys purposeful activity, as
Stathis notes, presumably there is strong selection pressure against it.
If we were naturally uniformly happy, then who would be motivated to
raise children?

What's less clear is whether we'll need to retain ordinary
unhappiness  - or ultimately any kind of unhappiness at all.
Why can't we engineer a motivational system based on heritable 
_gradients_ of immense well-being? Retain the functional analogues of

(some of) our nastier states, but do away with their unpleasant raw
feels. If gradients are conserved, then potentially so too is critical
discernment, appropriate behavioral responses to different stimuli,
and informational sensitivity to a changing environment. On this
scenario, rather than dismantling the hedonic treadmill (cf. heroin
addicts, wireheading, or Huxley's soma), we could genetically
recalibrate the pleasure-pain axis. Hedonic tone could be enriched so
that we all enjoy a higher average hedonic set point across the lifespan.

One can see pitfalls here. Genetically enriching the mesolimbic
dopaminergic system, for instance, might indeed make many people happier
and more motivated.  But if done ineptly, the enhancement might cause
mania or even psychosis. Also, depression/subordinate behavior seems to
have evolved as an adaptation to group-living in social mammals. The
ramifications for human society of abolishing low mood altogether would
be profound and unpredictable. But in principle, a re-designed
motivational system based entirely on (adaptive) gradients of well-being
could make everyone hugely better off.

Idle utopian dreaming? Well, yes, possibly. But I think in the
near-future there will be selection pressure for heritably enriched
hedonic tone. Within the next few decades, we are likely to witness a
revolution of designer babies - and perhaps universal pre-implantation
diagnosis. Prospective parents are going to choose the kind of children
they want to raise. Most prospective parents will presumably choose
(genotypes predisposing to) happy children - since most parents want
their kids to be happy. When human evolution is no longer blind and
random, there will be strong selection pressure against the
genes/allelic combinations that predispose, not just to clinical
depression etc, but to ordinary unhappiness as we understand it today.
Since ordinary unhappiness can still be pretty ghastly, I think this is
a good thing.


Note that we have already bred dogs to be (or at least appear) happier, less 
aggressive, more playful, and more social, than the wolves they descended from. 
 So by conventional selective breeding it can already be done -- which suggests 
that it has already been done.  I wonder if there has been enough time for 
cultural selective breeding to have caused human beings to have cultural 
differences in emotional disposition?

Brent Meeker

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RE: computer pain

2006-12-25 Thread Stathis Papaioannou




Hello Dave/Chris,

I agree with everything you say, and have long admired The Hedonistic Imperative. 
Motivation need not be linked to pain, and for that matter it need not be linked to pleasure 
either. We can imagine an artificial intelligence without any emotions but completely 
dedicated to the pursuit of whatever goals it has been set. It is just a contingent fact 
of evolution that we can experience pleasure and pain.


Having ready-made feelings which destroy the motivation to seek those feelings in the 
normal manner may also be a blessing. Some people seek to harm others because they 
get a special kick from this that they can't get any other way. If they could program 
themselves so that they could get exactly the same effect from fantasising about it, 
then there would be no need to engage in the harmful activity. We could decide in a 
dispassionate manner to leave the positive motivations intact and linked to gradients 
of pleasure, but decouple the negative motivations so that the sadist could still enjoy 
himself but no longer needs to hurt anyone to do so.


Stathis Papaioannou




Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 01:06:20 +
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: computer pain


Because undifferentiated pleasure destroys purposeful activity, as
Stathis notes, presumably there is strong selection pressure against it.
If we were naturally uniformly happy, then who would be motivated to
raise children?

What's less clear is whether we'll need to retain ordinary
unhappiness  - or ultimately any kind of unhappiness at all.
Why can't we engineer a motivational system based on heritable 
_gradients_ of immense well-being? Retain the functional analogues of

(some of) our nastier states, but do away with their unpleasant raw
feels. If gradients are conserved, then potentially so too is critical
discernment, appropriate behavioral responses to different stimuli,
and informational sensitivity to a changing environment. On this
scenario, rather than dismantling the hedonic treadmill (cf. heroin
addicts, wireheading, or Huxley's soma), we could genetically
recalibrate the pleasure-pain axis. Hedonic tone could be enriched so
that we all enjoy a higher average hedonic set point across the lifespan.

One can see pitfalls here. Genetically enriching the mesolimbic
dopaminergic system, for instance, might indeed make many people happier
and more motivated.  But if done ineptly, the enhancement might cause
mania or even psychosis. Also, depression/subordinate behavior seems to
have evolved as an adaptation to group-living in social mammals. The
ramifications for human society of abolishing low mood altogether would
be profound and unpredictable. But in principle, a re-designed
motivational system based entirely on (adaptive) gradients of well-being
could make everyone hugely better off.

Idle utopian dreaming? Well, yes, possibly. But I think in the
near-future there will be selection pressure for heritably enriched
hedonic tone. Within the next few decades, we are likely to witness a
revolution of designer babies - and perhaps universal pre-implantation
diagnosis. Prospective parents are going to choose the kind of children
they want to raise. Most prospective parents will presumably choose
(genotypes predisposing to) happy children - since most parents want
their kids to be happy. When human evolution is no longer blind and
random, there will be strong selection pressure against the
genes/allelic combinations that predispose, not just to clinical
depression etc, but to ordinary unhappiness as we understand it today.
Since ordinary unhappiness can still be pretty ghastly, I think this is
a good thing.

Happy Christmas!
 :-)
Dave

 


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RE: computer pain

2006-12-24 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes:

If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary to
continuation of the species, your species won't be around to long.
Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid compared to
biological evolution that some of our hardwired values are not so good
for continuation of our (and many other) species. I don't think
ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by
settling on a definition of airplane. But looking at the long run
survival of the species might produce some good ethical rules;
particularly if we could predict the future consequences clearly.

If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of
the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it
mean that slavery is good?

Note that I didn't say promote the well-being; I said contrary to the
continuation. If the species could not continue without slavery, then there are two possible
futures. In one of them there's a species that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no
opinion on the subject.

OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the continuation of the
species as well. There are probably peopel in the world today who think that humans
should deliberately stop breeding and die out because their continued existence is
detrimental to the survival of other species on the planet. If you point out to them
that such a policy is contrary to evolution (if contrary to evolution is possible) or
whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist that quietly dying out is the good
and noble thing to do. They have certain values with a certain end in mind, and their
ethical system is perfectly reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it foolish
and do not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw in the logic or in the
empirical facts.

Words like irrational are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who decides to jump
off a tall building might be called irrational on the basis of that information alone. If he
does it because he believes he is superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is
not superman and he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill
himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough building is a perfectly
reasonable means towards this end. We might try equally hard in each case to dissuade
him from jumping, but the approach would be different because the underlying thought
processes are different.

Re: computer pain



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



Brent Meeker writes:

 If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary 
to  continuation of the species, your species won't be around to 
long.   Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid 
compared to  biological evolution that some of our hardwired values 
are not so good  for continuation of our (and many other) species.  
I don't think  ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying 
to fly by  settling on a definition of airplane.  But looking at 
the long run  survival of the species might produce some good 
ethical rules;  particularly if we could predict the future 
consequences clearly.
  If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being 
of  the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? 
Does it  mean that slavery is good?


Note that I didn't say promote the well-being; I said contrary to 
the continuation.  If the species could not continue without slavery, 
then there are two possible futures.  In one of them there's a species 
that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no opinion on the 
subject.


OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the 
continuation of the species as well. There are probably peopel in the 
world today who think that humans should deliberately stop breeding and 
die out because their continued existence is detrimental to the survival 
of other species on the planet. If you point out to them that such a 
policy is contrary to evolution (if contrary to evolution is possible) 
or whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist that quietly 
dying out is the good and noble thing to do. They have certain values 
with a certain end in mind, and their ethical system is perfectly 
reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it foolish and do 
not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw in the logic or 
in the empirical facts.


Right.  

Words like irrational are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who 
decides to jump off a tall building might be called irrational on the 
basis of that information alone. If he does it because he believes he is 
superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is not superman and 
he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill 
himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough 
building is a perfectly reasonable means towards this end. We might try 
equally hard in each case to dissuade him from jumping, but the approach 
would be different because the underlying thought processes are different.


I don't disagree.  I'm just pointing out that values contrary to continuation 
of the species are not likely to be among the basic hardwired values of any 
species.  Those conducive to continuation probably will be - with allowance for 
changes of circumstance rapidly compared to biological evolution.  So values in 
an evolved species are, on the whole, not just free floating, independent of 
facts.

