Glen -
I *may* choose to step over a given rock rather than
around it or onto it, but it is likely I spied it several steps before
that choice was required and added it's presence into some kind of
weighted heuristic. *IF* I find myself at the rock having to decide the
trinary, over/around/on it is likely that I had already queued up the
most likely decision ahead of time when first I noticed it and later as
I navigated deliberately toward (or at least not away from) it. I find
thinking about complex problems "rationally" to be something like this
navigation I describe.
I would only describe that (specific) type of thinking as rational if
you were able to weigh multiple paths against each other. So, to be
rational would be less about contrasting multiple instantaneous
decisions inside a path and more about weighing whole paths. If you
can only see one way in which to navigate the terrain, then I'd say
you're being irrational (or at least non-rational).
The part I was trying to call/out or distinguish between my (intuitive)
use of rational and your defined (as to ?rationate? or measure
alternatives in ratio) is that in my mind, I am working with an evolving
field of possibilities, effectively continuous, rather than discrete.
That is not to say that discrete decisions don't get made along the way
(around/over/on) but that the bulk of the "rational" thought is based in
a perceptual field rather than as an N-ary fault tree.
Of course, making a *rational argument* involves
retracing many of the steps I took while thinking my way through the
landscape and explaining each one (in painful detail I'm sure) to anyone
who is interested in the landscape (and will listen... e.g. isn't prone
to TL;DR ).
That you separate doing from arguing is interesting. For me,
everything's an argument. I argue mostly with simulated opponents,
where I play the role of my adversar[y|ies] ...
I have this mode too, it drives innocent bystanders a bit bonkers if
they have to watch, but I think it says something more specific about me
(and you) than perhaps about the process in general?
It's so much that way that it's often difficult for me to identify
with any one role. None of the participants in my mental arena are
really 'me', or the most 'me'. There's a little bit of me in every one
of my simulated opponents. When it gets interesting is the ongoing
competition _while_ I'm doing something. As I'm working on, say, my
buell, there's this cacophony from the virtual peanut gallery in my
head, some of them cheering when something works well, some of them
jeering when something goes wrong.
Yes, I've always enjoyed this experience even though it bedevils me.
Sadly it occasionally puts me into gridlock... perhaps similar to our
other subthread about hand-wringing.
But I'll admit that reconstructing justifications for any sequence of
actions I've taken is different from actually taking them. And
planning for a sequence (or a network, if I'm planning for a team of
people) of actions is very different from actually executing a plan.
So, if by "argument", you really mean either planning or
reconstructing, then I agree. The "rational" qualifier for each
(plan, do, reconstruct) has slightly different semantics.
Yes, I used argument in a specific, narrow context.... reconstructing in
an adversarial or persuasive context I suppose.
Whether you agree with the
specifics of how all that came down, I think you *might* be able to
separate into two clusters, the intentions based on an assumed harm done
by another which suggests a response, and the recognition than another
is not in a good position to defend themselves and has something you
want, suggesting some form of violence or threat of violence as a course
of action.
OK. I confess that I do have 2 primary measures of "bad": 1) opacity
- as we've discussed and 2) asymmetry. In any asymmetric
relationship, the one(s) with the advantage has the moral
responsibility to modify/regulate their own actions so that the one(s)
with the disadvantage isn't (unwillingly) exploited or bullied. I
should say _try_ to modify/regulate... because it's a _very_ difficult
thing to do, for anyone. And if there are more than 2 parties, even
perceiving 3 or more dimensions is hard, much less measuring the
amount of symmetry in those dimensions.
Yes... sounds like those good ole values of honesty and fair play to
me. Huzzah! We at least share this one heuristic about moral behaviour
it seems?
As long as there's strong evidence that transparency and symmetry are
salient, the action(s) are acceptable.
I tend to think of these things in terms of the motivations and
awareness of the actor, not an observer. While I do try to attribute
"intentions" to others, I know that the final burden of this rests on
the only one who knows. As a religious person would say "that is
between you and God".
Picking on poor Barry here, ...
Sorry. I don't mean to pick on him. I actually think he's been an
excellent president, though I didn't vote for his 2nd term. He's a
useful foil.
And I'm sorry if I suggested you were, it was intended to be a bit
tongue-in-cheek... I think the least of his worries is what we have to
say about him here in this fringewater of the internet.
... and he wasn't a whackadoodle "Maverick" so there was no contest, ...
Ugh. I sincerely wish She Who Must Not Be Named would disappear.
And a useful foil herself, she was.
I get that, but I can't separate "free will" from a sense of identity. I
guess I've not practiced thinking enough impossible things before
breakfast because an "I" without a free will seems... empty?
