A Charming House, Modern Amenities in Phinney Ridge, Washington | Small House is Beautiful
"the purpose of life is to drink beer"
"imitation is the highest form of flattery"
"God is truth"
"the Sun is green"
"trees are taller than grass"
"spinach is better than Coca-Cola"
"you're pretty good"
what do you think
is there anyone able to present strong arguments that show that that's how it is
now listen to the following claims and see if you agree with any of them
"we should lower the taxes"
"we should raise the taxes"
"we should ban abortion"
"we should legalize abortion"
"we have to raise the speed limits"
"we must lower the speed limits"
if you agree or disagree with any of them see if you still do if
I expand them a bit if we want crime rates to fall we should lower the taxes
if we want to strengthen the economy we should raise the taxes if you want to
increase the budget revenues we should ban abortion if we want to anger some
people we should legalize abortion if you want to increase the gross domestic
product you have to raise the speed limits if you want to protect the
environment you must lower the speed limits
both groups of sentences contain prescriptive claims claims that suggest a course of
action what someone should do but there is a significant difference between
claims from the first group and claims from the second group claims from the
first group do not say anything besides suggesting what someone should do claims
from the second group are prescriptive conditional claims which have the
"if-then" structure actually the claims in the second group have even more specific
structure "if someone wants to achieve goal B then this someone should execute
action A" this specific type of claim includes three significant things first
it acknowledges that actions are executed to achieve a specific goal and
it specifies that goal second it acknowledges the simple fact not
everyone wants to achieve that goal this is relevant in situations where there
are multiple people or groups of people who want to achieve different goals and
they can influence what goal will be adopted an example of that kind of situation is
democracy whatever goal you have whatever goal you think people society
should adopt there will be people with different goals whether you like it or
not and there will be difference in goals that stems from the difference in
values beliefs attitudes norms preferences likes dislikes and so on
because this type of claim acknowledges this I will call it "pluralistic
prescriptive conditional claim" or simpler "democratic claim" third this type
of claim contains something that I will call here "claim that something is" or
simply "is-claim" is-claim basically is a claim spoken with an intent of saying
how it is not how it should be but how it is a claim "if someone wants to
achieve global B then this someone should execute action A" contains an
is-claim "A causes B" examples of is-claims are "all roses are red"
"it is raining now" "two plus two equals four" "drugs are bad" "smoking causes cancer"
is-claim can be purely descriptive like "all roses are red" or normative like
"drugs are bad" trying to state what is good or what is bad in order for a
claim to be considered an is-claim it doesn't have to actually say how it is
only the intention of its author matters here the fact that the author
thinks that it says how it is the job of the claim's author is to provide
arguments in support of it the fact that the democratic claim contains those
three things is the reason why I've used it as a starting point of the method that I
will describe here in this video a method needs a name so let's use the name
of the channel and call it the stop-and-think method it is a method of reasoning
of argumentation of discovering if a claim made by someone or by yourself can be
supported by strong or any arguments a method that can help us to make the mess
a bit less messy how exactly it can help us to achieve this there are several steps
to it to understand them first we need to understand certain six philosophical
terms take a look at these two claims "all triangles have three edges" "it
is raining now" the first one is a claim that is knowable
a priori claim knowable a priori expresses knowledge that does not require
experience and empirical evidence knowledge that can be achieved by reason alone
without the use of the senses you do not need to verify with your senses that all
triangles have three edges the second claim is knowable a posteriori claim
knowable a posteriori expresses knowledge that requires experience and empirical
evidence knowledge that cannot be achieved by reason alone and requires
the use of the senses learning that it is raining now requires experience the
first claim is analytic analytic claim is made true or false solely by the
conventions of language it is true because of its meaning because of the
meaning of the terms contained in it the truth of the claim all triangles have
three edges is derived from the fact that a triangle by definition has three
edges this claim is true by definition another example is two plus two equals
four the truth of this claim comes from the meaning of the symbols two four plus
equals the second claim is synthetic synthetic claims are true by how their
meaning relates to the world you are not able to derive from the meaning of the
claim "it is raining now" if it's actually raining now whether it is true depends
on how it actually is in the world the first claim contains necessary truth
necessary truths are those and that cannot be untrue in any situation a
negation of necessarily true claim is self contradictory the claim "one
plus one equals two" contains necessary truth because one plus one always equals
two the claim "if A is smaller than B and B is smaller than C then A is smaller
than C" contains necessary truth logical truths are necessarily true they cannot
be untrue in any situation in philosophy another way of describing necessary
truth is that it's something that is true in every possible world the word
world is understood here as a whole universe the second claim contains
contingent truth contingent truth could have been different could have been
false in our universe water freezes at zero degrees Celsius but it could have
been different it is raining now but it could have been
different the terms necessary and contingent are
related to metaphysics a study of reality or what exists the terms
