Sorry Nick, I inadvertantly omitted your key question to which I was
replying, which was:
>>I do worry about complexity thinking leading to fatalism. If a
goddamned
butterfly can cause a climate crash, why take responsibility for
ANYTHING
we do. We should all be dionysians.
I think Kant offers a solid explanation for why one should (must) act
"responsibly." At the very least, he's the only reason I vote in
Presidential elections. More tomorrow if folks are still interested,
when I'm less Dionysian and more sober-- I mean, Apollonian ;-)
And BTW, I think the Pascal analogy is excellent, with due attention
to Marcus' caveat about measurability.
db
On Aug 13, 2007, at 10:05 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
David,
Can you explain this relation a bit further. Sorry if I am being
dim, but I did not quite understand your comment. Let's say we
are on the QE2 which, for some reason is inclined to be a bit
tippy. We notice that the passengers are gathering on the right
side of the ship, which is OK so long as the water is calm, but
would be disastrous if a storm came. We have no particular reason
to believe that a storm is coming, except that half the
meteorologists in the Captain's meteorological committee think that
there is. You and I get together and decide that it would be a
good idea for some of us to move over to the other side of the
boat. Now, certainly this is not a CATEGORICAL imperative. I
certainly cannot will that EVERYBODY go over to the other side of
the boat. So what kind of an imperative is it. How is it possible
for everybody to act so that the boat is in balance. This would
have everybody constantly moving from one side of the boat to the
other, like one of those models of neighborhood integration where
either the neighborhood is unintegrated or everybody is unhappy.
How DOES one square Kant with ABM's???
And what did it have to do with Pascal's Wager in the first place?
Nick
----- Original Message -----
From: David Breecker
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED];The Friday Morning Applied
Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 8/13/2007 4:31:20 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Pascal's Wager and Global Warming
Kant's Categorical Imperative is the answer: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
He defined an imperative as any proposition that declares a certain
action (or inaction) to be necessary. A hypothetical imperative
would compel action in a given circumstance: If I wish to satisfy
my thirst, then I must drink something. A categorical imperative
would denote an absolute, unconditional requirement that exerts its
authority in all circumstances, both required and justified as an
end in itself. It is best known in its first formulation: "Act only
according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that
it should become a universal law." [1]
db
On Aug 13, 2007, at 3:53 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
All,
The best argument for worrying about global warming presented so
far in
this interesting correspondence is the one that says it costs us
relatively
little to worry about it and and costs us LOT if we dont.
Sort of like Pascal's argument for prayer, right?
Nicholas S. Thompson
Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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