for RA
Vacantly, insipidly, I gaze
past daffodil and rye into a sky
jigsawed in cloud o'er rippling tepid haze -
when louder from the breeze there grows a sigh
Of distant speed - I know that sound - my spine
twists with unrest, as racing she appears,
The glint from west along electric line -
And lo another! from the east he nears.
Before I know, from growl to roar and hiss
To ard'rous clatter of their fateful meeting
Thrust into, 'gainst, and past, I see them kiss,
Once done, receding, fading, my heart beating.
Alone once more, blown hanging dust above,
Perhaps I dreamed that fast trains cannot love.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Don't Mention The War!
In 'The Germans', an episode of 70s British sitcom 'Fawlty Towers' about a hotel with pretensions to grandeur in southwest England, Basil Fawlty, the hotel proprietor, famously advises his staff not to mention WW2 to the hotel's German guests. He then proceeds never to stops mentioning the war himself, with sometimes hilarious Freudian slips and then increasingly eccentric behaviour, until eventually Fawlty is consigned to hospital. This article, about climate scepticism, will follow the same plan, except perhaps for the hospital visit. Fortunately, Fawlty didn't mention once the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. I'll try not to mention him either.
One of the discouraging aspects of the climate science debate is the 'us and them' aspect. This manifests itself in various forms, from refusals to give information to individuals with clearly staked positions, conducting campaigns to make their point in vitriolic language. Such language makes it difficult to put across complex issues and is certainly at odds with academic practice. Those with a close knowledge of climate science may feel perturbed and angry by those who they feel misrepresent scientific knowledge, attack the institutions of science and distort and obfuscate the understanding of good policy. They feel they have an agenda, they are fighting dirty. The more angry one side is with the other, the more one side accuses the other of malpractice, the more fragmented the debate and the less easy it is to see the light for the heat. The problem is that complex matters can be easily distorted, and therefore it requires responsible authority to articulate them
We need, also to be open-minded. Humans are susceptible to confirmation biases where they see what is wanted or what supports pre-existing beliefs. The more the other appears different, the worse this bias will be.
We need in fact much better communication and understanding, rather than anything that promotes an 'us and them' attitude to the scientists and climate sceptics. We need this for multiple reasons: good manners, persuasiveness, and the genuine quest for knowledge and insight through detailed cross examination. In short scientists should 'hug a sceptic' and vice versa. The last thing we need is military analogies...
And yet exactly this situation can be illuminated by the situation America and Britain faces in Afghanistan today. America faces an asymmetric enemy in the Taleban, and, even more so, which is not the same, with Al Qaida. As is being slowly understood, to attack unjustly can often turn the population against you. The military has to deal with the difficult problem of building trust with people who are mostly friendly but could be your mortal enemies. Assuming that all are enemies leads to the whole population turning against you; assuming all are friends could be naive and potentially fatal.
People need a similar approach to climate sceptics: in attack, assume all are friendly, in defence assume all are hostile. Or, if you can work in teams let one assume the sceptic is friendly, the other he is hostile _ a 'good cop bad cop' approach. The rest of the article is devoted to those sceptics who really are an enemy.
I recently picked up 'don't think of an elephant' by George Lakatos, The point of the title and the book is by mentioning something you evoke it, whether you wish to or not, which I suppose is the point of 'don't mention the war' in the Germans episode.
Nietzsche of course was probably aware of this. He once said to engage in fighting is to stoop to the level of the person you are fighting with. The dispute between scientists and sceptic can appear like a mixed up bout of boxing-chess where one player is trying to play chess and the other is boxing.
In climate science the problem is that the two sides are playing different games. A scientist doing and communicating science is trying to play chess, whereas the sceptic in trying to influence the media debate is boxing. Not only do we not really have a good game of chess or bout of boxing, someone might get hurt. Furthermore the scientist, who may move in different circles cannot defend himself against the blows without ceasing to play chess. But he wants to play chess, because that is what he is trained to do and what he is judged on. When eventually the scientist stops playing chess and starts to fight his opponent sits down and then feigns annoyance when the scientist knocks the pieces over! The scientist has stooped to the level of his opponent, but the opponent is more nimble footed.
