Intuition and its limits

In regard to a conversation I had about my objective morality post:

We may have in our selves certain moral ( and psychological and physical) instincts. I would like to break these down into two sets the evolutionary intuition and the cultural intuition. The difference should be simple to explain yet examples will be much more complicated to discover. We might want to call the evolutionary "universal" but I am avoiding this for two reasons: these ideas may only apply to us, and we may find cultural ideas that have spread everywhere that are not necessarily evolutionary.

The definitions are as follow; evolutionary intuition is that which rises from the nature of our animal selves the ability to love and recognize distress in the faces of others, the ability to know about how far you can jump etc.

The cultural intuitions are things you are taught either implicitly or explicitly by the groups you are in while growing (and to a lesser extent while grown) The best example I have of this is the reaction we share to power outlets.

Sometimes the cultural can override the evolutionary and sometimes it can't
These limits to our evolutionary psychology can de described. We have a sort of "Paredolia of action". If we are running a trail in the woods and a tree root trips us there is some degree of wanting to ask the tree why it tripped us. When really we just didn't notice the root. We also tend to ascribe complex intensional agency on other inanimate objects or simple animals. We also reserve certain traits as distinctly human when they may be apparent in other creatures.

Our evolutionary physics serves us well for playing baseball but does not help us when discussing quantum mechanics or relativistic ideas. It also would need to be retrained for living on a space station. Playing catch in a rotating reference frame and remembering we have our mass even without our weight.
Our evolutionary morals will likely have similar defects when dealing with a world different than that from which they were derived. Some carryovers may be of a benefit others of a detriment but most will likely carry a mixed bag of behaviors into our current and future culture.

Still there may be realms of inquest for which our current intuitions are not equipped or non existent. Probability and statistics do not seem to have an evolutionary correlate nor do they seem to be well represented culturally. Naturally then we must create a form of them that can be taught to children and teach this to voters.

This begins to lead us to the ideas of literacy in a subject. I will deal with that idea in another post or this won't ever be published.

Lying and Truth

Lying vs Honesty vs facts:

Lying is intent to convey falsehood whether through action or inaction

Honesty is an intent to convey facts through action.

These are both irrespective of the actual facts.  Someone could lie and convey factual information if they are misinformed. and the reverse is also true.  Propagating a falsehood is the putting forward of false information, whether or not you know it's actual truth value. 

There are four states: 

You are conveying True information and believe that you are conveying True information This is Honesty (and  being correct)

You are conveying True information and believe you are conveying False information This is Lying and being misinformed (and unlikely)

You are conveying False information and believe that you are conveying False information This is lying (and being correct)

You are conveying False information and believe that you are conveying True information This is Honesty and being misinformed

       Note that these states really have two features. One refers to the state of reality the other to the state of someones belief about the nature of reality. I don't want* to get into a long diatribe about the values and reasons for considering an objective reality to be true.  So basically something can either be true or false, but you can also believe it to be true or false** And it is how we act on our beliefs that reflect whether we are lying or not lying, but it is how what we say reflects reality that determines if we are telling the truth or not. (not lying or ~lying)   

      Now there are ways of telling if someone is lying, that have various degrees of reliability from some to none.  But there are certain techniques for getting at the truth that are very thorough. And while it is a good idea to know something about the art and science of deception. It is a simpler and worthier practice to learn how to find the truth regardless of the opinions of others.  These methods are the various types of formal and informal reasoning of which logic is the main branch.  Logic itself can only deal with the way ideas are structured and requires information and knowledge to be used well.  Further discussion of these ideas is beyond the scope of this essay and will be covered elsewhere.

___________________________________________


*Well, I want to but I wont here.

** You can also hold the following beliefs, although they are very difficult to do and we typically have an opinion even if we don't admit it.  that something is unknown*** (insufficient data)  , that something is unknowable (called agnosticism) or Fuck All, Who cares, let's go to the pub (known as indifference).

*** There is of course that famous Rumsfeld quote that sums up the various states of knowledge; Which for some reason people find amusing when it is actually quite astute:      "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Source and the acquisition of knowledge

Being trained to recognize and create good argument, and to recognize and critique the bad is only the first step in being a participant.  Having a wide berth of knowledge and the skills to again more is particularly important for evaluation of premises. This is the only way to determine valid false statements from valid true ones.

What then can be said of knowing and it's methods? We cannot ground the experience of knowing on some abstract idea; it is an intrinsic part of our development and must be dealt with As part of the knowing whole. Knowing is part of the function of brains (minds). We can store information in a book but the book does not know anything about its contents. This is what I referred to earlier as a self referential learning system. Knowledge in its simplest sense is a form of Pavlovian conditioning (however abstracted it may be from simple impulses)
This does not tell us how to know or solve he issues of epistemological concern. I merely want to suggest that knowledge must be in reference to a knower. There are certain things that may exist in a world with no animus but knowledge is not one of them.

"Argument: A Field Guide in Six Parts" via Derren Brown

Derren Brown is a fantastic Magician.  He is following int he tradition of Houdini and Randi by providing tools to better evaluate claims.   These videos are available on his site.  You should check it out.


Great short video series on critical thinking: "Argument: A Field Guide in Six Parts"

Robo Avians

Originally I was going to write about the use of drones and the interesting legislation happening about their civil use here in the US.  But then I saw the Ostrich design and my love of birds (and robots) outweighed the effort I would expend to type up something of actual substance.   Enjoy the below knowing that the other article is on it's way.

Seagull
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnR8fDW3Ilo

Hummingbird
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1EYpAqqC2s

Ostrich
http://www.ihmc.us/groups/fastrunner/

Reduction and Granularity

At what point does it make sense to model the activity? Certain molecular properties will effect the behavior of a system in ways a different elemental combination would not.

The question, for example; 'does morality come from the benzine molecule?' is a failure in this type of analysis.  The description of fluid dynamics vis-a-vis the propagation of wavefronts in a large body of water will likely only gain small benefit from discussions of hydrogen and oxygen reactions (at best). Instead things that require a statistical description will after a certain threshold only be burdened by details.
The question then becomes one of picking the right degree of reduction. Below which the information is lost to granularity and above which the involved factors become either irreconcilably large or in other ways of retraction to the system.
This will require a degree of sensitivity to the data set as well as the goal of the inquiry; lacking this information only the grossest of descriptions will be made available.
Again it becomes one of defining a question, allowing for a recursive development to treat the data set will at some point lead to diminishing returns. But should always be considered if there is time and processing power to spare. Otherwise it may be more useful to open multiple conflicting models and look for best fits within each constraint base.
If data is ill-defined, then some form of self referential learning system will be required.

Pragmatic Empiricism

Incompleteness tells us that we can't have a self describing system that is internally consistent. This means that any claim must be grounded ultimately in some other idea. Often people chose some fallacy (appeal to authority) for this. My personal preference is for one of building on the facts at hand and using the results to build better definitions. This starts with statements such as "I am here and it is now" After which it is a question of methods.

Why do I think a Starting point such as this is a good one?

 It seems impossible for a thinking being to not posses that statement in some form. It is nearly tautological in its description.

Why then do I choose to say pragmatic empiricism?
This is the resultant idea of a best guess given the available evidence.

The next question is one of methodology and construction; What can we say of the ways in which we make our. Choices? What means suit the situation? What is the most appropriate way to deal with the given information set?
The methods of knowing are laid out in other of the available essays and should be referenced as need be.