Are there objective values? with Philip Goff

[@dominiks5068]

I have followed Goff for quite some time, nice to see him on your channel. Pretty good conversation, less awkward than most of your other discussions :)

[@KaneB]

Yeah, I thought this went better than usual too.

[@robertbcardoza]

I’m having trouble imaging feeling an ‘urge’ or a ‘compulsion’ that isn’t tied to ‘feeling good’ in one way or another. Even if it’s to avoid a very minor discomfort associated with ‘not’ doing the thing, that’s still a pleasure motivation. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a ‘pointless’ goal in this way.

[@KaneB]

That's a good point -- definitely with compulsive behaviour such as counting letters, failure to satisfy the compulsion can provoke a negative feeling. I'm not sure that all cases are like this, though. When I have a mouth ulcer, I sometimes desire to jab my tongue into it. As far as I can tell, my goal is just to experience the mild pain of irritating the ulcer; and moreover, I don't think that resisting the desire would distress me at all. Do all unsatisfied desires lead to frustration? I would say that, in some sense, I desire to be a billionaire -- I certainly wouldn't turn down the money if it were offered -- but I don't think it bothers me at all that I'm not, and probably never will be, a billionaire. My desire to irritate the mouth ulcer is like that. So this seems like a case where my goal is to experience mild pain, without a pleasure motivation.

[@jesselee34]

@@KaneB The pleasure motivation in the ulcer case could be to avoid boredom or to satisfy curiosity. There are studies that demonstrate people will give themselves electric shocks if left alone in a room with the mild torture device for 30 min and nothing else to do.

[@KaneB]

@@jesselee34 I never experience boredom and I know exactly what jabbing the ulcer will feel like so there is no curiosity about that. Sorry, but the idea that people are always motivated by pleasure doesn't ring true of my own experiences, unless we are just defining "pleasure" to mean "that which satisfies one's desires" or something like that.

[@robertbcardoza]

@@KaneB that’s interesting. I have a wild tongue myself that pokes at my mouth ulcers. But I wouldn’t say I ever have an ‘urge’ to do it. Sometimes I fee compelled to cause minor pains to myself, like picking a scab and such, but even that is just because resisting the urge is itself work. Yeah I still can’t actually imagine what it feels like to have an urge to do something if it isn’t at the very least a minor effort to resist doing it. I think, with your mouth ulcer example, there could be something more complex happening. Causing minor pain like that will release endorphins (I love extremely spicy food for that reason) so even if you don’t ‘consciously’ enjoy it you could unconsciously desire it for that reason. Can you think of any urge to do a thing that couldn’t be tied to our physiology in an unconscious way?

[@KaneB]

@@robertbcardoza >> Can you think of any urge to do a thing that couldn’t be tied to our physiology in an unconscious way? No, I think it will always be possible to tell a story about how our motivations are tied to unconscious pleasures/desires. I don't see this as a benefit of the hypothesis that we are always motivated by pleasure, though. It seems we've just rendered it unfalsifiable in principle.

[@Mvnt6]

Kane, I appreciate your humble and calm attitude in these sorts of chats

[@orangereplyer]

I think here a distinction between desires and higher order desires could be useful. For a compulsion, even though you want to do X, you don't want to *want* to do X. It's a desire you feel "stuck with", a desire you don't identify with

[@orangereplyer]

The point being, we can account for this just in terms of desires

[@KaneB]

Yeah, and it seems to me that those higher-order could just be "brute". I might desire to be the kind of person who desires to work hard, to avoid distractions, to eat healthily, to exercise regularly... and I wouldn't necessarily need to have some further reason for that desire. Given that desire, I will then experience a kind of conflict when I find myself desiring to be lazy and to eat chocolate cake.

[@MyContext]

@@KaneB Given the various contradictory notions that we hold, I would reject the idea that such is just a brute fact (at least that is how I am interpreting "brute"). Split Brain Patients kzbin.info/www/bejne/kH6vq4Nni6h0hNE

[@danielgallagher5152]

I agree with you Kane. Seems like apportioning belief to the evidence/not getting Dutch-booked is a convergent instrumental goal. Almost whatever your goal is, having beliefs well-fitted to the world will be useful in achieving that goal. So it seems categorical, but really just serves many purposes

[@ShadowStarshine]

Same place I am. I can see it entirely, at least logically, possible that there is such a person who for all states of affairs they are equally fine with, including dying or pain or whatever, and so that instrumental value of accurate beliefs isn't true. For most of us it is, we have value systems that require accurate belief, but that's not what makes something categorical.

[@ohrobert65]

"Value" is objectively utility and availability. "Rationality" is our attempt to understand and properly account for the relative value of things. "Morality" is the rationality of things that are priceless. We can fail to rationally understand value if we don't have the facts. You can't get an ought without an is.

[@orangereplyer]

One more thing. If I understand right, Baye's theorem, in its least interpreted form, only tells you about proportions. You have a possibility space with an "area" of 1, where P(A) denotes the fraction of the space occupied by A, P(B) denotes the fraction occupied by B, and P(AnB) denotes their overlap. Then, you've got Baye's Theorem: P(A|B) = P(AnB) / P(B) This just says that, the fraction of A that's occupied by B is equal to: - The fraction of the whole space that's occupied by both A and B. - Divided by the fraction of the whole space that's occupied by B. This is a statement about proportions. Its epistemic import only comes in when we assume that possibilities behave like proportions. Then we can cash out Bayesianism in terms of which bets an ideally rational agent would make.

