Rational Morality

After a prolonged period of silent contemplation it is again time for an update.

Most importantly, I came across John Stewart’s work on the evolutionary perspective that he develops rather beautifully in his book Evolution’s Arrow. The book is availbale online for free as well and I strongly recommend giving it a good look. To me this book is of particularl significance, since it shows me that there are other people out there who share my view on the importance of alligning oneself with the evolutionary process as I argue in my paper on the subject. The first thing I did after reading it was to translate a synopsis of the evolutionary perspective into German as well as Chinese. John was so kind as to put them online.

The book has sparked a couple of conferences and guess who was a participant in one of the 2005 meetings. That’s right: Mike Gravel - of US 2008 presidential candidate fame! The evolutionary world view is spreading - this is going to be huge, let me tell ‘ya…

Additionally I stumbled across Swarm as well as RePast - both are tools developed to enable agent based modeling. These could be invaluable in assisting me with modeling my evolving, interacting agent concept developed in my paper and put some more meat on those pretty bones

Finally I was convinced by a friend not to pursue the holistic version of the Moebius Effect (a book I started to write on the implications of my paper) and will now proceed rewriting it for a more targetted audience without trying to please eveyone. Thanks Jonathan!

Last but not least I have been appointed Director of the Global Future Network by John Smart - president of the Acceleration Studies Foundation. John is currently working on a book called EvoDevo Universe that is drawing from evolutionary developmental biology and applies it to cosmology:

The underlying paradigm for cosmology is theoretical physics. The EDU research community explores how it might be extended by including insights from evolutionary developmental biology. In the neo-Darwinian paradigm, adaptive evolutionary development allows the production of ordered and complex structures. More specifically, we can distinguish evolutionary processes which are contingently adaptive and developmental processes which produce systemically statistically predictable structures and trajectories internal to the developmental cycle.

I know! It’s pretty amazing how everything slowly comes together and falls into place. Good times ahead and even brighter ones on the horizon.

Google is doing the right thing by aiming for development of renewable energy cheaper than coal.

From the article:

The initiative, which Google is calling RE < C, using mathematical symbols to denote “renewable energy cheaper than coal,” will be based in Google’s research and development group. The company also said that Google.org, the philanthropic for-profit subsidiary that Google seeded in 2004 with three million shares of its stock, would invest in energy start-ups. Google says its goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy — enough to power the city of San Francisco — more cheaply than coal-generated electricity. The company predicted that this can be accomplished in “years, not decades.”

This makes more sense on so many levels. Should they succeed with this, they will dominate the trillion Euro energy market and at the same time get rid of the main conflict potential in the world while saving the environment as a bonus. Respect.

UPDATE 2007/11/30: Well, well, well - seem like Nanosolar has achieved RE<C already.

I reworded some phrases to make it more accessible, corrected some spelling and enlarged the acknowledgments section.

Practical Benevolence - a Rational Philosophy of Morality

That is true what does not contradict itself. It is a tautological statement that means it is not wrong. Everything is tautological because it refers back to ones axioms. That which is not tautological contradicts your axioms. Language is just one form of verbalizing the implications of chosen axioms. Science is the choice of axioms that can be seen as seeds from which flowers of enlightenment bloom representing what you chose to know. You choose what you can know about reality by making a conscious choice - that is your only freedom.

The freedom to choose your axioms is the only thing you can do yourself. You then move out and try to gather *contradicting* evidence because that is how you know if you theory is valid. Everything that can not be contradicted becomes an axiom. They say it is not part of science but what they really mean is that axioms have to satisfy what one knows about reality.

Example: There is a god => This can not be contradicted. It does not make it true or false it is just not verifiable. It becomes an axiom for a belief system as you know it in the form of religion - it constantly contradicts itself with other axioms in the bible and that is what is ticking of people such as Dawkins etc of tremendously. The reason science and religion do not get along is not because they do not agree that one should have axioms. It is because the one side - science - is constantly pointing holes in the other sides - religion - belief system and they refuse to change their axioms. As a scientist true to my collected evidence I would conclude that one of the axioms of religion is that it is ok to contradict itself - so what. Moving forward.

