Note: This comment is long, and mostly point by point.
TL:DR; I recommend the last section of the post above, To Be a Student of the Art, if you don’t intend to read the rest of the post. Also, the post recommends Gigerenzer’s work, which pertains to bounded rationality and decision making.
There aren’t footnotes that match 1, 2, and 3. There are links though.
Did they have gobs of modern mathematical theory, massive networks of hugely capable machines, mass and individual transport, near-instant global communication?
No, they had human and animal power and natural resources.
How many people today have modern mathematical theory? More than calculus? (Yes we have negative and imaginary numbers now. A small change.) They had massive networks. Chariots and ships, and fleets. Global communication networks are new, but some say we’re saying less than ever today—and not because it is already known.
Perhaps the greek’s philosophy is old and “requires no maintenance” because it is not modern—cars and buildings, and our global systems require maintenance. Our cars are “better” than chariots, as are our skyscrapers. But what maintenance does philosophy require—if it is teaching, then the greeks may have the moderns beat in philosophy because us moderns teach the greek’s philosophy.
The goal of philosophy is less confusion in the world.
An admirable goal, but how would it lead to philosophy?
4. which increases the efficiency by which they can act toward their goals,[f#1]
A footnote which isn’t missing! So philosophy is clear thinking?
So doing philosophy well will directly cause the world to improve by everyone’s measure.
It’s good for everyone to do their own philosophy well. Group philosophy though,...
This should at least tell us there is a lot of room for improvement.
Or a lot of (personal) demand for (good) philosophy.
If a question is so difficult to answer definitely that it hasn’t been answered even by the efforts of millions or billions of people and an equivalently huge amount of resource investment, perhaps we should think about changing our approach?
Perhaps the question is wrong—or really hard.
If you are publishing philosophy that misdirects about important questions, or harms readers’ mental health (for example by making them afraid), you are causing massive damage to the world.
Only if anyone reads it. But yes, bad philosophy pollutes the waters.
If you really must pose a depressing question, at least also propose an answer.
This supposes that speaking is one way.
fear directly causes almost all the world’s problems today.
But who is responsible? Is bad philosophy, specifically, are bad philosophers responsible for all this? Or is that fear begets fear?
Fear—because, if you don’t have an accurate world-model then from your perspective, anything can happen.
Uncertainty.
And swans are often aggressive toward humans.
What is this getting at?
For the effectiveness of simple heuristics in practice, see the work of Gerd Gigerenzer.
A throwaway example of good philosophy?
Fear suggests an inaccurate world-model which leads to exploitability by others and less value obtained for yourself.
The preceding section suggested that fear leads to (and comes from) falsehood/inaccurate models—correlation rather than causation.
Philosophy
[might mean]
love of
good decisions
Switching things around: if you are, or want to call yourself, a philosopher, is it a good idea to deliberately publish things which increase the amount of fear in the world?
A different meaning of the phrase “good idea”.
Having or increasing fear is a strong signal that a person has a world-model which, at the very least, is not as good as it could be.
[emphasis mine]
This has not been established.
If you’re a philosopher, you must have a love of wisdom, because otherwise you cannot call yourself a philosopher.
This is arguing by definition. It is easy to get a speaker to repeat “I am philosopher”—without the machines or the people involved having any love of wisdom.
Published philosophy which increases fear is good for absolutely nobody.
A double negative. I agree with your claim that “increasing fear is decreasing wisdom”, though it hasn’t been illustrated in this piece in detail.
This applies to thoughts as well. If you do actually understand something, you can generate the thought yourself from completely random input.
That seems less like generating than seeing a pattern that isn’t there—though it may be accurate w.r.t. humans.
In particular, rejection sampling is a highly general technique. When something is not acceptable, do not accept it.
The wordplay was good, but I missed the meaning.
Philosophy is about teaching wisdom to others. Anyone may do this using whatever arguments, analogies, examples, or whatever technique happens to work.
But maybe we should judge whether or not it’s philosophy based on the consequences—does it increase wisdom?
What is the specific thing that “teaching wisdom” actually encompasses?
