[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The goal of setting up moral rules is to align the internal goals of moral agents with the goal of higher level conscious entities. It is necessary due to inevitable shortsightedness and limited computational capacity of individual agents. Appropriately chosen moral rules, equipped with reward and punishment, will make even selfish acts of individual agents also beneficial to the society. Although they can't comprehend or don't even care about the cost and benefit to the society, they would still do good things for reward and avoid doing bad things to avoid punishment.

Simple reward and punishment rules work best for simple conscious agents. More sophisticated agents may device reward hackings, which is detrimental in the long run. The better approach is to tell them their terminal goal and how to achieve it.

[alancalverd]

Taking your last two posts together suggests an experiment to demonstrate your point. It's always a good idea to start with a simple, unsophisticated model, so teach or force plasmodium falciparum to be nice to its hosts. Your work will benefit three species!

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Taking your last two posts together suggests an experiment to demonstrate your point. It's always a good idea to start with a simple, unsophisticated model, so teach or force plasmodium falciparum to be nice to its hosts. Your work will benefit three species!

It depends on cost and benefit, while taking into account the effectiveness and efficiency of each option. When humans become immune to their attack, they are forced to feed on other lifeforms to survive. Lower consciousness lifeforms come and go naturally. They should not be of much concern as long as they don't affect the long term survival of some highest concious entities.

[alancalverd]

So I should wait for the invading parasites to "come and go naturally"? At what level? Plasmodium, rats, fascists?

Life is competitive. If you don't fight, you won't win.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So I should wait for the invading parasites to "come and go naturally"? At what level? Plasmodium, rats, fascists?

Life is competitive. If you don't fight, you won't win.

No. You should use your available resources to optimally try to achieve the universal terminal goal. Some sacrifices might be necessary. Hence the moral standard will guide you how to set up the priorities.

[alancalverd]

If my available resource is a vaccine, rat poison or a gun, I will deploy it for my own benefit and maybe yours. You won't catch me sacrificing myself for the benefit of a parasite, and if you are prepared to sacrifice yourself for the advancement of a meaningless concept, you won't find me standing next to you for long.

There is no ruling imperative to do anything, but if you do nothing some other being will destroy you.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

if you are prepared to sacrifice yourself for the advancement of a meaningless concept, you won't find me standing next to you for long.

Unwillingness to make a sacrifice can simply means willingness to make even bigger sacrifice, albeit reluctantly or unwittingly.
The concept of universal terminal goal that I've concluded in my other thread is the most meaningful goal I can think of. I quoted it in my post here marked as the best answer. Let me know if you can find a better alternative. If it's convincing enough, I'll change the best answer of this thread to your post.

[alancalverd]

I can't imagine a better alternative because I don't accept that there is or should be a UTG. Abandoning the concept makes decisions a lot easier.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I can't imagine a better alternative because I don't accept that there is or should be a UTG. Abandoning the concept makes decisions a lot easier.

What's your position regarding the universal terminal goal? Which point(s) is/are unacceptable for you?

Here is the truth table for universal terminal goal.

1 in the left column means that there is something called a goal, while 0 means denial of it.
The middle column classifies the goals in time domain. 1 means there are terminal goals, while 0 means all goals are temporary/instrumental.
The right column classifies the goals in spatial domain. 1 means there are universal goals, while 0 means all goals are partial.
x in the bottom row means that their values are meaningless, since the existence of goals have already been denied.

Those who take the position of the first row think that there exist a universal terminal goal.
Those who take the position of the second row think that there exist some terminal goals, but they vary between different parts of the universe.
Those who take the position of the third row think that there exist a universal goal, but they change with time.
Those who take the position of the fourth row think that there exist some goals, but none of them are terminal nor universal.
Those who take the position of the fifth row think that goals simply don't exist.

Doing something without thinking about its consequences first is indeed easier. But you are increasing your risk of having regrets. Establishing moral standards and rules are some efforts to minimize regrets.

[alancalverd]

The terminal goal is something you have defined but I don't accept, therefore it is not universal.

If you don't experiment, you won't learn. Some experiments generate regret because we didn't anticipate all the downsides. Who would have thought that Stephenson's Rocket or the Haber-Bosch process would precipitate global disaster?   

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The terminal goal is something you have defined but I don't accept, therefore it is not universal.

Do you think that there is something called a goal?
If you do, then you are not in the last position according to the truth table I quoted above.
Do you think that there is a terminal goal?
If there is a goal, but no terminal goal, then every goal is instrumental of other instrumental goals, on top of each other to infinity.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If you don't experiment, you won't learn. Some experiments generate regret because we didn't anticipate all the downsides. Who would have thought that Stephenson's Rocket or the Haber-Bosch process would precipitate global disaster?   

