What particular war is mentioned? — Terrapin Station

Read the OP does it contradict my description that:

Yes, the subject is an entire war, a collection of specific military actions in the real world.

The OP has asked what follows from their conclusion this particular war is unjust, does it conflict with the general desire for a reasonable society. — boethius

The OP is talking about a real war in the real world, a specific collection of military actions that the OP finds unjust. The OP is referencing a real war. We do not know which war, we just know, based on the OP, that the OP is talking about a specific war. The OP is not asking upon which basis should a just or unjust war be evaluated, but only asking, given the conclusion that a war is unjust, is there a paradox somewhere with other social duties.

I am staying on this topic defending the position that an unjust war has no justifiable reason to support it (any excusable reason to participate would be based on either incomplete knowledge or coercion, neither of which the OP claims to be facing).

Do you really want to go over again how your reading method stacks up to my reading method? Am happy to oblige.

Was the subject some particular military action? — Terrapin Station

Yes, the subject is an entire war, a collection of specific military actions in the real world.

The OP has asked what follows from their conclusion this particular war is unjust, does it conflict with the general desire for a reasonable society.

Now, perhaps the war the OP is considering is just, perhaps it's not just, perhaps there is no just war or perhaps there is no unjust war. But assuming a war is unjust, then it follows that participating in that war is not just. There is no serendipitous round-a-about way of reasoning to turn actions to support an unjust war into just actions supporting some hypothetical just war that could otherwise be happening.

One may erroneously believe, due to lack of information or reasoning ability, that an unjust war is just, but this kind of argument, again, admits that the person is in fact in error, that the war is unjust and implies one's actions would change if one were to determine the war is unjust. That someone may have less information (even one's previous self) and take actions under erroneous pretenses (that the war is just) does not somehow justify someone with more information taking those same actions if the information contradicts the action in question (that the war is unjust and should not be fought).

You are not aware of all potential wars when you join up, at any time you could be sent to a war thats unjustified. — DingoJones

Have you read my post? I already dealt with this:

Now, there are many situations where a soldier does not know if an action is justified or not, and lacking that information is trusting the institution is more just than not; but this is not abdicating moral responsibility to evaluate what information one does have and act according to one's personal moral philosophy, which I can get into if you don't see the distinction. — boethius

Your concerns about ethical war, or soldiers disobeying immoral command decisions are covered by the rules of engagement etc (militaries have rules for that sort of thing.) — DingoJones

You are assuming the war is just and rules of engagement justified.

If the war is unjust then all the commands and all the rules of engagement are unjustifiable. The entire enterprise is a crime and all knowing participants are morally responsible for the crime.

So the ethical question you are asking yourself is “can I agree to follow orders, even if I dont agree with them?”. — DingoJones

This is not the question. If the war is just, then it is justifiable to follow orders that I don't agree with, for the sake of a greater organizational efficiency.

However, if the war is unjust and I come to conclude based on the information I have that it is unjust, then the argument of "following orders to maintain organizational efficiency" is no longer valid; it is only valid insofar as it is efficient for winning a war presumed to be just.

There is no way to separate the justification of individual actions in a war with the justification for the war as a whole. One may have partial information or lack in analytical capacity to both find and interpret information, and so erroneously assume an unjust war is a just war, or one can have serious doubts and trust the institution until those doubts are resolved, both these situation do not however actually justify engagement in a war that is unjust.

If an army does not like their soldiers having these kinds of reflections, it is perhaps evidence that army does or intends to wage an unjustifiable war.

↪Isaac I think this scenario is a good example of why a synthesis of utilitarianism and deontology is necessary. — Pfhorrest

Though how can a just war be managed justly runs straight into many differences between utilitarianism and deontology, in this case the OP has already concluded the war is unjust. Insofar as considering whether to join and fight the unjust war, utilitarianism and deontological arguments will conclude the same way. Whether the war is really unjust and what else the OP can do about an unjust war are knotty questions, but I know of no moral theory, consequentialist or deontological that, given the free choice, argue an unjust war should be fought anyway.

No you are not. You are making specific references to society and democracy, and I dont think you are really factoring in the social contract a soldier signs up for. Thats what im talking about. — DingoJones

You do realize you are "making a specific reference to society" when you are "factoring in the social contract the soldier signs up for".

I don't know what this criticism is supposed to even be, but you seem guilty of it within the same sentence you launch it from.

There is nothing in any social contract theory I know of that would lend support for an unjust war. If the war is unjust, the organizers of the unjust war are broken with the social contract they signed up for, and anyone who knowingly participates or enables them are, by definition, also broken with the social contract.

The difficult question is what is and is not a justifiable war, not that an unjust war lacks justification for carrying it out.

It is not noble or courageous to pretend to transfer one's moral responsibility to others, it is factually incorrect (one is still making one's own decisions) and just lazy cowardice.

A lot of that wasnt focusing on the soldier. — DingoJones

I am completely focusing on the soldier or citizen considering becoming a soldier. What I say is simply the logical outcome of concluding a war in unjust.

Of course, determining that is the difficult part, but the OP does not ask us what we think is just or unjust, but rather only whether it creates a paradox of wanting to avoid participating in (what one has concluded is) injustice but still wanting social institutions in a general sense.

Just institutions do not become just because people tolerate injustice from them. It is precisely because enough members of society oppose injustice that institutions become, ever so slowly, more just.

The soldier doesnt get to pick and choose, it cannot work that way. — DingoJones

Yes, the soldier does pick and chose what the soldier does. The soldier does not give up moral agency for a uniform.

They need to obey orders and military rules or people will die. — DingoJones

Sure, but that only supports your conclusion if you're assuming the war is just; in which case I agree.

If the war is unjust it is precisely because obeying orders and rule will result in people dying unjustly on the opposing side that participating is not justified. Now, if non-participation leads to the defeat of one's military and people on one's own side dying in the process, as mentioned above, this is an entirely morally acceptable outcome.

A military just cant function if all the individuals stop for some moral philosophy while serving. — DingoJones

An unjust military cannot function this way, and, as already mentioned, it's totally fine if all the individuals in an unjust military stop for some moral philosophy reasons while serving.

A just military easily can. Indeed, a just military relies on individuals exercising moral agency based on their own individual moral philosophy to have chance at credibly being just. For instance, if a just war is democratically decided, then presumably there are enough citizens that believe, for their own personal moral philosophy reasons, that the war is just. If it turns out that it was a mistake, even if many people thought it was just at the time, the best outcome for society is for enough people, both inside and outside the military, to apply the same moral philosophy process to conclude the war is in fact not-just and change their actions accordingly.

Thats part of what makes choosing to serve worthy and noble, that they are making a big sacrifice for their individuality while serving. — DingoJones

A soldier remains an individual. A uniform doesn't change that. To believe otherwise is to have some surreptitious circle of reasoning where one abdicates moral responsibility ... as you describe in your next sentence:

They are saying “ok, you point, I shoot”, knowing that they are entrusting the justification and morality to someone else. — DingoJones

No soldier needs to believe such a thing, and, furthermore, it doesn't make any sense. Your argument is basically "it is justifiable to no longer think of the justification once you have a uniform"; or in otherwords, unjustifiable action is actually justifiable. Now, there are many situations where a soldier does not know if an action is justified or not, and lacking that information is trusting the institution is more just than not; but this is not abdicating moral responsibility to evaluate what information one does have and act according to one's personal moral philosophy, which I can get into if you don't see the distinction.

I agree that if one believes the military just and worthwhile when joining that one must trust the chain of command until there is new analysis or information, but that does not form an argument that one should avoid reflecting upon or encountering such analysis and information and changing one's actions accordingly.

But this is far from " 'ok, you point, I shoot'.

I disagree. I think that the reality is you don’t get to pick and choose the wars you think are just or not when you are in the military. It doesnt and cannot work that way, and that has to be something you accept if you join the military. — DingoJones

It can completely work that way.

It doesn't work for the people wanting unjust wars for profit or ideological zeal, but it works completely fine for people who support just wars but not unjust wars.

There is no paradox, no contradiction arises.