a priori and a posteriori are related to epistemology the study of thought belief
knowledge of how we think about reality of how we think about universe and how
we know what we know the terms analytic and synthetic are related to language
how we describe what we think and know at first sight it may seem that all
claims can be either a priori analytic necessary or a
posteriori synthetic contingent it may seem that a true claim is either true by
definition is always true and known by reason or it depends on how it is in the
world could have been different and have to be verified by experience but actually
it's not that simple and obvious various philosophers proposed claims that cannot
be so easily relegated to one of those two groups and in a moment I will give
some examples but in practice for the purposes of the method described here
the relations between those groups can be simplified in practice necessary
contingent division is irrelevant since we are living and operating within this
universe properties of this universe are practically relevant to us and that is
what we discuss and agree or disagree on we make is-claims and we show that
our is claim actually says how it is by providing arguments derived from
reasoning or experience that show that the is-claim is true because it says how
it actually is in the world or it is true because of the meaning of the terms
contained in it what really matters in practice is argumentation it is with
arguments that people convince others that what they claim is true not by
simply claiming that it is so because I think it is so everything revolves
around judging how strongly the arguments support the claim now we
will look at several examples of claims and how they can be supported by
arguments I've already presented examples of claims that are clearly
analytic a priori claims like all triangles have three edges or two plus two
equals four claims of such kind are either certainly true or certainly false one
simply cannot reasonably disagree that all triangles have three edges that's
how it is I've also presented examples of claims that are synthetic a
posteriori claims like it "is raining now" they are intended to say something about how
it is in the universe and should be verified by testing them empirically and
there can be a reasonable disagreement about them we do not have unlimited and
flawless knowledge and understanding of everything that is in the universe so
the conclusions reached can be wrong and regularly are wrong even if arguments
seem strong at the moment then in the future it may turn out that the claim is
wrong as it regularly happens even in science let's look at another set of
examples "I am here now" "every effect has a cause"
"what is is" "it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be" "space and time
exists" such claims may create some disagreements about how they should be
categorized for example whether the knowledge about space and time is gained
a priori or a posteriori but in practice it doesn't matter I don't think
you will find many debates about whether space or time exists conducted in the
context of some practical issue "water is h2o" this claim was proposed by Saul
Kripke as necessary a posteriori necessary because water could never in
any possible world be anything other than h2o if something is not h2o then
it's not water a posteriori because it needs to be discovered empirically that
water is h2o but do you really need to discover that water is h2o in practice
it depends on what precise meaning the speaker ascribes to those words and to this sentence
which one of those pictures shows water
how many pictures of water do you see
the answer depends on the meaning of the words if one thinks that
h2o is the chemical compound made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom and
thinks that water is this liquid that is everywhere on planet Earth then those
terms have different meaning and in this case water actually isn't h2o but it
consists of h2o and it needs to be discovered a posteriori that it is so
but if water is being used as just another name for the chemical compound
h2o then understanding of the terms water and h2o is enough to know that
water is h2o another a bit different example is "hesperus is phosphorus"
or in other words "evening star his morning star" evening star is the planet
Venus visible in the evening morning star is also the planet Venus but
visible in the morning despite of them being the very same thing it still needs
to be discovered that evening star is morning star since those names were
given in different contexts "the length of stick S at time t0 is one meter"
a claim proposed by Saul Kripke as contingent a priori a priori because
nothing is being discovered here but a decision is being made that the length
of the stick S will define what one meter is contingent because the actual
length of the stick S at time t0 could have been different but is it synthetic
or is it analytic let's assume that someone claims that one meter exists in
universe and its properties are independent of human opinion that its
length does not depend on what people think obviously this person would fail
to prove that that's how it is because one meter is a concept created by a
human who defined it and decided what it will refer to so this claim is the
definition that then can be used in analytic claims like "two meters are
longer than one meter" it can be used if we know about it but if you don't know the
definition then experience will be required to learn about it for example
by reading about it in a book
"the purpose of life is to drink alcohol"
says a bum after emptying his bottle of vodka is he babbling without sense or is
he a street philosopher who discovered a truth of the universe if the latter
then how could he be able to provide arguments that would clearly show that
that's how it is not how it should be but how it is
could he be able to show that that's how it is in the universe could he be able to
show that in the universe there is such thing as the purpose of life and that it
is an alcohol drinking could you be able to directly or indirectly observe it and
discover its characteristics as we can do with other existing things and
properties like for example trees temperature size and so on if not then
maybe he could be able to show that understanding of the terms contained
in the claim is enough to know that that's how it is that will be the case if for
