Plato’s weekend readings, episode 56

readingsHere it is, our regular Friday diet of suggested readings for the weekend

A brief history of the term “liberalism.”

‪The weird history of the concept of empathy, and a question: is it really that useful?

How stable are democracies? Possibly not as much as we’d like.

‪Fish have feelings. Maybe. And they recognize human faces. Possibly.

‪Passive aggressiveness: not a good idea.

A critique of the concept of “post-truth” that quickly goes nowhere.

‪Boredom: the elucidation of the obvious.‬

‪Newcomb’s problem divides philosophers: which box(es) would you take?

203 thoughts on “Plato’s weekend readings, episode 56”

  3. SocraticGadfly

    What if the money in the $1,000 box turns into something else green: rabid, foaming at the tips, plotting, planning, remembering arugula? What if I’m packing Hanns Johst’s Browning and plug the Predictor right between the eyes, beating hell out of the two-edged sword of philosophy (adapted from the bible, in case my reference may have sounded vaguely familiar)? What if I”m passive-aggressive and just fold my arms and sit there, staring, at both boxes? What if I shoot the Predictor with an arugula bullet?

    “Do not be deceived; the Predictor is not mocked. For whatever arugula a man shall sow, so shall he reap.” The Book of Armaments, Chapter 12: http://bit.ly/2hcdxm1

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  6. ejwinner

    I haven’t read the article of whether fish feel – that question may or may not be answered scientifically. But the question among vegans and other food ethicists really has to do with whether conceiving another life form as having ‘feelings’ or even some form of intelligence, necessitates avoidance of causing them pain, or killing and/or eating them. This is somewhat related to certain religious demands that assume a divine intelligence has categorized certain life forms as necessarily not to be eaten. However, rejecting Divine Command necessity, let’s simply talk about whether there is some logically ethical necessity to avoid certain foods.

    The answer is that there is no such strict necessity, and human history and culture are simply incomprehensible if we assume there is.

    However, there are different ethical frameworks that may demand this of their adherents. However this cannot translate into argument across such frameworks without demand for universal adherence to a single such framework (or family of like frameworks), and this seems unreasonable to me; at any rate, it’s unlikely to be achieved any time soon.

    As to the current problems of ‘democracy:’ I scare-quote the term because I think it’s due for a radical revision. We can still teach toward a democratic participation in a democratic society, but I think we really need to reconsider what precisely ‘democratic’ means in an era of increasing diversity, increasing reliance on technology and media, decreasing expectations and hope, decreasing sense of social connectivity/responsibility.

    I have said elsewhere that the coming century belongs to China; one reason for this is that, in order to maint6ain some stable social order, political and economic formations such as we now see in China might need to be developed in the West (although it’s not clear how that can be accomplished) This doesn’t excuse China’s notorious human rights abuses; but it does suggest that ‘democracy’ may need to be redefined to accommodate current Chinese political/economic formations to the Western values.

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  8. SocraticGadfly

    A more serious riff on the last paragraph from EJ.

    China already has a Potemkin economy. The Party and the state leadership both know that, but remain afraid to pull the plug; in fact, current president Xi Jinping has backtracked from previous administration efforts, as weak as those were.

    And, by 2050, it will start to enter negative population growth with a population older than that of the US. The first half of this century may be China’s, if anybody’s. The whole century? I doubt it. Population estimates here:
    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/03/10-projections-for-the-global-population-in-2050/

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  10. milesmutka

    The problem I have with empathy is that ultimately it is just a form a pathos (and is in fact etymologically related, like all ‘-pathy’ words). When it comes up in rhetorical form, it usually implies that the speaker is a better person because they have a noble kinship with some special ‘other’ (who conveniently is not present or is otherwise excluded from the conversation), and that you, the audience, should feel bad for not being either ‘other’ or noble enough.

    Of course there is also the psychological ability to understand the feelings of the person you are currently speaking with, but that is most developed in pathological liars (who are often considered psychopaths instead of empaths). They have the uncanny ability of telling you exactly what you want to hear when talking face-to-face, but forget about you completely the instant you step out of the room. In a way, such persons do have a kind of empathy, but it can only be focused at a short mental distance.

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  11. nannus

    Whith respect to Newcomb’s problem, I think there are not two but three camps of philosophers. The third consists of people who think this type of problem is simply irrelevant and good for nothing, not worth investing thoughts into. And I think it is this type of “problem” that causes people to get the impression that philosophy is irrelevant.

    In his 1974/1978 lectures on existence philosophy („Der Einzelne“, 2013, Reclam, Stuttgart), Odo Marquard refers to Kierkegaard’s (from his diaries of 1846) parable of the castle and the shack („In relation to their systems, most systematizers are like a man who builds an enormous castle and lives in a shack close by; they do not live in their own enormous systematic buildings…”) and writes (p. 111):

    “This is, in a manner of speaking, … the principle of the “best room” in science and philosophy. I do not know whether there is still the classic best room of the last century with us in any significant way. But that was their principle: it is presented, but one does not live in it. … … and in the large showcases there is the nicknack and decoration, which one does not need at all, but (if one received them as a gift) are too precious to throw away. I have the impression that … this nicknack, these decorations are nowadays provided in enormous quantities in the form of the most subtle distinctions by the good uncle or the good aunt “analytical philosophy”: they are not needed at all, but they are (since they have been received as gifts) too nice to throw away, so you keep it and put it in the showcase …”

