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Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#81

Post by Analemma_ »

norir wrote: post #77
Analemma_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This error underlies all kinds of things all the way up to and including the present-day philosophical fad of "rationalism." (the Yudkowski variety) I’m not sure where you’ve gotten the impression that Yudkowsky and the rationalists are Platonists, it’s totally false. Almost all of them are hardcore nominalists, and several have written very lengthy diatribes about how ontological categories are purely human constr…

Many argue that rationalism itself, the elevation of reason above all other values and forms of knowledge, descends directly from Plato. I have only read a few of the Socratic dialogues myself, but I certainly have gotten the impression that this is a reasonable take on Plato and a departure from earlier traditions such as the Pythagoreans and other pre-Socratics -- most notably Parmenides -- who did not take a purel…

The person I'm replying to isn't talking about "rationalists" in the sense of Descartes and Spinoza, they mean the people in the Bay Area who read Eliezer Yudkowsky and talk about AI safety. And those people are not Platonists in the least. If anything, the usual accusation levied at them is that they drift too far in the nominalist direction. This is evident in pretty much all their writing, so I'm wondering where the GP is getting the impression that Platonism is their intellectual original sin.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#82

Post by nathan_compton »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #80
nathan_compton wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? American leaders use spiritual justifications for their actions all the time, especially if you include value-laden statements about, for example, human rights, as fundamentally idealistic in nature. The entire frame of American political life and foreign policy is idealistic in nature, not practical.

Just to chime in: it's entirely possible and not at all contradictory to believe in human rights and other base ideals/"moral axioms" while being a secular materialist. The only difference is in where the belief is justified. I consider myself a secular materialist in the way it's been talked about here, yet I still hold those views that you deem "idealistic". I just rationalize their origin in a different way. I alw…

Right, but I'd argue that if you believe that (for example) human rights are some kind of fundamental fact of the universe then you really aren't that different from someone who believes in God.

If you just have a preference for a world where people behave as though human rights exist, then you can be a materialist.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#83

Post by tim333 »

api wrote: post #8

I've believed for many years that Plato got something incredibly fundamentally wrong: he believed that logic, math, and the language of thought was primary and preceded existence. This error underlies all kinds of things all the way up to and including the present-day philosophical fad of "rationalism." (the Yudkowski variety) It's a popular idea because it's a "truthy" idea. When we introspect, thought feels primary…

Counterpoint: I think Plato was right that logic and math are primary and precede existence, although timeless so precede doesn't have much meaning.

It's one of the good bits of Plato unlike advocating for dictatorship and many iffy things. I don't see how it leads on to all the other things you mention like Yudkowski and The Secret.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#84

Post by cogman10 »

WithinReason wrote: post #56
Osmium wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually a very reasonable approximation within a certain regime: https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4057 There’s a reason people without training in sciences sometimes have the intuition that heavier things fall faster. This intuition isn’t developed in a vacuum (hah).

You can disprove this idea even in a simple thought experiment, you don't even need an actual experiment. If I take 2 large stones, connect them with a string so it's 1 object, will that object fall twice as fast than the 2 stones fall separately?

Working under the theory that large dense things fall faster than small things, you'd expect that the large stone would drag the small stone. Much like if you attach a piece of wood to a rock with a rope and throw it in water, the rock will drag the wood down.

You'd probably argue that even though they are connected with a string they are still 2 things and there's a density gap between the two of them.

Now, if you try and figure out what makes a thing a thing, it starts breaking down. But if you've already have the working theory, then making an explanation isn't terribly hard.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#85

Post by WithinReason »

Mikhail_K wrote: post #74
WithinReason wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disprove this idea even in a simple thought experiment, you don't even need an actual experiment. If I take 2 large stones, connect them with a string so it's 1 object, will that object fall twice as fast than the 2 stones fall separately?

That will depend on the length of the rope, once aerodynamic effects are taken into account

length is negligible

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#86

Post by MangoToupe »

pc86 wrote: post #41
MangoToupe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm legitimately confused what was confusing about my comment. Are we supposed to presume that the author thinks themselves better or not?

Typically when someone encounters a word they're unfamiliar with they'll do at least a cursory search of it[0] to see if it's a real word, the context, etc., rather than assuming the author made it up or intended to use some other word. Dimwit and midwit mean two different things. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=midwit

> Dimwit and midwit mean two different things.

> Midwit is an internet slang term, often used pejoratively, to describe a person with average or slightly above-average intelligence who believes they are exceptionally intelligent or insightful.

Does this not describe most of the people on this forum? Why would you invite such comparisons if you aren't confident you're better or "more correct" in some way? It seems they intended to use "dimwit", as that would result in comment making more sense overall by drawing a clear contrast with the speaker.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#87

Post by GeoAtreides »

taneq wrote: post #42

All of the 'great philosophers' got virtually everything wrong (and where they got things right, it was by luck rather than virtue) right up to the point where a few people started believing in wacky concepts like "the existence of an objective reality" and "maybe we should test our assumptions". Before that point all "great thoughts" were basically people with too much spare time, confidently making stuff up and dec…

You are indeed right: philosophers are not, nor ever were, physicists; neither is metaphysics the sole concern of philosophers

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#89

Post by Veen »

MangoToupe wrote: post #86
pc86 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically when someone encounters a word they're unfamiliar with they'll do at least a cursory search of it[0] to see if it's a real word, the context, etc., rather than assuming the author made it up or intended to use some other word. Dimwit and midwit mean two different things. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=midwit

> Dimwit and midwit mean two different things. > Midwit is an internet slang term, often used pejoratively, to describe a person with average or slightly above-average intelligence who believes they are exceptionally intelligent or insightful. Does this not describe most of the people on this forum? Why would you invite such comparisons if you aren't confident you're better or "more correct" in some way? It seems the…

One commonly observed midwit behaviour is to make arguments based on the dictionary definition of a word, having failed to understand that there is a complex set of cultural and social connotations implied by its use. In the case of the midwit, the implication is that intelligent people understand, stupid people understand, but the half-smart get completely the wrong end of the stick.

Re: Plato got virtually everything wrong (2018)

#90

Post by daseiner1 »

taneq wrote: post #69
daseiner1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

philosophy isn't really about answers, it's about questions. it's also not really about knowledge. a philosopher, literally, is a friend or lover of wisdom . there are decent arguments, for instance, that reasoning about God (yes, angels dancing on pinheads) laid the groundwork for things like calculus as it necessitates reasoning with the infinite. "objectivity" has been used to justify lots of bad things. and hate…

Hi! Thanks for your thoughts. I have no issue with pontificating about angles and pinheads. What I have issue with is statements like "platonic solids are the fundamental building blocks of the universe" where the justification is "because I think they're neat". Plenty of people have used "objectively..." as the start of terrible statements, no argument there. (And let's not even get into objectivism...) But the shar…

I still think you're selling the pre-moderns a little bit short, personally.

I respect and appreciate your equanimity in your response to my initial comment, which was admittedly unnecessarily harsh and antagonistic.

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