For instance, I don’t understand how [open individualism] differs from empty individualism. I’d understand if these are different framings or different metaphores, but if we assume that we’re talking about positions that can be true or false, I don’t understand what we’re arguing about when asking whether open individualism or true, or when discussing open vs. empty individualism.
I agree completely. I identify equally as an open and empty individualist. As I’ve written elsewhere (in You Are Them): “I think these ‘positions’ are really just two different ways of expressing the same truth. They merely define the label of ‘same person’ in different ways.”
Also, I think it’s perfectly coherent to have egoistic goals even under a reductionist view of personal identity.
I guess it depends on what those egoistic goals are. The fact that some egoistic goals are highly instrumentally useful for the benefit of others (even if one doesn’t intend to benefit others, cf. Smith’s invisible hand, the deep wisdom of Ayn Rand, and also, more generally, the fact that many of our selfish desires probably shouldn’t be expected to be that detrimental to others, or at least our in-group, given that we evolved as social creatures) is, I think, a confounding factor that makes it seem plausible to say that pursuing them is coherent/non-problematic (in light of a reductionist view of personal identity). Yet if it is transparent that the pursuit of these egoistic goals comes at the cost of many other beings’ intense suffering, I think we would be reluctant to say that pursuing them is “perfectly coherent” (especially in light of such a view of personal identity, yet many would probably even say it regardless; one can, for example, also argue it is incoherent with reference to inconsistency: “we should not treat the same/sufficiently similar entities differently”).
For instance, would we, with this view of personal identity, really claim that it is “perfectly coherent” to choose to push button A: “you get a brand new pair of shorts”, when we could have pushed button B: “You prevent 100 years of torture (for someone else in one sense, yet for yourself in another, quite real sense) which will not be prevented if you push button A”. It seems much more plausible to deem it perfectly coherent to have a selfish desire to start a company or to signal coolness or otherwise gain personal satisfaction by being an effective altruist.
But if that’s all we mean by “moral realism” then it would be rather trivial.
I don’t quite understand why you would call this trivial. Perhaps it is trivial that many of us, perhaps even the vast majority, agree. Yet, as mentioned, the acceptance of a principle like “avoid causing unnecessary suffering” is extremely significant in terms of its practical implications; many have argued that it implies the adoption of veganism (where the effects on wildlife as a potential confounding factor is often disregarded, of course), and one could even employ it to argue against space colonization (depending on what we hold to constitute necessity). So, in terms of practical consequences at least, I’m almost tempted to say that it could barely be more significant. And it’s not clear to me that agreement on a highly detailed axiology would necessarily have significantly more significant, or even more clear, implications than what we could get off the ground from quite crude principles (it seems to me there may well be strong diminishing returns here, if you will, as you can also seem to agree weakly with in light of the final sentence of your reply). Also because the large range of error produced by empirical uncertainty may, on consequentialist views at least, make the difference in practice between realizing a detailed and a crude axiology a lot less clear than the difference between the two axiologies at the purely theoretical level—perhaps even so much so as to make it virtually vanish in many cases.
Maybe my criteria are a bit too strict [...]
I’m just wondering: too strict for what purpose?
This may seem a bit disconnected, but I just wanted to share an analogy I just came to think of: Imagine mathematics were a rather different field where we only agreed about simple arithmetic such as 2 + 2 = 4, and where everything beyond that were like the Riemann hypothesis: there is no consensus, and clear answers appear beyond our grasp. Would we then say that our recognition that 2 + 2 = 4 holds true, at least in some sense (given intuitive axioms, say), is trivial with respect to asserting some form of mathematical realism? And would finding widely agreed-upon solutions to our harder problems constitute a significant step toward deciding whether we should accept such a realism? I fail to see how it would.
Empty individualism is quite different from open individualism. Empty individualism says that you only exist during the present fraction of a second. This leads to the conclusion that no matter what action you take, the amount of pain or pleasure you will experience as a consequence thereof will remain zero. This therefore leads to nihilism. Open Individualism on the other hand says that you will be repeatedly reincarnated as every human that will ever live. In the words of David Pearce: “If open individualism is true, then the distinction between decision-theoretic rationality and morality (arguably) collapses. An intelligent sociopath would do the same as an intelligent saint; it’s all about me.” This means that the egoistic sociopaths would change themselves into altruists of sorts.
The only way I know of in which empty individualism can lead towards open individualism works as follows: When choosing which action to take, one should select the action which leads to the least amount of suffering for oneself. If there were a high probability that empty individualism is true and a very small but non-zero probability that open individualism is true, one would still have to take the action dictated by open individualism because empty individualism stays neutral with regads to which action to take, thereby making itself irrelevant.
Note however that empty individualism vs open individualism is a false dichotomy as there are other contenders such as closed individualism which is the common-sensical view, at least here in the West. So since empty individualism makes itself irrelevant, at least for now the contention is just between open individualism and closed individualism. It would in principle certainly be possible to calculate whether open individualism or closed individualism is more likely to be true. Furthermore, it would be possible to calculate whether AGI would be open individualist towards humanity or not. To conduct such a caclulation successfully before the singularity would however require a collaboration between many theoreticians.
