Chatalogue: End Game

Ernie and I held our third chat last night, a day earlier than planned due to some scheduling conflicts. I will be preparing some commentary this weekend; for now, here is the transcript:

E: G'day.

A: Howdy

E: Thanks for being flexible.

A: No problem

E: Sounds like Wednesday was better for both of us.

E: So, any thoughts about how you'd like the conversation to go this time?

E: [since you seem less than thrilled by last week's trajectory :-]

E: http://little-endian.blogspot.com/2007/04/remonstration-of-conversational.html

A: Well, I wonder if you understand my concerns about what kind of conclusions we'd be able to reach.

A: And I am also curious about what flaws you feel exist in Alonzo's descriptions of how DU solves various problems of morality

E: I can see it; I'm not sure I "understand" it.

E: That did raise an intriguing possibility.

E: I wonder if this might actually be more "constructive" if we focused on less on trying to construct a common understanding, but actually defend opposing viewpoints.

E: That is, get adversarial (in content and structure, though hopefully not tone!)

A: Interesting. It seems like we just decided to "restart" with less adversiality (is that a word?)

E: Yeah, but every time I try to build something, you seem underwhelmed by the result.

A: That's true.

E: Plus, it seems like you're more interested in the "adversarial" results (or lack thereof) than in anything mutual we've come up with.

E: So, rather than backing into being adversarial, maybe it would actually be more fun for both of us to tackle it (and each other) head on!

A: Well, I thought our first week's chat was helpful, but last week we kind of settled back into the same groove we had already tried to cover earlier.

E: I concede that I easily get stuck in lecture mode.

E: Perhaps debate mode would be more mutual.

A: Maybe.

E: Unless you have a lecture prepared, for the sake of equal time? :-P

A: :-)

E: Do you have any claims you'd like to articulate and/or defend?

A: Grrr... trying again.

E: or even an inquisition you'd like to put me through...

A: Let me back up, and say first, that I am not sure that further discussion on morality seems likely to be that helpful.

A: The reasons I believe (or don't believe) what I do (or don't) are not grounded on what provides a basis for morality, so even if you could show that there were no foundation for morality without a benevelent moral purpose,

A: I am not sure it would matter that much to me. (Not that I believe that is true.)

E: Or, put another way, your commitment to "truth" is actually foundational, not merely instrumental to morality.

E: http://little-endian.blogspot.com/2006/10/reason-morality-and-evolution.html

A: Hmm, I am not sure I would have put it that way. Just stop at "commitment to truth is foundational".

E: Okay, fair enough.

A: Does that make sense?

E: It does, though it somewhat conflicts with an operational/consequential definition of "truth."

A: Why?

E: What is the basis of your commitment to truth? In terms of what do you define truth?

E: My metric has been 'The truth is what works' (even if "what works is not the truth").

A: When you say, "the truth is what works", I would take that to mean that the truth is what lets us make accurate predictions about the world.

E: sure

A: There need be no moral judgement attached to those predictions.

E: Sure.

A: So I still don't see where the conflict is.

E: But, it gets back to what you mean by "truth is foundational".

E: Not a strong conflict, just a request for clarification.

E: Since truth about human beings is difficult to evaluate apart from moral considerations (though not impossible).

A: Why?

E: Well, in my worldview, all human action has a moral dimension.

E: It is related to purpose and happiness, at the very least.

A: So, you assume a moral dimension, so it then becomes difficult to interpret people without it.

E: Right.

E: To me, it would be like trying to interpret subatomic particles while ignoring charge.

A: That kind of seems like question begging.

E: Again, my point was that it is *hard* for me to understand how you define truth.

E: So, how about you show me?

A: The reason that we attribute charge to subatomic particles is that we observe particular kinds of behaviors of those particles.

E: RIght, we interpret their behavior as being due to charges we label as "positive" and "negative."

A: I do think that it is sensible to talk about morality because we can observe various things about how people behave.

E: As I interpret human behavior in terms of positive and negative attributes I label "love" and "hate."

A: Sure. I hope I have communicated that I do actually think that there is a basis for making moral statements.

E: Right.

E: But, getting back to the epistemic question.

E: Our original definition started with assertion that 'truth is good'.

E: http://homepage.mac.com/drernie/iblog/B48962342/C1521058277/E20060225081557/index.html

E: If we don't assume that, we need a slightly different starting point.

A: I still agree with that, but I don't see us making any real progress from that starting point.

E: Fair enough.

E: So, can you propose an alternate starting point?

E: [new link, same article; http://2transform.us/2006/02/26/diablogue-epistemology-of-empirical-essentialism-take-deux/]

A: Well, I am still curious, in a non-adversarial way, in hearing you further explain you views on scripture and why it's "good"

E: I think of Scripture much like I think of Newton's Laws.

