This is greatâIâm looking forward to reading the rest. I often avoid thinking in this direction because it feels dangerous to expose yourself to a possibly unbounded scepticism about impact. But itâs not authentic to avoid the question of unawareness. Thanks for nudging me to think about this again! PS- unless this is answered in later posts in the sequenceâwhatâs the relationship between âunawarenessâ and âcomplex cluelessnessâ and âcrucial considerationsâ? They seem to be pointing at the same concept (we donât know for sure that we are aware of the biggest effect our actions will have/â the most relevant value to the actions we are taking).
Thanks Toby, Iâm glad you find this valuable. :)
On how this differs from complex cluelessness, copying a comment from LW:
I think unawareness is a (major) source of what Greaves called complex cluelessness, which is a situation where:
(CC1) We have some reasons to think that the unforeseeable consequences of A1 would systematically tend to be substantially better than those of A2; (CC2) We have some reasons to think that the unforeseeable consequences of A2 would systematically tend to be substantially better than those of A1; (CC3) It is unclear how to weigh up these reasons against one another.
(Itâs a bit unclear how âunforeseeableâ is defined. In context /â in the usual ways people tend to talk about complex cluelessness, I think itâs meant to encompass cases where the problem isnât unawareness but rather other obstacles to setting precise credences.)
But unawareness itself means âmany possible consequences of our actions havenât even occurred to us in much detail, if at allâ (as unpacked in the introduction section). ETA: I think itâs important to conceptually separate this from complex cluelessness, because you might think unawareness is a challenge that demands a response beyond straightforward Bayesianism, even if you disagree that it implies complex cluelessness.
I think of crucial considerations as one important class of things we may be unaware of. But we can also be unaware/âcoarsely aware of possible causal pathways unfolding from our actions, even conditional on us having figured out all the CCs per se. These pathways could collectively dominate our impact. (Thatâs what I was gesturing at with the ending of the block-âquoteâ in the sequence introduction.)
This is greatâIâm looking forward to reading the rest.
I often avoid thinking in this direction because it feels dangerous to expose yourself to a possibly unbounded scepticism about impact. But itâs not authentic to avoid the question of unawareness. Thanks for nudging me to think about this again!
PS- unless this is answered in later posts in the sequenceâwhatâs the relationship between âunawarenessâ and âcomplex cluelessnessâ and âcrucial considerationsâ? They seem to be pointing at the same concept (we donât know for sure that we are aware of the biggest effect our actions will have/â the most relevant value to the actions we are taking).
Thanks Toby, Iâm glad you find this valuable. :)
On how this differs from complex cluelessness, copying a comment from LW:
I think of crucial considerations as one important class of things we may be unaware of. But we can also be unaware/âcoarsely aware of possible causal pathways unfolding from our actions, even conditional on us having figured out all the CCs per se. These pathways could collectively dominate our impact. (Thatâs what I was gesturing at with the ending of the block-âquoteâ in the sequence introduction.)