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The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

nautil.us

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Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#111

Post by mundo »

amelius wrote: post #102
mundo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be a good time to look up the definition of axiom: "a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference".

Yes, but I think that's "accepted" in the sense of "until we run into a contradiction", at which point you have to start over with new axioms. I.e. it turned out your axioms weren't all true. I think that in the definition you gave "accepted" should be replaced by "assumed".

"John can dig a hole ten feet deep in an hour. How long would it take him to dig a hole five feet deep?"

The first sentence of that problem is an axiom. It is absolutely 100% true, within the context of that story problem. It could contradict another axiom, but it can't turn out to be false, because it's not a statement about the real world.

Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#112

Post by ukj »

Iv wrote: post #108
ukj wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a rather reductionist answer. Did you purposefully ignore my question? Holistically speaking, how do you propose we measure “health”? What sort of market compromise do you have in mind with regards to said measurement?

You are on a tech forum. Reductionism is pretty much the norm here. Any programmer that has toyed with chaotic system theory can imagine holist views as explained by emergent behaviors of simpler systems. > Did you purposefully ignore my question? No, actually I had to rewrite my answer enitrely 4 or 5 times to avoid talking past each other, as it is clear we have different worldview, but I am doing my best to be les…

Sure, lets go with your theory that "reductionism is the technical norm". Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus.

λx.health

This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health".

Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equivalent to "health is a function of...."

Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#113

Post by Iv »

ukj wrote: post #112
Iv wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are on a tech forum. Reductionism is pretty much the norm here. Any programmer that has toyed with chaotic system theory can imagine holist views as explained by emergent behaviors of simpler systems. > Did you purposefully ignore my question? No, actually I had to rewrite my answer enitrely 4 or 5 times to avoid talking past each other, as it is clear we have different worldview, but I am doing my best to be les…

Sure, lets go with your theory that "reductionism is the technical norm". Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus. λx.health This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health". Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equivalent to "health is a function of...."

I just don't understand what you are trying to do.

> Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus.

Health is a function now? Why an identity function?

> This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health".

No, this is equivalent to the sentence "health transforms anything back into what it is" which is a weird predicate.

> Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equivalent to "health is a function of...."

I am genuinely trying to understand what you are looking for. Considering just this sentence of yours, how is this not answered by my previous message? Especially this part:

> In some contexts, like a hospital, you would measure "health" with a compound of physiological measures, like temperature, heart-rate, blood pressure. An economist would probably define it more in terms of likelihood to survive the year/decade.

This is not a tautology, that's practically two algorithms to get numerical values that represents metrics of health.

And why are we talking about health? I thought we were talking about ethics?

Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#114

Post by ukj »

Iv wrote: post #113
ukj wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, lets go with your theory that "reductionism is the technical norm". Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus. λx.health This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health". Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equivalent to "health is a function of...."

I just don't understand what you are trying to do. > Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus. Health is a function now? Why an identity function? > This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health". No, this is equivalent to the sentence "health transforms anything back into what it is" which is a weird predicate. > Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equi…

Health IS health. That is what “it” is.

I am representing it by the identity function, because Holistically “health” is itself and nothing else (otherwise you are equivocating “health”). This is the first law of logic: identity.

You insist on reductionism, so I am asking you to reduce “health” to its constituents.

We can do the exact same thought experiments with “ethics” - reduce it.

It isn’t sufficient to say “X is a metric of health/ethics, if I think more of X is healthy/ethical and you think less of X is healthy/ethical.

Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#115

Post by Iv »

ukj wrote: post #114
Iv wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand what you are trying to do. > Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus. Health is a function now? Why an identity function? > This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health". No, this is equivalent to the sentence "health transforms anything back into what it is" which is a weird predicate. > Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equi…

Health IS health. That is what “it” is. I am representing it by the identity function, because Holistically “health” is itself and nothing else (otherwise you are equivocating “health”). This is the first law of logic: identity. You insist on reductionism, so I am asking you to reduce “health” to its constituents. We can do the exact same thought experiments with “ethics” - reduce it. It isn’t sufficient to say “X is…

> It isn’t sufficient to say “X is a metric of health/ethics, if I think more of X is healthy/ethical and you think less of X is healthy/ethical.

The starting point of this conversation is to say that it is neither you nor I who decide the appropriate amount of X, but that by measuring the compromise human society reached in term of balance between X and Y, we can determine that society wants e.g. 0.654 of X for each unit of Y.

If you accept the predicate "Society's behavior defines what is ethical" then you get a moral framework that is interesting (but that is not mine, personally, as I refuse that predicate). It gives you a coherent framework that is the closest you can have from an objective morality: it is an inter-subjective one. It is also changing in time.

Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#116

Post by ukj »

Iv wrote: post #115
ukj wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health IS health. That is what “it” is. I am representing it by the identity function, because Holistically “health” is itself and nothing else (otherwise you are equivocating “health”). This is the first law of logic: identity. You insist on reductionism, so I am asking you to reduce “health” to its constituents. We can do the exact same thought experiments with “ethics” - reduce it. It isn’t sufficient to say “X is…

> It isn’t sufficient to say “X is a metric of health/ethics, if I think more of X is healthy/ethical and you think less of X is healthy/ethical. The starting point of this conversation is to say that it is neither you nor I who decide the appropriate amount of X, but that by measuring the compromise human society reached in term of balance between X and Y, we can determine that society wants e.g. 0.654 of X for each…

I am a proponent of objective/ inter-subjective morality. I am just not a proponent of it’s quantification. It emerges from self-organization - it isn’t deterministic.