example it was the adopted definition of the term "purpose of life" so instead of
saying "drinking alcohol is forbidden here"
you would be able to say "purpose of life is forbidden here" and everybody would
know what you mean if the author of the discussed claim is not able to do any of
it then he has no convincing arguments in support of it
"party morality is the highest level of ethical consciousness" said Julius Martov to Lenin in the
sixth episode of the TV series "Fall of Eagles" could he be able to show that
that's how it actually is could he be able to show that such thing like party
morality can be discovered described measured compared independently of human
opinion with methods that are not completely subjective if not then maybe
he could be able to show that understanding of the terms contained in
this claim is enough to know that that's how it is clearly not we can create our
own definition of party morality and insert in it our own judgment that it is
the highest level of ethical consciousness but no one is obliged to
accept it this claim could have been turned into
one that says how it is by first specifying a standard of judgment a
scale that would arbitrarily decide which form of ethical consciousness is
on which level with party morality being on the highest level
and by that defining the meaning of the term "the highest level of ethical
consciousness" and second by explicitly stating that this specific standard says
that party morality is the highest level of ethical consciousness for example the
claim "to us party morality is the highest level of ethical consciousness"
states that our own standard says it which brings us to the wider issue of
value judgments "good" "bad" "right" "wrong" how could you show that a claim containing
such words is not just an opinion but actually says how it is are you be able
to show that words like "goodness" or "badness" refer to specific property that
exists in nature in the universe and by saying that some object is good we are
noting that this object has this property are you able to show that it doesn't
depend on anyone's opinion that you cannot decide that the object is good
but you can only perceive it because we are able to do that with physical
properties we are able to show that objects have velocity length mass and so on
and to specify their values and we are able to do that by methods that are
independent of opinion that do not depend on fully subjective methods of
judgment like for example intuition can you do
that with goodness or badness because only then you would be able to show that
the claim that a given object is good says how it is in the universe maybe you
are able to show that understanding of the terms contained the claim "object
X is good" is enough to see that indeed that's how it is clearly the word "good"
is not the definition or the synonym of whatever hides behind X if you say "this
apple is good" then it doesn't mean that in sentences you can replace "this apple"
with "good" or "good" with "this apple" if we will look at how words like "good" "bad"
"wrong" "right" are used in practice in claims like "object is good" then we can
notice that basically they are functioning as a synonym of some other
property for example object X is an apple it's tasty and we say "apple is
good" meaning that it's tasty here "good" means "tasty" or X is a person who is
honest and we say that because of this she is a good person here "good" is a
synonym of "honest" X is a comedy movie it is funny and because of this we say that
it is a good movie "good" is being used as a synonym of "funny" you can find out what
property it is a synonym of by asking why "apple is good" why? because it's tasty
what we are doing here is we are assuming a standard of judgment a scale
that defines words "good" and "bad" by specifying what they actually mean when
they are used to label a specific object one scale defines what a "good apple"
means another defines what "a good person" means yet another defines what "a good
comedy movie" means the reason why it's like I've described here is how we create
standards that define the meaning of the words like "good" or "bad" in claims like "X
is good" and "X is bad" I'm claiming that behind reasons for the
creation of a standard of judgment a prescriptive claim is hiding at the
moment of the standard's creation even if it's not being realized by the person
creating such standard a claim that the object to which that standard is being
applied to should be should have or should be doing something specific if it
fulfills this claim then it's good if not then it's bad
so "good" "bad" "right" "wrong" are actually properties in themselves properties that
say whether the given object fulfills some specific prescriptive claim and
since any given object always fulfills some prescriptive claims and doesn't
fulfill some other prescriptive claims then at the same moment both claims
"X is good" and "X is bad" can be saying how it is although they are not particularly
informative if you don't know what standard of judgment is being used
you don't know what "good" and "bad" mean in this particular context you don't know
why something is good or bad one person might say that an apple is good because
it's tasty another might say that the apple is
bad because it has a worm hole more informative way of making value
judgments would it be to specify the properties that hide behind words "good"
"bad" "right" "wrong" like for example "this apple is bad because it has a worm hole" or
simply "this apple has a worm hole" or to specify the standard of judgment like
for example "to me this is bad" in practice prescriptive claims ascribed to
objects are derived from one of the two things one thing is personal preference
what we like what we prefer we might label as good this applies to everyone even a
god any good the other thing is purpose words like good or bad are used to label
things that serve or do not serve their purpose purpose of something usually is
derived from its very definition that is the case with things created by humans
they are created with a specific purpose in mind a car that doesn't drive a plane
that doesn't fly a knife that doesn't cut those things will not be labeled as
good even if we do not care if those specific objects fulfill their purpose a
purpose can also be arbitrarily given to any object if someone beats someone else
with a randomly found stick and this stick doesn't break then he might say
