The Path (was: This War Is Not About Terror...)

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Wed Oct 10 2001 - 03:32:49 MDT


Amara Graps wrote:
>
> Robert J. Bradbury:
>
> (keeping the subject line to follow the tangent)

(changing the subject line to inform the readers)

> >I believe those differences to be significant. However "experiential"
> >belief must deal with "consentual" belief (presumably the scientific
> >reality). In the face of significant evidence to the contrary -- I am
> >going to trust that my senses may have experienced a misperception
> >rather than go against commonly accepted scientific principles. I will
> >none-the-less place those scientific principles on trial for
> >examination with regard to their validity. That I believe is the
> >Extropic path. If what one has experienced is in conflict with the
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >generally accepted reality then one should place the whole body of
> >evidence on trial.
>
> I infinitely prefer the 'Amara Graps path' to someone else's path...
> dunno why, but it seems to suit me somehow.
>
> I suspect that you, Robert, prefer the 'Robert Bradbury path' over
> someone else's path too.

Under the Eliezer Yudkowsky path, the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path' is a
successive approximation to THE PATH. Where the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path'
is found to diverge from THE PATH, the Eliezer Yudkowsky path says to
modify the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path' accordingly. Furthermore, the Eliezer
Yudkowsky path states that the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path' is preferable to
the 'Osama bin Laden path' only insofar as the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path' is
closer to THE PATH, not because it happens to be Eliezer Yudkowsky's
path. The Eliezer Yudkowsky path states that if another path is closer to
THE PATH than the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path', this 'better path' should be
preferred to the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path', even if it should happen to
belong to someone else.

So far, the above property of the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path' has been
preserved through all modifications of the 'Eliezer Yudkowsky path' by the
Eliezer Yudkowsky path.

Due to some of the other modifications by the Eliezer Yudkowsky path, the
'Eliezer Yudkowsky path' has gone from (a) asserting that THE PATH is
completely observer-independent to (b) admitting of the possibility, and
even considering as the null hypothesis, that THE PATH is inherent to the
human frame of reference, or rather to the frame of reference of a large
cluster of evolved social species. The Eliezer Yudkowsky path has thus
reluctantly acknowledged that THE PATH may not be portable between all
conceivable minds-in-general. However, the Eliezer Yudkowsky path is
still very allergic to non-intraspecies-portable path components, i.e.
path components structurally rooted to a particular human individual by
the use of a direct reference to that individual at the lowest level of
path content. The Eliezer Yudkowsky path is especially allergic to
non-portable path components that are directly grounded in evolved
selfishness or are visibly the product of evolved observer biases.

The Eliezer Yudkowsky path applauds the Robert Bradbury path for adopting
as path content that part of the 'Extropic path' which describes the
scientific procedure for reevaluating evidence, since the Eliezer
Yudkowsky path currently models this to be part of THE PATH as well.

-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



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