Officers, of armies tending to have no explainable theory justifying violence, definitely find it convenient if their new recruits quickly abandon any reflection on their own moral agency within the context of violence. But that it is convenient from the point of view of the agents of the institution does not somehow remove the moral agency of the new or old recruits, it remains only a suggestion to "not think about it".

The unjust wars aspect IS part of a violent institution. — DingoJones

This is incorrect. Unjust wars are a risk of participating in an institution, directly or indirectly, but it is not something that must be intrinsically tolerated, much less supported, to have any institution at all. That's just a false dichotomy as I mention above. People can support an institution they think is just, knowing there is a risk it may suddenly become unjust due to corruption or political changes, and then change their relation to that institution and undermine rather than support it.

The reality is that humans are in charge of military application. Mistakes, poor judgement and bad actors are all part of it. — DingoJones

You are confusing an unjust war with unjust actions within a presumably just war. War crimes were committed by the allies, Russians, Nazi's, Chinese and Japanese Empire in WWII, that does not make the war each side was fighting unjust.

Mistakes will always be made in a just war, I agree; society must try to avoid such mistakes and deal with it as best as it can. Simply concluding a war is just does not make navigating such a war morally simple.

However, in an unjust war all actions by definition are unjust; the entire thing is, by definition, a mistake and there is simply no "a few bad apples" argument available.

Moreover, continuing a unjust war weakens a society and military and makes it less prepared to fight the next just war (in many ways I am more than willing to enumerate); not participating, and actively opposing an unjust war, helps not only the society one's society is unjustly harming but also one's own society. Continuation of unjust war requires the re-engineering of and destabilization of what society believes in order to muster enough support to continue it; this exercise of propaganda by the government upon the people we should expect in theory, and we find in practice, will lead directly to a society that is no longer able to interpret reality and the eventual failure of that society. Such a process, once it has started, is only arrested and reversed by people concerned about participating in unjust violence and deciding to oppose it because it is unjust; otherwise, it is not the case that a society "wraps up the unjust war" and gets back to the business of just war; history teaches us unjust war simply continues until it is stopped by internal and/or external forces (usually concerned about stopping unjust wars).

You can argue a war is just, but you cannot reasonably argue a unjust war should be participated in by anyone that has a choice in the matter; that it simply what unjust action means: things you shouldn't do given the choice. You can argue that there is no standard of justice and there is no just war and there is no unjust war and each soldier should just think like a mercenary, doing what will maximize benefit for themselves (plundering when victory is assured, gaining network and skills in non-combat rolls or peacetime, and deserting when defeat is likely), but this is not an argument that unjust wars should be participated in, it is simply denying that unjust wars exist; and this is not OP's question; OP has evaluated the war is unjust, not that there is no standard of justice.

I'm pro-military. Many people in my family served and so did I. I think it's worth doing for many reasons, not the least of which is the personal discipline you'll gain. — Terrapin Station

You and seem to be confusing the support for the idea of a military with the subject of engagement in and support for specific military actions. That "we should have laws generally speaking" is not an argument that defends or excuses any specific law of a given justice system, likewise "that society should use violence when required, generally speaking" is not an argument that defends or excuses any particular act of violence by society.

Plus their are other advantages, including that if you serve long enough, you'll earn lifelong benefits from it. — Terrapin Station

What will it profit a soldier if he gains mad skills, but loses his soul?

More importantly for the debate here, if sacrificing on the battlefield becomes probable or necessary to advance the interests of society, let's assume here it's a just war, would this possibility still make military service worthwhile based on the argument of personal gain? If so, would the war in question being unjust change this economic calculus even slightly, or is it entirely irrelevant?

The question isnt whether or not that its morally acceptable, but rather if those things are worth the trade-off. You already noticed yourself the consequences of not having a military at all. Disaster. — DingoJones

This is not the issue. The premise is of the OP is that the army in question is involved in unjust wars, not the general issues involved in maintaining violent institutions. For instance, the OP's subject is not that some soldiers will do unjust things in the broader scope of a just war.

The idea that the only alternative to opposing an unjust war is to have no government at all is a shallow false dichotomy. Obviously, only engaging in and supporting just violence is an available alternative to the prospect of supporting or engaging in unjust violence.

Ridiculous as she is — ZzzoneiroCosm

Thanks for reminding me that I need to complete my next post explaining why Ayn Rand is no a rehash of enlightenment philosophy, on "Why Ayn Rand isn't taken seriously by academic philosophers.

It's fun and useful to develop a catalog of zinging anti-Randian finishers.

Prepping for Thanksgiving dinner. — ZzzoneiroCosm

However, the general reason why there's a general tend to avoid Ayn Rand is that there are a lot of Europeans on the forum, and Rand get's hardly mentioned here in Europe. But I'm from the America's and so understand your motivation in terms of the broader social relevance.

For this particular subject, and "virtue of selfishness" in general, the zinger you're looking for is corporate welfare, leading to either a demonstration that your interlocutor has no idea what their talking about or then a more general discussion of corruption in politics. If selfishness is really a virtue, then no one would hold it against the judge for selling justice to the highest bidder, that's just the rational thing to do, allowing for dollars to vote on laws and by extension the application of laws. All Randian type fantasies are just praise for those that excel in the status quo by whatever means available while denying such ideas, if they become the new norm, would change the status quo in any meaningful way: that the police, soldiers, judges, politicians, voters would all still somehow magically act like Kantians all while spitting on the name of Kant.

If at this point your dinner guests haven't changed the subject (which I can essentially guarantee) you can go onto explain that while the governing capital owning elite generally do believe in selfishness, increasing their power by whatever means (that's usually how they got powerful, mixed in with good starting conditions), they generally don't actually believe Randian type "selfishness is a virtue" in any serious way. They bring out this ideology only when it suits them to whip up libertarians into a frenzy when required but will trot out other contradicting ideologies whenever doing so creates more gains; for instance, if taxes are at issue, there will be a lot of praise of the "selfish motive" and "wealth creators" and that people want to "keep their money" and tax is theft and an immoral punishment of getting ahead (i.e. in recent years, it's been discovered that flipping the message is more effective; maybe arguing 'selfishness is a virtue' today rings hollow today but arguing that 'trying take the gains is a sin' is still quite effective, in the US at least), maybe Rand isn't mentioned by name, because too much ridiculous baggage, but it's basically this idea; however, the same elites (and their Randian supporters) will praise the bravery and selfless sacrifice of soldiers when required for whenever public relations necessitates to honor the fallen or then insight in the population selfless (but irrational) feelings of militaristic patriotism to support military budget and imperial expansion in a general sense whenever these issues are questioned. Randians will accuse you of dishonoring the selfless sacrifice of soldiers while simultaneously holding the position that no soldier, police, firefighter, or non-profit volunteer really does act selflessly but are all really actually motivated by the "good feeling" of, at least believing, to do a good dutiful thing. Of course, Kant was aware of and obliterated any potential defense of this point of view by pointing out that one cannot be pleased to have performed a duty without having independent reasons to believe it's a duty in the first place, as otherwise one would not come to believe it is a duty and one could not conclude that one had actually performed a duty; only perhaps through social pressure would one have believed it anyway, a social pressure which would dissipate with time if there are no actual reasons for doing such a duty other than one will feel good about satisfying social pressure for having done it; if one is free from social pressure, as Rand suggests, there would be no way to create duties for the public good and no reason for a judge or a soldier to carry out such duties, which is the obvious and logical and rational conclusion of believing selfishness is a virtue: which is why Ayn Rand and all similar beliefs are so ridiculous.

but, the path to any kind of vaguely ‘classless’ society is through capitalism NOT socialism.

Once everyone has access to whatever resources they wish - which has happened VERY quickly over the past few decades - then ‘wealth’,in term of ‘money’, will dissolve. — I like sushi

This so mindbogglingly incredibly naive it is almost painful to read and respond to.

By "everyone has access to whatever they wish" what you actually mean is everyone around you in your class has access to sufficient resources to be happy in your opinion and you don't give two figs about first-peoples thrown off their land and forests burned to graze the cattle you eat, or the factory worker living in slave-conditions to make your electronics, or the people that don't have the skills to "cut it" and are homeless but contribute to the system by being a signpost of fear to keep the wage-slaves focused on the rat race.

