SAMUEL RATNAM

Extended Minds, Survival and Consciousness

written edited 68 nodes

Is the truth depressing? Some may find it so. But I find it liberating, and consoling. When I believed that my existence was a such a further fact, I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air. There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. Other people are closer. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others.

When I believed the Non-Reductionist View, I also cared more about my inevitable death. After my death, there will no one living who will be me. I can now redescribe this fact. Though there will later be many experiences, none of these experiences will be connected to my present experiences by chains of such direct connections as those involved in experience-memory, or in the carrying out of an earlier intention. Some of these future experiences may be related to my present experiences in less direct ways. There will later be some memories about my life. And there may later be thoughts that are influenced by mine, or things done as the result of my advice. My death will break the more direct relations between my present experiences and future experiences, but it will not break various other relations. This is all there is to the fact that there will be no one living who will be me. Now that I have seen this, my death seems to me less bad.

— Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

It is clear that ethics cannot be stated.

Ethics is transcendental.

(Ethics and aesthetics are one.)

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

6.44

Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystical.

Viewing the world sub specie aeterni is viewing it as a—limited—whole.

Feeling the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling.

[...]

We feel that even if all possible scientific questions were answered, the problems of life would remain completely untouched. To be sure, not a single question would then be left; and precisely this is the answer.

6.521 The solution to the problem of life is found in the vanishing of the problem. (Is this not the reason why those to whom the meaning of life became clear after prolonged doubt, could not then say in what this meaning consisted?)

6.522 There is, though, the ineffable. This shows itself, it is the mystical.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
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  • When thinking about what constitutes me, there seem to be three components worth considering:60
    • (1) The experiences generated by my brain47
      • It feels like my most basic intuitions and instincts passed down from evolution compel me to anticipate my future experiences, and make decisions with this in mind
      • I also have intuitions and instincts and emotions which compel me to care about the future experiences of the people around me intrinsically2
        • The more I care about someone, the more I will care about their future experiences1
          • Given (A), does it make sense to care inherently about the experiences of people I care about more than those of other people or do I care about these experiences more instrumentally because of my attachment to (2) or (3)?
      • suffering is inherently bad, this is an ethical axiom I am willing to accept as an anti-realist23
        • Consider the case of someone climbing everest, and experiencing moderate suffering during the climb but a sense of achievement at the end, is this suffering inherently bad?11
          • Part of me has intuitions that this is a good kind of suffering, how to reconcile/inspect this intuition?10
            • Would this be better if they had memories of the suffering implanted instead of actually experiencing it?
            • No because it involves deception
            • Maybe agency is a more fundamental value than anti-suffering
            • Is this real suffering? The climber has a preference to be in that state of suffering than to be without it6
              • What does this actually mean though? The experience is clearly unpleasant (at least some of the experiences are)5
                • There is a tension between the emotional parts telling the climber that the suffering is bad, and the more rational deliberative part that wants to have climbed a mountain, including the suffering that would have come with it1
                  • what makes one part more valid than the other?
                • perhaps at each moment of suffering during the climb, the climber has a preference to be without it, but not without the totality, preferences are not necessarily rational
                • The suffering is still inherently bad, but because the climber values the suffering inherently, it is both a good and a bad to them1
                  • inherently good and inherently bad simultaneously seems contradictory, but it is in two different sense/performing two different roles
        • Feels similar to a case of a suffering artist or a character in a story whose life would be so boring if conflict free10
          • Seems in these cases, it is still easier to say that that the suffering is still bad morally
          • Maybe this is where ethics decouples from aesthetics8
            • I don't like this decoupling, value is value
            • Actually, I guess it's easy to say that there are cases in which I care more about ethical values than aesthetic values2
              • Not all my values are ethical values, and I would not want them to be1
                • Perhaps because of my aesthetic values?
            • It seems that ought is a question of values and not of ethics
            • Aesthetic values can say things about worlds with no conscious observers, while ethics can't2
              • Do I care about worlds with no conscious observers?1
                • intuitively no, but maybe the patterns of my preferences may reveal something else
      • when in pain, I want the pain to stop
      • (A) Conscious experience is not persistent in a meaningful sense, you have no (theoretical) reason to anticipate your future experiences16
        • consider replacing every neuron in your brain one by one with a replica, you should expect no change in conscious experience
        • Suppose we now did this swap instantaneously
        • Given that this is a perfect replica, there is no empirically observable difference between doing the swap instantaneously and not doing the swap at all
        • What happens as we do the swap faster and faster?
        • consciousness emerges from certain kinds of brain processing6
          • this is why we are not conscious when in dreamlike sleep
          • analogous to how magnetic fields emerge from moving charges4
            • what criteria do we have to determine that a magnetic field at time $t_1$ is one and the same as a magnetic field at time $t2$
            • if the charges stop moving and start moving again, how can we say that this is the same magnetic field? There is no continuity
            • Why would consciousness be any different? When we awake from dreamless sleep, what reason do we have to believe this is the same consciousness from the night before?
            • there doesn't seem to be any clear identity relation between a magnetic field from moment to moment, and likewise with consciousness
        • imagine that the universe is like conway's game of life, an set of discrete states evolving at discrete timesteps according to a fixed set of rules2
          • at each timestep the board gets drawn anew - it seems that what makes an entity in the game of life one and the same as a prior entity is a matter of perception
          • as we make this more and more continuous, as dt -> 0 and dx -> 0, what difference should this make?
        • to believe in a persistent experiencer is to believe in an essential cartesian ego as opposed to an emergent generated phenomena
        • consciousness is continuous and unified or at least appears continuous and unified
      • when corpus callosum is severed, it seems this splits into two separate streams of consciousness
    • (2) The algorithm instantiated by my brain7
      • I care about my memories and personality and goals and beliefs2
        • I care about my memories partly because they shape who I am, but partly because they are artefacts of experiences I confer inherent value to, and I care about their preservation, which is maybe not an algorithmic property
        • the other things are properties of algorithms
      • if I were to lose my personality and memories and things that individuate me, this is equivalent to death in some sense
      • extended mind thesis: there are parts of me that are not part of my biological organism, my mind extends into the world around me2
        • parts of me I care about can stretch on through time after I am dead, and this is a nice thought
        • I am also part of a larger collective mind of humanity
    • (3) My biological organism3
      • My body is a part of me, and it is easy to say that it is me
      • My body is a more interesting system than a computer, with many systems working together in incredibly complex ways to construct and reconstruct itself, no distinction between memory and processing, between tape and program
      • i am a continuously evolving state in a way that is much more natural to think about holistically as a complex system than algorithmically, as a program operating on inputs
  • meta thoughts6
    • should I share these notes with other people, how will this affect how I write them?3
      • maybe more self conscious/self filtering
      • maybe force me to make it more understandable/well reasoned
      • I could always synthesise afterwards and then share
    • should I indicate when chains of thoughts feel resolved/complete vs open1
      • AI highlighting based on llm output to indicate which paths are most promising would be kinda cool here (though probably not worth the effort)

