I don't share those things any more than I share it with Mr. Liuang on the other side of the world. — Tzeentch

You have your own private air supply?

I don't feel that connection in the same way you might. I deal with people in my vicinity - people whose interests I can properly understand and aren't statistical abstractions. — Tzeentch

What's that got to do with the fact of the matter. Whether you 'feel' a connection doesn't have any bearing on whether one exists.

Ok, so why do governments historically and temporarily rely on (threats of) violence if they don't have to? — Tzeentch

It's a lot easier, for a start. I doubt they have as much moral qualms about doing so as you do. Again, their chosen course of action is irrelevant here. If you want to argue about the methods by which governments obtain what they rightfully think is theirs, that's a different matter. I think the methods could be much improved too. But that's not the argument you're making, the argument you're making is about the rightful ownership of the taxed portion of your pay.

How did they obtain the goods? No violence, so they what? Just found them? — Isaac


Yes, why wouldn't that be possible?

Natural resources used to be up for grabs before states started claiming all of it en masse, with all the consequences that has brought. — Tzeentch

Read some history, then start again. The stealing of land by force from those who originally made use of it pre-dates states by several hundred thousand years. Not to mention the fact that our current population density and current place in such a long complex history, makes any return to such a state impossible - again I'm not entertaining childish whinging here.

Your opinion seems to be that there are no alternatives for the problems I have laid out, and that I should just stop whining about then. — Tzeentch

Yes, that is exactly the argument. This is not a therapy session, it's a discussion forum.

I'm not following your argument at all here. None of us are experts sufficiently to judge the various facts of the case, yes? I'm with you so far. You then jump to saying that in such cases we're morally obliged to follow government policy? I don't see the link.

If we're faced with a situation where we cannot personally judge the rightness or wrongness of expert opinion, the surely it comes down to

a) a matter of whom we choose to trust, and
b) a matter of having sufficiently good grounds for our choices (ie at least some experts are supporting us)

I don't see why the answer to (a) morally ought to be the government, and I don't see why (b) gets discarded in favour of insisting that everyone have exactly the same answer.

If the pharmaceutical companies are predominately motivated by profit, that would nonetheless be irrelevant to the question as to whether the vaccines are safe and effective and whether mass vaccination is the only or at least the best strategy available to us. — Janus

Really, how so? Surely it speaks quite strongly to the question at (a). Does the fact that a profit-making enterprise are making an enormous profit out of a strategy not factor into that question at all? If not, then what factors do you think ought to factor into that question? To simplify - at what point in time do we stop trusting our government/media? Is there some threshold of trustworthiness they've yet to cross but which, for you, would change your strategy?

There are winning players who don't know a thing about game theory, and yet they win. That's not just random chance and lucky guessing; they're making the mathematically/theoretically "correct" moves, but they're doing so by incorporating things like instinct, intuition, sensitivity to psychological data, the ability to read people, etc. Whatever the source of these instincts, I think they deserve some credit for having them in the first place. — Xtrix

But your only criteria for identifying these people is that they win. That's not the criteria you're using here. The criteria you're using here is that they trust the same people you trust for the same reasons. Winning has not entered into it.

If most laypeople in the United States, who know nothing about vaccines, virology, microbiology, biochemistry, medicine, molecular biology, immunology, epidemiology, etc. etc., would listen to what these experts are saying and take the vaccine, then that would be a very great advantage indeed -- for everyone. — Xtrix

This just assumes the question of discussion.

But the question is an odd one anyway. It's like asking: "What's the advantage of having everyone put their money on something with a 70% chance of winning instead of a 20% chance or 10% chance?" — Xtrix

Yes, that's exactly the question I'm asking.

It's true that smoking increases the likelihood of getting cancer. It's true that anthropogenic climate change is happening. It's true that vaccines are highly effective at combating COVID. It's true that masks help slow the spread of the virus.

Many people outright deny all of the above, largely because they believe the wrong people. People and things which I mentioned above -- quack doctors, Facebook memes, YouTube stars, bloggers, Twitter users, bogus websites, etc. — Xtrix

All true. What's that got to do with the ethical question of whether one ought to take the vaccine? These are just the facts of the case, not the course of action it concludes.

I confess, I make the assumption that most people want to go on living. — Xtrix

Then why do people skydive? I don't know what kind of people you associate with, but in my experience going on living is not even in the top ten. People want to enjoy themselves, have sex, relax, learn new things, have a group of friends, taste nice food, make meaningful relationships, see beauty, stamp their identity on the world, play a part in something bigger then them...Maybe the mundane act of going on on living comes 11th at best.

The question is a matter of who they're listening to. Eventually it'll be right in front of them: they'll get COVID themselves — Xtrix

Well yes, only about 1,999 in every 2,000 won't even notice. so I don't know what impact you think that might have on their thinking other than to cement any rejection they may have fostered.

That's like saying "find someone who says climate change is a hoax." Equally ridiculous. — Xtrix

Repeating the assertion doesn't prove it. I very much doubt there is a nutritionist out there who says you can eat the quantity of junk food most Americans eat who does not have a clear bias (paid for by fast food companies, or some such). There are properly and appropriately qualified scientists without any ulterior affiliation who question the use of the vaccine, against the official advice. The situation is not the same at all.

Again, in what way can a doctor be an expert in which values are most important, such that they can give an expert opinion on what one ought to do? — Isaac

Are you serious? — Xtrix

Yes, very. It's clear that a doctor cannot provide a judgement about what one ought to do, they provide medical facts. What one ought to do about those facts is a separate question which a doctor is no more qualified to answer than you are.

