Students for Liberty are running a fiction contest for a story, 1000-10,000 words long, "illustrating the positive role of freedom in human life".
I recently read a suggestion somewhere - I forget where it was - that it is impossible to write a great story advocating something, and that all the great political novels - Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Grapes of Wrath, perhaps Atlas Shrugged if you're into that kind of thing - were railing against a system. I'm thinking that I might attempt to write an entry for this competition, and I'm thinking that I might set it in an anarcho-capitalist society. This, of course, incurs great danger in terms of literary quality.
I must avoid presenting it as utopian - partly because I don't see this as entirely realistic and partly because it's a story, and every story aimed at people above the age of six needs a problem. I could make the problem an evil, aggressive state which neighbours the anarchist society, but this seems rather close to the Ayn Rand-type "Freedom Good, State Bad" assertion that most libertarians secretly believe but tends to turn off the uninitiated. So, what I want to do is to, in a sense, normalise anarchy: to present it as a valid, workable alternative to our current socialist/corporatist hybrid with its own unique benefits and its own unique problems.
How can I best emphasise the difference between my fictional society and those which currently exist? My protagonist should fill a role which would change significantly in an anarchist society. The industry I would expect to change most is that of law creation and enforcement. And it just so happens that one of the great genres - the whodunnit - is entirely about people in this line of work.
So my main character should be a detective. I don't want him to be a Poirot or a Sherlock Holmes, because this is supposed to be realistic and believable. Deducing from a left-behind banana skin that the murderer was a left-handed homosexual with an interest in stamp collecting is beyond the ability of the average genius, let alone the average person who might possibly read my story.
I also need problems for them to overcome. I'm thinking that Creative Destruction could play a role - perhaps a company gone down the toilet, taking a load of data with it. I like the idea of the crime being investigated being the murder of a man with no friends or family - presumably he paid a company to commit to catching his killer, as an (unfortunately insufficient) form of self-defence.
That's about as far as I've got with thinking through it, so far. I'm also re-listening to David Friedman's talk "Vinge, Heinlein, the Sagas and Me", which looks at a variety of anarchist structures, both historical and fictional.
A Persian Cafe, Edward Lord Weeks
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
PhilChat, Women in Philosophy
Today marked the first meeting of a 'PhilChat' group at the university. About fifteen people went - a mixture of postgraduates, especially dedicated undergraduates, a trio of rather less dedicated undergraduates who had apparently been press-ganged into coming by the postgrad who ran one of their tutorials, and of course our speaker - the esteemed Professor Helen Beebee, who gave a talk on women in philosophy. She had just been taking a two hour lecture so we had a short wait for her to arrive, during which time the postgraduates (most of whom were down to give talks in future weeks) introduced their own specialisms, which were mainly metaphysical but included one guy who had spent a long time considering the precise meaning of the word "allegedly" and was down to do a talk on the philosophy of swearing. Oh, and it took precisely three-and-a-half minutes before the discussion turned to laughing at MMU and their study of Continental Philosophy (as UoM students of Analytic Philosophy, we of course look down on both of these).
The talk itself was interesting. If I were a person with the slightest bit of power, then I would have demanded more statistics, but there were enough statistics present to demonstrate that women are a minority and the argument as to why this was certainly seemed plausible. (Essentially, it was the classic "Philosophy, as practised by most departments, is a rather intellectually violent discipline. This has a greater propensity to turn off woman than men." Professor Beebee cited the example of another professor at one of her previous employers who had kept a score of "Home Wins" and "Away Wins": whenever they had a visiting scholar, the home scholars would attempt to tear the scholar's article to pieces and if, as usually happened, they succeeded, the professor would chalk it up as a Home Win.)
After a short break, during which the less interested undergrads sloped off, there followed a Q&A session. Both of the questions I had in mind were asked in slightly different form before I was called upon to ask a question, but I learned some of the way in which philosophy seminars work. In the process I was introduced to the hand question/thumb question distinction, a distinction on a par with the analytic/synthetic distinction in terms of its importance to a young philosopher. Having arrived slightly late, I was near the front and did not see the raising of hands/fingers and so remain ignorant of the workings of this phenomenon; however, to use Donald Rumsfeld's terminology it has moved from an unknown unknown to a known unknown, which in my book is a significant improvement.
Eventually we ran out of time - in fact, I think we overran significantly - and the postgrads headed off to the pub. I went to the aquatics centre for kayaking, spent an hour capsizing in a controlled fashion, another hour varying between sitting on the edge and screeching around the pool at top speed, and eventually headed back to the house.