Perhaps we use different meanings of 'will'? I tend to think of it in
terms of momentum. E.g. some people have told me that I have "will
power", in that I control my diet fairly well, exercise regularly,
work consistently (even when my "office" is in a bedroom of the
house), etc. I tend to think of it in terms of habit, not "will
power". I don't really know what those people mean by "will power"
when they say it. To me, I do what I do because I establish a
preferred set of behaviors (through rational comparison/contrast) and
then do them. Usually, part of my rational comparison involves trying
various behaviors out to see if they're sustainable. If momentum
develops, I maintain them for awhile, making minor tweaks in response
to micro-evolution in the environment. Then I start the process over
in response to macro-evolution. So, the way I take what they mean is
the momentum that develops after/as I find behaviors that sustain.
And I use the term will similarly but to be the impetus that establishes
and maintains a momentum vector, especially in the presence of
turbulence, a necessarily varying thrust vector if you will. I find
that the behaviours/habits that sustain are more like canalizations...
or ruts if you must... the paths worn by previous passings, reinforced
by subsequent passings until it seems hard to do anything but "stay on
the path".
Free will, on the other hand, is the wiggle, the play, the slop we all
experience while engaged in our will(s). E.g. sometimes I buy coffee
beans and grind them myself, sometimes I buy it pre-ground. Why? I
don't know... because it's random. That's an overly simplified
example, of course. There are much more pervasive restrictions and
determinants for which type of coffee I buy. But the gist is there:
the freedom being discussed in "free will" is the random wiggle inside
a byzantine complex of intertwined constraints of varying rigidity.
At least, that's my favorite alternative.
I do experience myself making unexpected decisions. In my "field
theory" above, I don't always know if I'll step around, over or on a
given rock until I do, though often that is mostly predetermined by my
approach and my goal and it's obvious (size, etc.) nature. What I'm
calling free will in my model is the experience of apprehending the
field of possibilities in front of me as I percieve them and *choosing*
a strategy or even general path based on something *other* than the
field itself. Informed by the field for sure, but not defined strictly
by it. My "free will" might include choosing an obstinately difficult
path for any of several reasons... perhaps to prove something to myself
or others, perhaps to hone my skills in navigating a particular aspect
of such terrain (rock-hopping, gully following, etc.). My free will
might also simply involve following my curiosity, wanting to see what is
over that ridge over there, without any particular goal in mind, other
than just wanting to see. My free will also might allow me to decide
to drop my constant rationalizing (in this case optimizing my path?) and
wander, at most paying only enough attention to avoid obvious pitfalls, etc.
I don't know if we are converging or not, but I think our different
views of these things might reflect our different professions and/or
backgrounds? I grew up in wide open spaces, wandering hills and
ravines, creating short term goals (climb to the top of that hill over
there) and executing them strictly (charge in a straight line, damn the
challenges) or lazily (la-de-da... just keep an upward gradient and
you'll get there) or creatively (can I get there only by hopping from
rock to log to rock to rock?). The world was more continuous than
discrete. When I first lived (for about 6 mos) in a proper "city", I
learned that things could be fairly strictly discretized. I recognized
(for the first time?) grid patterns and a new kind of self-similarity.
If you knew an address for example, you could estimate the distance to
it by it's numbers. You could take many paths to the same location
following the city-block metric, etc. And it was a distinctly
different experience unless/until you allowed cutting through peoples
yards, etc.
In my work, my highest aspiration is to render discrete data/events into
a continuous field for intuitive exploration, hueristic building and
decision making. When my clients ask me to build them a black box that
apprehends (their) universe of discourse and emit a yes/no, I balk. I
don't build systems to help them make decisions, they are already good
at that (finger poised over the FIRE button), I build systems to help
make it harder for them to make decisions (to consider their decisions
more thoroughly). My goal is to give them more basis for which to let
their finger twitch or not. While I can build N-ary decision trees for
them, I only do that to help them understand their existing process, not
to relieve them of having to be aware of the many factors they might be
weighing. I want them to apprehend the whole field of possible
alternatives/paths they might take rather than set up a pachinko game
they can drop their balls in and see where they come out the bottom. I
suspect that a lot of your work is trying to take complex ideas or
phenomena and reduce them to code. Most people I know who program for a
living (which I once did and still do in a pinch) have what I would call
an inverted perspective on what we are talking about. I'm not sure
that my perspective is upright and theirs/yours is upside-down, just
that they are appositional in orientation. Perhaps it is the dichotomy
of synthesis vs analysis. I use analysis to aid in achieving
synthesis, programmers perhaps are more like to use synthesis to support
their analysis (breaking a process down into executable steps?).
-Steve
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