Religion can play the same game by constantly pointing out what science does not tell us about reality - it is quite senseless. If I were a religious person I would just say to a scientist: you know one of my axioms is that I do not have to listen to know it alls. Please leave me be.

Example: Arithmetic => people have defined arithmetic with a set of axioms and 2+2=4 becomes so based on the axioms per definition. Change the axioms and it becomes 5 or 3 or whatever. The quality of your axioms is ascertained by gathered evidence from controlled experiments. The split second that you have gathered evidence that contradicts any of the implications derived from your axioms you know your axioms are wrong or you are being inconsequential in applying rational thought.

Logic for example assumes that there are identical cases. Identical cases do not exist in reality - just in thought. Yes - it is good enough to count eggs using logic and arithmetic but no egg is ever the same and this makes arithmetic and logic *good enough* for the job but it does not make it *true* in the sense of representing reality in every aspect. It is an abstract model of what is really happening in reality that is helpful - that’s all.

Science is nothing but a religion that try’s to avoid contradictions with reality. Nothing else. Once you stop contradicting yourself you become a priest of the religion of science.

Norway seems to be applying much of rationaly moral principles. Go check it out.

Thanks reddit

Imagine living forever - not 100 years not a 1′000 years but until the last star in our universe went nova and beyond…The following train of thought is the result of a discussion I had at work with a colleague who was appalled at the thought of true immortality:

“Suicide is the consequential action resulting from the desire for ceasing to exist.

The desire to end one’s life is the result of a personal choice in regards to wanting to invert ones axioms from ‘to exist is better than not to exist’ to ‘not to exist is better than to exist’. This personal choice must be respected within reason. An individual with another opinion is obliged to help the suicidal individual in his desire to cease to exist. However, before doing so, the suicidal individual must be counseled to make sure that the wish to end his life is not merely a rationalized solution for another problem of the individual that could be solved in another fashion.

An individual wanting to end his life under certain circumstances where this desire can not be communicated anymore directly or indirectly, is obliged to document his wishes in the form of an advance directive. In the absence of an advance directive the principle of triage is applied to decide matters of life and death.”

Arguing the case for immortality is all well and good - but what about the right to die?

Life is full of contradictions. Your boss wants you to work more, you want to spend more time with your family. On the one hand you need the salary to support your family and on the other hand you need a private life to enjoy yourself, recharge and be ready again to work some more. Do you work to live, or do you live to work? Can the question even be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Assuming you do not live to work - then why do you work? And the other way around: if you do not work to live, then why do you live? That is a contradiction.

But life is not a matter of yes or no questions. Or is life a matter of yes and no questions? This is a clear ‘yes or no question’ and clearly a matter concerning life. Assuming life is, then it would not be a matter of yes or no questions and the statement ‘Life is not a matter of yes or no questions’ would be false, assuming on the other hand that life is a matter of yes and no questions then the statement would be false as well. No matter how you approach it the statement is always false but you nevertheless agree with it. Another contradiction - how can this be?

The answer is of course the middle ground. You do not only work just to life and you do not only life just to work. Being the smart person that you are you look at you options, understand the consequences and strike a compromise. Work some so you can life some so you can work some more… A part of your salary is flowing back into your next salary by allowing you to recharge and a part of your life supported by your salary is the cause that lets you recharge in order to earn more salary. It is a recursive self referencing feedback loop - like a Moebius snail.

How to understand this recursive self-referencing feedback loop - let us call it the Moebius effect - to know what you have to do, is what I want to help you realize.

You can now contribute to rational morality by using the Wiki.

I found an article today that describes a project to deploy vending machines for crows. From the project homepage:

“Such a device could also be a quant addition to a theme-park where interaction with crows could help steer people away from their reputation as vermin and also to increase awareness of their cognitive abilities”

I would love to see more ideas like this.

Beauty is a catalyst for realizing reality
Taste is the ability to recognize beauty
Respect is the acknowledgment of entangled existence
Appreciation is the respect for an effort
Humility is the appreciation of respect
Hope is the respect for reality