Mindscape 137 | Justin Clarke-Doane on Mathematics, Morality, Objectivity, and Reality
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มี.ค. 2021
- Patreon: / seanmcarroll
On a spectrum of philosophical topics, one might be tempted to put mathematics and morality on opposite ends. Math is one of the most pristine and rigorously-developed areas of human thought, while morality is notoriously contentious and resistant to consensus. But the more you dig into the depths, the more alike these two fields appear to be. Justin Clarke-Doane argues that they are very much alike indeed, especially when it comes to questions of “reality” and “objectivity” - but that they aren’t quite exactly analogous. We get a little bit into the weeds, but this is a case where close attention will pay off.
Justin Clarke-Doane received his Ph.D. in philosophy from New York University. He is currently Associate Professor of philosophy at Columbia University, as well as an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and Adjunct Research Associate at Monash University. His book Morality and Mathematics was published in 2020.
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Mindscape Podcast playlist: • Mindscape Podcast
#podcast #ideas #science #philosophy #culture - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I recognize that not everyone will feel the same way, but "getting into the weeds" is one of the primary reasons I'm here for every episode of Mindscape.
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@Cairo Yehuda instablaster :)
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I find Mister Carroll's voice so enjoyable
I find his hair style incredible
Good for you..........
He should be a podcaster
This one is a beast. I will have to listen again slowly to understand better
I'm glad for myself that Sean with all his understanding was also a little bit lost and trying to keep up with the guy's arguments. I was much more lost, but overall I think I've got to understand some of the arguments - probably I need to relisten some parts again. Either way I feel an utter respect for Justin Clarke-Doane - not only you can hear his understanding of the subject, but also it's obvious how deep his knowledge goes, also admitting that it's just a scrap of what could be done further.
Sometimes smart people aren't very good teachers.
@@twiedenfeld This. The challenge with this episode isn't just that the subject matter is hard, but that Clarke-Doane hops around quickly and doesn't establish something clearly before moving on or building on it.
There's a point early on where he refers to "the argument I just gave you," and I was like, A) I'm not sure which 'argument' you mean; and B) My best guess is it's the one you mentioned briefly 5 minutes ago about books on tables, but you trailed off and didn't even finish stating it, let alone explaining it.
Wow, this one put permanent concentration lines in my brow but was great. I like the specific weediness.
Thanks for an interesting new episode!
Sean Carroll is my spirit animal
woof.....for the first time I didn't understand almost anything about what the guest was saying on Mindscape.....
Kudos to the person who transcribed this one.
Best episode of this podcast ever.
This is indeed hard to understand, as Dr. Carroll forewarned at the beginning of the episode. I wonder if it's a case where there's, as Chomsky has put it, intelligentsia's use of “polysyllabic words and complicated constructions... but when you reproduce it in monosyllables, it turns out to be truisms" -- or not. Dr. Carroll's questions, comments and brief summaries of what the guest has said helps to understand the concepts better, but it would be great to have a 'monosyllable' version, so to speak.
Love it. Great episode!
Might be worth balancing the audio volumes & EQ of both people, either by sound check or post-production?
This is my first Mindscape, i heard of this podcast on reddit, i have high expectations!
lol good luck, this is the most complicated episode yet after listening to >10 episodes.
@@superoxidedismutase5757 yeah i ended up having a beer before listening...definitely an interesting way to go in on an intellectual podcast...And this definitely did not disappoint. This is the kind of stuff i, dont see often...i work manual labor, so these conversations are few and far between.
Oh, and i have listened to 3 so far, and definitely agree so far. But even at that, this was a beautiful gem, and im so glad i started on it. Might not be for everyone, but definitely right up my alley.
Great podcast 👍
This could be a challenging listen for someone who isn't up to speed with the subject matter. But with enough google searches and a few re-listens to certain segments, it's mostly accessible. What I really liked about this episode is the manner in which Sean deals with getting himself up to speed...and not being afraid to admit getting lost along the way...and not being afraid to take as much time as necessary to find his footing. Many podcast hosts find such things taboo. It's actually kind of exhilarating to be along for such a trip.