How does this relate to Nietzsche? Nietzsche argued that exceptional individuals are handicapped by conventional morality. The scientist, like this is unable to deploy his substantial intelligence in defence against the opponent playing by the rules of the media, where his is trying to uphold science. The scientist can get good at the media game. Alternatively, different people can play different roles. This is better because no one person can meet different audiences.
This is close to the situation with environmental organisations, often specialists in communication. The problem is, these organisations want to play a different game altogether.
One of the discouraging aspects of the climate science debate is the 'us and them' aspect. This manifests itself in various forms, from refusals to give information to individuals with clearly staked positions, conducting campaigns to make their point in vitriolic language. Such language makes it difficult to put across complex issues and is certainly at odds with academic practice. Those with a close knowledge of climate science may feel perturbed and angry by those who they feel misrepresent scientific knowledge, attack the institutions of science and distort and obfuscate the understanding of good policy. They feel they have an agenda, they are fighting dirty. The more angry one side is with the other, the more one side accuses the other of malpractice, the more fragmented the debate and the less easy it is to see the light for the heat. The problem is that complex matters can be easily distorted, and therefore it requires responsible authority to articulate them
We need, also to be open-minded. Humans are susceptible to confirmation biases where they see what is wanted or what supports pre-existing beliefs. The more the other appears different, the worse this bias will be.
We need in fact much better communication and understanding, rather than anything that promotes an 'us and them' attitude to the scientists and climate sceptics. We need this for multiple reasons: good manners, persuasiveness, and the genuine quest for knowledge and insight through detailed cross examination. In short scientists should 'hug a sceptic' and vice versa. The last thing we need is military analogies...
And yet exactly this situation can be illuminated by the situation America and Britain faces in Afghanistan today. America faces an asymmetric enemy in the Taleban, and, even more so, which is not the same, with Al Qaida. As is being slowly understood, to attack unjustly can often turn the population against you. The military has to deal with the difficult problem of building trust with people who are mostly friendly but could be your mortal enemies. Assuming that all are enemies leads to the whole population turning against you; assuming all are friends could be naive and potentially fatal.
People need a similar approach to climate sceptics: in attack, assume all are friendly, in defence assume all are hostile. Or, if you can work in teams let one assume the sceptic is friendly, the other he is hostile _ a 'good cop bad cop' approach. The rest of the article is devoted to those sceptics who really are an enemy.
I recently picked up 'don't think of an elephant' by George Lakatos, The point of the title and the book is by mentioning something you evoke it, whether you wish to or not, which I suppose is the point of 'don't mention the war' in the Germans episode.
Nietzsche of course was probably aware of this. He once said to engage in fighting is to stoop to the level of the person you are fighting with. The dispute between scientists and sceptic can appear like a mixed up bout of boxing-chess where one player is trying to play chess and the other is boxing.
In climate science the problem is that the two sides are playing different games. A scientist doing and communicating science is trying to play chess, whereas the sceptic in trying to influence the media debate is boxing. Not only do we not really have a good game of chess or bout of boxing, someone might get hurt. Furthermore the scientist, who may move in different circles cannot defend himself against the blows without ceasing to play chess. But he wants to play chess, because that is what he is trained to do and what he is judged on. When eventually the scientist stops playing chess and starts to fight his opponent sits down and then feigns annoyance when the scientist knocks the pieces over! The scientist has stooped to the level of his opponent, but the opponent is more nimble footed.
How does this relate to Nietzsche? Nietzsche argued that exceptional individuals are handicapped by conventional morality. The scientist, like this is unable to deploy his substantial intelligence in defence against the opponent playing by the rules of the media, where his is trying to uphold science. The scientist can get good at the media game. Alternatively, different people can play different roles. This is better because no one person can meet different audiences.