Classes are not vague. People who are homeless form a class of identifiable people that share the characteristic of being homeless. People who work for a subsistence wage and have no capital form a class of people with these characteristics. People who work for a higher than subsistence wage and have enough capital to avoid homelessness in the short term (but not long term) if they were fired form a class sharing these characteristics. People who have enough capital that they do not ever have to work if consuming only the rents, interest or capital gains increase of their capital stock form a class sharing this characteristics. Or, as usually referred to there is the under-class, lower-class, middle-class and upper class of economic means.

Classes are only vague if you are securely middle to upper class and simply ignore everyone else. Then yes, who cares if you have a meaningful job, washing machine, a car and can go on great vacations and have fun on the internet and virtual reality or whether you have a mansion, a yacht and the complete set of Victorian styled servants.

Now, is there enough resources for everyone to share a middle-class level of comfort? It's trivially easy to prove as production efficiency has increased hundreds to thousands of fold, depending on how it's measured, and it's almost impossible to argue that there is not enough production capacity to provide everyone a decent standard of living. The whole point Marx is trying to explain is why this doesn't occur; how can people remain wage-slaves through several orders of magnitude increase in productivity (far more than population increase)?

If your point is just that you personally don't feel part of a class, no more willing to go to bat for the rich than the poor, again, if you bother to read Marx, he's completely aware of this. The fact that people form objective economic classes, Marx is very well aware, does not automatically create political parties of those groups.

There are of course problems with Marx, but pointing out there are in fact classes formed in a capitalist society in relation to capital ownership or lack-of-ownership is not one of those problems.

As to your contention of "accelerating material abundance that will soon satisfy everyone!" this is claimed every decade by proponents of capitalism since capitalism emerged: look at the steam boat and pump, affordable hammers and nails, the electric ironing board, the auto-mobile, the microwave, the flying machine! How easy life has already become for everyone, what paradise awaits!

but I don't want others to do it too (which would result in everyone not serving and thus - a really bad outcome for everyone) and that "seems" very morally wrong — SightsOfCold

The way you have framed things, there is no paradox just a direct contradiction in your premises.

You say the army is doing unjustified harm, in which case it would be just, not unjust, for that army to lose the war. So, even if everyone did act as you do then an unjust army loses an unjust war, a completely acceptable moral outcome.

Now, if you universalize further and ask "what if not only everyone in my country but everyone in every country did not contribute to unjust wars" then again, the result is completely fine.

From what I understand, you're basically saying that "it's a morally unjust war ... but if we stop fighting we'll lose and that would be worse!". A morally unjust war should by definition be lost, that is what all moral agents, both within and without the team in question, should be, by definition, the result they are rooting for.

If you are trying to get at some more general paradox of society not using violence ever and criminals and unjust armies running rampant, then this isn't really a problem in a framework that accepts there is a just and unjust uses of violence: people should do just violence and not unjust violence by definition. This sort of paradox arises only if you are considering all violence unjustified, now you must contend with the unjust armies roaming the earth with no just opposition to stop them (radical pacifists like Tolstoy resolve this paradox by arguing that the unjust will naturally realize their unjustness if they are not opposed; violence begets violence basically and it is up to the just to stop the cycle). This doesn't seem to be your case however; you can refuse to contribute to an unjust war and if society gets it's act together and stops unjust war and the next war arises that is just then you can join the military or contribute in another way; you're decision is not permanent as points out.

Where there is a much harder moral problem, assuming your just/not-just evaluation is correct, is that by getting an exemption but still being a normal citizen you are still supporting an unjust war.You may not be a soldier but you will be enabling the soldier and, insofar as this is the case, your moral position has not actually changed. To be in a different moral position you would need to do more than simply not join the military but also make other choices which lead you to be satisfied that you are not enabling unjust violence. This is usually discussed in terms of "paying tax to an unjust regime"; there are lot's of ways to resolve this problem, but none of them support business as usual which is what most people who come to ask themselves this question, at least at first, want an answer to (there is genuine moral conflict of carrying on business as usual in an unjust system, whether to support war or any other injustice, but it is not a paradox it is just a contradiction in desires).

My question for you is why ask for criticism of the premises of your book here after, rather than before, publishing it.

If you are trying to affirm, in so disregarding our thoughts in the formulation of your book, that our opinions are irrelevant to the truth and no better than your own, why ask us? If you are unsure, why publish the book?

In the article by Wolfram (link), he claims that special and general relativity can be easily derived from the behavior of a causal network. If you read starting at the section called "Evolving the Network", you'll see what I refer to. What do you make of this? Plausible? — petrichor

Oh I completely agree with him ...

But these are all speculations. And until we actually find a serious candidate rule for our universe, it’s probably not worth discussing these things much. — Wolfram

I am not sure I understand though why the space atoms "won't line up with their own space-atom grid that their asserting exists around them." I can visualize the compression, but not the misalignment. — petrichor

In the very simple way that if you "squeeze the grid" so the space-atoms are a half unit a part, those space-atoms won't line up with a grid where the space atoms are a unit apart in each direction.

If postulate space-atoms, the first thing you will do in relativity is compress them as viewed from another reference frame. Unless [insert crazy math here], what this thought experiment concludes is the computation of events must be irrespective of the size of the space-atoms; in otherwords, even if you were using space-atoms as a calculation device they cannot be physical as changing reference frame will and doing the same calculation of events will require postulating a grid of smaller space-atoms to get the same results.

Maybe an easier way to visualize the actual problem [minus crazy math to fix it] that happens. You've done some calculation of a causal events in your reference frame of space-atoms at a given size. By viewing the same events from another reference frame (i.e. viewing the events from relativistic speeds), if the space-atom size is fundamental, then some space-atoms of the previous reference frame "get squeezed out" of the grid in the new frame, if those space-atoms were important to get the result (the prediction of causal events) then they've disappeared and there is not an information mismatch due to changing reference frames. This is fixed by removing the postulate that the space-atom size is fundamental (difference observers cannot agree on the necessary size of the space atoms for the purposes of calculation); for, usually we will switch reference frames to do calculations in an intuitive frame, but this is only a convenience, we can always just keep the frame (the coordinate system) we're in and map out all causal events in that frame; so a length-contracted object will be quite literally "missing" space atoms (the observer in the spaceship decides "10^200 space atoms" axis are required to describe events in the ship, but the stationary observer, using the same size of space atoms, due to length contraction, only has the ship occupy one half of 10^200 space atoms). If the space atoms encode information they literally get lost changing from one reference frame to another.

There is no simple trick to fix this problem.

A property of continuous coordinate systems is they map "onto", without information loss, when stretching and compressing them. So in Einsteins system there are simply no smallest resolution that can "get lost" if you compress even smaller.

The basic problem is literally the same of resizing an image smaller and bigger on the computer: information gets loss (unless the information is encoded in such away that is scale invariant: just like Relativity).

In other words, without solving this problem, the space-atoms hypothesis can be a calculation aid but is not a physical description (i.e. even showing that you can make QM calculations using a grid doesn't provide evidence from grid-like space-atoms): there is no way in principle to decide how big space-atoms are. An analogy is weather simulations that model the atmosphere as a a grid; this is a calculation aid and is a completely non-physical postulate in the model.

What does he mean when he says that the table chooses a frame? — petrichor

The table is in a frame of reference where the table isn't moving. This frame of reference isn't special, and lot's of properties of the table are going to change when seen from a moving frame of reference or then in a gravitational well. What will be agreed however is causality and the laws of physics governing those causal links will make sense; however, the size of the table and what's happening simultaneously on the table and speed that time runs at on the table all will not be agreed (and so some happenings will be agreed to make sense but for different reasons for different observers; a magnetic field for one will be a electric field for another, Unruh radiation being an even more radical discrepancy in causal mechanism).

The problem of simply "quantizing space" being referred to here is basically that if you imagine a grid of "space-atoms" all around you all equidistant to each other, then from another frame of reference that's moving your space atoms will be compressed along one access and won't line up with their own space-atom grid that their asserting exists around them.