E: More precisely, like Millikan's Notebook.

E: http://www1.umn.edu/ships/ethics/millikan.htm

E: The standards of evidence are far below what we'd accept today.

E: But, they got the right answer. :-)

E: Which implies to me that they were in fact performing real experiments on "moral reality", and obtaining useful data.

E: And thus, by incorporating their data into my models I achieve better predictive power than if I ignore or discount that data.

E: Did you drop off?

A: Nope, just listening.

E: [i got a weird message saying you signed on, which is why I asked].

A: Weird.

E: anyway, that's the essence of my argument

A: So, scripture could be reproduced by anyone able to perform the same experiments?

A: (Not in exact detail of course)

E: Sure, to the limits of historical correspondence?

E: .

E: That's what most of the charismatic movement is about, after all. :-)

E: Back to the second goalpost: most of it is due to a small group of old guys from a particular ethnic background wandering in the desert, coming back with paradigm-shattering reports that are difficult to reproduce, but validated by their peers, and prove to have extraordinary explanatory power.

E: Because of that, I tend to believe that their experiences were genuine, and their reports trustworthy -- despite the fact that many counterfeits have presented with similar claims.

E: http://little-endian.blogspot.com/2006/09/found-two-goalposts.html

A: In what ways were the reports validated by their peers?

E: The process of scripture formation was originally organic, and only later hierarchical.

E: People made claims, others wrote them down, still others decided they were worth copying and transmitting, etc.

E: Not entirely unlike our Citation Rank process for scientific papers.

A: Do you have reason to believe those other people actually selected papers for their actual truth value rather than some other characteristic?

E: Do we ever? :-)

E: Peer-review is only as good as the quality of the peers.

A: Yes, but today we know something about the quality of the peers.

E: And the metrics for selection are more complicated than one might think.

E: Only for fields where we're already expects, unfortunately.

A: Then, we have some information, but it is not necessarily that positive.

E: Otherwise, we're simply trusting in the institutions.

E: :-)

E: That's why my espitemic model makes explicit claims about the nature of communities, and relational trust.

A: I think the scientific process is very much one in which arguments from authority are not supposed to be powerful.

E: (which makes it hard to separate from morality :-P )

E: Since when? :-)

E: What that really means is that scientists don't accept arguments from authorities *outside their paradigm*

E: Within a paradigm, we are continually citing authorities.

E: The Particle Data Book, Newton's Laws, the Standard Model, etc.

A: They accept (not always immediately, but eventually) arguments that are consistent with the data.

A: And they are judged by that standard.

E: http://pdg.lbl.gov/2006/html/what_is_pdg.html

E: Again, within a given paradigm.

A: I don't think a similar standard was used for scripture.

E: How can it not be?

E: It was a different paradigm, but obviously people had one.

A: Why should we trust that paradigm?

E: Again, why do we trust any paradigm?

E: More importantly, in which -ways- do we trust the results of those paradigms?

A: We trust science because it works. It has produced results. These results have substantial agreement.

A: There is not a comparable level agreement amongst Christians about doctrine.

E: Can you quantify that statement?

E: Or does it depend entirely on how you define various terms?

A: I think in the entire history of Christianity, there have been and continue to be major disagreements about what it means.

E: As opposed to the history of science? :-)

A: Science converges.

A: Christianity hasn't.

E: Last I checked, the vast majority of Christians still hold to the Nicene Creed.

E: Science tends to discard ideas far faster :-)

E: Believe it or not, Christianity also converges.

E: One fascinating example for me is the charismatic movement.

A: Different pockets converge to different places.

E: Again, how is that different than science?

E: Before the 1960's, the charismatic movement was a fringe Pentecostal set of denominations.

E: In the 1980's, it was enormously controversial.

E: Now, it is more-or-less accepted as normal and healthy by virtually every denomination.

E: There's numerous hard-won convergence points that have enormously broad appeal, e.g. http://www.lausanne.org/Brix?pageID=12891

A: I am not so sure about that, actually. Maybe by some people within every denomination, but not by everybody. It's just another way to split.

E: You miss the point.

E: In the 1980's, there were a huge number of ideologues talking about how charismatic gifts were of the devil, and how anyone who practiced them should be cast out of the church.

E: Now, it is only a handful of relics who would make such claims, and most of those do so quietly -- for they know they'd alienate a bunch of their supporters and colleagues.

E: It is like believing in a Steady State universe -- only those with a huge ego investment in that belief persist in it.

E: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_theory

E: To be sure, we don't converge on *everything* -- but then again, neither does science.

E: But, the church has in fact converged on a great many things, at least to the "majority extent" -- which is all we get out of science, either. :-)

E: We just have an annoying tendency to amplify our controversies.

E: Still there?

A: Yes and no...