This is close to the situation with environmental organisations, often specialists in communication. The problem is, these organisations want to play a different game altogether.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Fwd: big word
From: Stephen Stretton
Subject: big word
pareidolia – a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) is perceived as significant, e.g., seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Subject: big word
pareidolia – a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) is perceived as significant, e.g., seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Steve, I'd hoped to explore the idea that we can use our existing judgement faculties to make decisions about the future of mankind. I thought to explore applying the traditional notion of 'judgement'. So here goes.
Human judgement takes several forms, for example
1.1) Judgement of fact in the present environment (is it the case that X is F?)
1.2) Judgement of likely consequences of an action (would action A produce state X or Y?)
1.3) Judgement of relative value of two potential states (would I like to be in state X or Y?)
1.4) Judgement of relative value of two objects themselves (would I like to have item X or Y?)
It is because all these judgements have qualitative similarities, that it hasn't always been easy to see differences between judgements of fact and value judgements. But we ought to break down any non-elementary judgement in this way into its components, which may be sequential or parallel, interdependent or independent.
Judgements, as elementary operations, chain together to make decisions. In general, information from many sources is combined to give a single judgement - "I shall do X" - which attains the status of a decision. There are several ways in which we could apply our faculty of judgement to a 'how to act' problem:
Mode
2.1) 'Gut' judgement, where the various judgements operate automatically in an appropriate sequence
2.2) Reason - a controlled conscious organising of the order, inputs and outputs of each judgement into an argument
2.3) In the abstract - where each step of judgement is restricted in its scope to the bare minimum, where all assumptions are made conscious, in addition to the contents of the judgements themselves.
2.4) Other modes of employing judgement which are higher order, non-human, and therefore as yet indescribable.
Most arguments I have heard for saving the world rely on modes 2.1 and 2.2. This would not be an issue if we were making decisions about tomorrow's lunch. Although my choice for tomorrow's lunch could have an effect upon the survival of the world, that's not why I'm making the decision. The criteria are entirely different, justifying a simplified decision. But let us consider the case where we actually want to decide about the future of the world.
3.1) "Would I like to be in state X?" where X is 30 years in the future? (type 1.3 judgement)
3.2) "Would I like to be in state X?" where X is 2000 years in the future?
3.3) "Is action A likely to lead to state X?" where the action is now, and the state is in 30 years time (Type 1.2)
3.4) "Is action A likely to lead to state X?" where the action is now, and the state is in the distant future
3.5) multiply probabilities with state-value-judgements, generate action likely to put myself in state X
Although I have previously criticised 3.4, I would like to show the difficulties with 3.2. Here we have the usual scenario where one projects onesself into a possible world. Let us consider the following scenarios from these points of view:
4.1) every living organism on the planet dies, and the world is permanently uninhabitable forever.
4.2) every living organism dies, leaving a temporarily uninhabitable world (eg for 10,000 years)
4.3) every human being dies, with a temporarily uninhabitable world
4.4) every human dies, but the world is temporarily uninhabitable to humans but still inhabitable by many other organisms.
4.5) a large proportion of human beings die, leaving a small number of people in a temporarily inhospitable world
4.6) very few people die, leaving a large number of people in a permanently inhospitable (unpleasant compared to now) world
4.7) very few people die, but the world is temporarily inhospitable for a period
4.8) no death, but the world is permanently less inhabitable and the maximum world population is reduced forever
4.9) everyone on earth permanently forgoes some amount of pleasure to avoid one of the above situations, and otherwise the environment is the same.
4.10) we reduce the world population voluntarily (without death) to avoid one of the above situations, and environment is the same pleasantness
4.11) nothing in the world changes, including population, happiness, environment - nobody forgoes anything.
4.12) we reduce the world population so much to make the world more pleasant to live in
I've obviously left out lots of intermediate states, but you get the picture.
I think you will see, with our application of judgement in modes 2.1 and 2.2, it is actually not possible to choose the best of any particular given subset of the above scenarios. Clearly we need to do at least 3 things
5.1) judge the probability of each of these scenarios independently by using factual judgements, contingent on actions
5.2) judge whether I would like to be in each state
5.3) convolve these to decide on action
Let's assume 5.1 and 5.3 can be performed, with care. We should, I grant, be using our 'best guess' human knowledge from fact, experiment and experience to make those judgements. But - What is the status of step 5.2?