In a single stationary frame, it's no problem filling space time with a grid of "space-atoms" that are smaller than our most precise possible measurements and then just say "particles" jump from one atom to another. And, in a Newtonian space even moving around in the space-atom grid wouldn't be a problem; we can move fast or slow relative the grid. However, relativity has no preferred reference frame and the coordinates of a reference frame get stretched and squashed as seen from another reference frame, and so the space-atom grids would also be stretched and squashed and not line up.

Of course, the physicists and mathematicians working on "space-atoms" (networks, grids, etc.) are working in extremely abstract places to resolve this issue above. Arkani-Hamed is just pointing out the fundamental problem and there's no obvious fix for it. I don't think he's "hard against" any approach to quantizing space, just cognizant of the extreme level of difficulty; however, he is taking the position that space needs to be quantized, that space-time is doomed, which is not the only position (but generally favored by physicists because all observations are necessarily discrete whole numbers, what are usually called "ticks", and the supposition of continuous quantities is unverifiable and so a "more than you need" assumption from the get-go; the problem is Einsteins theories work so well and require continuous quantities to work ... and although QM predicts discrete measurement probabilities ... calculations are done in a continuous, fairly run of the mill, coordinate system; i.e. space is not quantized neither in relativity nor quantum mechanics and there's no obvious way to quantize space in either; it's also not clear to anyone if the problem is fundamentally mathematical or physical, or a strange mix of both).

a democracy is advertised as a system where the common people control the policies. — Hassiar

Yes, I agree.

brexit is another example, the others may be seen by polling figures, where this is apparently not the case. stop the madness. — Hassiar

The general analysis of democratic proponents is that the UK is not democratic enough, first-past-the-post vs. proportional representation. Other than simply being more inline with majority rule (first-past-the-post is only majority rule sometimes, which doesn't somehow magically turn cases of when it produces minority rule into majority rule, that's an obvious contradiction and nonsense argument; arguments for first-past-the-post are minority-rule arguments, and made by people that don't like democracy).

So other than being inherently more democratic, the practical consequence of proportional systems is that there is more space for more diverse views at the seat of power (any party with a few percent support can have a seat or two), and so this creates more nuanced discussion between adjacent parties and, critically, if a party get mired in corruption people can switch to a party that's very close in platform.

In first past the post, "whoever has the most votes wins" and so small parties are completely meaningless and the only numerical strategy to beat the incumbent is to merge all opposition into a single party (avoid vote splitting). This naturally tends to a two-party system, with fairly irrelevant exceptions of regional parties. Without stepping stones of platforms in between these polarized positions, debate cannot be nuanced as each party is simply a "cobbling together" of various views in that general space of political opinion and, critically, the only way to punish corruption or incompetence is to switch to a radically different party; both these factors result in coherent policy being left-by-the-wayside, and as a consequence the whole system loses focus on coherent policy, and so, surprise-surprise, the electorate, when polled, don't have a clue. Whereas, in a proportional representation system, parties need to compete by making more sense next to the adjacent parties and people can easily engage in debate with adjacent parties; coherent arguments sort of "win locally" and then move along the ideological space, being adopted by the like-minded and requiring a critique from those opposed to that view (which generally, if the argument is really good, requires modifying the platform to either "take the good parts", explain the argument is simply wrong or then recognize the problem but deal with it by a combination of other policies); all of which promotes a much more coherent understanding of things overall.

But there's a quick empirical take, which is the advanced democracies with proportional representation are never in the news for electing stupid people or having stupid referendums. In other words, people become frustrated with the non-democratic nature of first-past-the-post and over time "anti-establishment" becomes a predominant opinion that expresses itself in eventually supporting disruption to the system. Of course, it would be more productive for this frustration to be directed at the first-past-the-post system, but it takes a lot of time to build that awareness and there's all the incumbent power of the entire country (main political parties, media, the rich) that want the status quo. The whole point of first-past-the-post is that it allows minority rule while being advertised as democratic; the result is the worst of both worlds: the minority that rules becomes detached from reality and stupid and corrupt, and the people are not accustomed to real policy debates mattering so are equally ill equipped to guide the country when their effect is felt from time to time.

governments are too corrupt for the democratic experiment to continued ad naseum — Hassiar

What's your definition of corruption here? Being able to nudge the scales of justice towards arbitrary power for oneself? How would a form of minority rule fix that? not to mention democracies existing today where corruption is low.

Exactly, I didn't find this post surprising at all.

2. Sell the commons, making it private so that folk take care of it. (We might call this the Selfish Git solution) — Banno

This proposed solution also depends on your 'A Big Fat Dictator who shoots anyone who tries to put two cows on the', what is now, private property.

Using "Big Fat Dictator" to refer to government, doesn't somehow remove reliance on government in the privatization solution, as you need government to enforce exclusion from the space.

And if you assume government is there to enforce exclusion from the space for the benefit of a private individual, then by definition government can enforce some reasonable sharing scheme, including some while excluding others.

For, imagine you're the farmer and bought the privatized land, but someone comes and puts a cow on it? Will your whining and complaining and maybe some ranting about government help? No, what will help is phoning the government and asking the government to enforce exclusion to your property.

Privatization is not a structurally different scheme then any other scheme to manage use of a publicly owned asset, they all rely on the government's ability to force exclusion and select usage of the asset.

There is no intrinsically moral or structurally political difference, the relevant question is simply "what's a good deal for the public".

The proponents of privatization are generally not arguing against the power of government (which they need), but rather they are generally arguing that public assets should be sold below the true worth of the asset, either by fanciful accounting that undervalues the asset or then "just because".

Usually, the fanciful accounting excludes the future utility of the land to the public and includes fanciful interest and discount rate calculations to try to show the public gains more from the capital exchanged for the land than a renting scheme. However, since the difference between selling and renting is extremely low in any calculation, the net-present-value of future utility (government wants to make some project and suddenly it's convenient all that land is public) easily exceeds the sell-rent difference, it's almost never reasonable to sell public lands based on the same accounting methods companies use to value their own assets.

What makes matters worse, is that the main reason for a private company to sell land would be the management costs exceed the revenue from that land, but the main management cost for the public (policing and a court system to settle disputes, which can just as easily come up with private owners and between renters) will be the same if privatized or rented!

So, if we simply don't know what the land will be worth to the public in the future and supporting a police force and justice system is the same if things are rented or sold, then the economic optimum is a rolling rent scheme (and whether to one or several users doesn't really matter, just like if the rent was sold and the buyer then rented to several farmers the proponents of privatization wouldn't care). If you object "ah but farmers need long term foresight", well the rolling rent scheme can be long term, whatever is optimum. In most circumstances, it's almost impossible to argue against this in economic terms, and third-party un-biased economists brought into evaluate these cases typically demonstrate the above with lot's of numbers and conclude renting provides both revenue and future flexibility if a new public optimum usage of the land is found.

Hence why privatization proponents try to cast it in moral terms, that somehow it is a morally superior outcome to privatize in which case it's a moral imperative to privatize, and if assets need to be sold below their value that's fine. Of course it makes no sense (why would the public sell something below the value, isn't this economically irrational? how could "economics" seriously conclude such a thing), so they will flip-flop between these moral arguments for privatization and fanciful accounting.

The tragedy of the commons only occurs if there is no effective way for the government to enforce exclusion, in which case there is no effective way to privatize either, and "developing a culture that respects the commons" becomes the only option. For instance, if there is no effective way to exclude people from using a common space to dump small pieces of trash, aka littering, then developing a culture against littering is the only option.

I don't know the US scene, but isnt Trump the guarantor of all the male white-collar industrial jobs that globalism and immigration threaten? Hence trade wars to defend US companies. — Tim3003

That's the story, sometimes, the point is Trump does not need to deliver this, it's just a story being told and actions are for show and not substance.

For instance, if the trade wars lose more male white-collar industrial jobs than they create, Trump base will either just deny those numbers or make up a new story where that's a good thing or in any case not due to Trump. "Nuanced facts" (by which I mean anything not essentially recorded) haven't mattered much to most republicans for a while, Fox News exists to create propaganda and predates Trump; what Trump represents is abandoning internal-consistency as well as non-nuanced-obvious facts, this is a new step into the absurd.

