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Zaine
Karma: 542
I tend to do this often as part of serving as a ‘moderator’ of discussions/arguments, even when it’s just me and another. It’s useful to perceive the other party’s (parties’) argument as merely a podium upon which their belief rests, and then endeavor to identify, with specificity, their belief or position. Colloquially, the result would be something like:
Not you: “I think that, it just doesn’t seem right, that, even without being given even a chance, the baby just dies. It’s not right how they have no say at all, you know?”
You: “So, your position is...” In verbal communications you can at this point briefly pause as if you’re carefully considering your words in order to allow an opportunity for their interjection of a more lucidly expressed position. ”...that the fetus (and I’m just using the scientific terminology, here), has value equal to that of a grown person in moral considerations? [If confused:] I mean, that when thinking about an abortion, the fetus’ rights are equal to that of the mother’s?”
[As shown above, clarify one point at a time. Your tone must be that of one asking for clarification on a fact. More, “The tsunami warning was cancelled before or after the 3⁄14 earthquake hit?” than, “You’ve been wrong before; you sure?”]
Not you: “Yea, such is mine position.”
You: “And, due to the fetus’ having equal moral standing to the mother, abortions thus are an unjust practice?”
Not you: “Aye.”
Be careful with these clarification proceedings, though. If by framing their arguments you happen to occlude the actual reasoning of their argument, due to them not knowing it themselves or otherwise, the entire rest of the argument could be a waste of time predicated upon a falsely framed position. Suggestions of possible solutions include:
Asking whether they are sure the framed argument accurately expresses the reason for their position on the matter; not framing at all, but jumping right into the hypothetical probing and allowing for them to explore the issue enough to provide a confident statement of their position; going straight to the hypothetical probing, using their responses to form a mental estimation of their actual position, steel man-ing that mental estimation, and proceeding to argue upon the presumption your steel-man is accurate, updating as necessary.
From then on, you now have at your disposal vetted statements of their position that are intricate with their arguments. Subsequent arguments can then be phrased as hypotheticals: “What if EEG scans, which monitor brain waves, only showed the fetus as having developed brain activity akin to that of a grown person (the mother, say) at four months? Would that mean that at four months the fetus becomes developed enough to be considered equal to the mother?”
This way you can inquire after their exact position, why they hold that position, and without taking a side gather whether they’re open to accepting another position whilst presenting viable alternatives in a reasoned and unobtrusive fashion. If you wish to defuse an argument, simply pointing out that party X holds to alternative II, and asking whether they can understand why party X holds to alternative II, should be enough to at least start smothering the fuse.
Note: The use of ‘should’ when expressing ideals implies a position of righteous power, and should (please decry me if I am unjustified in taking on this position of righteous power) never be used in an argument, regardless of whether it’s self contained within a hypothetical. In my experience its use tends to only reinforce beliefs.
So by framing their position with my own words, I could be tricking them into agreeing to something that sounds to technically be their position, while their actual position could be suppressed, unknown, and biasing their reception to all that then follows? That sounds true, however if they interject and state their position themselves, then would the technique of probing with hypotheticals also not be neutral?
I have edited the original comment so as to include and account for the former possibility, though I think the latter, probing with hypotheticals, is a valid neutral technique. If I’m wrong, please correct me.
If I’m interpreting his objection correctly, I think the framing enables potential and possibly unknown biases to corrupt the entire process. The other party (parties) may consciously think they agree on a particular frame, but some buried bias or unknown belief may be incompatible with the frame, and will end up rejecting it.
Indeed, though I wonder whether they will not themselves be able to express why often enough to warrant a complete omission of the framing step in favor of immediate hypothetical probing, and even that assumes they’ll realize the frame is inaccurate before the argument ends and each go their separate way.
You have a reason for rejecting the other person’s use of “baby”, and that reason is that you want to use words to draw a moral line in reality at the point of birth.
