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jackI know it's been a while since Chap I, but I've always had something else to do, and last night I started thinking about this again. I had been expecting to go on a while longer discussing occams razor and scientific methods, but I've found I'm more interested in moral stuff atm.
I believe some notation is in order before I can progress. I think a large number of arguments arise though the use of innacurate terminology, where a concept is very different to define, but everyone knows what it is, but two people have slightly different ideas about it, and don't realise that, and assume they disagree, whereas in actual fact they're just describing the same thing in two ways.
I'll start with a hopefully non-controversial example I borrowed from some authorial mathematician. Anna is facing a tree which Bill is hiding behind. She slowly sidesteps, walking all the way round the tree, which however Bill keeps between them. Question: has Anna walked around Bill? Colin says no, they were facing each other the whole time. Dulce says yes, Anna walked a circle which Bill was always inside. I hope you can see that both people have a reasonable claim, and since they're answering 'yes' and 'no' to the same question, feel they disagree. If you don't give me that, I hope you can imagine a similar situation where they would. Please don't argue with the example unless you feel no example would suffice.
The key point is that the word 'around' is ambiguous. This isn't bad: all words can vary in meaning slightly, that's how language works[1]. But in this case we need to be aware of it. Colin and Dulce are describing the same event, but are using the word 'around' in slightly different ways[2]. I say they should then use slightly more precise words, and find they agree after all.
Of course, in real life the situation is complicated by people disagreeing fundamentally, but we should at least know what each person says with little trouble, and hopefully the true disagreements will then be much more evident, and hence tractable[3].
For the purposes of my posts on these subjects, I propose two new terms related to belief, that will also apply to other related words such as "know" and "fact" and "true":
moral-belief: Belief that something is right, desirable, good, etc. Eg. "I moral-believe that you shouldn't steal."
factual-belief: Belief that something is true, or exists. Eg. "I factual-believe that the earth is solid."
Further division would be made for other arguments, for instance, degrees of certainty in factual-beliefs, or belief as in "a factual-belief held without evidence"[4], or belief as in "trust in or give thanks to someone".
Probably someone else has a better word for these concepts, either a better english word or phrase, or some greek words which are traditionally used in philosophy. Please enlighten me :)
[1] Someone once told me a wonderful analogy: words are like nodes in net, and we use the word *nearest* our meaning. Thus shifting meanings can make the language more expressive, whilst never completely precise.
[2] Mathmos may like to consider 'around' as meaning prescribing a curve of looping number one about the origin in a coordinate system which places the other person there. The ambiguity is that Dulce assumes the coordinates are fixed relative to the tree, and Colin assumes they are fixed relative to one of the people.
[3] I have a perhaps wrong but almost idealisticly held to idea that it's better to understand ourselves and each other, and if we do our differences can be easily solved. Obviously in many specific cases this is wrong, but all the same it will probably make it into Vol III :)
[4] This crops up in religious arguments. I factual-believe pluto isn't made of kittens, but someone says that that belief isn't 'fact' because it's open to being changed by the evidence. Then we should have different words for those. I'd say all facts (ie. things I factual-believe) are open to challenge, though there is a range: facts about observable things are more certain than facts about long-dead things, for instance, and facts about logic and reason we have to accept before we can admit the concept of evidence.
I believe some notation is in order before I can progress. I think a large number of arguments arise though the use of innacurate terminology, where a concept is very different to define, but everyone knows what it is, but two people have slightly different ideas about it, and don't realise that, and assume they disagree, whereas in actual fact they're just describing the same thing in two ways.
I'll start with a hopefully non-controversial example I borrowed from some authorial mathematician. Anna is facing a tree which Bill is hiding behind. She slowly sidesteps, walking all the way round the tree, which however Bill keeps between them. Question: has Anna walked around Bill? Colin says no, they were facing each other the whole time. Dulce says yes, Anna walked a circle which Bill was always inside. I hope you can see that both people have a reasonable claim, and since they're answering 'yes' and 'no' to the same question, feel they disagree. If you don't give me that, I hope you can imagine a similar situation where they would. Please don't argue with the example unless you feel no example would suffice.
