X-Message-Number: 7263
From: 
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 11:25:36 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS honesty, values

Following Thomas Donaldson's Cryonet #  7261, just a bit more about science,
honesty, and values:

First, you can be honest without being right. Unbiased interpretations can
differ, depending on one's information and background and habits and degree
of resourcefulness. To judge whether someone (including yourself) is being
honest (unbiased) in a particular scientific context, you need to estimate
whether he is assigning weights to items of evidence completely objectively
or in part just from psychological needs or habits. Dishonesty or bias, in
the context of our discussion, primarily means someone's reluctance to
consider facts or viewpoints at odds with his druthers or inertia.

Second, we are not usually required to judge another person's honesty--only
his correctness. The issue of honesty has importance mainly looking inward,
trying to improve one's own performance and future chances of satisfaction.

True enough, there will often be disagreement on correctness also, on the
facts or their interpretation--but there is nothing profound involved here.
We arrive eventually at experimental tests or observational criteria to
resolve the issues.

On values: Thomas mentions "sociobiology," which is not my primary concern. I
look for INDIVIDUAL guidelines, and what is good for the individual is not
necessarily the same as what is good for a society, even though there is much
feedback. 

Furthermore, as far as I know, the "good" of a society has no agreed nor
obvious definition. The "good" for an individual DOES have one basic
(although far from simple)  criterion--viz., maximization of future
satisfaction on a probabilistic basis. 
(In painfully blunt terms, this is me-first and feel-good--but don't draw
hasty conclusions.)

Many philosophical schools have recognized this tenet, in principle, at least
in part--e.g. the hedonists, epicureans, and utilitarians. They failed
because their approach was far too simple-minded and because they lacked
modern tools and information. Maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain does
NOT mean spending your life smoking opium. What it does mean requires very
extended discussion, which will not be accessible to everyone because of
intellectual or emotional limitations. I am working on it.

I do indeed claim that there is just one correct way to examine or build a
value system, based on biology and logic. Yet this does not imply that
everyone, in a similar situation, "should" make the same choices. 

As a crude example, suppose a first approximation or first-iteration analysis
indicates that, to maximize your over-all long term future best interests,
you must sacrifice someone near to you, or some interests of that someone; or
that you must sacrifice some social principle such as patriotism. Attempting
to act on that analysis might destroy you emotionally, which invalidates the
first-level analysis, at least for the time being. 

We must always take the probable feedbacks into account, as best we can. We
use our present values, and the available information and our analysis of it,
both to make immediate choices and to attempt to modify our underlying
attitudes when necessary, and at the best feasible rate. We advance by
successive iteration.

The reflex reaction to such a suggested program is usually to dismiss it,
either in a simple-minded way by labeling it "selfish" or by asserting that
it is impossibly difficult. But I  think we can make headway--and that
honesty and resourcefulness point in this direction.

Robert Ettinger


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