Don’t know how you came to this, but nowhere do I take a stance on the issue. There’s the ‘Not you’ and the ‘You’, with the former thinking it’s wrong, and the latter wanting to know the former’s reasoning and position.
You can just as well use the word ‘baby’; only using a neutral word as decided by a third party (namely science and scientists), besides ‘the baby’ or ‘it’, help in distancing them as well as their perception of you from the issue. It’s difficult for someone to perceive an issue clearly when, every time it comes to mind, they’re reminded, “Oh yes, this I believe.” Subtly separating that associative belief of the other party (parties) allows them to evince their true reasons with greater accuracy. Harry did the same (unintentionally) by setting Draco into an honestly inquisitive state of mind in HPMOR when investigating blood (not ad verecundiam, just an example).
I fully agree you cannot manifest terrain by drawing on the map; this is why I suggest comparing the fetus to a grown person. A new human has the potential to become a grown human, and I, in assuming the position of the ‘Not you’, guessed this was a reason they may value the fetus. In another example they may say, “No, they’re just a baby! They’re so cute! You can’t kill anything cute!”
From a consequentialist point of view (which appears to be the same as the utilitarian—correct me if I’m wrong, please), it doesn’t matter whether they are cute unless this is a significant factor to those considering the fetus’ mortality. A fetus’ potential ‘cuteness’ is a transient property, and a rather specious foundation upon which to decide whether the fetus’ shall have a life. What if they’re ugly, grow out of the cute, are too annoying to the mother? Then their reason for valuing the baby operates on a relative curve directly proportional to the baby’s cuteness at any point in time; I’m not sure what it’s called when a baby is wanted for the same reasons one might want a pet, or a stuffed animal, but don’t think it’s rational. Babies are living humans.
From a religious perspective, I am unaware of any religion that affords separate moral rights to children than from men, besides the possible distinction from an innocent, helpless man and a morally responsible one. Thus, if this be their rationale, then consideration of the fetus’ as having full moral rights equal to that of a grown person would be a given prerequisite. Without consideration as a person, a fetus’ is rendered excluded from the moral protection of many a religion. From a Bayesian perspective, the probability of their belonging to a value system wherein human lives are exclusively valued above all others’, outweighs the other possibilities—or so I reasoned (if the logic’s unsound, please inform).
Thus, the likening of the fetus unto a grown person.
And, on your last point, you assume the ‘You’ would have an agenda; you cannot, as you well reason, honestly and neutrally steel-man their argument with an agenda. Sure, the ‘You’ may subtly be presenting other paradigms, however ‘tis in the best interests of all parties that none remain as ignorant after the argument as they were before; this is a thread on improving productivity of arguments, after all. Making their argument into a steel-man necessitates the full or mostly full understanding the other party’s (parties’) position; how can you steel-man what you do not understand? And so you honestly ask for clarification, using distancing hypotheticals to probe the truth of their position out of them, or framing their argument with your own words, using an interrogative tone requesting clarification on the fact of their belief (note the possible dangers of the latter as explicated elsewhere in this comment train).
No problem. If someone with your objection were to raise their concerns with the ‘You’ at the time of intercourse, I would recommend calmly requesting agreement on a word both agree as neutral; actually, this would be an excellent first step in ensuring the cooperation of both parties in seeking the truth, or least wrong or disagreeable position on the matter. What that word would be in this instance, besides fetus, I haven’t a clue—there may be no objectively neutral frame, from your perspective, however in each discourse all involved parties can create mutually agreed upon subjectively neutral vocabulary, if connotations truly do prove such an obstacle to productive communication. I am still for fetus as a neutral word, as it’s the scientific terminology. Pro-life scientists aren’t paradoxical.