Brent Meeker

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RE: computer pain

2006-12-24 Thread Stathis Papaioannou




Brent Meeker writes:


Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 
 
 Brent Meeker writes:
 
  If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary 
 to  continuation of the species, your species won't be around to 
 long.   Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid 
 compared to  biological evolution that some of our hardwired values 
 are not so good  for continuation of our (and many other) species.  
 I don't think  ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying 
 to fly by  settling on a definition of airplane.  But looking at 
 the long run  survival of the species might produce some good 
 ethical rules;  particularly if we could predict the future 
 consequences clearly.
   If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being 
 of  the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? 
 Does it  mean that slavery is good?


 Note that I didn't say promote the well-being; I said contrary to 
 the continuation.  If the species could not continue without slavery, 
 then there are two possible futures.  In one of them there's a species 
 that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no opinion on the 
 subject.
 
 OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the 
 continuation of the species as well. There are probably peopel in the 
 world today who think that humans should deliberately stop breeding and 
 die out because their continued existence is detrimental to the survival 
 of other species on the planet. If you point out to them that such a 
 policy is contrary to evolution (if contrary to evolution is possible) 
 or whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist that quietly 
 dying out is the good and noble thing to do. They have certain values 
 with a certain end in mind, and their ethical system is perfectly 
 reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it foolish and do 
 not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw in the logic or 
 in the empirical facts.


Right.  

 Words like irrational are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who 
 decides to jump off a tall building might be called irrational on the 
 basis of that information alone. If he does it because he believes he is 
 superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is not superman and 
 he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill 
 himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough 
 building is a perfectly reasonable means towards this end. We might try 
 equally hard in each case to dissuade him from jumping, but the approach 
 would be different because the underlying thought processes are different.


I don't disagree.  I'm just pointing out that values contrary to continuation 
of the species are not likely to be among the basic hardwired values of any 
species.  Those conducive to continuation probably will be - with allowance for 
changes of circumstance rapidly compared to biological evolution.  So values in 
an evolved species are, on the whole, not just free floating, independent of 
facts.


The facts show us why as a society we have the sorts of values we do, but 
they do not provide justification for why we should or shouldn't have certain 
values, like a sort of replacement for Moses' stone tablets. 


Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: computer pain

2006-12-24 Thread Bruno Marchal




Le 24-déc.-06, à 09:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :




Brent Meeker writes:

 If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary 
to  continuation of the species, your species won't be around to 
long.   Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid 
compared to  biological evolution that some of our hardwired values 
are not so good  for continuation of our (and many other) species.  
I don't think  ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like 
trying to fly by  settling on a definition of airplane.  But 
looking at the long run  survival of the species might produce some 
good ethical rules;  particularly if we could predict the future 
consequences clearly.
  If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the 
well-being of  the species as a whole does that mean we should have 
slavery? Does it  mean that slavery is good?
Note that I didn't say promote the well-being; I said contrary to 
the continuation.  If the species could not continue without 
slavery, then there are two possible futures.  In one of them there's 
a species that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no 
opinion on the subject.


OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the 
continuation of the species as well. There are probably peopel in the 
world today who think that humans should deliberately stop breeding 
and die out because their continued existence is detrimental to the 
survival of other species on the planet. If you point out to them that 
such a policy is contrary to evolution (if contrary to evolution is 
possible) or whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist 
that quietly dying out is the good and noble thing to do. They have 
certain values with a certain end in mind, and their ethical system is 
perfectly reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it 
foolish and do not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw 
in the logic or in the empirical facts.
Words like irrational are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who 
decides to jump off a tall building might be called irrational on the 
basis of that information alone. If he does it because he believes he 
is superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is not superman 
and he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill 
himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough 
building is a perfectly reasonable means towards this end.


Unless Quantum Mechanics is correct.
Unless the comp hyp. is correct. (OK this does not invalidate per se 
your argumentation).



We might try equally hard in each case to dissuade him from jumping, 
but the approach would be different because the underlying thought 
processes are different.


OK,

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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RE: computer pain

2006-12-24 Thread Jef Allbright



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
Oops, it was Jef Allbright, not Mark Peaty responsible for 
the first quote below.



Brent Meeker writes:

[Mark Peaty]Correction: [Jef Allbright]
From the foregoing it can be seen that while there can be 
no objective morality, nor any absolute morality, it is 
reasonable to expect increasing agreement on the relative

morality of actions within an expanding context.  Further,
similar to the entropic arrow of time, we can conceive of
an arrow of morality corresponding to the ratcheting
forward of an increasingly broad context of shared values
(survivors of coevolutionary competition) promoted via
awareness of increasingly effective principles of
interaction (scientific knowledge of what works, extracted
from regularities in the environment.)



[Stathis Papaioannou]
What if the ratcheting forward of shared values is at odds 
with evolutionary expediency, i.e. there is some unethical 
policy that improves the fitness of the species? To avoid

such a dilemna you would have define as ethical everything
improves the fitness of the species, and I'm not sure you
want to do that.


If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is 
contrary to continuation of the species, your species won't 
be around to long.  Our problem is that cultural evolution 
has been so rapid compared to biological evolution that some 
of our hardwired values are not so good for continuation of 
our (and many other) species.  I don't think ethics is a 
matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by settling 
on a definition of airplane.  But looking at the long run 
survival of the species might produce some good ethical 
rules; particularly if we could predict the future

consequences clearly.


If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the 
well-being of the species as a whole does that mean we

should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery is good?


Teaching that slavery is bad is similar to teaching that lying is
bad.  In each case it's a narrow over-simplification of a more general
principle of what works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral
reasoning to match their smaller context of understanding. At one end of
a moral scale are the moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust,
etc.) that are an even more condensed form of knowledge of what worked
in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Further up the scale are
cultural--including religious--laws and even the patterns of our
language that further codify and reinforce patterns of interaction that
worked well enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles of
right action. 


Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality that was
inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader and more extensible
understanding of morality as patterns of behavior assessed as promoting
increasingly shared values over increasing scope. Society discourages
individual thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is a
defining characteristic that moral principles subsume both narrow self
interest and narrow situational awareness.  For this reason, one can not
assess the absolute morality of an action in isolation, but we can
legitimately speak of the relative morality of a class of behavior
within context.

Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a specific context
(imagine having one's home invaded and being unable, on moral grounds,
to lie to the invaders about where the children are hiding!), the moral
issue of slavery can be effectively understood only within a larger
context. 


The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be beneficial to
society; numerous examples exist of slavery contributing to the economic
good of a locale, and on a grander scale, the development of western
philosophy (including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from the
drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment conducive to deeper
thought.  And as we seek to elucidate a general principle regarding
slavery, we come face-to-face with other instances of this class of
problem, including rights of women to vote, the moral standing of
sentient beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the great
apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea that all men, of
disparate mental or emotional capability, are created equal?  Could
there be a principle constituting a coherent positive-sum stance toward
issues of moral interaction between agents of inherently different
awareness and capabilities?

Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social
decision-making, moral to the extent that it effectively promotes
increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one that provides an
increasingly clear vision of effective interaction between agents of
diverse and varying capabilities, or are going to hold tightly to the
previous best model, one that comfortingly but childishly insists on the
fiction of some form of strict equality between agents?  Are we mature
enough to see

Re: computer pain



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



Jef Allbright writes:

[Stathis Papaioannou]
If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of 
the species as a whole does that mean we

should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery is good?


Teaching that slavery is bad is similar to teaching that lying is
bad.  In each case it's a narrow over-simplification of a more general
principle of what works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral
reasoning to match their smaller context of understanding. At one end of
a moral scale are the moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust,
etc.) that are an even more condensed form of knowledge of what worked
in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Further up the scale are
cultural--including religious--laws and even the patterns of our
language that further codify and reinforce patterns of interaction that
worked well enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles of
right action.
Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality that was
inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader and more extensible
understanding of morality as patterns of behavior assessed as promoting
increasingly shared values over increasing scope. Society discourages
individual thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is a
defining characteristic that moral principles subsume both narrow self
interest and narrow situational awareness.  For this reason, one can not
assess the absolute morality of an action in isolation, but we can
legitimately speak of the relative morality of a class of behavior
within context.

Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a specific context
(imagine having one's home invaded and being unable, on moral grounds,
to lie to the invaders about where the children are hiding!), the moral
issue of slavery can be effectively understood only within a larger
context.
The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be beneficial to
society; numerous examples exist of slavery contributing to the economic
good of a locale, and on a grander scale, the development of western
philosophy (including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from the
drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment conducive to deeper
thought.  And as we seek to elucidate a general principle regarding
slavery, we come face-to-face with other instances of this class of
problem, including rights of women to vote, the moral standing of
sentient beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the great
apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea that all men, of
disparate mental or emotional capability, are created equal?  Could
there be a principle constituting a coherent positive-sum stance toward
issues of moral interaction between agents of inherently different
awareness and capabilities?

Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social
decision-making, moral to the extent that it effectively promotes
increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one that provides an
increasingly clear vision of effective interaction between agents of
diverse and varying capabilities, or are going to hold tightly to the
previous best model, one that comfortingly but childishly insists on the
fiction of some form of strict equality between agents?  Are we mature
enough to see that just at the point in human progress where
technological development (biotech, nanotech, AI) threatens to
drastically disrupt that which we value, we are gaining the necessary
tools to organize at a higher level--effectively a higher level of
wisdom?


Well, I think slavery is bad, even if it does help society - unless we 
were actually in danger of extiction without it or something. So yes, 
the moral rules must bend in the face of changing circumstances, but the 
point at which they bend will be different for each individual, and 
there is no objective way to define what this point would or should be.


Slightly off topic, I don't see why we would design AI's to experience 
emotions such as resentment, anger, fear, pain etc. 


John McCarthy says in his essay, Making Robots Conscious of their Mental 
States
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/consciousness/consciousness.html

In fact, if we could 
reprogram our own minds at will, it would be a very different world. 
Suppose you were upset because you lost your job. You might decide to 
stay upset to the degree that it remains a motivating factor to look for 
other work, but not affect your sleep, ability to experience pleasure, 
etc. If you can't find work you might decide to downgrade your 
expectations, so that you are just as content having less money or a 
menial job, or just as content for the next six months but then have the 
motivation to look for interesting work kick in again, but without the 
confidence- and enthusiasm-sapping disappointment that comes from 
repeated failure to find work. 


I think that's called a cocaine habit. :-)

Brent Meeker

Re: computer pain



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



Jef Allbright writes:

[Stathis Papaioannou]
If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of 
the species as a whole does that mean we

should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery is good?


Teaching that slavery is bad is similar to teaching that lying is
bad.  In each case it's a narrow over-simplification of a more general
principle of what works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral
reasoning to match their smaller context of understanding. At one end of
a moral scale are the moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust,
etc.) that are an even more condensed form of knowledge of what worked
in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Further up the scale are
cultural--including religious--laws and even the patterns of our
language that further codify and reinforce patterns of interaction that
worked well enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles of
right action.
Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality that was
inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader and more extensible
understanding of morality as patterns of behavior assessed as promoting
increasingly shared values over increasing scope. Society discourages
individual thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is a
defining characteristic that moral principles subsume both narrow self
interest and narrow situational awareness.  For this reason, one can not
assess the absolute morality of an action in isolation, but we can
legitimately speak of the relative morality of a class of behavior
within context.

Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a specific context
(imagine having one's home invaded and being unable, on moral grounds,
to lie to the invaders about where the children are hiding!), the moral
issue of slavery can be effectively understood only within a larger
context.
The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be beneficial to
society; numerous examples exist of slavery contributing to the economic
good of a locale, and on a grander scale, the development of western
philosophy (including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from the
drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment conducive to deeper
thought.  And as we seek to elucidate a general principle regarding
slavery, we come face-to-face with other instances of this class of
problem, including rights of women to vote, the moral standing of
sentient beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the great
apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea that all men, of
disparate mental or emotional capability, are created equal?  Could
there be a principle constituting a coherent positive-sum stance toward
issues of moral interaction between agents of inherently different
awareness and capabilities?

Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social
decision-making, moral to the extent that it effectively promotes
increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one that provides an
increasingly clear vision of effective interaction between agents of
diverse and varying capabilities, or are going to hold tightly to the
previous best model, one that comfortingly but childishly insists on the
fiction of some form of strict equality between agents?  Are we mature
enough to see that just at the point in human progress where
technological development (biotech, nanotech, AI) threatens to
drastically disrupt that which we value, we are gaining the necessary
tools to organize at a higher level--effectively a higher level of
wisdom?


Well, I think slavery is bad, even if it does help society - unless we 
were actually in danger of extiction without it or something. 


Slavery is bad almost by defintion.  It consists in treating beings we empathize with as though we had no empathy. 

So yes, 
the moral rules must bend in the face of changing circumstances, but the 
point at which they bend will be different for each individual, and 
there is no objective way to define what this point would or should be.


Slightly off topic, I don't see why we would design AI's to experience 
emotions such as resentment, anger, fear, pain etc. 


John McCarthy says in his essay, Making Robots Conscious of their Mental 
States
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/consciousness/consciousness.html

In fact, if we could 
reprogram our own minds at will, it would be a very different world. 


Better living through chemistry!

Suppose you were upset because you lost your job. You might decide to 
stay upset to the degree that it remains a motivating factor to look for 
other work, but not affect your sleep, ability to experience pleasure, 
etc. If you can't find work you might decide to downgrade your 
expectations, so that you are just as content having less money or a 
menial job, or just as content for the next six months but then have the 
motivation to look for interesting work kick in again, but without the 
confidence- and

RE: computer pain

2006-12-24 Thread Jef Allbright



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:


Jef Allbright writes:

[Stathis Papaioannou]
 If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the 
well-being of 
 the species as a whole does that mean we should have 
slavery? Does it 
 mean that slavery is good?
 

Teaching that slavery is bad is similar to teaching
that lying is bad.  In each case it's a narrow
over-simplification of a more general principle of what
works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral
reasoning to match their smaller context of 
understanding. At one end of a moral scale are the

moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust, etc.)
that are an even more condensed form of knowledge of
what worked in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. 
Further up the scale are cultural--including religious--laws

and even the patterns of our language that further codify
and reinforce patterns of interaction that worked well
enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles 
of right action.


Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality
that was inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader
and more extensible understanding of morality as patterns
of behavior assessed as promoting increasingly shared values
over increasing scope. Society discourages individual
thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is
a defining characteristic that moral principles subsume 
both narrow self interest and narrow situational awareness. 
For this reason, one can not assess the absolute morality

of an action in isolation, but we can legitimately speak of
the relative morality of a class of behavior within context.

Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a
specific context (imagine having one's home invaded and
being unable, on moral grounds, to lie to the invaders about
where the children are hiding!), the moral issue of slavery
can be effectively understood only within a larger context.

The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be 
beneficial to society; numerous examples exist of slavery

contributing to the economic good of a locale, and on a
grander scale, the development of western philosophy
(including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from
the drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment 
conducive to deeper thought.  And as we seek to elucidate

a general principle regarding slavery, we come face-to-face
with other instances of this class of problem, including
rights of women to vote, the moral standing of sentient
beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the
great apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea 
that all men, of disparate mental and emotional capability,

are created equal?  Could there be a principle constituting
a coherent positive-sum stance toward issues of moral
interaction between agents of inherently different awareness
and capabilities?

Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social 
decision-making, moral to the extent that it effectively

promotes increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one
that provides an increasingly clear vision of effective
interaction between agents of diverse and varying capabilities,
or are going to hold tightly to the previous best model, one
that comfortingly but childishly insists on the fiction of some
form of strict equality between agents?  Are we  mature enough
to see that just at the point in human progress where 
technological development (biotech, nanotech, AI) threatens to 
drastically disrupt that which we value, we are gaining the 
necessary tools to organize at a higher level--effectively a

higher level of wisdom?


Well, I think slavery is bad, even if it does help society - 
unless we were actually in danger of extiction without it or 
something. So yes, the moral rules must bend in the face of 
changing circumstances, but the point at which they bend will 
be different for each individual, and there is no objective 
way to define what this point would or should be.


I thought you and I had already clearly agreed that there can be no
absolute or objective morality, since moral judgments are based on
subjective values.  And I thought we had already moved on to discussion
of how agents do in fact hold a good portion of their subjective values
in common, due to common environment, culture and  evolutionary
heritage.  In my opinion, the discussion begins to get interesting from
this point, because the population tends to converge on agreement as to
general principles of effective interaction, while tending to diverge on
matters of individual interests and preferences.

