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Socrates’ Examined Life

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Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#21

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

nojokes wrote: post #10
jbandela1 wrote: post #2

>“What is courage?,” Socrates asked Laches, who replied that if someone was willing to defend themselves against an enemy, standing in their assigned spot and not running away, they would be courageous (Laches 194e). An examiner would mark a red cross here: the man didn’t reply to Socrates’ question I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful. Humans don't really learn from abstract defi…

We can argue that ML neural net does not know what a cat is.

We can also argue that a cat doesn't know what a cat is.

Humans believe they know what the human definition of cat is, but that doesn't mean there's a definitive ideal definition of cat that humans have privileged access to.

Some cats - like Schrodinger's Cat, and this cat - aren't cats at all. They're rhetorical devices about cats.

Which is convenient, because they don't need food or a litter box. (Although they can be messy in other ways.)

The point being that even a supposedly simple concept like "cat" is much more than the sum of some nominal properties and actions which are easy to enumerate. ("Has four legs, purrs.")

Both the ML and human "definition" of cat - which is more like an open list of weighted cat-related experiences - is much closer to defining what a cat is than the intersection of all the properties that supposedly define a cat completely.

In other words Plato was absolutely wrong. There are no Platonic ideal forms. (Even if there were - where would they live?)

There are only probability density fields in qualia space. And when there's enough qualia density in one location you can start to suspect that you're interacting with a cat/chair/philosopher/ML researcher/whatever, and then draw on your behavioural model of each object to predict what will happen as you continue to interact with it.

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#22

Post by failwhaleshark »

I think it comes down to how intelligent, honest, diligent, and conscientious someone is that they would explore the meta-implications of their impact, actions, thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and intentions. People who are sociopathic, psychopathic, less astute, and/or clueless don't care as much about their philosophical framework, their actions, improving themselves (their attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, wisdom, etc.) through careful self-reflection, or who they impact.

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#23

Post by aporetics »

xamuel wrote: post #9
jbandela1 wrote: post #2

>“What is courage?,” Socrates asked Laches, who replied that if someone was willing to defend themselves against an enemy, standing in their assigned spot and not running away, they would be courageous (Laches 194e). An examiner would mark a red cross here: the man didn’t reply to Socrates’ question I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful. Humans don't really learn from abstract defi…

The reader presumably already knows what courage is, and does not need to be taught that. Rather, Socrates/Plato probably intended to guide us toward the eternal Form of courage. Laches' approach would indeed be better for teaching a neural net, but neural nets are not Socrates'/Plato's intended audience.

The reader already knows? Well, what is courage then? Can you explain it?

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#24

Post by SuoDuanDao »

jfengel wrote: post #8
jbandela1 wrote: post #2

>“What is courage?,” Socrates asked Laches, who replied that if someone was willing to defend themselves against an enemy, standing in their assigned spot and not running away, they would be courageous (Laches 194e). An examiner would mark a red cross here: the man didn’t reply to Socrates’ question I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful. Humans don't really learn from abstract defi…

That was kinda Socrates' schtick: demand a definition, and then show that it wasn't a good one. Which was true, but not really all that useful. The best I can say for it is that it shows the way people think they have definitions of things, but they don't. Push on pretty much any nontrivial definition and it will fail. That observation, at least, is kind of interesting, in that it shows the limits of the way we think…

I think he contributed something quite valuable - he pushed people into what we might call 'beginner mind', without which learning is impossible. His main thesis (as recounted by Plato) that any certainty is false certainty and that the only real wisdom comes from acknowledging one's own ignorance seems valuable indeed to me. I wonder what he would have made of today's statistical methods that try to bake that uncertainty in with a kind of recursive meta-certainty.

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#25

Post by clejack »

jbandela1 wrote: post #2

>“What is courage?,” Socrates asked Laches, who replied that if someone was willing to defend themselves against an enemy, standing in their assigned spot and not running away, they would be courageous (Laches 194e). An examiner would mark a red cross here: the man didn’t reply to Socrates’ question I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful. Humans don't really learn from abstract defi…

I partially agree with your initial statement. I think precise definitions are only helpful in certain contexts. In general they might not be necessary or even useful, but precision is useful when you're trying to examine your own beliefs and the beliefs of others.

