[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

That's why laws and moral rules were created. They supposed to tip the balance of cost and benefit to incentivize and encourage behaviors that benefit the society as a whole in the long run, and vice versa. They should make even selfish actions to bring benefits to the society.

But no matter how big the rewards and punishments promised by moral rules, they won't change the actions/behaviors of someone who are convinced that they have already secure their terminal goals, and no longer have interest in continuing their current lifeforms. Religious suicide bombers are an example. We can't modify their actions by simply adjusting the amount of rewards and punishments in order to shift their calculation of personal costs and benefits. We need to make them think and act properly, which are treating proven things as proven, and vice versa.

The Sagan standard is the adage that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (a concept abbreviated as ECREE). This signifies that the more unlikely a certain claim is, given existing evidence on the subject, the greater the standard of proof that is expected of it.
https://effectiviology.com/sagan-standard-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence/

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here's an example how rewards and punishments can be used to make selfish action to benefit society.
https://www.teslaoracle.com/2021/10/14/tesla-starts-offering-insurance-in-texas-based-on-real-time-driving-behavior/

Tesla has devised a formula for calculating the insurance premium for Tesla owners. “A default Safety Score of 90 is used to calculate the premium for your first two months,” says Tesla in its quote.

This means irrespective of your Safety Score above 90, Tesla will use the default score of 90 for the first two months. After two months, the premium rates will vary based on the Safety Score. If the Score is 90 and below 100, the premium will be $89.16/mo. If an owner maintains a score of 100 the premium will drop to $53.9/mo.

Tesla owners can save insurance money by driving safely. If the scoring system is right, they should benefit the society by reducing traffic accidents while their motivation to do so can be completely selfish.
The impact of having the wrong safety scoring system is similar to adopting the wrong moral rules or laws.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I bring this point I made in another thread, so I can elaborate further here.

Morals are basically Logic combined with goals. They are harder to achieve consensus because the terminal goals were kept obscured. The cause and effect relationships among different parameters are not perfectly known, and may involve uncertainty, chaos and black swan events.

Thus, nihilism is disqualified as a morality, due to lack of goal. It can not distinguish between the good and the bad, which is precisely what morality is all about. Saying that nihilism is a morality is like saying that abstinence is a sex position. It's defeating its own purpose.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Next to nihilism is moral relativism.

Moral relativism or ethical relativism (often reformulated as relativist ethics or relativist morality) is a term used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and their own particular cultures. An advocate of such ideas is often labeled simply as a relativist for short. In detail, descriptive moral relativism holds only that people do, in fact, disagree fundamentally about what is moral, with no judgment being expressed on the desirability of this. Meta-ethical moral relativism holds that in such disagreements, nobody is objectively right or wrong.[1] Normative moral relativism holds that because nobody is right or wrong, everyone ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when considerably large disagreements about the morality of particular things exist.[2]

Moral relativism is generally posed as a direct antithesis to "moral idealism" (also known as "ethical idealism" and "principled idealism"). Through an idealistic framework, examples being that of Kantianism and other doctrines advocated during the Enlightenment era, certain behavior seen as contrary to higher ideals often gets labeled as not only morally wrong but fundamentally irrational. However, like many fuzzy concepts, the distinction between idealist and relativist viewpoints is frequently vague.[citation needed]

Moral relativism has been debated for thousands of years across a variety of contexts during the history of civilization. Arguments of particular notability have been made in areas such as ancient Greece and historical India while discussions have continued to the present day. Besides the material created by philosophers, the concept has additionally attracted attention in diverse fields including art, religion, and science.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism

Relativists cannot judge an action as morally good or bad. They tolerate things commonly thought as immoral because they think that everything is moral by its own standard. What were done by Nazis, ISIS, Aztec Priests, Joshua, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, and Ted Bundy are not objectively wrong, they say.
Just like nihilism, moral relativism defeats its own purpose. It was the result of our inability to identify problems, and giving up searching for answer. Its like getting lost in a jungle, and then declare wherever we are as home.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Previously I've described the universal moral standard based on the universal terminal goal as the morality with the least requirements/necessary assumptions. The minimum requirements are implied by the definitions of each words in the universal terminal goal itself.
This can be seen as the basic foundation for other moralities. In other words, other moralities can be aligned with the universal moral standard by adding some conditionals or assumptions that correctly represent objective reality. If those requirements are not met, then they deviate from universal moral standard, hence universally immoral.

