TLDR: I think morality is subjective. My ideal society would maximize total happiness while minimizing happiness inequality for as many beings as possible...
"Do you feel that what you're doing is 'articulating your utility function’?"
Partially. I’m articulating the part of me that gets utility from feeling like it’s making a positive impact. I cover the rest of it a little by mentioning that I think what I define as happiness is equivalent to what I perceive as utility.
"What would you say is the relationship between your morality and your causal model of reality?"
By causal model of reality, do you mean how I perceive reality? If so, I don’t have much of an idea.
In case this helps, I cautiously believe that I’m essentially a biological machine. I feel the environment is essentially an input to my genetics which represent my code. I think my genes lead me to have the beliefs I have. And, as I essentially said, since none of us control the genetics we have at birth that leads me to have empathy for everyone.
But that’s a gut feeling. I haven’t studied biology since High School in 2005.
I didn’t think about things to the point where I considered something like whether we're all one consciousness. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s not the case, but if I decided I felt that way, I’d rethink what I wrote in this post.
Thanks for sharing! I agree with the biological robot bit, but I would interpret genes as being something like firmware, and learned beliefs as being something like software, under the caveat that we aren’t built on a Von Neumann architecture.
What I was asking was something akin to, “do you think your beliefs about cause and effect impudence your morality, or vice versa”
For example, I’m guessing you have some beliefs about guns - both how they work but also whether they are good or bad or neutral, for example, but that your DNA doesn’t encode these beliefs because guns didn’t exist in our evolutionary environment. Do you have thoughts on how causality works there?
I’m not sure what you mean by impudence. I looked it up, but the definitions I found didn’t seem to fit. I’ll try to answer based on your example.
I agree that guns are a recent enough invention that I don’t think they’ve caused anyone to evolve significantly. And my impression is that classic evolution theory is correct and it would say that we’d eventually evolve to adapt to guns being in the environment. And I guess if we evolve genetically then our morality changes too.
But I think everything I see, hear, and choose to believe about guns is based on how I’m essentially programmed to react to the environment. So even if my biology and therefore my morals evolve in response to guns, I think guns were ultimately created because someone’s genetic code led them to do it.
But then I could go back and wonder how was the first being created? Did the environment cause that? Or is consciousness fundamental? So it’s a "chicken and egg" situation. And I feel pretty clueless about that question.
I hope that answers your question. I’m curious about what your thoughts are on what I said anyway.
Hi! I'm interested in following the unpacking here.
Do you feel that what you're doing is 'articulating your utility function'?
What would you say is the relationship between your morality and your causal model of reality?
"Do you feel that what you're doing is 'articulating your utility function’?"
Partially. I’m articulating the part of me that gets utility from feeling like it’s making a positive impact. I cover the rest of it a little by mentioning that I think what I define as happiness is equivalent to what I perceive as utility.
"What would you say is the relationship between your morality and your causal model of reality?"
By causal model of reality, do you mean how I perceive reality? If so, I don’t have much of an idea.
In case this helps, I cautiously believe that I’m essentially a biological machine. I feel the environment is essentially an input to my genetics which represent my code. I think my genes lead me to have the beliefs I have. And, as I essentially said, since none of us control the genetics we have at birth that leads me to have empathy for everyone.
But that’s a gut feeling. I haven’t studied biology since High School in 2005.
I didn’t think about things to the point where I considered something like whether we're all one consciousness. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s not the case, but if I decided I felt that way, I’d rethink what I wrote in this post.
Thanks for sharing! I agree with the biological robot bit, but I would interpret genes as being something like firmware, and learned beliefs as being something like software, under the caveat that we aren’t built on a Von Neumann architecture.
What I was asking was something akin to, “do you think your beliefs about cause and effect impudence your morality, or vice versa”
For example, I’m guessing you have some beliefs about guns - both how they work but also whether they are good or bad or neutral, for example, but that your DNA doesn’t encode these beliefs because guns didn’t exist in our evolutionary environment. Do you have thoughts on how causality works there?
I’m not sure what you mean by impudence. I looked it up, but the definitions I found didn’t seem to fit. I’ll try to answer based on your example.
I agree that guns are a recent enough invention that I don’t think they’ve caused anyone to evolve significantly. And my impression is that classic evolution theory is correct and it would say that we’d eventually evolve to adapt to guns being in the environment. And I guess if we evolve genetically then our morality changes too.
But I think everything I see, hear, and choose to believe about guns is based on how I’m essentially programmed to react to the environment. So even if my biology and therefore my morals evolve in response to guns, I think guns were ultimately created because someone’s genetic code led them to do it.
But then I could go back and wonder how was the first being created? Did the environment cause that? Or is consciousness fundamental? So it’s a "chicken and egg" situation. And I feel pretty clueless about that question.
I hope that answers your question. I’m curious about what your thoughts are on what I said anyway.