Please notice that I don't say that slavery *is* immoral, because as you
well know there's no objective basis for that claim. But I do say that
people will increasingly agree in their assessment that it is highly
immoral.  Their *statements* are objective facts, and measurements of
the degree of agreement are objective facts, and on this basis I claim
that we can implement an improved form of social

RE: computer pain

2006-12-24 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

Brent Meeker writes:

In fact, if we could
reprogram our own minds at will, it would be a very different world.
Suppose you were upset because you lost your job. You might decide to
stay upset to the degree that it remains a motivating factor to look for
other work, but not affect your sleep, ability to experience pleasure,
etc. If you can't find work you might decide to downgrade your
expectations, so that you are just as content having less money or a
menial job, or just as content for the next six months but then have the
motivation to look for interesting work kick in again, but without the
confidence- and enthusiasm-sapping disappointment that comes from
repeated failure to find work.

I think that's called a cocaine habit. :-)

The difference between happiness that is derived from illicit drugs and happiness
derived from real life is that the former does not really last, ending in tolerance,
dependence, depression, deterioration in physical health, inability to work and
look after oneself, not to mention criminal activity due to the fact that the drugs
are illegal. This is because drugs are a very crude way of stimulating the nervous
system. It is like programming a computer with a soldering iron. The only time drugs
work well is if there is a relatively simple fault, like an excess or deficit of a certain
neurotransmitter, and even there you have to be lucky for function to return to
normal. Changing specific aspects of thinking or emotions without screwing up
other functions in the process would require much greater finesse than modern
pharmacology can provide, and greater efficacy than psychology can provide.

David Pearce in The Hedonistic Imperative, and some science fiction writers (Greg
Egan, Walter Jon Williams come to mind) have looked at some of the consequences
of being able to reprogram your emotions, motivations, memories and personality.
No-one that I am aware of has explored how utterly alien a world in which we had
access to our own source code at the finest level would be. Perhaps that is one of
the things that would happen at the Vingean Singularity.

Re: computer pain



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



Brent Meeker writes:

 In fact, if we could  reprogram our own minds at will, it would be 
a very different world.  Suppose you were upset because you lost your 
job. You might decide to  stay upset to the degree that it remains a 
motivating factor to look for  other work, but not affect your sleep, 
ability to experience pleasure,  etc. If you can't find work you 
might decide to downgrade your  expectations, so that you are just as 
content having less money or a  menial job, or just as content for 
the next six months but then have the  motivation to look for 
interesting work kick in again, but without the  confidence- and 
enthusiasm-sapping disappointment that comes from  repeated failure 
to find work.

I think that's called a cocaine habit. :-)


The difference between happiness that is derived from illicit drugs and 
happiness derived from real life is that the former does not really 
last, ending in tolerance, dependence, depression, deterioration in 
physical health, inability to work and look after oneself, not to 
mention criminal activity due to the fact that the drugs are illegal. 
This is because drugs are a very crude way of stimulating the nervous 
system. It is like programming a computer with a soldering iron. The 
only time drugs work well is if there is a relatively simple fault, like 
an excess or deficit of a certain neurotransmitter, and even there you 
have to be lucky for function to return to normal. 


Which presumes a well-defined normal.

Changing specific 
aspects of thinking or emotions without screwing up other functions in 
the process would require much greater finesse than modern pharmacology 
can provide, and greater efficacy than psychology can provide.
David Pearce in The Hedonistic Imperative, and some science fiction 
writers (Greg Egan, Walter Jon Williams come to mind) have looked at 
some of the consequences of being able to reprogram your emotions, 
motivations, memories and personality. 


Larry Niven imagined a future in which you would be able to plug into implanted 
electrodes in your brain and selectively stimulate different areas.  I think this was 
suggested to him by popular articles on finding a pleasure center in rats.

No-one that I am aware of has 
explored how utterly alien a world in which we had access to our own 
source code at the finest level would be. 


I wouldn't download anything from Microsoft!

Brent Meeker
The first time Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck
will be when they build vacuum cleaners.
 --- Bill Jefferys

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RE: computer pain

John Mikes writes:

Stathis,
your 'augmentded' ethical maxim is excellent, I could add some more 'except
foe'-s to it.
(lower class, cast, or wealth, - language, - gender, etc.)
The last par, however, is prone to a more serious remark of mine:
topics like you sampled are culture related prejudicial beief-items. Research
cannot
solve them, because research is also ADJUSTED TO THE CULTURE it serves.
A valid medeval research on the number of angels on a pin-tip would not hold in
today's belief-topic of curved space. (Curved angels?)
Mey Christmas to you, too
John

I think the culture-independence test is actually a good test for whether something truly is
part of science. How to build a nuclear bomb is culture-independent - it won't work if you
decide to use U-328 just because there is more of it available where you live, for example.
But whether and how to use the finished weapon is not a question that science can answer,
although of course it is a question that scientists should ask and apply their own culture-

-dependent values to.

And a merry Christmas to you too, John

Stathis Papaionnou

On 12/21/06, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
Peter Jones writes:
Perhaps none of the participants in this thread really disagree. Let me see
if I
can summarise:

Individuals and societies have arrived at ethical beliefs for a reason,
whether that be
evolution, what their parents taught them, or what it says in a book
believed to be divinely
inspired. Perhaps all of these reasons can be subsumed under evolution if
that term can
be extended beyond genetics to include all the ideas, beliefs, customs etc.
that help a
society to survive and propagate itself. Now, we can take this and
formalise it in some way
so that we can discuss ethical questions rationally:

Murder is bad because it reduces the net happiness in society -
Utilitarianism

Murder is bed because it breaks the sixth commandment - Judaism and
Christianity
(interesting that this only no. 6 on a list of 10: God knows his priorities)

Ethics then becomes objective, given the rules. The meta-ethical
explanation of evolution,
broadly understood, as generating the various ethical systems is also
objective. However,
it is possible for someone at the bottom of the heap to go over the head of
utilitarianism,
evolution, even God and say:

Why should murder be bad? I don't care about the greatest good for the
greatest number,
I don't care if the species dies out, and I think God is a bastard and will
shout it from hell if
sends me there for killing people for fun and profit. This is my own
personal ethical belief,
and you can't tell me I'm wrong!

And the psychopath is right: no-one can actually fault him on a point of
fact or a point of
logic.

The psychopath is wrong. He doesn't want to be murdered, but
he wants to murder. His ethical rule is therefore inconsistent and
not
really ethical at all.
Who says his ethical rule is inconsistent? If he made the claim do unto others
as you would have
others do unto you he would be inconsistent, but he makes no such claim.
Billions of people have
lived and died in societies where it is perfectly ethical and acceptable to
kill inferior races or inferior
species. If they accept some version of the edict you have just elevated to a
self-evident truth it
would be do unto others as you would have them do unto you, unless they are
foreigners, or taste
good to eat, or worship different gods. Perfectly consistent, even if horrible.
In the *final* analysis, ethical beliefs are not a matter of fact or
logic, and if it seems
that they are then there is a hidden assumption somewhere.

Everything starts with assumptions. The questions is whether they
are correct. A lunatic could try defining 2+2=5 as valid, but
he will soon run into inconsistencies. That is why we reject
2+2=5. Ethical rules must apply to everybody as a matter of
definition. Definitions supply correct assumptions.
So you think arguments about such matters as abortion, capital punishment and
what sort of
social welfare system we should have are just like arguments about mathematics
or geology,
and with enough research there should be universal agreement?
Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: computer pain

2006-12-23 Thread Brent Meeker



John Mikes wrote:

Brent:
let me start at the end:
So why don't you believe it?
because I am prejudiced by the brainwashing I got in 101 science education,
the 'conventional' thinking of the (ongoing) science establishment - still
brainwashing the upcoming scientist-generations with the same '101' -
(which is also an answer to your 'conventional' quest:)


It seems your answer is that it's just a convention that you happen to have 
learned - a mere artifact of culture as propounded by various post-modernists.



Unconventional is a lot on this list many of them to my liking (personal!)
and seemingly to yours, too.

I leave it to the conventional(G) scientists to agree whether the Earth
is spherical (if it IS?) and used this example from the precedent texts 
just

as an 'unconventional' variant thinking.
We (all, I suppose) are under a lot of influence from the 101 sciences and
my point was exactly to raise another possibility (absurd as it may be).


We are influenced by it because it has been very successful.  I don't fly in 
airplanes designed by alternative engineering.  Unconventional ideas interest 
me only in so far as they work as well or better than conventional ones.

Brent Meeker
They laughed at Bozo the Clown too.