Can't wait to disagree with something in this. Thank you for giving my bored brain something to churn on.
I had Justin as a student ten or so years ago when he was in graduate school. He was fantastic then and still is.
Having a frame to develop Motivactions/operations
Hi folks, we're going to bring a philosopher into the room and ask:
1+1=2?
Followed by
Parallel postulate?
Buckle up.
I grew up on Bubba the Love Sponge. I'm going to enjoy this podcast and my stand as the black sheep.
I'm don't see how Justin's view on morality (that settling the question of "what we ought to do" doesn't settle the question of "what to do") is different from the commonsense observation that we are capable of not doing what we believe/know we ought to do. But surely moral realists have always known that?
Correct, the apophantic expression of ownmost dasein is the necessary consequence of geworfenheit. That does not speak to ontology.
It's easier to follow the second time.
Wow! I did not get even half of it, but the question kinda occured to me: If not facts about "ought" then what else tells me, what to do? He surely can't be thinking that we act out of the blue. So what, if not moral values guide and justify our actions (ofcourse, provided the action can be subject to moral judgement)?
The take of someone who didn't get a quarter of it:
I believe that he is saying that the relation is similar to the relation between "is" and "ought". There is no way to deduce in a forcible way "decision of what to do" from "ought to do". There must be a insertion of a decision like "I decide to do everything that I ought to do" to make the link. This is like the insertion of "more killing is more bad" to connect the state of affairs ("is") "the left trail kills 5 people and the right kills 1" to "therefore getting the left trail is more bad than getting the right one". There is no logical connection between the state of affairs and the moral truthness, also there is no logical connection between this truthness and the act of deciding what to do. One could argue that the connection is trivial, but they are still separate realms.
I am not sure if it has something to do with what he is saying, but maybe something that could make this distinction more plausible is, for example, the existence of paralleled moral systems (deontologicalXconsequentialist, for example). One could say "I decide to do whatever I ought to do according to this deontological model" or "I decide.... according to this consequentialist model", etc. There is no way to force one realm into the other.
What tells you what to do? Plenty. Unfortunately, we're not capable of knowing all our motivators. Obviously, our conscious awareness isn't the only pertinent/relevant state of operation in play as we make our way through life. There's a shit-ton of unconscious/subconscious processes constantly taking place pursuant to millions of years of evolution playing out in our genes and as further significantly impacted by our early years of development. Even if you stop and ask "What ought I do?" and that ushers forth one particular, definitive plan of action in your mind (though other plans surely exist under different rubrics and as evaluated by other minds), you still won't be able to precisely claim to know all the factors (and the respective force weightings of all such factors) that contribute and lead to whatever action is actually taken. You can be sure, though, that whether you take an ought-based action, no action, or some other action, it won't be out of the blue. It may seem that way to your conscious mind (particularly if the action results in dissonance), but you're safe in knowing there's some motivator(s) somewhere in your psyche doing its thing. One exception would be (unknowingly) suffering a mild stroke right as you were asking yourself "What ought I do?" Your response under that condition could decidedly be out of the blue.
I may have put my initial question too ambiguously. What I meant is this: If moral reasons do not drive our actions - in fact, even if all moral reasons where just post hoc made up rationalisations of some complex processes in brains or even societies - two questions arise: (1) what drives our (morally judgeable) actions instead and, even more puzzling (2) why do we bother at all with moral reasons?
What I kind of understood was the idea that moral facts could be derived from a (formalized) cultural background very much like conjectures in math can be proved from (within) a set of axioms. However, in case of morality we would be still be left with the choice of which set of (cultural) axioms would be „right“. And - in contrast to math - we can not just chose an appropriate set of axioms because the act of choice in itself would be a moral act (i.e. we would have to prove axioms which, by definition, can’t be done). And, to finally tie the knot, it is at the same time true, that we must act (we can not chose not to act), i.e. we *must* make that choice.
