Truth and Relativism

I share Maverick Philosopher's distaste for the predicate "true for". Phrases like "that's true for you but not for me" are borderline nonsensical. Truth doesn't bend itself to match our beliefs, and it doesn't show different faces to different people. Truth just is. If you want to talk about what different people believe, then damn well use the word "believes", instead of trying to pass it off as a plurality of truths.

Extreme relativism is self-defeating of course. Take the thesis 'All truths are relative' - is this claim absolutely true, or only relatively true?

But not all relativism is nonsense. So long as you have genuine (non-relative) truth at the core, it is possible - perhaps even necessary - to build some (limited) relativism up around this. The key here, though, is not to relativise truth itself, but rather, the framework against which the truth is being judged.

Firstly, note that you can have objective truths about relational properties. It is absolutely true that Jupiter is larger than Pluto. But 'larger than' is a relational property. Moreover, the very notion of 'largeness' (for example) is context-dependent. Is an elephant large? The question is incoherent without a basis for comparison (though in reality we can ask it sensibly, because context should make the implicit basis clear). Elephants are large relative to mice, but not if we're comparing them to whales.

So you can see that we're admitting an element of relativity here. But it's not relativity about truth itself. Instead, it's recognising that the claim being considered is, by itself, incomplete. We need an extra parameter to plug up the gap and clarify exactly what proposition we are refering to. The truth of the claim will vary depending on what parameter is chosen, but this is because the choice of parameter affects the meaning of the sentence. An ambiguous sentence could refer to any number of distinct propositions. But each proposition has a definite, objective truth-value.

Truth is not, ultimately, relative. But it sometimes appears that way because a sentence may be ambiguous or incomplete until 'filled in' by a parameter.

A good example of this is value-judgements. Some people think that value judgements are purely subjective, and simply refer to the individual's own subjective assessments, rather than any objective facts. I am convinced that this is the wrong way to understand it. (I've previously wrestled with some sorts of truths which seem to be inherently subjective, but value-judgements aren't one of them!)

A better way to understand the relativity of value is to say that value-judgements are made relative to some framework of standards. The claim "Beethoven is better than Britney" is, by itself, incomplete. However, once we clarify that the missing parameter is the set of standards shared by classical music lovers, then we have ourselves a proposition which is objectively true. If a teeny-bopper disagrees, claiming that Britney is better, then - according to the above standards - she is wrong. However, if we were to choose an alternative parameter - say, the aesthetic standards of pop music (such as they are), the tables would be turned: the teeny-bopper would speak truth, and the old fogeys falsehoods.

I hope it's clear enough what I'm getting at here. Value judgements, understood as assessing something against some particular standards, are objective. What's relative is the choice of standards. (I made a similar suggestion in the comments thread of a recent FBC post on aesthetic relativism.)

In my old post on Semantic Contextualism, I argued for what appears to be a very broad form of relativism. It is fully consistent with what I've been saying here, however. In effect, I was arguing that there are many truths which are only indirectly related to the objective world (e.g. truth in fiction). When assessing a truth-claim then, we need to consider what world [the parameter] it applies to. Ultimately, however, all truths can be understood as objective descriptions of reality. It's just that they might require some clarifications in order to get to that stage.

Minimum Wage

Slate has an interesting article by Steven Landsburg about the minimum wage. The first half debunks the common argument that it causes unemployment. He goes on to argue that the minimum wage places an unfair burden on a small minority, and we would do better to instead focus on welfare funded by all taxpayers (apparently the US has something called 'EITC' to this effect).

For some disagreement over that second point, see Majikthise and Brad DeLong.

Update: Crooked Timber has a good overview of the matter.

Brash on Crime

It seems like all the other NZ bloggers are talking about crime and Don Brash's latest speech (skip to the summary/conclusion if you can't be bothered reading it all), so I might as well chip in with a few thoughts of my own.

Most of the details I don't really know enough about to comment. For example, targeting organised crime and "well-known criminal families" certainly sounds like a good idea, but I haven't a clue whether National's policies there are likely to improve things or not. Though the move to make greater use of DNA fingerprinting is surely a good one. Helen Clark even said she was open to the idea (I can't remember where I saw that - The Press, perhaps?).

But looking at the big picture, Brash's main focus seems to be on putting more people in prison, for longer. So let's look at that:

To operate the prison service now costs around $600 million annually. If the prison population increased by 50% as a result of the abolition of parole (which is possible if offending rates do not reduce), the increase in annual operating cost could rise by around $300 million after about five years. Additional prisons will also involve significant one-off capital costs, possibly of up to $1 billion, though to keep taxpayer costs as low as possible we would contract the running of these to the private sector. [Footnote:] The country's only privately managed prison, the Auckland Central Remand Prison, beats the state operated prisons on almost every measure, including cost, education and health programmes.