The talk itself was interesting. If I were a person with the slightest bit of power, then I would have demanded more statistics, but there were enough statistics present to demonstrate that women are a minority and the argument as to why this was certainly seemed plausible. (Essentially, it was the classic "Philosophy, as practised by most departments, is a rather intellectually violent discipline. This has a greater propensity to turn off woman than men." Professor Beebee cited the example of another professor at one of her previous employers who had kept a score of "Home Wins" and "Away Wins": whenever they had a visiting scholar, the home scholars would attempt to tear the scholar's article to pieces and if, as usually happened, they succeeded, the professor would chalk it up as a Home Win.)
After a short break, during which the less interested undergrads sloped off, there followed a Q&A session. Both of the questions I had in mind were asked in slightly different form before I was called upon to ask a question, but I learned some of the way in which philosophy seminars work. In the process I was introduced to the hand question/thumb question distinction, a distinction on a par with the analytic/synthetic distinction in terms of its importance to a young philosopher. Having arrived slightly late, I was near the front and did not see the raising of hands/fingers and so remain ignorant of the workings of this phenomenon; however, to use Donald Rumsfeld's terminology it has moved from an unknown unknown to a known unknown, which in my book is a significant improvement.
Eventually we ran out of time - in fact, I think we overran significantly - and the postgrads headed off to the pub. I went to the aquatics centre for kayaking, spent an hour capsizing in a controlled fashion, another hour varying between sitting on the edge and screeching around the pool at top speed, and eventually headed back to the house.
Monday, 3 February 2014
Thoughts on disabilities
I had never heard of Walter Oi before he died, but there were some interesting blog posts remembering him that I read. One of them linked to a paper he had written regarding profit maximisation when a company was in the business of selling two different products that were desired in conjunction. Looking at the paper, I noticed the references, the formatting, and I considered that, being blind, he was almost certainly reliant upon someone to type a fair bit of it up for him while he dictated it. There are, I think, three things which we can learn from the existence of this paper.
First, that some people are amazingly clever and productive. His mind was sufficiently keen that someone else could be more productive typing his work than doing work of their own. It's always fascinated me that there are some people whose time is literally worth thousands of pounds an hour; I doubt we're talking that scale here, but it's still incredible to think that while I'd struggle to produce £10 worth of value in an hour, there are people producing hundreds of times that.
Secondly, how much many of us would hate being blind. There are so many things you'd lose the ability to do - reading, driving, exercising unassisted... People are often willing to be accommodating - in Ceilidhs I've danced with a blind girl and with several people who were in wheelchairs - but at the very least it entails a severe loss of independence. Sight is one of the greatest gifts we have.
Finally, the extent to which the lives of disabled people are being improved by technology. A couple of centuries ago it would have been nigh impossible for a blind person to make themself understood except through speech - without the ability to see where on the paper one was writing, you'd presumably end up writing your lines on top of each other. Sixty years ago, one could have used a typewriter: this would take a fair bit of getting used to, and would require someone to read it back to you for editing and to help with the formatting, but would at least give you a clearly written message. Nowadays, you'd just use a voice recognition program on your computer (which would also use voice commands to switch on/off and to navigate between programs) and achieve efficiency close to that of an otherwise equally capable sighted person. Perhaps (stepping into the realms of sci-fi) the future will bring machines which read your brain and translate your thoughts straight to the page and it will make no difference whether or not you can see the external world. One can only dream.
First, that some people are amazingly clever and productive. His mind was sufficiently keen that someone else could be more productive typing his work than doing work of their own. It's always fascinated me that there are some people whose time is literally worth thousands of pounds an hour; I doubt we're talking that scale here, but it's still incredible to think that while I'd struggle to produce £10 worth of value in an hour, there are people producing hundreds of times that.
Secondly, how much many of us would hate being blind. There are so many things you'd lose the ability to do - reading, driving, exercising unassisted... People are often willing to be accommodating - in Ceilidhs I've danced with a blind girl and with several people who were in wheelchairs - but at the very least it entails a severe loss of independence. Sight is one of the greatest gifts we have.
Finally, the extent to which the lives of disabled people are being improved by technology. A couple of centuries ago it would have been nigh impossible for a blind person to make themself understood except through speech - without the ability to see where on the paper one was writing, you'd presumably end up writing your lines on top of each other. Sixty years ago, one could have used a typewriter: this would take a fair bit of getting used to, and would require someone to read it back to you for editing and to help with the formatting, but would at least give you a clearly written message. Nowadays, you'd just use a voice recognition program on your computer (which would also use voice commands to switch on/off and to navigate between programs) and achieve efficiency close to that of an otherwise equally capable sighted person. Perhaps (stepping into the realms of sci-fi) the future will bring machines which read your brain and translate your thoughts straight to the page and it will make no difference whether or not you can see the external world. One can only dream.
