Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
In 1780, John Adams succinctly defined the principle of the Rule of Law in the Massachusetts Constitution by seeking to establish “a government of laws and not of men”. This reflects the democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution’s preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The very foundation of our legal system says that the law should work for us all, not just a select few.
This raises the question of what is a good law that serves the majority of society and what is a bad law that doesn’t serve the majority of society?
This idea is further bolstered by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The latter addition of the 14th Amendment as well as the Preamble of the Constitution both reflect the spirit in which this country was founded as set forth in the Declaration of Independence: “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Clearly, the pursuit of the Rule of Law under the Constitution as informed by the Declaration is a pursuit of the Utilitarian concept of the right course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good consequences of an action; what is in the best interest of greatest numbers of We the People is in the best interests of the country.
Utilitarianism is a quantitative and reductionist philosophical form. Utilitarianism, however, is not a unified philosophical view. It comes in different flavors with the two primary flavors being Rule Utilitarianism and Act Utilitarianism. Strong Rule Utilitarianism is an absolutist philosophical view and rules may never be broken. Like any absolutist view does not take into account that reality occasionally presents situations where breaking a rule results in the greater good. For example, the strong reductionist rule that murder is bad is countered by the exceptional example of murder is not bad if performed in self-defense or the defense of others. This result of practical application is reflected in what John Stuart Mill called Weak Rule Utilitarianism. It becomes apparent that since not all rules are absolutely enforceable when seeking the common good and exceptional circumstances require flexibility in the law, that the Utilitarian pursuit of the Rule of Law must be in Mill’s Weak Rule formulation of Utilitarianism. But is considering the greater good and circumstantial reasons for breaking or modifying rules the best way to judge whether a law is good or bad?
If one considers Kant’s Categorical Imperative – “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” – then any law not universally applicable should not be a maxim worthy of being recognized as universal. This is contrary to Utilitarianism in general as well as Weak Rule Utilitarianism specifically, but while Kant’s view takes subjectivity into account when dealing with circumstances it does not take into account that there can be objective differences in circumstances as well. It is part of the judiciaries role as a trier of fact to consider not only subjective differences but objective differences in circumstances in formulating the most equitable and just solution to a case at bar. In seeking to be universally applicable in defining maxims, Kant is an absolutist as surely as Strong Rule Utilitarians are absolutists. As a consequence of reality not being neatly binary in nature and thus not often compatible to absolutists approaches to formulating laws for practical application, what can be done to keep Weak Rule Utilitarianism from degenerating into Act Utilitarianism where actors will seek the greatest personal pleasure when presented with a choice rather than the greater good? Utilitarianism conflicting with the Categorical Imperative? Is there a unitary philosophical approach to evaluating whether a law is good or bad?
The answer seems to be no. If there is no single view, absolutist or otherwise, that leads to a practical system for evaluating whether a law is good or bad, then there is only one option for building a framework for evaluation. That option is synthesis.
Consider that absolutist systems as they are not applicable in reality should be confined to being considered theoretical boundaries rather than practical boundaries. This does not negate the value of considering systems like Strong Rule Utilitarianism or Kant’s Categorical Imperative, but rather puts them in the place of aspirational goals rather than practically attainable goals in every circumstance. Given that Mill’s Weak Rule Utilitarianism can degrade into Act Utilitarianism and that degeneration can be compounded by the number of exceptions there are to a rule, are there ways to minimize the defects of using only Weak Rule Utilitarianism to determine the societal value of a law? What supplements can be made to that framework?
I submit that one such supplement is found in the form of Negative Utilitarianism. Negative Utilitarianism is exactly what it sounds like; the inverse function of Utilitarianism. Whereas Utilitarianism is the basic proposition that the right course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good consequences of an action, Negative Utilitarianism is the basic proposition that requires us to promote the least amount of evil or harm, or to prevent the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest number. If one takes both into account in evaluation of the social value of a law (a synthetic approach), the test becomes a balancing act. On one side of the scale is the societal value of overall good consequences, on the other side is the societal value of preventing overall harm. This proposition suggests the following framework for evaluation of whether a law is good or bad.
- How many people benefit from the good consequences of a law?
- How many people benefit from the reduction of harm as consequences of a law?
- Does the benefits from promoting good consequences outweigh the costs of reduction of harm?
- Does the benefits from reducing harm outweigh the costs to the greater good in taking no action?
- Are the net consequences of a law perfectly knowable from either perspective or does the possibility of unforeseeable consequences exist? Can the unforeseeable risks be minimized either by construction of the law(s) to allow for contingencies or by regulating other risks or contributing factors?
- Do solutions from either perspective negatively impact human and/or civil rights? Do those negative impacts outweigh the positive effects to the greater human and/or civil rights of all?
This is but one way to evaluate whether a law is good or bad for society. What are other methods? Are there ways to improve this method? What do you think?
@Grossman: And while the brain is busying itself with mental models, what are you doing?
This is a false dichotomy; “You” are your brain and nervous system; and “you” are a componentized, changing entity. I have the memories of a teen from the 1970s, but I am not that teen. My mind has literally changed since then, in the physical sense.
@Grossman: youre not conceptualizing your perceptions of concretes.
That doesn’t mean anything. Really, it has zero information content. A “Concept” is a vague notion, theme, idea or plan. That is the definition I use. It is the ONLY definition I will use, if you speak to me I will interpret it in English, not in your own made up language that steals the words of English.
What brains do, without prompting or thought, is generalize and categorize. This is a way of compressing information, really, and by “generalize” I mean the brains extract commonalities of features and behaviors and develop a model, then particular instances of that (what you call concrete) that exhibit matching features or behaviors are seen by the brain as having all the characteristics of the model, with “modifications” (exceptions and additions).