Trump and republican talking heads are willing to deny taped statements, be completely self-contradictory and make no plausible "truthiness theater" (which Republicans, pre-Trump, would at least go through the motions of; so Trump is a not straying too far from Republican strategy and intellectual honesty, but it is a new phase where intellectual honesty is no longer even a "pretend value" but openly mocked).

Uhh...no. Trump and nuclear weapons isn't an issue. Trump is simply such an inept leader that he simply cannot do such trouble. And what is rarely mentioned is that Trump supporters don't like the neocons and the hawks in Washington — ssu

We agree on several points, but I'd just like to react to this. It may seem at first "obvious someone like Trump should not have nuclear powers" and then quickly turn into a trope because we think other people would prevent reckless nuclear launch, I think the first intuition is the correct one.

For two reasons:

First, it's a baseless assumption that "it would be hard to launch a nuke". We actually simply don't know. Trump is not surrounded by "other responsible people" all the time, and so anytime he's alone and if he called in the nuclear codes handler; as far as we know those codes simply just work and the soldier with the nuclear football is told to do what the president says. So if it got into his mind that he needs to launch, there's simply no good basis to assume that would be a hard thing to do, and someone who's erratic, unpredictable, self-contradictory and is seems to follow no identifiable pattern of behaviour it's again just groundless speculation that wanting to launch a nuke stays unreasonable to this person. Maybe it's unreasonable today, but tomorrow a few new ideas come up and it looks like genius.

Second, there may arise crisis uncaused by Trump where the use of nuclear weapons looks like it's reasonable, no one in the chain of command has complete knowledge, the order to launch arises and it is carried out because it seems a reasonable response to the crisis and lower-downs will assume "certainly a lot of the higher-ups agree"; but in such moment of crisis it maybe, with complete information (i.e. the information available), completely unreasonable to launch but Trump, using one of his long list of erroneous conclusion formula, truly believes it's reasonable, has all the other "higher-ups" arrested or sidesteps them and sends the command to launch. It's a crisis, it's tense, the likely outcome is people do what they've been trained to do: do what the president says. Things simply happen too fast for there to be some sort of coup to depose Trump.

Let's hope neither of these situations are ever tested, but I think it's unwise to minimize it; it can of course be discussed further, my purpose here was simply to compare the stakes in Brexit with the Trump presidency (there's lot's of other examples of "large gap in stakes").

I will come back to the "how many people are there really" question in my next post, as it's just irrelevant apologetics: doesn't actually lead to a conclusion that public funded research, and research affecting public policy, should not both be publicly available.

Moreover, it's not a scientific argument! We can't emperically compare a global knowledge system with the least amount of barriers possible to one with the current barriers. As I said, these arguments supporting the current system are all just reducible "nothing to see here".

I'll focus for now on your strawman:

And this is leaving aside the absolutely bonkers conspiracy theory that you have going about scientists hiding their research behind paywalls so that outsiders, untainted by special interests, would not be able to check their work. — SophistiCat

I do not say there's one giant conspiracy, I say there's an incentive structure which does not exclude local conspiracies on occasion.

This is why the opioid crisis is blowing up: there was no basis in science for it! it was not an honest mistake yet there is massive harm to the public. The "experts" with "years of training and immersion in the field", from the researchers on opioids to the government oversight to the doctors themselves.

Consider one aspect of it, the policy to outsource the licensing of fentynol prescriptions (who gets to prescribe fentynol) to the pharmaceutical companies themselves who outsourced it to a pharmaceutical distributor.

How do you explain this decision as "the best expertise can come up with".

If you don't, then:

If it was obviously corruption of the government why didn't experts in academia sound the alarm and make some protest to stop it? Or, why didn't doctors themselves "self-organize" to mitigate the affects of this corruption (police themselves)?

If we don't expect our experts to have any expertise (i.e. people prescribing opioids don't know anything about opioids) or then we don't expect them to overcome incentive structures that promote self-censorship, then how do you avoid the conclusion:

Making knowledge systems more open so that ordinary people can check the basis of policy decisions is an additional safety backstop to avoid poor policy decisions and accelerates awareness when the affects of poor policy decisions start to be felt.

In my next post I'll get into the positive reasons why we should expect transparency to have large affects (that expert networks are vulnerable to corruption, self-censorship, insufficient time to police themselves for mistakes, incentivization of various other kinds, and group-think), and it's a question of both availability and barriers to access, and any fixes to these problems must come, by definition, from outside the expert-networks themselves. Now we can't know what lowering the barriers to checking will do, but we don't know the cost of errors going unnoticed: if one such error is an existential threat then open research is justified as opening publicly funded research is neither difficult nor an existential threat (it's just basic risk-analysis).

If "this theorem T is unprovable" is proof, as you say, then doesn't that mean it's provable after all and that too within the axiomatic system? — TheMadFool

Yes (that's a good question) and why the phrases "inside and outside the system" come up.

"Inside the system" the theorem isn't provable, there's no problem; the axioms are content to just leave it at that. It's only us outside the system that we realize that if the system can't deal with that statement, then that statement is actually true.

It's basically the liar paradox but there are two different systems to evaluate the theorem, whereas the liar paradox is fully "in our minds" and we can't look at it "outside the system it's expressed in".

So, "within the system" we can follow Godels axioms and statements to arrive at a completely proper conclusion. We need to use reasoning "outside the system" (that are not based on the axioms of the system) to arrive at the conclusion the statement is actually true. We can't do this with the liar paradox and so cannot do a similar thing to conclude it's actually true, as if it's true then it's false; incompleteness is a version of this idea that somehow works out due to these nuances of building it in a system that is smaller and weaker than our own minds and these nuances of "unprovable" doesn't necessarily mean "false"; so saying that statement is "actually true" doesn't make a contradiction with the truth value within the system which just says "unknown (as far as these axioms are concerned)"; i.e. if I say "I don't know if it's raining outside" isn't contradicted by you coming and saying "it's raining".

If a proposition P is true then necessarily that a proof must exist for P being true. — TheMadFool

This is the premise you need to abandon.

There can be true statements that have no proof. Incompleteness shows us an example.

There can also be just "true facts" about numbers and arithmetic that are true and there's simply no proof possible.

For instance, the Collatz conjecture we may simply never be able to prove is true, false, or even undecidable, it just stays unknown (beyond what we can check through computer calculation, which wikipedia says we've done to 87 * 2^60 which seems impressible is minuscule compared to "all numbers"). I.e. it can be "true" but also true that no proof nor proving it's undecidable is possible; some things that "resist refutation" can potentially just stay a big question mark indefinitely. The halting problem is a related concept.

If I were to make an educated guess, "unprovable" and "undecidable" mean the same thing. — TheMadFool

I think this question got answered, but I was careful to use terms of "unproven statements" which is not the same as "unprovable statements.

Why we don't use "unprovable" as a synonym to undecideable is because it makes sense to say "this false statement is unprovable", but of course to know it's false means the negation is proven. Which is why "Undecidable is actually stronger. It means not only unprovable, but also that the negation is unprovable" as @alcontali mentions.

How is it then that a statement like (refer highlighted section of quote above): "true, but that are unprovable" occur in Godel's incompleteness theorem. — TheMadFool

Justified True Belief (JTB) : Knowledge of proposition P = P is true, P is justified and you believe P. — TheMadFool

An important condition to incompleteness theorem is the axiomatic system is strong enough to do arithmetic.

The concept of complete is that every true statement that can be expressed in the system can be provable. The concept of consistent is simply that there are no contradictions.

The axiom of P = P forms a system of a single axiom where the only statement understandable to the system is P = P which doesn't contradict P = P, so it's complete and consistent.

Incompleteness theorem doesn't create doubts about things like P = P, and even adding a few more rules about P doesn't necessarily run into incompleteness theorem.

Enough rules to do arithmatic are needed.

Once arithmatic is possible, statements understandable to the system can also be statements about the system.

How this is possible is because all statements can be encoded as a number and rules about arithmatic describe numbers and what can be done with them.

