Recently in Philosophy Category

The great thing about ideas with reach is that you don't need to learn that many to be set upon the right path.

Here are 5 ideas with reach, that if you took seriously would allow you to do better than most on lots of stuff:

1) Human minds are universal computers. That means, it's possible for them to do any computation. That means it's possible for them to learn anything.

2) Learning is the exact same process as creating. When someone learns from a book, he's re-creating the knowledge from the book in his own mind.

3) Learning happens by the person making conjectures (guesses) about what a true theory (explanation of something) is, and then criticising it (trying to find flaws in the theory), and then fixing it by conjecturing what might fix the problems. Teachers can only help with this process, not do it for them.

4) In this way, knowledge is evolutionary. Learning is mutation (editing theories) and selection (picking the edits that make it better).
You can also have knowledge without learning, e.g. a species gets more knowledge about how to adapt to its environment by mutation (random changes in genes) and selection (genes that help get themselves copied, survive).

5) In order to learn anything, one must do this process described above. There is no other known process of learning. This means that if an entity can learn one thing, it has the ability to learn anything.

These ideas have consequences. Take (5): this means that we won't be able to have true 'intelligent cars' that learn stuff. By the time we get a car computer that can learn roads and drive for us, it will be able to learn anything, and so would be human. (Note: a car could 'learn' stuff if it's just blindly following a particular program/algorithm. But that's not really learning, it's just analysing data according to a code.)

And (5) means that either animals can't learn, or they're people (saying they're people leads to questions like: why haven't they created anything? why does it look like they can't learn some things?).

It also means that if children can learn at all, they can learn just as well as an adult can. More precisely: there aren't special fields of knowledge that children just can't learn for some reason. Which means that it is not the case that children are unable understand some things (like 'sense of self as distinct from others' or 'future consequences'). They may not have learnt it yet, but there's no reason to suppose they don't have the ability to.

It also means that mental illnesses or disabilities do not render people unable to learn specific things. Either they have lost their ability to learn, and can't learn at all, or they retain their ability to learn, and can learn anything. It's possible that severe brain damage could cause someone to do this a lot more *slowly* (or perhaps lose some of the knowledge he once had if the part of his brain where it was kept got damaged), but lack of speed doesn't mean lack of being able to comprehend.

So, this one idea applies to lots of different fields and issues. It's not just about computation, or teaching, or whatever -- it has wider implications, it reaches to other stuff too. And it has important consequences for the ideas it reaches to: for example, it means it's possible to persuade a child instead of force them.

What an idea reaches to might not be obvious. You'll have to learn how to apply it, and work out individual situations. But it'll be much quicker and involve fewer errors than if you had to work out the conclusions just from the details of the situation. For any given situation, you can check it against the theories with reach.

A relationship is not a thing. It's a shorthand for 'the set of interactions you have with a person'. But people often treat it like a thing. They do things 'for the relationship'. One could interpret this as doing some stuff in order to make other stuff better/longer/whatever, but I don't think that's how people think about it. They don't think about how or even whether the other interactions are affected.

If one is rational and has relationships to the extent one has shared interests with someone, that means the more you change your interests, the less you will have reason to interact.

This applies to romantic relationships, too. If you think of relationships as things, growth in different directions is a threat to the relationship. What this actually means is that if you grow in different directions (if you lose interest in stuff you used to do together), you will have less in common, so less stuff to base your interactions on, so you will interact less.

Because of this misconception about relationships being things, some people fear the loss of the relationship. But this is nothing to fear. Either the interactions will be good and they will continue, or they won't be and then it will be good to stop, and spend your time doing something better instead.

I think that there is only one way to science - or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it and to live with it happily, till death do ye part - unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting, though perhaps difficult, problem children, for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days." -- Karl Popper

This contrasts with the conventional wisdom that says we do all these tests in science in order to get to the Solution, which we may then be happy with.

In real life, being in a state of no problems isn't fun -- it's boring. If you have no problems, you're not working towards anything; you're not growing; you're not creating anything. All creative acts involve some kind of problem-solving.

The real thing we should be excited about when we solve problems isn't the fact they're over and done with and now we can relax without them -- it's the discovery of new, better and more interesting problems.

Philosophy and science are different in one respect: scientific theories can be tested by experiment, philosophy can't.

What does this mean?

All the stuff other than testing is done the same. So, how much of this other stuff is there? How similar are they really?

Testing is the act of taking two (or more) theories with different predictions, and finding out which prediction happens by doing an experiment. The theory that fails the test (predicts something different from what actually happens) is eliminated, or changed to account for the unaccounted-for result.

Tests only happen when we have two viable theories. If one of them makes less sense than the other -- has more holes/problems, or doesn't explain as much as the other theory, or whatever -- then the other is preferred by default, and no test to see which is better is necessary. ('Cause if you can already see which is better...)