I heard a while ago that even the Greens concede that private prisons are run much better, but they nevertheless are opposed to all privatisation as a matter of principle. In other words, they're opposed to what's best for the country if it clashes with their ideology. Disgraceful. (Assuming my information there is accurate. Let me know if you have evidence to the contrary - a link would be good!)

But back to Brash, one must ask whether those massive costs are really worth it. As far as I'm concerned, the only people who should be imprisoned are those who pose a significant threat to society. If there is good evidence to suggest that a crime was a one-off event (a crime of passion, say), and the offender poses little future risk to society, then he should not go to jail. There simply isn't any point. Of course, a serious crime will require a proportionally serious punishment for the sake of deterrence, but we can surely come up with alternatives to prison which would benefit, rather than cost, society at large. Perhaps a huge (and I mean huge) fine and several years (hell, decades!) of community service, for a start. [Update: Perhaps corporal punishment is worth considering too.]

'Rehabilitation' seems to be a dirty word these days. The major parties are both emphasising how 'tough on crime' they are, but seem more interested in punishing offenders than protecting the rest of us. Imprisoning now-harmless people does nothing to protect the rest of us, it just wastes our money. A prisoner should be released the moment we have sufficient evidence (if ever we do) that he is successfully rehabilitated and no longer poses a significant risk.

Since the purpose of prisons is to protect society from threats, they should aim to neutralise that threat while they can. That is, they should try to rehabilitate prisoners so that they no longer pose a threat to society. If this can be done (and I don't know enough to say whether it can - realistically - or not), then it is surely preferable to releasing a criminal just as dangerous as when he went in.

On the other hand, if we have good reason to think that a dangerous criminal is beyond all hope, then he should probably never be released. I guess the difficulty is in accurately judging whether an individual is 'safe' or not. I don't know whether there is any reliable (or even semi-reliable) way of doing this.

Brash suggested careful monitoring of released criminals to prevent re-offending. This sounds like a very sensible idea. What makes less sense is suggesting this as a replacement for parole. We should be aiming to keep our prisons as empty as possible, and releasing offenders as soon as it is safe to do so. Post-release monitoring is a method which (presumably) increases our margin of safety here. As such, its implementation would give us reason to consider releasing offenders earlier, rather than later. (Admittedly, this reasoning assumes current practices to be tolerably safe, a premise Brash et al might not accept.)

Prison should be a last resort, only to be utilized when it is necessary for the safety of society. I imagine various lobby groups for victims of crime would disagree with this, due to their desire for retribution. However, despite being natural and understandable, this drive for revenge is not one which ought to influence policy. I would hope that our political leaders base their position on more rational grounds, seeking what is truly best for our society. Although there were some good points in Brash's speech, I'm concerned by his apparent focus on filling up prisons. He is appealing to the worst in people, and I can't help but wonder whether the effects of this will spill over, preventing us from realising what is best for society.

Damn Bugs

Blogger seems a bit screwed up - it refuses to update my main page. Until this is fixed, you might need to instead check my index page to see any new posts. Also, I'll keep this post updated with links to any 'missing' posts.

[Note: If the main page freezes again, it will not display updated versions of this post. You will need to check the individual permalink instead.]

Sorry for any inconvenience - I'm hoping the Blogger support crew will sort out what's wrong soon!

Details of the problem:
I think the main page is supposed to load the index file automatically, but it is clearly failing to do so (instead it is loading an old, outdated version - pressing 'refresh' doesn't do any good, so it doesn't seem to just be my computer's cache.)

A similar problem has just cropped up with the archive file. The usual archive link loads an older page, even though the actual archive file is newly updated and works fine if directly loaded.

If anyone reading this has any idea what's going on or how to fix it, please email me! (Or leave a comment)

Update: A friend checked the site and said the main page loads fine for him. Perhaps it's just my computer after all? If you can spare a moment, please leave a comment and let me know whether the main & index pages appear the same to you.

2nd Update: Looks like the main page has caught up to my Brash post for me too now, so that's good. I'm hoping these 12-hour delays will stop altogether, but I'll keep up the 'technical difficulties' message until I'm sure (i.e. if it can last 24 hours without any more freeze-ups). A good test will be to see whether this update appears on my main page or not...

Collective Intelligence & Rousseau

An interesting article on the wisdom of crowds:

[Surowiecki] rejects the widespread view that groups of ordinary people are usually wrong--and that we do better to ignore them and follow experts instead. Even when individuals blunder, he believes, groups can excel: "Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." This is so even when "most of the people within the group are not especially well-informed or rational." What is wonderful, and surprising, is that "when our imperfect judgments are aggregated in the right way, our collective intelligence is often excellent." Instead of chasing experts, we should consult that collective intelligence.

