Re: 'reason' and ethics; was computer pain

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 19:37:49 +0100

I agree with you. The only one "sin" you talk about is akin to the
confusion between the third person (oneself as a thing) and the
unnameable first person. Even in the ideal case of the
self-referentially correct machine, this confusion leads the machine to
inconsistency. That sin is indeed against reason, and provably so in
the world of number/machine, from their "correct" (!) points of view.

Bruno

PS (for those who know the arithmetical "B", in acomp, it is the
confusion *by the machine* between Bp and (Bp & p)). G* proves (Bp
iff (Bp & p)), but G does NOT prove it. That is why the
computationalist practice needs some explicit consents. The "yes
doctor" entails the right to say "no doctor".


Le 27-déc.-06, à 17:15, Mark Peaty a écrit :

> And yet I persist ... [the hiatus of familial duties and seasonal
> excesses now draws to a close [Oh yeah, Happy New Year Folks!]
>
> SP: 'If we are talking about a system designed to destroy the economy
> of a country in order to soften it up for invasion, for example, then
> an economist can apply all his skill and knowledge in a perfectly
> reasonable manner in order to achieve this.'
>
> We should beware of conceding too much too soon. Something is
> reasonable only if it can truly be expected to fulfil the intentions
> of its designer. Otherwise it is at best logical but, in the kinds of
> context we are alluding to here, benighted and a manifestation of
> fundamentally diminished 'reason'. Something can only be 'reasonable'
> it its context. If a proposed course of action can be shown to be
> ultimately self defeating - in the sense of including its reasonably
> predictably final consequences, and yet it is still actively proposed,
> then the proposal is NOT reasonable, it is stupid. As far as I can
> see, that is the closest we can get to an objective definition of
> stupidity and I like it.
>
> Put it this way: Is it 'reasonable' to promote policies and projects
> that ultimately are going to contribute to your own demise or the
> demise of those whom you hold dear or, if not obviously their demise
> then, the ultimate demise of all descendants of the aforementioned? I
> think academics, 'mandarins' and other high honchos should all now be
> thinking in these terms and asking themselves this question. The world
> we now live in is like no other before it. We now live in the Modern
> era, in which the application and fruits of the application of
> scientific method are putting ever greater forms of power into the
> hands of humans. This process is not going to stop, and nor should we
> want it to I think, but it entails the ever greater probability that
> the actions of any person on the planet have the potential to
> influence survival outcomes for huge numbers of others [if not the
> whole d*mned lot of us].
>
> I think it has always been true that ethical decisions and judgements
> are based on facts to a greater extent than most people involved want
> to think about - usually because it's too hard and we don't think we
> have got the time and, oh yeah, 'it probably doesn't/won't matter'
> about the details of unforeseen consequences because its only gonna be
> lower class riff -raff who will be affected anyway or people of the
> future who will just have to make shift for themselves. NOW however we
> do not really have such an excuse; it is a cop-out to purport to
> ignore the ever growing interrelatedness of people around the planet.
> So it is NOT reasonable to treat other people as things. [I feel
> indebted to Terry Pratchett for pointing out, through the words of
> Granny Weatherwax I think it is, that there is only one sin, which is
> to treat another person as a thing.] I think a reasonable survey and
> analysis of history shows that, more than anything else, treating
> other people as things rather than equal others has been the
> fundamental cause and methodology for the spread of threats to life
> and well being.
>
> You can see where I am going with this: in a similar way to that in
> which concepts of 'game theory' and probabilities of interaction
> outcomes give us an objective framework for assessing purportedly
> 'moral' precepts, the existence now of decidedly non-zero chances of
> recursive effects resulting from one's own actions brings a deeper
> meaning and increased rigour the realms of ethics and 'reason'. I
> don't think this is 'airy-fairy', I think it represents a dimension of
> reasoning which has always existed but which has been denied, ignored
> or actively censored by the powerful and their 'pragmatic' apologists
> and spin doctors. To look at a particular context [I am an EX
> Christian], even though the Bible is shonk as history or any kind of
> principled xxxxxxological analysis, it is instructive to look at the
> careers of the prophets and see how each involved a seemingly
> conventional formative period and then periods or a whole life of very
> risky ministry AGAINST the establishment because being true to their
> mission involved the prophet denouncing exploitation, greed and
> corruption.
>
>
> So let me wave my imaginary staff and rail from the top of my
> imaginary mountain:
> 'Sin is against reason! And that's a fact! So THERE! And don't you
> forget it, or you'll be sorry, or at least your children and their
> children will become so! Put that in your pipes all you armchair
> philosophers!'
>
> Regards
> Mark Peaty  CDES
> mpeaty.domain.name.hidden
> http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
>  
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>> Mark Peaty writes:
>>
>>> Sorry to be so slow at responding here but life [domestic], the
>>> universe and everything else right now is competing savagely with
>>> this interesting discussion. [But one must always think positive;
>>> 'Bah, Humbug!' is not appropriate, even though the temptation is
>>> great some times :-]
>>> Stathis,
>>> I am not entirely convinced when you say: 'And the psychopath is
>>> right: no-one can actually fault him on a point of fact or a point