Practicing this could be fun in pairs, dissecting an acted out scenario. Two instructors act out previously conceived scenarios, with a Influencer and a Reactor. At some point, ’twill be implied the Reactor wishes to act on the scenario itself or the knowledge presented therein; the scenario will then halt, and the students put in pairs to brainstorm the beneficience and maleficience of possible actions. Each student will take turns (which can be timed) being the brainstormer and the consequentialist (utilitarian?); of course the pairs can have different functions, like as suggested. These just serve to outline the general idea.
For example:
INFLUENCER: Good day, sir! On your way to the place we are going?
REACTOR: Why yes, I am! However odd you too shall be going there; I wish we shall fall upon their fancy!
INFLUENCER: Oh dear! The Gods are weeping once more!
REACTOR: Dear me! I prefer not to be wet, and so I always carry an umbrella upon my person!
INFLUENCER: Indeed, I see it now grasped in your hand! Whatever shall you do? Poor me, if only I were so prepared....
Halt
BRAINSTORMER: He opens his umbrella, and uses it himself.
CONSEQUENTIALIST: The umbrella protects him, but not his companion to any significant degree. (The companion must dodge the edges so as not to be poked in the eye, and may be offended.) The umbrella may wetten things once inside(, and earn him the ire of some people by whom he’d rather not be thought ill.)
Both would then consider the merits and, as outlined by the parentheticals, disadvantages of these outcomes, moving on to the brainstormer’s next suggestion afterward.After each has taken a turn, the instructors would go around the room asking each pair their brainstormed actions, their potential consequences, and the positive and negative aspects of each; as Vladimir suggests, these aspects can (“should”) be relativized against each other—if they do relativize, they would state the pair’s preferred action and its predicted consequence. The instructors could reinforce correct applications, and constructively criticize incorrect applications, with care taken to not put any pairs down too much (using softeners, etc.: “That’s quite creative! We’re glad you thought of that, this is an excellent example of how even the best consequentialists can go wrong...”).
Hello! I’d welcome you, but I can’t honestly represent anything or anyone besides, well, me (I’m a complete neophyte). Really my interest quite piqued at your thoughts on Mr. Bentham’s philosophy, as they happen to be the exact opposite conclusion I came to—namely that utilitarianism is essentially for people who think, “Things could be so much better if I ran things.” The main logical process that led to this conclusion was: People aren’t being logical < If they were logical, they would consider the probability of the net good of an act, and only act if the probability was very high, or just above normal but still low risk < What about contentious issues, based upon value systems? who would make the call on those? < ___.
On that last step I’ve never really made any progress, as it seems no matter how objective (I consider this word to include the consideration of emotions) and rational you are, on the contentious issues that have no… *
… Sorry, I just had a thought. I remember reading somewhere that for things that have no right or wrong, after the collective evidence has been weighted for accuracy, legitimacy, credibility etcetera, the option(s) that have the greatest probability of truth should be (as a rationalist) treated as truth for the time being; if some new evidence tips the scale in the other direction, so follows the belief. This … means no religion could be rationally considered true—as of now, at least. Thus any governmental system based upon utilitarianism would only tolerate religion insofar as it affects the emotional welfare of its citizens. And that if either 3,000 innocents or 3 brilliant, Nobel prize winning, humanity-revolutionizing genius scientists absolutely, all other possible and impossible avenues had been taken and failed, had to die, then it would come down to probabilities of each possibility’s net good (utility) when deciding which to pick.
I suppose I made a little bit of progress there, so thank you for the kick—but you can see, I hope, how I think utilitarianism is embraced by people who think on the opposite pole of “I think being nice is good”. I don’t think it’s embraced only by those who think they should be running things anymore, though. That changed since the beginning of the post, and since this was a bit about your thought processes in coming your conclusion, I’ve kept mine.
Cheers!*The following bracketed fragment completes the thought I was going write, before I cut off the sentence and started from ”… Sorry”; it was written ex post facto: [right or wrong, it comes down to the individual value system of the decider(s).]
Thank you! I’d never really thought of that other (the latter) approach to utilitarianism; that explains a lot.