For example, in one psychology experiment, we are shown a book standing upright on a table; and behind the left edge we see the handle and part of the cup of a coffee cup. The brain uses the partial information to conclude a whole coffee cup is behind the book; we know this because if we raise the book and the right side of the coffee cup is broken; brains involuntarily register surprise; and we can see (using a machine) the brain consume energy to correct its error. Now if you ask what it is, they will say “a broken coffee cup,” their model is still of a coffee cup, but now it is modified. But what does a “broken” coffee cup mean? It means you can tell by its features it is supposed to be a coffee cup, but it will no longer fully function as one.
So what if I pulverize the entire coffee cup to the consistency of baby powder? Is that still a “broken coffee cup?” No, because it no longer has any characteristics that the brain can recognize that are unique to coffee cups. The most closely matching model changes; if you know it used to be a ceramic coffee cup; the most closely matching model may be some sort of abrasive cleaner or polishing grit.
Brains use generalizations. They use these to try to predict behavior, sometimes by inferring intent. There is an interesting pyschology experiment in which grade-school children watch small circles, all the same size and color, on a computer screen. Circles are used because just looking at a circle, you cannot infer anything about it as an entity. Yet when the circles start to move around; the children assign emotions based on movement. They will say, “these two are friends, they move together.” If the programmers make one circle move fast toward other circles; and makes other circles retreat; they identify the circle as a bully. If a mass of circles rushes the bully, and it retreats to a corner, the children cheer. If that circle is kept in its corner of the screen, and every time it starts to move away from that corner different volunteer circles charge it and push it back into the corner, the children infer the cornered circle is being punished. If after a time all the circles together surround the cornered circle, and escort it out of the corner into the center of the screen and then disperse, the children infer it has been forgiven and released. If the circle approaches another circle slowly, rests and then retreats, and the other circle “voluntarily” moves to join it and they move together, the children infer the former bully has made a friend.
What is interesting about this is there are no physical characteristics and no frame of reference in children for how circles should behave; but they will develop rich dramatic stories to explain the behavior as if the circles had human emotions, intents, and life. How can they infer that one circle is a bully if they reason from “concretes”? Or that one circle is in jail, or that a group of circles used their combined strength and teamwork to overwhelm and punish a bully?
They cannot; they are using their generalized models of human behavior to interpret the actions of the circles; and the closest match for them is schoolyard politics and what they have seen on TV. The behaviors that match belong to humans and so the circles are assumed to have all the characteristics of humans; including likes and dislikes, aggression, a sense of unfairness, teamwork, justice, forgiveness and redemption.
So what are the children thinking about? There is nothing concrete to reason about with circles on a screen; they aren’t real things; they are patterns of light that can literally do anything on the screen. But we can tell an entire silent story with nothing but featureless circles: The emergence of a bully, its oppression, collective resistance, punishment, forgiveness and redemption in the form of friendship. We can also simulate sickness, caring, and a return to health, or murder, or violence.
The children obviously are thinking, and what they are thinking about is behavior, and relationships, and emotions that drive those things. Thinking is done with rules inferred from generalized models; not concretes.
What distinguishes men from animals is the frontal cortex; the purpose of the frontal cortex appears to be, simply put, inferring rules that can be used to predict the most likely future scenarios based on various options available to the being, so actions can be chosen that lead to the most desirable future. What is “desirable” is up to the amygdalae; it is an emotional state. Sometimes the most desirable future is the least amount of loss, if the cortex concludes that all futures incur losses. Sometimes it isn’t the least amount of loss, people have lost their own lives to exact punishment, to protect their friends in foxholes, to save their wife, even to save children in danger that were not their own. The fear of death and desire for life and survival are not always the strongest emotions in the brain; they are not the ultimates you seem to think they are.
@Grossman: Does this mean that you can destroy a culture and your concern is your expectation, not what concretely happens to concrete people?
I have no idea what you are talking about. When I call your “concretes” fodder, that is exactly what I mean: Food for generalizations. Saying that people think about concretes is analogous to saying that people are collections of food. It is true I ate ham, eggs, flour, salt, sugar, butter, cream, water and tiny amount of baked yeast this morning, but that has no predictive value for anybody; it is a pointless distinction.
If innocent people are going to die, I want to prevent their death. But that is a generalization not a specific. I don’t want America bombing wedding parties in Pakistan; but I actually do not know a single person in Pakistan (to my knowledge), much less one getting married, so my desire in this case is based on my generalizations of people and wedding parties and justice and fairness. I am okay with soldiers killing an enemy combatant, but that death is not more important than the life of a bride, or the other innocent lives lost of parents, friends and children. All of which are generalizations, including the rules I have inferred about what I think is acceptable, fair human behavior and law enforcement and what is not. I can’t think about “concretes” in Pakistan, I have never been, As far as I know I have never met a Pakistani or anybody that has been there; if I suddenly woke up in a village in Pakistan I wouldn’t know where I was.
Yet I can still reason about Pakistanis; they are humans. Although that is apparently amazing and impossible from the ridiculously inaccurate pseudo-science claims of Rand, it is humdrum and routine from the point of view of just about everybody else on the planet.
Tony C
>The detectors work without the brain; they are in that sense independent of the brain,
And when man the organic whole has been disintegrated, what do you have?
>The eye is not what recognizes an image as a dog; the brain does that. How does the brain do that? By using generalizations to which labels are attached. Then how does the brain think about dogs? Not by specific dogs, but using the abstract generalization of the dog….mental MODEL
And while the brain is busying itself with mental models, what are you doing?
> thinking is done with generalizations and models.
Youre doing something with generalizations (whatever that means to you) and models, but its not thinking because youre not conceptualizing your perceptions of concretes. This is, perhaps, the missing link between brutes and man. Congratulations. Alert the Anthropology Dept. and the New York Times.
