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The Perils of Pop Philosophy
ThousandStars tips a new piece by Julian Sanchez, the guy who, in case you missed it, brought us a succinct definition of the one-way hash argument (of the type often employed in the US culture wars). This one is about the dangers of a certain kind of oversimplifying, as practiced routinely by journalists and bloggers. "This brings us around to some of my longstanding ambivalence about blogging and journalism more generally. On the one hand, while it's probably not enormously important whether most people have a handle on the mind-body problem, a democracy can't make ethics and political philosophy the exclusive province of cloistered academics. On the other hand, I look at the online public sphere and too often tend to find myself thinking: 'Discourse at this level can't possibly accomplish anything beyond giving people some simulation of justification for what they wanted to believe in the first place.' This is, needless to say, not a problem limited to philosophy."
But hot damn it made him feel great when he used all those sophysticated words!
I doubt it. To write with that level of ease and complexity, one needs to occupy the required head-space in earnest. Probably doesn't even notice he's doing it except on those rare occasions when he pulls back from the keyboard to pause for a breather and watch himself. And people, even the smart ones, rarely manage to do that more than a handful of times in any given life.
That, and the fact, (in my opinion anyway), he also happens to be right.
Not that it matters. For some reason everybody who thinks and writes seems to be perpetually concerned about what humanity ought to do about the state of humanity. The longer I live, the more I realize that the quest for societal justice is a fool's errand. Nobody can change anything no matter how hard they try, and the most amazing thing is that nobody realizes this astonishing truth. Change requires awareness, and machines are not aware. Almost all humans are machines. Even as I write this, I can hear the gears clicking in my skull, still on auto-pilot. And I've been working on this stuff.
-FL
or specialize in every field. Studying math and specializing in it is a safe bet to gain most general knowledge that is still applicable to wide array of scientific fields, and that would allow you to follow quite a bit of science.
These days majority of science is based on mathematical models, including physics, chemistry (esp. the physical chemistry part of it), biochemistry, computer science, certainly climate and weather prediction, astronomy, engineering of almost any kind, but esp. electrical and mechanical, and lately more esoteric things like psychology and theories of the mind, and less esoteric things like sociology and crowd behaviors.
True, mathematician is no expert on any of these fields, but is armed with enough mathematical knowledge that coupled with a bit of curiosity and motivation to read and research is enough to give them insight into any of these fields, and sometimes better insight than people who traditionally are bad at formulating theories like biologists, or psychiatrists for example.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
I realize very well what you're saying. That line of reasoning has been around, and readily acknowledged by philosophers, for over 50 years. The whole idea behind functionalism is categorizing the brain as "hardware" and mind as "software". I'm saying too much has been made of this distinction, however. Does this mean that computers will never "think" like humans do? No, not really. But the brain as forged by millions of years of evolution is very different than computational algorithms engineered in 100 or so years by humans. We should learn much more neuroscience before we starting where, if anywhere, can we find the dividing line between the brain's "hardware" and "software".
It's not just misleading use of statistics -- those are easier to identify since they do deal in factual numbers. It's the underlying political agendas that get people to mislead through omission, commission, or outright lying. In the end it's not about whose argument is more correct, and not even who has the "more authoritative authority." It's about whose argument swayed the people in power. We can all sit here at our keyboards whining about how stupid Jack Thompson is, or how evil Comcast is for opposing net neutrality, but in the end it's not about convincing us -- it's about convincing Congress (or Parliament or whatever they have where you live.)
And even though we'd like to think differently about their abilities, Congress is not very different than Joe Sixpack. Sure, they'll stack their offices with competent and smart advisors (we hope) but with the hundreds of bills they have to review, and the fact that a well-reasoned, well-researched letter only puts a checkmark in the "for" column that's equally counted against Cletus' "The TV dun tell me it's bad" means that the philosophical and scientific arguments are ultimately worthless.
The scientific campaigns can be spun in whichever direction they're needed, regardless of their methods, their science, or their outcome. The real lesson is "Do not waste your time and money on science, but spend it only on the advertising campaigns that promote whichever viewpoint puts more money in your pocket." Pay an actor to wear a lab coat when he delivers your message. Have him wear a hard hat and carry a clipboard. Pose him in front of a very large machine, or a pristine meadow. That's where your dollars have their biggest effect.
John
And how do we differentiate between elites and retards? Remember that for years we were told that all the brightest mathematicians and physicists were now working on financial derivatives because only "rocket scientists" could understand them.
Wow, we read that differently. I understood him to mean, "if it wants to be successful a democracy can't make ethics and political philosophy the exclusive province of cloistered academics," The one way hash argument isn't elitist, it says it is hard to explain certain things, and when those things are simplified, they aren't being explained. Sanchez is not saying that philosophers would make better leaders, in fact, you've flown off on an anti-elitist tangent that simply does not relate to the arguments being presented, while ignoring the gist of what the author is trying to say.
I'm interested in discerning the bias behind this tangent. What is your position on mind-brain dualism and identity? Is it, perhaps, contrary to the author's view of same?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The same holds true for personal philosophies; solving the problems that being alive presents. When you are listening to other people, you should actually listen to them. Try to see things their way. Don't bash them, even if you disagree. It doesn't hurt. It can often help. And when you're presenting a counterpoint, be genteel about it. Tact goes a very long way.
I agree strongly. One of the things I've learned over the years is that, when someone is disagreeing with you, it's almost always the case that they're thinking about something that's worth considering. They might be misunderstanding a lot of things, mixing up causes and effects, or all making all sorts of mistakes, but if you can figure out what's really at stake in the argument, it's almost always something fairly understandable if not valid.
Like you look at something really contentious like Intelligent Design. I've talked to proponents of Intelligent Design enough to have realized that many of them aren't even interested in it as a scientific theory. The real essential point of contention is that they don't like people trying to use science to tell them that their beliefs, and even their way of life is wrong. Intelligent Design is often just seen as a way of fighting back, of "beating atheists at their own game." And fair enough, because it's true that some atheists want to use evolution as a wedge issue to claim that all religious people are stupid; I can't blame people for wanting to respond. If you can somehow bring the argument around to an admission that "evolution has happened" is not equivalent to "God doesn't exist," then suddenly you'll find that a lot of religious people are more open to evolution as a concept.
Of course, other things get involved, too. For example, sometimes a person is just feeling backed into a corner and that person feels like his ego is at stake in the argument. Now that's not entirely valid, but it's fairly understandable. And if you discover that it's the case, then sometimes you can bring that person around to your side by giving him an opportunity to agree with you without sacrificing his ego-- assuming you can invent that opportunity. Or sometimes you just have to disabuse them of the notion that they can hang their ego on this argument, just so they'll give up.
Anyway, I'm going off on tangents, but my real point here is this: whenever someone is arguing against you, it's good to assume that there's something that person believes is at risk, and that person wants to protect that at-risk thing. If you can't figure out what that at-risk thing is, then you're not very well-prepared to argue.