[@orangereplyer]

Maybe normativity comes in with the idea of an "ideally rational agent"? I don't think it's necessary - an ideally rational agent would just be one that tends to, in the long run, win the bets. So we don't have normativity, unless normativity is just "accuracy" is just "truth".

[@Catofminerva]

is what u two wearing the standard white guy wear in the uk or something?

[@sirtheodorefranciswindsor]

😂

[@KaneB]

Haha. Probably standard for white guy philosophers, at least.

[@alst4817]

There was a memo, u didn’t get it?

[@Oskar1000]

53:53 We have for sure tested the reliability of Bayes theorem. Also it is about consistency relations so it is not just intuition in that brute sense.

[@calebp6114]

Also Bayes' Theorem perfectly describes our perceptual predictive processes, so it has support from the cognitive sciences.

[@Zictomorph]

Great conversation. Thank you.

[@DeadEndFrog]

It would also be possible to devide desires, compulsions and outcomes into a an aligment theory. When my desires and my outcomes fit, i get pleasure, when my desires and my complusions fit i get ocd that i don't mind (such as me checking my plates before eating from them) and when my desires and complusions don't fit, i get something like the counting of grass. When my desires and my outcomes don't fit, i get good ol' dissapointment. ect. Anyone can make up any category to make sense of themselves and their desires. As other people mentioned below, desires vs higher order desires are a perfectly fine way of talking about it. But i don't really mind any way of looking at it, it seems to me that people invent these to be able to live with themselves. What i don't see is how they are going to get us to "categorical" "objective" "true" "oughts"- and especially how they are going to use their desires, complusions and wished outcomes to judge others.. Thats the philosophy side, as for the psychology side ocd is a real issue however, and many people with ocd do seek help, so they have an compulsion that they dislike doing, and by higher order desires, or conflicting desires they seek to abolish their compulsions. What i don't see happening is someone going around telling people that they need to seek help because they have ocd, and it seems pointless from their perspective to continue on with it, they mostly do it out of concern for the persons health which diffrent then telling them to stop because the action is pointless. I have plenty of OCDs that i don't mind, and i have had some that i do mind, which i have abolished with time. But its ultimatly me who gets to decide about them. "the pointlessness" of an act is determined by me, and my pain of having a ocd is also determined by me. But i do see the moralistic compulsion of wanting to help the grass counter ;^) Its just that it just seems like that, a complusion from their side. Unless the grass counter wants out, then its just up to you if you want to help them or not. But its ultimatly up to their desires

[@BurnigLegionsBlade]

Best part of the convo 1:06:00

[@chewyjello1]

There are different kinds of compulsions. Things that we are compelled to do due to a desire or craving and things that we are compelled to do to relieve some kind of discomfort. OCD causes compulsive behavior because the behaviors relieve anxiety in the short term. Usually when we say something is a compulsion we feel negatively about the action (no matter which reason compelled us) because it was in conflict with other higher level desires we have or the behavior is otherwise interfering negatively with our lives.

[@squatch545]

It's interesting that the difference between hypothetical and categorical imperatives can be rather slim. Someone can always say state a proposition hypothetically but mean it categorically. e.g. "If you want to avoid getting arrested by police, don't protest the war". This could be taken as practical advice, and yet the underlying meaning could also be interpreted as a moral imperative: "If you criticize the war, you deserve to be arrested by police".

[@youtubehatesfreespeech2555]

I think the analysis that most people regurgitate here is just something they haven't thought through thoroughly. If I say "do we have to follow the rules of chess while playing?", the answer is YES, otherwise we don't play chess if we don't follow the rules of chess. Every context that we find ourselves in, has some characteristics, that is how you know the context exists. So in every context there is a strict set of rules that you have to follow, otherwise you are not in this context anymore. And that is an "ought" from an "is" statement. And if you ask "why should we follow the rules of the said context?" That question comes from a "context" which is different from the context that you ask this question about. People like Hume would say "that is not an "ought" from an "is" statement", because he would frame it "IF we want to play chess THEN we would have to follow the rules"... But this is a bit intellectually disingenuous because that statement can only exist before making the decision of playing chess or after we have stopped playing. Although it sounds true, at the moment of saying it we STILL HAVEN'T STARTED PLAYING CHESS OR WE HAVE STOPPED PLAYING, which by definition puts us outside of the chess context. The context of playing chess is hypothetical at this point, in other words, IT'S NOT AN "IS" STATEMENT, but it very easily could be turned into one...if we start playing. So I would prefer to say it "in the context of playing chess we have to follow the rules" which sounds a lot more like an "ought" from an "is" statement. And we basically have infinitely big number of contexts/frames of reference, so an "ought" from an "if" is always hypothetical. An "If" statement always implies future context. But we are always into some form of context because ...we exist. So there is always one more additional step after "if this then that" but people like Hume and those two guys act like the final step is "if this then that". And the final step is namely the "IF " becoming "IS". The big problem here is consciousness because consciousness is the ability to have a preference for a given context and when the consciousness is outside of this context that is what we call "suffering". If consciousness didn't exist, there wouldn't be anything that you have the ability to have a preference for hypothetical contexts. In other words, consciousness creates the problem of transitioning from one context to another. You don't want to be in a context in which you are starving although objectively speaking there is nothing wrong with it, consciousness makes you aware that the rules of the context that your consciousness is tuned into is violated, that's why you don't like it.