    (Das ist sozusagen … in den Wissenschaften und in der Philosophie das Prinzip der „Guten Stube”. Ich weiß nicht, ob es die klassische gute Stube des vorigen Jahrhunderts bei uns noch in nennenswerter Weise gibt. Aber das war ihr Prinzip: sie wird vorgezeigt, aber man wohnt nicht in ihr. … …und in den großen Vitrinen stehen die Nippesfiguren und Ziersachen, die man gar nicht braucht, die aber (wenn man sie geschenkt erhielt) zu kostbar sind, um sie wegzuwerfen. Ich habe den Eindruck, dass … dieser Nippes, diese Ziersachen in enormer Menge in Gestalt von subtilsten Distinktionen heutzutae von dem guten Onkel oder der guten Tante „analytische Philosophie“ geliefert werden: Man braucht sie gar nicht, aber sie sind (da man sie nun einmal geschenkt bekommen hat) zu schade zum Wegwerfen, darum behält man sie und stellt sie in die Vitrine …).

    I think Newcomb’s problem is an example of such philosophical nicknack.

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  12. SocraticGadfly

    Back to the animals, and to Noam Chomsky and speech.

    A new group of scientists are rejecting the old idea that humans, vis-a-vis other primates, have speech primarily because of the unique arrangement of their vocal chords and related apparatus. Whether the brain is that modular or not, in some way this would throw human speech back on the human brain: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/science/monkeys-speech.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=1

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  13. Robin Herbert

    Hi synred,

    “0 payout never occurs. ”

    Yes, if it is highly accurate or perfect then the zero payout would be rare or non-existent but you could still lose by picking both boxes and getting only $1,000, rather than picking box B and getting $1,000,000.

    To me this illustrates the illusion of free will. If you have the illusion of free will then you think that the rational choice is both boxes because you think your choice is independent of the fact of of the matter of what is in the box.

    But if the prediction is perfect or highly accurate then the only thing you can do is what was predicted.

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  20. synred

    Below is how Wikipedia lays out the pay outs If the predictor is always correct then if you pick A you would always win. This does not prove anything about free will, since you’ve excluded it by your definition of free will. Not everybody agrees with that or means the same thing.

    You can of course select a sub-optimal strategy. They’re not hold a gun to your head and in either choice yet something, but that possibility doesn’t make free will possible.

    If the predictor is using the optimal choice for you to predict what you’ll do, it could be wrong occasionally.

    For neither determinism nor some randomness [a] does ‘libertarian free will’ make any sense. I’ve yet to hear of any plausible alternative that would allow futures events to vary and not be random.

    [a] QM is not perfectly random. Some alternatives are more probable than others.

    Predicted choice

    Actual choice

    Payout

    A + B

    A + B

    $1,000

    A + B

    A

    $0

    A

    A + B

    $1,001,000

    A

    A

    $1,000,000

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  22. synred

    I get A from Wikipedia table. Maybe they reversed the roles of A and B. It doesn’t even list B as a possible choice or prediction.

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  25. Robin Herbert

    Hi synred

    “This does not prove anything about free will”

    If someone thinks that there is nothing to lose by picking both boxes (as many people do, as I first supposed when I read it) then that seems that suggests they inagine themselves free to choose other than the course of action predicted by the perfect predictor.

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  27. michaelfugate

    I would think any organism is going to react (usually negatively) to being eaten – so I am not sure how that is a useful criterion for what we should eat. Height on a food chain/web? Toxicity?

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  28. synred

    Sure, but the premise of the ‘paradox’ begs the question. Your definition of ‘free will’ assumes that alternative furthers can occur. At least in the limited context of this game, assuming a perfect predictors, assumes that’s not the case, thus going around in circles.

    If you assume the future is determined, then libertarian free will doesn’t exist. If you assume it’s random libertarian free will does not exist.

    What are the alternatives?

    Now machines can make decisions. I don’t see how we can be any freer-er. I see no need to use a pejorative term like illusion. We can decide, but we can’t decide to decide up too many meta-levels.

    Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.

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  29. Robin Herbert

    Hi wtc48

    As I said before it depends upon things like that. If the predictor is perfect or highly accurate by hypothesis then the rational choice is B only.

    But a lot depends upon assumptions about the nature of the being or device doing the predictions.

    However if the being had predicted everything including just these cases many times perfectly to date then it would be a long shot to suppose it was going to break its winning streak just as you made your prediction

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  30. wtc48

    On “liberal”, I may have missed it, but I don’t think there was note of when the word became a noun, which I think had a significant effect (and not a good one) on its meaning.

    I have a personal take on empathy, having spent, long ago, a couple of years in a theatre arts department. Empathy has (or had, at that time) a specific purpose in an actor’s training: to achieve an inner participation in the character one was attempting to represent. This was one of the central tenets of method acting, whereby one would master such techniques as producing tears on cue every night in performance of a play, perhaps through memory of actual experiences in one’s life. Empathy was also central to one’s relation to the audience, it being essential that they should feel whatever the character was feeling at the moment (except in farce).

    Boredom is usually associated with waiting, but I often enjoy a longish wait, because it frees one from responsibility to do anything. Also, in my avocation of running ultramarathons, I have found it soothing to jog around the same 1-mile course 50 or 60 times in a 24-hour period; it’s a little different every time. Maybe this is the kind of thing that kept Monet going with the lilies and haystacks.

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