>>> of logic'
>>> That would only be right if we allowed that his [psychopathy is
>>> mostly a male affliction I believe] use of words is easily as
>>> reasonable as yours or mine. However, where the said psycho. is
>>> purporting to make authoritative statements about the world, it is
>>> not OK for him to purport that what he describes is unquestionably
>>> factual and his reasoning from the facts as he sees them is
>>> necessarily authoritative for anyone else. This is because, qua
>>> psychopath, he is not able to make the fullest possible free
>>> decisions about what makes people tick or even about what is reality
>>> for the rest of us. He is, in a sense, mortally wounded, and forever
>>> impaired; condemned always to make only 'logical' decisions. :-)
>>> The way I see it, roughly and readily, is that there are in fact
>>> certain statements/descriptions about the world and our place in it
>>> which are MUCH MORE REASONABLE than a whole lot of others. I think
>>> therefore that, even though you might be right from a 'purely
>>> logical' point of view when you say the following: 'In the *final*
>>> analysis, ethical beliefs are not a matter of fact or logic, and if
>>> it seems that they are then there is a hidden assumption somewhere'
>>> in fact, from the point of view of practical living and the
>>> necessities of survival, the correct approach is to assert what
>>> amounts to a set of practical axioms, including:
>>>  *   the mere fact of existence is the basis of value, that good
>>> and bad are expressed differently within - and between - different
>>> cultures and their sub-cultures but ultimately there is an
>>> objective, absolute basis for the concept of 'goodness', because in
>>> all normal circumstances it is better to exist than not to exist,
>>>  *   related to this and arising out of it is the realisation that
>>> all normal, healthy humans understand what is meant by both 'harm'
>>> and 'suffering', certainly those who have reached adulthood,
>>>  *   furthermore, insofar as it is clearly recognisable that
>>> continuing to exist as a human being requires access to and
>>> consumption of all manner of natural resources and human-made goods
>>> and services, it is in our interests to nurture and further the
>>> inclinations in ourselves and others to behave in ways supportive of
>>> cooperation for mutual and general benefit wherever this is
>>> reasonably possible, and certainly not to act destructively or
>>> disruptively unless it is clear that doing so will prevent a much
>>> greater harm from occurring.
>>> It ought to be clear to all reasonable persons not engaged in self
>>> deception that in this modern era each and everyone of us is
>>> dependent - always - on at least a thousand other people doing the
>>> right thing, or trying to anyway. Thus the idea of 'manly', rugged,
>>> individualism is a romantic nonsense unless it also incorporates a
>>> recognition of mutual interdependence and the need for real fairness
>>> in social dealings at every level. Unless compassion, democracy and
>>> ethics are recognised [along with scientific method] as fundamental
>>> prerequisites for OUR survival, policies and practices will pretty
>>> much inevitably become self-defeating and destructive, no matter how
>>> well-intentioned to start with.
>>> In the interest of brevity I add the following quasi-axioms.
>>>  *   the advent of scientific method on Earth between 400 and 500
>>> years ago has irreversibly transformed the human species so that now
>>> we can reasonably assert that the human universe is always
>>> potentially infinite, so long as it exists and we believe it to be
>>> so
>>>  *   to be fully human requires taking responsibility for one's
>>> actions and this means consciously choosing to do things or
>>> accepting that one has made a choice even if one cannot remember
>>> consciously choosing
>>>  *   nobody knows the future, so all statements about the future
>>> are either guesswork or statements of desires. Furthermore our lack
>>> of knowledge of times to come is very deep, such that we have no
>>> truly reasonable basis for dismissing the right to survive of any
>>> persons on the planet - or other living species for that matter -
>>> unless it can be clearly shown that such killing or allowing to die,
>>> is necessary to prevent some far greater harm and the assertion of
>>> this is of course hampered precisely by our lack of knowledge of the
>>> future
>>> This feels incomplete but it needs to be sent.
>>> Regards
>>> Mark Peaty  CDES
>>> mpeaty.domain.name.hidden<mailto:mpeaty.domain.name.hidden>
>>> http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
>>
>> I agree with you as far as advice for how to live a good life goes,
>> but I guess where I disagree is on the technical matter of what we
>> call reasonable. Peter Jones said that a system of economics designed
>> to create universal poverty is not reasonable. I would agree *given*
>> that the purpose of an economic system is not to create poverty. If
>> we are talking about a system designed to destroy the economy of a
>> country in order to soften it up for invasion, for example, then an
>> economist can apply all his skill and knowledge in a perfectly
>> reasonable mannner in order to achieve this. The human values driving
>> an economic system, although we can predict what they might be in the
>> majority of cases, are subjective states and are beyond reason: this
>> is what I want, this is what I like, and you can't tell me otherwise.
>> This stands in contrast to empirical statements such as "the Earth is
>> flat", which is true or false independently of what anyone thinks or
>> wants.
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>> _________________________________________________________________
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>> -9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> >
>
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Received on Wed Dec 27 2006 - 13:38:11 PST

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