[@squatch545]

@@youtubehatesfreespeech2555 Not sure what this has to do with my comment. It would have relevance if it was about telling someone they 'ought' to play chess.

[@youtubehatesfreespeech2555]

@@squatch545 I got ahead of myself a bit. My point was that Hume's guillotine is fictional and not only we can get an "ought" from an "is", but that is the only way we can get an "ought"! And Kant's hypothetical and categorical imperatives are also forming dichotomy which is fictional. You said that the distinction is slim, I would say it's none existent really!

[@squatch545]

@@youtubehatesfreespeech2555 Many attempts have been made to dissolve Hume's guillotine, but none have been successful so far. To play chess, you must follow the rules of chess. Your decisions within the game itself and what moves you 'ought' to make, would be based on instrumental considerations. The same is not true for moral or normative 'oughts' whose considerations are not by nature instrumental.

[@youtubehatesfreespeech2555]

@@squatch545 Well, suffering is bad and that is the only context in which discussion about morality makes sense. Much like winning in Chess is the objective goal in the context of Chess, it's objectively bad to suffering and it's objectively good to be happy in all its forms in the context of existence. Suffering is an experience which is part of the objective reality. The lines which people put are arbitrary in this regard. You can't negotiate with yourself when you get your finger cut off, whether the experience is positive or negative, it's a negative one! It's an objectively negative experience and it's a negative experience for everyone/everything who/which has an access to the said experience. If a stone could suffer, it wouldn't like it. Take all that IS. The absolute reality, consciousness is the only barometer of good and bad in the forms of happiness and suffering! There is no "IF" statement here. You can't say "if you don't want to suffer then"...you can't want to suffer. You have no choice but to pursue happiness! And that's true regarding everyone all the time!

[@BTBama]

22:03 i mean your instinctual compulsions are partially what keeps you alive get rid of them and you die. for example the itch response is an adapted pain receptor and its your immune systems first layer of defense you itch to get off dead skin and parasites and that adapted itch response comes from the immune system, its important stuff...

[@rodolfo9916]

What do you think it is the best definition of what is normativity? I noticed that most people defines it in a circular way by using terms that need the concept of normativity to be explained, like "ought", "should" and "obligation". The best definition in my opinion is that normativity is the description of what is necessary to be done in order to achieve a certain goal. For example, when we say "if you what to live longer you should eat healthy", what we are saying is "you need to eat healthy to live longer", or "for you to live longer is necessary that you eat healthy". Of course this definition won't satisfy many people because according to this definition we need to already have a goal in order to use normativity, therefore, we can't have a normative statement independently of our goals. Can you explain what is normativity without using terms that needs the concept of normativity to be explained?

[@lanceindependent]

The circularity of the explanations may be a feature of people endorsing irreducible normativity: they don't think it can be broken down into non-normative concepts or further explained. //The best definition in my opinion is that normativity is the description of what is necessary to be done in order to achieve a certain goa// Yea, I favor something similar. I call them "consistency relations" between means and ends. So there are facts about what would be consistent with some goal. And normativity could be reduced to or explained in terms of these consistency relations. Since these relations are descriptive rather than normative, I "reduce" normativity to something non-normative.

[@vhawk1951kl]

What do you think it is the best definition of what is normativity?" is gibberish, try what is the best definitive of normativity or more simply or in babytalk for the kinderlander-mercans, what are norms? - "Normativity" is a meaningless neologism. It might help you to have the information that the term norm comes from the Latin word " norma"- the Latin word for a carpenter's set square, a so-alled " right" angle, see also normal, which has a variety of intrerpretations, none of them having anything to do with norms, values(whatever the fcuk they may be) or right-angles, nevertheless the word norms or normative is often used for(or indicate the use of) the generalities ought and should which translate(in your opinion) into what? Or what is W saying to you when he says you "ought" to....., or should"......? Or what do you suppose him to be saying when he says that you ought to, or should........? Do you suppose him to be saying anything about right-angles, or have you not the faintest idea what he is trying to say? is he not saying that he would......(you fill in the blanks) it if,...., in other words he is saying something subjunctive or conditional; he would..(what?) it *If* you.......(whatever, or X?) Were I to tell you that you "should", or "ought" to, learn pure English, do you suppose that I am saying that it would annoy or hurt me if you were to learn pure English? Or,what exactly *do* you suppose me to be saying? which is a roundabout or elaborate way of saying *translate* *"Ought*" or *"Should*" into something else or other words, so *translate*you Ought to, or Should....(whatever) into other words; normative is merely a fancy word for(what might be called) Ought*_ing, and *Should*_ing, which is saying *What*?

[@DeusExHomeboy]

I think nobody can argue against "value" being non existent in a universe without an experience machine, like a brain. As in "a mind's existence precedes any value, and that is itself an inherent property of this universe (as in this universe also had 0 minds at some point in time, and 0 values, and eventually somewhere minds emerged like any other natural phenomenon, but the minds could value." Using that axiom, value is inherently tied to universal principle-based minds, so it has an objective boundary. Given that minds, like anything else have a potential range of configurations as permitted by the underlying system's laws - there will be non-functional, less complex, more complex, and maximally complex minds. If we accept that there can be a "perfect" mind, which can compute all information, that seems like it would be able to lay out 'the perfect interpretation of all value relative to the designs of the minds in existence, which follow the laws of, and emerge from the system itself".