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Re: computer pain

2006-12-23 Thread John Mikes


Brent:

Brent:
It seems your answer is that it's just a convention that you happen to have
learned - a mere artifact of culture as propounded by various
post-modernists.
JM:
In our culture and its predecessors primitive observations led to
explanations at the level of the then epistemic cognitive inventory, which
increases continually. Those simplistic ideas were retained and mended in
later 'science' of better learning epochs but the basis has not changed: a
physical view of facts and the way we still do value them as our
reality.  Composed into 'models' (groups) of their own.
If you call a newer look - based upon newer epistemic enrichment - as
propounded  by various post-modernists - well, so be it, I don't consider
it pejorative.

Brent (on the 101):
We are influenced by it because it has been very successful.  I don't fly in
airplanes designed by alternative engineering.  Unconventional ideas
interest me only in so far as they work as well or better than conventional
ones.
JM:
I think I hear a mix up of the only one we have for the best one there
is. Your airplanes fall off the sky sometimes (spare me the statistics,
please, 1 is more than enough) contraceptives fail, houses burn down for
electric failures, there are wars in the conventionally based social
culture, our biosphere is going berserk because of our perfect scientific
applications, we have technology-related diseases, nuclear fall outs,
medical mishaps, politicians (oops) and food poisoning, bridge collapses and
other innumerable examples of safety failures of our '101'-based perfect
efficiency in this world. We live (and use) the ONLY one we have. Our
pretension lists the benefits and deems it the best. For the caveman the
BEST weapon was the hand-ax. For a priest the best science is HIS theology.
For a monotheist the best god is his god.
If you are not interested in the 'unconventional novelties' before they
prove to be superior then our ongoing ignorance, you will never get to them.
I go for it, not necessarily successful, but I try. And don't give up.
I don't believe that you want to stay put in the science-religion of our
axioms, emergence, 'givens', chaotic paradoxical beliefs and the
cosmologists' Big Bang narrative. And all the other marvels based on '101'.
Atoms, molecules, spin, energy, space, time, mass, gravitation, electricity,
light, life, mind, etc. just to name some.
They all are usable tools for some practical tasks as long as we have no
better ones
to use  and explanation for them.
In the meantime have a happy new year

John M



On 12/23/06, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:



John Mikes wrote:
 Brent:
 let me start at the end:
 So why don't you believe it?
 because I am prejudiced by the brainwashing I got in 101 science
education,
 the 'conventional' thinking of the (ongoing) science establishment -
still
 brainwashing the upcoming scientist-generations with the same '101' -
 (which is also an answer to your 'conventional' quest:)

It seems your answer is that it's just a convention that you happen to
have learned - a mere artifact of culture as propounded by various
post-modernists.


 Unconventional is a lot on this list many of them to my liking
(personal!)
 and seemingly to yours, too.

 I leave it to the conventional(G) scientists to agree whether the
Earth
 is spherical (if it IS?) and used this example from the precedent texts
 just
 as an 'unconventional' variant thinking.
 We (all, I suppose) are under a lot of influence from the 101 sciences
and
 my point was exactly to raise another possibility (absurd as it may be).

We are influenced by it because it has been very successful.  I don't fly
in airplanes designed by alternative engineering.  Unconventional ideas
interest me only in so far as they work as well or better than conventional
ones.

Brent Meeker
They laughed at Bozo the Clown too.






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RE: computer pain








Mark Peaty writes:



Sorry to be so slow at responding here but life [domestic], the universe and 
everything else right now is competing savagely with this interesting 
discussion. [But one must always think positive; 'Bah, Humbug!' is not 
appropriate, even though the temptation is great some times :-]
Stathis,
I am not entirely convinced when you say: 'And the psychopath is right: no-one 
can actually fault him on a point of fact or a point of logic'
That would only be right if we allowed that his [psychopathy is mostly a male 
affliction I believe] use of words is easily as reasonable as yours or mine. 
However, where the said psycho. is purporting to make authoritative statements 
about the world, it is not OK for him to purport that what he describes is 
unquestionably factual and his reasoning from the facts as he sees them is 
necessarily authoritative for anyone else. This is because, qua psychopath, he 
is not able to make the fullest possible free decisions about what makes people 
tick or even about what is reality for the rest of us. He is, in a sense, 
mortally wounded, and forever impaired; condemned always to make only 'logical' 
decisions. :-)
The way I see it, roughly and readily, is that there are in fact certain 
statements/descriptions about the world and our place in it which are MUCH MORE 
REASONABLE than a whole lot of others. I think therefore that, even though you 
might be right from a 'purely logical' point of view when you say the 
following: 'In the *final* analysis, ethical beliefs are not a matter of fact 
or logic, and if it seems that they are then there is a hidden assumption 
somewhere'
in fact, from the point of view of practical living and the necessities of 
survival, the correct approach is to assert what amounts to a set of practical 
axioms, including:
 *   the mere fact of existence is the basis of value, that good and bad are 
expressed differently within - and between - different cultures and their 
sub-cultures but ultimately there is an objective, absolute basis for the 
concept of 'goodness', because in all normal circumstances it is better to 
exist than not to exist,
 *   related to this and arising out of it is the realisation that all normal, 
healthy humans understand what is meant by both 'harm' and 'suffering', 
certainly those who have reached adulthood,
 *   furthermore, insofar as it is clearly recognisable that continuing to 
exist as a human being requires access to and consumption of all manner of 
natural resources and human-made goods and services, it is in our interests to 
nurture and further the inclinations in ourselves and others to behave in ways 
supportive of cooperation for mutual and general benefit wherever this is 
reasonably possible, and certainly not to act destructively or disruptively 
unless it is clear that doing so will prevent a much greater harm from 
occurring.
It ought to be clear to all reasonable persons not engaged in self deception 
that in this modern era each and everyone of us is dependent - always - on at 
least a thousand other people doing the right thing, or trying to anyway. Thus 
the idea of 'manly', rugged, individualism is a romantic nonsense unless it 
also incorporates a recognition of mutual interdependence and the need for real 
fairness in social dealings at every level. Unless compassion, democracy and 
ethics are recognised [along with scientific method] as fundamental 
prerequisites for OUR survival, policies and practices will pretty much 
inevitably become self-defeating and destructive, no matter how 
well-intentioned to start with.
In the interest of brevity I add the following quasi-axioms.
 *   the advent of scientific method on Earth between 400 and 500 years ago has 
irreversibly transformed the human species so that now we can reasonably assert 
that the human universe is always potentially infinite, so long as it exists 
and we believe it to be so
 *   to be fully human requires taking responsibility for one's actions and 
this means consciously choosing to do things or accepting that one has made a 
choice even if one cannot remember consciously choosing
 *   nobody knows the future, so all statements about the future are either 
guesswork or statements of desires. Furthermore our lack of knowledge of times 
to come is very deep, such that we have no truly reasonable basis for 
dismissing the right to survive of any persons on the planet - or other living 
species for that matter - unless it can be clearly shown that such killing or 
allowing to die, is necessary to prevent some far greater harm and the 
assertion of this is of course hampered precisely by our lack of knowledge of 
the future
This feels incomplete but it needs to be sent.
Regards
Mark Peaty  CDES
[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/


I agree with you as far as advice for how to live a good life goes, but I guess where 
I disagree is on the technical matter of what we call

RE: computer pain




Brent Meeker writes:

[Mark Peaty]

 From the foregoing it can be seen that while there can be no objective
 morality, nor any absolute morality, it is reasonable to expect
 increasing agreement on the relative morality of actions within an
 expanding context.  Further, similar to the entropic arrow of time, we
 can conceive of an arrow of morality corresponding to the ratcheting
 forward of an increasingly broad context of shared values (survivors of
 coevolutionary competition) promoted via awareness of increasingly
 effective principles of interaction (scientific knowledge of what works,
 extracted from regularities in the environment.)



[Stathis Papaioannou]
 What if the ratcheting forward of shared values is at odds with 
 evolutionary expediency, i.e. there is some unethical policy that 
 improves the fitness of the species? To avoid such a dilemna you would 
 have define as ethical everything improves the fitness of the species, 
 and I'm not sure you want to do that.


If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary to continuation of the 
species, your species won't be around to long.  Our problem is that cultural evolution 
has been so rapid compared to biological evolution that some of our hardwired values are 
not so good for continuation of our (and many other) species.  I don't think ethics is a 
matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by settling on a definition of 
airplane.  But looking at the long run survival of the species might produce 
some good ethical rules; particularly if we could predict the future consequences clearly.


If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of the species 
as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery 
is good?


Stathis Papaioannou
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RE: computer pain




Oops, it was Jef Allbright, not Mark Peaty responsible for the first quote 
below.