>No thinking is done with concretes; they are simple fodder for a generalization
Conceptually, this is a contradiction. But, since you dont, as you say, conceptualize, the issue of contradictions is irrelevant. I do note, however, your statement that you dont think about concrete reality. There is certainly ample evidence of that in your ethics and politics.
>something not concrete at all; what we expect to happen when the thing is subjected to actions>
Does this mean that you can destroy a culture and your concern is your expectation, not what concretely happens to concrete people? See: Louis Sass’s _Madness And Modernism_. See: Nazism, the product of Weimar culture, the first modern culture and the source of the ideas you use.
@Grossman: The question is what can you THINK about, not what can you perceive. A simple sensor reliably detects heat (more reliably than you do), a simple sensor reliably detects light (more reliably than you do), a simple sensor reliably detects touch (more reliably than you do), more complicated sensors reliably detect gases, chemicals, charges and composition of materials far, far more reliably than you can. But sensors do not THINK, and I purposely say they “detect” because I do not think that detection, or sensing, rises to the level of perception.
Yet detecting is all your eyes, ears, skin, and nose do. Even if the brain is missing, as long as the nerves live they detect: We can test a disembodied eye, or even just the retina, under appropriate nutritive circumstances and it will fire away as light falls on it. The detectors work without the brain; they are in that sense independent of the brain, even when they are connected to it: It is a one-way communication.
The eye is not what recognizes an image as a dog; the brain does that. How does the brain do that? By using generalizations to which labels are attached. Then how does the brain think about dogs? Not by specific dogs, but using the abstract generalization of the dog.
I do not call it a “concept” because I call it what it IS: a mental MODEL of the things we call dogs; that includes the range of parameters we expect from these things, including what to expect in size, intelligence, speed, color, and so on. What is “interesting” about some new dog? Characteristics that force us to change our dog model, or better yet, force us to bifurcate the model into two things: The dog is smaller than we thought a dog could be; or smarter, or louder, or faster, or jumps higher.
At one time, things with four wheels were called carriages (or cars) and things with one, two or three wheels were called cycles (uni, bi, tri). Then motorized vehicles came along, and we invented new words for new generalizations: motorcar, motorcycle, horseless carriage.
In fact motorcars and carriages have split so far, the motorcars have taken over the category of “cars” and a car means something much different than a carriage.
You can talk about “concepts” if you choose, I choose to talk about generalizations, because that is more descriptive of what actually happens in the brain than the word “concept.” To me it is a question of speaking accurately.
Beyond that, you are simply wrong. All thinking is done with generalizations and models. When I think about my wife; I am using a very accurate mental model of how she reacts under different circumstances to different cues. That is what it means when I say I know my wife; it means I have a pretty accurate model (that is still just a generalization of the real thing) of my wife’s likes, dislikes, behaviors and feelings. I know what she finds funny, and what other people think is funny that she thinks is juvenile or repulsive.
No thinking is done with concretes; they are simple fodder for a generalization, which includes self-generated parameters for ranges of behavior, usage, and characteristics and most importantly something not concrete at all; what we expect to happen when the thing is subjected to actions; including when the “thing” is another person, and the action is words, and that can include a model of their emotional reactions to various kinds of news or declarations.
Tony C
>you can reason about those, because every one of them is a generalization, not a specific thing. Is every “ant” the same? No. “Ant” is a generalization you have developed of a particular kind of animal with particular expected appearance and behavior.
[Concepts are of concretes as related. Eg, the category, ant. Generalizations are of causes, eg, rubber bounces. I dont want to argue about words but Im unsure what you call identifications of causes and why you discuss generalizations rather than concepts.]
I said “an ant,” not ant, thus referring to a concrete, ie, this concrete ant here and now, this concrete object of your perception of concrete reality. Only concretes exist, including a concrete states and processes of consciousness, eg, this concrete, particular concept, eg, ant, or a particular generalization, eg, fire burns.
Reason is the identification and integration of perceptions. Perception is of concretes. I see this particular thing over there here and now. Rationalism (Plato, Descartes, Kant) starts from floating pseudo-abstractions, arbitrarily hypotheses a causes, arbitrary deduces consequences, makes arbitrary observations, arbitrary measurements, arbitrary experiments, and arbitrary interpretations. Its faith, not science ,a rationalization of the evasion of reason.
Knowledge starts in the self-evidence of the perception of concrete reality. Reason then conceptually/logically organizes the perceptions of the similarities and differences among concretes by omitting measurements, ie, how much, of a particular property. Eg, length refers to all lengths, yardsticks and light-years. Concepts allow man to think of many things as one thing, thus reducing the number of things to consider at one time. Instead of considering each blade of grass individually, we integrate them into lawn, which refers to each blade of grass. Concepts extend man’s knowledge beyond immediately perceivable concretes to the whole universe by relating things we cannot perceive to something we can perceive. Eg, a foot , mathematically/conceptually related to the distance to the sun. “Man is the measure of all things, epistemologically, not metaphysically.” Rand
Since we can only think of a few things at a time, mentally putting many concretes into one concept allows us to expand the range of our knowledge to the whole universe. Further, we can put several concepts into one wider, more abstract concept and thus think about more concretes. Ie, abstractions from abstractions, but all resting on the evidence of the senses in a logical/hierarchical structure as knowledge builds upon knowledge. Eg, chair–>furniture->household implements–>man-made things–>material things. Etc. This is how science progresses despite Kuhn’s nihilism.
The concept ,material thing, whose individual referents we cannot think about all at the same time, allows us to think about them as one thing, about which we can think and study. Your brain scientists dont think that their study refers only to the one person they are studying at one time but refer to all men, ie, all things with a certain range of certain properties, regardless of the measurements of those properties.
