The Fallacy of Human Freedom • Hacker News Board

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#31

Post by kijin » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:02 PM UTC

spitx wrote: post #18

kijin wrote: post #16

> their core belief in progress is a superstition, further from the truth about the human animal than any of the world’s religions. If some someone thinks that the history of humanity has always been one of progress, that's an empirical claim that can be shown to be false. But most of the people who I think promote the idea of progress are actually not like that. The idea of progress is an ideal, not an empirical cla…

Animals with highly developed brains never simply accept their fates. After all, they understand that if they manipulate nature in certain ways, at least some parts of their fate can be averted! Your argument has the appearance of something that's badly contrived (or derived). You may have not chanced on arguments surrounding your premise on "highly developed brains" and natural limits imposed on such brains owing to…

I completely agree with you that human knowledge, whether individual or collective, is severely limited compared to all there is to know in the Universe. Part of this has to do with the fact that we as a species has only been observing the Universe scientifically for ~500 years. But it probably also has to do with the physiological limitations of homo sapiens. I don't disagree with any of that.

But what does that have to do with the sentences you quoted from me? Is it even relevant? Human knowledge is limited, so what?

    1. Human knowledge is limited.
    2. ???
    3. Ergo, progress is an illusory concept.

You haven't supplied a single proposition that could fill the space of #2.

Meanwhile, the fact that our mental capacities are limited has not prevented us from "rising above certain petty disputes arising out of ... ego, vanity, and self-preservation" at least from time to time, even if it's only .0001% of the time. The idea that progress always happens is a ridiculous proposition, but the idea that progress is always stunted by other factors is just as laughable. Also, even if we did agree that progress never happens in reality, there is still a very large logical gap between that and the (even more preposterous) proposition that the concept of progress itself is an illusion.

If you say "True progress rarely if ever happens", fine, we can talk about that.

If you say "Your definition of progress is wrong", fine, we can talk about that.

If you say "Progress is not one thing but many different things depending on the context", fine, we can talk about that. Cultural relativism is nothing new, there's plenty of good philosophy on that topic, and you're at least a century late to the game if you think waving the flag of cultural relativism will change anything.

But if you say "The concept of progress is an illusion" (or some variation of it), that's just one of those strings of profound-looking words that college freshmen put down in their PHIL 101 essays. If there is any useful content in such catchphrases, I have yet to see any. So I suppose it's just a figure of speech.

> Your argument has the appearance of something that's badly contrived (or derived).

Arguments don't have the "appearance" of being badly contrived, and even if they do in some sense, it doesn't matter. Either they are badly contrived, or they are not. If they are indeed badly contrived, it should be possible to say why without committing the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#32

Post by ef4 » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:05 PM UTC

The author is really arguing two things. (1) There is no such thing as moral progress, because human nature is fixed.(2) People are not naturally inclined to be free.

His first claim is demonstrably false. If you look at historical, statistical evidence you can rapidly demolish his position. Start with Stephen Pinker's Ted talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen...

His second claim is probably true, but irrelevant. Humans do seem to naturally love hierarchies. And in the grand sweep of time and place, freedom is still a tiny blip.

But So. Fucking. What. Humans are naturally inclines to die of infectious diseases, too.

The author admits that science does progress. And more importantly, the capital structure of society progresses along with it, symbiotically. That puts the lie to the rest of his argument, because ideas from science have demonstrably altered human behavior, and science is already on the cusp of altering human nature directly at the molecular level.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#33

Post by Mikeb85 » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:13 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #32

The author is really arguing two things. (1) There is no such thing as moral progress, because human nature is fixed.(2) People are not naturally inclined to be free. His first claim is demonstrably false. If you look at historical, statistical evidence you can rapidly demolish his position. Start with Stephen Pinker's Ted talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen... His second claim is proba…

The more you study archaeology and ancient history, the more you realize that humans really aren't apt to change. The outward appearance of human behaviour is different (we work different jobs, eat different food, have different institutions), but we have the same social tendencies we did 7000 years ago.