From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: computer pain
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:31:03 +1100



Brent Meeker writes:

[Mark Peaty]
  From the foregoing it can be seen that while there can be no objective
  morality, nor any absolute morality, it is reasonable to expect
  increasing agreement on the relative morality of actions within an
  expanding context.  Further, similar to the entropic arrow of time, we
  can conceive of an arrow of morality corresponding to the ratcheting
  forward of an increasingly broad context of shared values (survivors of
  coevolutionary competition) promoted via awareness of increasingly
  effective principles of interaction (scientific knowledge of what works,
  extracted from regularities in the environment.)


[Stathis Papaioannou]
  What if the ratcheting forward of shared values is at odds with 
  evolutionary expediency, i.e. there is some unethical policy that 
  improves the fitness of the species? To avoid such a dilemna you would 
  have define as ethical everything improves the fitness of the species, 
  and I'm not sure you want to do that.
 
 If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary to continuation of the species, your species won't be around to long.  Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid compared to biological evolution that some of our hardwired values are not so good for continuation of our (and many other) species.  I don't think ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by settling on a definition of airplane.  But looking at the long run survival of the species might produce some good ethical rules; particularly if we could predict the future consequences clearly.


If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of the species 
as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery 
is good?
 
Stathis Papaioannou

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RE: computer pain




Peter Jones writes:


  (1) Although moral assessment is inherently subjective--being relative
  to internal values--all rational agents share some values in common due
  to sharing a common evolutionary heritage or even more fundamentally,
  being subject to the same physical laws of the universe.

 That may be so, but we don't exactly have a lot of intelligent species to make
 the comparison. It is not difficult to imagine species with different 
evolutionary
 heritages which would have different ethics to our own, certainly in the 
details
 and probably in many of the core values.

It isn't difficult to imagine humans with different mores to our own,
particularly since the actual exist... the point
is not that they might believe certain things to be ethical;
the point is , what *is* actually ethical.

There is a difference between mores and morality
just as their is between belief and truth.


When I say I believe an empirical fact, I mean that if you go out and have a look 
and a poke, you will see that the empirical fact is so; and if you don't, tell me and 
I'll change my belief. Ethical beliefs are not like that because they are ultimately 
dependent on values. You can say you don't like someone's values, you can say that 
his values are contrary to evolution or whatever, but you can't say he is wrong 
about his values in the way he might be wrong about an empirical fact, because the 
only empirical claim he is making is about how he thinks and feels.


Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: computer pain

2006-12-23 Thread Brent Meeker

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

Brent Meeker writes:

[Mark Peaty]

coevolutionary competition) promoted via awareness of increasingly
effective principles of interaction (scientific knowledge of what
works,

extracted from regularities in the environment.)

[Stathis Papaioannou]
What if the ratcheting forward of shared values is at odds with
evolutionary expediency, i.e. there is some unethical policy that
improves the fitness of the species? To avoid such a dilemna you would
have define as ethical everything improves the fitness of the
species, and I'm not sure you want to do that.

If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of
the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it
mean that slavery is good?

Of course slavery implies the coercive use of our fellow members of society
against their desires. So it logically entails that at least those enslaved will not be
pleased with their situation. But note that in ancient times one had an absolute right
to one's life - including selling oneself into slavery, or contracting to be a slave for
a certain time. So someone (maybe a radical libertarian) might argue that you should be
able to risk your own enslavement in exchange for some gain desirable to you.

Brent Meeker

RE: computer pain

2006-12-22 Thread Stathis Papaioannou




Jef Allbright writes:


peterdjones wrote:

 Moral and natural laws.
 
 
 An investigation of natural laws, and, in parallel, a defence 
 of ethical objectivism.The objectivity, to at least some 
 extent, of science will be assumed; the sceptic may differ, 
 but there is no convincing some people).


snip

 As ethical objectivism is a work-in-progress 
 there are many variants, and a considerable literature 
 discussing which is the correct one.


I agree with the thrust of this post and I think there are a few key
concepts which can further clarify thinking on this subject:

(1) Although moral assessment is inherently subjective--being relative
to internal values--all rational agents share some values in common due
to sharing a common evolutionary heritage or even more fundamentally,
being subject to the same physical laws of the universe.


That may be so, but we don't exactly have a lot of intelligent species to make 
the comparison. It is not difficult to imagine species with different evolutionary 
heritages which would have different ethics to our own, certainly in the details 
and probably in many of the core values.



(2) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is good is
what is assessed to promote the agent's values into the future.

(3) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is better is
what is assessed as good over increasing scope.

(4) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is increasingly
right or moral, is decision-making assessed as promoting increasingly
shared values over increasing scope of agents and interactions.

From the foregoing it can be seen that while there can be no objective
morality, nor any absolute morality, it is reasonable to expect
increasing agreement on the relative morality of actions within an
expanding context.  Further, similar to the entropic arrow of time, we
can conceive of an arrow of morality corresponding to the ratcheting
forward of an increasingly broad context of shared values (survivors of
coevolutionary competition) promoted via awareness of increasingly
effective principles of interaction (scientific knowledge of what works,
extracted from regularities in the environment.)


What if the ratcheting forward of shared values is at odds with evolutionary 
expediency, i.e. there is some unethical policy that improves the fitness of the 
species? To avoid such a dilemna you would have define as ethical everything 
improves the fitness of the species, and I'm not sure you want to do that. 


Further, from this theory of metaethics we can derive a practical system
of social decision-making based on (1) increasing fine-grained knowledge
of shared values, and (2) application of increasingly effective
principles, selected with regard to models of probable outcomes in a
Rawlsian mode of broad rather than narrow self-interest.


This is really quite a good proposal for building better societies, and one that 
I would go along with, but meta-ethical problems arise if someone simply 
rejects that shared values are important (eg. believes that the values of the 
strong outweigh those of the weak), and ethical problems arise when it is 
time to decide what exactly these shared values are and how they should 
best be promoted. You know this of course, and it is what makes ethics and 
aesthetics different to the natural sciences.



I apologize for the extremely terse and sparse nature of this outline,
but I wanted to contribute these keystones despite lacking the time to
provide expanded background, examples, justifications, or
clarifications.  I hope that these seeds of thought may contribute to a
flourishing garden both on and offlist.

- Jef


Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: computer pain

2006-12-22 Thread Mark Peaty

Sorry to be so slow at responding here but life [domestic], the universe 
and everything else right now is competing savagely with this 
interesting discussion. [But one must always think positive; 'Bah, 
Humbug!' is not appropriate, even though the temptation is great some 
times :-]


Stathis,
I am not entirely convinced when you say: 'And the psychopath is right: 
no-one can actually fault him on a point of fact or a point of logic'
That would only be right if we allowed that his [psychopathy is mostly a 
male affliction I believe] use of words is easily as reasonable as yours 
or mine. However, where the said psycho. is purporting to make 
authoritative statements about the world, it is not OK for him to 
purport that what he describes is unquestionably factual and his 
reasoning from the facts as he sees them is necessarily authoritative 
for anyone else. This is because, qua psychopath, he is not able to make 
the fullest possible free decisions about what makes people tick or even 
about what is reality for the rest of us. He is, in a sense, mortally 
wounded, and forever impaired; condemned always to make only 'logical' 
decisions. :-)


The way I see it, roughly and readily, is that there are in fact certain 
statements/descriptions about the world and our place in it which are 
MUCH MORE REASONABLE than a whole lot of others. I think therefore that, 
even though you might be right from a 'purely logical' point of view 
when you say the following: 'In the *final* analysis, ethical beliefs 
are not a matter of fact or logic, and if it seems that they are then 
there is a hidden assumption somewhere'
in fact, from the point of view of practical living and the necessities 
of survival, the correct approach is to assert what amounts to a set of 
practical axioms, including:


   * the mere fact of existence is the basis of value, that good and
 bad are expressed differently within - and between - different
 cultures and their sub-cultures but ultimately there is an
 objective, absolute basis for the concept of 'goodness', because
 in all normal circumstances it is better to exist than not to exist,
   * related to this and arising out of it is the realisation that all
 normal, healthy humans understand what is meant by both 'harm' and
 'suffering', certainly those who have reached adulthood,
   * furthermore, insofar as it is clearly recognisable that continuing
 to exist as a human being requires access to and consumption of
 all manner of natural resources and human-made goods and services,
 it is in our interests to nurture and further the inclinations in
 ourselves and others to behave in ways supportive of cooperation
 for mutual and general benefit wherever this is reasonably
 possible, and certainly not to act destructively or disruptively
 unless it is clear that doing so will prevent a much greater harm
 from occurring.