Nitpick: The use of ‘crystallize’ in regard to ‘thoughts’, I think, would only be recommendable when describing a particularly desirable thought process. I understood crystallize to mean elucidate, in this context, but cause for confusion is there.
If CMR mini-camp participants learned the skill through exposure, then perhaps an incentivized game executed in organically occurring scenarios that rewards those who recognize and do not practice non-specificity, would do the trick.
I’m thinking of a point-based game. It would occur either during a specified block of time, or on a specified day; everyone playing would begin with an equal number of points. During this specified period players would earn points pointing out abstract, non-specific utterances of other players’ (including utterances operating on an illusion of transparency) by acting upon that utterance in a literal way; the one who said the utterance would then concede a point to the one who first pointed this out (or first acted upon the non-specific utterance), as long as it was fairly won. I’m thinking that if, “Head over to Anna” is met with someone offering their skull to Anna as a gift, that’d be going a bit far. The winner, the person with the most points at the end of the day, would receive some gift all would be motivated by, or an individualized gift of their choosing (e.g. multiple prize options). The game would be in effect during other activities.
Some examples:
-”I think we should all come together. [intended meaning: gather]” is met with someone walking into the non-specifist, or many overtly gathering in simultaneous motion around the non-specifist.
-”Perhaps everything’s like that, or we could try maybe helping or fixing whatever might be causing it.” is met by a mock stern, affronted accusation that the non-specifist is ‘like that’, or is egregiously guilty of whatever ‘that’ is, immediately followed by a mock abashed realization that the pointer-outer is, too, like that, and so the pointer-outer exclaims “Woe is me!” and mock faints.
-”Can you help, with the, uh, you know, um, the thing?” is met with someone grabbing a leaf on the ground or a chair or some such object that is obviously not what the non-specifist is referring to, lifting it up high, and innocently querying, “This?”Edit: ITakeBets’ post on orders of specificity brought to mind the possibility this game might be improved (once some familiarity is established) by requiring pointer-outer’s to state why the statement was non-specific after they’re done acting upon the statement’s non-specificity. To use his example, stating, “I can’t play basketball; I’m five foot six,” would yield, “It was vague in that it lacked relevancy,” after the pointer-outer had in a tone of mock shock said, “Goodness, me! You must have the condition that severely limits prestidigitation, rendering you unable to delicately flick your second through fifth metacarpals in unison against any opposing force! ’Tis a shame the condition only affects those of the adult height of sixty-six inches; if only you were an inch taller!”
I have some qualms about the game’s potential negative effects on productivity, yet perhaps the probability of that can be mitigated by clever scheduling. The basic idea is participants won’t want to lose points, but will want to gain points, so they will become more attentive to, and precise in, their speech and thoughts.
I wonder if that would be productive or counterproductive…
Are you wondering after the productivity of the gift idea in particular or the productivity of the concept as a whole? If it’s the gift idea, then I don’t see how it wouldn’t be productive; a desirous prize would ensure all players apply themselves to the game, and dedicate themselves to learning the skill in the short term. If the game proceeds as expected, then all involved would have had a jolly good time; memories linked to a strong emotion are more memorable (learned this somewhere—no citation I can recall), so the positive fun emotion tied to the game, and thus the skill, will insure its memorability.
The idea as a whole, however, could indeed be quite counterproductive. Though I assume there would be some down time during the mini-camp? walking between sessions, meal times, pre-sleep socializing? The game might fit well during those periods, however it could just as well hinder socialization through added pressure and unnecessary competition.
Would you mind providing an example, please, or explaining the original acting game and your alterations to it? Thank you.
