We can teach people how to write poetry, just as we can teach people how to construct mathematical proofs, but it will never follow that the people we do so teach will go on to become outstanding poets or mathematicians, rather than mediocre or even miserable ones. So, I'm not really sure there is any real difference in kind between mathematics/literature/music that can be drawn on the basis of pedagogical limits. — MetaphysicsNow

I think maybe the issue here is one of scale. I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from it, but the difference in ability between even a mediocre mathematics graduate (when compared to someone who has no formal mathematics training beyond primary school) is entire worlds. The non-mathematician would be lost entirely trying to work out some complex mathematical equation. Yet this is not the case for the English Literature graduate. I doubt the difference in poetry ability between an average English Lit graduate and someone with no formal training in English would even be detectable by the layman. It certainly doesn't seem to have much of an impact on what we seem to refer to as literary geniuses, who I'm fairly certain are drawn no more from the pool of English Lit graduates that they are from the pool of non-graduates. The Ramanujan's of this world, however, are vanishingly rare.

So I'm not sure I can support the contention that we're actually teaching the English Lit graduates anything that objectively, or even statistically, makes them more able to produce works of poetry that later get labelled genius.

Well, as I hinted above, I do not agree with the premise that someone who is good at both maths and music is more intelligent than someone good at only one or the other. — MetaphysicsNow

I think this reveals the difference between what seems like possibly your more analytical approach, and my ordinary language one. I'm not even trying to assess what we should, or could label intelligence, I don't even think that this kind of analysis makes sense. What interests me is how we actually do label intelligence, and exploring any inconsistencies in that application which might reveal interesting insights into human psychology. So I'm not questioning the 'rightness' of calling the polymath more intelligent that the uni-math. We simply do, I think it's incontestable that when faced with someone who spoke six languages, played concert violin, wrote award winning poetry and had a doctorate in maths we would call then more 'intelligent' than their neighbour who simply played violin in the same orchestra.

Likewise, our entire education system is predicated on the fact that some people are better at maths than others. What interests me about your proposition is how you might talk about, say person A getting 50% in a maths test as opposed to person B getting 100%. Or person A writing award winning poetry whilst person B is published, but not acclaimed. If you'd like to avoid saying that one is more intelligent that the other, what would you say about them? I suppose you could simply say that one was 'better' at their particular task, but I'm not sure whether that would be just equivocating with words. If intelligence is not the capability to be 'better' at some range of tasks, then what is it?

That is very far removed from the kind of approach engaged in by those involved in the IQ testing industry (at least in its current form). — MetaphysicsNow

Just to confirm, we're in absolute agreement on this. If intelligence testing is possible it certainly isn't being done at the moment by IQ tests. I'm inclined to think it's not testable at all in any pragmatic way, but I think that has implications for the way we currently use the term.

A little story which I'm sure you will have heard in different guises but I think is apt here. A homesteader being told about Einstein commented that whilst he (the homesteader) had lived a long and happy life, working outdoors and enjoying whatever life handed him, having a loving wife and three happy children, Einstein had worked at often menial jobs, could not sustain a marriage, had little or no relationship with his children and died racked with guilt about his part in the atomic bomb. Who's the most intelligent?

The beauty of rationality is that it is a universal language, where two strangers can converse and come to agreements provided they use the same definitions and agree on some principles (which they will if they dig deep enough). — Samuel Lacrampe

And you see that happening do you...ever? Have you read much philosophy? As a little experiment, have a look through the last ten threads on this forum and just make a note of the times when all those involved have rationally come to some agreement. Rational analysis does not simply reveal the truth, there are too many confounding factors. It's like saying that an analysis of the position of all the molecules in the atmosphere at any one time will be able to determine the weather. It might well be true, but impossible. In stead we must make informed speculations based on macro measurements and this means that two perfectly rational well-informed meteorologists might still disagree with each other.

It's what Van Inwagen call the problem of epistemic peers, which I have mentioned elsewhere. If someone who is ostensibly as well-informed and intelligent as you are about a subject disagrees with you, then it follows that it must be possible for someone as well-informed and intelligent as you to be nonetheless wrong (since one of you has to be wrong). If it is possible for someone as well-informed and intelligent as you to be wrong, then how do you know it isn't you?

Personally, I've never encountered anyone in serious debate who has been unable to answer "Why?" or "Can you back that up?". They may well give me an answer that I'm unsatisfied with, but then we get into the problem of epistemic peers (how do I know that my dissatisfaction with their answer means it is wrong and not that I am wrong?).

Rationality is deceptive. One thinks one has reached the only inevitable conclusion based on all the facts, but "all the facts" are only ever going to a minuscule subset of all there is to know about a subject, like trying to draw conclusions about an elephant by looking only at it's toenail. and then you have to draw 'rational' conclusions from this tiny subset of evidence. How are you checking that your conclusions are indeed rational? You can't check against yourself, a system cannot test itself for errors, how would it ever know if the testing process had errors. You could check with other people, but if, when other people disagree with you, you're going to call them out as bullshitters then the conclusion of that test seems something of a fait de complit doesn't it?

So how do these two strangers who have dug deep enough and agreed on some principles have any means of checking that their 'rational' analysis actually means anything?