[@ConceptHut]

What was these speakers definition of "ought"? If they said one, I never heard it. It seems difficult to use or dismiss something effectively if you dont know what that something is.

[@apes4days254]

Hi Kane, a bit off topic, but is there any artists / art movements that interest you? Do you have a favourite artist? I think a video covering your understanding of art would be very insightful!

[@KaneB]

My favourite artist is John Cage. Here's a video I made on his composition 4'33": kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4PRqX6LbNWhi7M I'm really into free improvisation -- Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Peter Brotzmann, AMM, Sonny Sharrock, Pharoah Sanders... I think that's probably my favourite "art movement". I also listen to a lot of modern classical and 80s pop/rock/funk. A few other favourites who don't fit those categories: Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Ryoji Ikeda, Jon Hassell, Grateful Dead, Jandek, Steely Dan, Tiny Tim, Earth, Bob Dylan, Half Japanese, Motorhead. I'm less familiar with visual art than music but I tend to be drawn to abstract and non-representational works. I rarely watch films these days, but I do love the work of Werner Herzog, Peter Weir, David Lynch, Lloyd Kaufman, and Quentin Tarantino. I enjoy classic action films, e.g. Schwarzenegger's films from the 80s and 90s. Also, anything with Nicolas Cage. I don't read fiction, so I have no preferences about that. It's just because I do so much reading for my work that I'm never in the mood to read during my free time. Television: Doctor Who, particularly the classic series, though I enjoy a lot of NuWho as well. That's the only show that I rewatch regularly. Other favourites: 15 Storeys High, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Jam, Peep Show, Star Trek TNG, The X-Files, What We Do in the Shadows.

[@apes4days254]

@@KaneB Interesting, I share many of the same predilections. I would recommend, since you don't have much experience with visual arts, to take a look into Marcel Duchamps works. He was a total iconoclast, with many revolutionary and expressive ways of thinking about visual communication. His art is truly captivating, and judging by your interests in avant-garde expression, you will find merit within. Cheers Kane!

[@KaneB]

@@apes4days254 I love Duchamp and Dada in general!

[@apes4days254]

@@KaneB I knew you would. I saw his Fountain the other day in person at the TATE Modern. It actually made me laugh. It was a very liberating and reflective experience to see behind the object to the idea it represented. Max Ernst is another towering figure of Dada I'd happily recommend! Thanks for taking the time to respond Kane. I admire your videos.

[@Mvnt6]

​@@KaneB Here are four records it seems like you would almost certainly like: - Alexander von Schlippenbach's Trio - Pakistani Pomade - Graham Lambkin / Jason Lescalleet - The Breadwinner - Alan Braufman - Valley of Search - Burton Greene - Burton Greene Quartet

[@RyanApplegatePhD]

Question 1 - I am genuinely curious, is there a philosophy of ethics (or in general actually) that focuses more on ranking the relative value of things, without every categorizing? It seems to me that many issues arise due to being unable to draw a clear boundary, so to rephrase my earlier question - is there a philosophy that only asserts fuzzy boundaries or no boundaries at all, only comparative statements? It's very easy for me to think goal X is better than "blade of grass counting" or "murder" is more wrong than "punching someone" but it's nearly impossible for me to believe either is wrong in an absolute sense. Question 2 - At what point does something like "Error theory" cease being philosophy at all? There seem to be compelling evolutionary arguments for why you could ground ethics in "maximizing survival" or "reproductive fitness", which based on that single assertion can get you to why "counting blades of grass" is worse than "insert other goal".

[@aaronchipp-miller9608]

Afaik, subjective Bayesians do not usually believe there is any prior probability you OUGHT to have. Rather, they believe you ought to adjust your probabilities according to certain rules (conditionalization and such) but why you ought to do that seems open to both the realist and antirealist. The realist might say that rationality demands this kind of credence adjustments, while the anti realist might be able to just say doing this is a good way to have accurate beliefs and I want beliefs like that. Now, I myself would be inclined towards the realist line because it seems kinda crazy to me to say "well if you dont care about true beliefs then you have no reason to adjust your credence in your belief that there is a fire in the forst given the fact that there is smoke above the trees", but I dont see why this is thought to be some in principle problem for Kane. I guess he could just accept that conclusion

[@fred8097]

On philip’s point about certain compulsive behaviours being pointless even if they don’t get in the way of other goals, wouldn’t there also be no reason NOT to perform those actions as well no reason to perform them? This would effectively free them from normative considerations altogether. It would be pointless in the same way that momentarily raising your hand before you go to sleep would be pointless - it’s pointlessness wouldn’t be such to ground a claim that you shouldn’t do it, because there are also no reasons not to do it (in fact, if it’s truly compulsive, then the silencing of that compulsion achieved by performing it would constitute a reason to do it after all)

[@BiznizTrademark]

Nothing that pushed me towards realism here. Goff seems to almost admit that a "thought through" anti-realism could be correct. And why shouldn't we consider the most thought through version of a theory? The main problem with realism seems to be just that, that it takes the unphilosophical everyday take on things to be the most authoritative. It's a strange way of philosophizing.