In case it's not clear: none of those doctors are questioning the use of vaccines. If you believe recommendations about appropriate ages to get the vaccine is equivalent to "questioning the use of vaccines," you've really misread my statement. Which is a striking misreading. — Xtrix

Then what would you call it? Some experts are saying we should roll out the vaccines to children, others are saying we should not. That sounds like questioning the use of vaccines. The question is about their use, no? Some experts have 24 as the cut off, some 18, others 15. Some experts think we should roll out boosters, others don't. Some experts think that FDA approval should not have been given, others that it should have been given earlier. Some experts think we should be targeting the vulnerable in other countries, others think we should get as much coverage as possible regardless of where. These are all questions about the use of the vaccine. The fact that you'd rather spend all your energy defeating tinfoil-hat wearing lunatics who think vaccines contain nano-transmitters (despite the fact that none of those people are even posting here) says more about you than it does about the arguments of the serious vaccine-hesitant.

the inquiry here has been of factual ones (i.e. the effectiveness of vaccines). — Hanover

No it hasn't. At least not in a way any of us here can dispute. Let's say for the sake of argument that the vaccine is 100% effective. Does that now mean I ought to take it? You've left out any argument that we ought to take things that are 100% effective at doing what they claim to do. Fact's don't simply result in moral oughts (though see @Srap Tasmaner's rather clever way of achieving this in the other coronavirus thread).

here in a philosophy forum where you would want to be persuasive, fidelity to the truth would be the way you would sway others. — Hanover

I see no evidence of that. I've provided more citations from properly qualified experts than any other poster and most contrary responses have been half-arsed clichés of reactionary defensiveness or outright spittle-flecked invective. How is that representative of a community in search of truth?

a politician unapologetically and openly makes it his primary focus to obtain power. — Hanover

Have you read the articles of association for the pharmaceutical companies? Their objective is no less black and white, in fact far more so. They make money for their shareholders. In fact it's a contractual requirement that they make money for their shareholders. a CEO could quite rightfully be sacked if he pursued any other objective. That may be by making a vaccine that works so well everyone wants it, or it may be by lobbying governments so hard they make the vaccine mandatory and everyone gets it regardless. The articles are not specific as to how the money is made (beyond it being legal).

We're in the sad state unfortunately, where a dollar spent on lobbying has a higher return than a dollar spent on R&D. At least a politician has to transparently convince people in order to remain in power, a corporation can earn it's profit without the public having a clue how.

The only reason I am connected to unemployed Bob who lives hundreds of kilometers away from me of whom I supposedly benefit, is because at one point a state decided an area of land was theirs. — Tzeentch

What a stunningly naive thing to say. You share the same air, water, food sources, economy, oil reserves, enemies (sometimes), future... If Bob is unemployed the cost of labour is reduced because there's a demand for jobs. that means the manufacturer has to pay less for labour which means you get cheaper products. No state necessary, you benefit from bob's unemployment.

In that case there is indeed no threat of violence, but how long would such a system of taxation last when untaxed alternatives are available without a threat of punishment? — Tzeentch

I don't see much by way of untaxed alternatives. Most people couldn't get by without banks, or by staying permanently in their home. I think if the government wanted to take what it believed to be it's property, it wouldn't have too hard a time doing so without violence

the question of alternatives is not all that relevant when discussing the nature of taxation. — Tzeentch

As I said, I've no interest in pubescent whinging. If all you want to do is say "Oh poor me" then we can end this here. Alternatives are all that matter.

There's no naturally occurring distribution of wealth with which taxation interferes. — Isaac


Of course there is. Are you suggesting people cannot exchange goods and services unless they're being taxed? — Tzeentch

How did they obtain the goods? No violence, so they what? Just found them?

a situation where I'd be completely reliant on being able to sway others to my cause in order to disagree makes no sense at all. — Tzeentch

That's the situation you're in. state or not, because you live with others. again, if all you want to do is whine about how difficult life is, then we'll just stop here.

suppose I could get my hands on a comprehensive cross-tabbed survey of medical and medical research professionals, and I could actually pull out very close comps: "Look, here's 19,815 experts all about your age with extremely similar risk-factor profiles and all but 11 of them have gotten vaccinated." If that wouldn't convince you I'd have to assume you're not just not interested in the social norm at all. — Srap Tasmaner

And you may be right. As I said earlier, I probably wouldn't argue from a social norm position. I'm just interested in where this leads. So with that in mind...

Yes. If you could produce a slew of experts who were like me in the key variables and show that they all got vaccinated, then I think that would create a compelling social norm case, but you'd need a few more parameters to distinguish it as a 'moral' norm (an 'ought'). I expect the vast majority of my close cohort also wear trousers. do we want to say that wearing trousers is something I ought to do? If we're being terribly modern, we'd like to say no. I did, however, ought to wear something over my nether regions. So you'd need an argument that vaccination is like clothing (the aim) and not like trousers (a very popular choice of solution). The actions of the vast majority of a cohort don't seem to give you that. Vast majorities are no less prone to cultural social norms than they are moral ones.

Children -- look, we can ignore children. They aren't being asked to choose whether to get vaccinated. — Srap Tasmaner

Why not?

Because you are not competent to judge these factors, you want to know what the norm is among people who are — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I think you would. But do you see that data out there? Is there anything suggesting specifically that the same imperative that applies to urbanite, overweight smokers as applies to rural-dwelling, healthy athletes (not that I'm an athlete, I just needed a third - rule of threes). Recall the public health advice on potatoes. They're not a vegetable. They don't count toward your five-a-day. Why? Not because they're not as nutritious as other vegetables (they are), but because public health only gets one shot at one simple message, and they don't want your average Joe thinking chips count.

It goes back to the children issue. Why have they not advised children to get vaccinated? Because the benefits don't outweigh the risks sufficiently. Why? Because children are less likely to get ill from it and the evidence on transmission reduction is patchy at best (not my personal view, the view of the experts whose job it was to decide). So are we to assume that something magic happens at 15 and we suddenly become vulnerable to a disease? No. It's a rough cut off point, a public policy fudge made necessary by the millions of people the policy has to cover in one single easy to read message. Great bit of policy - tricky decision in difficult circumstances. Crazy thing to build a moral position on. It's a bureaucratic necessity for running a large country, not an ethical stone tablet.

the doctors and scientists and public health officials who have gotten vaccinated at very high rates, are all citizens of the same country I am. Suppose we treat each citizen as an expert on citizenship in just the same sense that everyone counts as an expert in their native language. It doesn't mean we all agree on everything, but there's tremendous overlap driven by a shared goal of preserving a working solution to a cooperation problem. You are not without exception required to speak your native language exactly as everyone else does -- they're not all uniform anyway -- but their aggregate opinion, made manifest in the way they use words, does indeed count as a rule you ought to follow — Srap Tasmaner

Briefly just wanted to say - If you've read anything I've written previously about ethics (although why would you have done), you'll see this is very much in line with the way I think about it. I've previously given the example of punching old ladies, that if someone thought punching old ladies was something we 'ought' to do they would be categorically wrong because they will simply have misunderstood what the word 'ought' means. 'Ought' is a word and so like any other word, it's meaning is found by its use within a community of language users. 'Ought' is used for things like not punching old ladies.