The fact that metaphysical or at least philosophical conclusions are so often drawn from the purported non-intentionality of the Cosmos. — Wayfarer

Still not seeing how this is a problem. Surely it's just one of the available options. Aren't metaphysical conclusions drawn from the purported intentionality of the cosmos too?

the causal chain that gave rise to matter and living beings, seems intrinsic to the whole process of cosmic evolution, rather than Russell's principle of 'accidental collocation'. — Wayfarer

How does it seem intrinsic, rather than incidental? All we know is that it is there. The constraints on physical processes are such that life eventually evolved. That's all we know. We've no reason to think that this was particularly unlikely, because we don't have any other universes to compare it to. We've no reason to think that it was particularly necessary or intrinsic, because, again, we have no other universes to compare ours to. For all we know there might be a billion other universes exactly the same as ours except without life (proving life is unnecessary but unlikely), or there could be a billion other universes exactly like ours except one which is without life (proving that it is likely but not necessary) or there might be a billion other universes exactly like ours without exception (proving life is both necessary and likely).

At the moment though, we only have the one to go on, so cannot drawn any conclusions about necessity or likelihood. At the moment, all we can say with any certainty is that it just is.

Well, "What's a genius" probably deserves a thread of its own - but mere membership of Mensa doesn't cut it for me. — MetaphysicsNow

Yes, whatever conclusion we might reach about intelligence, I think we can agree that mensa membership isn't it.

We can probably say without courting too much controversy that Mozart is a better composer than Taylor Swift, and whilst we might get heckled by adolescents for suggesting so, we could probably find a musicologist who could give us all kinds of good reasons for believing that to be the case objectively. Similarly, perhaps some professor of literature can be appealed to to show us exactly how Shakespeare is a better writer than JK Rowling. — MetaphysicsNow

So this is where I start to have problems. I'm not so sure we could find a musicologist or literature professor who could give us good reasons for assuming that Mozart was actually possessed of some quality Taylor Swift lacks (I'm presuming here she writes her own songs?). Mozart is not really considered a genius in China because China has a different musical tradition and Mozart didn't make music which appealed to that sense. So, could we say that Mozart's genius was somehow tapping into the character of his time? But then, isn't that what Bob Dylan did? Nirvana, and I suppose Taylor Swift? If not, and Mozart does have some timeless genius, then why isn't he considered highly in China, are the Chinese all stupid when it comes to music?

What's more, if there was some objective set of thing that Shakespeare could do better than any other, then producing works of literary genius could be taught like maths.

When Ramanujan worked out his mathematics, his culture made no difference, it was immediately recognisable as genius to Hardy, a whole continent away.

What I'm still not seeing, though, is how admitting all that would support the idea that there is one measurable thing/property called intelligence that Shakespeare and Mozart had more of than do Taylor Swift and JK Rowling. — MetaphysicsNow

Basically, if someone who is good at maths and someone who is good at music are both 'intelligent', and if someone who is good at maths and music is more intelligent than someone only good at either, then intelligence must have some quantitative element. If a musicologist could define a genius by their capability, then it is possible (although maybe not pragmatic) for them to design a task only the capable musicians will pass. We already know we can have a maths test, so put these two tests together and someone who passes both is objectively more intelligent.

I'm only really exploring the consequences here. Personally, I'd probably fall down on the idea that artistic merit simply can't be measured. I just don't like the hypocrisy in pretending it can be measured when proclaiming mozart a genius, but then avoiding measurement when grouping such abilities with 'intelligence' as a whole.

I'm not sure quite what examples might suffice. I suppose to support my argument I'd need quotes from the less mathematical/scientific community saying they don't want intelligence testing but they do know a couple of geniuses in their fields. I'm not sure I'm going to be lucky enough to find a quote that captures all that. It's more based on the regular use of terms like "genius" to describe people like Mozart and Shakespeare that would certainly not be used to describe Taylor Swift or JK Rowling despite the latter two having achieved just as much in their fields. There's a sense that there's definitely some objective thing that Mozart and Shakespeare have unarguably got, yet a reluctance when it comes to defining what it is.

At my university we used to inevitably have the odd dropout from the BSc courses, occasionally they would transfer to a BA. This was a relatively normal occurence. We would take bets, however, on any successfully going the other way.

I suspect that the bias you mention is the main reason why people resist intelligence testing. They wish to retain their authority to determine people to be 'intelligent' or 'stupid' without having to have such use circumscribed by any kind of testing which risks settling the matter in a manner which may offend their purpose.

Personally, I agree that most populist nationalist voters are stupid, but then I'm convinced that they would fail any intelligence test one could devise, so this is not a cause for concern for me.

What I think bothers people most is the other end. The poet and the painter, the philosopher perhaps, don't wish to be tested in any way which may compare them to the mathematician and the scientist. I personally have no real concern here either because I really can't see a need for such a test.

Where I do take some offence is the current state where those with shall we say non-conventional intelligence, resist having their skill measured quantitatively and yet wish to maintain fervently their authority to do so in their own subjective manner even in public discourse. That seems, to me, a little disingenuous.

