Boundary Violations vs Boundary Dissolution

post by Chipmonk · 2024-02-26T18:59:08.713Z · LW · GW · 4 comments

While at Conceptual Boundaries Workshop [LW · GW], I realized that I had been conflating two different phenomena in my mind:

• Actions that violate boundaries/membranes [? · GW], and
• Actions that kill or dissolve boundaries/membranes.

This distinction is important because, towards the goal of keeping agents safe [LW · GW], it’s more important to prevent dissolution than it is to prevent violations.

Examples of actions that merely violate boundaries:

• Injecting harmless saline solution into someone else’s arm.
• Stealing an object from someone else’s house.
• Illegally entering a country with closed borders.

Examples of actions that dissolve boundaries:

• Injecting deadly poison into someone else’s arm.
• Burning down someone’s house.
• Invading a country and overthrowing the government.

Violating boundaries about locally betraying the sovereignty of an agent over their boundary/membrane. But on the whole the boundary still stays alive.

However, dissolving boundaries about destroying the capacity for an agent to be sovereign. The boundary dies.

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This also all relates to how I understand Andrew Critch’s boundary protocol idea. He hasn’t written about this online (yet?). But in talking to him about this I realized the distinction of this post.

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