Instead of trying to hold 10 apples in our hands, we put them into one bag which we can hold. We can then put 10 bags into one big bag and ten big bags into one carton and ten cartons into one packing crate and ten packing crates into one trailer truck and ten trailer trucks into one railroad car and ten RR cars into one cargo ship. That one cargo ship contains all the apples. Thus tree refers to ,not merely the trees we happen to perceive here and now but all trees, even those we will never see. It does this by a specific range of measurements of the particular conceptualized concretes we are considering. We relate things conceptually by measurement-omission. Measurements exist and can be explicitly identified when considering a concrete. Apple refers to big and small apples, ripe and unripe, etc.
Concepts are man’s unique method of knowing concretes by explicitly relating them to other concretes in ever wider contexts. Thus the parched earth of a dry season may be related to a river, allowing a farmer to think of an irrigation pipe. Man is not trapped in the here and now, as are all other living organisms. We can consciously recall the past and consciously plan the future, allowing increasing survival from hunting-gathering to scientific-industrial civilization. Modern culture is basically a rejection of this with a return to the perceptual or even sensational. See: modern art or America’s lack of a foreign _policy_ for
what even the Pragmatist Kissinger called “a response to cables.” Man integrates his knowledge of concrete reality and integrates integrations.
Animals know concretes with an implicit background context of relations to other concretes. Man makes those relations explicit and can study them. Each animal species is limited to species-specific relations. Man, with his ability to monitor and regulate the actions of his consciousness, ie, free will, can focus his attention on any relations. Eg, dogs cannot stop being territorial within a specific limit because thats the fixed functioning of their perceptual consciousness. Man can expand and contract his concern with territory from family to clan to tribe to city…to man facing the universe. And back again as our culture’s return to primitivism guides thinking. If a flood happens to animals, they die. Man builds dams. If a drought happens to animals, they die. Man discovers scientific farming. If a female lion cannot perceive her cubs, they get eaten. If a human mother cannot perceive her children in the immediate situation, she can uplink to a satellite and call their cell-phone.
Man is the rational animal, by choice.
@Mike S: I’ve been in high demand at the university since my team finished a project a few weeks ago, and our next project doesn’t officially start until January. It took me less than a day to find an interesting project that needs help, but now I have to get up to speed on a kind of engineering analysis I know very little about. So I have just been coasting, blog wise, both reading and writing.
Tony,
It’s time to let the boy wonder luxuriate in the vast emptiness of his own head and use your great mind elsewhere on the blog. He will never grasp what you are saying, sage wisdom that it is and is I fear irredeemable in his religious fanaticism for an atheist novelist of mediocre turgidity.
@Grossman: Have you ever considered that your ideas may have disintegrated your mind below even perception,
Insult ignored, did not read the rest. If you are going to insult, keep it short and related to the content of something I wrote. Your emotional need to engage in long-winded insult is not something I am willing to pay for with my time. If this is about catharsis for your emotional pain, type all you want, but if you want me to read it, edit out the harangues.
@Grossman: If you are not reasoning about these, including all their properties, then you are not reasoning.
You can reason about those, because every one of them is a generalization, not a specific thing. Is every “ant” the same? No. “Ant” is a generalization you have developed of a particular kind of animal with particular expected appearance and behavior. So you can in fact reason about ants, if you want, because you have a model of ants. You don’t expect them to talk (unless it is a cartoon ant) and you don’t expect them to spell out words like a marching band.
You know that Newton was a mysticist; right? An alchemist that believed in magic? A liar and an intellectual thief? Perhaps you have a new hero.
@Grossman: These days, theoretical scientists and experimental scientists dont even speak to each other, a sure sign of a very big problem.
That’s funny, because I AM a full-time research scientist in an applied reality-based science, and my theories have to be proven by extensive and thorough confirming experimentation, most of which I perform myself and some of which are done by my colleagues and their graduate students at my direction.
You don’t know what you are talking about; perhaps you should stick to topics where your inexperience is not so glaring.
@Grossman: A cobweb, an onion, a chair, a piece of tissue, a flower. They are all out there, in reality, and so are you.
How do you fail to grasp that these are generalizations? A “chair” can take a million forms, even weird forms we don’t recognize at first, until we discover its function. No two cobwebs are identical, we recognize them as a generalization. The word “flower” does not describe anything specific; they can be the size of pinheads or the size of a person, a Gerber Daisy and a Rose and Baby’s Breath are all flowers. They don’t even have to have stems and bulbs. We recognize something is a flower by its function, as we recognize a stove, house, a horse, a rock, a fireman.
Even when we are talking about a specific entity, we speak from generalizations. If I talk about a horse named Secretariat, what we think is special about Secretariat are the things he did that other horses did not. How do we know? because we have generalized horses, and even race horses, and Secretariat’s characteristics are improbably far from our averaged-out mental model; and that is what is special about Secretariat.
The opposite can be true, too: A specimen can be special because it matches our averaged mental model uncannily; so it fires no exception neurons. Beauty (in people and animals) is this way; in numerous experiments, if we simply average a large number of female faces (or males, or children, or elderly) using the biometrics of face construction, and put that simulated face among the real faces that it averaged and hold a “beauty contest,” the average face is rated in the top few percent or often, as the most perfect of the faces.
Our sense of who is beautiful has a large component of who has the least number of flaws; the most beautiful women (or men) are so close to the average, or our mental model generalization of that gender, that we see nothing wrong with them. (I say large because it is not the only one; there are some variations that “help” beauty if they are found in isolation and are not construed as indicators of ill health; like striking eye color or Cindy Crawford’s mole.)
I will note this procedure also works in other races and cultures; because their average mental model of a woman is build from their own subjective experience and the women to whom they have been exposed.
Everything in the brain works the same way. We may begin with concrete observations, but we fit them into generalized models that split and become deep hierarchies of nested models; and from these we infer rules of characteristics and behaviors, and THAT is what we reason with. The concrete items are discarded, lost from short term memory almost immediately, and you reason with and about rules.