This recent paper on quantum mechanics should clarify the matter for you. Science is about explanation. — tom

I appreciate the links. You seem, as in a lot of your posts, to be confusing "David Deutch says..." with "it is the case that...". All I read in the paper you've provided is Deutch (with far more humility than you're citing him with) saying things like "I present an account of...", and "in this view...". Absolutely no where does he say "This is the way things are and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong". So no, I don't accept your contention that science is about explanation on the basis of a single paper in which the author himself admits that he is only presenting "an" account not "the" account.

OK, so I think the first question to answer here would be whether you think we generally consider someone who can solve complex maths puzzles and play a musical instrument as more 'intelligent' than someone who can only do one or the other. My feeling is that that is exactly the term we would use for such a person. So, following from this, so long as the sorts of problem included in the test cover a wide enough range of the sorts of tasks we consider an 'intelligent' person should be able to do, then the test could be considered to be measuring intelligence.

There is, of course, the question of whether such a range of tasks could ever be captured in a reasonably sized test, but I think if we were claim that they could not, then we'd be starting to open the definition of intelligence so wide as to make the word useless, certainly we'd end up defining it in a way it is rarely used. I even think its pushing the boundaries of normal use to describe a good artist as 'intelligent', though I agree it's borderline acceptable.

The second question is how we can relate our use of the expression "more intelligent" to your idea that maybe intelligence doesn't come in amounts.

We could say that the expression was simply a nonsensical one, but it seems a bit selective to accept our intuitive idea that there is such a thing as intelligence but then deny what appears to be an equally intuitive sense that some people have more of it than others.

Hence my first question. Does having an ability in more areas of intelligence make one more intelligent overall? If so, it seems to me to be eminently possible to measure the sum intelligence by some test or other. The problem is merely a pragmatic one of getting the test to match the things we use the word for.

The thing is the types of question in an IQ test are clearly not arbitrary. They are all of an immediately recognisable 'sort', vaguely - patter-recognition, sequence-recognition and sense-in-context. So if it's true that we can recognise intelligence in a fuzzy, family resemblance kind of way, then it must also follow that we could recognise the sorts of problems an intelligent person should be able to pass in the same vague, fuzzy way. Put a collection of these sorts of problems together and you have an IQ test, so it would measure intelligence according to our fuzzy definition by virtue of being made up only of questions which match that fuzzy definition.

If, on the other hand, we wish to deny any authority to our vague notion of the sort of question an intelligent person ought to be able to answer, then we must also discard the notion that we can recognise an 'intelligent' person by the sorts of things they are able to do.

Basically, we don't look inside anyone's head for intelligence. If we judge it at all we judge it by the things people successfully do. Put a series of those sorts of things in a test and, by default, you do indeed have a device for measuring the thing we're calling 'intelligence'. Either that, or admit that we really don't know what sort of thing an intelligent person should be able to successfully do, and so abandon the idea that we have any means of measuring it, neither intuitive nor quantitative.

I think the problem with intelligence testing is an entirely resolvable one. It simply doesn't currently test the same sorts of things that we normally associate with intelligence in common usage. It tests a very narrow range and places way too high a value on speed (which we hardly value at all in real life). All of these problems are resolvable. In fact a team at Cambridge Brain Sciences Unit are doing exactly that.

Because science is purportedly in the business of finding reasons. — Wayfarer

I don't think it is. I think most scientists consider themselves in the business of making testable theories. It's in the business of predicting, not explaining. I'm no expert, but my limited understanding of the methods in quantum physics (where currently one has to include an element of chance, so I'm lead to believe), is to simply include that chance mathematically. Scientists are trying to eliminate that chance element, I suppose, in order to make the theory more accurately predictive, but until that point, the 'scientific' theory simply includes probability and everyone's quite happy that they are still doing 'science'. Prediction is far more useful than reasons.

If anything, the very deterministic nature of science leads even the most causal thinker to conclude that if we keep asking "why?", we must obviously arrive at either an infinite task or the answer "just because". So any scientists who did think that they were one day going to arrive at the ultimate reason why would be deluded indeed.

The positing of chance as cause doesn't seem to me to amount to either an hypothesis or a metaphysical principle. — Wayfarer

Firstly, a minor correction, it's not chance as cause, chance can't cause something, it's an expression of the lack of determinism. The Physicalist position as I understand it is simply that our most useful theory for the creation of the universe at the moment is that it just is. It's most useful because it leaves open all routes of investigation as to the next most proximate cause, whilst accepting that there are limits to what we can find out empirically about conditions before the universe began (I'm using 'before' in a causal sense here, as I think it's possible that even time did not exist before the universe began, but my physics definitely gets hazy here, as well it should. To paraphrase Feynman, anyone who thinks they understand that level of physics certainly doesn't). So what is it about suggesting that a thing simply exists without (for now) a determinable cause, that you think precludes it from the set of 'hypotheses' or 'metaphysical principles'. why are you placing constraints on what is allowed as a metaphysical proposition?