Measurements/quantities are about the past (a posteriori). Morality is about the future (a priori).

If you measure “health” or “ethics” at X (X>0), where in your model would it say whether X OUGHT to be driven towards; or away from 0?

And yet human health has greatly improved over the last 2000 years is a true, qualitative statement.

Quantitative models are just instruments. Those instruments themselves can be used ethically or unethically.

Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#117

Post by Iv »

ukj wrote: post #116
Iv wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn’t sufficient to say “X is a metric of health/ethics, if I think more of X is healthy/ethical and you think less of X is healthy/ethical. The starting point of this conversation is to say that it is neither you nor I who decide the appropriate amount of X, but that by measuring the compromise human society reached in term of balance between X and Y, we can determine that society wants e.g. 0.654 of X for each…

I am a proponent of objective/ inter-subjective morality. I am just not a proponent of it’s quantification. It emerges from self-organization - it isn’t deterministic. Measurements/quantities are about the past (a posteriori). Morality is about the future (a priori). If you measure “health” or “ethics” at X (X>0), where in your model would it say whether X OUGHT to be driven towards; or away from 0? And yet human hea…

1. There is no opposition between non-deterministic self-organization and quantification. You can measure metrics of any chaotic system.

2. Morality is about the future? You must have skipped a step there. Are you assuming consequentialism? Do you mean that the morality of an action can only be judged w.r.t its future consequences? If so, it just means you need probabilities, which can be evaluated objectively.

3. The is/ought problem is well known. The core assumption of this discussion is: "we ought to do as society decided to do". All that remains to be measure is what society decided to do. Does society make effort to raise or lower X? That's a factual question that will lead you to know whether X OUGHT to be increased or decreases.

> And yet human health has greatly improved over the last 2000 years is a true, qualitative statement.

It is totally subjective. There are people (e.g. believers of racial purity) who would argue it is not the case. You can find antivaxxers to claim that our way of life is inherently unhealthy compared to ancient times. Religious fanatics consider that spiritual health (the only important one to them) fell since the times of revelations.

Life expectancy has increased, but there that's an objective metric that you, subjectively, decided matters. "Health" means nothing until you have "reduced" it to objectivable metric.

Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#118

Post by ukj »

Iv wrote: post #117
ukj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a proponent of objective/ inter-subjective morality. I am just not a proponent of it’s quantification. It emerges from self-organization - it isn’t deterministic. Measurements/quantities are about the past (a posteriori). Morality is about the future (a priori). If you measure “health” or “ethics” at X (X>0), where in your model would it say whether X OUGHT to be driven towards; or away from 0? And yet human hea…

1. There is no opposition between non-deterministic self-organization and quantification. You can measure metrics of any chaotic system. 2. Morality is about the future? You must have skipped a step there. Are you assuming consequentialism? Do you mean that the morality of an action can only be judged w.r.t its future consequences? If so, it just means you need probabilities, which can be evaluated objectively. 3. Th…

>1. There is no opposition between non-deterministic self-organization and quantification. You can measure metrics of any chaotic system.

OK then.

You've objectively measured that ethics (or health, or whatever metric you are going for) is 7.

Or (to be a tad sardonic) you've established that the meaning of live, the universe and everything is 42.

Eureca! You quantified it.

What happens next?

>It is totally subjective.

Objectivity is inter-subjective consensus. So tell me, if the well-being of humans is 'totally subjective', would your rather live in society 2020 AD, or society 2020BC ?

Re: The Universe Knows Right from Wrong

#119

Post by Iv »

ukj wrote: post #118
Iv wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. There is no opposition between non-deterministic self-organization and quantification. You can measure metrics of any chaotic system. 2. Morality is about the future? You must have skipped a step there. Are you assuming consequentialism? Do you mean that the morality of an action can only be judged w.r.t its future consequences? If so, it just means you need probabilities, which can be evaluated objectively. 3. Th…

>1. There is no opposition between non-deterministic self-organization and quantification. You can measure metrics of any chaotic system. OK then. You've objectively measured that ethics (or health, or whatever metric you are going for) is 7. Or (to be a tad sardonic) you've established that the meaning of live, the universe and everything is 42. Eureca! You quantified it. What happens next? >It is totally subjective…

> What happens next?

Better ask yourself what happened before. If you get a number, it means you chose a metric and an algorithm. That's what you get. What you do out of that metric depends on which it is.

> Objectivity is inter-subjective consensus.

No it is not. Facts can disagree with human consensus. This is an epistemological basis of science. If all humans decide that our soul survives our physical death, it does not make it so automatically.

On ethics, though, the starting point of this conversation is that inter-subjectivity is all we need, because true objectivity is not achievable.

> So tell me, if the well-being of humans is 'totally subjective', would your rather live in society 2020 AD, or society 2020BC ?

2020 AD. Without hesitation. And I think 95% of the population at least thinks like me, which makes a pretty strong consensus exist on the specific question "did well-being improve in the last 4080 years?". Note that the percentage of approval is an objective metric of the consensus.

I am arguing that similarly one can objectively measure the intra-subjective consensus on ethical questions and that this would lead to a coherent moral framework. A pretty conservative one though, as it would equal good to the current habits and customs. It is valuable for people who want something objective; intra-subjectivity is the closest you can get. I personally choose more progressive moral framework which require being comfortable with their subjective nature.

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