There is no concrete “woman” out there; there is your own, subjective mental model of a woman constructed from your own unique encounters with women, and supplemented by taught knowledge of women, from which you derived your own unique view of how woman act, think, work, play and emote.
We don’t think about “concretes,” we think about generalizations. On some level, “thinking about something” means shuffling around the rules and characteristics to understand something new or find a way to do something new that comports with the expectations produced by the unique model we have. Thinking about something is basically predicting the future based on generalized models.
But we do not all have the same model of anything; they are highly correlated because by chance we all encounter enough tables that we don’t argue too much about what counts as a table and what does not. But the differences in the models, especially large scale models of behavior and thinking and culture, are the difference that blow up into arguments and wars.
Tony C
> An entity is a thing,” as if that actually conveys any meaning or distinction whatsoever; and in fact is simply untrue.
A tree, a window, a piece of paper, a chicken liver sandwich, a tube radio, a pillowcase, an ant, an Alfa Romeo 2000 GT. These and all the other entities in the concrete material universe are the basis of all reasoning. If you are not reasoning about these, including all their properties, then you are not reasoning. The rationalist method of introspecting prior to perception is invalid. It provides no knowledge of reality, regardless of the complexity of your symbolization of whatever intellectual flotsam and jetsam you have created in your imagination. When Newton wanted to learn about nature he did not commune with the spirits in a darkened room as jasmine incense floated about on a breeze (altho there were scientists influenced by Cartesian and Kantian subjectivism who did that, including one pinhead who “studied” light in a dark room. Newton looked out at reality, abstracted common properties from star and planet motions, the tides, pendulum motions, that falling apple, etc. Then ,with reality-based math (the science of the quantitative relations among entities), he integrated the abstractions into the concepts of gravity and his three laws of motion. Of course, this was prior to Kant’s comprehensive attack on the mind, when Aristotle’s realism guided thought. Since then, its been all downhill at differing rates for, eg, physical and the human sciences. These days, theoretical scientists and experimental scientists dont even speak to each other, a sure sign of a very big problem.
To paraphrase ’60s bluesrocker extraordinare, Johnny Winter, “Reality’s sneakin’ up on you. It’s gonna get you wherever you go.”
A cobweb, an onion, a chair, a piece of tissue, a flower. They are all out there, in reality, and so are you. There are no alternate universes. This is it, bubie, better get used to it. Its not going anywhere and neither are you, regardless of any intellectual squinting.
Subjectivity is not a pipeline to an alleged supernatural realm. Look out at reality!
Tony C.
@Grossman: one cannot reason about an individual tree. One can only reason from a generalization of trees, and by identifying rules that seem to apply to most trees. We say, “They have leaves.” But wait, this one has needles, and this other one has no leaves at all, because we encountered it in winter. We say, “They grow to a fork, of two or more branches.” But we are looking at Oaks, and pines are trees, but do not grow to a fork.
Have you ever considered that your ideas may have disintegrated your mind below even perception, that your consciousness is limited to momentary sensations and floating abstractions not logically derived from the concrete, material universe? Perhaps I’m right. It’s a possibility. Everything is possible, so sayeth modernist intellectuals. You can’t absolutely refute my conjecture or be certain that your mind is functioning for anything more than survival on the level of a brute animal, perhaps a cockroach. Or maybe youre a blade of grass on the African veldt or Argentinian pampas that, inexplicably acquired the power of reflection. Perhaps you will describe the phenomenology of uncertainty. Can you say with certainty that there is a meaningful distinction between Progressive thought and schizophrenic babbling? Are you certain that you are reading from a computer monitor? Maybe your brain is in a vat and technicians are fiddling with electrical inputs to observe stimulus-response correlations. Maybe. Can you be certain its impossible? Do you even exist? Maybe you don’t. Maybe. Maybe youre an anomaly, a temporary disturbance, in Nonexistence. Maybe. Could it seem that way?
>Acorns do not all grow into oaks, because some don’t grow at all.
Consider studying Aristotle on potentiality and actuality to unconfuse yourself. Acorns have the potentiality to actualize into oaks, whether they end up as a squirrel’s dinner or on an “odd little items” shelf on my kitchen table or not. Reality is real. Its not an artifact of eating a poorly cooked hamburger. As Marianne Faithfull sang, “We’ve been trying to get high without having to pay.”
>”They [trees] have leaves.” But wait, this one has needles, and this other one has no leaves at all
“…the concept “table.” The child’s mind isolates two or more tables from other objects, by focusing on their distinctive characteristic: their shape. He observes that their shapes vary, but have one characteristic in common: a flat, level surface and support(s). He forms the concept “table” by retaining that characteristic and omitting all particular measurements, not only the measurements of the shape, but of all the other characteristics of tables (many of which he is not aware of at the time).” Rand
Tree refers to a certain kind of plant, ,w/certain characteristics whose measurements differ with different trees and different kind of trees. Rand has identified the process of conceptualizing our perceptions of concrete reality. To use the argument from authority, university philosophers and others are starting to use her theory as a method. One scientist has used her theory to explain object-oriented computing (which I dont understand). There is no need for complexity-worshipping skepticism or ignoring complexity with mysticism. Look out at reality! Analysis is a step along the conceptual path to integration. Reason is the identification and integration of perceptions. We must find the One in the Many and not get trapped in either alone. Reason is means, not an end. Rationalism and empiricism are mind/body splits.
“A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted….[Concepts] represent classifications of observed existents according to their relationships to other observed existents.” Rand
I hesitate to include more of Rand on concepts because it is extremely technical, perhaps unsuitable for this forum. I wanted to merely indicate her solution. Reasoning starts in concrete reality as perceived, not inside consciousness. Introspection is possible on on the basis of perception.
Brain science provides only the material causes that give rise to consciousness. Consciousness can also be studied as consciousness, with its specific characteristics, integrations and differentiation. Thats the function of epistemology, a field of study that has reverted to primitivism, a view in which mind and its functioning are unknown.