Sunday, 2 February 2014
What does it mean to believe?
Take a proposition P and a person A. What conditions are necessary and/or sufficient for us to be able to say that A believes P?
The most obvious definition to try would be that A attributes a probability of over 50% to P being true. However, this seems potentially both over-extensive and under-extensive in the range of situations it classes as 'belief'. First, suppose A buys a lottery ticket and flips a coin. Without looking at the outcome of either, A can say that the probability of the proposition "the coin has landed on heads, or the lottery ticket has won the jackpot" is ever-so-slightly above 50%, yet it seems strange to call this a belief when it is at best a guess based upon probabilities. Furthermore, suppose there is a set of propositions P1, P2, ... all of which are mutually exclusive, whose subjective probabilities (according to A) of being true sum to 1, and P(P1)<0.5, but P1 is by a substantial margin the most probable of these. Would it then be reasonable to say that A believes P? I'm uncertain, which seems to suggest that it is likely to depend upon the vagaries of the case.
With regard to the first issue, perhaps we can tweak our definition to state that P(P) must be a posterior probability, based upon actual evidence, as opposed to a prior probability based on... something. (I'm assuming for the moment that A follows a Bayesian Epistemology; of course most people, including most philosophers, do not fit this description, but I personally at least try to and this whole post is a somewhat roundabout way of tackling an issue regarding my own beliefs).
This doesn't really seem to make any sense, however, as a normative prescription for how we ought to choose our beliefs. If we have a sensibly chosen prior then it's hard to see why having evidence should affect the epistemic nature of our view of a proposition. (By nature, I refer to belief vs. justified belief vs. knowledge vs. whatever else there is, as opposed to status, i.e. strongly believe vs. weakly belief vs. weakly disbelieve and a thousand-one-variants thereof).
What I suppose I'm getting at is that the notion of belief as a binary concept is very unclear, and perhaps incoherent. What would this mean? It shouldn't affect our actions: we are perfectly capable of acting on things we 'disbelieve' or believe to have negligible probability - this is one of the key ideas in some areas of global catastrophic risk. It ought, however, to affect the way we think about epistemology - if it is impossible to come up with a sensible definition for belief, then this will throw all attempts to define knowledge out of the window. For people with sensible (i.e. Bayesian) epistemologies this is no problem, but it might form the basis of an attack upon non-Bayesian epistemology.
Saturday, 1 February 2014
A few notes on Freedom, as a concept and in practice
Two notes. The first comes from The Great Escape but has nothing to do with religion, the second is entirely about religion but is from the most recent Student Bible Study I went to, on Thursday.
I
There are many senses in which political philosophers down the years have used the words 'freedom' and 'liberty'. Some of these can be ignored - for example, Hegel's use of the word (roughly, "acting in accordance with reason,") seems rather abusive of the intuitive meaning we attach to it - but there are at least three meanings worth considering.
First, Negative Liberty, or the absence of oppression. If someone threatens to hurt you if you carry out an action of which they disapprove, they are violating your negative liberty.
Second, Positive Liberty, which is somewhat vague but refers to a general idea of autonomy and self-mastery. The key difference with Negative Liberty is that anything can count as a restraint on your liberty - while Negative Liberty focuses upon limitations emanating from other agents, Positive Liberty considers physical impossibility, absence of necessary materials, even lack of self-control.
As a side note, I do not personally think about either of these (at least directly) in terms of my value judgements, I tend to think more in terms of the inherent wrongness of imposing your will upon another person. Of course, then I have to explain precisely why I think that this is wrong, so I probably do attach some value to freedom.
These are the two main ones. The distinction was introduced by Isaiah Berlin in his speech "Two Concepts of Liberty" and there is a notable debate over which of the two better reflects the meaning we attach to the words 'freedom' and 'liberty'. However, there is also a third way in which the words may be used - that is, "Freedom as Non-domination" or "Republican Freedom", roughly defined as the absence of being subject to arbitrary power - the emphasis of that being on the word 'arbitrary'.