E: I get the impression that you feel any of the "common beliefs" of Christianity (and western culture) are "obvious", so Christians shouldn't get any of the credit for having discovered and converged upon them.

A: Some were also discovered by non-Christians. Some were not discovered by all Christians. Some were wrong. The signal is not strong enough to overcome the disconfirming evidence.

A: (Or, sometimes, significant lack of evidence.)

E: Which brings us back to whether you think the success of Western culture and morality is a notable discovery, on par with Newton's Laws.

A: I don't think it was that concentrated and unique.

E: I've never claimed that Christians had all truth, or were always correct; just that it is the most successful paradigm, among other less succesful ones.

E: Further, need I point out that while Christian societies have had mixed results, atheistic ones have been uniformly disastrous?

A: They have had other problems.

E: Other than moral ones?

A: It may be true that Christianity and other religions play a beneficial role while being false. That's something I'm still chewing on.

E: So, I get the feeling that you're attacking me from both sides.

E: Either you say it doesn't matter that Christianity works, because its false; or else you say it must not work, since its false.

A: It's not just Christianity that works in that sense though.

E: (wait, that came out wrong)

E: What sense must it work? Can you come up with a consistent standard, that you'd be willing to judge atheism against?

A: Atheism entails too little.

A: People with vastly different views can still be atheists.

E: Well, do you have a foundational alternative to Christianity you'd propose building society around instead?

A: Secular humanism

E: Or are you just tearing it down because you think it deserves to die, and you really don't care about the consequences?

E: Secular humanism is almost as vague as atheism.

A: Stalin and Pol Pot, while atheists, were not secular humanists.

E: Okay, sure.

E: But they at least managed to run a country.

E: There is zero evidence that secular humanists can actually manage to maintain social cohesion while being true to their values.

E: At least that I've seen -- I'd be willing to be confronted by facts I've overlooked.

A: How would you describe Japan and Scandinavia? They are among the most "atheistic" countries in existence right now.

E: Huh?

E: Sure, if you consider Confucianism atheism, but that grossly mistates the case.

E: Japan is bound together by far more than secular humanism, as you well know.

E: And Norway is hardly secular in the strict sense, even if people are skeptical or organized religion.

E: http://www.norway.org.uk/facts/religion/general/gereral.htm

E: "Norwegian religious expression is largely private; whereas most individuals state that religion is important to them, this is not generally expressed through active religious participation in organized communities."

E: Besides, you do realize that all secularized societies are slowly committed genetic suicide, right?

A: And the religious societies are doing so much better?

E: Well, yeah.

E: At least by that crude metric, the world population is still increasing.

A: But, is increasing population a good thing at this point?

E: Compared to the alternative?

A: yes

E: Look, any society that fails to have children is eliminating itself from history.

E: I would consider that counter-productive.

E: And, it is in fact creating a huge age crisis in Japan, as I'm sure you've heard.

E: I'm not saying that the excessive breeding of African Muslims is a good thing, but at least you gotta give em credit for trying to stay alive.

E: Well, I do; I'm not sure where your morality fits into this.

E: So, we should wrap up.

A: yep

E: Do you want to take a stab at defining secular humanism for next time, and how it obviates the need for a consensus around my Deistic Hypothesis?

A: I'm not really sure I'm interested in continuing, actually.

E: Sorry to hear that.

E: I apologize if my more adversarial tone today didn't help things.

E: But, perhaps that is wisdom on your part, to recognize the futility of dead-horse beatings.

E: still there?

A: yes

A: I don't think we're going to get anywhere.

E: So, maybe we should simply try to end well.

E: Perhaps we could each write up our reflections on how we thought things went, just to wrap things up.

A: Sure. It might be a couple days, though.

E: No hurry; I'm gone all weekend anyway.

E: Perhaps if we can get our respective Conclusions posted, we can chat about them one last time next Thursday.

A: We can discuss that (privately) after they are posted, I suppose.

E: To be honest, it would be something of a relief to have this over; though, I'll miss being connected to you this tightly.

E: fair enough

A: Thanks, Ernie. I'll be in touch.

E: 'later

A: bye

Chatalogue: Think Globally, Act Locally?

Ernie and I chatted again tonight. I'll have some more to say later, I hope, but for now I'll just add the transcription:

E: Hello!

A: Hi

A: So, where to start this week?

E: I see you've been doing some homework as well.

A: A bit. The Toynbee book I got was not exactly what I expected.

E: Anyway, i do think you captured the essence of his argument.

E: http://little-endian.blogspot.com/2007/04/civilized-inference.html

A: Was there anything you wanted to say about that, or are we jumping back into the G/NOD thing?

E: I think the key distinction might be what I'm calling "pseudo-factual" statements.

A: Explain?