It ought to be clear to all reasonable persons not engaged in self 
deception that in this modern era each and everyone of us is dependent - 
always - on at least a thousand other people doing the right thing, or 
trying to anyway. Thus the idea of 'manly', rugged, individualism is a 
romantic nonsense unless it also incorporates a recognition of mutual 
interdependence and the need for real fairness in social dealings at 
every level. Unless compassion, democracy and ethics are recognised 
[along with scientific method] as fundamental prerequisites for OUR 
survival, policies and practices will pretty much inevitably become 
self-defeating and destructive, no matter how well-intentioned to start 
with.


In the interest of brevity I add the following quasi-axioms.

   * the advent of scientific method on Earth between 400 and 500 years
 ago has irreversibly transformed the human species so that now we
 can reasonably assert that the human universe is always
 potentially infinite, so long as it exists and we believe it to be so
   * to be fully human requires taking responsibility for one's actions
 and this means consciously choosing to do things or accepting that
 one has made a choice even if one cannot remember consciously choosing
   * nobody knows the future, so all statements about the future are
 either guesswork or statements of desires. Furthermore our lack of
 knowledge of times to come is very deep, such that we have no
 truly reasonable basis for dismissing the right to survive of any
 persons on the planet - or other living species for that matter -
 unless it can be clearly shown that such killing or allowing to
 die, is necessary to prevent some far greater harm and the
 assertion of this is of course hampered precisely by our lack of
 knowledge of the future
  


This feels incomplete but it needs to be sent.

Regards
Mark Peaty  CDES
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:



Brent meeker writes:



Stathis

Re: computer pain

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

Jef Allbright writes:

peterdjones wrote:

Moral and natural laws.
An investigation of natural laws, and, in parallel, a defence
of ethical objectivism.The objectivity, to at least some extent, of
science will be assumed; the sceptic may differ, but there is no
convincing some people).

snip

As ethical objectivism is a work-in-progress there are many
variants, and a considerable literature discussing which is the
correct one.

I agree with the thrust of this post and I think there are a few key
concepts which can further clarify thinking on this subject:

(1) Although moral assessment is inherently subjective--being relative
to internal values--all rational agents share some values in common due
to sharing a common evolutionary heritage or even more fundamentally,
being subject to the same physical laws of the universe.

That may be so, but we don't exactly have a lot of intelligent species
to make the comparison. It is not difficult to imagine species with
different evolutionary heritages which would have different ethics to
our own, certainly in the details and probably in many of the core values.

Imagine? Don't you know any women? :-)

(2) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is good is
what is assessed to promote the agent's values into the future.

(3) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is better is
what is assessed as good over increasing scope.

(4) From the point of view of any subjective agent, what is increasingly
right or moral, is decision-making assessed as promoting increasingly
shared values over increasing scope of agents and interactions.

From the foregoing it can be seen that while there can be no objective
morality, nor any absolute morality, it is reasonable to expect
increasing agreement on the relative morality of actions within an
expanding context. Further, similar to the entropic arrow of time, we
can conceive of an arrow of morality corresponding to the ratcheting
forward of an increasingly broad context of shared values (survivors of
coevolutionary competition) promoted via awareness of increasingly
effective principles of interaction (scientific knowledge of what works,
extracted from regularities in the environment.)

What if the ratcheting forward of shared values is at odds with
evolutionary expediency, i.e. there is some unethical policy that
improves the fitness of the species? To avoid such a dilemna you would
have define as ethical everything improves the fitness of the species,
and I'm not sure you want to do that.

If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary to continuation of the
species, your species won't be around to long. Our problem is that cultural evolution
has been so rapid compared to biological evolution that some of our hardwired values are
not so good for continuation of our (and many other) species. I don't think ethics is a
matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by settling on a definition of
airplane. But looking at the long run survival of the species might produce
some good ethical rules; particularly if we could predict the future consequences clearly.

Further, from this theory of metaethics we can derive a practical system
of social decision-making based on (1) increasing fine-grained knowledge
of shared values, and (2) application of increasingly effective
principles, selected with regard to models of probable outcomes in a
Rawlsian mode of broad rather than narrow self-interest.

This is really quite a good proposal for building better societies, and
one that I would go along with, but meta-ethical problems arise if
someone simply rejects that shared values are important (eg. believes
that the values of the strong outweigh those of the weak),

Historically this problem has been dealt with by those who think shared values are important ganging up on those who don't.

and ethical
problems arise when it is time to decide what exactly these shared
values are and how they should best be promoted.

Aye, there's the rub.

Brent Meeker

RE: computer pain

2006-12-22 Thread Jef Allbright



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:


Brent Meeker writes:

 Well said!  I agree almost completely - I'm a little 
uncertain about (3) and (4) above and the meaning of scope. 
 Together with the qualifications of Peter Jones regarding 
the lack of universal agreement on even the best supported 
theories of science, you have provided a good outline of the 
development of ethics in a way parallel with the scientific 
development of knowledge.
 
 There's a good paper on the relation facts and values by 
Oliver Curry which bears on many of the above points:
 
 http://human-nature.com/ep/downloads/ep04234247.pdf


That is a well-written paper, particularly good on an 
explanation of the naturalistic fallacy, covering what we 
have been discussing in this thread (and the parallel thread 
on evil etc. with which it seems to have crossed over).  
Basically, the paper argues that Humes edict that you can't 
get is from ought is no impediment to a naturalistic 
explanation of ethics, and that incidentally Hume himself had 
a naturalistic explanation. Another statement of the 
naturalistic fallacy is that explanation is not the same as 
justification: 
that while Darwinian mechanisms may explain why we have 
certain ethical systems that does not constitute 
justification for those sytems. To this Curry counters:


In case this is all rather abstract, let me re-state the 
point by way of an analogy. Suppose that instead of being 
about morality and why people find certain things morally 
good and bad, this article had been about sweetness, and why 
people find certain things sweet and certain things sour. The 
Humean-Darwinian would have argued that humans have an 
evolved digestive system that distinguishes between good and 
bad sources of nutrition and energy; and that the human 
'sweet tooth' is an evolved preference for foods with high 
sugar-content over foods with low sugar-content. If one 
accepted this premise, it would make no sense to complain 
that evolution may have explained why humans find certain 
things sweet, but it cannot tell us whether these things are 
really sweet or not. It follows from the premises of the 
argument that there is no criterion of sweetness independent 
of human psychology, and hence this question cannot arise.


That's fine if we stop at explanation at the descriptive 
level. But sweetness lacks the further dimension of ought: 
if I say sugar is sweet I am stating a fact about the 
relationship between sugar and my tastebuds, while if I say 
murder is bad I am not only stating a fact about how I feel 
about it, I am also making a profound claim about the world. 
In a sense, I think this latter claim or feeling is illusory 
and there is nothing to it beyond genes and upbringing, but I 
still have it, and moreover I can have such feelings in 
conflict with genes and upbringing. As G.E. Moore said (also 
quoted in the article), if I identify good with some 
natural object X, it is always possible to ask, is X good?, 
which means that good must essentially be something else, 
simple, indefinable, unanalysable object of thought, which 
only contingently coincides with natural objects or their 
properties. The same applies even if you include as natural 
object commands from God. 



I was preparing a response to related questions from Stathis in a
separate post when I noticed that he had already done an excellent job
of clarifying the issue here.  I would add only the following:

The fundamental importance of context cannot be overemphasized in
discussions of Self, Free-will, Morality, etc., anywhere that the
subjective and the objective are considered together.  Like
particle/wave duality, we can only get answers consistent with the
context of our questions.

* Many have attempted to bridge the gap between is and ought, but
haven't fully grasped the futility of attempting to find the
intersection of a point of view and its inverse.
* Many have shaken their heads wisely and stated that is and ought are
entirely disjoint, so nothing useful can be said about any supposed
relations between the two.
* Very few have realized the essential relativity of ALL our models of
thought, that there is no privileged frame of reference for making
objective distinctions between is and ought because we are inextricably
part of the system we are trying to describe, and THAT is what grounds
the subjective within the objective.