I’m pretty sure that ‘unblockable’ is meant to mean it was the only magic known to have no counter-effect, or counter-spell. Now Harry has discovered the true Patronus charm is the counter spell to Avada Kedavra. It makes sense when you think about it, which I’m sure is why Eliezer included it in the first place. The Dementors are voids of nothingness, into such nothingness tumble all living things once their life is extinguished (according to present evidence, anyway); in other words, the Dementors are parts of Death, but are not Death Incarnate (which can be summoned according to a Dark Ritual Quirrell read tell of as a spritely young lad). Thus, if the Patronus charm has the ability to repel a piece of Death, then in accordance with magic’s apparent system of dualities, the Patronus charm must represent the opposite of Death: Life.
All but Harry cast their Patronus using memories, figments of the mind based upon reality; because they only conjure a thought reminiscent of all life can be, they can only manifest a fragment of life force to shield themselves from Death—an imperfect shield, permeable to Death.
Harry recognizes the two poles of reality: Death, or absence—and Life, or presence. Harry brings to mind all that reality really is to us, namely all that a life can ever possibly experience, and pushes that in the face of the part of Death that is Dementors.* Harry has this ability because he strives to and greatly succeeds in deceiving himself of nothing (he’s not perfect—yet); through rationality he is able to have an accurate enough map of the territory that his conjured thought actually is a picture of all life can be, and so he can manifest the entirety of his Homo sapiens sapiens being. His Patronus not only represents but is pure life force, so it can overwhelm and obliterate imperfect representations of Death id est Dementors.Likewise, as both Dementors and animal Patronuses are imperfect representations of their respective pole, their effects more or less cancel; an animal Patronuses’ ability to repel a Dementor is in apparent proportion to its representative accuracy. Harry’s true Patronus is the the form of Life itself, and so he can destroy Dementors and cancel Death; Dumbledore accepts most of the Life dimension of reality, and nearly all of the Death dimension of reality, and so his representation of Life, his Patronus, is the strongest and brightest yet mentioned.
Now comes the tricky part of this hypothesis. The Killing Curse is equal to death in that if struck by it, assuming no inherent rule of magic regarding altruistic protective love interferes, you will die. The true Patronus has demonstrated the ability to overpower and destroy imperfect representations of Death, as it is the duality opposing Death in true form. However, the Killing Curse and the true Patronus cancel, so it must then follow that the Killing Curse is Death in true form, but not Death Incarnate.
However, this theory is completely blown away if the true Patronus doesn’t cancel the Killing Curse at all, that Harry blocked Quirrell’s Avada Kedavra merely by effecting an interaction of their magic. Whether the true Patronus can truly block the Killing Curse remains to be seen.
*From what I’ve gleaned from the text, I do not think Harry’s statement, “I think of the absolute rejection of Death as the natural order [paraphrased],” accurately reflects his thought processes preceding the casting of the true Patronus; to reject Death is to acknowledge it, and I don’t think Harry acknowledges Death at all when casting the charm. Furthermore, I do not even think it possible to cast the true Patronus when thinking of Death at all. When casting the charm, Harry calls to mind all that Death isn’t, and all that life is; he thinks purely of life, with not even a single shard of a thought of Death in mind.
As an aside, I find it particularly clever how in contrasting everyone else in the wizarding world, or agents of general humanity, with Harry, an agent of rationality, Eliezer characterizes animal Patronuses as akin to the self-deceptions and biases of most of humanity, and the true Patronus as akin to the power earned through the diligent application of rationalist techniques to everyday life, through elucidating the difference between animals’\ capacity for understanding and human capacity for understanding.
\Excludes humans as a subset; the sentence becomes awkward otherwise.
I was actually thinking of the week-long mini-camp when writing this. The idea would have to be thoroughly tested before implementation, in order to find the right balance to strike when presenting the game: the balance between encouraging a keen sense of how well you evince the meaning of your communications, while still discouraging anti-social hypersensitivity to, and subsequent criticizing of, non-specificity in others.
I’ve read your other responses, and while I don’t think my experience will assist you in an attempt to feel the emotion, it may assist in your ability to understand the emotion’s desirability.
