I have that audiobook by Deutsch and I never thought of making that connection to longtermism.
I am reminded of the idea of a rubicon where a species’ perspective is just a slice of the rulial space of all possible kinds of physics.
I am also reminded of the AI that Columbia Engineering researchers had that found new variables to predict phenomenon we already have formulas for. The AI’s predictions using the variables worked well and it was not clear to the researchers what all the variables were.
That discoveries are unpredictable and the two things I mentioned seem to share the theme that our vantage point is just the tip of an iceberg.
I don’t think that future knowledge discoveries being unknowable refutes longtermism. On the contrary, because future knowledge could lead to bad things such unknowability makes it more important to be prepared for various possibilities. Even if for every bad use of technology/knowledge there is a good use that can exactly counteract it, the bad uses can be employed/discovered first and the good uses may not have enough time to counteract the bad outcomes.
I have that audiobook by Deutsch and I never thought of making that connection to longtermism.
I am reminded of the idea of a rubicon where a species’ perspective is just a slice of the rulial space of all possible kinds of physics.
I am also reminded of the AI that Columbia Engineering researchers had that found new variables to predict phenomenon we already have formulas for. The AI’s predictions using the variables worked well and it was not clear to the researchers what all the variables were.
That discoveries are unpredictable and the two things I mentioned seem to share the theme that our vantage point is just the tip of an iceberg.
I don’t think that future knowledge discoveries being unknowable refutes longtermism. On the contrary, because future knowledge could lead to bad things such unknowability makes it more important to be prepared for various possibilities. Even if for every bad use of technology/knowledge there is a good use that can exactly counteract it, the bad uses can be employed/discovered first and the good uses may not have enough time to counteract the bad outcomes.