There can be no absolute or objective basis for claims of moral value,
because subjective assessment is intrinsic to the issue.
But we, as effective agents within the context of an evolving
environment, can *absolutely agree* that:
* subjective assessments have objective consequences, which then feed
back to influence future subjective assessments.
* actions are assessed as good to the extent that they are perceived
to promote into the future the present values of the (necessarily
subjective) assessor.
* actions are assessed as better to the extent that they are perceived
to promote

RE: computer pain

2006-12-22 Thread Jef Allbright



Brent Meeker wrote:


Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 
Jef Allbright writes:


snip


Further, from this theory of metaethics we can derive
a practical  system of social decision-making based
on (1) increasing fine-grained knowledge of shared values,
and (2) application of increasingly effective principles,
selected with regard to models of probable outcomes in
a Rawlsian mode of broad rather than narrow self-interest.


This is really quite a good proposal for building better
societies, and one that I would go along with, but meta-ethical 
problems arise if someone simply rejects that shared values

are important (eg. believes that the values of the strong
outweigh those of the weak),


Historically this problem has been dealt with by those who 
think shared values are important ganging up on those who don't.  


and ethical
problems arise when it is time to decide what exactly these
shared values are and how they should best be promoted.


Aye, there's the rub.


Because any decision-making is done within a limited context, but the
consequences arise within a necessarily larger (future) context, we can
never be sure of the exact consequences of our decisions.  Therefore, we
should strive for decision-making that is increasingly
*right-in-principle*, given our best knowledge of the situation at the
time. Higher-quality principles can be recognized by their greater scope
of applicability and subtlety (more powerful but relatively fewer
side-effects).

With Sthathis' elucidation of the Natural Fallacy in a separate post,
and Brent's comments here (more down-to-earth and easily readable, less
abstract than my own would have been) I have very little to add.

- Jef

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Re: computer pain



Jef Allbright wrote:


Immediately upon hitting Send on the previous post, I noticed that I had
failed to address a remaining point, below.

Brent Meeker wrote:
  Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
   Jef Allbright writes:

snip

 Further, from this theory of metaethics we can derive a practical 
  system of social decision-making based on (1) increasing  
fine-grained knowledge of shared values, and (2) application of  
increasingly effective principles, selected with regard to models of 
 probable outcomes in a Rawlsian mode of broad rather than narrow 
 self-interest.
  This is really quite a good proposal for building better 
societies,  and one that I would go along with, but meta-ethical 
problems arise  if someone simply rejects that shared values are 
important (eg.  believes that the values of the strong outweigh 
those of the weak),
  Historically this problem has been dealt with by those who think  
shared values are important ganging up on those who don't.

  and ethical
 problems arise when it is time to decide what exactly these shared 
 values are and how they should best be promoted.

  Aye, there's the rub.

Because any decision-making is done within a limited context, but the 
consequences arise within a necessarily larger (future) context, we 
can never be sure of the exact consequences of our decisions.  
Therefore, we should strive for decision-making that is increasingly 
*right-in-principle*, given our best knowledge of the situation at the 
time. Higher-quality principles can be recognized by their greater 
scope of applicability and subtlety (more powerful but relatively 
fewer side-effects).




It's an interesting question as to how we might best know our
fine-grained human values across an entire population, given that we can
hardly begin to express them ourselves, let alone their complex internal
and external relationships and dependencies.  There's also the question
of sufficient motivation, since very few of us would want to spend a
great deal of time answering (and later updating) questionnaires.

The best (possibly) workable idea I have is to use story-telling.  It
might be done in the form of a game of collaborative story-telling where
people would contribute short scenarios where the actions and
interactions of the characters would encode systems of values. Then,
software could analyze the text, extract significant features into a
high-dimensional array of vectors, and from there, principle component
analysis, clustering, rankings of association and similarity could be
done mathematically via unsupervised software with the higher level
information available for visualization. This idea needs more fleshing
out and it might be possible to perform limited validation of the
concept using the existing (and growing) corpus of fictional literature
available in digital form.


When people tell me, in defense of an omnibenevolent God, that this is the best 
of all possible worlds, I point out to them that in Hollywood movies, good 
always triumphs over evil...and these movies are widely recognized as 
unrealistic.

Brent Meeker
No good deed goes unpunished.
--- Claire Booth Luce, U.S. Senator

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Re: computer pain



1Z wrote:



Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

Jef Allbright writes:

 peterdjones wrote:

  Moral and natural laws.
 
 
  An investigation of natural laws, and, in parallel, a defence
  of ethical objectivism.The objectivity, to at least some
  extent, of science will be assumed; the sceptic may differ,
  but there is no convincing some people).

 snip

  As ethical objectivism is a work-in-progress
  there are many variants, and a considerable literature
  discussing which is the correct one.

 I agree with the thrust of this post and I think there are a few key
 concepts which can further clarify thinking on this subject:

 (1) Although moral assessment is inherently subjective--being relative
 to internal values--all rational agents share some values in common due
 to sharing a common evolutionary heritage or even more fundamentally,
 being subject to the same physical laws of the universe.

That may be so, but we don't exactly have a lot of intelligent species 
to make
the comparison. It is not difficult to imagine species with different 
evolutionary
heritages which would have different ethics to our own, certainly in 
the details

and probably in many of the core values.


It isn't difficult to imagine humans with different mores to our own,
particularly since the actual exist... the point
is not that they might believe certain things to be ethical;
the point is , what *is* actually ethical.


If you try to change their ethics, you can only do it by appealing to their 
values.  Their values are objective in the sense that they can be discovered.  
And some ethical systems will promote those values better or more broadly than 
others.  But I don't see any basis for judging the values themselves as good or 
bad.  You could weigh them according to how likely they are to propagate 
themselves - like Dawkins' evolution of memes, but I don't think that's what 
you mean.



There is a difference between mores and morality
just as their is between belief and truth.


If everyone believes the Earth is flat one can sail around it and show that 
belief is false.  If everyone believes miscegenation is immoral, how could that 
morality be shown to be wrong?  Not by marrying a person of a different race.

Brent Meeker

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Re: computer pain

2006-12-22 Thread John Mikes


I really should not, but here it goes:
Brent, you seem to value the conventional ways given by the model used to
formulate physical sciences and Euclidian geometry etc. over mental ways or
ideational arguments.
(There may be considerations to judge mixed marriages for good argumentation
without waiting for physically observable damages.)
Imagine (since Einstein introduced us to spacetime-curvatures already) that
the Earth IS flat with the format-proviso that as you approach the rim it
changes your straight-line progressing: the closer you get the more it
changes (something like the big mass ujpon spacetime -  mutatis mutandis).
So as you close in to the rim, instead of falling off, you curved backwards
and arrive (on a different route) at the point of starting. (No proper
geometry have I devised for that so far),
It would seem, that the Earth is spherical and yuou circumnavigatged it.
Like Paul Churchland's tribe who formulated heat as a fluid changing colors
according to its concentration (in ho book Consciousness).and  not some
ridi\culous vibrations as some human physicists believe.
For the innocent bystander: I do not believe this Flat Earth theory.

Merry Christmas

John M


On 12/22/06, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:



1Z wrote:


 Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
 Jef Allbright writes:

  peterdjones wrote:
 
   Moral and natural laws.
  
  
   An investigation of natural laws, and, in parallel, a defence
   of ethical objectivism.The objectivity, to at least some
   extent, of science will be assumed; the sceptic may differ,
   but there is no convincing some people).
 
  snip
 
   As ethical objectivism is a work-in-progress
   there are many variants, and a considerable literature
   discussing which is the correct one.
 
  I agree with the thrust of this post and I think there are a few key
  concepts which can further clarify thinking on this subject:
 
  (1) Although moral assessment is inherently subjective--being
relative
  to internal values--all rational agents share some values in common
due
  to sharing a common evolutionary heritage or even more fundamentally,
  being subject to the same physical laws of the universe.

 That may be so, but we don't exactly have a lot of intelligent species
 to make
 the comparison. It is not difficult to imagine species with different
 evolutionary
 heritages which would have different ethics to our own, certainly in
 the details
 and probably in many of the core values.

 It isn't difficult to imagine humans with different mores to our own,
 particularly since the actual exist... the point
 is not that they might believe certain things to be ethical;
 the point is , what *is* actually ethical.

If you try to change their ethics, you can only do it by appealing to
their values.  Their values are objective in the sense that they can be
discovered.  And some ethical systems will promote those values better or
more broadly than others.  But I don't see any basis for judging the values
themselves as good or bad.  You could weigh them according to how likely
they are to propagate themselves - like Dawkins' evolution of memes, but I
don't think that's what you mean.


 There is a difference between mores and morality
 just as their is between belief and truth.

If everyone believes the Earth is flat one can sail around it and show
that belief is false.  If everyone believes miscegenation is immoral, how
could that morality be shown to be wrong?  Not by marrying a person of a
different race.

Brent Meeker





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Re: computer pain