That's why we must continuously learn and never forget our past mistakes.

[alancalverd]

Do you think that there is something called a goal?

I have no evidence of any goal existing outside of the intentions of an active agent. Since many active agents compete, we observe that their goals are incompatible and therefore there is no evidence of a universal goal.

The simplest example is football. Each team strives to kick the ball into the opponents' goal and defend its own. Your argument is a "god's eye view" that the everyone is trying to kick the ball into a net, but that ignores the fundamental observations that there are two distinct nets, red shirts are not blue shirts, and each team has a goalkeeper whose job is to stop anyone kicking the ball into their net. If you ignore conflicting data, you will reach incorrect conclusions.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I have no evidence of any goal existing outside of the intentions of an active agent. Since many active agents compete, we observe that their goals are incompatible and therefore there is no evidence of a universal goal.

So you accept that goals exist, but you reject a universal goal. What's not clear yet is whether you accept that there are terminal goals for each conscious agents.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The simplest example is football. Each team strives to kick the ball into the opponents' goal and defend its own. Your argument is a "god's eye view" that the everyone is trying to kick the ball into a net, but that ignores the fundamental observations that there are two distinct nets, red shirts are not blue shirts, and each team has a goalkeeper whose job is to stop anyone kicking the ball into their net. If you ignore conflicting data, you will reach incorrect conclusions.

Amateur football players play it for fun, recreation, and keeping health. Professional football players play it for money, which can come from salary and sponsorships. All of those are instrumental goals for having good livelihoods.
What you call a "god's eye view" is actually the point of view of conscious entities who exist in the future, as required by the meaning of the word "terminal".

You keep pointing out the differences while ignoring the similarities. If you want to find a universal things, try to look for similarities among different things.

You also keep pointing out the immediate and near term goals while ignoring the long term goals. If you want to find a terminal goal, try to look for the long terms.

Scoring goals is an instrumental goal to win a football game. Other instrumental goal is to prevent your opponents from scoring goals. Some other instrumental goals can exist, although rare, such as getting your opponent disqualified.

[alancalverd]

o you accept that goals exist, but you reject a universal goal. What's not clear yet is whether you accept that there are terminal goals for each conscious agents.

I couldn't possibly tell you. I observe agents doing things, from which I can estimate their immediate goals, but I do not have the presumption to determine their unstated longterm intentions.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

o you accept that goals exist, but you reject a universal goal. What's not clear yet is whether you accept that there are terminal goals for each conscious agents.

I couldn't possibly tell you. I observe agents doing things, from which I can estimate their immediate goals, but I do not have the presumption to determine their unstated longterm intentions.

If someone doesn't have long term goals, but only has immediate goals, then those goals will no longer matter after they are achieved, or after that someone dies, whichever comes first. They would be meaningless for conscious entities who exist in the future.
The universal terminal goal must still be meaningful all the time, even when some conscious agents who tried to achieve it die in the process. It would only become meaningless when there is no single conscious entity exists in the universe, because the concept of goal itself would mean nothing by then. Although it's still possible that somehow some new conscious beings re-emerge in the universe after the extinction of all conscious beings. It would make the universal terminal goal meaningful again. But that's totally out of our control, so we shouldn't rely on that.

[alancalverd]

If someone doesn't have long term goals, but only has immediate goals, then those goals will no longer matter after they are achieved, or after that someone dies, whichever comes first. They would be meaningless for conscious entities who exist in the future.

Absolutely true. The graveyards are full of people who were once irreplaceable.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Absolutely true. The graveyards are full of people who were once irreplaceable.

The great pyramid is a graveyard. They were built with some goals in the minds of the builders. Most of those goals are no longer relevant to the lives of present societies. But one goal remains, even until far in the future, and applies anywhere in any society. It's preserving the consciousness. In other words, extending the existence of conscious entities into the future.

That universal terminal goal is the ultimate reason why we use reason at all, and not become irrationalists, hyper sceptics, or nihilists.

Why use reason?

We end up with capacity-circularity, which can't be a flaw in an argument, because it's not a property of arguments in themselves.
The capacity to reason isn't a premise or a rule, so the argument for its legitimacy need not be premise-circular or rule-circular.

This argument is closely related to anthropic principle and cogito ergo sum, which I've mentioned before.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The Illusion of Free Will

What if I told you that free will is a myth? That we are all just a group of atoms who will react to a particular stimulus in a way that can be predetermined? This is what we call free will; is it real, or just an illusion?

Moral rules/standards are just tools to modify people's decisions in favor of those who set up the rules/standards.
The universal moral standard is taken from the perspective of conscious entities who exist in the future. In practice, we who exist at the present don't have perfect knowledge of what decisions work best for them. But we can make educated guesses of what they are, by learning from experiences of present and past generations.