E: Does that mean that the religious beliefs of the Balinese were true? No, it just means they had evolved successful rules and encoded those rules in religious stories and rituals. The beliefs were false, but they were helpful. On the other hand, while the rules may have been well-adapted to Balinese climate, they may not have worked well elsewhere or during periods of abnormal rainfall or other sus

E: In your example of the Balinese, their beliefs were not entirely "true", but they were "contextually accurate within a given domain."

A: But attempting to extrapolate further from those beliefs would have been difficult, yes?

E: Isn't it always?

E: In my epistemology, *all* knowledge is merely "contextually accurate within a given domain."

E: (some just span bigger domains than others)

A: But you have to be careful of the domain.

E: Sure -- but that is always true, yes?

A: I guess what I see you doing is saying that (for instance) Jesus/the Bible teaches certain things about love. Love seems to be a good thing. So, since Jesus/the Bible was accurate in that one instance, we can trust him/it about other things.

E: No, not at all.

A: So, how do you support the supernatural/theistic aspects of your beliefs?

E: That's too many steps to jump in one leap.

E: Let me start with a simpler set of statements, to see if we can identify where we part company.

E: 1. Successful moral systems must embody some number of valid truths about human nature.

E: 2. The ontological claims of those moral systems may or may not be counterfactual.

E: 3. Medieval Western Christianity (MWC) -- while far from perfect -- has proven to be the most fertile ground for succesful moral innovation of any system yet attempted.

A: How are you determining that?

E: Well, can we go back to the metric of "greatest good for the greatest number?"

E: If you buy Toynbee's characterization of "Western Christendom" as a civilization, it has produced more net happiness than any other civilization to date.

A: See, I don't see how you can make that determination so easily, nor can you easily tie that production to Christianity.

A: It's not that I don't think there is some truth there, but I think there is too much contingency and dynamicism and complexity to make simple attributions like that.

E: Well, here's a simple test.

E: (I have this weird feeling of deja vu -- have we discussed this before?).

E: Compare the "quality of life" of someone in Western Christendom, and its ability to respond to external threats, with that of any other civilization.

A: At what point in time?

E: Pick a time.

A: And how do we know that Christianity itself was responsible for that?

E: The only exception I can think of is the Moorish empire.

E: I didn't say that "Christianity per se" was necessarily responsible.

E: I am saying that a culture which (at least initially) was based on MWC has proved to be extremely succesful.

E: It is a data point, not a proof.

A: OK

E: So, moving on...

E: 4. Many of the ontological and ethical presuppositions of MWC (though far from all) are still a vital part of Contemporary Western Civilization (CWC).

E: go ahead

A: Wasn't sure if you were going on to (5) or not...

E: trying to

E: hard to phrase properly...

E: 5. Any system that presumes to improve on MWC needs to adequately account for those axioms that are in use by CWC, and ideally provide better explanatory and predictive power.

E: there

A: Let me think about that a second...

A: I guess the reason I have trouble with this line of argument is that whatever Christianity (or MWC) got right about ethics, many of its claims about reality go well beyond what are supported by those parts it got right.

E: Maybe, maybe not.

E: The question is, do you concede that your "improvement to Christianity" needs to get right at least as many things that Christianity did?

A: Yes and no.

A: I think the "improvement to Christianity" is wider than ethics. I also think that many of the improvements that MWC has made in the area of ethics have come about in contrast to the established views of Christians.

A: Not sure if that was very clear.

E: Sure, cast the net as wide as you wish.

E: But do you concede that, on the whole, your improvement to Christianity (as we know it) actually needs to be an overall improvement on areas that matter, not just superior in one tiny facet?

A: Yes.

E: Ok, good.

E: We can go back to G/NOD, unless you'd like to tackle something else.

A: That's fine.

E: Okay, well from this perspective I would claim that MWC implicitly made several very powerful assumptions about what we can interpret as G/NOD.

A: Which are?

E: I. That G/NOD is a singular, well-defined entity covering all of humanity.

E: II. That the moral rules governing G/NOD are *discovered* more than they are *invented*.

E: III. That those rules are in principle discoverable by human beings in the right circumstances

E: IV. That there is such a thing as virtuous character, which is always better than vicious character.

E: V. That it is always rational to do that which is virtuous.

E: Of course many of these were also inherited from the Greeks.

E: But MWC managed to develop an ontological scheme that accounted for everything they liked about the Greeks, and quite a bit more.

E: over to you...

A: And does this relate to Christianity specifically in any way?

A: Or theism generally?

E: At this level, not necessarily (except implicitly in III).

E: However, it does relate to my claims regarding the Deistic Hypothesis, and our first goalpost.

A: What part of the ontological scheme requires a deity?

A: Or transcendent morality?

E: Those terms aren't necessarily well-defined.