...Surowiecki also invokes an astonishing finding by the British scientist Francis Galton, who tried to draw lessons about collective intelligence by examining a competition in which contestants guessed the weight of a fat ox at a regional fair in England. The ox weighed 1,198 pounds; the average guess, from the 787 contestants, was 1,197 pounds.

...Surowiecki does not make the implausible suggestion that all crowds are wise. To qualify as such, a crowd needs to satisfy three conditions. It must be diverse; its members must be independent; and it must have a "particular kind of decentralization." Each of these conditions is designed to ensure what most interests Surowiecki, which is the emergence and the aggregation of information that group members have.

This reminds me of Rousseau's Social Contract, written centuries earlier. Rousseau advocated a form of direct democracy, whereby each citizen votes for what they believe to be in the common interest. He thought individual mistakes in either direction would tend to cancel each other out (like with the contestants guessing the weight of the ox), so the average result would accurately represent the "general will".

What especially caught my attention here was how similar Surowiecki's "conditions" are to Rousseau's own. Rousseau explicitly denounced political factions because they encourage clusters of people to all vote the same way - that is, it reduces diversity. He also wished to ensure the independence of all voters, recommending (bizarrely) that they not be allowed to communicate or discuss the issues with each other. I'm not sure about decentralization: that one at least sounds like a more modern idea.

Anyway, I just thought I'd point out those parallels. There's also some intriguing speculation about the viability of "prediction markets". Sunstein's balanced critique of Surowiecki's ideas in the latter half of the article is especially worth reading, and pre-empts most of the complaints that sprang to mind as I read the first half.

Update: Blogger has a spin-off: The Wisdom of Blogs

Computer Art

Chaoscopia is a very cool site. It features artworks generated from mathematical (fractal-based?) algorithms - though I wouldn't have guessed it just by looking.

Here's a sample:

Check out the galleries for more.

Speaking generally, I tend to find computer-generated drawings and animations more aesthetically appealing than hand-drawn stuff. I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps they can achieve extra clarity, or vibrancy of colour? I don't know much about art, so it'd be great to hear from someone more informed as to just what the differences are. I guess as far as movies go, CG animations look a lot more realistic than cartoons, and can have more fluid movement, etc.

But I even find some CG landscapes to look more beautiful than reality. Others can look quite disturbing, though in an exciting sort of a way. CG art often strikes me as having a feeling of magic or perfection/precision to it. Does this make it better at portraying extremes of utopian/dystopian imagery, perhaps?

No Regrets

This is interesting:

Regret, then, emerges from the feeling of disappointment when we contrast the actual outcome of our actions to some possible (more favorable) outcome that our counterfactual thinking allows us to imagine (the question of whether such counterfactual scenarios are themselves reasonable or not is an entirely different matter). That is why Camille et al. studied regret in people with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex: the hypothesis was that these individuals, unlike normal human beings, would be able to experience regret, because their cognitive and emotional pathways were uncoupled by the brain injury...

The results were as clear as one could have hoped for: disappointment (learning one had lost the gamble) turned into the stronger emotion of regret (when one acquires knowledge of what would have happened if one had chosen the alternative action) in normal individuals. Patients with orbitofrontal damage, however, experienced disappointment, but no regret whatsoever, in accordance with the hypothesis that -- while still interested in the outcome of their gamble -- they were incapable of emotionally processing counterfactual thinking.

As the article goes on to say, this raises some intriguing possibilities regarding the remorselessness of some criminals. If their lack of regret is due to a similar brain injury, is it really fair of us to hold that against them? Such questions will need to be answered as cognitive science progresses, and our actions, thoughts, and feelings become ever more explicible in naturalistic terms.

Personality Tests

There are a lot of online personality tests out there, many of which are probably quite crap. So I want to recommend an "official" one which is remarkably good (and originally brought to my attention by a psychology lecturer at uni) - the IPIP-NEO test.

You've probably done the Myers-Briggs ones before (I'm apparently an INTJ), which are good fun but don't really tell you very much beyond a few overly-broad generalisations. This test, by contrast, not only measures your personality against the "Big Five" character traits (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience), but also subdivides each domain, which allows for a lot more detail. It's also interesting to see when you have large variations within a single domain - in which case the averaged number alone might not be very meaningful.

My own interest in these things is purely recreational, but they apparently have some practical use too. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness both correlate with good job performance. Personally, I think the "Openness to Experience" domain (which really means "intellectual curiosity") is the most interesting one. As a general rule, I would suspect that people relate best to those who have similar scores to them in this particular domain. I'd be curious to hear if others agree or disagree with me on this point though.