The problem I have with extending it to vaccines is the extent to which we can use these others as proxies. No-one ought to punch an old lady, no-one at all. There aren't exceptions for certain people, or circumstances, because punching old ladies is not a means to any good end. Everyone 'ought' to pay the grocer after he's delivered the potatoes (to paraphrase Anscombe). Children did not ought to get the vaccine, the immunosuppressed did not ought to get the vaccine, there's debate around whether young adults ought to get the vaccine. There are clearly factors determining this particular ought. That means that the factors (not the normative) are the relevant variable. The reason being that the vaccine is a means to an end (the general health of the community), not and end in itself. I've no objection to means being norms, but they usually come with caveats so that the ends are met by them. We don't want to become slaves to the means even when they're no longer working, it's the ends that really matter.

What we have from the ethical analysis you've given here is that there definitely exists a group who ought to take the vaccine and there definitely exists a group out ought not take the vaccine (and probably a group for whom it's moot). That's the reach of the ethics. Am I in one of the exception groups? That becomes a technical question, not an ethical one.

...but you can still have your rum. The derivation of an ought from an is alone deserves that!

We just shouldn't get caught up in the social exercise of what is a private function. — Isaac


This I think I need a little clarification on. -- I have thoughts, but it's easier to ask. — Srap Tasmaner

You nailed it further down. Appraising our own stories is a private exercise, we may find one story is too untenable, too conflicting, or just simply don't like it anymore. We may gradually change it (it's notoriously difficult though). None of this has anything to do the the social game of arguing over the rightness and wrongness of these extremely filtered, highly formalised, highly sanitised versions of our 'reasons' for believing what we do that we might write about here.

Even in cases where the two processes are naturally related -- as in a philosophical discussion -- they are not the same process, can't be the same process, aren't even the same kind of process. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's exactly it. Philosophy is a social endeavour and it's therefore part of the role we play in the story we have. We present this 'officially sanctioned' version of our reasons (almost always post hoc), as our move, and we receive a similar diplomatic offering in return for us to try and counter. Like any good story, this will make us think, might even change our preferred narrative in some way, but we'd be mad to believe it to be some faithful external representation of the deeply psychological reasoning process that results in our webs of belief.

We are still interested in how people form and revise their beliefs, but on a separate track we're interested in how people discuss their beliefs, and we're interested in the nexus of the two but without assuming there's just a sort of wave of reason that passes through groups of people causing each of them to speak in turn and enlightening the rest. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. that's spot on the way I'm thinking.

I have some worries I suspect we're about to get to. — Srap Tasmaner

I'd expect nothing less!

It might be best to go back to the coronavirus example to clarify what we're up to. — Srap Tasmaner

OK. As you may have noticed from my posting rate, I'm a bit short on time at the moment, but will certainly be interested in what you have to say, even if it takes a while to respond.

Many, hopefully most, form their opinion based upon a fidelity to finding the truth. — Hanover

And how do they go about doing that? Is it 'true' that abortion is unacceptable after six weeks, or is it 'false'? What on earth would true and false mean in this context and how would we go about pinning down only one version of it?

To the extent you argue opinion is controlled by forces beyond your control, your argument ceases to have persuasive value because it admits to not being based upon truth and it denies my responses are based upon truth. — Hanover

It doesn't have to admit it. Advertisers have a good deal of success getting people to wear believe Nike trainers are better than any other brand. Did they need to appeal to universal truth to do that? Or did they need to get a few famous sports celebrities to wear Nike?

The sometimes violent peer division you've identified isn't a complex sociological and psychological matter that just naturally exists within each of us, but it is the outcome of a nefarious and intentional political effort to polarize and divide the population to acquire political power. That there is such division over such minor requests like wearing masks and getting an FDA approved vaccine (and the unadulterated bullshit of the "stolen" election) speaks to the power of our power seekers in creating camps and securing votes. It needn't be this way. — Hanover

Really? So the 'power seekers' are the ones spreading the anti-vax message among otherwise sensible scientists, while the poor powerless government and pharmaceutical industry just want everyone to be happy? Who are these devils? Name names man, they need to be held to account.

It can prevent others from taking such role playing seriously. If your philosophical ideas are just pretense, then why should anyone (including you) care about them? — Olivier5

People don't care about stuff because they ought to.

And what does the greater probability of it being true have to do with ethics? — Isaac


Nothing. — Xtrix

Then why the praise? If they've not done something ethically praiseworthy? Are just personally pleased with them?

I never once mentioned "everyone." I'm talking about laymen, the average citizen, and have been from the beginning, as quoted above. — Xtrix

OK. So, same question but for laymen. what's the advantage to society in have all the laymen follow the advice that it most likely to be right (as opposed to having some of them follow the second most likely, third most likely etc.)?

Is it better to be on the right side of the truth or not? — Xtrix

Woah. When did 'Truth' enter into it? How is it 'true' that we ought to vaccinate. It can be true that the vaccine prevent coivd-19 symptoms in the majority of people. It can be true that is causes problematic side-effects in only a very tiny fraction of those taking it. Neither of those things are a statement about what we ought to do. They are both statements of fact. To get an action out them we need an objective, and a value system to weigh it against other objectives. Do you have experts in those things?

You'll find most nutritionists say you should outright never eat McDonalds. Others will say it's OK a few times a year -- in other words, in moderation. Do any suggest you should eat fast food "as often as you like"? I'm sure very few, but you could probably find them — Xtrix

Find one then.

the vast majority of doctors and scientists are encouraging vaccinations. Around 96% of doctors have gotten the vaccine themselves. — Xtrix

Again, in what way can a doctor be an expert in which values are most important, such that they can give an expert opinion on what one ought to do?

There are almost no experts who question the use of vaccines — Xtrix

That's just bullshit. The JCVI here in the UK have just ruled that the vaccine should not be authorised for the under 15s

the available evidence indicates that the individual health benefits from COVID-19 vaccination are small in those aged 12 to 15 years who do not have underlying health conditions which put them at risk of severe COVID-19

The potential risks from vaccination are also small, with reports of post-vaccination myocarditis being very rare, but potentially serious and still in the process of being described.

Given the rarity of these events and the limited follow-up time of children and young people with post-vaccination myocarditis, substantial uncertainty remains regarding the health risks associated with these adverse events.

Overall, the committee is of the opinion that the benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential known harms, but acknowledges that there is considerable uncertainty regarding the magnitude of the potential harms.

The margin of benefit, based primarily on a health perspective, is considered too small to support advice on a universal programme of vaccination of otherwise healthy 12 to 15-year-old children at this time.

You have a strange definition of 'encouraging vaccines' if you think advising against rolling them out constitutes encouragement.

Again, states creating situations and problems I never asked for and am only a part of as a product of the impositions of the state itself. — Tzeentch

The state didn't create the problem, it proffered a solution to it. The problem pre-exists. People compete over scarce resources. Mostly the strong win and the weak lose. States redress that (or at least they represent the opportunity to).

We've just been through this, the government just take it from their bank account or from their house while they're out. — Isaac


Bank account is empty, and person refuses to leave their house. — Tzeentch

Then tough luck on the state.

If they avoid detection, how does a law help? — Isaac


Because the threat of reprisals often works in a deterring fashion. In fact, many would argue deterrence rather than punishment is the primary function of the justice system. — Tzeentch

If this is true, then it's true whether states exist or not. Any group of people could threaten you to get you to do something. It's just a fact of the world, nothing to do with states. We could prevent it, if we thought it was unethical. But it would require organisations - ie a state. Still has nothing to do with taxes because the state needn't use this method.

Taxation is to redistribute wealth according to one's perception of what belongs to who under threat of violence (which is what the law is - impositions under threat of violence). — Tzeentch

It's not redistribution. There's no naturally occurring distribution of wealth with which taxation interferes. Taxation is part of the distribution of wealth. and it needn't involve violence, as I made quite clear.

And taxation is not an agreement. Not one that involves me at any rate. This situation is simply imposed. I've never been presented with any terms, asked for a signature or given an opportunity to opt out. I never agreed to anything. — Tzeentch

Yes you did. You were given the opportunity to vote, campaign, make a party, seek election. You chose not to. That is what constitutes your agreement in a democracy. If you have a better way of reaching an agreement, then I'm sure we'd all like to hear it.

I simply know more about the topic than average people.

To react how you did is typical, I suppose, because it sounds ego driven. But it’s a statement of fact, and there’s no reason not to say it simply because it applies to myself — Xtrix

No, none at all. The issue is that, without knowing them at all, you characterise those who disagree with you as having formed their opinions from five minutes on YouTube. The point I'm making is not one about egotistical sounding statements, it's about judgement. If it's possible to know enough about a subject to make objective factual statements about it without actually being a qualified expert, then you can't simply dismiss the objective factual statements of others on the grounds that they don't tally with yours. It's just as possible that they are as well-informed as you are (or better) and have simply arrived at a differing conclusion based on facts you aren't aware of.

It doesn’t deserve much praise. It’s just a much better bet, as a layman. — Xtrix

That's not what you claimed.

My sole claim, in this case, is that those who have the intuition, instinct, or judgment to put their money on — and trust — the opinions of most experts deserve some credit, despite their ignorance of the subject. — Xtrix

You singled out, for credit, those who put their money on most experts.

the more experts draw the same conclusion, the greater the probability that it’s true. This can be checked— it’s an empirical claim. — Xtrix

And what does the greater probability of it being true have to do with ethics? You're talking about social praise, reward for behaviour to be promoted (as opposed to punishment for behaviour to be restricted). Why is the highest probability of being true the deciding factor in this? You've not explained why a society in which everyone follows the highest probabilities is a better one than one in which most people follow the highest probabilities and some follow the second highest, the third highest and so forth.

An argument for a minimum threshold of likelihood is easily made (trust experts, not snake-oil salesmen), there needs to be sufficient likelihood to outweigh the risk - standard risk assessment stuff. But you're here trying to make an argument not for thresholds, but that nothing other than the absolute highest probability of being true is enough to outweigh the risk of any action associated with it. This seems like a bizarre approach to risk. One which is inconsistent with all other judgments we make about people taking risks (all of which seems threshold based - as long as it's not too risky we'll generally consider it to be OK).

I'm intrigued if you take this approach to risk in other areas too. To you castigate people for not choosing the statistically least risky pastime possible. any who knowingly chooses a more risky one is to be reprimanded?

98 out of 100 nutritionists say you should almost never eat McDonalds. Does following their advice deserve much praise? No. But it certainly deserves more than those laypeople who go with the 2% because they like Big Macs. — Xtrix

Really? You think you could find a qualified, nutritionist who says you can eat at McDonalds as often as you like (one who isn't obviously paid, or influenced by the fast food industry). The reason why your example sounds so convincing to you is because you've made up a deliberately convincing (and unfortunately completely fantastical) one. There are scores of properly qualified, unaffiliated experts in the appropriate field who raise a variety of objections to the consensus response to covid, climate change, (possibly 9/11 too - I've never looked). Your claim of homogeneity in opposition is ridiculous.

I raised the psychologist's fallacy — Hanover

which is that you can't allege someone else's failure to be objective is due to inherent psychological limitations and not apply the same to yourself. — Hanover

Have I done this? If you can find an example, I'd be sorely disappointed It's certainly been my intention and (as far as I can remember) my actual reality, to be clear that this applies to me as much as anyone else.

I don't see how that causes a problem. One's opinion will be formed, in large part, by the opinion which is used as a membership token for the social groups to which one wishes to belong, or the social roles one plays. That includes my opinion just expressed, which is part of a generic 'psychologist' role - fusty academic (I even have the tweeds and the leather armchair...), see everything as a psychological issue, detracted observer, etc.. A social narrative, a story. One I quite like (which is why I keep it).

I don't see how it's being a role prevents me playing it, or prevents anyone else from responding to it in kind.

Here I am slowly peeling back the lid so that the worms can only come out of the can one by one and we get a chance to look at them, and then you come along and just smash the thing open on the counter. — Srap Tasmaner

Sorry, my mood was perhaps worse than I ought to have allowed myself to communicate whilst in.