Tony C.
@Grossman: Sacrifice is immoral.
> the vast majority of people all over the world think the opposite.
Argument from bloviation.
>I don’t know what YOU mean by “objective conditions of survival,”
Then how can you claim that a Progressive society is better than others or that a Nazi society is destructive? Without a rational morality, man is reduced to moral imbecility, an important concept from 19th century law.
Man’s basic means of survival is his mind. From making stone clubs to computers, man uses his mind. Since, in society, other people may initiate the use of force to stop one from acting on the judgment of one’s own mind, man needs freedom from the initiation of force.
Me
>Consciousness cannot be perceived nor logically related to perception (eg, atoms can be logically connected to things we can perceive).
Forget this. I dont know why I said it. Perhaps reading the subjectivist nonsense here temporarily unhinged me. But Im hinged now.
Although I will note you start in with the scripture again, I may not get past that drivel. “An entity is a thing,” as if that actually conveys any meaning or distinction whatsoever; and in fact is simply untrue. You are captured by lies and half truths masquerading as full truths, and probabilities masquerading as certainties, Stephen.
@Grossman: Trees are real. One can perceive them and reason about them. “Acorns grow into oaks” is an identification of something that exists in reality.
No, one cannot reason about an individual tree. One can only reason from a generalization of trees, and by identifying rules that seem to apply to most trees. We say, “They have leaves.” But wait, this one has needles, and this other one has no leaves at all, because we encountered it in winter. We say, “They grow to a fork, of two or more branches.” But we are looking at Oaks, and pines are trees, but do not grow to a fork.
Acorns do not all grow into oaks, because some don’t grow at all. And you just infer that acorns grow into oaks by the generalization of “seeds into plants”; without that generalization in mind, you might instead notice that squirrels horde and eat them and then have a litter, so you might infer that acorns are the seeds of baby squirrels.
One reasons from rules; and the rules are generalizations of the form of “If X is probably true, then Y is somewhat more likely.” On the rail, this takes the form of “If X, then Y,” but neurons do not typically hit the rail; they are much more probability engines than hard switches.
That is just brain science.
As for objectivity, I will note that the idea that the tree is a collection of atoms and is “real” is also a generalization. Nobody has seen an electron, or photon, or quark. We infer their existence by their behavior. You don’t see a photon; the photon’s behavior is to add energy to a rod in the form of an electron that causes neurons to fire more electrons. Nobody has seen an electron either, they are a hypothesized particle and Maxwell’s equations tell us what they will do and what effect they will have, and those consequences happen reliably, but nobody has seen them. For the longest time nobody had seen atoms, either, but we knew of them by their behavior, and relationships, even though those are completely mechanical and almost perfectly predictable, that is still how we know them, and how we classify them: For example, “metals” share a certain set of behaviors and reactions.
I’ve got work to do today, I will look at the rest of your post tomorrow.
Tony C
>And what we spend the most time reasoning about is the most subjective thing of all: emotions.
You condemn yourself very succintly.
Tony C
>Relationships and generalizations are not supernatural, they are real.
I erred. Relationships are real. And generalizations (contra my earlier post) are identifications of causes, ,ie, a specific kind of consciousness of existence. Eg, paper burns from fire. Consciousness cannot be perceived nor logically related to perception (eg, atoms can be logically connected to things we can perceive). Reason requires distinguishing existence from the consciousness of existence. Trees are real. One can perceive them and reason about them. “Acorns grow into oaks” is an identification of something that exists in reality. But my identification of that is my consciousness of something that exists. Since you claim generalizations are real and they are not, you imply what Plato made explicit, a world of Forms which is real.
If you cannot distinguish existence from your consciousness of it, that may be a difficulty in introspection (or a psychological problem, as with schizophrenia) but there is no philosophical problem. There may be another kind of problem if youre waiting for a traffic light and dont know if the red light is a state of your consciousness, like the anticipation of arriving home for supper, or if its out there in reality. I would, personally, solve the problem before stepping on the gas pedal. You might not. Everyone should do his own thing. I would note however, that force equals mass times acceleration. You, however, are free to test one of Newton’s laws to discover if motion is in your consciousness rather than out there in reality. Please let me know the result of this philosophical experiment. Include a vector analysis , if you dont mind.
“An entity means a self-sufficient form of existence—as against a quality, an action, a relationship, etc., which are simply aspects of an entity that we separate out by specialized focus. An entity is a thing.” Leonard Peikoff
There are no relationships of relationships ad infinitum. There are entities that are related. The moon revolves about Earth. If moon and Earth vanished, there would be no revolution left behind and hanging about like a ghost, perhaps pining for another planet and moon to come along.
>>Generalizations and concepts are not real,
>Yes, they are. They correspond to specific, real neural synaptical maps;
Youve changed from generalizations and concepts to “correspond to specific, real neural synaptical maps.” You can perceive neurons via an electron microscope but you wont find theories of brain functioning there.
Youre evading the difference between the reality you perceive and your understanding of it. Plato and Aristotle refuted materialism 2400 yrs ago.
I urge you to catch up altho it would put a crimp in your Marxism.
>when we destroy the connections then your generalization or concept is physically destroyed. That means it was real.
Id be fascinated by a description of the logic of your claim because I, personally (Hey, Im just that kind of guy), find no logical link between your first and second sentences. I do, however, suggest that consciousness requires a brain as its material cause. Did you know that philosophers make the best comedians because they know the basic contradictions? Or that the Presocratic philosophers had better one-liners than Henny Youngman?
>Of course they are not innate to consciousness, for many people their generalizations and concepts survive a deep coma.
