Deutsch would likely argue that to the extent that there is objective reality out there, with regards to the understanding of that reality there is objective improvement. But in The Evolution of Culture, he also emphasized how we cannot do away with anti-rational memes. Everett would likely agree with Deutsch here—although science deals with the objective reality, scientific theory is fallible and cannot comprehend all of human knowledge (i.e., the dark matter part of the mind). Put differently, the judgement of whether one is objectively improving or not can only make sense in the domains where there is something objectively real—in other domains, you cannot define what “improvement in his value scale” means, because that is also subjective. And such subjective preferences can be explained objectively only by the all-knowing—but we’ve already deduced that all-knowing wouldn’t act. The subjective value theory, another axiom of praxeology, is retained even with the existence of objective reality and associated scientific theories, precisely because of the multiverse—the subjective preferences won’t go away because we are fallible.
“Since man is always acting, he must always be engaged in trying to attain the greatest height on his value scale. There must always be room for improvement in his value scale; otherwise action would disappear. This means that there is always open to each actor the prospect of improving his lot, of attaining a value higher than he is giving up, i.e., of making a psychic profit.”
Maybe the word improvement should be replaced with the word change.develop
Next:
- 13-1a3a1 The essence of the exchange is that both people make it because they expect that it will benefit them
- 13-1a3b The subjective value theory persists because of the multiverse—because we are fallible
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