First, even if our reasons are rationalizations, they can be "good" or "bad": not all stories make sense. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's exactly the purpose, I think, of the stories in the first place. Not just any old story will do, some are better than others and we can swap out the rubbish ones for the better ones. This is spot on. Precisely my aim in analysing such stories (in myself, anyway - I've yet to be convinced that such analysis alone can influence others - as in my analysis of their story).

Next, given Quine-Duhem, maybe the reasons you give are not your actual reasons in any meaningful sense, but they could have been, and what difference does it make? — Srap Tasmaner

The difference is only in recognising the limits. For each reason you identify as part of your post-hoc rationalisation, you might dislike it, you might want to choose a better story, and that better story might lead to better intuitive actions next time, but you'd miss that opportunity if you only considered your actions to be determined by those reasons you originally gave. All reasons sound reasonable - we're not generally that stupid, we don't act contrary to what seems like reason. So to change our actions we have to have some concept of alternative reasons (rather than just a concept of reasons being flawed). Quine-Duhem. There's too many acceptable reasons, we have to choose.

when it comes to other people's ideas, I tend to think the intuitive, even "emotional" response is valuable, even when it precedes whatever rational support we can find for it. (My posting history is littered with proof.) Something in me has run some models and said "no", I just don't know why. And I happen to *really* enjoy trying to figure out what my intuition might have spotted on my behalf. It could turn out my intuition has been jumping to conclusions again and I can overrule it. Bad intuition! Bad! But it gets a lot right too. — Srap Tasmaner

Maybe. It depends how you analyse the outcome. What properties of an action (prompted by intuition) do you use to categorise it as 'Bad' or 'Good'? Is it the extent to which you're satisfied with it - surely just the extent to which it fits with your identity, your own social narrative? You can't be judging it by any objective standard of outcome, that would require a level of brainpower we just don't have access to. Shortcuts aren't always an optional energy-saver, sometimes they're simply a necessity of the mechanism, like a pocket calculator's short version of Pi.

Your burden would be to show how the roles we play and the stories we tell can evolve, without a two-tiered model that explicitly accommodates review and revision. I think. — Srap Tasmaner

No, I think a two-tiered model is appropriate. We just shouldn't get caught up in the social exercise of what is a private function. You may well review and revise your stories, select others which fit better or feel more satisfying, these may well lead to better actions in the future. That's not the necessarily same thing as you engaging in the social game of review and revision. That's all I'm saying (in what was way too ornery and laconic a turn of phrase...sorry).

Would it be reasonable to guess that a dog, with very similar neuro anatomy and physiology to a human, is modeling without language?

Could that kind of modeling show up in a dog's memories? — frank

Yes. By what I understand to be modelling. A model is just a device which generates a probability function of producing some result given some input. My model of the table just takes the various inputs (visuo-spatial, locational, sensory, proprioceptive...) and generates a set probability function of a known result (trigger the collection of models likely to produce the word "table", trigger the models to plan the movement of my cup-holding hand...) etc.

We could call the resultant function a symbol 'table' (it functions like one, in that it stands in for an actual table). Abstract concepts can be just such a model, but they don't have any means (that I know of) of actually being in charge of the models which use such concepts.

So my concept 'not' (as in negation) is a higher order model (a model of models), which takes inputs (model) and is likely to produce outputs such as language (using the word "not") and decisions about categorisation (which of the understood models fall into the category {negations}). This higher order model has little to no necessary* effect on lower order models which actually use negation in their functions (for example where inputs are likely to lead to a negation of action).

* I say 'necessary' because they will have some constraining effect, our models are well-networked and each can have promoting or constraining effects on the others. Even something like our higher order concept of [negation] can affect the priors for lower order models using that process, it's just that it's not necessary.

I don't think an aphasic person is really language-less, are they?

People who recover report knowing what they wanted to say, but just couldn't access the right words. — frank

I was using it as an example. Most aphasics suffer damage to one of the two main language regions, they don't lose them entirely. The point is that it does seems to affect modelling, but not proportionate to the loss, indicating that if they lost all capacity, some modelling would remain.

If someone was truly language-less, how would we know modeling was happening? By their behavior? — frank

Mainly, if we see modelling in experimental data from language capable people who can express their thoughts, we can then map similar behaviour over to similar regions in language-less people and make a reasonable inference that it represents the same processes. That way we can make a judgement about what is and is not impacted by the loss of language.

I can, and do. I know more about climate science than the average person — Xtrix

Ha! We all think we're better than average drivers, have better than average senses of humour...Notwithstanding, your knowledge is still second hand, it still comes from those you trust. The amount of time you've taken doesn't alter the nature of the information you gathered, which remains secondary.

There is such a thing as correct and incorrect. The people who are anti-vaccine or climate deniers are simply wrong. The ones who “throw in” with mainstream science and medicine, but who are almost completely ignorant about science and medicine, is what the topic was. They happen to be right, and that matters. — Xtrix

Neither are a sufficiently homogenous group to be either right nor wrong.

Yes, when it comes to laypeople. People should trust scientists and doctors — Xtrix

That wasn't the question I asked. I asked if people should trust the consensus.

it’s good to be questioning and challenging dogma and the status quo. But only if you put in the work— not simply because you’ve spent a few minutes on YouTube. — Xtrix

Of course, but this still doesn't answer the question I asked.

My sole claim, in this case, is that those who have the intuition, instinct, or judgment to put their money on — and trust — the opinions of most experts deserve some credit, despite their ignorance of the subject. — Xtrix

But you've still dodged the question. Why "most experts". What is it about the relative proportion of experts trusted which deserves this credit. If fifty fully qualified experts think one thing and five similarly qualified experts think another, what is it about choosing the fifty which deserves such praise over choosing the five when deciding who to trust?

I honestly have no idea what value the "just-like-me" idea has. It is An Idea I Had, so I've been screwing around with it. — Srap Tasmaner

That's cool, I'm always interested in ideas.

everyone who has an opinion about another's behavior has faced the same choice, or some variation on the same choice, as those they are judging, which is a little unusual — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, in classical 'moral dilemma' terms, this is a moral dilemma we all face (as opposed to the seeming abundance of runaway trolley cars which remarkably I've never had the misfortune to have to deal with). And also, perhaps, that the decision is binary. It's not like giving to charity, or even abortion which can have scalar answers.

