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Ed:

I thought your 'remorse' argument, as evidence that it is possible to personally value wrongly, was well made.

regards,
Fred

Post 62

Friday, March 30, 2012 - 7:53am

Ed:

Imagine that, as a scheme for continuously reprogramming our wet but neural nets: to seek value by minimizing/avoiding remorse!

Yet, that is being driven by avoiding a negative.

What is the -positive- word I'm looking for, which is the opposite of 'remorse?'

It can't simply be gratification, can it?

Impenitence?

When we are sorry that we valued wrongly, we feel remorse.

When we are glad that we valued correctly, we feel:

gratification?
impenitence?
justification?
reward?
some or all of the above?

I feel like those are missing the mark...

Say I was a frugal robot, and wanted to self-program my value seeking neural-nets with the least possible use of valuable limited nodes.

Would it be a better value, in terms of avoiding risk in this universe and seeking profitable use of my limited mote of heat and light and time, to program to minimize/avoid remorse(avoid a negative), or to program to seek some subset of possibly more complex positive goals?

'Avoid failure' is easily balanced by 'Seek success' , but neither of those are sufficiently informative. I don't know, but I wonder; is it the case, when we look into the sub-classifcations of either, that the 'success' side of the taxonomy has far more facets than the failure side?

I just ask these questions. I don't have the answers.

regards,
Fred

Post 63

Friday, March 30, 2012 - 11:46am

Fred,

I believe the word you are looking for is "Joy".

Post 64

Friday, March 30, 2012 - 12:52pm

Thanks, Fred.

I don't have the answers, either, but I like Mike's answer: joy. You can qualify it to make it even better than the generic version, by adding a timed-release function to extend the effect through time: lasting joy. And you can also add-in Rand's advice to obtain your specific variety of joy via a process that is completely free of all contradiction, yielding the super-enhanced, extra-accurate, hyper-relevant, fully-loaded and turbo-charged version:

lasting, noncontradictory joy

:-)

If you can get a little of that kind of a thing in your time on Earth, then you are off to the races. However, this won't work on robots who are incapable of lasting, noncontradictory joy (so I'm not sure if it answers your question). But it's meant to work well for humans.

:-)

Ed

Post 65

Saturday, March 31, 2012 - 2:25pm

Fred,

... is it the case, when we look into the sub-classifcations of either, that the 'success' side of the taxonomy has far more facets than the failure side?

Aristotle
Aristotle once said that there are a million ways to do something wrong, but only one (best) way to do it right. If we assume he was right, then it would appear that the failure side of the taxonomy would have more facets than the success side -- failure being any number of a million different things, and success being just that one thing, performed in the precise way it is supposed to be performed, inside of the precise environment or 'action arena' (the context) in which the actor is acting to achieve a 'rationally-legitimizable' goal. Take horseback riding.

An Example
You can try to ride a horse while facing backwards, but steering would be a problem -- and low-hanging light-posts might introduce themselves into your personal space at injurious speeds, providing you with some hard evidence that perhaps you have discovered one of the wrong ways to ride a horse. In response to this, you may attempt to stand up on the horse while facing forward -- only to discover that when the horse reaches a trot, you lose your footing and fall off the horse again -- reminding you that you have found another wrong way to accomplish this task. The list of wrong ways to ride a horse, Aristotle thought, is endless -- but there is only one (best) way to do it right.

Key Aspect
Besides getting the knowledge, skill, and ability to perform the task well, you have to ask yourself if it is the right task to perform in the first place. The only way to know that is to first know what kind of a creature you are, and what kinds of things enhance the life of that kind of creature. You would have to ask yourself things such as:

Do I have the capacity to die?
Do I have the capacity to feel (sentience)?
Do I have the capacity to know (sapience)?
Do I have the capacity for a sublime sense of enrichment that makes one stop, take a step back, and say: "Now, this is what makes life worth living!"

Depending on your answers to the questions (and there are probably more questions than just these), you will be able to create a rough sketch or outline of the kinds of things to be at least sporadically working on with your time on Earth, in order to actualize your particular level of potentiality.

