13 Comments

Good essay. We must be tuned into the same shard of the Logos as one of my next Contemplations is going to cover similar ground!

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What are your opinions on Jordan Peterson's ideas? Sensing a fair amount of affinities here.

Personally I believe the thesis that 1) value necessarily precedes facts and that 2) the only processes known to man for determining which values are good are long-run evolutionary processes, are basically, correct.

There is one nasty snag though, which is how do you find short term leading indicators to long term value-of-values. Without which, how does one ever innovate on value other than relying on pure hubris?

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It's nice to see the DAG concept from our email convo illuminated!

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From your conclusion:

> I think value beliefs are false if they lower the long-term valence of the entity operating under them.

Here you state a personal value of yours, without having given any argument for why everyone else should adopt it.

It's not clear to me where you think the fact/value distiction from Hume's Fork is correct? Ie. do you think you can show why people should accept a value statement like the above, without any value-related premises?

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"Remember, brains are computers, and our minds are the software systems running on these computers"

Mmm... No, the brain is a sending and receiving mechanism to consciousness, which exists apart, separate and non-local. There's plenty of evidence if you look. Hell, you can even get out of your body w/o entheogens just by a good yoga session followed by deep breathwork, then fly off and have a look around places you're not supposed to (if you've got the stones for that sort of thing).

Rigid materialism is one way bullet train to despair and death.

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This seems to just sneakily be putting in "works well for groups over the long term" as a basic value. If you already assume what's morally correct you can of course test possible courses of action against that, but it doesn't seem to actually resolve the issue.

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