I find myself more productive when I’m happy; my mind has less cluttered thoughts, due to less anxiety and cognitive duress (I can only best describe this as a state when my subconscious works overtime on thoughts I’m only barely conscious of, and each time I try to deeply contemplate a new thought, somewhere along the halfway point it’s unwillingly relegated to my subconscious as something I’m anxious over pops to the top of my mind).
I also notice a correlation between times I am unhappy, and a lowering in my self-confidence. Normally my confidence hovers right below what I would consider ‘a level of confidence conducive to hubris’, and when happy, it can tend to spill over into this danger zone. When unhappy, my confidence becomes akin to the normative level of confidence I’ve observed most people whom I’ve encountered to likely possess. This diminishing of confidence too lessens my productivity, and to reestablish my normative confidence level, I must then end my unhappiness.
Thus, for me, over-abundant happiness can be dangerous, but wading just above the happiness threshold gives me clarity of mind and purposeful focus. Hope this helped elucidate happiness’s utility for you.
Cheers!
Have you read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder? It’s a non-fiction book recording the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a tremendously benevolent epidemiologist that shares your worldview, does all he can to medically assist the poor (specifically, the Haitian poor), and still cannot meet the standards he sets himself. However, Kidder’s depictions of Farmer’s personality portray him as a happy man. Perhaps the book will be of some help, if you indeed have not yet read it.
This is still in line with Kidder’s depiction of Farmer. In one scene, Farmer has dinner with two close colleagues with whom he’s worked a long time. Kidder has been invited by Farmer, but compared to his usual, jovial self, Farmer blows up at one of his colleagues and beleaguers the colleague on how they are not serving the people who need them most (poor people) first. Kidder, shocked at how Farmer so blatantly torments and manipulates his colleague into capitulating to Farmer’s wishes, asks the other colleague whether this is normal. She responds, “You think that was bad? What he was doing to Jim was nothing. On a a scale of one to ten, that was about a five.”
Regardless, the book both educates and entertains; I recommend at least checking it out.
I consider my normative state to be just under or around the ‘happy’ threshold, which I’d consider as between happiness and unhappiness. Happiness essentially equates to a certain chemical balance in the brain, and the same holds true for unhappiness. When the brain releases neurotransmitters equitably, I’d postulate the brain’s chemical balance to reflect neutral emotions.
As an aside, I’ve heard genuinely, innocently laughing releases endorphins just as effectively as exercise; what do you emotively experience when these endorphins release? If you want to hack happiness, exercise or some media you find consistently hilarious might work through pure chemistry.
(Note: I may be mistaken in the neuroscience, though doubt it; I’m working on a piece of paper that declares proficiency in the field.)
I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I think I should feel something, as according to my value system and want for its adherence, I can will that emotion to sublimate from my desire to experience it. I suppose it’s a bit like a switch, though a switch can be easily turned on and off at will, with little transition time between the two states; the action I described, and your explanation of the ‘learning switch’, do not fit this description.
The ‘learning switch’ and my example can both be explained by intentional emotional and psychological manipulation: one apathetically doesn’t feel like learning, yet prefers a learned state to an ignorant state, and so cajoles the subconscious into emitting curiosity-inducing neurotransmitters by smartly suggesting how fascinating the material is, how much more prepared and capable one will be upon learning said material, ways in which the material can be of future utility, etcetera.
Kinesthesia has been known[1] to be increased through exercises similar to chi gung. Activating it involves, as you said, identifying the neural pathways involved and mimicking the relevant thought processes. Can you activate and deactivate the ‘kinesthesia switch’ in relatively rapid succession?
If not, then I suspect it’s similar to the type of manipulation mentioned above, only instead of identifying and activating an emotion, you’re actively shifting into a formerly desensitized mental state; id est you payed attention to how a not often isolated muscle felt when contracted, identified that feeling, and consciously activated it enough to make its isolated stimulation easy.
If so, then that’s astounding. I wonder whether it’s a particular quirk of kinesthesia.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldenkrais_method