As for our supposed decline in violence, it's mostly due to technological advancements which have allowed us to have more resources at our disposal, and an efficient international market to trade them. Our nature is no less violent, our circumstances are merely better.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#34

Post by ef4 » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:15 PM UTC

islon wrote: post #24

cytokine_storm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the article properly and came to the same conclusion. The author (of the article, unsure of the book) is definitely arguing that Progress is a flawed concept because of the frailty of human nature. Genetic alteration and controlled environments might help solve these issues and help overcome the "human nature sucks" argument against the idea of Progress. But maybe the problem is more universal than human natur…

Genetic modifications can't alter human nature. What you'll have is a different species, closely related to humans. You can argue that's just semantics, I can agree to a point but unless you give a proper answer to what does it mean to be human my criticism is still valid.

As long as we're going to argue semantics, a "species" is a set of animals who can reproduce with each other.

Dogs are all still dogs, despite the massive genetic changes we've imposed on the various breeds. They can all still interbreed.

I really don't expect humans to accept genetic modifications that make their offspring reproductively incompatible with the rest of humanity. So speciation seems unlikely.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#35

Post by ef4 » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #33

ef4 wrote: post #32

The author is really arguing two things. (1) There is no such thing as moral progress, because human nature is fixed.(2) People are not naturally inclined to be free. His first claim is demonstrably false. If you look at historical, statistical evidence you can rapidly demolish his position. Start with Stephen Pinker's Ted talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen... His second claim is proba…

The more you study archaeology and ancient history, the more you realize that humans really aren't apt to change. The outward appearance of human behaviour is different (we work different jobs, eat different food, have different institutions), but we have the same social tendencies we did 7000 years ago. As for our supposed decline in violence, it's mostly due to technological advancements which have allowed us to ha…

> Our nature is no less violent, our circumstances are merely better.

Even if that's true, it has the same effect in the end.

"Put people in a better environment, and they will behave better" is a radical, pro-progress statement that would have been unrecognizable to most societies.

We're so infected with the progress meme that even people here arguing against it keep implicitly granting some of its premises.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#36

Post by VLM » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #32

The author is really arguing two things. (1) There is no such thing as moral progress, because human nature is fixed.(2) People are not naturally inclined to be free. His first claim is demonstrably false. If you look at historical, statistical evidence you can rapidly demolish his position. Start with Stephen Pinker's Ted talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen... His second claim is proba…

A third point notable in its absence, is that religion, freedom, American two party voting, all of it exists to control, pacify the masses. Only the dumbest of the masses believe.

The purpose of the two party political system is to keep the masses calm, make them think they have an input. They don't, of course. But it calms them. Writing a book about how voters choice and free will doesn't really exist is pointless. The opiate of the masses sometimes causes hallucinations, who cares as long as the right people stay in power.

The situation is identical with religion, or "moral progress" or the articles example of militarism in Austria a long time ago.

Our technology for distracting and redirecting away large masses of humans from their own self interest has never been better.

You could summarize the pointlessness of the discussion to something like the whip doesn't exist so don't fear it's lash... Well who cares if it exists or not, if the only reason our culture talks about the lash of the whip, is to control the masses?

This individual TV commercial sucks. We could change the channel on the global TV system to a different channel, but its got the same general set of commercials. Or we could hit commercial skip, whoops it seems to be nothing but an infomercial channel. Maybe the system sucking is the actual lesson, not that one individual TV commercial sucks.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#37

Post by AutoCorrect » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #32

The author is really arguing two things. (1) There is no such thing as moral progress, because human nature is fixed.(2) People are not naturally inclined to be free. His first claim is demonstrably false. If you look at historical, statistical evidence you can rapidly demolish his position. Start with Stephen Pinker's Ted talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen... His second claim is proba…

I would have to say that they are both true. We are, I believe, at a peak in our moral cycle. You're hemmed in by your narrow, human lifespan perspective.

How has science altered human behavior? We still lie, cheat, steal, and kill. Civilization is a thin veneer, and one that can be stripped away in a calamity.