The argument in the book I mentioned is there are a very small number - 6 - of natural relationships and ratios inherent in the nature of the Cosmos that have a very specific value, which, were they different in some minute degree, would entail that matter would not form at all. But if you view the Universe as a grand simulation, something which can be mathematically modelled, then these parameters seem very specifically set for such an outcome. — Wayfarer

So this is the exact point I'm making. That is not an argument, it's a statement of facts. It's simply the statement that the 6 parameters are set exactly the way they need to be set in order to develop life. The bit that's implied in your argument (and yet missing any evidence), is..."and that's really unlikely to have happened without some reason". But the point I'm making is that we have no justification at all for thinking it's unlikely. We have no other universes to compare ours to and say "look at all these other universes, ours is so unique", ours just is, that's all we know about it. People arguing for the Strong Anthropic Principle are taking the unwarranted step of saying that because it is possible to conceive of a universe where the numbers are different, ours is an unlikely outcome. What I'm saying is that it is possible to conceive of a situation where the fair die that I'm throwing will suddenly morph into an icosahedron. That does not now make the probability of my throwing a 1 1:20. I can conceive of a million possible things that could happen when I throw the die, my probability of getting a 1 is not now 1:1,000,000. Probability, as we normally use it, is about comparing the event to known alternatives (landing on one of the other five faces). As we currently have no other known alternatives, the chances of our universe being the way it is are currently 100%, so the theory that it just is this way is a perfectly rational one.

Well, I think we can agree on that (who wouldn't), but I think if you and I came up with a list of people who were 'aiming for truth' and a list of people who were 'bullshitting', I doubt our lists would contain the same people, now why would that be, and more importantly, if we cannot resolve our conflicting lists then what use is our conclusion that the people on the 'truth-seekers' list are the ones everyone should follow/listen to?

I’m not relying on the principle, just explaining why multiverse thinking gets associated with it. — apokrisis

Yes, I understood that to be the case, I only tagged you in for the tangential link.

So the only constraint left is the non-constraint of the anthropic principle - the quite reasonable conclusion that if every alternative exists, then we live in one of those where we could arise as observers. — apokrisis

Yes, I was really referring to the Strong Anthropic Principle of John Barrow, which seems to be more the type Wayfarer is trying to use. So, to my mind, the argument by which the SAP is arrived at (rather than the conclusions drawn from adhering to it) seem to me to rely implicitly on an understanding of the probability space that we not only do not have, but which would, applied to everything else, render probability itself meaningless.

I believe we already have a ban on racist posts, but obviously no-one wants to be too heavy-handed so some sail a little close to the wind but remain. My main complaint about that particular exchange though was the idea that people like Charles Murray and Jordan Peterson are being 'slienced'. Both have lucrative publishing contracts and Peterson is barely out of the media for five minutes. If that's what they think silencing is, I dread to think what sort of coverage the unsilenced versions would get.

I get that bit, what I don't get is what's wrong with "it just happened". The inconceivability of things 'just happening' seems to be based on a misconceptions that we have some knowledge of the probability field of 'things' such as to be able to assess that any of them 'just happening' must be very unlikely.

Now without determinism, we might well claim to have some knowledge of this field. We could say "look at all the 'things' that happen in the world, none of then 'just happen'. There must be billions of things so the chances of something 'just happening' must be at least a billion to one". But determinism of the type you're talking about - tracing the causes back - takes all this justification away. If we're content that life evolved because of such-and-such a condition, and that came to be because of some constraints at the big bang, then we no longer have a massive collection of 'things' to act as our probability field. We have only one thing that happened - the big bang. So how are we assessing it as unlikely that it should have happened that exact way it did? It's not like we've observed thousands of other big bangs and seen that they all resulted in chaos. We only have the conceivably possible' big bangs of theory, but that leads to the dilemma with the die morphing into a seven. If we include all that is conceivably possible in our probability space then absolutely any event has an astronomically small chance of happening. So the universe seems to be nothing special in this respect, we might as well invoke the anthropic principle to the result of a coin toss.

Without this unlikelihood, the anthropic principle is nothing but storytelling.

I'm not sure the anthropic principle applies even with multiverses, let alone our universe.

If I observe a fair die land on a 1 a thousand times in a row, I could reasonably conclude that something must be constraining that die to land in such a way. This is because the chances of it landing on a 1 a thousand times without external influence are astronomically small. But I only know this because I know the probability space well. It's not just knowing that 2, 3, 4, 5,and 6 are also available options (making the probability of a 1 on each throw 1:6), but It's knowing that one of the faces suddenly morphing into a 7 is not an option I need to consider. Without this knowledge of the constraints on the probability field, the probability of getting a 1, even on a single throw would always be astronomically small, because there are so many alternative conceivable things that could happen other than the die land such that it shows a 1.

So how is this so with the universe? In what way does the seeming unlikelihood of our universe ultimately creating life not just indicate our lack of knowledge of the probability field? If we say "this was unlikely to have happened by chance it must be a one in a million", where are we getting the million figure from?

