[ashwinsundar]

I don't have an answer here either, but after suffering through the first few chapters of HPMOR, I've found that Yudk and others tech-bros posing as philosophers are basically like leaky, dumbed-down abstractions for core philosophical ideas. Just go to the source and read about utilitarianism and deontology directly. Yudk is like the Wix of web development - sure you can build websites but you're not gonna be a proper web developer unless you learn HTML, CSS and Javascript. Worst of all, crappy abstractions train you in some actively bad patterns that are hard to unlearn

It's almost offensive - are technologists so incapable of understanding philosophy that Yudk has to reduce it down to the least common denominator they are all familiar with - some fantasy world we read about as children?

[AnimalMuppet]

I'd like what the original sources would have written if someone had fed them some speak-clearly pills. Yudkowsky and company may have the dumbing-down problem, but the original sources often have a clarity problem. (That's why people are still arguing about what they meant centuries later. Not just whether they were right - though they argue about that too - but what they meant.)

Even better, I'd like some filtering out of the parts that are clearly wrong.

[chipsrafferty]

Have you considered that the ideas that philosophy discusses are very complex, and words are not a sufficient medium to describe those ideas?

That's why you have people arguing over what someone meant. Dumbing it down or trying to write something unambiguous doesn't actually make it better.

[AnimalMuppet]

I will grant you that the ideas are complex. But if words are not a sufficient medium, then we can't think clearly about the ideas.

Original philosophers have the right to define their own terms. If they can't define them clearly, then they probably aren't thinking clearly enough about their ideas to be able to talk to the rest of us about them. (Unless they consider it more important to sound impressive and hard to understand. But if that's the case, we can say "wow, you sound impressive" and then ignore them.)

[ashwinsundar]

I think this accurately channels Paul Graham's attempt to divide the world into "science/tech" and "illegible". But it's a little ridiculous to also divide the world into, "things I understand" and "things I don't", and state that anyone who speaks of the latter should not be permitted to talk to "the rest of us" until they figure out how to move themselves into your "things I understand" category.

The top scientists in AI can't explain how their models make certain decisions (at least not deterministically). Computer code is notoriously gibberish to outsiders. 90% of programmers probably couldn't explain what their job is to people outside of the field. If they can't explain it clearly, should they also be forbidden from speaking publicly until they can?

Is it possible that you lack the background to understand philosophy, and thus philosophers should rightly ignore your demands to dumb down their own field? Why should philosophers even appeal to people like you, when you seem so uninterested in even learning the basics of their field?

[AnimalMuppet]

No, I don't regard all of philosophy (or all of non-science) as "illegible".

Nor do I regard the line as being "things I understand". I'm not (usually) that arrogant. But if, say, even other computer programmers can't tell for sure what you're saying, the problem is probably you.

[HDThoreaun]

HPMOR is not supposed to be rigorous. It’s supposed to be entertaining in a way that rigorous philosophy is not. You could make the same argument about any of Camus’ novels but again that would miss the point. If you want something more rigorous yudkowsky has it, bit surprising to me to complain he isn’t rigorous without talking about his rigorous work.

[ashwinsundar]

I really have no interest in reading any more of that guy’s “work”

[HDThoreaun]

Totally fair but why comment on something you arent interested in understanding