A: How does this relate to you deistic hypothesis then? Doesn't that imply a deity somewhere?

A: I just don't see where you make the leap.

E: From the MSSB, I define DH as "the various systems encompassing humanity are the result of a benevolent Purpose -- one sympathetic to human Reason, Virtue, and Happiness"

E: I am simply asserting that one can derive all five of those Principles from the DH.

A: I guess it doesn't appear to me that such a Purpose is necessary. Those principles (or similar) can be derived from a G/NOD without reference to external purpose.

E: And that Desire Utilitarianism requires those same assumptions (but ad hoc) "in order to support meaningful “social inquiry.”

E: "

E: No, they can be *asserted* for G/NOD.

E: But not derived in any meaningful sense.

E: still there?

A: Scrolling back up to look at the statements...

A: DU says that desires are real. Individuals have them. They can be aggregated.

A: There are relationships between desires, mediated by actions.

E: Sure.

E: But is there a global solution that maximizes then? Do we have sufficient information to make that determination?

A: There is at least one such solution, right? How can there not be at least one maximum? Unless it goes to positive infinity somewhere...

E: There can be multiple local maxima.

E: It could be flat (zero-sum) with multiple minima.

A: Yes. But at least one and possible multiple global maxima.

A: It's even possible that the maximum is "negative", I suppose, but it's still a maximum.

E: Well, okay. But is it reachable?

A: How is that relevant here?

E: More importantly, is virtuous behavior due to virtuous desire the optimal means to get closer to that maxima?

E: In order for DU to be actionable, it seems necessary to answer questions like that.

A: Virtuous behavior is behavior that promotes desires, so by definition, virtuous behavior move close to at least a local maxima.

A: "closer", not "close"

E: Right, but what if that local maxima takes one away from the global maxima?

A: Again, how is this relevant here? Yes, it seems possible.

E: My point is that if "morally good" is defined relative to G/NOD -- and that's what we care about -- then mere local statements and decisions about what is "functionally good" don't tell us anything about genuine morality.

E: We need some additional assumptions about how maximizing the local Network of Desires (L/NOD) impacts the G/NOD.

E: I'm trying to decide whether DU (as you understand it) implicitly makes those assumptions, or denies their relevance.

A: Ooh, I think we are talking about different sense of the word "global".

A: I am imagining a multi-dimensional landscape where the "altitude" at any point is the total amount of desire fulfillment.

E: okay...

A: A local maxima does not refer to maximizing desires locally (socially speaking) but maximizing desires in the neighborhood of the current position on the landscape.

A: So, the dimensions correspond to the strenghts of various desires.

E: I'm not sure I see the difference.

A: Well, what do you mean by the L/NOD?

E: At any rate, if we don't have a unimodal landscape, it seems you have the same issues.

E: L/NOD = the local set of entities and their desires

A: Local geographically (as in social connections)?

E: hold on

E: okay, I'm back.

A: Let's say there are only two desires that people have, A and B. So there is a two dimensional landscape (with hills).

E: Let us assume that -- at least in principle -- I can observe the entities that I have personal awareness of, and make a plausible assessment of their desires.

E: (which itself is a big assumption, but I can live with it).

A: The hills are the total amount of desire fulfillment in the entire population when that population has desires a in domain and b in domain

E: [feel free to continue your example while I work on mine]

A: Ooops. that was domain ( A ) and domain ( B ) that cleverly got converted to pictures...

E: I was wondering... Beer and angels made a nice contrast

A: So, there may be a local maximum of total desire fullfillment at a=a1 and b=b1 but a global maximum at a=a2 and b=b2. But in both cases, the desire fulfillment of the entire population is being measured.

E: If P is the people whose desires I can observe or infer, then L/NOD is simply D , the aggregate of all their desires.

A: he he

E: D[P]

E: Anyway, I'm concerned with the epistemic problem.

A: How can we find the solution? How do we know when we've found it?

E: Exactly.

E: How indeed?

E: I am asserting that there needs to be some sort of paradigm.

E: And more, that there needs to be a widespread moral consensus about the validity of that paradigm.

A: I don't think I follow.

A: For instance, consider this alternative: each individual promotes in others desires that will tend to satisfy his own desires.

E: Sure.

E: I call that manipulation.

A: At the same time, of course, he is acted on by others in the same way.

A: Do we want to get side-tracked on manipulation?

A: It doesn't have to be dishonest or "tricky".

E: I'm just labeling your definition.

E: Feel free to keep going...

A: Grrr... trying agin.

A: again

A: My point is just that progress can be made by individuals acting as individuals without the widespread consensus you mentioned.

A: It might go faster with consensus, but not necessary.

E: I disagree, at least under the terms you defined above.

E: I would assert that influencing other people's desires requires either a) power, or b) moral authority to succeed.

A: What is moral authority? If not power?

E: And that if influencing you to act according to my desires is not perceived by you as in your best interest, it will interpreted as unhealthy and illegitimate manipulation.

E: If you like you can define moral authority as a form of "soft power" to distinguish it from "hard power."

A: Praising somebody for something they did is a way to manipulate them and others to do similar things again. If the praise is sincere, is it unhealthy?

E: Define "sincere" and "unhealthy".

A: Sincere simply means here that I gave praise because I actually approved of what I am praising.

E: I would define "sincere praise" as "valuing something as truly good", not merely as "beneficial to me."

A: Are you asserting the existence of intrinsic goodness apart from anybody's desires?

E: At least part from the "local" desire, yes.

E: For example...

A: It does not have to be beneficial to me to be praiseworthy.

A: I can praise somebody for helping somebody else, knowing that similar actions could be helpful to me in the future.

E: If a kid in high school who wanted my approval stole the answers to the physics exam, I could easily praise her for her ingenuity and courage.

E: And I would be fully sincere.

E: But it would be manipulative and immoral in the larger scheme, no?

E: Sure, *some* praise is healthy; but that doesn't mean it all is.

A: Oh, definitely.

E: Okay, so let us define 'healthy praise' as this which encourages behavior that tends to maximize the G/NOD, whether or not it maximizes the L/NOD.

A: I'm sorry if I implied that sincerity was the *only* criteria by which the praise should be judged.

E: Or do you have a criteria for "healthy" that doesn't reference the G/NOD?

A: No.

E: So, we're running out of time.

A: I was just going to say...

E: I'm not in a hurry, but we should probably try to wrap up..

A: Yep.

A: I guess we'll leave it there... maybe I'll blog about it before next week.

E: My position is that it is possible to make meaningful statements about how to maximize L/NOD with fairly weak assumptions about reality, but that to make meaningful statements about the G/NOD requires fairly *strong* assumptions about reality (comparable to I-V) above.

E: Is that much at least clear?

A: Clear as lemonade, at least.

E: I'll settle for translucent. Hopefully we can start with that next week, unless we manage to resolve it before then.

A: OK, "talk" to you then.

E: Bye!

A: bye

Chatalogue: True Good

Ernie and I have exchanged a few emails in addition to our recent posts, trying to figure out a better way to proceed that is less prone to the difficulties that we seem to have been experiencing. We decided we needed to shorten the feedback loop so that we can clarify things more quickly when something is not making sense to either one of us. On pretty short notice (about three hours) we decided to have weekly IM chats and we just finished the first one. Ernie whipped up a little program to convert the transcripts of these sessions for inclusion on his blog, so you can read our first conversation in Chatalogue: True Good. I think we did pretty well for an hour of typing, even if the transcript is occasionally hard to follow when we were typing simultaneously. Just ignore my typos.

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Update: I can hardly let Ernie be the only one with a cool translation program to make posting chats easy, so I wrote one too. Here is our first chat, with some typos corrected:

A: I'm here!

E: G'day

E: Did you see my transcribed version?

A: Yes, I did. Nice work.

E: Are you okay with me blogging the transcript like that?

A: We'll see. I guess a chat has a bit different flavor than normal written stuff. It just seems a bit weird to know that everything I am saying is being transcribed for posterity.

A: But, onward!

E: So, shall we start with a bit of meta-discussion, to see if we can get onto the same page?

A: Sure

E: My hope is that, rather than trying to prove each other wrong, we can focus more on trying to build a common understanding.

A: My difficulty is, while I agree in principle, I am not sure what it means to build a common understanding about something that we (may) have fairly fundamental disagreements.

E: Well, ideally we could at least figure out *where* we disagree!

A: I mean, we can agree about things at some meta-level, but I am not sure that will be very satisfying.

E: The funny thing is, we actually seem to agree on the vast majority of facts.

A: Vast majority? Not sure how to count that. Some, many?

E: We both believe in the scientific method, a generally Western set of ethics, a historical critique of the Bible. etc.

E: I have a hard time finding a "point of fact" where we've had serious disagreement.

A: That's still a pretty big tent.

E: From where I sit, it is mostly a matter of "interpretation" and conclusion where our communication breaks down.

E: I also think that, at least in theory, we respect the same rules of logic (even if we sometimes fall short in practice).

A: Sure

E: For example, I presume you agreed with the bulk of logical tools employed by Alonzo in "A Better Place"

A: Yes. Although I had intended to re-read it before we discussed it, and I haven't yet. (Thanks for reminding me.)

E: Of course, that begs the question: if we have so much in common, why do we seem to miss each other's meaning so often?

E: Is it intellectual, emotional, semantic, or purely a communication gap?

