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For once I agree with Paul Graham. I expect his post to be surprisingly unpopular with this crowd, as it sleights a core tenet of our postmodern age. Namely,

For once I agree with Paul Graham. I expect his post to be surprisingly unpopular with this crowd, as it sleights a core tenet of our postmodern age. Namely, he's arguing for a form of objective truth and of "the good". A statistical derivation of this good for sure (and qualitative as opposed to a Benthamist, quantitative utilitarianism), but a good nonetheless. But I applaud PG for taking this stance. Truth is not like your favorite flavor of ice cream. Software isn't either, and certain software either works or doesn't. Human culture and beliefs—our ideological software—has objectively superior results depending upon what your measuring stick is. Some beliefs are objectively better.

coopierez 5y ago
Which beliefs are objectively better?
- abernard1 5y ago
  Which software is objectively better? I'm answering your question with a question because the difficulty of the evaluation process is the point. But there can be an evaluation, and there can be an objective answer for a set of values. For instance, if we said "I would like a worldview that optimizes people not committing suicide" we could compare and contrast and say that worldview A is better than worldview B because A's adherents don't commit suicide and B's do. We can combine multiple factors, however imprecisely, and still compare A and B together as a rational person. PG is making a similar argument in the "truth" of how art evokes subjective goods in humans. Humans across time and space are the measuring stick, and hence why the present is not overly weighted in his assessment of this evocative metric of art's quality. PG's view on this is radical today but hasn't been for thousands of years and won't be again, because human nature doesn't change that much. Contextualization (acquired taste) can make one appreciate art better, but there is something transcendent across space and time that makes art lovely to humans, even lacking focused context.
- consumer451 5y ago
  > Which beliefs are objectively better? I believe there can be answers here if one can clearly define what you are optimizing for. That is the question on my mind these days.
CyberRabbi 5y ago
While you claim to oppose the postmodern idea that there is no truth, you’ve ceded the premise to the postmodernists by framing truth in their terms of objectivity and subjectivity. The success of the postmodernists was precisely to discredit all “subjective” truths by way of distinguishing them from “objective” truths, which no common person can deny. A stronger position is one that does not require the truth to be objective or material to in turn be universal and self-evident. Abstract truths, such as e^(i*pi) = -1 have no material basis and cannot be materially proven yet remain true and universal. The simultaneously purely abstract and non-arbitrary nature of mathematics is an obvious chink in the armor of the postmodernists’ worldview, so it is no surprise they have gone so far as to now discredit the universality of math by arguing that 2+2=5 https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1289001355437379589?s=20 https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1289001355437379589?s... (this is a Harvard phd student)
- jackcosgrove 5y ago
  I'm curious do you believe abstract truths are immanent or transcendent?
  - CyberRabbi 5y ago
    If by that you are asking whether abstract truths dwell purely in the minds of humans (or otherwise) or exist in some external “realm of ideas” to which minds must be connected, then I don’t have a position on that because I see it as a meaningless distinction. I don’t see a meaningful difference between the two possibilities from my perspective, the result would be the same.
- sidpatil 5y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by the universality of math. There exist different algebras which define addition differently. In the case of 2+2=4, this is formalized by the Peano axioms [1], which define addition of natural numbers. However, in tropical geometry [2], addition returns the minimum of the numbers, not their sum. The author of the original tweet makes this point, and I strongly agree with it: https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1288957167844962306/photo/1 https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/12889571678449623... As for 2.4 + 2.4 = 5, I think the tweet author is being a bit sloppy there in his explanation. But consider 0.1 + 0.2. Ask a human, and they'll tell you it's 0.3. Ask a computer, and it'll likely tell you it's 0.30000000000000004. The point is that in both scenarios, 0.1, 0.2, and addition are defined differently. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_geometry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_geometry

coopierez 5y ago

Which beliefs are objectively better?

abernard1 5y ago
Which software is objectively better? I'm answering your question with a question because the difficulty of the evaluation process is the point. But there can be an evaluation, and there can be an objective answer for a set of values. For instance, if we said "I would like a worldview that optimizes people not committing suicide" we could compare and contrast and say that worldview A is better than worldview B because A's adherents don't commit suicide and B's do. We can combine multiple factors, however imprecisely, and still compare A and B together as a rational person. PG is making a similar argument in the "truth" of how art evokes subjective goods in humans. Humans across time and space are the measuring stick, and hence why the present is not overly weighted in his assessment of this evocative metric of art's quality. PG's view on this is radical today but hasn't been for thousands of years and won't be again, because human nature doesn't change that much. Contextualization (acquired taste) can make one appreciate art better, but there is something transcendent across space and time that makes art lovely to humans, even lacking focused context.
consumer451 5y ago
> Which beliefs are objectively better? I believe there can be answers here if one can clearly define what you are optimizing for. That is the question on my mind these days.

CyberRabbi 5y ago

While you claim to oppose the postmodern idea that there is no truth, you’ve ceded the premise to the postmodernists by framing truth in their terms of objectivity and subjectivity. The success of the postmodernists was precisely to discredit all “subjective” truths by way of distinguishing them from “objective” truths, which no common person can deny. A stronger position is one that does not require the truth to be objective or material to in turn be universal and self-evident. Abstract truths, such as e^(i*pi) = -1 have no material basis and cannot be materially proven yet remain true and universal. The simultaneously purely abstract and non-arbitrary nature of mathematics is an obvious chink in the armor of the postmodernists’ worldview, so it is no surprise they have gone so far as to now discredit the universality of math by arguing that 2+2=5 https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1289001355437379589?s=20 https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1289001355437379589?s... (this is a Harvard phd student)

jackcosgrove 5y ago
I'm curious do you believe abstract truths are immanent or transcendent?
- CyberRabbi 5y ago
  If by that you are asking whether abstract truths dwell purely in the minds of humans (or otherwise) or exist in some external “realm of ideas” to which minds must be connected, then I don’t have a position on that because I see it as a meaningless distinction. I don’t see a meaningful difference between the two possibilities from my perspective, the result would be the same.
sidpatil 5y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by the universality of math. There exist different algebras which define addition differently. In the case of 2+2=4, this is formalized by the Peano axioms [1], which define addition of natural numbers. However, in tropical geometry [2], addition returns the minimum of the numbers, not their sum. The author of the original tweet makes this point, and I strongly agree with it: https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1288957167844962306/photo/1 https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/12889571678449623... As for 2.4 + 2.4 = 5, I think the tweet author is being a bit sloppy there in his explanation. But consider 0.1 + 0.2. Ask a human, and they'll tell you it's 0.3. Ask a computer, and it'll likely tell you it's 0.30000000000000004. The point is that in both scenarios, 0.1, 0.2, and addition are defined differently. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_geometry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_geometry