I say two theories, but it could be that there are more than two rivals on at one time. The thing is, that's rare. It's rare enough at the leading edge of science that we have one viable theory, let alone two, let alone more than two. Usually, when there are rivals, we can eliminate all but one or two by just using criticism. Tests only come in after we've done that.

So, what is there other than testing?

First, there's coming up with a theory in the first place. We do this by guessing what might be the case, and guessing explanations for it. In other words: conjecture. (We do not induce theories from observation -- though we can criticise our theories using observation.)

Then, there's criticism. We criticise the theory to see if it makes sense, to see if it's better than its rivals, to see if it explains what it purports to, and so on. We try to find problems with the theory.

When we find problems, we try to solve them. Either we will change the theory to account for the problems, or we'll come up with a new rival theory that has fewer/less-severe problems, or we'll discover the things we thought were problems are actually OK or explained already.

This process of criticising our theories and changing them to solve problems is intense. Or at least, it should be. Scientists tend to do it pretty well -- they're rigourous, or at least have a culture that encourages being rigorous. Philosophers... not so much. Half of them don't even believe in objective truth, which can be a bit of a damper if you're trying to find it.

Most people have the impression that philosophy is this wishy-washy, personal/subjective thing that you talk about to sound deep. Some people have an idea of what it is, but it's mixed in with this wishy-washy conception of it. It's no secret that most people barely know what it is; most philosophy classes start with the question, "What is 'philosophy'?" (starting a history class asking "What is 'history'?" would be absurd).

But philosophy is only different in this one way. To make good progress in philosophy, it needs just as much rigour as science (or even more, considering we don't have testing to help us out).

Well... from the 'testing' difference, you could say another difference is that science and philosophy discuss different problems. Science is about the problems/theories regarding things we can test for (physics, chemistry, and so on), philosophy is about the problems/theories regarding things we can't (morality, epistemology, etc.). But their methodology is the same (well, up until the point where you actually test stuff -- which, by the way, doesn't always happen for any given theory. A theory can be scientific without being tested; it just needs to be testable).

But it's not just philosophy that has this similarity to science. All fields where one can make progress involves this conjecture-and-criticism process. And to be good at them, they all involve some degree of rigour.

When you force children to do things you think are good (or to not do things you think are bad), that means that any irrationalities you have will be passed on to them (because they can't properly try out dissenting ideas).

If you're wrong, and you force the child to do whatever it is regardless, it will be hard for either of you to find out, and so it will be hard for the child to make progress beyond your current ideas. Not just that, but it will be hard for either of you to find out whether you were right, too.

For example, in economics, if we make something government-funded before trying it out on the market, we won't know whether it would have been a success or not. Maybe it was a great product and it would have sold a lot. Maybe it was a terrible idea and would have flopped. If we just subsidise it, we can't tell either way.

Ideas have consequences. The idea that you shouldn't force kids to do stuff means you shouldn't force them to: brush their teeth, go to school, not play with fire, be social, not play on the roof, do chores, not watch TV, go outside, go to bed, learn to read, eating 'healthy', sharing toys, exercise, etc., etc. This means that if they want to do these things, they should be allowed to.

What you should do is offer advice. If your reasons for doing or not doing whatever it is are good, the child will want to follow the advice. If the child still doesn't, that means he has unanswered criticism. Forcing children to do stuff they don't want to do is an anti-criticism approach (which is very bad, because criticism of flawed ideas is the only way to make progress to less flawed ideas).

Related link:
* Don't expect people to disagree

It's often thought that the sciences require a more critical attitude than the 'humanities'/'arts' (including, sadly, philosophy), and the arts are thought to be subjective. (Art being subjective leads to absurd conclusions like that a Beethoven symphony is no better than the sound of banging on pots and pans randomly.)

This kinda screws up the fields, because it means people aren't even trying to get closer to the truth.

In art, we can see a big difference between the modern art movement and when people do it because the market wants good stuff.

Using authorities to back up your arguments is not only pointless and false (justificationism), but a danger to rationality: if you have a favourite authority and have invested a lot in that authority, you may be defensive/resistant when someone challenges his ideas (even if they're not his main ideas, and you would agree otherwise). Talking about ideas doesn't run into that problem.

A common error made by people trying to draw is that they draw what they think they see, rather than what is actually there. Since the brain is specialised in creating and interpreting symbols, people draw the symbols (e.g. "An eye is an almond shape with a circle in it"), instead of their real shapes (e.g. "Eyes are made of many components, such as eyelids, eyelashes, tear ducts, wrinkles, and more, and those are represented by types of lines, etc.").

The advice they are usually given is "Draw from life" or "Draw what you see". But this is rarely helpful. They will often just continue to make the same mistakes, and not know why or how to improve.