On the way back from The Great Escape, I listened to a podcast in which Philip Pettit was interviewed about a book he had written defending this interpretation of liberty. He made reference to a play by Henrik Ibsen - I can't remember which, but it was most likely A Doll's House - in which there is a woman, subject to a man (her husband?) who dotes upon her and will give her whatever she wants, but also holds complete power over her. He argued that she was not truly "free" because of the fact that her apparent freedom was entirely reliant upon the will of the man.
I personally find this unconvincing. I would say that she is free, and that perhaps there is an X such that we value X, X corresponds to non-domination, and we don't actually value freedom. This seems rather closer to the actual political and philosophical issue than merely arguing over precisely what we intuitively mean by "Freedom". As a somewhat rough analogy, we have distinct concepts of 'total utility', 'average utility', 'eudaemonia', and 'preference satisfaction'. When arguing about what is valuable, we do not argue about which of these is somehow a more authentic representation of what our intuitions conjure up when presented with phrases like 'utopia' and 'the good life' but instead argue about which is actually more valuable.
II
A second distinction in types of freedom: I shall refer to "metaphysical" freedom and "political freedom". By political freedom I mean the stuff I have just been talking about - a general notion of "not being enslaved". By metaphysical freedom I mean freedom of the will. I believe there to be a tendency for people to confuse the two - I don't blame them, most people are not trained to be absolutely clear in their language, there are several other words which can mean more than one thing (e.g. Libertarian and Libertarian).
In particular, there is one confusion which I have only just understood. The Bible often promises that we may have freedom through Christ. It is easy to see how this may be understood as political slavery - we were slaves to sin and death, but now are no longer subject to judgement.
Except that we don't become fully autonomous agents: we become servants of God. I'm not denying that this is an improvement in our condition (see, again with the "it's not precisely freedom which is valuable"!) but it doesn't really seem like an increase in our freedom. We go from one master to another master - a better master, to be sure, but at no point do we cease to be owned in some sense.
But take this passage, Romans 7:15-25 (taken from the NIV):
I
There are many senses in which political philosophers down the years have used the words 'freedom' and 'liberty'. Some of these can be ignored - for example, Hegel's use of the word (roughly, "acting in accordance with reason,") seems rather abusive of the intuitive meaning we attach to it - but there are at least three meanings worth considering.
First, Negative Liberty, or the absence of oppression. If someone threatens to hurt you if you carry out an action of which they disapprove, they are violating your negative liberty.
Second, Positive Liberty, which is somewhat vague but refers to a general idea of autonomy and self-mastery. The key difference with Negative Liberty is that anything can count as a restraint on your liberty - while Negative Liberty focuses upon limitations emanating from other agents, Positive Liberty considers physical impossibility, absence of necessary materials, even lack of self-control.
As a side note, I do not personally think about either of these (at least directly) in terms of my value judgements, I tend to think more in terms of the inherent wrongness of imposing your will upon another person. Of course, then I have to explain precisely why I think that this is wrong, so I probably do attach some value to freedom.
These are the two main ones. The distinction was introduced by Isaiah Berlin in his speech "Two Concepts of Liberty" and there is a notable debate over which of the two better reflects the meaning we attach to the words 'freedom' and 'liberty'. However, there is also a third way in which the words may be used - that is, "Freedom as Non-domination" or "Republican Freedom", roughly defined as the absence of being subject to arbitrary power - the emphasis of that being on the word 'arbitrary'.
On the way back from The Great Escape, I listened to a podcast in which Philip Pettit was interviewed about a book he had written defending this interpretation of liberty. He made reference to a play by Henrik Ibsen - I can't remember which, but it was most likely A Doll's House - in which there is a woman, subject to a man (her husband?) who dotes upon her and will give her whatever she wants, but also holds complete power over her. He argued that she was not truly "free" because of the fact that her apparent freedom was entirely reliant upon the will of the man.
I personally find this unconvincing. I would say that she is free, and that perhaps there is an X such that we value X, X corresponds to non-domination, and we don't actually value freedom. This seems rather closer to the actual political and philosophical issue than merely arguing over precisely what we intuitively mean by "Freedom". As a somewhat rough analogy, we have distinct concepts of 'total utility', 'average utility', 'eudaemonia', and 'preference satisfaction'. When arguing about what is valuable, we do not argue about which of these is somehow a more authentic representation of what our intuitions conjure up when presented with phrases like 'utopia' and 'the good life' but instead argue about which is actually more valuable.
II
A second distinction in types of freedom: I shall refer to "metaphysical" freedom and "political freedom". By political freedom I mean the stuff I have just been talking about - a general notion of "not being enslaved". By metaphysical freedom I mean freedom of the will. I believe there to be a tendency for people to confuse the two - I don't blame them, most people are not trained to be absolutely clear in their language, there are several other words which can mean more than one thing (e.g. Libertarian and Libertarian).