[alancalverd]

I think you are looking at Tesla's insurance scheme through the wrong end of the telescope. The theoretical object of an insurance premium is to collect enough money from good drivers to pay out for the damage done by the bad ones. You then adjust the premiums to encourage good drivers to contribute, and screw the bad ones to pay more.

There's nothing selfish about careful driving. Quite the opposite, in fact. So the reward is for being selfless and considerate.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I think you are looking at Tesla's insurance scheme through the wrong end of the telescope. The theoretical object of an insurance premium is to collect enough money from good drivers to pay out for the damage done by the bad ones. You then adjust the premiums to encourage good drivers to contribute, and screw the bad ones to pay more.

There's nothing selfish about careful driving. Quite the opposite, in fact. So the reward is for being selfless and considerate.

What makes you think that your side of the telescope is the right one?
Imagine a society whose moral rules penalize careful driving severely. What a selfish driver would do?

[alancalverd]

Selfish drivers cause accidents and get penalised by their insurers and the courts.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Selfish drivers cause accidents and get penalised by their insurers and the courts.

It doesn't answer my question. It simply describing observations.

What makes you think that your side of the telescope is the right one?
Imagine a society whose moral rules penalize careful driving severely. What a selfish driver would do?

Imagine further if the benefit from compensation of an accident is way higher than the loss. It would incentivize drivers to cause accidents.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

There's nothing selfish about careful driving.

The insurance discount for driving safely can motivate even selfish drivers to drive safely. That's how moral rules should work.
Story of Santa Claus can make even selfish kids to behave well.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Previously I've described the universal moral standard based on the universal terminal goal as the morality with the least requirements/necessary assumptions. The minimum requirements are implied by the definitions of each words in the universal terminal goal itself.
This can be seen as the basic foundation for other moralities. In other words, other moralities can be aligned with the universal moral standard by adding some conditionals or assumptions that correctly represent objective reality. If those requirements are not met, then they deviate from universal moral standard, hence universally immoral.

Let's start with the simplest and most basic type of morality, which is individual/personal morality. Some people may dismiss it on the ground that morality is restricted to social relationship. But it's an unnecessary assumption not based on the definition of morality.
Having personal goals can give a conscious agent basis for its morality, which will enable it to distinguish between good and bad things, and act accordingly.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Descartes told us that the only thing a conscious agent can be sure of is its own existence. Any other information can be misleading.

The ultimate justification that a conscious entity can have to support a bit of information is its necessity for enabling the existence of the conscious entity. For example, we accept the existence of corona virus because this information is necessary to create effective treatments against the negative effects brought by the virus and keep us alive.

[alancalverd]

Story of Santa Claus can make even selfish kids to behave well.

but only for selfish motives. When did the promise of gifts inspire a selfish scumbag to think of others?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Story of Santa Claus can make even selfish kids to behave well.

but only for selfish motives. When did the promise of gifts inspire a selfish scumbag to think of others?

That's precisely the purpose of reward and punishment systems based on moral rules. Societies need it as long as they don't have access to read the mind of conscious agents and modify them so their goals and preferences are aligned with the goals and preferences of the society. It doesn't really matter what they think. What they actually do is more important for the society. It's especially true for conscious agents with limited thinking capacity, such as little kids, mentally disabled, or the illiterates.
I heard that people are getting sick of thought and prayers offered each time a mass shooting happened, while nothing else has been done by politicians to effectively prevent it from happening again.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Descartes told us that the only thing a conscious agent can be sure of is its own existence. Any other information can be misleading.

The ultimate justification that a conscious entity can have to support a bit of information is its necessity for enabling the existence of the conscious entity. For example, we accept the existence of corona virus because this information is necessary to create effective treatments against the negative effects brought by the virus and keep us alive.

Simpler forms of conscious entities don't have enough capacities to reason in the long run. They must rely on shortcut thinking, which I mentioned here previously.

Part of the magic of reinforcement learning relies on regularly rewarding the agents for actions that lead to a better outcome. That models works great in dense reward environments like games in which almost every action correspond to a specific feedback but what happens if that feedback is not available? In reinforcement learning this is known as sparse rewards environments and, unfortunately, it’s a representation of most real-world scenarios. A couple of years ago, researchers from Google published a new paper proposing a technique for achieving generalization with reinforcement learning that operate in sparse reward environments.