Consider this: the soldier being willing to defend against an enemy when he doesn't fear death isn't necessarily displaying courage. This particular soldier could have a death wish for all we know.

If I posed this scenario, then maybe you'd dive a little deeper and say something like "Most people are afraid to die, so if you were a soldier that didn't want to die, and you choose to defend your post when confronted by an enemy that can kill you, that would make you courageous."

By probing for specifics, we learn a property of courage. We might say something like "Courage is the ability to act against the compulsions of fear." Whether that's satisfactory or not is another issue, but it allows us to have a better understanding of what we're seeing in the world. It gives us a better example of acts of courage versus acts of overconfidence, inebriation or apathy.

The downside to this definition is, if someone approached me in public and asked me to defined courage; if I used this definition, I would probably need to follow it with an example.

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#26

Post by ordu »

jbandela1 wrote: post #2

>“What is courage?,” Socrates asked Laches, who replied that if someone was willing to defend themselves against an enemy, standing in their assigned spot and not running away, they would be courageous (Laches 194e). An examiner would mark a red cross here: the man didn’t reply to Socrates’ question I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful. Humans don't really learn from abstract defi…

> I think this emphasis on precise definitions is actually not that helpful.

To the contrary I believe that it is very helpful. One cannot apply logic or any other highly formalized method when he lacks definitions. It is hard to find a good definition, but at the same time it is the most important step in creating a theory.

> I think that the guy the Socrates is examining is actually doing a better job of having someone learn what courage is by giving examples than Socrates is by trying to state a precise definition for it.

Yes, it is a very helpful technique. When scientist needs a definition for a term, she starts with observing different cases. (Or rather she'd start with reading what other wrote on topic, but let's ignore this in the name of clarity). But she'd do it not like Laches by proposing examples, and not like Socrates by proposing counter-examples, but like they both: seeking for examples and then seeking for counter-examples.

> Although not precisely like an ML neural net, our brains are enough like one that that this is likely to be similar as well.

Our brains also very different from an ML neural net. Because we could dig a problem, construct a formal description of it, and then devise something like E=mc^2. We can generalize experience, while ML can only interpolate.

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#27

Post by xamuel »

aporetics wrote: post #23
xamuel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reader presumably already knows what courage is, and does not need to be taught that. Rather, Socrates/Plato probably intended to guide us toward the eternal Form of courage. Laches' approach would indeed be better for teaching a neural net, but neural nets are not Socrates'/Plato's intended audience.

The reader already knows? Well, what is courage then? Can you explain it?

When I said "the reader", I meant other readers besides me. I am not a knowledgeable man, in fact just about all I know is how little I know. But as you are one of those other readers besides me, maybe you know what courage is, if so then please teach me :)

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#28

Post by ycombinete »

imbnwa wrote: post #3

I feel like Arisotle already responded to all of this over 2000 years ago. Ethical questions are strictly contextual, there's no overriding definition of Good to apply, what Aristotle calls the Golden Measure isn't an objective mark on a ruler, its the ability to discern what is right in given situations with their particular variables. An archetypal notion of Good that transcends specific situations is a notion of G…

That’s interesting, given how much influence Plato's ideas had on the formation of early Christian core philosophy.

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#29

Post by [deleted] »

ycombinete wrote: post #28
imbnwa wrote: post #3

I feel like Arisotle already responded to all of this over 2000 years ago. Ethical questions are strictly contextual, there's no overriding definition of Good to apply, what Aristotle calls the Golden Measure isn't an objective mark on a ruler, its the ability to discern what is right in given situations with their particular variables. An archetypal notion of Good that transcends specific situations is a notion of G…

That’s interesting, given how much influence Plato's ideas had on the formation of early Christian core philosophy.

[deleted]

Re: Socrates’ Examined Life

#30

Post by d0mine »

imbnwa wrote: post #3

I feel like Arisotle already responded to all of this over 2000 years ago. Ethical questions are strictly contextual, there's no overriding definition of Good to apply, what Aristotle calls the Golden Measure isn't an objective mark on a ruler, its the ability to discern what is right in given situations with their particular variables. An archetypal notion of Good that transcends specific situations is a notion of G…

Read Aristotle ideas about physics. Recognize that they are BS by modern standards. Consider what his views are worth on less tangible things (even less).
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