6.1) what constitutes a pleasant place to live in?
6.2) will pleasantness judgements change with time?
6.3) can subjective pleasantness be compared from person to person?
6.4) is the absolute subsistence level relevant as a standard?
6.5) will humans evolve so that what is 'hospitable' and 'inhospitable' now could reverse?
6.6) will human technology improve in one situation and not another (mother of invention etc)
6.7) will humans' minds evolve to higher levels, and attain an entirely different perspective on the situation?
6.8) will another organism evolve to have an intelligence and society richer than humans have now?
6.9) is it better to have fewer and happier people?
6.10) how much happiness compensates for how much unplesantness/hardship?
6.11) how can we move from 'would I like X?' to 'would one like X?'
This moves, of course, in the opposite direction to duty ethics, but it does point to where the normativity originates.
Clearly such judgements as 6.x need to be made, and I'm making things difficult for a good reason. Judgements of this kind, I argue, concern such a part of what it is to be human, that to render them with our faculties in modes 2.1 and 2.2 is ridiculous, and that what is needed here is further abstraction and dissection of assumptions (mode 2.3). The point is that, to the best of our scientific knowledge, the human mind as an organ of judgement will change over timescales of thousands of years. I believe that the most phylogenetically evolved mode is mode 2.3, and therefore it is closest to the mode of judgement that will be used by humans in the most distant conceivable future e.g. mode 2.4. (I use conceivability here in the common sense, not in the technical sense of my other conceivability arguments. In fact the conceivability of higher logic or judgement systems should probably be suspended until we have a more technical solution.)
My next post will go on to apply these 'difficult' judgements to subsets of scenarios, with a view to drawing a table of dependencies. I want to show how each fundamental assumption about the nature of evolution, pleasure as a brain faculty, additivity of utility, value of life etc. , impinge upon each type of scenario. As you will notice, I have phrased some of these questions as to sound empirical, and I will attempt to treat them as such using the tools of neuroeconomics.
--
Human judgement takes several forms, for example
1.1) Judgement of fact in the present environment (is it the case that X is F?)
1.2) Judgement of likely consequences of an action (would action A produce state X or Y?)
1.3) Judgement of relative value of two potential states (would I like to be in state X or Y?)
1.4) Judgement of relative value of two objects themselves (would I like to have item X or Y?)
It is because all these judgements have qualitative similarities, that it hasn't always been easy to see differences between judgements of fact and value judgements. But we ought to break down any non-elementary judgement in this way into its components, which may be sequential or parallel, interdependent or independent.
Judgements, as elementary operations, chain together to make decisions. In general, information from many sources is combined to give a single judgement - "I shall do X" - which attains the status of a decision. There are several ways in which we could apply our faculty of judgement to a 'how to act' problem:
Mode
2.1) 'Gut' judgement, where the various judgements operate automatically in an appropriate sequence
2.2) Reason - a controlled conscious organising of the order, inputs and outputs of each judgement into an argument
2.3) In the abstract - where each step of judgement is restricted in its scope to the bare minimum, where all assumptions are made conscious, in addition to the contents of the judgements themselves.
2.4) Other modes of employing judgement which are higher order, non-human, and therefore as yet indescribable.
Most arguments I have heard for saving the world rely on modes 2.1 and 2.2. This would not be an issue if we were making decisions about tomorrow's lunch. Although my choice for tomorrow's lunch could have an effect upon the survival of the world, that's not why I'm making the decision. The criteria are entirely different, justifying a simplified decision. But let us consider the case where we actually want to decide about the future of the world.
3.1) "Would I like to be in state X?" where X is 30 years in the future? (type 1.3 judgement)
3.2) "Would I like to be in state X?" where X is 2000 years in the future?
