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As evolved—and evolving—agents, we would benefit from increasing awareness of (1) our values, hierarchical and fine-grained, and (2) our methods for promoting those present but evolving values in the world around us, with perceived consequences feeding back and selected for increasing coherence over increasing context of meaning-making (values) and increasing scope of instrumental effectiveness (methods). Lather, rinse, repeat…
As inherently perspectival agents acting to express our present but evolving nature within the bounds of our presently perceived environment of interaction, we can find moral agreement as if we were (metaphorically) individual leaves on the tips of the growing branches of a tree, and by traversing the (increasingly probable) branches of that tree toward the (most probable) trunk, rooted in what we know as the physics of our world, finding agreement at the level(s) of those branches supporting our values-in-common.
I am not a god, but this is the advice I would provide to the next one I happen to meet, and thereby hope to expedite our current haphazard progress (2.71828 steps forward, 1 step back) in the domain of social decision-making assessed as increasingly "moral", or right in principle.
The arrow of morality points not toward any imagined goal, but rather, outward, with increasing coherence over increasing context.
As agents embedded and evolving within our (ancestral) environment of interaction, our concepts of "morality" tend toward choices which, in principle, exploited synergies and thus tended to persist, for our ancestors.
For an individual agent, isolated from ongoing or anticipated interaction, there is no "moral", but only "good" relative to the agent's present values.
For agents interacting within groups (and groups of groups, …) actions perceived as "moral", or right-in-principle, are those actions assessed as (1) promoting an increasing context of increasingly coherent values (hierarchical and fine-grained), (2) via instrumental methods increasingly effective, in principle, over increasing scope of consequences. These orthogonal planes of (1) values, and (2) methods, form a space of meaningful action tending to select for increasing coherence over increasing context. Lather, rinse, repeat—two steps forward, one step back—tending to select for persistent, positive-sum, outcomes.
For agents embedded in their environment of interaction, there can be no "objective" morality, because their knowledge of their (1) values and (2) methods is ultimately ungrounded, thus subjective or perspectival, however this knowledge of values and methods is far from arbitrary since it emerges at great expense of testing within the common environment of interaction.
Metaphorically, the search for moral agreement can be envisioned as individual agents like leaves growing at the tips of a tree exploring the adjacent possible, and as they traverse the thickening and increasingly probable branches toward the trunk shared by all, rooted in the mists of "fundamental reality", they must find agreement upon arrival at the level of those branches which support them all.
The Arrow of Morality points not in any specific direction, but tends always outward, with increasing coherence over increasing context of meaning-making.
The practical application of this "moral" understanding is that we should strive to promote increasing awareness of (1) our present but evolving values, increasingly coherent over increasing context of meaning-making, and (2) our instrumental methods for their promotion, increasingly effectively over increasing scope of interaction and consequences, within an evolving intentional framework for effective decision-making at a level of complexity exceeding individual human faculties.
Yes, I think evolutionary processes are the only generator of meaningful novelty, and this is also key to the nearly always neglected question of "hypothesis generation" in discussions of "the" scientific method.
Significantly, your examples are all within the domain of analytical—and I would suggest, reductive—mathematics-science-coding. In my experience, it is often the case that one who has ascended this ladder is quite blind to, and unable to conceive of the importance of, context and perspective to meaning-making.
Apropos, there was a period during my childhood when I tried to question my elders regarding my observation that entropy, probability, and meaning were inherently subjective—meaningless without reference to an observer. Similar to the misnomer of Shannon "information" theory when it is actually about the transfer of data, rather than information through a lossy channel. In virtually every case, they could not understand my questions.
People generally fail to understand that "subjective" does not imply "arbitrary", but rather, perspectival and necessarily within context. And of course when it comes to agreement, we share a great deal of (hierarchical) perspective.
One concrete example: Back when I was a technical manager in the field of analytical instruments, I tried to convey to our support team that the key metric of success was customer satisfaction, followed, if necessary, by whether the instrument met standards for precision, sensitivity, stability, etc. Of the members of that team, the one who I knew and relied on to be the most rigorously analytical could not accept that definition of success, and was therefore weaker (overall) in terms of achieving customer satisfaction.
As for your potential item #10—remaining within the analytical paradigm you have established—I would suggest "the ability to think in terms of evolutionary processes and strategies, especially in regard to production of meaningful novelty."
What could it possibly mean, to say that something is "better", except from some perspective, within some context? What could it possibly mean to say that something is "right" (in principle), other than from some larger perspective, within a larger context?