[@oOneszaOo]

I don't see how probability could ground an "ought". Why should I base my beliefs on probability? The only answer is "if I desire truth". Desire is what grounds what "oughts" I accept or others expect me to accept.

[@jasonbthibodeau]

Please explain how that works. That is, explain how a desire grounds an ought. For example: Suppose Thomas desires to jab himself in the eye with a fork. How does that desire ground the claim that he ought to jab himself in the eye with a fork?

[@oOneszaOo]

@@jasonbthibodeau it depends on your definition of "ought". there's two ways in which we ordinarily conceive of it. the first relates to what others want you to do (you could call that extroverted desire), and the second relates to what you want to do (introverted desire). if a person or a group has a desire (=feelings, motivations, reasons) that compels them to want Thomas to jab himself in the eye (they may want to punish him or perhaps they think this is best for him because [insert whatever]), they would say he ought to do this since they believe jabbing himself in the eye is conducive to satisfying a desire / achieving a goal (theirs or his). This extroverted desire may align or clash with Thomas' introverted desire to jab himself in the eye (or not jab himself in the eye). It may be that he wants to jab himself in the eye, even after careful consideration of all his other desires (which this action may well frustrate), but other people tell him he ought not to do so because their analysis of what's good for him or what they want from him conflicts with his own. In this case, what he ought to do depends on whether he thinks he ought to follow what others say or whether he thinks he ought to do what he believes is right. "I ought to trust my own assessment" is another way of saying "my desire to trust my own assessment overrides my desire to trust other people's assessment", perhaps because he thinks he has the truth on his side and his desire for truth overrides every other desire he has. Alternatively, it may be that he thinks he ought to jab himself in the eye for the sake of others, which means his primary desire is to satisfy the desire of others (which would be satisfied best, according to him and/or others, by jabbing himself in the eye). It may be that he had a vision of god that said he ought to jab himself in the eye, and because Thomas' primary desire is to satisfy god, he jabs himself in the eye (believing he ought to) even though he wishes he didn't have to. Finally, it may be that everyone, including Thomas, agrees that he ought not to jab himself in the eye because it satisfies nobody's desire and achieves no goal that anybody wants him to achieve, possibly due to the fact that Thomas jabbing himself in the eye is an act too costly in the context of competing desires that also want fulfilling (Jane wants Thomas to look handsome; Thomas wants to become a pilot; John hates idea of another person suffering unnecessarily; etc.). So they all agree he ought to find a less costly way of satisfying whatever desire would compel him to resort to self-mutilation. In other words, "ought" is grounded by being a communicative tool 1) for the purpose of expressing a value judgement (i.e. criticism, advice, prescription, etc.) born from people's desires on the individual as well as the social level ("Thomas ought not to x because I/we/others desire he not x"; "I ought to do what I think is right because my primary desire is to do what I think is right and I have come to the conclusion that x is the right thing to do") and 2) of people's assessment of how to best satisfy a particular desire / achieve a particular goal ("If Thomas wants x, he ought not to go about it this way because either there is another way which he will find more desirable or there is another way which we find more desirable").

[@jasonbthibodeau]

@@oOneszaOo I suspect that I was not clear about my question. I am not asking you for examples in which a person has a desire and then comes to a conclusion about what he or she ought to do. I am asking for a general account of how a desire grounds an ought. Think of it this way: You are claiming that the only way to ground an ought is through a desire. That is, the only kind of thing that can ground an ought is a desire. My question is, what is it about desires that give them is power/capacity? And why can nothing else (no other fact) ground an ought?

[@lloydgush]

One good approach is "if you want, then there's instrumental stuff you want to want in other to achieve your wants, and there's stuff you don't want in order to no be needlessly frustrated."

[@oOneszaOo]

@@jasonbthibodeau because of how desire is defined in this context. you can call it reason or intention or motivation or purpose or whatever you like so long as you acknowledge the subject-dependent factor. the point is really just that subject-independent grounding of morality makes no sense, even if you assume god grounds morality (then he's the subject whose desires we care about). probability is subject-independent (supposedly it would still be a fact about the world even if there was nobody to know about it), but in so far as it interfaces with morality, it's because there's a subject (or multiple) pursuing the satisfaction of a desire of some sort using probabilistic analysis as a tool to do so. but even the question of whether the tool itself MUST be used can only be answered with "obviously not. nothing but anybody's desire to use it compels its usage."

[@jesselee34]

Can someone who understands what is meant by stance-independent truth-value tell me whether the following proposition is or is not "objective" given that definition? "A gallon of milk costs $3.50"

[@plastic2666]

Well proposition aren't vague or ambiguous, so we could go down the unfortunately named "semantic nihilism' route that states that vague a and ambiguous statements can't correspond to how things exists and so can't be properly true but are rather true in degrees. (If you think about it it may be that all statements aboutexternal world are vague from the jump, but that would depend on your mereology and your stances on heap of sand argumrnts but anyway)And so your statement can't be true cuz it is vague and ambiguous. For ambiguous, do you mean all milk is 3.50 usd or that some milk somewhere is 3.50 us, for vagueness what if it's bought in a different currency but of equivalent value usd what is the principle that makes the conversion rate 3.50 and not 3.49? But any way, we could go on and make more specific statements to get at the relevant proposition, but( big claim) the thing is that the proposition exists whether you concive of it or not, so long as it is possibly conceivable (least that's what I think) and regardless of what you think it either describes how things are or fails to and is true or false respectfully. Another thing on objectivity definitions that I think is interesting is understanding how our feelings, more specifically our awareness of our feelings is objectively, cuz if I'm mad you don't get to decide that I'm not, so a definition of objectivity I like to think about is "something is objective if it does not depend on OTHER minds." Rather than just minds. Anyway...WALL OF TEXT! Please yell at me if Im dumb, I wanna know.