I stated in an earlier post that concepts are volitional, thus cannot be innate. Surviving a coma! This is very optimistic. Sometimes mine dont survive a nights sleep as I try to recall my wit of the past eve or look at the scrawl I made on a bar napkin. And then, of course, theres the hideous tragedy of the unfinished “Kubla Khan” when Coleridge’s opiated and psychedelic creativity was cruelly interrupted by a buffoon knocking on his door. I hope Sammy gave him a good thrashing.
“Thought is not necessarily connected to a brain,” according to CS Peirce, founder of American Pragmatism and influential in philosophy of science. I wrote a paper on his theory of concepts and occasionally return to it when I’m stoned on some fine weed. Its quite amusing. For one thing, he had no theory of concepts, a claim that proved vexatious to my American Philosophy professor, perhaps because he had written a book on Peirce. Ah, the memories….As a subjectivist like Peirce, do you find his claim disturbing or hopeful?
>> Grossman says: Consciousness is the consciousness of existence.
This is bullshit blather and circular to boot. You don’t know what consciousness is, nor do I, nor does anybody else on the planet
Its not a circular definition because its not a definition. Definitions are of our conceptual consciousness of existence. We need to know what our concepts include and exclude so we identify the property that explains most of the other properties in a context. You wouldnt want to slop over from food to poison even if your tribe says its fine and dandy to eat that strange, oozing, black fungus growing in the shade of a holy tree. The conceptual consciousness of existence is the context of definition and cannot, itself be defined. It doesnt need to be.
“An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest.” Rand
“The first and primary axiomatic concepts are “existence,” “identity” (which is a corollary of “existence”) and “consciousness.” One can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or “prove”) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to “prove” them is self-contradictory: it is an attempt to “prove” existence by means of non-existence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness.)” Rand
> you are not convinced by logic
For you, logic is a particular social agreement, so you are correct. My mind’s conclusions are my intellectual court of final appeal, even when I learn from others. Ive not found a substitute for independent judgment.
You, apparently, have. How’s that working for you? It must be exciting to be continually focused (and I use that word lightly) on the very latest social twists and wrinkles. My looking out at reality must seem mundane by comparison. Oh, well. Ce la vie!
I want to thank you for evoking memories of the chuckles and guffaws I experienced listening to lectures from university “intellectuals” who worshipped complexity as if it protected them from a demon who lay in wait outside of their fine-tuned subjectivity. Perhaps we can share a few beers and chat if I’m ever in your neighborhood. I drink St. Pauli Girl but will settle for Stella Artois.
tony c
>they would rather be dead than continue to live knowing they let somebody they love die when they could have prevented it.
This is selfish, not a sacrifice, because the person in trouble is of personal value to the person trying to help them.
> Doesn’t the sacrificer have the right to choose to spend his life as he sees fit?
>Yes, within the political context of not initiating force against others but his choices may be moral or immoral.
>Tony C.
@Grossman: Altruism is not a demand, it is a choice, and the choice is not to sacrifice success and happiness but to share it.
If morality is not a demand, ie, an obligation, then its not morality. And youre implying that accepting morality in principle or a particular morality is arbitrary. Ie, that accepting or rejecting morality is arbitrary. And you hold that everyone is morally obligated to be altruistic.
Sharing is sacrificing in this context. There is no moral obligation to share your moral right to your life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. Its yours, absolutely. Youre merely calling the concept of sacrifice by many different names. But a rose is a rose…
>Altruism is the choice to effect a net gain by giving something one can afford to give.
So when gasoline companies sell gasoline because they can afford to give it when there is a net gain (ie, profit, which is immoral acc/to altruism) , they are altruist?! You are not serious about understanding morality. You want the good feeling of intending to sacrifice without the consequences of sacrifice. And even wanting the good feeling contradicts the intention to sacrifice. Kant says you should do your duty, not because you enjoy it, but from duty alone. Your desire for that good feeling means that you are not moral. You should do it even without that good feeling. Youre hanging on to (conventonal) selfishness unless you sacrifice your desire for that good feeling. In fact, Kant says that only if you contradict that desire can you know that you are moral. Ie, you have an obligation, not merely to sacrifice, but to suffer! “…the suffering which the new [dutiful] man, in becoming dead to the old [selfishness], must accept throughout life…” That’s sacrifice!
There is no moral obligation to give your values to others. They are yours by moral right. And youre confusing altruism w/benevolence. The widest characteristic of altruism, which most widely distinguishes it from selfishness is sacrifice. Sacrifice is the defining characteristic. Without you having a net loss, there is no sacrifice. You have a duty to lose your values.
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“Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.”
“Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: “No.” Altruism says: “Yes.””
Rand
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>if Suzy is being beaten by her husband
This is not a moral concern. Placing something other than one’s own life and happiness as one’s basic value is an evasion of moral responsibility for one’s own life. Morality is a concern with your own life and happiness ,with everything else , including others, including lovers and friends and family, as means to the end. Each individual has an absolute moral right to their own life. Others are mere means to your end. Would you marry if you didnt love the woman but because she wanted marriage?! Would you tell her that you had no personal interest in a marriage w/her but were being altruist? I would watch out for things flying thru the air! Sacrifice destroys the benevolence that selfish people have for each other. If you respect someone for their values and you know that they dont think that you have a duty to sacrifice to them, that they are not a danger to your life, you can be pleased that they are alive to offer the sight of a morally respectful person. The benevolent sense of life of much of 19th century art vs the nihilism of 20th century art symbolizes my meaning. Compare Victor Hugo to Sartre! The 19th century retained some ,declining, influence from the pro-reason, 18th century Enlightenment. In pop culture, romanticism lasted longer, even to some extent, today. Consider the characters played by John Wayne: always men of great moral self-respect. But today, much of pop culture is a bizarrely vulgar nihilism. Slasher movies, heavy metal rock, the mindless anger of much rap “music,” the “singer,” Lady Gaga , the substitution of personality for moral character in many movies and TV drama .the reality TV shows which follow the antics of moral imbeciles. Paris Hilton! The cleverly cynical quip instead of a moral insight. This is the nihilism of Weimar Germany. Why does classical and romantic music not have the wide following and progressive creativity that it had til the early 20th century with, perhaps, Rachmaninoff. Why are the great composers in the past?