Armed with this, it's then possible (in a completely proper mathematical way, not just conceptually) to make statements such as "This theorem is unprovable" and then show we can't prove that theorem with the axiom. But it's a true statements!!! We know it's true because we proved that it's unprovable, there's just no axiomatic way to prove it.

Without getting technical, I hope this gives some key intuitions as to what's going on.

Why this theorem was so important, is because before incompleteness theorem, mathematicians were looking for the "one true system", a system of rules about numbers from which all true statements about numbers can be proven and no contradictions arise.

The "no system of arithmetic can prove it's own consistency" part is, for me anyways, much more abstract relevance, I'm not sure there's some key intuitions about it.

I’m well aware of that. It’s amazing how long it has taken. It truly is a scar on the face of democracy. — NOS4A2

The fear is about what happens after, and they are reasonable fears from what I tell, which is why a majority of UK politicians are trying to prevent it and why the EU is calling BJ's bluff.

It’s not so much “ignoring events” as it is ignoring the persistent fear mongering and prophesies about the future, none of which has yet to come true. — NOS4A2

You do realize Brexit hasn't come true either?

It might not, but are we able to really answer your question? How are the Brexiteers depicted in the UK? — ssu

Yes, I agree there is no "answer" ... for now. However, we will find out as events unfold, people can have feelings and insight that is interesting or useful regardless of whether they can prove it.

But I am not asking how they are depicted in the UK, I'm asking what they might actually do if Brexit either doesn't happen at all or there is a crash-out (and the consequences are obviously and immediately negative). It would seem to us that his supporters would abandon him in these events.

Of course, that doesn't exclude a crash-out but amazing Brexit experience or some awesome deal coming out of BJ at the last moment and if not saves the day at least saves face. Of course, these events would merit more support, a leader leading the way.

Trumpianism is characterized by supporters largely just ignoring events and living in a world where "Trump is a good leader" is an irrefutable belief.

It's a truism on the left that Brexiters are similar, but I am doubtful of this claim; it is not a world view immune to events. There is a false faith in Brexit delivering positive outcomes (it's epistemologicaly possible, sure, just not likely), but there is not a world view so false that a disastrous Brexit will be cheered as a victory nor cancelling or a Brexit-lite being re-interpreted as what they wanted all along. At least, that's what I think.

But even if I think this way, maybe there is evidence that I'm wrong, and even if I'm right it leaves the question of what Brexit supporters will actually do vis-a-vis different events unfolding. People can't really prove anything, but they may have feelings and insight about it.

Brexit and Trump are phenomena were the left simply lost and things didn't go as planned for the ruling elite. — ssu

It is not simple, partly for reasons that are even contained in your statement: both the left and the ruling elite lost!?

I'll have to get back to this, as it's interesting to delve into. To quickly summarize, Trump and Brexit are not "simple losses" for the left, they are a new kind of political phenomena (in our political time at least).

Though Trump has emerged from a trend of reality-denial fostered by the right, there is no longer even the pretense of plausible connection to reality and reason. Yes, this is a loss for the left if defined as any honest attempt to understand what is true, but "conservatives" are not defined by a rejection of reality; it happens that Trump is republican but republicans can also prefer reality and still not be left (maybe I think they are wrong, and maybe they really are, but they maybe honestly so and just as frightened by a wholesale rejection of reality and reason as anyone on the left -- in otherwords, Trump supporters are a new constituency that shares only the same name as the previous constituency).

Brexit is driven by a few related issues to Trumpianism, but not really. Part of the argument for Brexit was more money for the NHS?! I.e. more and better socialism. Brexit is also simply not as high stakes as Trump; leaving the EU isn't remotely on the same level as putting a person like Trump in charge of nuclear weapons (and BJ is far from Trump in composure, basic ability to reason, connection to reality; maybe he wants a bit of that Trump sause boosting him up, but he's not unhinged, erratic and self contradictory, with zero respect for the rule of law). He is a fairly normal politician with a fairly good education and ability to make convincing argument through speech, maybe not good but plausible (there's just no comparison to Trump).

Brexit is more a historical train wreck, that is not lethal, but could have been easily prevented on numerous occasions and makes a bumpy ride for the occupants on the train; and the lesson is the engineers driving the train shouldn't suddenly ask the passengers if "they really think trains need tracks, show of hands everyone! We're totally willing to try off-roading this train to settle the issue, fingers crossed!"

Well, this got pretty long, because there's lot's of important distinctions that we usually don't draw attention to.

To summarize, there are (at least 3) kinds of unproven statements.

The first, is as you say, statements that resist refutation. Both their truth value and undecideability value are unknown to us. Providing a refutation resolves both questions, "it is a decidable statement and it is not-true".

Continuing to not have a refutation has more possibilities than just "we haven't proven it true or false yet".

The statement could then be proven to be undecideable: which means we prove it neither follows from nor does it contradict our existing axioms in the system under consideration. It is here that we are safe to extend the system by just adding it as an axiom.

We might do so for fun, or we might do so because we have reasons, outside the system, to believe the statement really is true. Incompleteness demonstrates just this; we can't prove it ... but we really do think it's true!

Incompleteness informs us that we can never have a set of rules that prove "all true facts" about numbers, even if we keep finding undecideable statements and each time have reasons to believe it's true and so allowing more true proofs about numbers (to extend the "true facts" we know). But only because we are finite.

If you're talking about the platonic world with all true statements, mathematical or just statements in general, then incompleteness isn't a problem.

The pattern already emerges from the existing axioms without explicitly adding the pattern as an axiom. So, what do you gain by adding it? — alcontali

I'm not sure I would phrase things the way you do (as undecidable statements are not necessarily existing patterns), but adding a "true unprovable" statement as an axiom allows the system to be extended by then proving more things with the new axiom.

For instance, the axiom of choice is not provable from the other ZF axioms (it neither contradicts ZF nor is implied by ZF nor is it a pattern that emerges from statements following from ZF), so we can add it and extend the system. This is probably the most famous example, but we can also just take other axioms away from ZF and have the same situation and then add them back in to extend the system, to demonstrate the process (taking an axiom out, doesn't make the things depending on that axiom suddenly false, they become suddenly undecidable); something controversial like the axiom of choice (the controversy being not that we can extend ZF but whether we need to for the practical problems of engineers) isn't required to see this "adding axiom" process happening, that's the only way to get a set of axioms: staring with one axiom and then adding the next.

This "extending the axioms" also occurs whenever problems with actual values are worked out with defined relations or values. Saying X really is 5 extends our axiomatic system. This may seem trivial and irrelevant, but I'll get back to it at the end (we may have reason to really believe X is 5; i.e. that X represents the number of people in the room, and the number of people is really 5: it is a true statement we are adding to the system, as an axiom, that we could not prove with our previous axioms; if we are using this statement in our formal system it is no different than the other axioms, it is only us, outside the system, that knows it is a different kind than the others and stated to be true for different reasons; so we don't call them axioms, but they are formally they are the same thing and we demarcate that with "if"; i.e. "if x = to 5" then we are going to treat that as an axiomatic statement ... for now).

Therefore, I really do not see what you would gain by adding the Riemann hypothesis to the axioms of number theory. — alcontali

The reason we don't axiomatize the Riemann hypothesis is because, unlike the above two examples, we really don't know if there are no counter examples; if we add the hypothesis as an axiom and a counter example is found then now we have a contradiction and all statements (all statements!) and their negations can be proved; we want to avoid that. When the Riemann hypothesis is "assumed" it's being used as an axiom same as every other, but again, we outside the system know it's not like the others, and if a problem arises (a contradiction appears) we won't be pointing the finger at axioms at random, we'll know who needs to go.

For the Riemann hypothesis to be added like the axiom of choice, it would need to be proven that it's undecidable; i.e. independent of ZFC. Then we could add and make ZFCR or it's negation or do neither no problems, and it's a practical question whether it's useful to add it and it's a philosophical debate whether it is really "true" (formally speaking, in the same way we can ask if ZFC axioms are "really true"; though from outside the system we can understand ZF is different than the C which is different than R) -- useful to note here most mathematicians no longer debate whether axioms are true or not; you do what you want and you see what happens, if you want to do something useful pick useful axioms ... of course, that's not how mathematics is taught. (Another good example is imaginary numbers, we need to add i squared equals 1 as an axiom -- and for that matter analytic continuation from which the Riemann hypothesis arises is also itself an extension, adding more axioms because we feel like it; why it's such a focus is that a bunch of other stuff about prime numbers and number theory become true making a deep and unexpected connection; this is what's irksome, having to jump through all these hoops to be really, really close to proving things we have not the slightest clue how to do otherwise).