The effect is maybe to make the script less variable. We see it in the associations. Trump thinks the virus came from China, everyone sane has to think it didn't. Gun-toting rednecks don't mask, urban liberals have to mask... there's only two options and if one of them is the one the villain picked, the hero's choices are a bit limited. They can't both wear black.

people do have a surprising amount to say about the behavior they expect of their fellow discussers -- "I don't have the burden of proof, you do," "Why won't you answer my question?!" "Why do you keep bringing that up, I've already addressed it!" and the rest. Maybe it's just that within a discussion there are a number of different roles available and we tend both to lose track and make too much of which role each participant is supposed to be playing at the moment. — Srap Tasmaner

Possibly. I think that the anonymity of internet discussion just allows for a greater variety of roles and people may lose track.

People use this as an accusation -- "Of course, you'd think that, because you're a tree-hugging Gaia worshiper." This amounts to a claim that I have reasons for my beliefs but your beliefs are caused, which might be the most widely held belief on the forum. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, we read this a lot. Of course we all have reasons for our beliefs, it's just that they're not always reasons other people find satisfactory. That's all we've got here really, an exchange of reasons and a summing up of why we find the other's unsatisfactory.

Except, of course, it's all bullshit because the idea that people are truly assessing reasons like philosophical jewellers examine a diamond for flaws is nonsense. The decision comes first, then the assessment of reason to find sufficient flaws to justify it.

Isaac
Can modeling happen without any linguistic or symbolic component? If so, could you explain how? — frank

Linguistic, the answer is an easy yes. Aphasia doesn't preclude modelling (although it disrupts it - so there's a link). Symbolically, I'd say it depends on the type of model. Your sensory inputs follow two main streams of model hierarchy, one deals with object manipulation, the other with object recognition. The object recognition stream will have what might be called a 'symbol' as the input for each stage (even if that's just the symbol 'edge', or the symbol 'light'), so yeah indispensable here. The manipulation stage I'm not sure (outside my area of expertise - such as it is) I think it's more process driven, so maybe not describable in symbols? Not sure I'm afraid.

This is a flaw of state government, that seeks to connect people who aren't in any way connected. — Tzeentch

Of course they're connected. You benefit from their unemployment. Do you seriously know this little about economics?

If they don't care enough to knock on my door, why should I? — Tzeentch

What, all four thousand of them?

What if an individual refuses to part with their wealth? — Tzeentch

We've just been through this, the government just take it from their bank account or from their house while they're out.

what if individuals continue to find ways of circumventing taxation through undeclared labor and bartering? — Tzeentch

Same. Compensatory recompense is just taken from their property. Did you not even read our previous exchange? We've been through all this.

people are very crafty when it comes to avoiding things they do not want to do. — Tzeentch

If they avoid detection, how does a law help?

Your alternative is not to try to justify violence with opinions. — Tzeentch

I'm not justifying violence at all. No one is. That's the problem. You are equating taxation with justifying violence and you're wrong to. Taxation is just about reaching an agreement over who owns what. How such an agreement is enforced is a completely separate question. It need not be by violence, as I've explained quite exhaustively now.

Give me someone who goes with the overwhelming medical, scientific consensus, and with expertise, over someone who listens to a Facebook meme and YouTube influencer any day of the year. Both may lack real knowledge of the subjects, and both may hold lots of cynical or skeptical views about authority, but in the end only one has arrived at the right choice because of who they judged worthy enough to trust -- and that matters. — Xtrix

Odd that you've only given two choices there. "the overwhelming medical, scientific consensus" vs. "a Facebook meme and YouTube influencer". Do you see those as the only two options?

one happens to be right and the other wrong, regardless of how one arrives at that claim. So while I also think it's a shame people aren't more educated, I also am willing to credit them for have the instinct, intuition, or whatever else was required to end jump making the right choice in the end. — Xtrix

But you're neither climate scientist, not virologist, nor (whatever a 9/11 expert would be!), so you can't 'step outside' of this. You judge them to be right or wrong based on your adoption of exactly the same methods. You judge people who agree with you to be right and those who disagree with you to be wrong because of your choice of who to trust, it's just circular to claim that this proves someone making the same choice turned out to be right. You're judging 'right' by that choice (who to trust), not by some other more direct means. You don't have access to the right measure rule on which to judge those parameters (which would be direct empirical evidence of the raw data).

Choosing people (or ostracising/castigating them) for their choices about who to trust is a social group exercise - we want these people in the group, we don't want those people. It's about the benefits and problems they might bring/cause for society. So this is where I take issue with what you're saying. We don't want people trusting Facebook memes and celebrity Twitter posts. Those people are probably going to lead society astray (the likelihood of them making good choices, just by chance, are slim), but that second option of yours...

Do we really only want people who trust the "overwhelming medical, scientific consensus"? Exclude those who take the side of the underwhelming medical and scientific dissenters? Why would we do that? What advantage to society does removing scientific dissent bring?

Sure if the 'scientist' concerned is payed by the oil companies and no-one else agrees with him we might have cause to doubt he's acting as a scientist at all, but without such tokens, what's the justification for requiring conformity to the consensus?

Sadly, this is starting to look like something you'd want to design experiments for and the armchair phase might be done. — Srap Tasmaner

Already have though. from the famous (infamous) Asch, Milgram and Zimbardo, through to the less famous stuff like Birney, Burdick, and Teevan (work on hippy culture in the 60s) or the stunningly insightful, prescient, well-designed, and handsomely researched, but sadly before-it's-time, work done by a young psychology researcher at the tail end of the last millennium...I forget his name...

All suffer, of course from the perennial problem of psychology experiments in that they're little more than glorified guesswork, but you know, glorified guesswork is better than just, well, guesswork.

If we can adopt roles just by changing clothes, then it seems unlikely that an all pervasive just-like-me system is in play. If our own judgement of appropriate behaviour is dictated somewhat by tokens of social role (dress, badges, titles), then it seems unlikely we'll not be influenced by those same tokens when we see them on others and judge the appropriateness of their behaviour accordingly.

