What I'm thinking / worrying about...
What I'm most interested in is the long-term future of humanity, which sadly is a subject with a reputation for being a bit silly. Nevertheless, it's worth thinking seriously about what risks we face and what could go wrong. At the very least, there's always the threat of nuclear war. There's also the possibility that environmental destruction will ultimately lead to our demise. More than that, new technologies like biotech, nanotech, and AI could eventually be powerful enough to represent an actual threat to humanity, if abused, or just poorly used. See for example:
Positions on various issues
- Economics?
- Broadly on the left, but getting more centrist as I get older; and every time I learn more about economics I seem to be nudged vaguely rightwards. But I'm convinced that a mild dose of regulation is necessary to prevent all kinds of objectionable corporate behaviour.
- Religion?
- Atheist (why) with Buddhist leanings, though karma, reincarnation, and Buddhist ontology generally seem to lack supporting evidence. I'm more sympathetic to followers of the big religions (i.e. Christians and Muslims) than many atheists are, though I cannot agree with their descriptions of how a benevolent superintelligence would behave.
- Ethics?
- Ultimately, I think some form of Utilitarianism must be correct. I once wrote a brief argument for an objective ethics, though lately I've been experiencing doubts.
- Truth?
- Truth is anything that describes things as they are. "What is truth?" is not a profound question.
- Ontology?
- Physicalism. Reductionism. Probably some other Bad Things.
- Cosmology?
- Fine-tuning must be explained by either an incredible coincidence, God, or multiple universes. Prefer the third.
- Meaning of life?
- Life exists simply because it can. Finding a better meaning than that necessarily involves rejecting the interests of our genes, and choosing our own interests instead.
- Many-worlds interpretation?
- Probably. I used to think it explained everything, but then I learned about Born probabilities. Learning that there was something MWI didn't easily explain necessarily lowered my confidence in MWI.
- Free will?
- Doesn't exist in any really strong sense.
- Consciousness?
- I do not - yet - understand how a bunch of atoms moving around can feel like anything.
- Global warming?
- Must defer to the experts, who seem to think it's real and human caused. Suspicious of non-experts who are convinced it isn't. I would assign a probability to it of .9 or so.
- War in Afghanistan?
- Seems justified.
- War in Iraq?
- Has both benefits and costs. Primary benefit is removal of Saddam, and thus, salvation for his future victims. Hard to determine how many such victims there would have been. Costs are enormous.
Books I recommend
On evolution and its ramifications:
- Richard Dawkins: The Ancestor's Tale, and Climbing Mount Improbable. The first is a history of life, and the latter a sort of explanation of evolution (which I admit I haven't actually read yet, but I've heard good things about). The Selfish Gene is good as well.
- Lecointre and Le Guyader: The Tree of Life: A Phylogenetic Classification. The family tree of all life on Earth!
- Daniel C. Dennett: Freedom Evolves. Argues for a sort of free will of a non-magical type - the only type we're going to get. This is Dennett's best and clearest book.
- Robert Wright: The Moral Animal. A slightly dated introduction to evolutionary psychology.
- Keith E. Stanovich: The Robot's Rebellion. A good book on the ramifications of evolutionary psychology. This book will convince you that your genes are not there to help you; you are here to help them.
On ethics and related subjects:
On the universe and mankind's future in it:
On thought:
On God: