Online civility, the democratic process and why sometimes calling a moron a "moron" is just the right thing to do

I've always maintained that civility in deliberation is overrated and may even be detrimental to reasoned deliberation and thus the democratic process. There is a recent study which by some accounts purports to show otherwise. I really like studies like this and I think X-phi philosophers ought to be carrying out studies like this. However, the study does not actually show what it explicitly claims to, viz, that the lack of "civility" (i.e., name calling or other rude, boorish behavior in online comments of a science related article) erodes reasoned, democratic deliberation. In fact, I will argue that the spread of this study's message and especially how it has been framed in the mass media might erode such a process.

The study used a sample of 1,183 people. They read an article about nanotechnology. A control group read a version of the article with comments that were uncivil and included insults such as "If you don't believe that nanotechnology is harmful, you're an idiot!" Others read the same article with comments that did not include rude, insulting and otherwise uncivil comments. The study's authors claim that the rude and uncivil comments made readers of the comments more "polarized," that is, made them "double down" in their views.

A quick terminological note: The media has reported this study as about online trolling (see here, here, here and here, e.g.). However, online trolling as it is commonly defined, isn't simply about using such rude and uncivil language. It is about gaining attention through insincere posts purporting to express some viewpoint but in fact, is meant to instigate an emotional reaction. You can use uncivil language without trolling. To the study's author's credit, they did not use the term "trolling." Science journalists, being what they are, reporting on this story are the one's guilty of such sloppy use of language.

Anyway, back to the substantive portion of the study. The study concluded with:

Online communication and discussion of new topics such as emerging technologies has the potential to enrich public deliberation. Nevertheless, this study’s findings show that online incivility may impede this democratic goal.

This is to stretch their findings to an area that is not supported by their own data. What they actually found was that readers of those comments had stronger views than they did before after reading uncivil comments. That "polarization" (in the context of this study, polarization of subjective risk associated with nanotech) in itself does not show that it is bad for deliberation never mind the democratic process. There is nothing wrong with having strong opinions on some topic. In fact, having them, all else being equal, is a sign of a strong democracy. So they reasoned from the fact that readers' opinions were made stronger to the non sequitur that this may "impede" the "democratic goal."

Instead, what does impede the democratic goal is not strong opinions per se but intractability, i.e., stubborn, persistent opinions despite the presentation of overwhelming counter evidence. Now it may be the case that having strong opinions will make one less likely to change one's opinions in light of such counter evidence but that wasn't what was studied in this study. Furthermore, there are decided counter examples. Scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians and some layman for example have very strong opinions yet to do science, philosophy, mathematics and many things competently means changing one's opinion's in accord with the evidence. So there are people out there who though have strong opinions are far more likely than most to update their views in so far as the evidence warrants it. So it's not at least contradictory that you can both have a strong view yet not be resistant to rational updating of belief. This is obviously not to say all scientists, philosophers, etc are this way. Many stubbornly hold on to outdated views but they are in general far better at conforming their views to the evidence than most.

But even assuming that most people will become more obstinate when their opinions are strengthened in just such a way (unlike scientists, et al), it doesn't follow that this is generally detrimental to public deliberation in all incidents. In fact, it may even be harmful in many cases not to be uncivil.

Why is this? Take the example that there is an issue, say, global warming. There are global warming denialists and those who affirm the existence of anthropocentric global warming. If both sides have strong but obstinate opinions, it is far better for both truth and the world than the alternative that only the denialists have strong opinions. This is because the denialists are wrong and furthermore wrong about something that gravely affect our and our children's well-being. Incendiary language may be the motivating factor to strengthen the views of both sides so that there is more balance. When those who do know better don't have as strong as an opinion as those who don't know better, this creates an imbalance that harms deliberation for those who don't know better will be more obstinate (again, assuming that it will make them obstinate to view change) and may dominate a discussion.

Now where the findings are relevant in the ways the authors suggest is when there is no definitive evidence on some controversial topic (such as nanotech perhaps). Notice that the example I used above of global warming is rather black and white when it comes to the evidence. There is overwhelming evidence for not only anthrocentric global warming that this very well will lead to disastrous consequences (in fact, it already has for large parts of the world) and little evidence contrary. But in some cases, we don't know too much either way. For example, in many unsettled scientific, philosophical, political, issues there are tentative evidence for many different but conflicting views. It would be prudent as the study suggest to be civil in discussions about the veracity of these issues so as to prevent intractability of viewpoints. That much is clearly true. But in much of public discourse, one side is clearly right and the other is clearly wrong. Evolution is true. The earth is not 5,000-6,000 years old. Iraq does not have WMD. Vaccines do not cause autism. Smoking is dangerous to your health. Etc, etc. So in cases where a person's view is so strongly at odds with reality, it may be good for others engaged in deliberation to call a spade a spade; polarization may be what is called for especially when the obstinate, irrational side is overconfident while the side of reason is acting like a (to put it in mildly PC terms) wussy but in less definitive matters and among more reasonable people, it may be far more prudent to remain open minded, skeptical etc and to facilitate this kind of atmosphere, it may, as the study suggests, mean refraining from uncivil behavior.

Furthermore, the study did not study if "uncivil" behavior made the interlocutors more likely to change/update their views in light of new evidence. That would have been far more interesting because it is directly related to reasoned deliberation, the kind of deliberation necessary for a healthy democracy. Instead, the study focused on non participants of the discussion (3rd party "lurkers"). Being called out a fool may or may not make one more tractable to rational debate. Here's what I suspect. I think being insulted online will not make one more or less likely to change one's viewpoint if only one person does the name calling but if there are more than two people doing the name calling at the interlocutor, he or she will be far more likely than not to change their viewpoints. Sometimes it takes a little community effort to get ignorant and intractable people to be more reasonable. Just listening or being more open minded often requires a little peer push which may involve a little incivility to be truly effective. This suspicion is subject of course to empirical evidence and I hope it will be tested someday (maybe it already has but I don't know where the study(ies) is to be found).

I worry that the spread of this message may even have a net detrimental effect on reasoned deliberation. Here's my reasoning. Who likely reads articles about this study? It is more likely that those who are interested in this study are the more educated and a little more reasonable than the average person who tend to have opinions that tend to be stronger than the available evidence warrants. But if those who are more reasonable are made to think that this kind of behavior is detrimental, they are the ones that will curb their future behavior by being more "civil" online while those who are not so reasonable (likely less educated and those not likely to read these kinds of articles) will remain their obstinate and uncivil selves. This creates in imbalance that doesn't seem very beneficial to reasoned deliberation. Sadly, it seems that some the study has already influenced some actions detrimental to public discourse. For example on the respected Popular Science online magazine's comments section, the comment function has been shut off (looks like permanently) and the moderator's reasoning is partly based on the results of this study. It is sad to see that you'd throw the baby out with the bath water. Despite the fact that many comments are low quality, there are sometimes informative posts and they are worth having despite the bad apples. Bad apples often do not spoil the whole bunch. You deal with poor quality comments by doing your job as a moderator, not by complete censorship.

Poem: "Davidsonian Dilemma"

A metaphor is a simile

A simile is like a metaphor

Evolution and masochism

I just finished reading a really good sci-fi novel called the Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. The behavior of the lead protagonist, Caroline, got me thinking of the evolutionary roots of masochism. Caroline is an extreme masochist and enjoys being tortured. It got me thinking of a passage that always stuck with me after many years from the great 20th century feminist work The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvior. de Beauvior was quoting (approvingly it appears) the claims of a famous German psychoanalyst (Karen Horney) who said something like "All women are masochists". Now this seems way overstated.

But even if it is somewhat true that there are many female masochists, from an evolutionary perspective, why is that? What possible evolutionary purpose does it serve? If some psychologists are correct, certain fantasies that are extremely masochistic (even life endangering) seem to be common in women so de Beauvior and Horney seems to be on to something.

It seems to me that masochists would be more likely to be culled out of the population, that such a trait is detrimental to fitness in the genetic sense. Thus those who are genetically disposed to it should be a very small minority. de Beauvior and Horney suggest a cultural explanation for that prevalence. But mightn't there be an evolutionary answer (as well)? I am divided between the cultural and the genetic dispositional perspectives. Maybe it is a combination of both factors interacting in complex ways (like many complex traits).

What I'm about to say may be extremely unPC but it seems that one possible reason that may explain the prevalence of female masochism is that it does confer an advantage. It may be that masochistic women are more desirable to men, that more dominant women are less so and thus the masochist traits are passed down more often than otherwise. Maybe even women who resist rape are more likely to be killed by their attackers (especially from foreign barbarian hordes which I'd imagine was once quite a common threat) than those who do not resist (and presumably a masochistic disposition may go some ways to make this acquiescence more likely). Non resisters are then more likely to be then taken into the group of the invaders or attackers as a "war bride" or something like it and thus bodily survive albeit psychically and dignity wise shattered. Mightn't masochism make even psychological recovering from these kinds of incidents more likely?

But what about male masochists? After all, the term is named after a man (Sacher-Masoch). Are male masochists as common as females? If males are far less likely to be masochists then the evolutionary psychological answer I gave may have some support because it does seem that it would be detrimental for males to be masochists. After all the hypothesis is basically a "rape theory" of masochism. Of course even if it is the case that men are far less likely to have that disposition it may be as de Beauvior suggests, because of cultural factors alone which tends to inculcate masochistic tendencies through the conditioned association of certain images and narratives to normal sexual sensibilities. There may not be any sex-selective differences on this account.

I'm usually not partial to evolutionary psychology because of its common, ad hoc, just-so stories, and I realize that I am giving an evopsy answer (and like many evopsy claims, very unPC!). But I make no claims to giving a scientific answer, just some crazy speculation.

Of cosmologists and equivocators

I've posted many times of the arrogant, condescending and ignorant opinions many physicists such as Feynman, Weinberg, and others have about philosophy (here and here). The latest fiasco in this is Lawrence Krauss book which he explicitly claimed including in an Atlantic interview (then somewhat retracted in the same interview and in other articles) solves age-old philosophical problems such as why is there anything rather than nothing. Of course, Krauss uses the same old silly argument that when the physicist says that particles (or what appears to be particles) can come from relativistic quantum fields (RQF), the RQFs, they claim, are really "nothing" and the physical laws then generate the particles which solves the problem. Abracadabra! That's how you get something from nothing.

This despite the obvious objection that because these RQF have certain properties they are not a "nothing" but a something. Krauss and other physicists have only explained how something can come from some other thing, not out of nothing.The philosophers of science David Albert (who also has a PhD in theoretical physics!) point out to this silly error in a blistering book review in the New York Times.

Krauss did not like that review and predictably, went on a legendary tirade calling Albert a "moron philosopher" and calling philosophers in general all sorts of names and denigrating the whole discipline (he has since made somewhat of a retraction of denouncing the whole field.)

Even Krauss's friend and fellow cosmologist Sean Carroll has basically taken Albert's side (as well as other cosmologists like Lee Smolin and the evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne).

On Sean Carroll's excellent cosmology blog, I posted the following replies (comment #59 and 61) which I state that despite Krauss's errors which Carroll was justified in pointing out (such as ad hom and strawman arguments), Krauss is guilty of something much worse that everyone seems to have missed: you can make a good argument that his statements were insincere, dishonest, and maybe even fraudulent because Krauss exploits an equivocations seemingly purposefully. You can also add to that list, the no true scotsman fallacy to the list of all Krauss's errors in the Atlantic interview when asked by a very informed interviewer that if philosophy is so useless why did was modern computer science born from the work of Russell and Wittgenstein? Krauss then said that they are mathematicians! This despite the facts that both Russell and Wittgenstein (not to mention many other philosophers) received their PhDs in philosophy, taught in philosophy departments all their lives, did work in other areas of philosophy, considered themselves philosophers, considered their work in logic to be extensions of Aristotle's and Leibniz's original work etc, etc.  

The evolution of Human Rights

I recently posted about this topic at a Chinese political blog. There is a common perception among the western public (and some philosophers such as Jason Brennan as well, see here) that the human rights framework is an extension of Judeo-Christian thought. I argue against this.

This blog will be a continuation of the interesting dialogue started by Oli on human rights and China. I agree with Oli that Chinese culture does have considerable resources to take into account concerns raised by many human rights discourse. The value of human rights is universal and ancient. Many such values, though implicitly already there in Chinese culture, may be accounted within a modern Chinese cultural framework.

I also respectfully disagree with Oli about how the more explicit and formal rights framework (the “formalization” of rights in his words) evolved in the west. I believe and will argue that such a framework developed because of the distinct historical forces in the west vis a vis China and not primarily because of technological, educational and communicative advancement. It became an explicit and formal affair in the west because of the historical forces that necessitated it.

Many people in the west and often even in China assume that historical concerns for human rights are strictly a western development and that the explicit rights discourse and formal legal system of the west developed because of western cultural values (such as concerns with autonomy, freedom, individuality, etc).

I believe that this is a self-serving, revisionary rationalization.

The real reason why the west developed explicit and formal framework for human rights is because of its history. China did not develop such a framework because it did not have such a history, and if it had such a history, it would likewise have developed one. The historical trend I am thinking about is the drastically different pasts both major civilizations have had regarding religious, political, social oppression.

Throughout their respective histories, the west has been far more oppressive in regards to religious, political, and social persecution while China has been mostly relatively tolerant. I think that the explicit and formal framework of human rights developed in the west precisely because one was required to protect people from the systematic abuses of their society, their church and their state while no such explicit and formal system was ever required in China because such kinds and degrees of oppression of the many institutions of religion, politics and social practices rarely existed in China. The motivational impetus was simply lacking in the case of China. If necessity is the mother of invention, the explicit and formal framework of protecting human rights was necessitated by a history of systematic oppression that made such a framework inevitable.

That is not to say that the west has always been intolerant towards these institutions nor is it to say that China has always been tolerant towards them. For example, the west during the last 50 years have been the most religiously, politically and socially tolerant in its history while ironically, China, since having adopted a western political system (Marxism) have been its most oppressive regarding those institutions. But the west’s history has intolerance as the norm, not the exception. It was the systematic and brutal oppression of people’s religious and political beliefs and associated social practices that was a causal force. Conversely, however, religious, political and social tolerance has been the norm in China and it was only interspersed with certain periods staining Chinese history with intolerance. For example, the roughly fifteen years of political terror during the Qin Dynasty and in the modern period of the Cultural Revolution.

For most of western history through the last 2000 or so years, one may be burned alive for practicing a religion not sponsored by the state. Indeed, one may even be killed for having thoughts or beliefs not sanctioned by the official state/church doctrine like Socrates and Thomas More were. Hundreds of thousands of people died in brutal religious campaigns all across Europe throughout the Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance and even the throughout the “Enlightenment” in religious purgings such as the Spanish Inquisition. Millions died in religious wars and religious Crusades.

Thousands of “witches” were tortured, burned or drowned alive for “crimes” of being “spinsters,” or of “gossiping” and of not going to church. Homosexuals were burned alive for what they did in the privacy of their homes. Philosophers and scientists who held views at odds with Biblical interpretation or official church-state doctrines (no separation back then) were also burned alive.

With a sordid history like that the question isn’t Why did an explicit and formal system of rights protection come into existence in the west? but Why didn’t one come into existence much sooner? Much of the rights framework (or Classical Liberal tradition in philosophical jargon) we know today didn’t even come into existence till between 1650-1800 in Europe and the US.

It was not because westerners valued “freedom” or “autonomy” anymore than anyone else. It was because their governments had made people’s lives so intolerable with brutal and intrusive policies that they had to formulate such systems to protect basic freedoms from gross infringement.

There is also a prevailing myth in both the west and in China that Christian values spurred on the Classical Liberal developments. But that is also wrong. One only needs to look at the philosophers who first developed and advocated such a framework. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza and the American Founding Fathers were all what we probably would consider either atheists, agnostics or Deists (that is, non religious people who believed in an impersonal Creator). These Fathers of Liberalism lived in a time when almost everyone else was deeply religious. Many of these first Liberals were self-described “Christians” but they only described themselves so to protect themselves against persecution, social ostracization or for political gain. They did not believe in a personal God nor in the divinity of Christ or any number of Biblical claims. Hobbes and Locke had to escape to Holland (which together with Scotland was the only two major European nations that was moderately tolerant regarding religious and political beliefs and certain social practices). They were under threat of death had they stayed in their home country of England. It is no surprise that the creators of the Liberal rights model were the very people that needed such protections from their own societies.

On an interesting note, I have met one philosopher who argued that Locke was inspired to formulate his rights approach because he had read a newly available translation by the Jesuits of Mencius while in Holland. Mencius, being a Confucian, argued against intrusive state power and in favor of the interests of the people more than two thousand years before Locke. In the Confucian tradition, the state’s main responsibility is to provide social welfare (building roads, schools, hospitals, providing security, raising enough food, etc) and not sanctioning religion. The emperor’s basic role is role model and in the performing of rituals, not in the regulation of people’s personal lives.

For most of its history almost all religions, foreign or native were widely tolerated within China. There were no pogroms, no religious wars, no Inquisitions, no Crusades, no witch burnings, etc, etc in Chinese history. Christianity, Islam, Judaism all has had a history in China more than a thousand years old without any coercive state sanctioning or proscription of their practice or belief.

Chinese Christians, Jews and Muslims were made to observe laws other Chinese had to observe. They were never systematically singled out and persecuted like different religious adherents were throughout European history. Even during some periods in the Tang Dynasty when foreigners were expelled from China and foreign religious proselytizing made illegal, no attempt was made to prohibit religious practice by Chinese adherents.

Personal, social practices such as homosexuality was mostly widely tolerated in society. The government rarely if ever intruded in people’s houses or bedrooms. People, especially the Mandarin government officials openly criticized the policies of their government and even the Emperor himself (in fact, it was their jobs to do so).

It is no wonder that China did not develop an explicit and formal conceptual system to protect people’s speech, religious beliefs, and personal/social practices as no need was there to develop one. It is also no wonder that the west did develop one. It’s not that the Chinese don’t value the same things on an intuitive, moral level as westerners; it’s that there was a pressing need to make those basic moral intuitions into a more explicit and formal system so as to better protect people from violations in one society rather than the other.

I will say, however, the Chinese today may emphasize certain rights over others compared to most westerners. Americans, for example, may value the right to freedom of expression highly. While Chinese may value freedom from racism and economic freedoms and rights (access to health care, job security, etc) more than the freedom of expression but Chinese also value the freedom to express their religious and political views as well. The differences is a matter of relative degree in the hierarchy of scheme of values and how society ought to structure the laws so as to take into account those values. Any country that outlaws hate-speech may have a scheme like the Chinese over the Americans, say, valuing the freedom from racism over free speech but that does not mean that they do not value the later, just that when there is conflict, the higher-valued right ought to be the one that is prioritized over the lower-valued one in the law.

The rights framework was not conceived because of European High Mindedness as many westerners who love to engage in self-aggrandizement would like to believe. They are rather conceived by a reaction towards the rape of those rights by the religious, social and state powers that excessively and brutally controlled people’s lives. Many westerners also believe that the Chinese did not develop that tradition because Chinese culture or people do not value things like freedom and autonomy. But that is bigoted. It serves only to dehumanize the Chinese who are some of the most freedom loving people on earth.

It serves as no surprise, also, that Chinese people are now engaged in the discourse and legal codification making explicit what had already been valued such as protecting freedom of expression and so forth. Now the Chinese government is even further instituting the rule of law so as to protect people’s rights from unnecessary intrusion. This is a natural progression from the oppressive regime of the Cultural Revolution to the more relaxed environment most Chinese enjoy today to express themselves. Some westerners would like to take credit seeing this as influence of “western values” but this development is native much as the development of European and American Classical Liberal tradition was native to the west because it was a reaction against their own oppressive trends. China has far to go in this area but so do the west. Cultural centric and ethnocentric arrogance will not further the discourse but only hinder it.

The ABCs of epistomology

I posted a blog about the alief/belief distinction. But it seems that many philosophers would want to see faith as a separate phenomenon with distinguishing characteristics from alief and belief. Hence, perhaps we can term faith , "celief" (pronounced 'seeleef')? Now we'll have the ABCs of epistomological states.

Coyne on the Templeton Prize

The Templeton Fund scholarship offered a prestigious prize of about 80 thousand bucks per year over 2 years to study free will and God's omniscience and this was awarded to a philosopher at the Uni. of Riverside. Well, the biologist Jerry Coyne went ballistic. He displayed the kind of arrogance towards philosophy that many non philosophers have and which I have mentioned elsewhere. You can read his rants here and here. I guess some of it is jealousy and some of it is just plain ignorance of philosophy. I responded to his argument in a blog defending the Templeton research project.

I haven’t read Coyne’s responses to all his critics but I did read the notorious first anti-philosophy blog and one of its follow-ups. Let’s call his argument what it is: silly.

He may have elaborated on it so that it is a better argument but I just can’t see any way to make it sound. 

His main argument simply seems to be that we need to think deeply about non existent beings such as god and all philosophical problems related to god. This reasoning seems to suggest that non existent beings are irrelevant to the pursuit of anything worthwhile such as the pursuit of truth. 

But that assumption is clearly false. Examples from science, a subject that Coyne should be familiar with shows this falsity. Scientists make use of all sorts of fictional objects (in clear-eyed understanding that they do not existent) in their thought experiments. Things and events they know to be non existent. 

Just a few famous examples from physics: 

-Newton’s bucket. Newton knew that our universe does not contain a single object (the bucket filled with liquid). But the thought experiment illustrated interesting points that advanced science. 

-Maxwell’s Demon. Again, Maxwell knew that there is no such demon; that wasn’t the point. the thought experiment illustrated interesting points that advanced science. 

-Schrodinger’s Cat. Again, no physicist takes such a being seriously. It is merely meant to demonstrate a point about the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. 

-Objects with mass riding on a beam of light. Used by Einstein when he fully knew that such actions are impossible.

-Time machines. Most theoretical physicists do not believe they are physically possible and yet there are plethora of papers in physics journals using these fictional objects to demonstrate points about our very real world. 

Additionally, there are also objects that are very well possibly non existent but worth considering anyway such as strings and even time (which may be illusory according to many physicists today). But if these things turn out to be not real, they would still be considered useful fictions that advanced science. The conceptual tools developed in thinking about them makes it worthwhile to develop even if it turns out they don’t exist. 

The most obvious example of a useful fiction is the mathematical world assuming physicalism is true as most scientists (and I’d imagine Coyne) would proclaim allegiance to that doctrine. Numbers may not exist as such but they are useful for the advancement of knowledge. 

But Coyne may respond that in all these cases, there is some criterion or criteria distinguishing the putatively non real but useful objects from their non-useful counterparts. But then the onus is on him to show what that criteria is (I’m sure philosophers of science would love to know. What a time-saver for scientists that would be!). 

Coyne may respond that no such criteria is necessary for it is just plain obvious that imaginary things like god are too silly to be useful to advance knowledge about our world while imaginary things like rotating buckets in otherwise empty universes, Maxwell demons, etc are not. But because his intuition is not shared among many others including philosophers, his intuition shouldn’t be taken any more seriously. 

Here’s a more positive reason Coyne is wrong. The point of the Templeton project is free will in the face of certain kinds of certain knowledge (of future events, etc). The notion of god is merely a rhetorical device. 

It may very well be possible that one day technology will allow prediction to be very accurate so that we can have what was once thought to be god-like epistemic faculties. If that is the case, it is useful to think deeply about free-will and moral responsibility in counterfactual terms to illustrate the conceptual structure of the concepts now important to us. God is only used derivatively to analyse the important concepts that need elucidating.

Coyne misses the whole boat in thinking the god is the primary object to be analysed in this project; it’s not. Free will, moral responsibility, the nature of time and knowledge about time is, things that even a scientists should admit are well worth investigating. If fictional objects helps facilitate that venture as Newton’s bucket, Maxwell’s Demon, etc has for science, then so be it.

Made the philosophers carnival

For the second time with my post on philosophical progress.

Poem

It is often said,

how small is Man

but a mere grain of sand

of no significance

next to the planets,

the stars in the dark expanse

the heavens, the galaxies

a million, billion, trillion

light years across

a million, billion, trillion

moments of time

front and back

But enough evil

has thus stained

the entire cosmos

across space and time

sullying the spacetime fabric

by man's small

and deficient soul

a black hole

both finite and transfinite

Stupid things philosophers hear

Here's a running list of things philosophers get annoyed at hearing from people not familiar with the subject. It might be a recurring theme for me to post in the future so add your own if you please.

-What is your personal philosophy of life?

-Can there be morality without god?

-Doesn't natural selection show that altruism is impossible?

-And my personal favorite for now is this (paraphrasing) response from an evolutionary psychologist to a philosopher on a video blog:

“Psychologists aren't concerned with the truth. We just want an accurate description of how the mind works.”

-Everything is just a state of mind.

-Also see the idiotic comments on the comments section of the New York Times' The Stone to these three articles (here, here and here).

Daily affirmation

All of us must live in constant contradiction. Philosophers wage constant war against it.

Editors in Chief of Synthese are in hot water

It would seem that one of my ex teachers (John Symons) an editor of Synthese is involved in some controversy among the philosophical community. See here and here. I read some of the papers in the special issue of Synthese on Intelligent Design a while back and the articles I've read seem measured and professional to me. The Editors in Chief included a disclaimer saying that some of them included tone that wasn't professional but did not mention the article(s) and this has pissed off the writers of those articles and many philosophers.

Poem

Love of Wisdom

Often homes are built

Over an abyss

The structural supports of lies and fallacy

The philosopher, never remiss

In demolishing false security

With a wrecking ball of analysis

Watch the house of cards as it falls

Upon sounder base shall be built

The Chamber of hallowed halls

Short story

Inspired by a conversation with Carl on the comments section on one of the posts.

When Cantor was on his death bed, still haunted by the ghost of the continuum hypothesis, the Devil appeared by his bedside. The Devil wanted Cantor's soul and offered him this deal: your soul for the truth of the continuum hypothesis. Cantor agreed on the condition that he stipulates the condition of his time in hell. He wrote his demands in a sealed envelop and gave it to the Devil only to be opened after the Devil tells him the secret that has racked Cantor's professional life. The Devil knew that hell was a place of infinite durations of suffering and knew that Cantor knew this as well so what can Cantor stipulate in his demands that would make this deal not go terribly bad for Cantor? Because there are few logicians and philosophers in hell to enlighten him, the Devil agreed.

The Devil tells Cantor the truth of the Continuum Hypothesis which the Devil stole from God's math notebooks (the Devil could not have came up with the truth of it himself due to his lack of mathematical and logical training). Cantor then dies a happy man with the truth of the CH. While in hell, the Devil sees Cantor and is about to stick his pitchfork into him. Cantor reminds him of their agreement so the Devil opens the envelop to see what stipulation Cantor had for his permanent stay. It read:

1. I am to have one minute of joy without being tortured for every 100 years of being tortured.

2. I am to have all my moments of joy consecutively.

3. I am to start on a minute of joy.

New York Times does free will

The NYT has an article by John Tierney on free will and X-PHI. It's a shame that though the article mentions that most philosophers today ascribe to various versions of compatibilism, it fails spectacularly by not giving the substantial reasons why philosophers do so. This may have the effect of making the NYT reader think that philosophers are a wishy washy bunch who's capricious beliefs are dependent on extra rational processes and are out of touch with the latest science. There is no mention of the quality of will approach, the reflective self-control approach, the higher self approach and the dispositionalists approach or any contemporary compatibilist approach all of which are compatible with the truth of determinism.

Of course there are some weaknesses to all these approaches but that doesn't mean they do not provide very good reason philosophers have for supporting compatibilism. These positions can be explained so that any reasonably intelligent and educated person can understand them which I suspect many readers of the NYTs are but they may very well be well beyond the scope of the journalist in question.

Why are physicists such bad philosophers?

In this hilarious post, a philosopher makes fun of the critical thinking abilities (or lack thereof) of some physicists and also has some justified words about their hubris. His observations of that hubris, and ignorance, and condescension for philosophy and many other disciplines mirrors some of my experiences with talking to them as well as was explained in one exchange with a string theorist.

Here's a quick read: The Semantics of Murder

A murder mystery novel by Aifric Campbell loosely based on the life and death of Richard Montague famed for his Montague grammar. It's probably a weekend read. It isn't very deep but it's entertainment and a distraction if you need one.

According to Bloomberg Magazine

The manager of the top performing hedge fund in 2010 was an ex philosophy prof. Interesting article and accompanied video interview. See here.

I can't say I'm surprised about this. The evolutionary psychologist Marc D. Hauser of Harvard has been implicated and found at fault on 8 counts of academic misconduct by Harvard investigators. From what the Times Higher Education has reported, it looks to be a case of academic fraud (as detailed by a letter to the Times from Hauser's research assistant) but Harvard's investigation has not publically stated yet what the misconduct was for. I wrote scathing a book review of his “Moral Minds” book at amazon two years ago.

Funny Memoir

This is a funny story (coincidentally from another blog by the same name as mine) about Quine and a battle he had with another Harvard professor about the quality of a student's Ph.D dissertation.

At almost the first meeting I attended, a dispute broke out between Quine and Aiken. The year before, apparently, one of Quine=s doctoral student working jointly in Mathematics and Philosophy had been permitted to substitute one of the Mathematics qualifying examinations for the Preliminary Exam on Ethics. Now one of Aiken's students, working jointly in Philosophy and Art History, wanted to substitute an Art History exam for the Logic Prelim. Quine said flatly that it was out of the question. Aiken protested that by parity of reason [ordinarily a winning move in philosophical arguments] he should be allowed to make the substitution. Quine was adamant. Finally Aiken turned to Quine and said, "All right, Ledge, why not? What is the difference between Ethics and Logic." "The answer is simple," Quine replied. "Ethics is easy and Logic is hard." Aiken was apoplectic but the substitution was disallowed.

I feel the opposite of what Quine says about ethics and logic is true.