At the limit, an entire sentence, paragraph, book, or database of information could be condensed in a single high-dimentional figure: a differentially colored sphere, say (perhaps hue, value, and saturation might encode syntactic or semantic info!). — StreetlightX

Yes, this touches on much of what I think philosophy of language is (or should be) focussed on. We could make our language more efficient, express more with less, by utilising all sorts of additional communicative devices, but do we want to? At the extreme perhaps your multi-dimensional language sphere, but at the lower end, we already use italics, single quotations, exclamation marks (even, god-forbid, emoticons, which I'm far too English and old-fashioned to condone the use of). We also make use of sentance word order and this is interestingly used in different ways by different languages to convey meaning that is just not conveyable otherwise,

I know it's not strictly three-dimensional in the sense that you mean, but if you consider the overlap that word-order (Subject-Object-Verb), and word morphological marking (like tense agreement) potentially have, then fully utilising both could give one a three-dimensional language - verbs which change meaning based both on their position relative to the object and their tense-implying agreement. I'd be interested to know if any extant languages actually make use of both already, since both are available, but I don't know of any.

The interesting thing for me, is that I'm not personally convinced that this would be utilised this way even if it were available. It kind of pre-supposes that the complexity of language is a necessary evil resulting from the complexity of that which we wish to communicate. I'm not convinced it is.

I see language as a kind of emergent feature from the chaos of billions of fairly cack-handed communication attempts. Each time we attempt to communicate some thing to another person, we add a little bit to this sea of possible language-rules with our own particular guess as to how it works. Out of this emerges some rule-like centre, but very fuzzy around the edges and extremely messy at the outer limits.

This may or may not be a particularly efficient way to do it, but yes, I could conceivably imagine a highly intelligent alien species deciding that the whole method was extremely inefficient and replacing it with something else entirely. Only alien poets would still communicate using something as inefficient as language in the sense we know it.

People vote for arseholes, because they are arseholes. — unenlightened

That should be on the front of every political science textbook... And then all the other pages blank.

I noticed that you posted in that linked thread, have your opinions and beliefs changed on the matter? — Posty McPostface

No. My only involvement in that thread was to counter @gurugeorge's usual self-martyring racist bullshit, I'm not sure it had any relation to voting behaviour.

I agree, but language can also be beguiling. It can deceive us into believing we are thinking something of unique meaning solely on the grounds that we have a unique term for it. It can create entire castles in the air simply by self-referential constructions in grammar.

I think a marker of higher intelligence might be the ability to freely talk about the 'talk about talk', but that particular discourse might well result in less use of language, not more.

No, I mean how mechanistically. How does the anti-intellectualism cause the poor quality of leader. Is it that well-educated people vote for idiots because they themselves are ideologically opposed to intellectuals, or is it that well-educated people aren't really well-educated because there are no real intellectuals in colleges any more?

I'm not sure if you're supporting the theory or opposing it. Are you suggesting that the quality of our leaders has risen because they are well-educated, or are you agreeing that education is not the answer on the grounds that both our leaders and our electorate seem to be increasingly well educated yet still manage to run a country in a manner which is manifestly a shambles.

I think this is due to the apparently anti-intellectual sentiment widespread in America. — Posty McPostface

How so?

I think the answer to that question depends on what you understand by 'true'. I'm happy to believe that there is an existent reality outside of our own interpretation, I'm absolutely certain that there is a "way things are", and either of these things could be called 'The Truth', but I'm not clear in most cases how we determine whether our theories are any closer to it than any other. Inter-subjectivity and predictive power certainly seem useful and in some understandings of "the way things are", they could be said to show how close a theory is to 'the truth', but this is far from certain.

So the trouble is, do people like certain rhetoric because it sounds true? Have we got any justifiable epistemology which could counter that?

I think a good deal of the population hold theories which they themselves do not believe to true, simply because they like the way they've been presented. I honestly think these people would be happier without the cognitive dissonance this causes, but that's not my main concern.

My concern over rhetoric is it masking a theory which, to me, seems evidently not true. If to me, it seems not true, then I don't want a load of people believing in it because I'm concerned about the consequences if they do, so I will do my best to prevent that. My best will inevitably involve choosing the rhetoric I think will have most effect, and if people believe me purely because of my rhetoric, then as far as I'm concerned, that's good enough.

The point of giving the examples is simply to show that there is an objective component to harm, it's not just relative. — Sam26

Yes, that's the question I'm asking, how does one objectively measure the amount of harm done? Is having an arm cut off more or less harmful than a lifetime of severe depression? Is finding out your wife has been cheating on you more or less harmful than losing the use of your left hand? One of the most significant criticisms of consequentialism is this very difficulty in judging the least harmful choice.

Again, it always gets down to the harm done, and it's not always an easy decision, but generally it is. — Sam26

It is virtually never an easy desicion, that's why ethics is such a complex subject.

But morality is prescriptive is it not, otherwise it's just relativism? So it's not enough to say you can see that cutting someone's arm off without good reason causes more harm than lying to your parents about where you were at 1 am, because you're going to be telling someone else what they ought or ought not do. What matters then is whether they can see the relative harm. The example you give is quite extreme, but even at that extreme there are people (or have been) who consider minor infringements (stealing for example) to be more morally "harmful" than cutting of a hand (the 'justified' punishment).

Bring this down to more everyday moral issues and what constitutes harm (and how much) becomes the central question. At what level of certainty in a drug's safety is it acceptable to test on humans? Here, the different sides of the argument will be over whether the 'harm' to the individual of side effects is worth more or less than the 'harm' to society of slowing down the development of the drug.

