Another pernicious aspect of Eliezerâs Zombie discussion is his insinuation that differing views from him on the matter imply that one should not take seriously their other views. Even if Yudkowsky is right and others are fantastically wrong on zombies, this provides but a very small credence update as to how we should consider their other views being accurate. History is littered with brilliant and useful people who have been famously and impressively wrong on some specific matters.
I agree, and I think your point applies equally well to the original Eliezer Zombie discussion, as to this very post. In both cases, trying to extrapolate from âI totally disagree with this person on [some metaphysical philosophical questions]â to âthese people are idiots who are wrong all the time, even on more practical questionsâ, seems pretty tenuous.
To be fair to the OP, I donât think that he was saying you should not consider the views of Yudkowsky- in fact he admits that Yudkowsky has some great thoughts and that he is an innovator.
OP observes that he himself for a long time reflexively deferred to Yudkowksy. I think his objective with his post was to point out some questions on which he thought Yudkowsky was pretty clearly wrong (although it is not clear that he accomplished this). His goal was not to urge people not to read or consider Yudkowsky, but rather to urge people not to reflexively defer to him.
Well put! Though one nitpick: I didnât defer to Eliezer much. Instead, I concluded that he was honestly summarizing the position. So I assumed physicalism was true because I assumed, wrongly, that he was correctly summarizing the zombie argument.
Another pernicious aspect of Eliezerâs Zombie discussion is his insinuation that differing views from him on the matter imply that one should not take seriously their other views. Even if Yudkowsky is right and others are fantastically wrong on zombies, this provides but a very small credence update as to how we should consider their other views being accurate. History is littered with brilliant and useful people who have been famously and impressively wrong on some specific matters.
I agree, and I think your point applies equally well to the original Eliezer Zombie discussion, as to this very post. In both cases, trying to extrapolate from âI totally disagree with this person on [some metaphysical philosophical questions]â to âthese people are idiots who are wrong all the time, even on more practical questionsâ, seems pretty tenuous.
To be fair to the OP, I donât think that he was saying you should not consider the views of Yudkowsky- in fact he admits that Yudkowsky has some great thoughts and that he is an innovator.
OP observes that he himself for a long time reflexively deferred to Yudkowksy. I think his objective with his post was to point out some questions on which he thought Yudkowsky was pretty clearly wrong (although it is not clear that he accomplished this). His goal was not to urge people not to read or consider Yudkowsky, but rather to urge people not to reflexively defer to him.
Well put! Though one nitpick: I didnât defer to Eliezer much. Instead, I concluded that he was honestly summarizing the position. So I assumed physicalism was true because I assumed, wrongly, that he was correctly summarizing the zombie argument.