81,841
edits
What We Owe The Future: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 11: | Line 11: | ||
[[William MacAskill]] is undoubtedly intelligent, widely-read — perhaps ''too'' widely-read — and he applies his polymathic range to ''What We Owe The Future'' with some panache. | [[William MacAskill]] is undoubtedly intelligent, widely-read — perhaps ''too'' widely-read — and he applies his polymathic range to ''What We Owe The Future'' with some panache. | ||
So it took me a while to put my finger on what was so irritating about his book. | So it took me a while to put my finger on what was so irritating about his book. To be sure, there’s a glibness about it: it is jammed full of the sophomore 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. | ||
Indeed, MacAskill, a thirty-something ethics lecturer who has divided his time between Oxford and Cambridge universities, is barely out of undergraduate [[philosophy]] class himself. | Indeed, MacAskill, a thirty-something ethics lecturer who has divided his adult time on Earth so far between Oxford and Cambridge universities, is barely out of undergraduate [[philosophy]] class himself. That is, for most of us, an unlikely source of cosmic advice. | ||
You sense it would do him a world of good to put the books down | You sense it would do him a world of good to put the books down and get some education from the school of life: pulling pints, waiting tables or labouring. | ||
===Of lived and not-yet-lived experience=== | ===Of lived and not-yet-lived experience=== | ||
Per the [[entropy|second law of thermodynamics]] but ''pace'' Pink Floyd | Per the [[entropy|second law of thermodynamics]] — but ''pace'' Pink Floyd — there is but ''one'' possible past, ''one'' possible now, and an infinite array of possible futures stretching out into an unknown black void. Some short, some long, some dystopian, some enlightened. Some cut off by apocalypse, some fading gently into warm [[Entropy|entropic]] soup. | ||
William MacAskill’s | William MacAskill’s premise is this: barring near-term cataclysm, there are so many more people in our future than in the present, that our duty of care to this horde of sacred unborn swamps any concern for the here and now. We must do what we can to avoid that cataclysm, and vouchsafe the future’s — well — ''future''. | ||
We are, thus, minding the shop not just for our children and grandchildren, but for generations unconceived — in every sense of the word — millennia hence. ''Thousands'' of millennia hence. | |||
What is our duty, though? What are their expectations? MacAskill uses what financiers might call “linear interpolation” to deduce, from what has already happened in the world, a theory about what will happen, and what we should therefore do to accommodate this as-yet-unimagined throng. But the gating question he glosses over is this: how do we even know who these putative beings will be, let alone what their interests are, let alone which of them is worth protecting? | Perhaps to talk us down from our grandiosity, MacAskill spends some time remarking on our contingency — that ''we'' happen to be the ones here to talk about it is basically a fluke — but neglects to appreciate that this contingency does not now stop. | ||
It is as if MacAskill has got this perfectly backward. He talks about 2 as if we are at some single crossroads; a single determining fork in the history of the planet. But countless determining forks happen every day, everywhere. Most of them are entirely beyond our control. Some future is assured. What it is is literally impossible to know. | |||
What is our duty, though? What are their expectations? | |||
=== Expected value theory does not help === | |||
MacAskill uses probability theory and what financiers might call “linear interpolation” to deduce, from what has already happened in the world, a theory about what will happen, and what we should therefore do to accommodate this as-yet-unimagined throng. This is madness. | |||
[[Probabilities]] are suitable for closed, bounded systems with a ''complete'' set of ''known'' outcomes. The probability of rolling a six is ⅙ because a die has six equal sides, is equally likely to land on any side, and must land on one, and no other outcome is possible. We can only calculate this expected value because of these dramatically constrained outcome.+ | |||
''This is not how most things in life work''. Probabilities work for [[finite game]]s. ''The future is in no sense a finite game''. It is unbounded, ambiguous, incomplete, the range of possible outcomes are not known and may as well be infinite. ''You can't calculate probabilities about it''. {{Author|Gerd Gigerenzer}} would say it is a situation of ''uncertainty'', not ''risk''. ''Expectation theory is worthless.'' | |||
=== [[Expected value theory]] and [[complex systems]] === | |||
It is not at all clear what anyone can do to influence the unknowably distant future — a meteor could wipe us out any time — but in any case [[expected value]] probability calculations won’t help. Nor does MacAskill say ''why'' we organisms who are here ''now'' should give a flying hoot for the race of pan-dimensional hyperbeings we will have evolved into — or been eaten by — countless millennia into the future. | |||
Presumably our duty isn’t a function of simple lineage — that feels ''un''altruistic — but is a generally derived obligation to whatever living thing is, for the time being, here? | |||
This demolishes MacAskill’s foundational premise — applied “expectation theory” is how he draws his conclusions about the plight of the [[Morlock]]s of our future — and is enough to trash the book’s thesis ''in toto''. | |||
But the gating question he glosses over is this: how do we even know who these putative beings will be, let alone what their interests are, let alone which of them is worth protecting? | |||
=== An infinity of possibilities === | === An infinity of possibilities === | ||
| Line 51: | Line 71: | ||
We should sacrifice you lot — birds in the hand — for our far-distant descendants — birds in a bush who may or may not be there in a million years. | We should sacrifice you lot — birds in the hand — for our far-distant descendants — birds in a bush who may or may not be there in a million years. | ||
Thanks — but no thanks. | Thanks — but no thanks. | ||
===Why stop with humans?=== | ===Why stop with humans?=== | ||
Does this self-sacrifice for the hereafter also apply to non-sapient beasts, fish and fowls, too? Bushes and trees? Invaders from Mars? If not, why not? | Does this self-sacrifice for the hereafter also apply to non-sapient beasts, fish and fowls, too? Bushes and trees? Invaders from Mars? If not, why not? | ||