The pendulum swings, and civilization rises and falls.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#38

Post by 6d0debc071 » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:26 PM UTC

> Gray rejects it utterly. In doing so, he rejects all of modern liberal humanism. “The evidence of science and history,” he writes, “is that humans are only ever partly and intermittently rational, but for modern humanists the solution is simple: human beings must in future be more reasonable. These enthusiasts for reason have not noticed that the idea that humans may one day be more rational requires a greater leap of faith than anything in religion.”

This just seems like empty rhetoric.

Some people are more rational than those in the past - and we've learnt a lot about cognitive biases, and about how to have productive conversations. I don't think it requires a particularly great leap of faith to believe that people may one day be more rational.

It's not a sure thing mind. But to go from a prescriptive must, to a may, to then saying that oh it's never going to happen. The evidence of science and history here may as well read 'It's common knowledge that...' a phrase that doesn't really support anything.

> “Technical progress,” writes Gray, again in Straw Dogs, “leaves only one problem unsolved: the frailty of human nature. Unfortunately that problem is insoluble.”

Because, hey, I say it is.

> Humanists believe that humanity improves along with the growth of knowledge, but the belief that the increase of knowledge goes with advances in civilization is an act of faith. They see the realization of human potential as the goal of history, when rational inquiry shows history to have no goal. They exalt nature, while insisting that humankind—an accident of nature—can overcome the natural limits that shape the lives of other animals.

Straw man.

#

sigh

I mean, look, I appreciate this is meant to be a book review, but in that role it's really bad. It's just a list of the book's claims along with some talking about what Grey believes. It might be an excellent book, it might be total tosh, but you're never going to know from that review which rapidly dissolves into nothing more than a political rant that takes it as granted that you already agree with Gray.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#39

Post by VLM » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:33 PM UTC

spitx wrote: post #18

kijin wrote: post #16

> their core belief in progress is a superstition, further from the truth about the human animal than any of the world’s religions. If some someone thinks that the history of humanity has always been one of progress, that's an empirical claim that can be shown to be false. But most of the people who I think promote the idea of progress are actually not like that. The idea of progress is an ideal, not an empirical cla…

Animals with highly developed brains never simply accept their fates. After all, they understand that if they manipulate nature in certain ways, at least some parts of their fate can be averted! Your argument has the appearance of something that's badly contrived (or derived). You may have not chanced on arguments surrounding your premise on "highly developed brains" and natural limits imposed on such brains owing to…

The physics argument against your "Argument for a finite upper limit to human knowledge" is that outside one brains lightcone, nothing can be known or matter. Inside that brain's lightcone, the ratio of states between particles in the brain vs particles in the lightcone is "pretty good" such that it could, possibly, never become the limiting factor. Not "all the particles in the cosmos" but more like all the particles in the light cone plus whatever light arrives from further away outside. Its really pretty small now.

Also you can't use a scientific argument to discuss non-scientific things. "stuff outside the lightcone" is defined as non-scientific by its very nature. We'll never observe it by definition, we'll never be able to test a hypothesis by definition... Way outside the scientific method. You'll need a non-scientific argument. May as well use religion.

Now you might get somewhere with an argument a little more advanced based on some kind of communications theory theoretical maximum signal to noise ratio over a lifetime implying a maximum theoretical bandwidth of information. Perhaps some kind of (related?) thermodynamic argument.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#40

Post by tootie » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 1:39 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #32

The author is really arguing two things. (1) There is no such thing as moral progress, because human nature is fixed.(2) People are not naturally inclined to be free. His first claim is demonstrably false. If you look at historical, statistical evidence you can rapidly demolish his position. Start with Stephen Pinker's Ted talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen... His second claim is proba…

I think the difference is the decrease in scarcity. There's a reason that intensive agriculture marks the beginning of what we consider civilization. Aside from the fact that it requires sedentary living, it removed the constant threat of starvation and relieved us of our basest instinct to kill or be killed. Human progress and arguably human evolution has gone beyond our genetic destiny and is now shaped by our works. People who live in first-world countries are unlikely to ever face a shortage of high-quality food, potable water, sanitation, basic medical care. There are simply fewer things to fight about.