that this is a good stick that's because it served its purpose given to it at the
moment another interesting example is whether the answer to a question is
right or wrong if someone is being asked what is two plus two and answers five then
this answer will be labeled as wrong because it's incorrect
it doesn't fulfill the claim that the answer to a question should be correct
but let's say that a torturer wants to break the will of his victim by forcing
him to say things that are clearly false asks him what is 2+2
and he correctly answers four then the torturer can shout "wrong answer!" because
the purpose given by him to the expected answer was to break the victim value
judgment based on a purpose creates disagreement much less often than judgment
based on personal preferences that's because the stated purpose of a thing
usually becomes accepted you don't see people claiming that the purpose of a
knife should be the hammer nails one reason is that things are designed to
serve a specific purpose another reason is that the purpose of the thing does
not force you to use it if you don't intend to shoot people then you will not
say that the purpose of a gun should not be to shoot people but to cut bread and
the gun itself obviously will not disagree with its purpose that's
different if someone tries to decide what your purpose is and convince you
that you are bad because you are not fulfilling it you may have a different
opinion an object with multiple purposes may be labeled as good and bad at the
same time you can say that a professional assassin is a bad man
because he doesn't fulfill the claim that a man should not go around killing
other people for money but at the same time you can say that he's a good
professional assassin if he effectively fulfills the claim made by his job
description so even if there is such a thing in nature as objective goodness I
don't think is related to how people use words like "good" "bad" "right" or "wrong" does
all of it mean that we shouldn't judge standards used by others because
standards are a matter of opinion well not exactly
first of all I'm claiming that there is really no way of directly concluding "should"
from "is" that would be based on some independent external binding force the
only way we clearly can do that is when "should" refers not to a goal but to a method
of reaching it basically when "should" is contained within a pluralistic
prescriptive conditional claim "if you want to achieve B then you should do A"
in this case "should" is derived from "is" but only as a method of reaching
a goal for example "if you don't want your hand to get wet then you shouldn't put
it in water" as experience shows water makes unprotected hands wet so if you
don't want to make your hand wet then you shouldn't put it in water consider
different claim "water makes hands wet so you should not put your hand in it" the
fact that water does that cannot really make an act of putting a hand into water
impossible you can still do that but if you don't want your hand to get wet
then you should not put it in water because it will get wet whether you want
it or not how does it look like in the context of
language can one derive "should" from "is" based on the meaning of words let's say
that a word "runner" refers to someone who is running at the specific moment if
you are not running at the moment then you are not a runner
you cannot conclude from the definition "a runner is someone who is running" that
you should be running right now additionally concluding from the
definition "a runner is someone who is running" that a runner should be running
is redundant because a runner is running but you can reasonably say that if you
want to be a runner then you should be running this claim
tells you what you should do to move from not being a runner to being
a runner it's an example of a more general claim "if you want to be labeled with a
specific term then you should fulfill its definition" the given definition of a
runner specifies the state in which an object is when it's fulfilling the
definition a runner is running but what about definitions that specify a purpose
what someone or something should do it may seem for example that reasonably a
watch should show time because that is its purpose
but a watch that stops showing time does not stop being a watch it's still a
watch but it may not be a good watch so in this case it's reasonable to say
"if you want to label a bad watch as good watch then you should fix it so it
starts showing time" also if a good watch is a watch that is
showing time then strictly speaking it's redundant to say that a good watch
should be showing time because a good watch is showing time another example if
you are working as a guard then it's possible for you to not do your job and
still be a guard the binding force is only introduced here by an "if" for
example "if you don't want to lose your job then you should be guarding
what you are supposed to be guarding" all of it is even more visible in the case
of someone who is given a purpose that they doesn't agree with are you bound to
do something only because somebody said so even if you don't agree with it or
maybe any binding force is only introduced by an "if" for example "if you
don't want to suffer the consequences then you should do this" so we can move
from "is" to "should" only on your way towards a goal to another desired is
"should" is a road between two instances of "is" outside of it there is really
nothing that physically or logically binds one to do something because some
other thing is obviously one can simply say that you should do something
specific but this will be only an opinion a recommendation even in the
cases that seem obvious and reasonable like in the case of a watch that should
be showing time so reasonably you cannot simply say without specifying why that
because standards are a matter of opinion then we should not judge
standards used by others that's one argument another one is that there are
criteria of judgement based on things that are common to most people those
based on features of human biology and psychology like senses pleasure pain
there are virtues that are valued across cultures like wisdom or courage there
are criteria of judgment derived from definitions and descriptions of
specific genres and subgenres of movies books music games from the purpose they
are supposed to fulfill some criteria of judgment seem quite obvious consider the