[@plastic2666]

Didn't answer the question. It doesn't express a proposition, it's vauge and ambiguous, but if you pick one of the possible proportions that could be ment, that proposition would correspond to how things are or not, regardless of an individual's opinion and so it may be true it may be false, let's get clear and specific.

[@jesselee34]

@@plastic2666 So the proposition is "A gallon of..."So It could have been better stated "This particular gallon of milk costs $3.50" The point of the question is to demonstrate a different area of speech where we are perfectly comfortable making statements that are presumed to have objectivity but at bottom cannot be given the "stance independence" definition. Since the concept of "cost" is meaningless in a universe lacking agents with stances.

[@plastic2666]

​​@@jesselee34 hello, hope your well. So yt comments isn't the best medium for philosophy but... Well I think you can have stance dependent objective truths, for instance, how is the statement I'm on a mountain made true, it's vauge, but we can stipulate a boarder and make judgements that are objectivity true or false relative to that point. So yea words having objective definitions/meaning is not correct, but once you get to proposition you do have it cuz what it is to be a particular proposition is to have a particular meaning, so while what we say may never be properly true cuz we can't express a proposition, that doesn't change that proposition can be properly true ( properly true meaning not like notion of truth semantic nihilism mean.) But yea so is cost meaningless without any minds existing, idk bc I think what is necessary and sufficient for a proposition to exits is that there is a possible mind, rather than an actual mind, that could convince it if that mind was actual.

[@ydrojzelf]

​@@jesselee34 I'm not sure if this helps, but there is a distinction between ontological subjectivity and epistemic subjectivity. Everything to do with economics and other social constructions are ontologically subjective, but the fact that something is a certain price is not just an opinion and therefore epistemically objective. Searle gives a lecture on this topic on KZbin.

[@pbradgarrison]

Doesn't "objective" mean mind-independent? How can a value be mind-independent?

[@lanceindependent]

Yes, that's what it means. And good question: I study the topic, and I'm not sure how values can be mind-independent. It doesn't make any sense to me. It sounds like "mind-independent tastes."

[@vhawk1951kl]

Doesn't "objective" mean mind-independent? How can a value be mind-independent?" No, it simply means*Not_Subjective* the unfortunate and innocent Kane is simply pouring from the empty into the void - presumably as some sort of distraction from his innocence and abject poverty, when he would be better served by sticking to the cinque contra uno that has left him in such a state. Notionally and occasionally " objective is supposed or imagined to mean or indicate common to all experiencers, which - employing a universal as it does, translates as imaginary or cannot be directly immediately personally experienced. There are remarkably few men(human beings/dreaming machines) that are not the abject slaves of their emotional(like/dislike) - and other, functions which is not necessarily to say that they all react(mechanically-automatically) to the same sources or causes of their purely mechanical-automatic reactions, but that would rather depend on the familiarity of those seeking to manipulate their mechanicality with the detail of those mechanisms that are called men(human beings/dreaming machines)would it not? The short answer to the question which translates as do all men react identically to identical experiences- is..... *screamingly_obviously*, No, withe the qualification but *all men*, is imaginary(cannot be directly immediately personally experienced other than as an image or idea or creature of the dreaming/associative apparatus or mind) The unfortunate, innocent and impoverished Kane, mistakenly supposes that pouring from the empty into the void qualifies for the epithet "philosophy", in respect of which he is , what we lawyers call, " wrong", or has no corresponding, or matching experience in terms of what-is-and-cannot-be-different. Calling dreaming "philosophy" does not necessarily mean, or indicate that it is anything*other_than* dreaming.

[@GottfriedLeibnizYT]

8:40 Reconsidering noncognitivism again?

[@lanceindependent]

I doubt it. Noncognitivism makes the same mistake about presuming uniform and determinate meaning to moral judgments

[@eapooda]

@@lanceindependent hey whats the paper that rejects the uniform determinate semantics called again?

[@lanceindependent]

@@eapooda Indeterminacy and Variability in Meta-Ethics by Michael Gill

[@BTBama]

24:26 well if Bob is reading book A but wants to read book B and i tell him he can just read book B and i hand it to him but he seas he wants to read book B by reading book A and never touching book B then it stands to reason that he factually will never reach his goal there by my correction truly is factual no?

[@lloydgush]

Objective values can only be constructed the way objective things are. Through premises and internal consistency while watching were those premises lead.

[@alst4817]

Glad to see Ollie moved on after Malcolm Tucker. He’s done well for himself

[@MyContext]

I just learned how worthless any particular process X is with regard to whether such ought to influence my belief or anyone else for that matter. Please keep in mind the phrase "facts are opinions to those that don't know". I don't know how bayes theorem works nor whether such is necessarily applicable to any particular review. I am TOLD that it is useful, but until I understand that such is in fact the case, I have no basis to accept whatever is produced by Bayes theorem. So, claiming that I ought to accept Bayes theorem does little to nothing for my state of mind given my ignorance of Bayes theorem as to how it works and the scope of its applicability. I can go a bit further, by pointing out the various logics that people employ of varying dubiousness such that ANY ought is actually predicated on the logic system that they are employing. This should immediately make it clear that any ought that another produces which is incompatible with the tapestry of the individual being referenced with regard to an ought is immediately a non-sequitur, since such would not apply to that individual.

