Comments on: Why Ethical Ends Do Not Justify Unethical Means http://rhollerith.com/blog/72 A blog about rationality, improving the world and the far future Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:55:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Richard Hollerith http://rhollerith.com/blog/72/comment-page-1#comment-125 Richard Hollerith Sat, 20 Dec 2008 11:56:15 +0000 http://rhollerith.com/blog/?p=72#comment-125 Currently, the most complete description of my ethics consists of <a href="http://dl4.jottit.com/goal_system_zero" rel="nofollow">this</a> followed by <a href="http://http://rhollerith.com/blog/50" rel="nofollow">this</a>, Learning more about my ethics, though, will probably not make you any less frightened because fright is a common reaction to my ethics. I do not set out to frighten anyone; I am just doing my best to choose the best moral system and to describe that system to others. An intelligent programmer is more effective at organizing matter, free energy and other resources to achieve a goal than a program that generates programs at random. Consequently, the intelligent programmer has much greater potential to "do good" or to "contribute to the universe", but also has much greater potential to "do evil" or to prevent contributions from being made that would otherwise be made. But this is true under most or all ethical systems, not just mine, so will not help you understand my ethical system. I will gladly try to answer more questions, but those are the best answers I can give to your first round of questions after mulling them over during the last 2 weeks. Currently, the most complete description of my ethics consists of this followed by this,

Learning more about my ethics, though, will probably not make you any less frightened because fright is a common reaction to my ethics. I do not set out to frighten anyone; I am just doing my best to choose the best moral system and to describe that system to others.

An intelligent programmer is more effective at organizing matter, free energy and other resources to achieve a goal than a program that generates programs at random. Consequently, the intelligent programmer has much greater potential to “do good” or to “contribute to the universe”, but also has much greater potential to “do evil” or to prevent contributions from being made that would otherwise be made. But this is true under most or all ethical systems, not just mine, so will not help you understand my ethical system.

I will gladly try to answer more questions, but those are the best answers I can give to your first round of questions after mulling them over during the last 2 weeks.

]]> By: LeBleu http://rhollerith.com/blog/72/comment-page-1#comment-118 LeBleu Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:26:59 +0000 http://rhollerith.com/blog/?p=72#comment-118 Hi Richard, I came here after reading your comments on Overcoming Bias. From the very brief summaries I saw there, it sounds like your ethics differ from mine in frightening ways. (I'm more inclined to value happy people, not abstract creativity.) I'm trying to understand your ethics more clearly, but some of the terminology you use here seems vague or circular. For example, you describe "make a positive contribution to the universe" as the ultimate good. Yet I'm not clear on what you think constitutes a contribution to the universe, and how to measure if it is positive or not. (Other than the circular measure of saying it is a positive contribution if it causes other positive contributions.) I can't see anything in the above that tells me why a computer program that generates programs at random isn't a better contributor to the universe than an (naturally or artificially) intelligent computer programmer. I'm not familiar with John David Garcia's works, having never heard of them before you mentioned them. I read the Wikipedia article on him, but nothing there really made his philosophy sound rational or notably better founded than self-help or pop-psych books. Thanks, LeBleu Hi Richard,

I came here after reading your comments on Overcoming Bias. From the very brief summaries I saw there, it sounds like your ethics differ from mine in frightening ways. (I’m more inclined to value happy people, not abstract creativity.) I’m trying to understand your ethics more clearly, but some of the terminology you use here seems vague or circular.

For example, you describe “make a positive contribution to the universe” as the ultimate good. Yet I’m not clear on what you think constitutes a contribution to the universe, and how to measure if it is positive or not. (Other than the circular measure of saying it is a positive contribution if it causes other positive contributions.)

I can’t see anything in the above that tells me why a computer program that generates programs at random isn’t a better contributor to the universe than an (naturally or artificially) intelligent computer programmer.

I’m not familiar with John David Garcia’s works, having never heard of them before you mentioned them. I read the Wikipedia article on him, but nothing there really made his philosophy sound rational or notably better founded than self-help or pop-psych books.

Thanks,
LeBleu

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