claim "imitation is the highest form of flattery"
why imitation can be judged like that because it's more honest than mere
praise furthermore since words like "good" or "bad" relate to other properties
I think that it's more reasonable to focus on those properties instead of
such vague judgments like "good" or "bad" they can give something more concrete
and objective to judge and compare something that people may be more likely
to agree on and finally regarding value judgments that come from personal
preferences what really matters is not what we think but what we feel people
acquire standards of judgment from various sources from their parents their
surroundings their society their culture their own purely personal preferences
their own experience during their childhood and throughout
their lives and they use them as their own because they care about them and if
they care about them enough they might promote them so more people will use
them after all that's what many people do they promote things that they care
about even knowing that their preference for it is subjective and which standard
is widely accepted depends in practice on who is more effective at promoting
and spreading it and which standard appeals to most people this is
especially true in democracy that's how it is in practice and that's how it will
continue to be because in order to prevent it that one would have to
somehow prevent people from expressing any value judgement about anything which
is obviously practically impossible in the end whether one judges other
standards is a personal decision one just have to remember that saying that
something is good or bad is not particularly informative in itself
without specifying what is hiding behind those words when presenting examples of
claims about the purpose of life and party morality
I've asked if the authors of those claims could be able to show that that's
how it is in the universe but maybe they could expect that those claims could be
simply known and understood a priori without any evidence without any
arguments in order to answer that I must present here several claims that the
method described in this video is based on maybe you've noticed that I've been
avoiding the word "truth" I've avoided it whenever I could that's because this
word has been so used and abused for various purposes that sometimes one
cannot even be certain what is meant by that word various philosophies
ideologies religions created their own definitions of what truth is used the
concept of truth for their own purposes or even denied that there is
such a thing as truth to the point that the concept of truth is not something
that enhances our understanding of things but obscures it unreasonably
and makes it more uncertain than it actually is that's why I've decided that
I will bypass this word this unclear concept and go lower to another concept
which even the ability to define truth depends on to a concept that in English
language can be expressed with the word "is"
it's a basic concept that does not need to be defined with any other words it's
best to present it on examples let's look at several of them "two plus two is
four" "two plus two equals five is it no it is not" "this homeless has no home is
that so yes it is" "beer is truth" in those statements the
meaning of their terms alone can tell us with certainty if they say how it is
another set of examples "this apple is bad" "this apple has a bug hole" "if the apple
that has a bug hole is bad then this apple is bad" "if food that harms your
health is bad then unhealthy food is bad" if as I've said before words like "good"
and "bad" say that the object fulfills or doesn't
fulfill some specific claim then statements like "this is good" and "this is
bad" both at the same time can be saying how it is but otherwise they are not
saying anything useful in themselves the second and third claim can be saying how
it is and it's possible to verify with your senses if it is so in the case of
the claim about an uhealthy food it can be derived from his meaning that it says
how it is we know that unhealthy food is a food that harms your health and this
statement logically states that if food that harms your health is bad then
unhealthy food is bad another set of examples "I see that this water is in
liquid form" "this water is in liquid form" "is that water in liquid form
all the evidence suggests that it is" "roses have thorns that's just how it is"
"I am imagining a tree" whether those statements say how it is depends on the
state of the world the universe of everything that exists including our own
mind except language also included here are statements that speak about the past
and indirectly statements that speak about the future when speaking about the
past that what is our historical facts that we are trying to establish when
trying to predict what will happen in the future
unless we are guessing completely randomly we are basing our predictions
on our knowledge about what is but how certain can we be how it is in the
universe outside of language itself well it's a bit more complicated than it is
with statements where the meaning of the terms alone defines what is the only
thing that you can be absolutely certain is what your senses tell you if you see
that the water is in liquid form and you can be absolutely certain that it is
what you see but whether what you perceive with your senses is something
that exists in the physical world and whether the conclusions that you draw
from what you perceive actually describe how it is in the universe that's where
it gets a bit more complicated and uncertain but not so uncertain as some
philosophers claim it is there are various skeptical claims that what we
perceive might not correspond to material reality at all that everything
we perceive might be a simulation that only our own mind exists and what we
perceive was created by it that the universe might have been created just
recently together with our memory and all the evidence of history and so on
there are claims that since we cannot really be sure that what we perceive
is reality then we cannot be sure of truth that since people perceive the
same things in different way then everybody can have their own truth truth
is socially constructed or even that there is no such thing as truth in the
context of discovering what is how it is none of it creates any significant
problems regardless of the nature of reality and the nature of our perception