Thanks for your reply :-)
I agree completely. I identify equally as an open and empty individualist. As I’ve written elsewhere (in You Are Them): “I think these ‘positions’ are really just two different ways of expressing the same truth. They merely define the label of ‘same person’ in different ways.”
I guess it depends on what those egoistic goals are. The fact that some egoistic goals are highly instrumentally useful for the benefit of others (even if one doesn’t intend to benefit others, cf. Smith’s invisible hand, the deep wisdom of Ayn Rand, and also, more generally, the fact that many of our selfish desires probably shouldn’t be expected to be that detrimental to others, or at least our in-group, given that we evolved as social creatures) is, I think, a confounding factor that makes it seem plausible to say that pursuing them is coherent/non-problematic (in light of a reductionist view of personal identity). Yet if it is transparent that the pursuit of these egoistic goals comes at the cost of many other beings’ intense suffering, I think we would be reluctant to say that pursuing them is “perfectly coherent” (especially in light of such a view of personal identity, yet many would probably even say it regardless; one can, for example, also argue it is incoherent with reference to inconsistency: “we should not treat the same/sufficiently similar entities differently”). For instance, would we, with this view of personal identity, really claim that it is “perfectly coherent” to choose to push button A: “you get a brand new pair of shorts”, when we could have pushed button B: “You prevent 100 years of torture (for someone else in one sense, yet for yourself in another, quite real sense) which will not be prevented if you push button A”. It seems much more plausible to deem it perfectly coherent to have a selfish desire to start a company or to signal coolness or otherwise gain personal satisfaction by being an effective altruist.
I don’t quite understand why you would call this trivial. Perhaps it is trivial that many of us, perhaps even the vast majority, agree. Yet, as mentioned, the acceptance of a principle like “avoid causing unnecessary suffering” is extremely significant in terms of its practical implications; many have argued that it implies the adoption of veganism (where the effects on wildlife as a potential confounding factor is often disregarded, of course), and one could even employ it to argue against space colonization (depending on what we hold to constitute necessity). So, in terms of practical consequences at least, I’m almost tempted to say that it could barely be more significant. And it’s not clear to me that agreement on a highly detailed axiology would necessarily have significantly more significant, or even more clear, implications than what we could get off the ground from quite crude principles (it seems to me there may well be strong diminishing returns here, if you will, as you can also seem to agree weakly with in light of the final sentence of your reply). Also because the large range of error produced by empirical uncertainty may, on consequentialist views at least, make the difference in practice between realizing a detailed and a crude axiology a lot less clear than the difference between the two axiologies at the purely theoretical level—perhaps even so much so as to make it virtually vanish in many cases.
I’m just wondering: too strict for what purpose?
This may seem a bit disconnected, but I just wanted to share an analogy I just came to think of: Imagine mathematics were a rather different field where we only agreed about simple arithmetic such as 2 + 2 = 4, and where everything beyond that were like the Riemann hypothesis: there is no consensus, and clear answers appear beyond our grasp. Would we then say that our recognition that 2 + 2 = 4 holds true, at least in some sense (given intuitive axioms, say), is trivial with respect to asserting some form of mathematical realism? And would finding widely agreed-upon solutions to our harder problems constitute a significant step toward deciding whether we should accept such a realism? I fail to see how it would.
Empty individualism is quite different from open individualism.
Empty individualism says that you only exist during the present fraction of a second. This leads to the conclusion that no matter what action you take, the amount of pain or pleasure you will experience as a consequence thereof will remain zero. This therefore leads to nihilism.
Open Individualism on the other hand says that you will be repeatedly reincarnated as every human that will ever live. In the words of David Pearce: “If open individualism is true, then the distinction between decision-theoretic rationality and morality (arguably) collapses. An intelligent sociopath would do the same as an intelligent saint; it’s all about me.”
This means that the egoistic sociopaths would change themselves into altruists of sorts.
The only way I know of in which empty individualism can lead towards open individualism works as follows:
When choosing which action to take, one should select the action which leads to the least amount of suffering for oneself. If there were a high probability that empty individualism is true and a very small but non-zero probability that open individualism is true, one would still have to take the action dictated by open individualism because empty individualism stays neutral with regads to which action to take, thereby making itself irrelevant.
Note however that empty individualism vs open individualism is a false dichotomy as there are other contenders such as closed individualism which is the common-sensical view, at least here in the West. So since empty individualism makes itself irrelevant, at least for now the contention is just between open individualism and closed individualism. It would in principle certainly be possible to calculate whether open individualism or closed individualism is more likely to be true. Furthermore, it would be possible to calculate whether AGI would be open individualist towards humanity or not. To conduct such a caclulation successfully before the singularity would however require a collaboration between many theoreticians.