A full explanation of each category & sub-category is provided on the results page, if you try the test yourself. It's probably important to read that, as some of the names are a bit misleading on their own. Each number is a comparative percentile rating, e.g. a "5" for Extraversion means 95% of people are more extroverted than I am.

Update 16/7/04: I've retaken the test, and bracketed my old results if different (I originally took the test late last year). It's nice to see that I'm even less "neurotic" than I used to be.

Extraversion: 4 (5)
Friendliness 3 (2)
Gregariousness 3 (6)
Assertiveness 64 (59)
Activity Level 27 (46)
Excitement-Seeking 0
Cheerfulness 6

Agreeableness: 78 (79)
Trust 82 (86)
Morality 85 (88) [note: this subcategory really means something like "sincerity"/"frankness"]
Altruism 58 (52)
Co-operation 48 (54)
Modesty 39 (29)
Sympathy 94 (96)

Conscientiousness: 95 (90)
Self-Efficacy 83 (78)
Orderliness 52 (38)
Dutifulness 87 (91)
Achievement-Striving 83 (79)
Self-Discipline 88 (82)
Cautiousness 99

Neuroticism: 23 (34)
Anxiety 80
Anger 42
Depression 17 (26)
Self-Consciousness 43 (71)
Immoderation 1
Vulnerability 27 (32)

Openness to Experience: 90 (87)
Imagination 81 (88)
Artistic Interests 81 (68)
Emotionality 59
Adventurousness 24 (11)
Intellect 93
Liberalism 99

So that's that. I'd be curious to hear other bloggers' results, to see if there are any noticable trends, etc. So if you're reading this and have a blog of your own, consider taking the test yourself and posting the results on your site (and leave a link here so I can go see!).

Update:
Responses are now being tracked via the meme (and its GUID) explained here.

Successful Politics: facts or values?

Empty Doorway has an excellent post on Lakoff's Moral Politics. I remember reading a similar article (probably by Lakoff) not long ago, about how conservatives are winning the popular vote in the US because of their "framing" skills. They frame an issue in such a way that it appeals to certain moral values of the people, who then ignore the fact that Bush et al are a bunch of rich pricks out to exploit them. The suggestion is that Democrats need to start playing the values game themselves - make more of an effort to show how liberal policies are grounded in shared moral values.

That is all well and good, but one shouldn't overlook the power of blunt facts. There are many polls showing how uninformed most Americans are on important (especially economic) issues. So it's surely worthwhile to bring the real statistics (condensed into easily digestable chunks) to the public's attention. It's just absurd that so many people are voting against their own interests, without even realising it.

What's going on here? [Really, I'm curious, I'm not in the US so I don't know the details.] Are the Democrats not bringing these facts to people's attention? Or are the people just not listening? If the latter, then perhaps Lakoff's moral propaganda approach really is all that can be done. But when the truth is on our side, surely something more could be done to make use of it!?

Update: The Enlightenment Project is more pessimistic: "in American "values" doesn't mean moral convictions--it means constraint, promoted through coercion and backed by punitive policies."

This sentence is false

I've always found self-referential paradoxes fascinating. The most obvious one is the Liar's paradox, like the title of this post. Another I like is "this sentance has threee errors" (the third error being that it has only two. But wait, that means...).

Then there are the Godel-style ones which demonstrate the limits of logic. Consider the theorem G: There is no proof of G*. Is G true? Then it's not a proveable theorem (and with a bit of extra work we end up having to conclude that mathematics is incomplete). Is G false? But then we have a false proof (so mathematics is inconsistent)!

* = I've simplified that a bit, what we really want to consider is the theorem G: It is not the case that there exists x and y such that (x is a proof of y, and y is the Godel number of G), expressed in the language of arithmetic.

Or in metaphysics, realists about 'properties' have to face various problems regarding exemplification. [Quick background: an object is said to 'exemplify' a property if that property is possessed by the object - e.g. red objects exemplify the property of redness. A property is said to be 'self-exemplifying' (SE) if it exemplifies itself. For example, the property of 'Being a property' is SE, but 'being triangular' is not, since properties themselves have no shape.]

For consider the property of Being Non-Self-Exemplifying (BNSE). Does this property exemplify itself? If so, then it has this property: namely, being not SE - so it does not. If not, then it's not SE, so it has the property of BNSE, so it is! Either way, we have a contradiction.

Feel free to mention your own favourite paradoxes of this sort in the comments.

What I've just been thinking about though, is the Rochester philosophy blog, whose name is "This is Not the Name of this Blog". At first I thought it was another nice paradox, but now I don't think it works at all. Instead, it's just plain false. For it is the name of the blog, and in asserting that it's not, it asserts something which is false. But there's no paradox there - its falseness does not imply its trueness, or anything interesting like that. So that's a pity.