for us there is always something about which we can say that that's how it is
and this something depends on two things one is language the other is everything
else that exists in our mind and that can be there anything created by our
mind without our senses if you are imagining a tree then there is a tree in
your imagination or anything perceived by our senses and that brings us to
another question since people rely only on their own perception and even if we
perceive the same world then everything is filtered through subjective perception
then is it actually the case and then everybody can reasonably make any claims
that they want what you see on these pictures are video games it can be said
that a video game contains its own world a game world that
his own properties and is governed by its own rules the player perceives the
game world on the screen and through the speakers the player interacts with this
world through input devices such as mouse these particular games that you
see on the screen are multiplayer games that you can play through the internet
and interact with other players in the game world game worlds of multiplayer
games and how they are perceived by players have certain characteristics
that are significant to us here first there is never total consistency between
players factors such as internet speed errors in the game code flawed algorithms
badly written code varied players hardware guarantee that what different
players perceive will never be entirely the same at any moment second the game
world's properties and rules change game developers might release a patch that
will significantly change some elements of the game making the game world
inconsistent in time does all of it mean that it's pointless to attempt to
discover and describe some consistent properties of the game world consistent
rules that govern it to discuss them with other players to adapt to those
rules while playing to find what action is most effective in specific situations
does it mean that every player can have their own truths about the game world
about its properties and its rules well practice shows that no it does not
mean that that's because of two things first in practice rules are not being
changed too often so one does not have to constantly rediscover them which
would make playing the game rather pointless second inconsistencies between
what different players perceive are not significant enough to be able to
reasonably claim that is impossible for all players to come up with a consistent
description of the game world despite the inconsistencies individual players
do not have their own versions of the game world with different properties and
rules everyone is playing the same game in the same game world governed by rules
that are independent of perception rules that can be and should be described and
taken into account while playing and precisely the same is the case with our
perception what we perceive is consistent we perceive that there is
consistency in properties of the perceived natural world and laws that
govern it there are regularities specific
non-random causes and consequences is not like for example fire
burns your hand on one day and on another it makes it wet and that's why we can live in
this perceived world because in a world without such consistency it would be
rather hard or impossible to live not being certain of anything not being able
to predict anything not being able to plan anything what we perceive also has
what I will call here a sufficient collectively perceived consistency there
is enough consistency between what various people perceive to allow us to
conclude that it's ridiculous to say that people can make introducting claims
about the world and we should treat it as their own truth
of course people may differ widely in their interpretation of what they
perceive which is a subject that I will return to later in the video but
the interpretation is based on a perception that is consistent between
people and that shows that there are properties laws regularities causes and
consequences that are independent of subjective perception of each individual
for example everybody with healthy senses can perceive that right now there
is no Soviet Union on earth and this perception won't be changed by
any worldview that includes believes according to which it should have been a
prosperous state and we can discover specific causes of why there is no
Soviet Union anymore there is also a sufficient collectively perceived
consistency to be able to recognize when someone's senses are not healthy
so we don't have to take seriously someone who claims for example that
there is no such thing as sound or that the Sun is a cube one can also conclude
consistency in perception from the fact that humanity has survived prospers and
is where it is if the differences in perception where that great then human
species would have not even been able to cooperate to survive let alone to build
a civilization in order to cooperate humans have to agree on something and in
order to survive in the natural environment they have to interpret this
environment sufficiently correctly all of it is the case regardless of what it is
that we perceive whether that what we call the world the universe nature is an
actual physical world a simulation a product of our own mind or anything else
that is the case even if the world has been created a second ago together with
our memory and historical records from the very fact
that there is a coherent history one can derive existence of consistent laws
because without consistency there is no story only random events random causes
and random consequences humans are constrained by those laws by consistent
causes and consequences and have to understand them and take them into
account when making decisions when working to achieve their goals which
brings us to another issue what methods of discovering how it is offer strongest
arguments in support of our claims those who offer the greatest perceived
consistency especially the greatest collectively perceived consistency if I
claim that the Sun is not blue everybody with functioning eyes can see that and
we can confirm every day if it's still not blue there is consistency but if
someone claims that his intuition tells him that once every hundred years the
Sun becomes blue then there is no consistency of perception because
intuition is totally subjective and the intuition itself does not allow to see
