I don’t think this works for general systems. For POSIWID the purpose of a car is to to get you for A to B. I don’t think POSIWIR returns a result—cars aren’t rewarded.
Having said that, I do think it’s much more interesting than POSIWID and, for human systems, more likely to yield sensible answers.
My take would be that purpose comes from conscious minds—the purpose of a system is what the designer intends. This is true even if the designer is rubbish at their job and their system doesn’t achieve the purpose they intend. When we don’t know what the designer intends we try to work it out by looking at what the system does or what it rewards.
This declares by fiat that non-engineered systems have no purpose but I think I’m ok with that. The purpose of a rabbit is not to make baby rabbits—rabbits just are. Saying rabbits have a purpose is to anthropomorphise evolution.
Saying that the purpose of a system is what the designer intends seems much less insightful in the cases where it matters. Who counts as the designer of the California high speed rail system? The administrators who run it? The CA legislature? I get the vibe that the HSR is mostly a jobs program, which is a conclusion you’d get from POSIWID or POSIWIR, but it’s less clear if you think through it form the “designer” point of view.
Like the whole point of these other perspectives is that it helps you notice when outcomes are different from intentions. Maybe you’ll object and say “well you need intentions to use the word ‘purpose’,” but then it’s like, ok, there’s clearly a cluster in concept-space here connecting HSR->jobs program, and imo it’s fine for the word “purpose” to describe multiple things.
Saying that the purpose of a system is what the designer intends seems much less insightful in the cases where it matters. Who counts as the designer of the California high speed rail system? The administrators who run it? The CA legislature? I get the vibe that the HSR is mostly a jobs program, which is a conclusion you’d get from POSIWID or POSIWIR, but it’s less clear if you think through it form the “designer” point of view.
I’d say the California high speed rail system pretty clearly doesn’t have a single purpose.
As a general matter, “what’s the purpose of X?,” in cases where X is the result of compromise between, deliberation by, or decision-making by multiple actors, is simply the wrong question.[1] It reifies a concept (“purpose”) that doesn’t carve reality at the joints, and you’re much better off simply abandoning it and relieving yourself of the needless confusion it causes.
imo it’s fine for the word “purpose” to describe multiple things
Beyond the fact that it doesn’t carve reality at the joints, which makes it generally improper for epistemic rationality purposes, it’s also bad instrumentally/in practice. The fact that you have so many seemingly interminable debates over semantics is a bug, not a feature. If people[2] aren’t capable of coming to terms with what “purpose” refers to, the situation seems less than “fine” to me. Maybe we should stop caring about this whole “purpose” thing in these specific contexts and talk differently about what’s going on.
Yeah, I think that clarifies my thoughts—IMO using the word purpose is not ok in these other perspectives unless you actually mean a person had that purpose. it brings in connotations that someone has this purpose for which we then assign moral blame when the real question may be competence. And then, when there is moral blame, separating that from a competence issue is harder.
Much better IMO to say “this system isn’t achieving its purpose” than to say “this system has this other purpose” unless that’s what you mean—you are claiming that some designer(s) have this other purpose.
I’m not familiar specifically with HSR but my guess is that there are multiple purposes from multiple people. Some designers have the purpose to improve transport links, some want a big project to make their name and some want a jobs program. Systems can have multiple purposes and trying to narrow it down to a single one oversimplifies things.
I don’t think this works for general systems. For POSIWID the purpose of a car is to to get you for A to B. I don’t think POSIWIR returns a result—cars aren’t rewarded.
Having said that, I do think it’s much more interesting than POSIWID and, for human systems, more likely to yield sensible answers.
My take would be that purpose comes from conscious minds—the purpose of a system is what the designer intends. This is true even if the designer is rubbish at their job and their system doesn’t achieve the purpose they intend. When we don’t know what the designer intends we try to work it out by looking at what the system does or what it rewards.
This declares by fiat that non-engineered systems have no purpose but I think I’m ok with that. The purpose of a rabbit is not to make baby rabbits—rabbits just are. Saying rabbits have a purpose is to anthropomorphise evolution.
Saying that the purpose of a system is what the designer intends seems much less insightful in the cases where it matters. Who counts as the designer of the California high speed rail system? The administrators who run it? The CA legislature? I get the vibe that the HSR is mostly a jobs program, which is a conclusion you’d get from POSIWID or POSIWIR, but it’s less clear if you think through it form the “designer” point of view.
Like the whole point of these other perspectives is that it helps you notice when outcomes are different from intentions. Maybe you’ll object and say “well you need intentions to use the word ‘purpose’,” but then it’s like, ok, there’s clearly a cluster in concept-space here connecting HSR->jobs program, and imo it’s fine for the word “purpose” to describe multiple things.
Edit: Yeah ok I agree that HSR is a bad example.
I’d say the California high speed rail system pretty clearly doesn’t have a single purpose.
As a general matter, “what’s the purpose of X?,” in cases where X is the result of compromise between, deliberation by, or decision-making by multiple actors, is simply the wrong question.[1] It reifies a concept (“purpose”) that doesn’t carve reality at the joints, and you’re much better off simply abandoning it and relieving yourself of the needless confusion it causes.
Beyond the fact that it doesn’t carve reality at the joints, which makes it generally improper for epistemic rationality purposes, it’s also bad instrumentally/in practice. The fact that you have so many seemingly interminable debates over semantics is a bug, not a feature. If people[2] aren’t capable of coming to terms with what “purpose” refers to, the situation seems less than “fine” to me. Maybe we should stop caring about this whole “purpose” thing in these specific contexts and talk differently about what’s going on.
There is no canonical way of aggregating (or, in this case, disaggregating) the competing desires of mutliple agents
Including rationalists, who are supposed to be better than average at this whole philosophy of language stuff
Yeah, I think that clarifies my thoughts—IMO using the word purpose is not ok in these other perspectives unless you actually mean a person had that purpose. it brings in connotations that someone has this purpose for which we then assign moral blame when the real question may be competence. And then, when there is moral blame, separating that from a competence issue is harder.
Much better IMO to say “this system isn’t achieving its purpose” than to say “this system has this other purpose” unless that’s what you mean—you are claiming that some designer(s) have this other purpose.
I’m not familiar specifically with HSR but my guess is that there are multiple purposes from multiple people. Some designers have the purpose to improve transport links, some want a big project to make their name and some want a jobs program. Systems can have multiple purposes and trying to narrow it down to a single one oversimplifies things.