3.3) "Is action A likely to lead to state X?" where the action is now, and the state is in 30 years time (Type 1.2)
3.4) "Is action A likely to lead to state X?" where the action is now, and the state is in the distant future
3.5) multiply probabilities with state-value-judgements, generate action likely to put myself in state X
Although I have previously criticised 3.4, I would like to show the difficulties with 3.2. Here we have the usual scenario where one projects onesself into a possible world. Let us consider the following scenarios from these points of view:
4.1) every living organism on the planet dies, and the world is permanently uninhabitable forever.
4.2) every living organism dies, leaving a temporarily uninhabitable world (eg for 10,000 years)
4.3) every human being dies, with a temporarily uninhabitable world
4.4) every human dies, but the world is temporarily uninhabitable to humans but still inhabitable by many other organisms.
4.5) a large proportion of human beings die, leaving a small number of people in a temporarily inhospitable world
4.6) very few people die, leaving a large number of people in a permanently inhospitable (unpleasant compared to now) world
4.7) very few people die, but the world is temporarily inhospitable for a period
4.8) no death, but the world is permanently less inhabitable and the maximum world population is reduced forever
4.9) everyone on earth permanently forgoes some amount of pleasure to avoid one of the above situations, and otherwise the environment is the same.
4.10) we reduce the world population voluntarily (without death) to avoid one of the above situations, and environment is the same pleasantness
4.11) nothing in the world changes, including population, happiness, environment - nobody forgoes anything.
4.12) we reduce the world population so much to make the world more pleasant to live in
I've obviously left out lots of intermediate states, but you get the picture.
I think you will see, with our application of judgement in modes 2.1 and 2.2, it is actually not possible to choose the best of any particular given subset of the above scenarios. Clearly we need to do at least 3 things
5.1) judge the probability of each of these scenarios independently by using factual judgements, contingent on actions
5.2) judge whether I would like to be in each state
5.3) convolve these to decide on action
Let's assume 5.1 and 5.3 can be performed, with care. We should, I grant, be using our 'best guess' human knowledge from fact, experiment and experience to make those judgements. But - What is the status of step 5.2?
6.1) what constitutes a pleasant place to live in?
6.2) will pleasantness judgements change with time?
6.3) can subjective pleasantness be compared from person to person?
6.4) is the absolute subsistence level relevant as a standard?
6.5) will humans evolve so that what is 'hospitable' and 'inhospitable' now could reverse?
6.6) will human technology improve in one situation and not another (mother of invention etc)
6.7) will humans' minds evolve to higher levels, and attain an entirely different perspective on the situation?
6.8) will another organism evolve to have an intelligence and society richer than humans have now?
6.9) is it better to have fewer and happier people?
6.10) how much happiness compensates for how much unplesantness/hardship?
6.11) how can we move from 'would I like X?' to 'would one like X?'
This moves, of course, in the opposite direction to duty ethics, but it does point to where the normativity originates.
Clearly such judgements as 6.x need to be made, and I'm making things difficult for a good reason. Judgements of this kind, I argue, concern such a part of what it is to be human, that to render them with our faculties in modes 2.1 and 2.2 is ridiculous, and that what is needed here is further abstraction and dissection of assumptions (mode 2.3). The point is that, to the best of our scientific knowledge, the human mind as an organ of judgement will change over timescales of thousands of years. I believe that the most phylogenetically evolved mode is mode 2.3, and therefore it is closest to the mode of judgement that will be used by humans in the most distant conceivable future e.g. mode 2.4. (I use conceivability here in the common sense, not in the technical sense of my other conceivability arguments. In fact the conceivability of higher logic or judgement systems should probably be suspended until we have a more technical solution.)
My next post will go on to apply these 'difficult' judgements to subsets of scenarios, with a view to drawing a table of dependencies. I want to show how each fundamental assumption about the nature of evolution, pleasure as a brain faculty, additivity of utility, value of life etc. , impinge upon each type of scenario. As you will notice, I have phrased some of these questions as to sound empirical, and I will attempt to treat them as such using the tools of neuroeconomics.
--
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Death in Hull
This blog is rubbish.
It is full of Oxbridge types who think they are smart or funny.
Which they ain't.
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