From the point of view of the artist giving advice, it seems accurate. Just look at what's there, and draw that. Draw what you see, not what you think you see. It seems fairly straightforward; why don't beginners just take this advice?

The reason is that all observation is theory-laden. Even if you look at stuff and try to draw it, you still won't improve unless you improve your theories of what's there, or how to look at it, or how to translate what you see into marks on paper. The artist already has the theories about how to draw. We can't induce those theories just from looking at stuff.

---

Summary: To draw well, you have to learn what to see when you look at stuff and try to draw it. Artists say that if you just practice drawing from life, you'll learn it. This is wrong for the same reason the 'problem of induction' is wrong: we first have theories, and only interpret what we see through those theories. We can't just 'observe' without knowing what to observe.

Lots of people who don't understand meme theory think fads are memes, and therefore they're bad or somehow not to be respected.

Fads are memes, but they're not bad. They're temporary/parochial rational memes. In other words, they're ideas that are useful to people in a particular culture for a while. They make life better for those people.

Nothing bad about them. Stop disrespecting young people. (Fads are mostly associated with young people.)

In debates, people rarely try to persuade others. They say they want to, and they talk as if they want to*, but they don't act as one'd expect if they were trying to persuade.

To be persuasive, one must find a way of explaining that appeals the other person's knowledge and current values. If you argue that hitting kids is wrong using the premise that violence towards children is always wrong, but the person doesn't agree with that premise, he won't be persuaded by that argument. If, instead, you argue that hitting kids is wrong because kids are people, and the person has the belief "violence towards people is always wrong", you will appeal to his values and understanding of the world -- so you might make headway.

Your argument has to solve something in his problem situation.

But most people don't even try to do this. They just make arguments they think should work, regardless of that person's problem-situation. They don't stop and think, "I wonder what his misconception is. Perhaps it's ..." or "What new way of explaining this argument could appeal to his current values? Oh, maybe he'd like this explanation ..." Instead, they think things like, "Argh, he just doesn't get it!" or "I wish he was more rational, then maybe he'd understand. >_< " or "But this argument is self-evident!" or "He's not listening at all..." They're not sympathetic. They don't realise that they should try to understand where the person is coming from when they make an argument, not just when they're listening to the other person's.

So what would it look like if someone was trying to persuade? More interestingly, what would be effective? Here are some good things to start with:
-Start with something they agree with and explain or show why
--it's consistent with your argument.
--your argument follows from it.
--it's interesting to them (using their knowledge and values to explain why it's interesting).
-Look out for when they have a misunderstanding of what you're saying, and correct it.
-Look out for your misunderstandings too, and ask questions to try to correct them.
-Stick to one point at a time. You might have the impulse to correct everything they say that's false all at once, but this is usually just more confusing for them. Get them to agree to things in bite-sized chunks. If there's a complex idea that has lots of parts to it, try to find a way to split it up.
-Understand your opponent's view. Don't just assume you know it. You probably don't, so ask lots of questions to find out.

Acting friendly, patient and sympathetic helps too.

* Actually, sometimes they deny that they're in debates to persuade (because they think that's unlistening or bigoted), and say they have them to learn from the other person instead. But usually it slips out that their goal is persuasion -- they don't act like they want to learn rival ideas, and they are pleased when the other person concedes (regardless of whether the person actually understands what he's conceding to). Also, less serious people sometimes start debates for the drama instead of the content. But I'm not talking about those people.

A lot of people have the misconception that objective morality means that there are certain things that are right or wrong, regardless of the situation or context.

They also usually have a misconception about what morality is. Their idea of morality is something like: there are specific rules that if you follow, you are 'good', and if you don't follow, you are considered bad.

Many people think they are relativists because of this, or they decide to adopt a moral philosophy like Kant's Categorical Imperative, or that morality comes from God -- they adopt philosophies that are rule-based.

But in reality, 'morality is objective' means 'in any given situation, there are choices that are better or worse than each other, and it is a matter of fact that some choices are better than others'. It isn't a bunch of set rules like 'killing is always wrong', because there is always the possibility of there being factors in any given situation that would make things usually considered wrong OK to do. For example, killing might be justified if, say, a serial killer was coming at you with a knife, and the only reliable way to survive was to shoot him.

It would probably be less confusing if everyone just called morality 'choice theory', because that's all that it is: morality is the theory of making decisions.

Some people use the word 'morals' to mean something more like 'the things I think I should do/believe, but actually don't'. Someone may refrain from doing something socially unacceptable -- such as being promiscuous -- 'because of their morals'. They might still want to be promiscuous, but have decided it is 'wrong', and so don't do it.