Anyways, once we understand all that we can extend our mathematical axioms by making new axioms from undecideable statements, and we can imagine axiomatizing all knowledge through this process as the OP suggests. For instance, "at what time you'll wake up tomorrow" is not provable from our current set of axioms, but once it happens we can add it as an axiom to a giant formal system we're continuously extending as we think of new statement we prove are undecideable but think are true anyways as well as experience new things that get dropped into the system and true because they happened (they didn't have to -- i.e. we couldn't prove it from previous axioms -- but it did happen and so becomes a true statement we can use as an axiom). A "perfectly rational" being with "all the axioms" would indeed see all the conclusions in the axioms and experience knowledge in this way (an omniscient being would have no subtleties about what's true and false; a perfectly rational but not-omniscient would just have perfectly accurate probabilities that follow from any uncertainty in their axioms; i.e. we can interpret "all the axioms" in an omniscient way or in a way of perfectly setting up all the experience the being has as axioms and making perfect inferences).

Of course, we're far from being able to do anything remotely close to this.

This is why I describe Kant, not only because of the historical parallel, but because the fact we are so far away from experiencing "real knowledge" in the way the OP suggests (that I agree, "real perfect knowledge" works like that; all the conclusions are understood simultaneous to the axioms) "our actual experience" of knowledge is the moral effort required to understand a tiny, small, miniscule part of the "platonic" world of all truths. Because we can get it wrong along the way gives rise to moral tension. The Kantian philosophy is that there is a path -- there are true axioms that can be discovered and we can through effort conform our behaviour to those axioms approaching, in steps no matter how small, the world view of perfectly rational beings for whom it is just obvious and there is no tension -- which is opposed to nihilism of no true axioms existing (at least morally), skepticism of not true axioms being knowable but they maybe there, relativism of one form or another where true axioms depend on oneself (in a circuitous and unresolvable way ... unless it is already resolved), divine consequentialism (true axioms are decided by God and only true by being told to do it or suffer the consequences to disobey), utilitarianism, scientism, emotivism (where things aren't resolvable at all).

This is the rise of populism in the UK. Very sad. Nietzsche spoke of 'slave morality', which unlike 'master morality' is not driven by lofty aims and theorems, but expediency. The ignorant Brexiteer masses don't care about the law or constitution, they just want out of the EU, and as Boris has chosen to champion that simplistic end they support him; thus he's won back hard-line ex-Tories from the Brexit party. — Tim3003

I agree here, but my wonder is how sustainable this position is.

For instance, to contrast to Trump, Trump supporters have almost zero expectations of what Trump will do other than continue to be Trump. The few places where Trump supporters want delivery, Trump has a lot of power to deliver: crack down on immigrants.

Whereas for BJ, if the expectation is to deliver Brexit in a way that's "good for the economy", and he doesn't deliver (Brexit doesn't happen or then hard Brexit happens and his supporters are surprised things don't improve), will his support continue?

In other-words, is his support dissociated with reality as with Trump (ohh, he's paying a porn star for sex ... hmm, must be the reincarnation of an old testament king that God uses as an instrument of divine intervention from time to time; pretty raunchy times the old testament).

Though it's a truism on the left that Brexit mirrors Trumpianism, and there are similar issues for sure, I am not yet ready to give the British so little credit as to be in a Trumpian level delusion (in the sense of "enough supporters"); but I don't have my finger on the pulse of UK culture, clearly the Brexit delusion has been propped up so far, but it's not completely immune to reality (which is why it's dragged on so far; maintaining a status of fringe EU purgatory while pretending to negotiate are necessary conditions to support the Brexit delusion, but are conditions that aren't stable) and so the question arises when, what conditions, the illusion would turn to disillusionment and what do BJ supporters do after that?

I think we can actually ask a simple question: "Why don't we think alike?" — TheMadFool

If you're trying to connect this question to the law of physics, then it's the same as "why aren't all molecules alike"; i.e. why is there any differentiation at all.

As for our;

effort at laying down universal laws, just like mother nature and also the various exceptions that resist such an effort. There are no exceptions to the laws of nature. — TheMadFool

Moral inquiry arises precisely because there are exceptions to principles we can follow. We don't call gravity a moral principle precisely because we can't avoid following it's dictates, if we could then the question would arise as to whether we "should" feel the force of gravity, let G have its way with us, or not.

If I make a choice it implies that there was some alternative.

Your question is perfectly valid from an ontological perspective, the "big questions" of why we're here? Why is there discord among us? Why is there suffering?

If the physical laws being coherent is just a starter to contrast with our many incoherent sayings and doings as a society as a whole, then I have no qualms. This is what I understand of your last post, as you emphasize that you are not saying a contradiction arises about our behaviour from the laws-of-physics per se, is this accurate?

But if so, this seems another angle into the free-will debate, or is your intention to avoid that or then focus on something related but adjacent to it?

I'll take ethics as an example. We all know that all ethical theories are "incomplete" in the sense that there are exceptions which cause them to fail. — TheMadFool

We do not know this.

Not only are there simply principles, such as the law-of-non-contradiction (as @javra mentions) that we probably would agree we don't want to make exceptions to, but even less simple ethical principles, if we find an exception, we can just amend the theory, add it as a qualifier of the principle and so it's not a problem. For instance, there is nothing that prevents resolving the "murderer at the door" issue by amending our principle of "not to lie" with "don't lie, unless there's a murderer at the door".

Now, more importantly for your particular issue, whether physical laws are universal or not, our ethical theories are compatible with our here-and-now physical laws by definition! No matter how incoherent they are. Anything anyone does is compatible with the physical laws: breaking an ethical rule in whatever ethical system (even the system that all actions whatsoever are unethical) does not break a physical law. Was the action then "determined by physical laws" is the free-will question, but you don't seem to be discussing that here. Your issue seems to be simply that physical laws we all must "obey" (in a sense) are not the same category of thing as moral principles where we have a choice (to decide what our idea of moral principles are, tolerate internal contradictions or not, and decide which one's we'll follow on any occasion); but, either way, ethical theories don't "all have exceptions that cause them to fail", there are not only complicated theories with no internal contradictions it's easy to make simple theories such as "all decisions are moral; random actions are fine, doing what you feel is fine too" that have no exceptions by definition (everything is moral, no exceptions).

Also shows up Johnson's empty threat of no-deal to gain traction in negotiations - the Europeans have called his bluff. — Wayfarer

What's really amazing is that BJ's popularity (in the UK, and more so in the conservative base) seems to be going up in all this.

Is BJ successfully creating the dynamic of complete incoherent expectations from his followers and they will defend him come-what-may (there will always be others to blame, a la Trump)? Or is that not his plan, and his plan is just going horribly wrong ... but support increases anyways? Or is there real potential for 5D chess with the EU, Labour, competitors within his party? Or will there be comeuppance from his followers when he fails to deliver Brexit?

On this side of the North Sea, Brexit has just become a side-show running joke, there is no longer any ideological stakes or even much worry about consequential relevance at play (hence the "show us this deal now then or then go away"). Are there any viable end-points for BJ, if not in terms of reasonable policy, at least for his followers?

If you construct an abstract, Platonic world using axioms/premises expressed in first-order logic, then there will be perceivable patterns in that world that can neither be falsified nor be proven from its construction axioms. That is exactly what Gödel's first incompleteness theorem proves. — alcontali

This is not what it proves.

This holds for only a finite set of axioms and axiom schemata, an important condition; as new unprovable truths or straightup undecidable propositions can always just then be added as a new axiom to then be provable.

You think Plato's content to be brooding up there with a finite amount of axioms? Have you no respect for your elders!