I bring this here from my other thread because it can help us understand the fundamental requirements for sustainable moral standards.
Survival of consciousness is the universal ultimate reward. But its success or failure may not be obvious for billions of years in a world where consciousness can naturally emerge. Natural consciousness came up with survival of species and individual survival as meta rewards or instrumental goals. The results can be found in shorter periods, eg. million years or decades, respectively.
Pain avoidance and pleasure from eating food have made good meta rewards for individual survival. While sexual desire and instinctive care for the young have made good meta rewards for survival of species.

When a conscious entity has adequate level of consciousness, it will start to realize that there are other conscious entities besides itself. Some of them are similar in many aspects, while some others can be very different.
It will then realize that other conscious entities stop existing. Although it will not realize when it has already stopped existing itself. But it can reason that it too can stop existing in the future. It can conclude that one of the best strategy to preserve consciousness is to create back ups or duplicates of itself.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

A personal morality can be intersecting with universal morality if the following assumption is true.
Following that personal morality will be more likely to help achieving the universal terminal goal, which is the purpose of universal moral standard. As long as it's not a Laplace's demon, some uncertainties will be involved in considerations.

[alancalverd]

I heard that people are getting sick of thought and prayers

A prayer is an insult to both the worshipper and his god. If your god is not omnipotent and omniscient, you are wasting your time seeking his help. If he is omnipotent and omniscient, you are questioning his design and engineering.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

When a conscious entity has adequate level of consciousness, it will start to realize that there are other conscious entities besides itself. Some of them are similar in many aspects, while some others can be very different.
It will then realize that other conscious entities stop existing. Although it will not realize when it has already stopped existing itself. But it can reason that it too can stop existing in the future. It can conclude that one of the best strategy to preserve consciousness is to create back ups or duplicates of itself.

Since the most reliable information is its own existence, then it's only natural for earlier conscious entities to assume that the best way to extend the existence of consciousness is by preserving other conscious entities similar to itself. They could be identified by their common traits, such as shape, size, color, sound, smell, or other unique signatures. Insects are known to use smell signals extensively to identify allies from enemies, although it can sometimes back fire.
This assumption would then lead to kin selection. Combined with the realization of their own mortality, conscious entities then develop kin altruism.
In other words, kin morality for a conscious entity works based on following assumptions:
1. The conscious entity embracing it is mortal.
2. The other conscious entities with similar traits as itself are the best candidates to extend consciousness to the future after its own death.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

In other words, kin morality for a conscious entity works based on following assumptions:
1. The conscious entity embracing it is mortal.
2. The other conscious entities with similar traits as itself are the best candidates to extend consciousness to the future after its own death.

Here are some implications from above reasoning:

• A truly immortal conscious entity doesn't need kin morality/altruism.
  
• With many different traits taking into consideration, it's necessary to define the weights for similarities of each traits to choose which other conscious entities to defend. Is similarity in shape more important than similarity in smell, etc.

There are some things to consider in following the reasoning.

• Some conscious entities significantly different than a particular conscious entity can be convincingly proven better at surviving, compared to other conscious entities more similar to itself.
  
• Different traits can be better or worse for survival, depending on the environmental conditions, which include both conscious and non-conscious entities.
• The environmental conditions in the future can be different than how they are now, or how they were in the past.
• To predict the environmental conditions in the future to make correct decisions, it's necessary to build a relevant, accurate, and precise virtual universe in some forms

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

When a conscious entity has adequate level of consciousness, it will start to realize that there are other conscious entities besides itself.

For new members not familiar with my threads, this may sound like unnecessary assumption. But it's the most likely situation that we know so far, as shown in the video below.

Why do things exist? Setting the stage for evolution.
This video kicks off the evolution series by going broad and thinking about why things - including non-living things - exist at all. The first in a series on evolution.

The major premises are:

• It's very unlikely for a complex system like conscious entities to emerge spontaneously in a single random event.
  
• Mortal conscious entities are vulnerable from environmental events, and they are very unlikely to survive for long unless they can replicate.
  
• Environmental conditions change from time to time, which may require different traits as possible solutions. So some variations/diversities in the duplicates of a conscious entity are likely to be beneficial in the long run. They give some flexibilities for the group of conscious entities to survive in different possible environmental conditions. A group of exactly the same duplicates of a conscious entity is vulnerable to common mode failures.