In particular, there is one confusion which I have only just understood. The Bible often promises that we may have freedom through Christ. It is easy to see how this may be understood as political slavery - we were slaves to sin and death, but now are no longer subject to judgement.
Except that we don't become fully autonomous agents: we become servants of God. I'm not denying that this is an improvement in our condition (see, again with the "it's not precisely freedom which is valuable"!) but it doesn't really seem like an increase in our freedom. We go from one master to another master - a better master, to be sure, but at no point do we cease to be owned in some sense.
But take this passage, Romans 7:15-25 (taken from the NIV):
Now it becomes clear that the freedom we achieve through Christ is metaphysical: we are unable to control ourselves and to avoid sin due to our sinful natures, but due to his intervention we are not controlled by sin and can do what we desire - that is, to love and worship our Lord God.15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[b] a slave to the law of sin.
Metablogging
I am attempting to plan, experiment with and just generally optimise a lot of things in my life. This is largely due to the influence of Less Wrong. One particular piece I was reading earlier:
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A".Accordingly, I intend to attempt to post here more often but to do less editing - just straight up aim to get the words out and to get the writing practice. My guess is that this will result in a short and medium term decline in quality and a long-term improvement. We'll see (at least in so far as quality is empirically measurable).
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
Links, February 2014
It's amazing how many links accumulate once you start keeping a record of them. Rather than highlighting the more interesting links like last time, I'm going to sort them by category.
Pretties / Culture
If I remember correctly, this was from somewhere in North America.
Music straight from the streets of Adelaide. I don't think that's how you're supposed to play the guitar.
God: If you didn't want me to have sex with other men, why did you make them so attractive?
Unfortunately not yet available to order.
Politics
This is how all political philosophy ought to be taught.
Some interesting pieces on the surveillance state: first, what if we had had the NSA in 1776? Second, memoirs of a TSA agent. Third, probably the worst police brutality I've come across which hasn't resulted in death.
I'm generally sceptical of the feminist movement, but I agree that it is responding to genuine problems - many of which are disturbingly subtle. Also, see this type of sexism in action.
SOCIALISM!
The latest celebrity chef. (Just to be clear, linking does not imply endorsement).
People
If you're impressed by Sherlock, then remember that Walter Oi could do the same thing despite being blind.
The human capacity for delusion knows no bounds.
The case for charity. If you read nothing else here, read this.
I believe that this is where I'm supposed to say: "Still a better love story than Twilight."
France sounds nice. If only it was less left-wing and I wasn't vegetarian.
Funny
Pretties / Culture
If I remember correctly, this was from somewhere in North America.
Music straight from the streets of Adelaide. I don't think that's how you're supposed to play the guitar.
God: If you didn't want me to have sex with other men, why did you make them so attractive?
Unfortunately not yet available to order.
Politics
This is how all political philosophy ought to be taught.
Some interesting pieces on the surveillance state: first, what if we had had the NSA in 1776? Second, memoirs of a TSA agent. Third, probably the worst police brutality I've come across which hasn't resulted in death.
I'm generally sceptical of the feminist movement, but I agree that it is responding to genuine problems - many of which are disturbingly subtle. Also, see this type of sexism in action.
SOCIALISM!
The latest celebrity chef. (Just to be clear, linking does not imply endorsement).
People
If you're impressed by Sherlock, then remember that Walter Oi could do the same thing despite being blind.
The human capacity for delusion knows no bounds.
The case for charity. If you read nothing else here, read this.
I believe that this is where I'm supposed to say: "Still a better love story than Twilight."
France sounds nice. If only it was less left-wing and I wasn't vegetarian.
Funny
The Mafioso, the deaf bookkeeper, and the lawyer.
Somehow an ethicist has got this far in philosophy without hearing of Utilitarianism.
Sterling negotiation technique on display here.
Economics
This is supposed to be about currency, but I think it's more interesting as a discussion of the never-ending variety and complexity of local institutions.
"Science"
If you see me wearing some bags of ice-cubes in lectures, this is why. (It's worth a try, surely?)
Somehow an ethicist has got this far in philosophy without hearing of Utilitarianism.
Sterling negotiation technique on display here.
Economics
This is supposed to be about currency, but I think it's more interesting as a discussion of the never-ending variety and complexity of local institutions.
"Science"
If you see me wearing some bags of ice-cubes in lectures, this is why. (It's worth a try, surely?)
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