Very simply, it is this:
Teaching people to reliably ask the right questions, and reliably get valuable answers, within their own context of experience.
When a problem is really important,
When it matters,
there is no alternative but to actually have an accurate world-model which you can act according to.
If you only get one shot. (If you have as many as you like, and a limited amount of time, then making shots, as many as possible, might be the best approach.) I feel like this is less about “having a good world model” and more “having a good theory of action”.
Even though it is, relatively, the mostly energetically costly activity you can do.
Internally yes. Gasoline has a lot of energy and driving might use more energy than thinking, to say nothing of stuff using nuclear power. (Low quality meme: Nuclear brains.)
the future environment is both not the same as today, and more difficult to control.
So by default, if your world-model is unchanging, your fear and stress will increase over time.
An interesting point.
If you want to be in a future which has value to you, you need to have a positive theory of action which can “keep up” with the rate of change in the environment.
So, learning has to at least keep up.
You do not have a good track record.
It’s not clear who the piece is directed at.
Would-be-philosophers, I now call you to action. Because this, teaching people to be wise, is your job. If you don’t want
The call leans more negative “don’t do this” than positive “you can make the world an amazing place”.
To be a Student of the Art
This section was good. (It aimed at increasing wisdom.) While this post made sense as a whole, I could see this part having value even to someone who didn’t agree with the other parts before it.
Note: This comment is long, and mostly point by point.
TL:DR; I recommend the last section of the post above, To Be a Student of the Art, if you don’t intend to read the rest of the post. Also, the post recommends Gigerenzer’s work, which pertains to bounded rationality and decision making.
There aren’t footnotes that match 1, 2, and 3. There are links though.
How many people today have modern mathematical theory? More than calculus? (Yes we have negative and imaginary numbers now. A small change.) They had massive networks. Chariots and ships, and fleets. Global communication networks are new, but some say we’re saying less than ever today—and not because it is already known.
Perhaps the greek’s philosophy is old and “requires no maintenance” because it is not modern—cars and buildings, and our global systems require maintenance. Our cars are “better” than chariots, as are our skyscrapers. But what maintenance does philosophy require—if it is teaching, then the greeks may have the moderns beat in philosophy because us moderns teach the greek’s philosophy.
An admirable goal, but how would it lead to philosophy?
A footnote which isn’t missing! So philosophy is clear thinking?
It’s good for everyone to do their own philosophy well. Group philosophy though,...
Or a lot of (personal) demand for (good) philosophy.
Perhaps the question is wrong—or really hard.
Only if anyone reads it. But yes, bad philosophy pollutes the waters.
This supposes that speaking is one way.
But who is responsible? Is bad philosophy, specifically, are bad philosophers responsible for all this? Or is that fear begets fear?
Uncertainty.
What is this getting at?
A throwaway example of good philosophy?
The preceding section suggested that fear leads to (and comes from) falsehood/inaccurate models—correlation rather than causation.
A different meaning of the phrase “good idea”.
[emphasis mine]
This has not been established.
This is arguing by definition. It is easy to get a speaker to repeat “I am philosopher”—without the machines or the people involved having any love of wisdom.
A double negative. I agree with your claim that “increasing fear is decreasing wisdom”, though it hasn’t been illustrated in this piece in detail.
That seems less like generating than seeing a pattern that isn’t there—though it may be accurate w.r.t. humans.
The wordplay was good, but I missed the meaning.
But maybe we should judge whether or not it’s philosophy based on the consequences—does it increase wisdom?
If you only get one shot. (If you have as many as you like, and a limited amount of time, then making shots, as many as possible, might be the best approach.) I feel like this is less about “having a good world model” and more “having a good theory of action”.
Internally yes. Gasoline has a lot of energy and driving might use more energy than thinking, to say nothing of stuff using nuclear power. (Low quality meme: Nuclear brains.)
An interesting point.
So, learning has to at least keep up.
It’s not clear who the piece is directed at.
The call leans more negative “don’t do this” than positive “you can make the world an amazing place”.
This section was good. (It aimed at increasing wisdom.) While this post made sense as a whole, I could see this part having value even to someone who didn’t agree with the other parts before it.