Which underlines the experience of knowledge that Kant arrives at: knowledge is not apart from moral exertion, knowledge is moral exertion. You will have to morally exert yourself to try to understand why you made such a trivial mistake ... or then I've made a trivial mistake and I will have to do the moral exerting.

Yes, it is essentially this problem posed by Hume that Kant created Kantianism to answer.

This is the first essence of the categorical imperative, that our nature is not necessarily rational. We do not have all the true axioms and see all the conclusions contained in those axioms. We are capable of rationality and we experience this as a choice.

We are tempted, based on whatever our definition is in the moment, to do wrong, but we can overcome this temptation and do right.

Perfectly rational beings would not have such a temptation, or at least not the experience of it as a tension. The usual analogy is that mathematicians, when concluding the answer is 7, aren't tempted towards the 6, they are aware that they could just write 6 anyways but that would not be "giving into the 6" and would not change their understanding that the answer is 7; they have a choice, but it simply makes no sense to choose anything but the right answer. We are the student in this analogy who simply does not know if it 7 or 6, and is trying to figure it out, weighing other options such as giving up or just guessing or deciding the whole damn system stinks, and the clock is ticking.

The categorical imperative is first of all referencing this experience of right and wrong arising from our incomplete knowledge. We are perfectly happy doing something today, but tomorrow we come to understand something new and doubt the rightness of what we did yesterday. We are not perfectly rational, not only in the sense that we lack knowledge but also in the sense that we cannot simply immediately apply any new learning; we are creatures of habit which requires moral exertion to change; we are creatures of internal conflict which requires moral exertion to resolve; we are creatures with choices that require moral exertion to even understand in the beginning.

The content of the categorical imperative is then what is actually right actions. Perfectly rational beings would simply know and all agree wherever they are in existence. Our fate is to not know, to expand our understanding of coherent principles one at a time; it is slow, but there is no other right path to walk upon.

It is an imperative because it is something we should urgently do, it is categorical because it is not justified by reference to some other thing, it is the good in itself.

This isn't entirely fair, since the articles that were linked question the premise I have shared. But if the wish is to debate on Zimbardo's scientific rigour or lack thereof, then that's fair enough. — Tzeentch

But that's entirely reasonable, it follows from rejecting the validity of Zimbardo's experiment (a proposed positive determination of the "moral fickleness" conclusion), that room is created to question that conclusion. If people were relying on Zimbardo, directly or indirectly, to arrive at that conclusion, then they should definitely question the conclusion if Zimbardo experiment turned out to be lies, as you mention that maybe it is.

Perhaps there are good reasons elsewhere, as you are proposing, to stick with the conclusion, and perhaps not.

It's certainly worthy of debate, (if we ignore for a moment your "it's not up for debate" position) then you are more than welcome to say "I don't care about Zimbardo, but I want to discuss the underlying contentions as-they-are" and propose to continue that discussion in this thread or another.

However, if you misconstrue criticism of a position as commitment to the opposite position, then that leads to confusion.

Clearly a demonstration could provide further insight into the phenomenon, but I am not up to speed with Zimbardo's intentions nor am I trying to defend him. — Tzeentch

This thread is about Zimbardo, no one here is arguing that if Zimbardo's experiment was flawed that is evidence for the opposite conclusion. So you're arguing with no one here, but you seem very argumentative, hence why it's useful to clarify that you're arguing with no one.

If you want to argue for the conclusion absent anything Zimbardo has said or done, then open a new thread and make your case.

If you just want to mention what you believe, then speak for yourself.

If you:

don't think that's up for debate. I think that is common knowledge. — Tzeentch

Again, then who are you debating with anyways?

It seems you're just providing us your internal monologue about this and that, vaguely associated with the subject of discussion. If you preface that with "here's my internal monologue, it's not up for debate, make of if what you want", then fairs fair, I have nothing to say to that.

History provides that image of human nature. — Tzeentch

This is debatable.

Nazi's were a thing, yes, but so was resistance to Nazism, both within and abroad. We find terrible acts and good acts throughout history (assuming a more or less 'normal' standard of morality that allows conclusions about good and bad; a standard that, whatever it is, should be noted, cannot be derived from scientific experiment).

Your premise is your conclusion, and therefore you don't need Zimbardo; you don't need reflection at all with arguments structured in this way.

But imagine someone who is not sure what history informs us about human nature, perhaps an experiment can resolve or provide insight into the issue.

So ...

Zimbardo tried to demonstrate it through his experiment. — Tzeentch

Which, if it's already proven by history a competent critical thinker would say "this provides strictly no new information, it was purely a superfluous demonstration of what we already know". (Zimbardo does not say he has tried to create no new knowledge and that no argument actually would ever rely on the experiment he has designed.)

And, if there is nothing to falsify because there is nothing in doubt and nothing up for debate, and so the scientist has no doubts about the results and our state of knowledge is unchanged whether the experiment is performed or not; a competent scientist would say "this is a great demonstration of incompetent and/or dishonest science". (Zimbardo does not say he has designed an experiment with strictly zero falsification stakes.)

If his experiment is based on lies, it was a bad demonstration, but it doesn't change the image history provides. — Tzeentch

It does, Zimbardo himself commented on historical events based on conclusions drawn from his experiment, as have others; i.e. Zimbardo himself shows us how to change our image of history based on his experiment.

My gripe is specifically with the sentiment that the theory of man's fickle morality relies on Zimbardo. — Tzeentch

It relies on Zimbardo if you're relying on Zimbardo which Zimbardo clearly did, as well as others. This is the subject matter here.

You seem to be arguing with no one.

This is what the writer, perhaps among other things, takes issue with. — Tzeentch

I was just copying a passage to make the same point, though I chose a different one:

The Stanford prison experiment established Zimbardo as perhaps the most prominent living American psychologist. He became the primary author of one of the field’s most popular and long-running textbooks, Psychology: Core Concepts, and the host of a 1990 PBS video series, Discovering Psychology, which gained wide usage in high school and college classes and is still screened today. Both featured the Stanford prison experiment. And its popularity wasn’t limited to the United States. Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman’s citation of the experiment in Modernity and the Holocaust in 1989 typified a growing tradition in Eastern Europe and Germany of looking to the Stanford prison experiment for help explaining the Holocaust. In his influential 1992 book, Ordinary Men, historian Christopher Browning relied on both the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram experiment, another social psychology touchstone, in arguing that Nazi mass killings were in part the result of situational factors (other scholars argued that subscribers to a national ideology that identified Jews as enemies of the state could hardly be described as “ordinary men”). 2001, the same year Zimbardo was elected president of the American Psychological Association, saw the release of a German-language film, Das Experiment, that was based on the SPE but amped the violence up to Nazi-worthy levels, with guards not only abusing prisoners but murdering them and each other. When prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib came to light in 2004, Zimbardo again made the rounds on the talk show circuit, arguing that the abuse had been the result not of a few “bad apple” soldiers but of a “bad barrel” and providing expert testimony on behalf of Ivan “Chip” Frederick, the staff sergeant supervising the military policemen who committed the abuses. With the resurgence of interest in the experiment, Zimbardo published The Lucifer Effect in 2007, offering more detail about it than ever before, though framed in such a way as to avoid calling his basic findings into question. The book became a national bestseller.

All the while, however, experts had been casting doubt on Zimbardo’s work. — The article in question

The issue is that Zimbardo, and others sympathetic to his cause, uses the experiment to make claims much stronger than:

Ordinary people can do bad things under the right circumstances. — Tzeentch

If "this narrative doesn't require Zimbardo as proof, since history is filled to the brim with examples that support it" what function does it play in Zimbardo's text books, and other other text books and papers that reference the experiment? Why not just reference those historical events if nothing more is being said than "bad things have happened in history".

The functional utility of Zimbardo's narrative is to present human nature as so fickle, so dependent on circumstance, that we have barely any moral agency at all ... well, at least when working for the state, to both coddle and excuse the sadist, which there seems to be good taped indication that Zimbardo has an unhealthy obsession about. One might "well, it's just to show it's the boss of the sadists fault", but isn't the boss just as fickle and prone to as easily excused sadistic inclinations, moreso that they can do so from a desk (like Zimbardo), and the bosses boss and the whole population!