How are you measuring harm?

what IS the secret of keeping people like Donald Trump out of office? — Bitter Crank


An educated electorate. — unenlightened

The number of college educated people has been consistently rising over the past few decades, I'm not sure the same can be said for the quality of our leaders, so the empirical evidence would seem to contradict this theory.

I stopped reading the moment you said this — MindForged

So producing responses without reading through the whole post is an entitlement unique to you? Or is it your uniquely accurate judgement of the quality of the post which allows you to construct erudite responses based on isolated expressions where others doing so are are aggressive and uncivilised?

no matter how much you insist that, I can go up and quote what I said — MindForged

Nowhere have I made the claim that you did not say additional, perhaps even contradictory thing at some later point. I'm quoting you directly on something you actually did say. It either directly contradicts what you later said (in which case you have simply made an error somewhere), or you are making the case that theories needn't be selected by preference alone, but generally they are, which, as I said, is a non sequitur in respect of the point made on the OP.

If, in fact, what you meant to propose is some third option, I'd be interested to understand what that is, but if all you're going to do is re-quote what you wrote beforehand and claim that if I've misinterpreted it it must be my fault for not reading it properly, then you've clearly somehow missed the last 2000 years of philosophy, which has, by some understanding, just been one concerted effort to re-write Plato more clearly.

I understood the OP to be about theories, so which drug definitively worked would not enter into it. The point, in the real world, is that we never have such alternatives. We have theories which seem closer to 'truth' (by whatever measure), and theories which seem further away. People, it seems, will regularly choose to maintain theories which they themselves consider rationally to be further away from 'truth' because of the rhetorical appeal of the story they come with. Just look at any of the research on cognitive dissonace, confirmation bias, etc.

I do very much doubt someone would reject a drug which has been proven beyond all doubt to cure whatever ailment they have, but people regularly do reject drugs with high levels of proof (closer to 'truth') in favour of drugs with little or no level of proof, even for very serious conditions, simply because they prefer the story.

Then you have a much more grandiose view of human nature than I do. Placebos work even when people are told they're placebos.

If we can only choose between a person that is good a finding truth but bad at rhetoric, and a person that is bad at finding truth but good at rhetoric, I thing we would all choose the former over the latter. Therefore truth is more important than rhetoric. — Samuel Lacrampe

Nonsense, people choose the latter over and over again in their billions.

Interesting piece, i thought you might be interested in a book I've just come across extolling the virtues of a good story, when it comes to their presentation.

http://www.jonathangottschall.com/storytelling-animal

How is that convoluted — MindForged

You actually said "No" in answer to the proposition that metaphysics is journeyed through by personal choice (as opposed to rational necessity). You then said directly that metaphysical theories have their worth assessed by how virtuous they are. Not, that they could be assessed this way (but actually aren't), not that people pretend to assess them this way but actually just follow the zeitgeist. It is convoluted to derive some interpretation of those propositions whereby "No, that is not how metaphysics is navigated" means "Yes, that's exactly how metaphysics is navigated (but there is another way". It is convoluted to derive an interpretation of "Metaphysical theories are assessed by their virtue" that means "Metaphysical theories are not assessed by their virtue but by their alliegence to the current culture".

Communication is generally a two way effort, has it even crossed your mind that rather than my not reading properly it might be you not writing clearly?

my point was that arguing based on theory choice is used in all fields, — MindForged

The arguments people use to justify their theories and the reason they chose them are not the same thing.

If you're claiming that arguing based on theory choice means that theories are selected by such rational means then you'd have to explain the trends in philosophical thought, rationality does not have a Zeitgeist.

If, however, you're claiming that regardless of how theories are actually chosen, they are defended using rational theory choice models, then your argument is a non sequitur, the OP is about how theories are chosen, not how they're defended. I very much doubt the OP was confused into thinking that philosophers actually admitted to his claim.

The specific value given to each weight probably doesn't matter, — MindForged

Yet your claim is that it is responsible for selecting one set of axioms over another. I can't think of very much that matters more in explaining the differences in fundamental philosophical lines of thought, which is what the thread is about.

I made no claim about this playing out historically exactly according to any particular model (much more complicated). — MindForged

Really? Because....

metaphysics is a region of space which is filled with contradictory philosophies and there is no actual process by which we may verify or disconfirm theories in it. Such a place is journeyed through only per choice; no rationale. — TheMadFool


No, metaphysical theories rest on logical theories (for various reasons) and both metaphysical theories and logical theories have the worth assessed via how virtuous their theories are. — MindForged

It's a very convoluted interpretation that has this exchange saying what you claim. Not only do you specifically make the claim that "both metaphysical theories and logical theories have the worth assessed via how virtuous their theories are.", which is almost word for word what I argued against, but you answer MF's suggestion that they are chosen [from personal preference], rather than rationally selected, with the word "No". Now you're saying that what you really meant was "Yes, that is generally how they're chosen" and that I'm simply being uncharitable by reading 'no' to mean 'no'.

everyone from logicians to sociologists essentially makes reference to such theories being made better or worse on these grounds — MindForged

I don't know what model of theory choice you might be referring to, but I can't think of a single exposition to which "everyone" refers. There are perfectly well respected critics of pretty much every version from Popper to Becker. Its just wishful thinking to suggest we have some universally approved means of judging the value of theories (prior to formal proofs).

the only difference being how highly respective parties rate particular theoretical virtues and how they conceive of them. — MindForged

And even if the above were the case (which I'm certain it isn't) then the weight to give to each factor would itself be axiomatic and so subject to rational choice theory, and so on.