He says „Questions of action are objective but not real“, i.e. unique but not independent of us. In case these actions are morally judgeable, I find that idea to quite misunderstand the nature of morality (and maybe the nature of „abtract things“ in general). He kind of splits morality into a formal part (akin to math) and an „embodied“ or substantial part (akin to physics), which has to do with action. That seems to me like some scholastic move the merrit of which remains rather unclear.
In fact, I suspect one important difference between math and morality is this: Whereas math is constructed to a large degree from within an axiomatic system, morality just goes the opposite way. The (cultural) axioms are distilled from the way we act; and that is often a jungle of historically evolved habits, all entangled with power-structures and justifications thereoff and so forth. To put it into a slogan: In math, we mostly go from clean to dirty (and back); in morality, we go from dirty to clean (and back).
The language to discuss these ideas gets tricky quickly
Time dimensions form changes mild to.💖💕
Hi Sean i am one of your fans , here in the US , i would love to show you a design i ve been working on for over 17 years , just to get your opinion if possible , Thank you
This caught me off guard. I don't quite get why it follows that arithmetik is tied up with inconsistency.
Because there are ways of expressing statements about consistency within the language of arithmetic, also referred to as the arithmetisation of syntax
he reminds me of david albert
I get a feeling Sean regret to put him on ^^ (On the other hand he hadn't a lot of the talking to do)
OK this one is gibberish to me. I'm still listening. Every bit of osmosis helps, I guess :D
I hear the guest screaming across a room into their mic
Is he Bill Paxton?
34:36- I like turtles 🐢 ^.^
PARDY ON JUSTIN !!!!
Logic is dependant upon the quality and accuracy of the data. There's an adage: "you can make the data fit an point of view". A professor physics one said, when faced with a problem, the first question you need to answer is what is your point of reference? One man's logic is another man's foolishness depending upon what the long term consequences are. Many time the consequences are not foreseen because there's insufficient information available. This podcast is very relevant and need more attention in decision making.
Along with being in the 'weeds', I had to slog through the 'mud' on this one. Ultimately, I believe ( and could be wrong) one of the main point's Mr. Clarke-Doane was trying to make was that people don't necessarily follow their moral principles which if obviously done in mathematics leads to inconsistencies and or paradoxes. I believe a couple of points worth noting. First no formal discussion of how dogma( my definition being how one's society and culture defines what personal morals should be) relates to a person's moral framework or in terms of the 'video speak' the axioms determining a person's set of morals. Morals being what a person thinks is right and wrong verses dogma being society's definition of what is right and wrong. Secondly, I believe like Sapolsky (episode 134), we need to recognize the biological aspects which determine whether or not one's behavior follows one's moral set. For example would a person's moral decision of pulling the trolley lever to save five and killing one be determined by the race/gender/sexual orientation of the five verses the race/gender/sexual orientation of the one? Thirdly, one should be careful about talking about morality without mentioning moral competency, that is how well does a person abide by their morals. It is one thing for a person to believe they have 'high' morals but if they don't abide by them, they are obviously being inconsistent. Moral competency is a skill and like other skills is best learned while young.
Wait... what?
I want what this guy's having
I’m gonna have to pass on this one. I don’t accept that there is any real morality or ethics to compare with anything objective to begin with.
You need to listen to podcast. He doesn't say there's one real moral value but rather that there are different moral systems which are "realistic" but don't tell you what to actually do.
20 mins of explaining figments.
50:43 💎=VP=(•
Subtext of Veritas.
Aren't both those views just anti-realism?
This guy is really unpleasant to listen to. He seems annoyed, rather than joyfully inspired by reality. He also doesn't seem to understand how to educate, and just likes to talk at people. I'm sure there are some interesting ideas somewhere in there, but 20 minutes in an I just have to stop listening, and do something where I'm more respected and valued as a human being.
Yuck!
>I'm your host Sean Carroll
turned off the podcast right there.
Why ?
137 episodes in and you just realized you don't like the host. Not the sharpest tool in the shed eh? Fool me 137 times shame on me.
@@jephiedane2645 don't like him. Simple as.