>the world is better off if I give up the $1000 I won’t even miss in my finances
You have a moral obligation to be concerned with your own life. You have no moral obligation to improve the world. Rand’s stated purpose in writing was to create a moral ideal and to create a culture that respected man the rational animal and selfish achievement. It was not charity nor other-directed.
>Using it to finance Suzy’s escape, however, increases my happiness
Charity is not a moral virtue. Its optional. Happiness at sacrificing self is an irrational happiness, not a happiness from holding one’s own life and happiness as one’s primary moral values. Happiness is not a standard (contra hedonism) but a purpose. The standard is rational selfishness ,ie, your own life by a rational standard. If you are rationally selfishness, you might be happy (because other people and bad luck can interfere). If you are not rationally selfish, you cannot be happy by a rational standard. You can have a very superficial, short-term happiness that actually works against your life.
@Grossman: his is a rationalization of faith in the supernatural.
No, it isn’t. Relationships and generalizations are not supernatural, they are real. I don’t believe in the supernatural, in any way.
Grossman says: Entities are the primary existents.
No, they are not, unless you are making the meaningless claim that everything is made of some sort of stuff. If so, like I said, pointless.
Grossman says: Generalizations and concepts are not real,
Yes, they are. They correspond to specific, real neural synaptical maps; if we destroy the connections then your generalization or concept is physically destroyed. That means it was real. Of course they are not innate to consciousness, for many people their generalizations and concepts survive a deep coma.
Grossman says: Consciousness is the consciousness of existence.
This is bullshit blather and circular to boot. You don’t know what consciousness is, nor do I, nor does anybody else on the planet.
Rand solved nothing, Peikoff solved nothing, although I have no doubt they claimed to know something, just like any televangelist would. You are consumed by a religion; you are not convinced by logic, you are not convinced when your religion cannot solve a problem, and that is virtually the definition of blind faith. Good luck with that.
>Tony C
We do not reason about objects, we reason about relationships and generalizations; it is the generalizations of behavior and reactions that let us infer the rules with which we reason,
This is a rationalization of faith in the supernatural. God must be obeyed (the objectless generalization), therefore (the inference) we must….
Entities are the primary existents. Relationships are relationships among entities. Generalizations are generalizations of entities as related.
Generalizations and concepts are not real, as Plato thought, nor innate to consciousness, as Kant thought. They are methods of being rationally conscious of existence, ie, they are the product of the interaction of existence and consciousness. We know reality by a specific means in a specific form. Consciousness is the consciousness of existence. Everything has an identity. Existence is identity. Consciousness is the identification of existence. Thus our consciousness of existence has an identity. I see my computer monitor in a certain form. A bee sees it in another form, having a different means. Both the bee and I see the monitor. We do not see form. Form is the way we see it. Man, of course, with reason, can know his forms of consciousness. But they are derivative.
Rand solved Plato’s problem of the concrete-abstraction relation.
Peikoff solved the problem of induction. There is no rational justification for subjectivism.
@Grossman: Meaning is objective,
No, it isn’t. Ayn Rand may want it to be, but words do not mean what she says they mean just because she says they mean that. She is not the dictator of meaning.
What words mean is collectively subjective. The words “romantic love” do not describe anything one can point at and measure. Those words are not objective, but they also describe a transformative experience for the vast majority of people on the planet. So what do those words mean? They have a subjective meaning, each person experiences romantic love in their own way, but they recognize that their feelings, obsessions and impulses can be generalized and therefore translated to other people; and that is what the words mean to them, that collection of behaviors and irrational acts they acted out when they were first in love with somebody else.
All words are subjective, not objective. If I say the word “car,” it makes you think of YOUR car, even if I am talking about my car, but you have never seen MY car. And vice versa. For me and for you, the neurons that fire on the word “car” connect to different memories, prime different expectations, and link to different experiences, but some of the experiences are closely matched enough we can usually generalize and share. Have you ever had to stop short? Yeah, me too. But my experience and yours are completely different concrete experiences at different times and on different roads for different reasons. They are entirely personal; and therefore subjective.
Ayn Rand was wrong from the start. We do not reason about objects, we reason about relationships and generalizations; it is the generalizations of behavior and reactions that let us infer the rules with which we reason, and these do NOT only arise from “objects,” relationships are equally about people, minds, animals, abstract things like calculus and number theory and generalizations of behavior like psychology, and evolution. There is no object we can visualize that is a “species,” or “phylum,” or a “right” or “anger.” Those are generalized concepts about behavior and actions we expect or rules we believe will apply.
And what we spend the most time reasoning about is the most subjective thing of all: emotions. We use reason to manipulate our path into a future that will make us happy, or satisfied, or relieved, or less fearful or whatever. We reason about other people’s emotions, and how those will affect us, and how they will react, because we have inferred rules of behavior for them, too. That is what reason is for, it is a tool under the command and control of the emotional centers of the brain to provide an estimate of the long term ramifications of acting on short term desires, and the estimate may or may not change whether (or how) the short term desires are acted upon. Nothing more.
The rational mind is not in charge, for you or anyone. Brain damage studies have shown, when the emotional center is damaged, the rational mind functions fine but doesn’t even know how to be in charge or make a damn decision. Decisions aren’t its job! It will defer endlessly to the damaged amygdalae that never answer. People without emotions are functionally disabled, they will rationally explore for hours the most trivial decisions, like which tie to wear. (Without their amygdalae they don’t get bored or frustrated with this; those are emotions too.) Physical medical science disproves the claims of ANY philosopher that claimed the intellect is in charge, it is simply and provably false.