it once every hundred years the Sun becomes blue we will be able to verify
it every hundred years but not with intuition but with our senses or if you
claim that the economical system that you've designed will bring prosperity
but every country that implements it crumbles economically then there is a
clear perceived consistency regarding claims about what is in the external
world arguments that offer greatest consistency come from the senses which
should be obvious since as I've already explained to us the external world is
basically what we perceive with the senses regardless of what it actually is
if there is a sufficient consistency of perception between people then we can
reach common conclusion about how it is in the external world only if there was
no such consistency and everybody was perceiving completely different things
then it would have been rather hard to agree on how it is in the external
world and everybody would have their own external world since we are interested
here only in the consistency of perception then there is no regress
problem that is we don't have to verify with some other method if the senses offer
consistency which then would require another method to verify if that method
verified the senses correctly which will require yet another method to verify the
previous method and so on to infinity we perceive with the senses themselves
if there is consistency of perception in this context senses are self-verifying
that's because we do not have to verify if they correctly represent something
else like an actual physical world but only if the representation is consistent
and in practice that is enough because as we also know from our senses we
are affected and constrained by what we perceive regardless of whether what we
perceive is actually a reality senses are not only the best method but
required even if you correctly concluded something about the external world
without using the senses then without the senses there is really no way to
verify it because without the senses without sight hearing smell taste and
touch there is no external world for you lack of collectively perceived
consistency offered by the senses is the reason why there are really no
convincing arguments for claims about existence of objective goodness or for
other metaphysical claims in practice the most successful of methods that
involve the senses and provide consistency is the scientific method it's because it
demands that the hypothesis must be tested in the external world according
to a procedure subjecting the hypothesis to the unbiased laws of nature which
doesn't care what we think and expect and it provides results that can be
interpreted by other people while also demanding that the tests could be
repeated so other scientists could verify if the results can be replicated but in
practice we do not have to verify everything with our own senses
consistency can be indirect that's why for example in matters that we are not
familiar with we refer to experts or in general to people who know more than us
because we know from experience that it's more probable that someone who
knows more and is more experienced will be right than someone who knows less and
is less experienced even intuition can be a good argument in support of a claim
if it comes from an expert or from someone who is proven to be consistently
correct anything can be the best argument it's the best what you've got at
the moment and you have to work with what you've got in the case of analytic
statements consistency comes from understanding the statement and the
terms contained in it "two plus two equals four" everybody who understands
this statement can agree that that's how it
is in the case of value judgments that refer to a purpose of a specific object
consistency comes from purpose when purpose is defined and accepted then
there can be an agreement that the specific thing is good if it fulfills
its purpose it is this consistency that is the reason why in general
disagreements about value judgments that refer to purpose are relatively small
compared to disagreements about value judgments that express personal
preference here there is a significant lack of perceived consistency since
preferences are not consistent between people with the exception of cases where
the preference is based on something that is common to most people like
biology or psychology as I've explained before in the light of all of this I'm
proposing here that truth should be defined simply as something that is and
a true statement is a statement that actually describes how it is in the case
of analytic statements the truth is derived from the meaning of the
statement in the case of value judgments statement like "if food that harms your
health is bad then unhealthy food is bad" is true or false because of its meaning
statement like "if the apple that has a worm hole is bad then this apple is bad"
and "the apple has a worm hole" can be true or false and it depends on how it
actually is in the world if words like "good" or "bad" mean that the object
fulfills or doesn't fulfill some specific prescriptive claim then
statement like "the apple is bad" can be true or false but until we know what is
hiding behind those words then if such statement is true is interminable in the
case of statements where truth is derived from their meaning truth is
always certain in the case of other statements it's not so obvious what is
certain is what your senses tell you if you know that you are seeing a screen
then you can be certain that you are seeing a screen even if it's just a
hallucination you are seeing what you are seeing the conclusions that we draw
from what we are perceiving generally are not so certain there is always a
possibility that new knowledge will show that our conclusions are more or
less incorrect even science has been mistaken many times and had to adjust to
new discoveries but one area where there is a possibility of making statements
that are certainly true is evidence if all evidence shows
that there is a star in the center of the solar system then you can say with
certainty that all evidence shows that there is a star in the center of the
solar system that's because evidence is based on
perception and interpretation we can be certain that what we are perceiving is
what we are perceiving and it's possible to correctly interpret what we are
perceiving so one can actually make a certainly correct argument if it