[@neoepicurean3772]

How can you have a 10% belief in God?

[@vhawk1951kl]

"How can you have a 10% belief in God?" To ask that question is to answer it. is it not? However some half-witted wiseacre will no doubt assure you that you can be more or les convinced or sure of any supposition at which you may arrive. Some have an aptitude for algebra, and it may be that they should stick to it, as the unfortunate Kane should perhaps stick to cinque contra uno and avoid that for which he has none of the required wits breeding or learning, but seemingly the poor creature has no choice in respect of his proclivity for what he- mistakenly supposes to be philosophy, but is, in terms of what-is-and-cannot-be-different, no more than pouring from the empty into the void.

[@rath60]

TLDR I define pleasure as obtaining that which you desire therefore a person that desires to count blades of grass will feel pleasure at doing so. I distinguish between compulsions and desires. I am compulsad to eat and I desire to eat chocolate cake. I have at times desired not to eat and been compulsad to eat. If the person who desires nothing but to count grass they definitionally must feel pleasure at doing so. It helps that this is confirmed by neuro science. When we do something we want to do are brains pleasure centers light up. If the person is compulsad to count blades of grass I would suspect that they would ask for help with there compulsion or at least feel displeasure and then desire not to have to count grass. I should also add that I am not a stranger to desiring to take baffling actions such as fold plastic bags into equilateral triangles. But I enjoying doing that. I also feel compulsions to organize dishes before washing them.

[@captainwilliams3893]

bro how did this get in my recommended😭

[@KaneB]

Because it's fantastic and everybody should watch it.

[@pbradgarrison]

Reifying our evolved intuitions into objective facts just doesn't follow a reasonable track.

[@chronic_washere]

when I think of reification I immediately think Max Stirner

[@Mcristini1994]

I dissagree with Goff about the interpretation of probability as an underlying "ought" towards the most probable belief. The "ought" in that case presupposes there is a subjective norm by wich you are required to believe whatever is most probable, and that is not evident. You could choose to believe some less probable belief for different reasons. For example, if you are sent to war it could be the case that it's very probable that you will die, but, in order to survive, it could have greater practical value for you to believe that you will survive (the belief in your own survival could augment the practical chances of you actually surviving by giving you courage and the will to struggle). In that case, if your goal is to survive, then you "should" believe that you will, even if it actually is less probable. Nietzsche is pretty clear regarding this topic: the obligation of accepting or endorsing the truth is an optative moral postulate. There is no evident reason for why anyone "should" allways believe true beliefs, even if they are known to be true. Sometimes is better to believe false beliefs (for example, when that helps us carrying on with certain tasks).

[@Peosphoros]

My understanding is that "objective" refers to the truth-apt qualities of a state of affairs. The truth-apt qualities of a state of affairs is either true or false. Ironically and appropriately, the word ‘value’ has the double meaning of being a percentage/probability and belief/opinion. "Value" refers to a percentage which is the opposite of the quality of being true (100%) or false (0%) or in other words value means non truth-apt (1% to 99%) and not truth-apt means not objective. Objective and value are oil and water

[@lloydgush]

Not really, because you can't ever reach either "it's true" or "it's not true", you can only gauge it's relative truth value. And it's still a guesswork. A worthwhile guesswork.

[@Peosphoros]

@@lloydgush there are no relative truths, relativity applies to belief not truth.

[@lloydgush]

@@Peosphoros I didn't say "relative truth" I said "relative truth value" which is different from relative truth. Which is not the same as belief, but a gauge on the accuracy of the belief/claim.

[@rath60]

Why should I believe that there is a non arbitrary mapping from he domain of actions to the domain of worthiness. Clearly depending on the cardinality of actions and worthiness we have any from 2^|actions| and |actions| cross |worthiness| mappings. If there is correct mapping by virtue of reality it should be random meaning the probability is small or zero that one of them would be it. Where ass each person having a personal mapping makes a tone of sense what's more we would have learned which mapping work for us . Meaning that your intuition could have developed 'naturally' rather than being enate to the universe.

[@rath60]

TLDR I'm happy to believe in approximations, which are definitionally false. So I have very little trouble in holding false beliefs. Take the statement at 4°C water has a density of 1 g/cc I'm perfectly comfortable holding this belief. I also know it is false water is made of discrete particles and therefore has no boundary and water is incompressible at some scales but at atomic scales I imagine that there exist n atoms of water more or less than the number whose mass adds to 1g in a cc. Some people might call this a useful fiction. I call it the actual definition of 1, gram, cubic centimeter, water, 4, degree Celsius, etc.

[@coomservative]

casual realism enjoyer

[@rath60]

Ok fudge probability in a nutshell. Given E in Ω, where E is an event and Ω is a set of events. A probability is that which hold the following property: My belief in E is not negative. My belief that any E in Ω given Ω is certain. Given E and F in Ω if my belief in E given F is 0 then my belief in E and F given Ω is the sum of my belief in F and my belief in E. Else well its sum of the belief in E and F minus the product of the belief in E given F times the belief in E. Now consider I record the sun has come up from the east every day of my life. So my belief the sun will come up tomorrow will have certain property it is greater than or equal to 0 it is less than or equal to 1. The sun not coming up is independent from the sun coming up so the the sum of my belief should be 1. I know the result of n events for which my belief should have been equal therefore my belief that the sun will not come up will not be greater 1/(n+1). In this way we can move from an inductive argument to a deductive argument.

