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chaosmosis comments on Philosophy: A Diseased Discipline - Less Wrong
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Comments (425)
Others: downvotes don't fix what problems might be in myron's thoughts. They make them worse.
Myron: preliminary note, your comment sounds a bit presumptuous and demanding.
Substance: I don't believe that rationality necessarily has a fundamental undeniable metaphysical grounding. I believe every philosophy lacks this. Problems like the problem of induction (knowledge comes from experiences and it's impossible to know that the future will be like the past) and the turtles all the way down problem (assumptions are either unwarranted or dependent on further assumptions, which makes all forms of thought either infinitely regressive or groundless) are basically insurmountable. These are problems that all philosophies face and cannot answer satisfactorily.
However, I think you're asking the wrong question. Instead of starting by looking for fundamental metaphysical justifications, which we know to be impossible, we should look to a more pragmatic and tangible level. The brute fact of our existence is that some things work and others don't, that some things seem right and others seem wrong. If someone is insistent upon denying reality, then that's their affair, but they should know that there are consequences to this rejection. I consider the rejection of reality to be viceful, because those who do so reject their own current values and intutions in favor of an embrace of an abstract form of nihilism. Nihilism is much easier than acknowledging reality, but it's also much worse, in my opinion.
Even if nothing that we see or predict or experience or value is real in an absolute and abstract and irrefutable metaphysical sense, it's real and meaningful and useful in the context of our everyday lives. The reality that we face each day is the one that I care about, not the abstract and irrefutable ideological one. That's why I support rationality even if I don't know why rationality works. The fact that it does work, or that it seems to work, is enough for me.
I also think it's relevant that the alternatives to rationality that I've seen have all been worse, in terms of logical metaphysical justification.
The expected value of attempting to fix myron's thoughts is not sufficiently high to warrant adopting it as a goal. In fact it is negative. This is due to the low probability of success and the negative externalities the attempt would produce.
Downvotes do help fix the problem of undesirable discussion being visible. In sufficient volume they would also have prevented later parts of this discussion entirely. It would have preempted the frustration that prompted "arrogant arsehole" labels and, indeed, tends to be more effective at making people "fuck off" than actually telling them to. Perhaps some voters simply saw the warning signs ahead of time?
At this point I agree, but at that point there was no real sign he'd turn out this way. What warning signs were there? Because if they were there then I missed them and I'd prefer to not miss them in the future.
This paragraph moves from (rightly) noting that we cannot establish certainty to, in the very next sentence, a confident assertion of truth without so much as an attempt at justification. Repeating unjustified claims ad nauseam is, despite the LessWrong belief that simply repeating a claim is enough to make it so, only illustrates why this project fails: the lack of justification (minus the invocation of Putnam's "no miracles" argument, which is not as ironclad as you believe) is a very real problem for the brash and sweeping generalization that "philosophy is diseased and useless".
As an aside, I find it interesting that you speak to me of "nihilism" given the argument for reductionism of the worst sort. Talk about "values devaluing themselves"; your own position is incompatible with value and meaning!
The lack of respect for philosophy here is telling; the consensus arguments here aren't even consistent, let alone capable of making informed claims to truth. You cannot simply put forth a metaphysical position -- and you are most certainly doing so despite the unwillingness to acknowledge your beliefs -- and then handwave it away as "well we think it works so we're right".
Works for what? In trivial cases of "common sense" where induction is more or less "right"? For some instances of medicine, electronics, other assorted applications of technology? I'll grant you that too.
As a totalizing and unassailable account of humanity, the natural world, all possible knowledge? Absolutely not. Given that the consensus around here is that life and mind are reducible to rationality and technology metaphors, I hardly find this position surprising, although it is all but indefensible by your own stated positions.
There is no logical way that I can prove to you that reality exists. If you want one, I am sorry. Nonetheless, my senses tell me that reality exists and that logic works and that my values are good. I accept those senses because the alternative is to embrace groundlessness and the total destruction of meaning.
You do not show how other philosophies can solve the problems I outline. You have no offense against rationalism. Rationalism has offense against other philosophies because rationalism works. Even if rationalism doesn't work, it appears to, and is the inescapable condition of my life. I can't help but think in terms of logic and induction and empiricism, and I refuse to embrace any abstract form of truth without a tangible connection to my own internal understanding of the universe.
