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Philosophers: arguing that morality can be objective while failing to agree on the meaning of words... So to rephrase your objection, you think it is impossibl

by Iv 6y ago

Philosophers: arguing that morality can be objective while failing to agree on the meaning of words... So to rephrase your objection, you think it is impossible to have an objective measurement of something in the human society? Are you arguing in practice or in theory? Because right now this is a thought experiment, so for now we can assume perfect knowledge of what is happening within a society. You don't need instruments to calibrate, we are making a theoretical, philosophical point. If we agree that it is possible in practice, then we can talk about how to implement it in our real, imperfect, partly unknown world but it is not even clear we are there yet. > Man is the measure of all things. --Protagoras. I don't know the context of the original quote, but in the context of that discussion, that's the negation of objective truth, something I disagree with. If that's your point of view, we have a core disagreement that's going to invalidate the rest of the discussion.

ukj 6y ago
Everything can be measured in principle and in practice. Are you hungry? Yes. That trivial question/answer exchange allowed me to measure 1 bit of information about your state or hunger. Measurement isn’t the difficulty. Objectivity is the difficulty. For a measurement to become “objective” it requires inter-subjective consensus. Disagreement is the thing which hinders consensus. And there is plenty of disagreement to go around when it comes to measuring things like “health”.
- Iv 6y ago
  The atoms that compose your body are going in random directions right now, at pretty high speed, that's what create temperature. Many of your atoms go in totally opposite directions at any given time. Even drawing the line in the set of atoms that is you is ambiguous at each breath. Yet, it does not sound far-fetched an idea that you have an objectively measurable vertical speed relative to the ground and that it would be safer to maintain that speed under a current level? Consumers all attach different subjective values to objects, yet, markets converge on a price that is considered consensual, yet almost everyone disagrees on the consensus reached. This is because there is a consensus not in the result, but in the process that leads to that result. Morality in societies are similar: No one is exactly aligned with everyone else on moral questions, yet, the general state of affairs results in a consensual compromise that can be measured in the same way that you can measure the market price of an item by confronting buyers and sellers.
  - ukj 6y ago
    That is a rather reductionist answer. Did you purposefully ignore my question? Holistically speaking, how do you propose we measure “health”? What sort of market compromise do you have in mind with regards to said measurement?
    - Iv 6y ago
      You are on a tech forum. Reductionism is pretty much the norm here. Any programmer that has toyed with chaotic system theory can imagine holist views as explained by emergent behaviors of simpler systems. > Did you purposefully ignore my question? No, actually I had to rewrite my answer enitrely 4 or 5 times to avoid talking past each other, as it is clear we have different worldview, but I am doing my best to be less dismissive and bridge the difference in assumptions, something I did not do in my earlier messages, sorry about that. > Holistically speaking, how do you propose we measure “health”? I am not. I am proposing we measure precise aspects of morality. Keyword here is "precise". Measuring something requires a workable definition. A word like "health" or "good" can have several operational definitions that are contradictory with each other. In some contexts, like a hospital, you would measure "health" with a compound of physiological measures, like temperature, heart-rate, blood pressure. An economist would probably define it more in terms of likelihood to survive the year/decade. Likewise, "ethics" or "good" are not operational definitions but things like "approval of peers", "likelihood of being recognized guilty of a crime", "reported happiness" are measurable metrics that we can use to try and establish a quantitative model of ethics.
      - ukj 6y ago
        Sure, lets go with your theory that "reductionism is the technical norm". Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus. λx.health This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health". Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equivalent to "health is a function of...."
        Iv 6y ago
        I just don't understand what you are trying to do. > Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus. Health is a function now? Why an identity function? > This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health". No, this is equivalent to the sentence "health transforms anything back into what it is" which is a weird predicate. > Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equivalent to "health is a function of...." I am genuinely trying to understand what you are looking for. Considering just this sentence of yours, how is this not answered by my previous message? Especially this part: > In some contexts, like a hospital, you would measure "health" with a compound of physiological measures, like temperature, heart-rate, blood pressure. An economist would probably define it more in terms of likelihood to survive the year/decade. This is not a tautology, that's practically two algorithms to get numerical values that represents metrics of health. And why are we talking about health? I thought we were talking about ethics?

by Iv 6y ago

ukj 6y ago

Everything can be measured in principle and in practice. Are you hungry? Yes. That trivial question/answer exchange allowed me to measure 1 bit of information about your state or hunger. Measurement isn’t the difficulty. Objectivity is the difficulty. For a measurement to become “objective” it requires inter-subjective consensus. Disagreement is the thing which hinders consensus. And there is plenty of disagreement to go around when it comes to measuring things like “health”.

Iv 6y ago
The atoms that compose your body are going in random directions right now, at pretty high speed, that's what create temperature. Many of your atoms go in totally opposite directions at any given time. Even drawing the line in the set of atoms that is you is ambiguous at each breath. Yet, it does not sound far-fetched an idea that you have an objectively measurable vertical speed relative to the ground and that it would be safer to maintain that speed under a current level? Consumers all attach different subjective values to objects, yet, markets converge on a price that is considered consensual, yet almost everyone disagrees on the consensus reached. This is because there is a consensus not in the result, but in the process that leads to that result. Morality in societies are similar: No one is exactly aligned with everyone else on moral questions, yet, the general state of affairs results in a consensual compromise that can be measured in the same way that you can measure the market price of an item by confronting buyers and sellers.
- ukj 6y ago
  That is a rather reductionist answer. Did you purposefully ignore my question? Holistically speaking, how do you propose we measure “health”? What sort of market compromise do you have in mind with regards to said measurement?
  - Iv 6y ago
    You are on a tech forum. Reductionism is pretty much the norm here. Any programmer that has toyed with chaotic system theory can imagine holist views as explained by emergent behaviors of simpler systems. > Did you purposefully ignore my question? No, actually I had to rewrite my answer enitrely 4 or 5 times to avoid talking past each other, as it is clear we have different worldview, but I am doing my best to be less dismissive and bridge the difference in assumptions, something I did not do in my earlier messages, sorry about that. > Holistically speaking, how do you propose we measure “health”? I am not. I am proposing we measure precise aspects of morality. Keyword here is "precise". Measuring something requires a workable definition. A word like "health" or "good" can have several operational definitions that are contradictory with each other. In some contexts, like a hospital, you would measure "health" with a compound of physiological measures, like temperature, heart-rate, blood pressure. An economist would probably define it more in terms of likelihood to survive the year/decade. Likewise, "ethics" or "good" are not operational definitions but things like "approval of peers", "likelihood of being recognized guilty of a crime", "reported happiness" are measurable metrics that we can use to try and establish a quantitative model of ethics.
    - ukj 6y ago
      Sure, lets go with your theory that "reductionism is the technical norm". Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus. λx.health This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health". Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equivalent to "health is a function of...."
      - Iv 6y ago
        I just don't understand what you are trying to do. > Lets represent "health" as the identity function in Lambda calculus. Health is a function now? Why an identity function? > This is equivalent to the English sentence "health is health". No, this is equivalent to the sentence "health transforms anything back into what it is" which is a weird predicate. > Reduce it for me. Translate it into an expression roughly equivalent to "health is a function of...." I am genuinely trying to understand what you are looking for. Considering just this sentence of yours, how is this not answered by my previous message? Especially this part: > In some contexts, like a hospital, you would measure "health" with a compound of physiological measures, like temperature, heart-rate, blood pressure. An economist would probably define it more in terms of likelihood to survive the year/decade. This is not a tautology, that's practically two algorithms to get numerical values that represents metrics of health. And why are we talking about health? I thought we were talking about ethics?