[@sonyadonnegan1983]

Goff has the gift of saying so many words yet saying absolutely nothing.

[@rath60]

There is a p in [0,1] chance of E means nothing. There is a p in [0,1] chance of E given Ω is pretty clear.

[@BTBama]

9:50 i mean sociology explains normativety pretty well.. i mean its human and animal nature... copy cats...

[@jad4286]

it explains it in a technological way and a sociological normative statement is as worthless or valuable as my normative statement.

[@BTBama]

@@jad4286 i guess, accept for that its pretty easy to conclude that it is sociologically normal to pre judge people and events, and thus survival rates are directly tied to cognitive pre judgment its pretty logically invincible to me, but again thats me. and thats just one study not comparative to the entire school of thought/study

[@jad4286]

@@BTBama i generally have a problem with linking studys to a objective normative statement. but i agree in your point that it is normal to pre judge.

[@anitkythera4125]

Sorry Kane, if you ran across someone who was always counting blades of grass and looked very unhappy doing it, wouldn't you assume, not that they were doing what they wanted to do but that they were likely mentally ill. People with properly functioning reward systems don't do this sort of thing. Your compulsion is defined as such because it isn't something that you chose to do in the normal sense of the word and it is negative in that it appears to interfere with other goals that we assume normal people have. If you truly go around and see an person muttering word salad to themselves on the street, do you really assume that they're just doing what they want to do and you don't think, before investigating further, that there's something wrong with them?

[@exalted_kitharode]

If he considers those people mentally-ill it doesn't count against his position. Because illness is normatively-loaded concept as well. And illness is determined through communal intuitions of majority concerning the normality and defectivity.

[@MyContext]

Goff, everything you presented registers as subjective - mind dependent. You didn't even present a criteria by which I could consider your position to have a constructed basis of independent adjudication. It seems that you are taking various psychological compulsions as sustaining the idea of something objective. However given that that is a product of a psychological process makes such inherently subjective - mind dependent. I will grant that with regard to an individual's psychology, that there are objective facts at least at the moment of review, but given that such is a psychological fact, such is also subject to change. However, this doesn't get to a general statement, but rather a narrow specific tapestry with regard to an individual with nothing of such being binding on others. It would seem to be the case that one either has reasons or feelings with regard to what one does. The following video would seem to have some bearing with regard to goals and values. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nna4gGmmn9x5hdE

[@lloydgush]

Subjective isn't "mind independent" it's independent of a particular mind. Something akin to an universal underlining reality. But yeah, it's a weak argument to try to get them to concede on an universal moral standard.

[@MyContext]

@@lloydgush ??? Can you present an example of what you are referencing as subjective.

[@lloydgush]

@@MyContext Well, I can go beyond just that. You can see anything not "general" as subjective to a particular case, and in that, subjective.

[@MyContext]

@@lloydgush What does the term subjective mean to you? My use of the term subjective is predicated on the idea of an unknown criteria of evaluation predicated on the subject making the evaluation. Whereas my use of the term objective is predicated on a known criteria such that an evaluation is not predicated on a particular subject but instead a criteria allowing independent review. My particular formulation of the definition was inspired by the KZbin video titled "The Messy Objective Subjective Distinction" with the goal of cleaning up the terms while maintaining what I understand as the core point of the terms. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bHTKc3uqapqGfqc I don't consider any evaluation to be binding even as the evaluation can allow some particular point of understanding.

[@lloydgush]

@@MyContext That's a good enough definition. Pretty descriptive of one way people use the term, quite spot on. Interestingly enough you just dubbed almost every AI in existence (to our knowledge) subjective. And that has very compelling implications: you can't ever make one which is perfect and if you try to make one good enough, you are bound to not really know how it works or how it may fail, because it's bound to be subjective. Also, in order to get your definition from mine, you just have to add it's a particular fitness function and that you don't know how it works.

[@MatauReviews]

no

[@mikealexander1935]

I would look at the person counting blades of grass as her sole pursuit in life and conclude that she would then not have reproduced so he genes would not propagate. Also, your take on her pursuit (and mine) and I assume a great many people implies nobody copies he behavior. Once she dies, the model of her way of life vanishes from the collective mind of humanity, except perhaps, as an example of what not to do. Here is is clear that this pursuit is "wrong" in an evolutionary sense.

[@deadman746]

Odd title. Obviously there are objective values, but the objective nature is poor at telling you if they are any damn good, at least after a certain point (or a vague one). Furthermore, there have been lots of objective values that have led to a lot of unwarranted misery and death.

[@mikealexander1935]

Kane, be real. You have a youtube channel. The blade counter does not. THAT is a fundamental difference in an evolutionary sense. The cultural information you possess and then express on your channel has a degree of transmission that is likely to be roughly proportional to your number of subscribers. The blade counter likely has zero transmission.

[@Huesos138]

>Professed subjectivist admits that he hasn't done much philosophy of mind and is really behind on all of that stuff. Color me surprised.