The choice isn't between one philosophy and many, which are equally justified, but between one philosophy which is my own and the one that I can't help but believe, and others which are so abstract and deconnected from my own experiences and understanding that they fail to provide any sort of value in my life.
I don't believe that reductionism destroys value. That seems like a separate debate, anyways.
I'm not trying to do that. I'm saying that my reality is inescapably the way it currently is. If I didn't accept the metaphysical condition that I currently accept, I would believe things indiscriminately and have no ability to judge things or discern things or to make choices. However, I want to do those things. Therefore, I accept rationality. This isn't pretty, from a logical standpoint. But it's basically inevitable for anyone who wants purpose in their life.
Your alternative philosophy, whatever it might be, is at least as groundless as rationality, if not more so. If you want to reject rationality, please pick a specific paradigm and explain how it would provide an answer to the problem of induction and turtles all the way down. Otherwise, you're being unfair in your evaluation, because you place a higher burden of proof on rationality than you do on other positions.
Can you give me an example of somewhere where rationality doesn't work, where some other paradigm does? In my experience, if rationality doesn't work, it's in an area where nothing else works either. Moreover, rationality has a history of solving problems that were previously thought to be unsolvable. Therefore, I currently trust it more than alternative positions.
I have no exceptional quarrel with scientific realism nor the existence of an objective and mind-independent reality. I am however skeptical, firstly, of the idea that restricting inquiry into that domain to "rationality" is needlessly constraining, and secondly that privileging "objective" modes of inquiry leaves out very important matters -- like consciousness, ethics, and aesthetics, to name a few.
Indeed, I do not show how other philosophies may solve the problems because I question their status as problems at all. To treat everything as a "problem" that can and must be solved by Mighty Intellect is to implicitly endorse a particular epistemic, if not metaphysical, position -- a position that takes for granted a particular status of thinking subjects as they relate to mind-independent reality and other beings -- and I simply choose not to endorse that position, or more to the point, not to endorse it as uncritically as the locals here are wont to do.
To repeat my earlier point: why should rationalism be given privileged grounds? The no-miracles argument is about the only thing you've got to hang a hat on, and it is trivial to point out that there are many instances just in science alone where we don't have knowledge and may never be able to acquire it. This is without even getting into arguments about why "progress" and "doing things" should be the ultimate measuring stick of usefulness, let alone truth.
I can't speak for everyone of course but I find immense value in aesthetics and in other non-rational modes of human experience, and equally, I find myself wary of philosophies that exclude such values and treat them as meaningless.
In reality all this article has done is show that philosophy is far from dead; LessWrong has simply chosen to adopt a particularly limiting form of it and decry everything outside that sphere.
I think that rationality encompasses all of those things entirely and don't understand why you believe differently. Rationality is the tool that we use to distinguish the claims about aesthetics and consciousness and ethics that make sense from the ones that don't. A refusal to use this tool seems like it would be crippling. Other tools might still prove useful, and there are issues as to what we should do if our tools conflict, but I think rationality is the ultimate tool because it is very good at making comparisons between different things, because it uses such generalized ideas like logic. If one aesthetic claim contradicts another, only rationality can recognize that as a problem and work towards solving it.
This epistemic condition is inevitable, because you ARE a thinking subject. If you prioritize a different epistemic condition above this one I don't understand how you can go about living your life.
There's no logical reason to give rationality privileged grounds. But I think that people should choose epistemic systems which connect to their own understanding of the way reality works. I think this on a value-level basis, not a logical metaphysical one. (Side Note: I believe that values, not logical truths, are the ultimate metaphysical justification because they inherently connect to motivational states. However, I arrived at this position through the heavy use of logic, such as by trying to think of a solution to the is-ought problem. Values are the ultimate metaphysical foundation but rationality is the ultimate metaphysical tool that we use to weigh values against each other and to consider the implications of certain values, etc.)
I don't believe that aesthetics is meaningless. I don't know why you think rationality believes that.
Please show me the quote. I don't believe that LessWrong has disavowed anything that you've said you valued.