A: I am not sure how to classify it. Sometimes it just seems like things that you think are important to critical issues (trilemma, anger, etc.) just don't seem that "helpful" to me.

E: Yeah, I realize that.

E: It is entirely possible that our differences are (at least in part) a matter of priority.

E: I see theism as solving a host of formal and practical problems that you may not consider important and relevant.

A: Hold on a second.

E: ok

A: I get that impression from what you right, but usually it seems to me more like a "if theism were true, it would solve this problem this way", but it doesn't really provide reasons to believe that theism is true.

A: what you *write*, not right

E: Right, which brings us back to the epistemic issues.

A: How is what you are saying not an argument from consequences?

E: It is more an operational definition.

E: I'm still not even sure what you mean by 'true' in this context.

A: I'm speaking a bit loosely, of course. Because we're chatting.

E: Or if you're still thinking of "truth" as a boolean yes/no.

A: vs. a probabalistic sense of truth?

E: Um, not exactly.

E: More like a fuzzy logic sense of truth values.

A: okay

E: The way we can say "Newtonian mechanics is true, but less true than Quantum Mechanics"

A: right

E: From my point of view, Christian theism is a succesful "theory" which explains certain facts very well, but also has many facts which (as currently formulated) it doesn't explain.

A: But from what I have seen, some of the "facts" that you say it explains are not really "facts" at all.

E: Okay, then we get to definition of "facts" :-)

A: For instance, the statement about Christianity being responsible the success of Western civilization.

E: That was a terminology problem, I later realized (after reading another post of yours).

E: I was using Toynbee's classification, and referring to Western Christendom as founded by Charlemagne.

E: My bad -- I should've been more precise.

A: So, Christianity was responsible for Western Christendom? How is that helpful?

E: It is really hard to build a civilization. There's only 22 or so that Toynbee was able to catalogue.

E: There's great diversity, of course, but the "creative minority" who developed those civilization had to find beliefs powerful enough to grow and maintain society.

E: Christianity is hardly unique in this fashion, but it implies they were onto "something."

A: Some people have referred to that sort of thing as "belief in belief".

E: Sure -- but not every belief in belief works.

A: Sure. But the beliefs do not have to be true to work either.

E: Not absolutely true, but at least relatively true.

E: And a "truer belief" must work better than the "false belief" it replaces, no?

A: I've been reading a book by the anthropologist Scott Atran. He goes so far as to say that no society has survived without certain kinds of shared beliefs and rituals, but that they all contain counter-factual, quasi-propositional elements.

E: Sure.

E: So does science.

A: In fact, the "cost" of believing falsehoods is part of what makes them work.

E: Newtonian physics was dead-wrong about action at a distance.

E: Quantum physics has random infinities we just ignore.

E: We know it can't explain gravity.

E: I'm not sure I understand or buy the "cost" part, though...

A: I am not sure I can describe it well enough, quickly enough, but the basic idea is that people tend to trust people who have demonstrated a willingness to participate in expensive behaviors on behalf of their society.

E: Sure.

A: But he develops it much better than that.

A: I have been meaning to blog about it. He has a number of very interesting quotes that relate to various parts of our conversation.

E: Well, then that raises another question: do believe that virtue is rational, and that truth *always* ultimately supports virtue?

E: Like Alonzo tries to prove.

A: I guess I wouldn't word it like that, but yes, more or less.

E: So, I'm confused. Are you saying:

E: a) It is always better to believe the truth.

E: or

E: b) Ethical behavior is contingent on believing a shared group falsehood

A: That's a very interesting question, isn't it?

E: Which is true, or which you're saying? :-)

A: I lean toward ( a ), but I have to admit the possibility that successful societies have been based on ( b ).

A: Note that "successful" is not the same as "ethical"!

E: Isn't it?

E: I thought that this was how Alonzo defined "ethics", and fulfilling societally contructed desires.

E: as fulfilling.

A: A successful society is one that continues. That does not imply that all members of that society have their desires met.

E: Sure, but most definitions of society assume that the individuals see their survival as tied to that of their society.

A: Again, survival is not their only desire.

E: Sure, but in the absence of survival, what other desires can be met?

E: Isn't it at least a prerequisite?

A: It may be the strongest desire, but not the only one. So, yes, it is a prerequisite, but not sufficient.

E: Sure.

E: Let me try to summarize.

E: At least, as best i understand Alonzo.

E: 1) "Good behavior" is that which maximizes desire fulfillment within a society

E: 2) One of the baseline desires of a society is for its own survival

E: 3) Therefore, a set of behaviors "X" that improves a societies chance of survival is, by definition, better than a comparable set "Y" that decreases those chances.

E: Are those all true statements?

A: Sorry... first try didn't work.

A: I think we need to be careful not to conflate the desires of individuals with desires of a "society"

E: Is not a "society" merely the aggregate of its individual desires?

