From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sun Mar 12 2000 - 09:06:43 MST
In a message dated 3/10/00 11:16:24 PM Central Standard Time,
neptune@mars.superlink.net writes:
> It would also be nice to see actual models of human behavior that are highly
> predictive, especially ones that can not only predict, say, habits or
> genetic stuff, but what the effects of a given change will be. Granted, to
> some extent we all have this. We interact with other people and expect
> certain ranges of reactions from them. We even expect certain norms in
film
> and fiction.
I think we DO have such models, although, as you point out, we often don't
understand our models much better than we do the more complex (and
"complete") human systems they model. We just accept the "output" of those
models on an ad-hoc basis. Attempts to RIGOROUSLY model human systems are
still in their infancy.
> > and quite another to develop
> > PRESCRIPTIVE systems of analysis. As I've written here before, I do not
> see
> > any fundamental inconsistency between scientific materialism and
> > "determinism" on the one hand and the notion that sentient beings are
> moral
> > actors capable of making (and required to make) moral choices. In brutal
> > summary, my reconciliation of these two notions derives from complexity
> > theory: above a certain level of complexity, mental systems cannot be
> > accurately enough modeled in practical terms to completely predict their
> > behavior, requiring such systems to employ generalizing heuristics that
> map
> > satisfactorily onto a traditional notion of the realm of "ethics".
>
> There are a few problems here. One, I question whether materialism is or
> can be scientific. Science is typically taken to be a method of gaining
> knowledge or knowledge gained via that method. Materialism is an
> ontological position. I'm not claiming the twain never doth meet, just
that
> one does not imply the other.
I suppose you're right - one could be a "scientific spiritualist" or a
"superstitious materialist". But it seems that, from a pragmatic point of
view, scientific materialism yields the best predictive results in our lives.
> Two, the problem for morality of determinism is not about prediction per
se,
> but about responsibility and choice. To wit, if an alleged actor cannot
> choose any of her actions, then the typical -- and, to me, correct -- view
> is that she's not responsible for her actions. In other words, we can't
> praise or blame her for doing right or wrong, good or ill, this or that.
> But that does not exhaust morality either. After all, intentions as well
as
> actions and results have to come into play.
I agree that a rigorous determinist has to give up the notion of personal
moral responsibility. If I were a classical determinist, I suppose I would
come to that conclusion - and promptly become an existentialist nihilist (a
conclusion to which much of Western culture came in the 20th century). But
I'm not, so I don't.
> Three, the complexity argument doesn't resolve the issue the way Greg wants
> it to be resolved -- with all sides being right and everything taken up
into
> to some greater whole. Instead, if a system is deterministic, it is
> deterministic, whether to itself it cannot be modeled or not. (I would
also
> submit that when we model our and other people's actions, we need not be
> complete or total -- any more than in trying to predict where to point the
> cameras on the Galileo probe presumes a complete knowledge of celestial
> happenings. But that's what Greg meant by "generalizing heuristics,"
> right?:)
That is what I meant. But I've come to the tentative conclusion that it's
not just an accident of our current state of knowledge that we have to use
imperfect models and moral heuristics to guide our actions. I think it's a
fundamental fact of life for complex minds: They can't model themselves or
other such minds completely (much less GROUPS of such minds), so there will
always be an irreducible core of activity that will be within what we now
call the realm of moral philosophy and ethics. Thus, as the complexity of a
system to be treated as a potential moral object increases (relative to the
moral SUBJECT'S ability to accurately emulate and model it), the more that
system MUST be treated as a moral object.
I know this statement has implications for the discussion Robert Bradbury and
I were having about "the ethics of godhood" a couple of months ago (?), but I
resolve that with another "moral axiom" based on a notion of "reflexivity of
moral subjecthood": An entity that must act as a moral subject within its own
realm should be treated as a moral object by "superior" beings (i.e. beings
more capable of predicting its behavior deterministically) as a "meta-rule"
(i.e. the Golden Rule as a sort of irreducible ethical "operating system")
I know the above is VERY opaque - but that's because I haven't found the time
to write the book that explains it all in more detail :-)
> That a system is complex does not clear up everything either. After all,
> paradigmatic complex systems tend to magnify small pertubations. That
being
> so, imagine a determined determinist who despite his scrutiny overlooks one
> small disturbance that happens to be completely undetermined. Soon, that
> disturbance might affect the whole system. What I'm saying is that
> complexity should make us a little humble -- though we should not retreat
> before it like some savage before a graven idol.:)
And what I'm saying is that this humility you mention is actually the "engine
of morality".
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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