It's always perspectival--the illusion of objectivity arises because you share your values, fine-grained and deeply hierarchical, due to your place as a twig on a branch on a tree rooted in the mists of a common physics and with a common evolutionary trajectory. Of course you share values with your neighboring twigs, and you can find moral agreement by traversing the tree of evolutionarily instilled values back toward the trunk to find a branch that supports you and your neighboring agents, but from what god-like point of view could they ever be "objective"?
Oh, and a short, possibly more direct response:
Values (within context) lead to preferences; preferences (within context) lead to actions; and actions (within context) lead to consequences.
Lather, rinse, repeat, updating your models of what matters and what works as you go.
I argued repeatedly and at length on the Extropian and Transhumanist discussion lists from 2004 to about 2010 for a metaethics based on the idea that actions assessed as increasingly "moral" (right in principle) are those actions assessed as promoting (1) values, hierarchical and fine-grained, increasingly coherent over an increasing context of meaning-making, via (2) instrumental methods, increasingly effective in principle, over increasing scope of consequences. Lather, rinse, repeat, with consequences tending to select for values, and methods for their promotion, that "work" (meaning "persist")
The instrumental methods half of this--the growth in scope of our model of of science and technology--is generally well-accepted.
The values half of this--the growth in context of our model of meaning-making--not so much, for a handful of understandable reasons of our developmental history.
Together, these orthogonal aspects tend to support and reinforce meaningful growth.
The Arrow of Morality points in no particular direction but outward--with increasing coherence over increasing context--and suggests we would do well to act intentionally to promote growth of our models in these two orthogonal dimensions.
Conceptual roadblocks include difficulties with evolutionary dynamics (including multi-level), synergistic (anti-entropic) expansion in both dimensions mentioned above (from the point of view of any agent), agency as inherently perspectival (subjective, but not arbitrary), and unwillingness to accept an ever-broadening indentification of "self".
Due (in my opinion) to these difficult and culturally pervasive conceptual roadblocks, I never gained much traction in my attempts to convey and test this thinking, and I eventually decided to stop beating a horse that was not so much dead, as had never really lived. I believe we'll make progress on this, two steps forward, one step back, to the extent we live and learn and become more ready. [Which is by no means guaranteed...]
I have not found any substantial literature supporting this thinking, but I can point you in the direction of bits and pieces, and we might discuss further (work and family permitting) if you would like to contact me privately.
- Jef
“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” - Zen koan
What does that mean you cryptic bastards! If enlightenment is so great then give me some step by step directions to it!
Here's another, slightly more informative quote:
The famous saying of Ch'ing-yüan Wei-hsin [Seigen Ishin]
Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.
These classic quotes cut right to the essence of Zen, but provide no context or path for getting there.
I see a few key reasons for the persistent "woo-woo" vagueness. (1) Many persons are attracted to what they see as a doorway to mystical, occult, supernatural, etc. knowledge and powers. Good, I suppose, to the extent it keeps them on their journey of discovery... (2) People come from different backgrounds and harbor different preconceptions of "the Truth" and (in my experience) it usually takes a vast and indeterminate amount of effort to convey and address all these aspects of what Zen is not, leaving the very simple but powerful essence of what Zen is. So the standard approach is to offer small kernels intended to avoid the myriad possible objections while still engaging the mind of the seeker in resolving the apparent paradox by discovering the appropriate context.
The denizens of LessWrong can sometimes be found in the first category, under the influence of almost magical belief in the power of "Rationality" as they imagine it, and quite often in the second, where their intelligence gives them a view of things somewhat above that of the crowd, but where they tend to stay and admire the superior view rather than strive to take it up (and out) another level of context and meaning making.
[I realize that the above could be taken as demeaning, but could easily provide the basis for a 3rd justification for pedagogical vagueness--not to create a barrier by offending the other's pride. A 4th justification, and probably the strongest, would be that understanding that is constructed, rather than conveyed, tends to have greater impact. But time is short...]
Zen enlightenment is simply about re-conceiving the relationship between the observer and the observed.
Once this re-conception is attained, everything is just as it was before but ontologically simpler--there is no separate, privileged "self" in the model of reality. To grok this is liberating and may cause one to laugh with joy at the silliness of having carried that imagined burden for no gain; indeed it only got in one's way. Then, back to cutting wood and carrying water, the same as before but feeling lighter.
I hope that this might help.
-Jef
The most insidious of these misguiding heuristics have, apparently due to their transparency (like water to a fish), gone unmentioned so far in this thread.
Typical game play shares much in common with typical schooling. Children are inculcated with impressions of a world of levels that can (and should) be ascended through mastery of skills corresponding to challenges presented to them at each level, with right action leading to convergence on right answers, within an effectively fixed and ultimately knowable context.
Contrast this with the "real world", where challenges are not presented but encountered, where it's generally better to do the right thing than to do things right, within a diverging context of increasing uncertainty.