pertains to evidence so let's assume that we've made a pluralistic
prescriptive conditional claim and we've established that the is-claim contained in it
is true does it automatically mean that we should do what this claim
suggests if we want to achieve the given goal not necessarily it depends on some
other factors the very first thing that we should consider and it should
actually be done before analyzing the is-claim is what this goal is
based on because it may turn out that the goal itself is based on wrong
analysis of the situation on untrue is claims and it should not be pursued in
the first place so you apply the same analysis of an is-claim
to the claims that the goal is based on if the goal has a solid base then
we have to take into account that relationships between actions and
consequences generally are not just the simple if-then relationships but are
more complicated and we have to consider if other unwanted relationships are
involved if the action is against our other goal or results in something
that is against our other goal an example of such relationship is prohibition that
was introduced in the USA in the 1920 one of its many unintended consequences
was the dramatic growth of wealth and power of the american mafia which then
resulted in among many things the growth of corruption because the mafia used
their money to pay off government officials if the goal itself is against
our other goal or results in something that is against our other goal an example
of such a relationship are the attempts to contest British naval and colonial
power initiated by German Kaiser Willhelm II at the end of the 19th
century it resulted in the improvement of anglo-french relations which ended the
diplomatic isolation of France isolation which was mostly the result of the
efforts of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to prevent France
from attempting to take revenge for the franco-prussian war of 1870 if the
action results in something that then acts against our intended goal and this
something is sure or very likely to eventually defeat our goal and make the
entire effort pointless in colonial India the British wanted to decrease the
population of cobras and offered a reward for cobra corpses initially it
was working but the British basically created a demand for cobra corpses so it
created an incentive to supply cobra corpses and people started to breed
cobras and basically selling them to the British when the British realised it
they canceled the reward then people have released their cobras and in the
end there was more cobras in India than before action A may also result in
something that prevents us from achieving the goal even only temporarily
in this case A does not cause B at all and the is-claim is false an example
would be raising taxes to increase budget revenues but raising them too
much and creating an incentive to avoid taxes which in the end decreases the
revenues if the goal itself results in something that then acts against it and
this something is sure or very likely to eventually defeat our goal and make the
entire effort pointless an example of it can be any flawed political or economical or
other system that for a time seems to work but has built-in flaws that in time
will inevitably cause it to decline and collapse this actually is a broader
subject worthy of a separate video after considering all of this the next thing
would be to consider if there are other more advantageous methods of achieving
the goal so let's summarize the steps of the method start with the pluralistic
prescriptive conditional claim it doesn't have to be precisely in this
grammatical form it doesn't have to be a single sentence it doesn't even have to
be spoken it all depends on the specific situation but it has to be realized it
has to be realized that people have different goals
resulting from different attitudes and desires values and so on that's just how
it is and you should take that into account for your own good you will have
a rather hard time convincing others by simply claiming
that your goal is the right one is the only correct one is the truth and other
goals are simply wrong you start looking for what's wrong in
the next step in the next step you analyze if the goal itself is based on
correct analysis of the situation on true is-claims then you analyze the is-claim
contained in the prescriptive claim if the is-claim is supported by
convincing strong correct arguments then you look for other causal relationships
that need to be considered finally you consider if there are other
more advantageous methods of achieving the intended goal the last four steps
can actually be done in various order depending on the situation
however there is a certain problem here if you've seen the previous videos on this
channel then you should know what I'm talking about I'm talking about those
characteristics of human reasoning those psychological mechanisms like motivated
reasoning cognitive dissonance cognitive biases like confirmation bias those are
the things that make disagreement and uncertainty greater than they reasonably
should be there is a level of rational reasonable disagreement and uncertainty
the evidence may be not fully clear that what we are sure of now may later be
overturned by new discoveries but such mechanisms like motivated reasoning
increase disagreements to unreasonable levels by making people deny even
logically true statements and strong arguments that disconfirm what they are
strongly convinced about and accept illogical statements and weak arguments
that confirm what they are strongly convinced about that's why I am claiming
here that we should be teaching about those psychological mechanisms teaching
in schools at some relatively lower level of education about such things
like motivated reasoning cognitive biases cognitive dissonance and also
logical fallacies and other errors of reasoning and argumentation I'm claiming
that it is necessary if we want to reduce disagreement and uncertainty to
reasonable levels also I'm claiming that if we want to have any chances of
curbing this let's call it intellectual chaos that is progressing in recent
times then we should understand what I've described here in this video and I
intend to test those claims empirically here on this channel in the future videos
starting with the next one
let's see what will happen
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