A thread for stupid things to say which sound really smart

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Given this, the state of philosophy can be pretty much explained with this quote: "induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy." Philosophy's failure to deal with the problem of induction in a decisive manner has historically made it practically* meaningless to human life, whereas science has consistently maintained relevance and led to progress.

* I mean "practically" in the literal sense here, as in "in practice."

There's the saying "good enough for all practical purposes."

In the presence of a practical problem to solve, such as "how can I get more mileage out of my fuel?", or "how do I plot the course to send this fishing bot to Europa?" or "will it blend?" the pragmatic approach of induction is obviously going to stand a better chance at getting it, if not truly right, then right enough. Wich is ultimately what "in practice" boils down to; getting that job done to within the specifics of your requirements.

It appears to me that in order to make good use of inductive theories, seeing how they are probabilistic in nature, you'd need a way to quantifiably measure them up against one another and let a form of natural selection take course. It's hard for me to even concieve of a way to accomplish this without in some way incorporating mathematics into your methods.

One way in wich science does this is by adding a margin of error to every measurment made signifying its degree of uncertainty. A measurment with the uncertainty of +/- 0.0000035 is objectively closer to the target than one with an uncertainty of +/- 2. With this, all you have to do is pick the method that will get you within the margin of error that is acceptable for your practical application and voilà; instead of being bogged down with the conflict of wether "true enough" is really true at all, you can now just get the damned job done. I call that a win.

The idea that uncertainty would somehow invalidate understanding seems foolish to me, it only turns it from an unapproachable ideal of black and white absolutes, into a progressive process of refinement that has lead us to everything we currently think we understand.

As nicely illustrated by Isaac Asimov in his paper "The Relativity of Wrong"

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@Upandatem: it's not as easy as that. I mean, for engineering and physics, yeah, it's that.

But for social sciences or medicine, it tends to get messy.

Medicine requires a definition/model of health. Try to think about it, it varies with the resources of a country and time.

Social sciences are inherently more complex, so getting a curve to fit to data with a limited error is not enough, given the difficulty to control factors that influence that. That's the problem with empiricism in, let's say, economics; e.g. the Philips curve predicts a inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment (it worked well until the 70s, Milton Friedman got a Nobel for wrecking that on his time, currently, it's used only a short run aproximation and you have to consider rational expectations or something). Don't fall on the trap of thinking maths and empiricism are useless for social sciences, though (as the Austrian school does). Epistemology in Social Sciences is an open question currently.

The thing about social sciences is that two rational people given the exact same experiences might still NOT have the same behavior. The nature of inductive reasoning is such that exposure to the same evidence can be likened to being dealt the same hand in a game of poker; different people will put different amounts of chips (faith) in on a hypothesis; skepticism is not binary, but measurable as a probability.

I might be able to buy into the "Foundation theory" that, as numbers of actors increases, streakiness in this pseudorandom behavior decrease, so the more macro the social science, the more likely I am to lean towards predictability.

If one is to follow how things are done with Quantum Mechanics, getting the probability distribution (like the square of the modulus of the wave function, :P) is good knowledge by itself. I think micro can be studied that way.

Also, economists have tried that (microfoundations), but there are limits to how useful can that thing be, and you have to study macro without refering to them sometimes (like if it was classical physics), knowing it can have errors. Applied economics cannot wait sometimes (Central Banks and so on).

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Upandatem wrote:

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

Spoiler

The reason I brought up the "the law of gravity is nonsense, if I think I float and you think I float, then it happens" and "reality only exists in the mind" was because they were from 1984 which is a book in some ways dedicated to the idea that history and the past are related but most certainly not the same thing. I felt there was a certain double barreled communication to the Obama quote that fitted the bill. Im guessing youre a far more widely read man than myself so Im sure youve consumed both the book and the film at some point and probably know a lot more about it than me tbh.

When they talk about reality existing in the mind in that book, its obviously a slightly different angle to a standard philosophical position in that what theyre sort of saying is that the only reality that matters in the context they are talking about is that which is in the mind and to truly shape that you must be able to fully believe in stupid things like that statement itself, to know things are right which are not. I guess a little more poetic political psychology than philosophy or science. Though theres elements to the ideas explored in the novel which kind of touch on and are supported by everything youre saying.

It was well over a decade since I read that book so details are long gone, but I simply interpreted that as being part of the brainwashing routine. The party is always right, even when it's wrong. Therefore we float.

ya its exactly that at the end of the day, its brainwashing, doublethink. Theres many examples in the real world where mass populations know 2 things, and neither make sense together, like my government fits the definition of terrorists yet they stand against terrorism, I am also against terrorism and thats why I support their terrorism. Those people exist in great numbers sadly. The party in the book was concerned with the 'reality' inside these peoples minds, it wasnt enough to say the party was right with a gun to your head, you had to believe it, to know the party was right. Its absolutely brainwashing, on some levels the book is an exploration of the mechanics of brainwashing.