Frugal Robots
In your case of a frugal robot, the robot might become aware that in order to function, "he" needs a power supply. He might become aware that power doesn't grow on trees, or fall from the sky whenever needed. He might discover that, in the purposeful production of a power source, a complex chain of actions are involved and that, along with other like-minded robots, they could divide up the necessary work and trade their own talent and time in a market, in order to achieve an amount of power so sufficient that it would power all cooperating robots for several hours a day.

If being active for more than several hours a day was found to be of benefit, the robots might innovate and create labor-saving devices or devise whole networks of interacting machinery -- in order to procure power for every one of them for 24 hours a day. If having even more power than would be needed to activate all robots for 24 hours a day was found to be of benefit, then they would repeat and tweak the procedure even moreso -- either that or, as in the movie: The Matrix, they would begin to use human bodies as "batteries."

The standard by which the robot will judge between all these alternatives is the robot's very own potentiality (identity). If the robot is a kind of creature that has the capacity for excitement, then perhaps the robots will innovate and produce so much energy that they can stay powered up and online for 24 hours a day ... watching Chuck Norris movies. If the robots were more of say, a "female" persuasion, complete with a thorough-going capacity for empathy, then they might discover a way to get so much energy that they can perpetually watch "Sex and the City" reruns, keeping some of those 'mechanics rags' around for during the sad parts, when they cry oil tears ... and comfort one another with sympathetic, robot-soothing gestures.

Conclusion
Whatever the case, being one kind of a thing rather than any other kind of a thing (ie. having identity), they will have some kind of potentiality that they could, if they were sufficiently moral, actualize.

Related
Ayn Rand dealt with immortal, indestructible robots (IIRs) who could not ever gain a sense of urgency. Even if they had the learning of a particular skill as one of their questionably-justifiable "personal preferences", there would be no impetus for beginning to practice it (because they would have all of eternity before they would ever have to get around to it). If you know you will never die no matter what, then what reason could there ever be for attempting to accomplish anything? Let's say you decided to learn to play the piano in the year 1920, but then you got side-tracked watching Charlie Chaplan reruns for approximately 10,000 years. At that moment -- the year: 11920 AD -- you realize that you have forgotten how to play the piano, but is that really a loss? Can you not simply start back up at square one, without the loss of any level of value in your life?

If that is the case, then was it ever really even of value to learn the piano in the first place?

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/31, 2:37pm)

Post 66

Sunday, April 1, 2012 - 1:14pm

M. T. Stern quoted Rand, "By 'philosophically objective,' I mean a value estimated from the standpoint of the best possible to man, i.e., by the criterion of the most rational mind possessing the greatest knowledge, in a given category, in a given period, and in a defined context (nothing can be estimated in an undefined context)." He responded:

This seems to give dictatorial power for determining value to a single being.

Not dictatorial power. The power here is simply one of rational estimation. No one else is forced to accept it.

There are a few things that I would like clarified: what if two beings are equally rational and knowledgeable (I have assumed away all issues about how one goes about demonstrating "most rational" and "greatest knowledge)? Would they necessarily estimate the same value?

Yes, I think so, because they are estimating a value from the standpoint of the best possible to man, and since they both possess the same knowledge and the same rationality, they would both arrive at the same estimate. But what is the purpose of the question? What is your point?

Also, is an estimate "objectively true"?

If the estimate is accurate, then it's true. There is no such thing as "objective" as against "subjective" truth. The distinction between subjective and objective doesn't apply in this context. Since truth is the correspondence of an idea to reality, there can be only one truth, not different truths for different people. You could say that truth is objective, I suppose, if by "objective" you simply meant that the truth does not vary from person to person.

(Edited by William Dwyer on 4/01, 1:21pm)

Post 67

Sunday, April 1, 2012 - 2:12pm

Good points, Bill.

If the estimate is accurate, then it's true. There is no such thing as "objective" as against "subjective" truth. The distinction between subjective and objective doesn't apply in this context.

I take that to mean that in the process of estimation, the distinction between subjective and objective doesn't apply. But aren't there ever subjective estimations? I'd say so. Subjective estimations are not really formal -- comprehensive and reproducible -- estimations, but they do occur. In fact, any time someone makes an error in coming up with an estimate, then that estimate can be said to be somewhat subjective in regard to the specific error they made. Afterall, more competent investigators will, in the process of estimating the exact same thing, these more competent investigators will come up with a different estimate (because their estimate is free of the errors of the first one).

