Smart phones are primarily pocket-sized PCs. Many of their most-attractive features could be developed only with strong expertise in computer and computer-interface design. Apple was world-class in these areas. Granted, the additional feature of being a phone was outside of Apple's wheelhouse. Nonetheless, Apple could contribute strong expertise to all but one of the features in the sum

(features of a pocket-sized PC) + (the feature of being a phone).

Somehow, this one remaining feature (phoning) got built into the name "smart phone". But the success of the iPhone is due to how well the other features were implemented. It turned out that being a phone could be done sufficiently well without expertise in building phones, given strong expertise in building pocket-sized PCs.

In general terms, Apple identified an X (phones) that could be improved by adding Y (features of PCs). They set themselves to making X+Y. Crucially, Y was something in which Apple already had tremendous expertise. True, the PC features would have to be constrained by the requirement of being a phone. (Otherwise, you get this.) But the hardest part of that is miniaturization, and Apple already had expertise in this, too. So, Apple had expertise in Y and in a major part of combining X and Y.

In other words, this was not a case of a non-expert beating experts at their own game. It was a case of a Y-expert beating the X-experts (or Xperts, if you will) at making X+Y.

On the other hand, PhilGoetz identified an X (cars) that could be improved by adding Y (good cup-holders). In contrast to Apple's case, Phil displays no expertise in Y at all. In particular, he displays no expertise at the hardest part of combining X and Y, which getting the cup-holder to fit in the car without getting in the way of anything else more important.

If Phil turned out to be right, it really would be a case of a non-expert beating the experts. So it would be much more surprising than Apple's beating Nokia.

I think that this problem is fixed by reducing your identity even further:

"I am a person who aims to find the right and good way for me to be, and my goal is to figure out how to make myself that way."

This might seem tautological and vacuous. But living up to it means actually forming hypotheses about what the good way to be is, and then testing those hypotheses. I'm confident that "being effective" is part of the good way to be. But, as you point out, effectiveness alone surely isn't enough. Effectively doing good things, not bad things, makes all the difference.

At any rate, effectiveness itself is only a corollary of the ultimate goal, which is to be good. As a mere corollary, effectiveness does not endanger my recognition of other aspects of being good, such as keeping promises and maintaining a certain kind of loyalty to my local group.

The upshot, in my view, is that AnnaSalamon's approach ultimately converges on virtue ethics.

Why is this being downvoted (apart from misspelling the name)? I take the quote to be a version of "If it's stupid and works, it's not stupid."

Does the disagreement, whatever it is, have any more impact on anything outside itself than semiotics does?

I can't say how it compares to semiotics because I don't know that field or its history.

If you're just asking whether foundations-of-math questions have had any impact outside of themselves, then the answer is definitely Yes.

For example, arguments about the foundations of mathematics led to developments in logic and automated theorem proving. Gödel worked out his incompleteness theorems within the context of Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica. One of the main purposes of PM was to defend the logicist thesis that mathematical claims are just logical tautologies concerning purely logical concepts. Also, PM is the first major contribution that I know of to the study of Type Theory, which in turn is central in automated theorem proving.

Also, if you're trying to assess whether you believe in the Tegmark IV multiverse, which says that everything is math, then what you think math is is probably going to play some part in that assessment. Maybe that is just a case of one pragmatically-pointless question's bearing on another, but there it is.

If it meant something, semioticians could take actual sentences, and then show how the two opposing views provide different interpretations of those sentences

Is that fair?

Everyone agrees that 2+2=4, but people disagree about what that statement is about. Within the foundations of mathematics, logicists and formalists can have a substantive disagreement even while agreeing on the truth-value of every particular mathematical statement.

Analogously, couldn't semioticians agree about the interpretation of every text, but disagree about the nature of the relationship between the text and its correct interpretation? Granted that X is the correct interpretation of Y, what exactly is it about X and Y that makes this the case? Or is there some third thing Z that makes X the correct interpretation of Y? Or is Z not a thing in its own right, but rather a relation among things? And, if so, what is the nature of that relation? Aren't those the kinds of questions that semioticians disagree about?

No, I don't think so. But I'm not sure how to elaborate without knowing why you thought that.

Last I checked, your edits haven't changed which answer is correct in your scenario. As you've explained, the Ace is impossible given your set-up.

(By the way, I thought that the earliest version of your wording was perfectly adequate, provided that the reader was accustomed to puzzles given in a "propositional" form. Otherwise, I expect, the reader will naturally assume something like the "algorithmic" scenario that I've been describing.)

In my scenario, the information given is not about which propositions are true about the outcome, but rather about which algorithms are controlling the outcome.

To highlight the difference, let me flesh out my story.

Let K be the set of card-hands that contain at least one King, let A be the set of card-hands that contain at least one Ace, and let Q be the set of card-hands that contain at least one Queen.

I'm programming the card-dealing robot. I've prepared two different algorithms, either of which could be used by the robot:

• Algorithm 1: Choose a hand uniformly at random from K ∪ A, and then deal that hand.

• Algorithm 2: Choose a hand uniformly at random from Q ∪ A, and then deal that hand.

These are two different algorithms. If the robot is programmed with one of them, it cannot be programmed with the other. That is, the algorithms are mutually exclusive. Moreover, I am going to use one or the other of them. These two algorithms exhaust all of the possibilities.

In other words, of the two algorithm-descriptions above, exactly one of them will truthfully describe the robot's actual algorithm.

I flip a coin to determine which algorithm will control the robot. After the coin flip, I program the robot accordingly, supply it with cards, and bring you to the table with the robot.

You know all of the above.

Now the robot deals you a hand, face down. Based on what you know, which is more probable: that the hand contains a King, or that the hand contains an Ace?

Ace is not more probable.

Ace is more probable in the scenario that I described.

Of course, as you say, Ace is impossible in the scenario that you described (under its intended reading). The scenario that I described is a different one, one in which Ace is most probable. Nonetheless, I expect that someone not trained to do otherwise would likely misinterpret your original scenario as equivalent to mine. Thus, their wrong answer would, in that sense, be the right answer to the wrong question.