82,891
edits
What We Owe The Future: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{a|book review|}}It took me a while to put my finger on what was so irritating about this book, but there’s a patronising glibness about it, and it is positively jammed full of the sort of thought experiments (imagine you had to live the life of every sentient being on the planet kind of thing) that give philosophy undergraduates a bad name. | {{a|book review|}}It took me a while to put my finger on what was so irritating about this book, but there’s a patronising glibness about it, and it is positively jammed full of the sort of thought experiments (imagine you had to live the life of every sentient being on the planet kind of thing) that give philosophy undergraduates a bad name. | ||
William MacAskill is, as best as I can make out, barely out of undergraduate [[philosophy]] class, still hasn’t left the university, and strikes me as a singularly unlikely person to be dispensing cosmic advice for the planet’s distant future. | {{Author|William MacAskill}} is, as best as I can make out, barely out of undergraduate [[philosophy]] class, still hasn’t left the university, and strikes me as a singularly unlikely person to be dispensing cosmic advice for the planet’s distant future. | ||
But ultimately it is the sub-Sagan, sub-Harari style | But ultimately it is the sub-Sagan, sub-Harari style | ||
| Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
It is not at all clear that we can do anything to influence the distance future (''[[expected value]]''? Like, ''seriously''? Are we rolling dice here?), nor why organisms now should care for the future of their species in 500 million years which, if it survives, will have doubtlessly evolved beyond all recognition. | It is not at all clear that we can do anything to influence the distance future (''[[expected value]]''? Like, ''seriously''? Are we rolling dice here?), nor why organisms now should care for the future of their species in 500 million years which, if it survives, will have doubtlessly evolved beyond all recognition. | ||
Quick side bar: Probabilities are suitable for closed bounded systems with a ''complete'' set of ''known'' outcomes. The probability of rolling a six is one in six because a die has six sides of equal size, and it must land on one, and it as likely to land on any side. Probabilities work for [[finite game]]s. The future of a universe is in no sense a finite game. It is not bounded, information is not complete, there possible outcomes are not known. You can't calculate probabilities. {{Author|Gerd Gigerenzer}} would say it is a situation of ''uncertainty'', not ''risk''. There are no expectations. | |||
This demolishes MacAskill’s foundational premise — that “expectation theory” is relevant — and is enough to trash the book’s thesis ''in toto''. But it is fun to carry on. | |||
Does this self-sacrifice for the hereafter also apply to non-sapient beasts, fish and fowls, too? Bushes and trees? If not, why not? | Does this self-sacrifice for the hereafter also apply to non-sapient beasts, fish and fowls, too? Bushes and trees? If not, why not? | ||