This is missing an important fact about morality (other than, y'know, morality isn't about blindly following rules, it's about making good choices): Morality is what is actually good to do -- not just what the culture or peer pressure says is good to do. And 'what is good to do' is not just good in general, but good for you.

In other words, behaving morally should not be an unpleasant experience. It shouldn't be something that you do because you feel you have to, or would feel guilty if you didn't. It's simply about making the best choices, and the best choices for you usually include making you happy.

If you make a choice and feel bad about it, that's a sign that either you don't understand why it was the best choice, and so aren't fully persuaded, or the choice was the wrong choice. If it's the former, you should try to understand it better and work out why you might still feel bad about it. If it's the latter, then people make mistakes and that's OK, but consider how you can avoid the mistake in the future.

Related links: Choice theory; dialog about morality.

Evolution is famous. Most people have heard of it, and most people think they know what it is. But there are some popular misconceptions about it.

Okay, let's take a species. Any will do, it doesn't matter which. Now, no two of these animals are exactly the same, right? Maybe a different fur colour, or different markings, or a slightly turned up nose, or whatever. So that means that their DNA/genes (sorta like the recipe of that animal, how that animal is made) is slightly different in each individual animal. These small random[1] differences are called 'mutations' in the genes (a baby animal will again be slightly different from the mommy animal).

These differences sometimes aren't just in looks. One animal can be a bit quicker than another, or have a longer tail/better balance, or have a worse sense of smell. It can change the way the animal works/lives. If enough of these 'mutations' happen, the animal will become so different that it would be called a different species of animal.

[1] By the way, all these mutations/changes/differences (whatever you wanna call 'em) are random. I mean, you'll get most of the genes from the parents to the baby, but then there will be some little different ones that make the baby somehow different (like I said: different markings, slightly faster, etc.). We can't predict which will pop up, 'cause it's all by chance.

After many generations, some mutations spread throughout the entire population, while other mutations are still rare. Why is that? One reason is that some animals prefer mating with other animals with these mutations. So, if females of that species finds males with colourful fur attractive, it means that they'll breed more with the more colourful males, and more males in the future will have the 'colourful fur' mutation.

A more common reason is simply that some animals die because they have a mutation that doesn't work well, so they don't have a chance to pass on the mutation to their kids. If an animal has a mutation that makes it slower, it means predators have a better chance of eating it. Or there can be a mutation that makes it worse at smelling, so it can't tell if what it's eating is poisonous or not. You get the idea.

A lot of people think that 'evolving' happens to make the species better. This is so not true. What genes do is that they try make themselves as 'spreadable' and 'stick-able' as possible. Well, they don't really 'try', it just happens to be that genes that spread well and don't go away easily tend to stay with the species. Genes don't have a 'purpose' or 'try' to do stuff, it's just the way they work.

Anyway, about the 'evolution makes species better' idea: nooo. Sometimes, evolution even makes the species worse! For example, take the peacock. There was a trend in females liking large, elaborate tails (originally because a large tail generally means the peacock is healthy). So the males with bigger tails got to breed more. That made bigger and bigger tails... which, although is pretty, isn't too good for running away from foes. ... Or walking in general. >_>

This is why genes are called 'selfish'. They don't care if it makes the animal's life better or worse, it just 'cares' (remember that genes don't really 'care', they just are) about it itself being spread and replicated throughout the species.

Conjecture: Logical Positivism -- the theory that says the only statements that are meaningful are statements that are empirically verifiable (in other words, true by using observation) -- is right.
Refutation: The idea of Logical Positivism isn't empirically verifiable. So by its own definition, it's meaningless.

Conjecture: With regard to morality: just do what you think is right.
Refutation: It doesn't actually tell you anything. Whatever you end up doing, you will do it because you think it's right. The question is, 'how do you find out what to think is right?'

Conjecture: Cultural Relativism -- the theory that says there is no such thing as true/right/wrong, but only what the culture thinks it is -- is right.
Refutation: Cultural Relativism is just a piece of philosophy. It's not a physical fact. So, again by its own definition, there is no such thing as Cultural Relativism being better/truer than any other beliefs. Therefore there's no reason to believe it.

Conjecture: Utilitarianism -- the theory that says what is moral is what causes the most satisfaction for the most people (or the most happiness and the least pain) -- is right.
Refutation: It's the same as saying 'people should do whatever they want to do', which is the same as 'just do what you think is right'.
Refutation: What satisfies you partly depends on what you think is right. But to find out what is right, you must find out what satisfies you. But to find out what satisfies you...

Conjecture: Subjectivism -- the theory that says what is right and wrong is what each individual thinks or feels is right and wrong -- is right.
Refutation: I don't think it's right. So yet again, by its own definition, it's wrong. (Incidentally, it also suffers from the 'do what you think is right' problem.)

Many bad theories can be refuted just by applying them to themselves.