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> You have to start from how the reality works and then derive your work. Every philosopher eventually came to the same realization: We don't have access to th
by kelseyfrog 1y ago
> You have to start from how the reality works and then derive your work.
Every philosopher eventually came to the same realization: We don't have access to the world as it is. We have access to a model of the world as it predicts and is predicted by our senses. In so far as there is a correlation between the two in whatever fidelity we can muster, we are fated to direct access to a simulacrum.
For the most part they agree, but we have a serious flaw - our model inevitably influences our interpretation of our senses. This sometimes gets us into trouble when aspects of our model become self-reinforcing by framing sense input in ways that amplify the part of the model that confers the frame. For example, you live in a very different world if you search for and find confirmation for cynicism.
Arguing over metaphysical ontology is exemplified by kids fighting about which food (their favorite) is the best. It confuses subjectivity and objectivity. It might appear radical, but all frames are subjective even ones shared by the majority of others.
Sure, Schopenhauer's philosophy is the mirror of his own nature, but there is no escape hatch. There is no externality - no objective perch to rest on, even ones shared by others. That's not to say that all subjectivities are equally useful for navigating the world. Some models work better than others for prediction, control, and survival. But we should be clear that useful does not equate with truth, as all models are wrong, some are useful.
JC, I read the rest. The author doesn’t seem to grasp how profit actually works. Price and value are not welded together: you can sell something for more or less than the value it generates. Using his own example, if the AI and the human salesperson do the same work, their value is identical, independent of what each costs or commands in the market.
He seems wedded to a kind of market value realism, and from this shaky premise, he arrives at some bizarre conclusions.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- harwoodjp 1y agoYour dualism between model and world is nearly Cartesian. The model itself isn't separate from the world but produced materially (by ideology, sociality, naturally, etc.).
- nine_k 1y agoA map drawn on a flat piece of land is still not the whole land it depicts, even though it literally consists of that land. Any representation is a simplification, as much as we can judge, there's no adequately lossless compressing transform of large enough swaths of reality.
- kelseyfrog 1y ago> The model itself isn't separate from the world but produced materially To me this is like drawing a circuit diagram on a piece of paper and trying to convince someone that, "Really there is electricity flowing through it." Models are relations between signifiers. There exists a transformation between the signified relations and the relations of the signifiers, but they are, in fact, two separate categories and the transformation isn't bijective. ie it doesn't form an isomorphism.
- card_zero 1y agoUrgh. I feel the stodge of relativism weighing down on me. OK, yes, all models (and people) are wrong. I'll also allow that usefulness is not the same as verisimilitude (truthiness). But there is externality, even though nobody can as you say "perch" on it: it's important that there is objective reality to approach closer to, however uncertainly.
- kelseyfrog 1y agoI'm willing to grant non-symbolic externality. Though, I don't know how useful that is. We will never access the signified only the signifier. When we believe that signifiers exist externally, we are engaging in a suspension of epistemic honesty, and I get why we do it - it makes talking about and engaging with the world infinitely easier. But we shouldn't ever believe our own trick. That's reverting to a pre-operational version of cognition.