For example, take a so-called economic estimation from Paul Krugman or Robert Reich, regarding the immense prosperity to be expected from the government redistributing wealth in a socialist scheme. If you ask Krugman or Reich what the effect of redistributed wealth would be on the markets of the economy -- in their "estimation" it would create an economic boon. But isn't it proper to say that their estimations are not objective estimations rather than merely being innocent miscalculations (such as forgetting to 'carry over' a number during a math problem)?

Now, you can say that it isn't estimation, per se, but truth -- which is always objective. But again I would have a problem with that. Truth involves a mind and reality. Truth is the correspondence of a mind with reality. But due to what philosophers call "privileged access" there are some things about reality that only you can know. Let's say you have a toothache and are trying to describe it. You may be able to describe it pretty well, but you will not be able to describe it perfectly well -- so well that there would be no difference between your knowledge about your toothache (intensity, sharpness of pain, radiance of pain throughout face, etc.) and their knowledge about your toothache.

In the specific case of a toothache, I maintain, they would have to feel what you feel, in order to know what you know.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/01, 2:22pm)

Post 68

Monday, April 2, 2012 - 6:45am

Ed/Mike:

"Joy" is the best choice for what I was looking for, I agree, qualified in the same way that 'remorse' was, in the sense of seeking right values.

What I mean by that is, in some sense, a criminal or sociopath might feel 'joy' at a crime well done, or 'remorse' that it didn't go better. (See the movie 'The Italian Job' for examples of both of those, one followed quickly by the other.) But that is a perversion of values.

I've said it before, but I think it is painfully clear where those perversion of values come from: the simple fact that crime is easier than calculus in realizing gratification of wants and needs. There must be some other element other than shortest path (efficient robot)to existential gratification which defines right values.

The efficient seeking of wrong values-- crime -- I think comes from many sources, the simplest of which is simply 'broken human.' But I think there is another source, a kind of irresistible for some gravitational force around that whole 'crime is easier than calculus' thing. Literally, a potential well-- a kind of falling down hill. This force, I think, wears down not just broken humans but imperfect humans -- ie, humans, when the attraction of alternative values is insufficient to overcome the attraction of the short cuts.

Short cuts to where? To regimes of human gratification not burdened by the pride of doing it right, by the value one feels when one realizes a gratification of a want or need not using the shortest path, but the shortest path that is also the right path.

Shortest path has a common meaning between humans and frugal robots, but not common qualifications; we are all, all of us, given only a finite mote of heat and light and time and energy and animation in which to choose and seek value in this universe.

And, choose and seek we must, or else all of the above are more finite still; the universe and its laws are rigged in that fashion, risk is unavoidable and can only be managed.

To me, so much of crime/wrong value has a foundation of unwillingly shedding risk onto others. Once a human has concluded that, due to his own existential terror at the universe and its rules, it is OK to frantically claw and climb over the backs of others, then anything goes, and the right path is only the path towards the top of the seething pile of struggling humanity, gained no matter how.

I think what makes that 'wrong' helps identify what makes other paths 'right.'

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 4/02, 6:45am)

Post 69

Monday, April 2, 2012 - 8:13am

Fred,

... when the attraction of alternative values is insufficient to overcome the attraction of the short cuts.

This, I believe, is the hum-dinger. This is the Holy Grail. If you could arm yourself or others with the right knowledge, understanding, and attitude -- wherein the attraction of the short cuts takes a back-seat to the more "viable" values -- then you've got this 'human condition' thing licked! After some initial work to learn and build better habits, along with the escaping of heavy misfortune, life would become a breeze!

Good points, Fred.

Ed

Post 70

Monday, April 2, 2012 - 11:22pm

I wrote, "If the estimate is accurate, then it's true. There is no such thing as "objective" as against "subjective" truth. The distinction between subjective and objective doesn't apply in this context." Ed replied,

I take that to mean that in the process of estimation, the distinction between subjective and objective doesn't apply. But aren't there ever subjective estimations? I'd say so.

The issue here is the truth (or falsity) of the estimate. It's truth (or falsity) isn't subjective.

Post 71

Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - 6:41pm