What we could say, I suppose, is that we still have a just-like-me judgement system when we're within roles (ie judging someone in the same role as us). It might be that we judge others by conformity to their social-stereotypes but judge the detail of the role we're currently playing by our own decisions within it, rather than the much broader parameters of it's own social narrative. Would be interesting, I'm not aware of anything done in that specific area.

same-as-me can assume you're not getting vaccinated because there's something you don't know (that I do), or don't understand (that I do), or indeed that you've made a mistake, some error of reasoning (that I didn't). You having your own reasons, also valid, is the absolute last resort. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, this is good. I mean, I couch it in terms of social roles, but the analysis is the same so it doesn't matter. The last resort is that the social role we're playing is broader than we thought, contains more options. After all the whole point of social roles is to constrain the maddening chaos of options. Or, heaven forfend, that we might actually be playing the role wrong. That we might be the ones off-script. What an annoyance finding that out would be.

There may even be some general exasperation at having to go all the way to the end of the list of options for dealing with you -- you've cost people precious calories, and at each step towards the next more expensive option there's this hope that we're about to be done, right before that hope is dashed. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, and I'm truly sorry about that, litigation is available, my professional indemnity insurance covers lost calories.

Usually when I have a dispute with someone, there is some indication for it. — Tzeentch

How could you possibly know? Any dispute you lacked indication of you wouldn't know about, so there might be thousands.

If there is no indication, indeed not even communication or interaction between me and someone I supposedly have a dispute with, it seems like there isn't a dispute? — Tzeentch

Well, at the moment beneficiaries of your taxes are indeed getting what they believe is theirs, so they're unlikely to have anything to say. I'm asking how they would raise their complaint with you if you were instead to keep that money for yourself.

Taxation is to force individuals to part with what they believe to be theirs under threat of violence. — Tzeentch

I've just explained how it isn't. The government can take the money owed without exerting any force or violence at all. So this is just false.

Using opinions to justify violence is to invite others to do the same. Who gets to impose their opinion on the other is then a matter of who has the greatest capacity for violence leading to a situation of might makes right. — Tzeentch

As I said, quite clearly I thought, so your ignoring it is quite disingenuous, no violence is necessary. I can just come and take all your stuff while you're out.

You consider his arguments and if you agree, you stop killing people. — Tzeentch

Yep. Which is the alternative. So what's the alternative to government deciding who owns what?

Sure. But do you want to know what (and how) people believe just out of curiosity, or do you have a more urgent and useful reason for it? — baker

Well, it's my job. But yeah, mostly just out of curiosity.

When it comes to climate change, vaccines, COVID, etc — yes. But overall, the general feeling is that government is bought by special interests. — Xtrix

I was referring to "...distrustful of everything except their favored media". Do you really think the majority of people trust a variety of sources outside of the favoured media? I'd wager less than a tenth of the people passionate about climate change actually understand climate change, likewise for vaccines, covid, 9/11,...whatever. People pin their flag to the mast of whatever social group seems to fit their identity best and yell the sanctioned scripts from the parapets. Rightness and wrongness are on a separate scale entirely. That the "government is bought by special interests" is no different. Government make a decision favouring the arms manufacturers they're "so obviously in their pocket, it stinks". Government makes a decision in favour of the pharmaceutical industry they're "following the science". It's just roles in a story, evil arms trader, white-coated scientist-hero.

Possibly, but I'm under no illusions that any of this changes people's minds one way or another. It's an exercise in finding out what (and how) people believe, not an exercise in changing it.

I don't have a dispute with those people, as far as I am aware. — Tzeentch

How would they make you aware?

Theft concerns a subjective dimension about what rightfully belongs to whom, and that is not relevant to the point I have been making. — Tzeentch

Then just reiterate your point for me, if you will. It's possible I've got lost.

I don't know why you keep wanting to make this about me: what my solutions are, why I am surprised, etc. Those things aren't relevant at all to the point I am making. — Tzeentch

Well they seemed so. You appeared to be making a point that governments (particularly their taking of taxes) are bad. For that to make sense there needs to be a viable alternative. Badness is not an objective, absolute scale we can measure things up against. There's no 'badness' rule in Paris setting the standard. Badness is measured against the alternatives. Anything less is just meaningless.

So do you have an alternative? I'm not just going to be a foil for a load of adolescent whinging.

Presumably the only reason to bother parsing intention and friends here is to make better predictions than we can make just using the action itself. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I think so. From a position of uncertainty about the variables, we might want to be wary (from a desire for surprise avoidance) of developing models which are insufficiently sensitive to them. If, every time I see a cup of foaming green liquid I recoil, I'll probably save myself a poisoning and only miss out on the occasional niche cocktail. But if, every time I see a cup of any liquid at all I recoil, I'm going to go thirsty. The model response is too insensitive to the variables colour and foaminess, which make a difference.

Here, if we have a just-like-me model, with caveats (not literally identical, just close enough), then we'd be wise to know something of the variables which determine that difference (the extent to which it's not exactly-like-me). Not knowing those variables leave us applying our shortcut randomly. We know we can't expect others in our role to behave exactly like us, but we've no idea how much variety to allow.

Take your smartly dressed man. He can judge his female colleague, even using the just-like-me method if he knows the variable of difference. He knows that [gender] is a variable, and he knows that it causes variation in dress-vs-trousers, colour, make-up etc. He knows it doesn't allow difference in the extent of scruffiness, sports branding, or decency. Knowing these he can use just-like-me because 'like' is well-defined.

Non-branching trees we talk about as intentions, both for ourselves and for others. (This is consonant with current neuroscience, right? We act, for reasons we know not, and if needed bolt-on a retrodiction of that action and call it the intention we had when we acted.) Non-branching trees are cheaper, and we will resist giving them up even when surprised. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's right, and this gets us into very conflicting territory, between folk-psychology and psychology. In folk psychology, 'Intentions' are a similar beast, both in terms of prediction and in terms of cause. "I will walk down the road because I intend to go to the pub" and "I walked down the road because I intended to go to the pub". But psychologically (in my model anyway - everyone else is, unfortunately, wrong!), prediction is about interaction with the environment, sensation<>belief (likelihood to act as if...) and cause is, as you say, about retrospective storytelling, memory<>belief. Two quite different beasts.

I keep emphasizing the same-as-me strategy because it does seem like the cheapest baseline available, but your (Goffmanesque?) scripts and part-playing are similar, right? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I'm tempted to say scripts are cheaper. The trouble with same-as-me, is that it always has caveats, it requires the assessment of sameness. Scripts tend to already accommodate variety. There's a range of next lines, a range of next actions, and a range of tokens identifying others playing the same role. Tradition has already widened the parameters in response to a kind of cultural evolutionary pressure to do so. It's too surprising to have too strict a requirement (people can't keep to it and so often act out of role), but it's also too surprising to have too lose a requirement (it doesn't have any predictive power at all. The hero of a story never does exactly the same thing (except the latest Star Wars films, of course!), but they're always recognisable, they never kill and old lady for the fun of it, and if they do, we're cross.