No, metaphysical theories rest on logical theories (for various reasons) and both metaphysical theories and logical theories have the worth assessed via how virtuous their theories are. — MindForged

Really? So the popularity of theological-based metaphysics just about the time when most people were religious, and it's subsequent waning as atheism grows is just a coincidence? The popularity of laissez-faire existentialism, round about the time of anti-consertative cultural change, again just coincidence? The rejection of the predominantly Jewish logical positivists round about the time of rising anti-semitism in Europe, Heidegger's conclusion that German is a 'special' language just as nationalism is growing in Germany, the odd prevalence of Naturalism in Australia, even the glaringly obvious fact that continental philosophy is called continental, and you're still trying to claim that philosophical theories are largely accepted or rejected on their virtues?

This is an excellent study and shows exactly how far animal husbandry has to go if it is to have any sustainable future.

That animal husbandry has long way to go to become sustainable, however, is not the argument in the OP. That argument in the OP is that absolutely any killing of animals for meat is morally wrong on the basis of either;

1. Killing an sentient thing is morally wrong because we're sentient and we wouldn't like to be killed.
or
2. Using meat to make up your protein, B-vitamin and other trace nutrients is always more harmful (by some as yet unspecified definition of harm, but something vaguely environmental) than farming the equivalent vegetables.

Obviously, the report has no bearing on 1) and it remains unresolved how this is proven, so I'm presuming the report is being advanced in favour of 2). To that effect, in the interests of balance, I'd like to point out a few flaws in the report that my statistical colleagues have mentioned. These are all from the published data, not the original source so are tentative warnings, not absolute critique.

1. The graphs and conclusions are drawn from the mid-percentile range. The lowest 10th centile to the highest 90th centile. This is quite normal practice as it remove aberrations. To give a general picture (as I said it gives a pretty damning general picture). What it does not do, however, is support the claim that even the very best of animal husbandry is less sustainable than the worst of arable farming. It is entirely silent on the comparison having missed off the data for the very best of animal farming (the top 10%). This conclusion comes from their chart, the key to which shows a bar appearing to go from 10th percentile to 90th percentile.

2.The measurements of CO2 emmissions, acidification, eutrophication and land use have been 'standardised' across the 570 studies included in the meta-study. This introduces a serious element of noise, not so much with acidification and eutrophication which are relatively easily measured, but with CO2 emissions (the total carbon footprint of the entire operation and all of it's consequences and requirements) and land use (likewise the total use), it will heavily depend on the measurement methods used by the various studies involved. Again, this is irrelevant for the conclusion that animal husbandry in general is way more harmful than arable as this noise is far less than the size of the sample. But that's not the claim that's being made here on this thread. This thread is trying to make the claim that there is no form of animal husbandry that's less harmful than the equivalent vegetable farming, and that is something this report cannot (and does not) claim.

3. The measure 'land use' does not appear to be stratified and yet is highly significant in some sectors. It is simply wildly wrong to presume that the land use figures for soy (for example) would be equivalent if soy was grown on the land currently growing lamb. Soy is currently grown on the most fertile soils (additionally fertilized with animal waste taken off the land used to graze animals). If you take fertility from one land type and put it on another, which was already more fertile in the first place, then you are going to get a much higher return from the fertilized land per hectare than you are from the land from which you have removed the fertility. To imply that soy-farming is better to the extent that it makes more efficient use of land, is simply false. It has a higher return because it is on more fertile ground. We do not know what the land use comparison would be if the land were properly stratified by fertility.

4. All ruminant animals produce methane, all animals are net greenhouse gas producers, all plants are net greenhouse gas reducers (presuming soil and vegetative waste are handled efficiently). Ignoring this, the report takes the total greenhouse gas contribution of animal husbandry and compares it to vegetable farming. But a wild landscape in the grazed pasture-land would also be a net producer of greenhouse gas emissions. So again, the report is not comparing like with like. If the cattle and sheep were taken off land suitable for arable, there would be a massive net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions - definitely a good idea then. But if cattle and sheep were taken off natural grassland and it was returned to wild grazing, there would not necessarily be a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. So to imply that a change in diet away from fully grass-fed animals on less fertile areas would help reduce greenhouse gas emission is unsupported by this research.

We're going round in circles and I don't think my replies are helping at all. Let's see if I can clear up a couple of points where I think we might be talking across one another and maybe some idea of what we really disagree on might emerge.