A: If we define it that way, but I think we have to be careful of equivocation.

E: I would love to see a formal definition, as I don't recall one from "A Better Place" (ABP)

A: For instance, when we talk about the survival of a society, are we talking about just the survival of the aggregate of the individuals' desires?

A: When I hear "survival of a society" I think of survival of the various structural elements. Take the example of a country ruled by a despotic line of rulers.

A: The individuals in that country may not be having their desires met, but perhaps the structure persists.

E: That's an excellent point. What exactly does "ethical behavior" mean when the lawgivers are corrupt?

A: That is "surviving" but not ethical.

E: Is murdering the kings tax collectors an ethical behavior?

E: I thought ABP defined ethics relative to the society's institutions and cultural norms.

A: I would say that the society's institutions and cultural norms affect people's desires, so they are reflected in ethics in that sense.

E: I think this is one of those areas where my understanding of Alonzo is murky.

E: Morality is defined relative to a "network of desires", right?

A: Yes.

E: Okay, *which* network? My local community? My society? My progeny?

A: I agree that he is not entirely clear about that.

A: But, I think it is partly the extent to which are actions affect others' desires.

A: What is the "reach" in the network?

E: But, can't one pretty much get almost answer you want simply by choosing the appropriate network?

E: almost any answer

A: As an individual, I am not a member of any possible network.

A: I am a member of a particular network.

A: (with fuzzy boundaries, perhaps)

E: Multiple fuzzy boundaries, with unbounded scope, no?

E: The Carbon you emit could change whether a Chinese power plant gets built, no?

A: Sure. So in that case, the appropriate network is a global one.

E: So, in the general case, is morality defined relative to the global network of all humans who are currently living?

A: Yes.

E: (even if the coupling of certain actions is quite weak)

E: And might live in the future?

E: Or only to the extent some of us alive today happen to care about our progeny?

A: We get into difficulties here because there are practical problems in "evaluating the metric".

E: Um, yeah.

E: That's the problem I have with Alonzo's whole approach.

E: It seems to work fine as a *descriptive* model of what we mean, but it seems to fall apart into uncountable sums as soon as you try to use *prescriptively*.

A: I think there are some difficult cases, and some cases that are not so difficult.

E: But the "easy" cases all seem to rely on ad hoc assumptions.

E: I agree it "might" be true -- in fact, at some level I think DU is true -- but without knowing its boundary conditions, it seems impossible to make any sort of valid claims.

A: I understand where you are coming from there.

E: Thank you.

A: I can imagine setting up a network of desires and "solving" it.

A: But the complete problem appears intractable.

E: Well, not necessarily.

E: Let us define "NOD" as a the global network of desires.

E: The goal is optimize the "most and strongest" of the desires in NOD, right?

A: Right.

A: But remember, that we are dealing with *mutable* desires.

E: The question is, is there some structure in NOD which allows us to reduce the N! weightings to a calculable heuristic.

A: (That is, some of the desires are mutable.)

E: Right. I believe one of the assumptions we need to make is that desires exist with some well-defined distribution.

E: That is, the *important* desires are not fully mutable, but need to fall within some well-defined range.

E: (at least in principle, even if we don't know what that range is)

A: Right. We can take a "statistical mechanics" like approach to the problem without pretending to solve for every individual variable.

E: Exactly.

E: But, that requires us to assume that:

E: a) there are meaningful aggregate metrics that we can discern

E: b) it is possible, in principle, to maximize them

E: c) it is worth the effort to attempt to discover them

E: If the problem is underconstrained, then we get a nice relative world where we can pretty much construct our own morality.

E: If it is overconstrained, then we (or some group) is screwed. :-(

E: Make sense?

A: Yep.

E: So, here's the funny thing.

E: DU only seems to be well-defined and useful if all these other assumptions are true.

E: Otherwise, it is just a post hoc rationalization of what we (or society) have already decided is true based on other considerations.

E: (at least if we're talking about "good" in the moral sense, not merely "good for a particular purpose)

A: I'm not sure that's true.

E: Can you give a counter-example?

A: Let me think a second... still trying to decide.

E: Actually, it is almost 6 pm.

E: Do you want to take that as homework? :-)

A: We can pick up there next week.

E: Okay.

E: So, shall I post this?

A: That's fine. I'll probably post a link to it after you've done that.

E: Fair enough.

E: If I have time, I'll try to clean up the argument.

E: At any rate, I think this was *way* better than our previous exchanges. :-)

A: Yes, definitely.

E: Thanks for suggesting direct conversation.

E: Have a good week.

A: Same time next week? Or coordinate later?

E: Same time, same place.

A: OK. Thanks, Ernie.

E: Thank you!

E: Bye.

A: bye