Acknowledging that you diverged on purpose is the last thing I want to do, because then to predict you I'll have to engage in expensive research (i.e., talk to you, which is not so bad, talk is cheap, but in this case I'll also have to listen to you and that blows). — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, this is still true notwithstanding the above, but regarding what's happening here? I'm stepping out of role, by not getting vaccinated, or being insufficiently just-like-them, but the response is to assume I've done so mistakenly? I'm not sure that quite describes the responses, seems like there's more to it.

No, I think managing one's disputes through individual agreements is a good way to go about things. — Tzeentch

Well then describe the mechanism. The 14 thousand unemployed in your country claim a little of your pay to support them in their unemployment. What do they do? All turn up at your house? Write you a note? His does this system of yours work?

Maybe it is countries that are absurd if they are unable to act in ways that are good. — Tzeentch

'Good' hasn't even been raised yet.

We haven't spoken about entitlements. We have spoken about perceptions, and if those perceptions conflict — Tzeentch

The perceptions are of who owns what. Theft is the taking of something owned by another, so if you perceive something to be owned by you it follows that you perceive it's removal to be theft, unless you simply don't know what theft means.

Why would this change the fact that it has been imposed on me without my say? — Tzeentch

It wouldn't. It changes why you'd be at all surprised about that.

Show me the individual that wants to dispute what I perceive as my personal belongings and I'll happily have a chat with them. — Tzeentch

Ridiculous, there are millions of people in your country alone, all of whom have a claim. This idea of managing an entire country by individual agreement is absurd.

Then how can you declare taxation to be theft? — Isaac


I never declared that. — Tzeentch

Not in so many words perhaps, but the taking of property one is not entitled to is theft, so to disown the claim you'd have to either relinquish the property claim or agree the government is within its rights.

it has simply been imposed upon me without my say. — Tzeentch

Why would they ask you, they don't believe it's your property, you've never put any such claim to them, so why on earth would they ask you first?

You said...

Show me the individual that wants to dispute what I perceive as my personal belongings and I'll happily have a chat with them. — Tzeentch

If I say that people claim a portion of you pay, you ask me to list their names. So why would you expect any more from the government. They simply believe that portion of you pay to be theirs and have not been given any such 'list of names' who make a conflicting claim.

Only with those people I have a dispute with, which aren't very many at all. — Tzeentch

Everyone who is a beneficiary of taxes then is in dispute with you about who owns the taxed portion of you pay, they all think it's them.

A government isn't a thinking being with an opinion about what it believes to be theirs. — Tzeentch

No, but people can have an opinion about what belongs to the government.

I didn't have any talks, as they would obviously be fruitless. — Tzeentch

Then how can you declare taxation to be theft? You said that the matter of ownership is resolved by agreement, yet you've engaged in no such agreement with the government. So no agreement has been reached as to who owns what. So on what ground to you claim "theft!"?

I view governments as inherently problematic — Tzeentch

It'd be even harder for every person to come to an agreement with every other. This is just fantasist nonsense.

Governments aren't people. — Tzeentch

So?

I don't have an intention to forcefully take from individuals what they believe to be theirs, no. I reach an agreement with them. — Tzeentch

So

what was the outcome of your talk with the government about your disagreement over who owns the taxed portion of your pay? — Isaac

when I have a dispute with someone over what belongs to whom, I talk with them and come to an agreement. — Tzeentch

And what was the outcome of your talk with the government about your disagreement over who owns the taxed portion of your pay?

I don't know about any we, but when I have a dispute with someone over what belongs to whom, I talk with them and come to an agreement. — Tzeentch

How do you propose the government talks to each and every person to reach individually tailored agreements as to what belongs to whom?

But it's good to hear we've resolved the whole 'tax' issue. Since you believe that one...

one shouldn't want to. — Tzeentch

make people part with what they believe to be theirs — Tzeentch

You won't be wanting to take home that portion of your pay that the government believes to be theirs will you?

You ask me how one can forcefully redistribute wealth according to their liking and make people part with what they believe to be theirs without having to resort to violence and my answer is simple: one shouldn't want to. — Tzeentch

I didn't ask you that. I asked you how we reach an agreement about what belongs to whom. You said you weren't opposed to agreement, but you don't consider the democratic process to be a suitable means of achieving that. I asked what means you do consider suitable.

A large minority of this country are so distrustful of everything except their favored media — Xtrix

You think that's a minority group?

I never agreed to that. — Tzeentch

Oh, so which method of reaching agreement on who owns what do you want? Democracy's no good for you it seems. Consensus perhaps? Would you have us consult each and every person and conclude nothing until all agreed? What should we do about property in the meantime? Back to taking whatever we think is ours?

I haven't shared any opinions about what I believe belongs to who. — Tzeentch

That's not the opinion which would counter the claim. The means by which we, as a society, decide what belongs to whom, is. If not decided simply by what you think you own, not decided by democratic systems either, then by what means?

what failure would force me to consider an abstract element of my action, and of yours, called the "intention"? That's more work, so why do we do it? — Srap Tasmaner

Interesting. As a guess, trust. If we're short-cutting, then the only reason to give that up is if it's not giving us unsurprising results. So to understand why we might give up any shortcut we need to look at where it might be producing surprise. Here, if I were a pro-vaccine, pro-science, left-of-centre intellectual (to pick one of the off-the-shelf social narratives), I'd expect a super-libertarian conservative to be anti-vaccine and might simply decry their choice as part of my script (why do people boo the villain in panto). But it would be surprising to find another pro-vaccine, pro-science, left-of-centre intellectual who, on this occasion, wasn't on script. That, I'd have thought, would trigger an analysis of 'intent', or some other abstraction, to resolve the surprise.

But the alternative is to simply deny the person acting so off-script is actually playing the same role as you afterall, rather they're nothing but an imposter! Much quicker. So maybe no trigger for analysis there either.

There always seem to be shortcuts available, and always reason to take them.

So, at the end of the day, we need the analysis to have a gain greater than the effort, doing it needs to be part of the story.