1. Wittgenstein does not conclude anything at all about the solution to the rule-following paradox, a paradox has two sides which together seem incompatible. He does not say which side is right, if anything he's claiming that the paradox emerges because we are confused about the definitions of the terms we use (but that is only a general and speculative conclusion). I'm trying to argue that the paradox is real, I think you might be trying to argue that one side of the paradox exists. If that's the case, then we completely agree, the point is not that one side of the paradox doesn't exist, it's that both sides seem to exist which is a logical impossibility - hence the paradox.

Wittgenstein explains some of this slightly better, I think, in MS109-110.;

"Suppose that a general rule is given. One can, nonetheless, apply the rule only if he understands its application. Suppose, for instance, that someone should translate a sentence from one language into another. He is given the set of sentences to be translated and a dictionary, which is the set of rules of translation:
One could say then: But it is not enough to give him both things; you have also to tell him how to use them as well. But in this way a new plan would be created, which would need an explanation as much as the first one." (MS 109, p. 82).

and

"…I don’t need another model that shows me how /the depiction goes and, therefore/ how the first model has to be used, for otherwise I would need a model to show me the use/application of the second and so on ad infinitum. That is, another model is of no use for me, I have to act at some point without a model." (MS 109, p. 86)

This might be an expression of the paradox that you find more acceptable - It would appear I need a further rule to tell me how to interpret the rule (the dictionary and the foreign language alone does not tell me how to translate), and yet I nonetheless do appear to follow rules without a rule telling me how to do so. Hence a paradox. It is not sufficient to resolve this paradox by showing that we do follow rules without the apparent need for a model to tell us how, that's just one side of the paradox. In order for it not to be a paradox, it is necessary to show the the logic of the first statement is flawed. You're only providing demonstrations of how the second statement appears to be true, but of course the second statement appears to be true, that's why it's a paradox, because the first statement appears to be true also and yet the two contradict one another.

2. The Rule-following paradox is only tangentially linked to the private language argument. The additional difficulty of following a rule private applies to a specific set of rules that are about the correct interpretation of signs. The private language argument is about the correct interpretation of signs, not about the correct application of a prediction. You seem to be likening having a private rule to something like " I wish to stop smoking to make me healthier, I must not have any cigarettes" Such that if a new cigarette-like thing enters the market and you must judge whether smoking it breaks your rule, you can do so by perhaps smoking it, noticing your health is worsening again and thinking "Oh, this must be one of the things I must not have because it is having the effect my rule is trying to avoid"

But this is not the kind of rule Wittgenstein is talking about in the private language argument (though it is a rule that would suffer from the rule-following paradox). So disputing the private language argument and disputing that the rule-following paradox is really a paradox are two different things and you seem to be conflating the two.

Did I not explain that I used the term, "dog" as a class for all types of dogs? — Harry Hindu

You said - "How did you learn what the word, "dog" means, if not establishing a connection between the string of symbols, "dog" and the image of a dog? I could show you the word, "dog", or a picture of a dog, and I would end up getting my message across all the same.". You were referring to the thing "dog", that's what you could show me a picture of. You could not show me a picture of the class 'dogs'.

If you want to just be insulting, I've no interest in discussing with you. You used the word 'dog', a concrete term (like 'human being, in the very definition you're citing). If in fact you meant 'dogs' the class, then that's fine, just say so and we can move on. There's no need to start alleging laziness and belligerence just because I took you to mean one thing when you meant another.

"Useful" refers to the relationship between a tool and some goal. Knowledge is a tool as much as a screwdriver. — Harry Hindu

You said "for any word to mean anything useful it must refer to something in the world.". I was asking what 'useful' meant in that context. So, by substitution - "for any word to mean anything (like the relationship between a tool and some goal) it must refer to something in the world" . Is this what you're claiming is necessary for a word to mean anything?

Shakespeare could have intended (meant) something specific when he wrote that, but did he leave any indication of what that was? If not, then (like the Bible) it is open to interpretation by others, which basically means that people will relate what they think Shakespeare intended with their own experiences. — Harry Hindu

I have no issue with this except that you'd said meaning was equated with information, which cannot be the case if the reader is imbuing the word with experience [information] that they already have? Surely the word must then be doing something other than imparting information in this case?

Words can mean whatever we want them to mean. — Harry Hindu

Exactly, but you'd said "It ultimately comes down to every word refers to some other visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, etc. sensation." I'm having trouble marrying the two concepts. Surely the word either refers one-to-one to some 'thing' in the world, or it means whatever we want it to. I don't see how it can do both.

How else do you communicate the actual color red, a sour taste, the feeling of anxiety, etc. that you experience? — Harry Hindu

You can't.

You make a judgement, apply the rule, then later you realize the judgement was wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

But how do you realise it was 'wrong'. Different, yes, but 'wrong'?

I see evidence that in many cases when there is consensus, mistake is still made. Therefore it is impossible that consensus makes "right". — Metaphysician Undercover

Great, let's have a look at one of those examples for a public rule then, that might get us somewhere. If you provide an example of a public rule where the 'correct' interpretation or use of it can be derived by some means other than
consensus, we could resolve the problem.

The rest of your argument is based entirely on an error of mine. I meant to say the correct interpretation of the rule is 'judged' publicly, not is 'held' publicly. I can only blame trying to write too fast, I'm sorry to have made you painstakingly explain the infinite regress argument for no reason.