Free Will

written edited 56 nodes

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  • Basic argument5
    • Your current actions are either determined by the circumstances of the action, or by you
    • Either this is random in which case you can't be responsible for your action, or it is dependent on your character in some way
    • But your character is determined either by circumstance, chance or your past actions
    • Infinite regress
    • Can't hold anyone morally responsible
  • Moral responsibility in practice6
    • We can't escape our reactive attitudes, I wouldn't want to
    • How do you stop feeling resentment without also stopping feeling gratitude
    • Resentment is not the same as moral responsibility
    • I can hate who you are in full knowledge of how you came to be that2
      • It does make it harder though, knowing that I would have been you1
        • You can hate yourself
  • Types of possibility:25
    • Quantum (probabilistic) possibility2
      • This is stupid criterion
      • Suppose that the quantum outcomes were generated by a pseudorandom generator, suppose it were written on an long piece of paper before the universe began, surely this shouldn't make a difference metaphysically speaking to whether an action was performed freely or not
    • Epistemic possibility - there exists no predictor5
      • Accounts for manipulation/coercion cases
      • "Freedom not in theory, but in practice"
      • This also seems kinda silly - predictability does not imply constraint1
        • If I have a choice between two options: one clearly better than the other, then I will predictably choose the one better for me, by virtue of it being a free choice
      • Perhaps the predictor needs to take advantage of their predictions to satisfy their values over yours
    • Black box algorithm - suppose we treat your brain as a black box algorithm taking in your sensory data as input, and outputting some action. It should be possible relative to this black box frame, for you to have $\phi$ed and not $\phi$ed4
      • Does not account for drug addict case2
        • Make the black box more narrow - treat addiction as fixed
        • But it's not - it can be changed, scope of black box is arbitrary
      • Predictors don't count
    • Libertarianism4
      • Adopt an agent-centred (teleological?) picture of causality
      • Why do rocks fall? Because they want to reach the earth
      • We are operating within the frame of "events must have mechanistic causes"
      • Time symmetry of physics?
    • Backwards causality1
      • My actions create the prior conditions necessary for them to occur.
    • Jason criteria:3
      • Knowledge of option set
      • Ability to choose from option set
      • Ability to execute
  • Agency as understanding2
    • meta awareness of the forces at play - reflective endorsement of values
    • you can understand the chains around you, this does not make you free
  • Agency as ability to enact your values in the world
  • When are people unagentic?2
    • Following the default, no reflective knowledge
    • Not realising what they can do
  • Test cases:9
    • Chess game1
      • Your first move is more free than a forced checkmate
    • Drug addict2
      • There is a sense in which the drug addict is free, their values have just been shifted
      • They lack reflective endorsement
    • Gun to head1
      • Similar to forced 3 move checkmate in some sense
    • Cult1
      • Similar to drug addict in some sense

Thoughts on Ethics

written edited 22 nodes

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  • Given moral anti-realism, why be moral?7
    • Also given moral realism, why be moral?
    • Patrick - skullduggery pleasant, characters know that they are being brainwashed, but they don't care, because they are being brainwashed5
      • I am aware that morality is fundamentally arbitrary, but I am still subject to it, and therefore I hold on to it because it's the right thing to do under this arbitrary system1
        • floating circle
      • I can't escape the system because I am within the system and the system tells me not to escape
      • I really like this analogy
      • Surely there are some systems like this that we should escape (eg. a cult/brainwashing). What makes morality different?
  • Given anti-realism, what do we mean by morality?13
    • Moral values are not separate from/ in conflict with non-moral values. Morality is a fuzzy category which we use to categorise the values we already have6
      • doesn't feel completely right5
        • moral values are the ones I should do?
        • I happen to care about the taste of my food more than the suffering inflicted to a cow that produces the milk, evidenced by the fact I'm not vegan3
          • What do we mean by "care about"?1
            • How you act and why
          • I could be vegan but I don't want to be
    • Morality is caring about other sentient beings1
      • To care about a sentient being is not just to care about their pleasure and pain but also their flourishing
    • Morality is a system based on some hinge propositions3
      • "Suffering is bad" is an ethical axiom I take to be true
      • We try to create a system to fit our intuitions, but not overfit
      • Use moral intuitions as datapoints and extrapolate
zone of chaosnormalcy