The key point is that the word 'around' is ambiguous. This isn't bad: all words can vary in meaning slightly, that's how language works[1]. But in this case we need to be aware of it. Colin and Dulce are describing the same event, but are using the word 'around' in slightly different ways[2]. I say they should then use slightly more precise words, and find they agree after all.
Of course, in real life the situation is complicated by people disagreeing fundamentally, but we should at least know what each person says with little trouble, and hopefully the true disagreements will then be much more evident, and hence tractable[3].
For the purposes of my posts on these subjects, I propose two new terms related to belief, that will also apply to other related words such as "know" and "fact" and "true":
moral-belief: Belief that something is right, desirable, good, etc. Eg. "I moral-believe that you shouldn't steal."
factual-belief: Belief that something is true, or exists. Eg. "I factual-believe that the earth is solid."
Further division would be made for other arguments, for instance, degrees of certainty in factual-beliefs, or belief as in "a factual-belief held without evidence"[4], or belief as in "trust in or give thanks to someone".
Probably someone else has a better word for these concepts, either a better english word or phrase, or some greek words which are traditionally used in philosophy. Please enlighten me :)
[1] Someone once told me a wonderful analogy: words are like nodes in net, and we use the word *nearest* our meaning. Thus shifting meanings can make the language more expressive, whilst never completely precise.
[2] Mathmos may like to consider 'around' as meaning prescribing a curve of looping number one about the origin in a coordinate system which places the other person there. The ambiguity is that Dulce assumes the coordinates are fixed relative to the tree, and Colin assumes they are fixed relative to one of the people.
[3] I have a perhaps wrong but almost idealisticly held to idea that it's better to understand ourselves and each other, and if we do our differences can be easily solved. Obviously in many specific cases this is wrong, but all the same it will probably make it into Vol III :)
[4] This crops up in religious arguments. I factual-believe pluto isn't made of kittens, but someone says that that belief isn't 'fact' because it's open to being changed by the evidence. Then we should have different words for those. I'd say all facts (ie. things I factual-believe) are open to challenge, though there is a range: facts about observable things are more certain than facts about long-dead things, for instance, and facts about logic and reason we have to accept before we can admit the concept of evidence.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 04:19 pm (UTC)But I was thinking that in most cases we'd disagree about what were desirable outcomes. Suppose we all had perfect information, and could create in the far future an almost perfectly happy society -- or an almost perfectly just society. Even if we knew what would happen, would we choose the same way?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 04:32 pm (UTC)so in fact when you say moral-belief and factual-belief, you mean
things which you (er factual-believe? moral-believe?) think that people will agree on, given 'sufficient' information (in which increasing the information cannot change their beliefs) and
things which you think that people need not agree on, given 'sufficient' information (in reverse order)?
(or... things which you think that people would agree that they would agree on if they had sufficient information?)
yeep. this is fun.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-05 04:46 pm (UTC)I'd made some assumptions other people would disagree with, invalidating these terms for them. I still think they're possible, but not necessarily useful -- eg. people who believe in absolute morality wouldn't feel the distinction as necessary.
Also, doh, sorry I have to go. I'll respond fully tomorrow.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 08:43 am (UTC)I don't think it's a problem, necessarily, but it seems to me the case that by those definitions, some people would factual-believe something which others only moral-believe, and there's nothing you can do about it except get deep into unwinnable arguments over the borderline cases ;) Now, which kind of belief do you use to assign decisions on whether something is factual-belief or moral-belief? [I say, factual belief]
(I like this, jack posts about how we don't need to argue as long as we define terms properly, so we launch into an argument over the definition of terms, which is just what you were trying to avoid, no?)
* and the computational resources to make use of it, which I guess relates to your "practically unmeasurable" below.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 04:51 pm (UTC)