Its a novel at the end of the day, science fiction. Its exploring specifics played out in a specific fictional setting, a very zoomed in view of ideas in practice. But the entire thing is built on more fundamental political/psychological/philosophical ideas such as the difference between history and the past, the nature of reality vs perceived reality, of faith, belief and knowledge, these things weve been discussing are fundamental cogs in the mechanisms that drive the book. To manipulate someones mind you have to understand how it works better than they do, even if that person is yourself which becomes a whole other level of crazy.

To say "if I think I float and you think I float, then it happens" is to say that history is the reality you and I know to be true and is all that matters, what actually happened in the past is so irrelevant that it didnt even exist, its not part of reality.

This started with an obama quote of being on the right/wrong side of history. If you ponder the range of people hes talking to, smart people in his party, stupid people in the general public, what hes trying to say to these different people, what is going on in their heads when they clap a statement like that youre going to stumble over an awful lot of doublespeak, doublethink, doublefacepalm, the full works. Ideas that flip flop from stupid to smart and back again depending on the perspective, sometimes invisibly flip flopping from a single warped perspective. I think the book seemed to be concerned with those ideas on an abstract level more than it was with the story that delivered them. But honestly its been 10 years since I read it too, aside from those 2 quotes Im not sure I could pull any more specifics about it from my mind, these aspects are certainly the only bits that stuck with me. I cant even remember the character names in the story.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The word "know" has created a lot more trouble than it's worth...

I completely agree, I feel its part of a fundamental problem with how we currently think, how we value absolutes etc. It ties into many things, the ego gets dragged in, its very messy as its so close to the foundations of thought that everything we are is sort of built on it from the ground up.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I'd be kinda surprised if anyone other than me and Nero have studied epistemology at all prior to this thread. And I'm no philosophy major.

But still, yeah, what I'm basically advocating is popularizing awareness of a rational epistemology in popular culture.

I have an a-level in 'philosophy of religion and the mind', which basically means 16 years ago an idiot child version of me was present in a room where people talked about these things for a couple of years. I know nothing the most casual of glances across the face of philosophy wouldnt give an interested person but the concepts you guys bring up are certainly not alien to me. Im pretty much in agreement with what yourself, Upandatem and Nero are saying, even if I couldnt put all of it in terms that fit the accepted linguistic conventions quite so well.


Im aware of Rand, she pops up all over the place, but Ive never read her books. The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have been recommended to me a few times, its an area I have a general interest in. Ive never really had the inspiration to dedicate that much time so far. The idea of reading it in reverse actually sounds somewhat appealing.

Im sure shes popped up in a few Adam Curtis documentaries, possibly The Century Of The Self? Im fairly sure shes in All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace. I would imagine quite a few people have seen his films already, if people havent and they have an interest in these sort of ideas I think theyre worth a watch. Maybe if this is the first time youve heard of Rand and wonder what the hell these ppl are talking about it will give you some reference.

If you don't think about it it makes sense.

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NeroNoah wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Well, I'm pretty sure Andrew Ryan was like Anakin Skywalker to many of Rapture's citizens as well. I do think the first BioShock would have been an even more interesting story is they had painted "early Ryan" in a more heroic light, serving both as homage to the real-life inspiration and to make his descent all the more tragic.

I disagree. Andrew Ryan is a tragic hero somewhat. He ended doing what he did because he ended with the same problems that in the surface. What he didn't understand is how his ideology created the conditions needed for that in first place (clash of dictators with the lack of a public government, as you described elsewhere). Yet you get the impression he wanted a better place than the surface.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Edit: I have mixed feelings on the whole "selfishness" thing. I do think there was a huge linguistic problem with the use of the word "self" in such a derogatory term as "selfish," doubled by the abasement of self in the term "selfless." While Rand was trying to single-handedly rewrite the dictionary, psychologist Nathaniel Brandon (that name again!) took the path of less resistance and coined the term "self-esteem" which we now see fucking everywhere and has, for the most part, solved the problem. I kind of admire Rand's tenacity in her fight to glorify the self, but ultimately Brandon's solution makes hers look like immature petulance.

I prefer the term rational self interest when one refers to economy. What I understand is that it's a very needed motivator, but under some conditions can screw the whole system, so one has to bring some balance somehow. Then again, humanity can't really have a consensus about that fact.

sorry to jump in like this. Really cool discussion guys.

The problem is not selfishness, there is truth that some greed is a virtue. It is when selfishness becomes the only consideration to whether an action is good, when selfishness blots out selflessness. When greed becomes avarice and consumes all other intentions.

And in all things a very carefully nurtured balance is key here, especially when we talk about decisions like governing laws of finace. Reganomics is not a horrible goal in itself, as an example. Having people capable of literally earth changing decisions has been great for the United States several times in history. The problem of course, as with Rand's philosophy, is that the the environment promotes selfishness and crushes altruistic or selfless decisions, making selfless decisions IS a weakness in those environments, which is why such environments are not fit for governance. Same reason communism which promotes almost pure selflessness is horrible for governance.