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Cake day: July 16th, 2024

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  • When it comes to cloning or copying, I always have to remind people: at least half of what you are today, is the environment of today. And your clone X time in the future won’t and can’t have that.

    The same thing is likely for these models. Inflate them again 100 years in the future, and maybe they’re interesting for inspecting as a historical artifact, but most certainly they wouldn’t be used the same way as they had been here and how. It’d just, be something different.

    Which would beg the question, why?

    I feel like a subset of sci-fi and philosophical meandering really is just increasingly convoluted paths of trying to avoid or come to terms with death as a possibly necessary component of life.


  • This kind of thing is a fluff piece, meant to be suggestive but ultimately saying nothing at all. There are many reasons to hate Bostrom, just read his words, but this is two philosophers who apparently need attention because they have nothing useful to say. All of Bostrom’s points here could be summed up as “don’t piss on things, generally speaking.”

    As for consciousness. Honestly, my brain turns off instantly when someone tries to make any point about consciousness. Seriously though, does anyone actually use the category of “conscious / unconscious” to make any decision?

    I don’t disrespect the dead (not conscious). I don’t bother animals or insects when I have no business with them (conscious maybe not conscious?). I don’t treat my furniture or clothes like shit, and am generally pleased they exist. (not conscious). When encountering something new or unusual, I just ask myself, “is it going to bite me?” first. (consciousness is irrelevant) I know some of my actions do harm either directly or indirectly to other things, such as eating, or consuming, or making mistakes, or being. But I don’t assume myself a hero or arbiter of moral integrity, I merely acknowledge and do what I can. Again, consciousness kind of irrelevant.

    Does anyone run consciousness litmus tests on their friends or associates first before interacting, ever? If so, does it sting?





  • Why so general? The multi-agent dynamical systems theory needed to heal internal conflicts such as auto-immune disorders may not be so different from those needed to heal external conflicts as well, including breakdowns in social and political systems.

    This isn’t, an answer to the question why so general? This is aspirational philosophical goo. “multi-agent dynamical systems theory” => you mean any theory that takes composite view of a larger system? Like Chemistry? Biology?Physics? Sociology? Economics? “Why so general” may as well be “why so uncommitted?”

    I feel bayesian rationalism has basically missed the point of inference and immediately fallen into the regression to the mean trap of “the general answer to any question shouldn’t say anything in particular at all.”