site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   28927 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

But what explains how we select one outcome over the other? It can't be anything in the universe itself, even the alleged "will", because everything that goes into making up the state of the "will" has also been fixed at one specific instant. There isn't any possible explanation for how we select one outcome over the other except to say that it's "just because". That is, it's random. But a purely random selection isn't free will either.

I can conceive of a model where the human brain is somehow connected to some higher 'free will dimension' where there's some ethereal being (call it a soul) that is capable of observing a person's environment and acting in some small way to impact the outcome of their decisions against what their immediate environment would demand.

For example, what if there were a single neuron or a couple neurons, deep in the brain, that were specialized to act as 'antennae' to this higher dimension, and by activating or deactivating this neuron, and the cascade effects this would have on the rest of our cognitive processes, the actual behaviors we exhibit are meaningfully altered? How could we detect and identify such a neuron amongst the billions of others in the brain?

This is not the literal model I propose, but just example of a biological, materialist understanding of human cognition could still have some blind spot we are simply unable to detect, which nonetheless does create some version of 'free will' beyond our understanding.

Major objections to this:

A) This just pushes back the materialism/determinism debate to this new dimension/realm, what makes the ethereal being any more 'free' in its own terms? I'd still chalk this up to a sort of 'mystery' we can't solve under current tech, and thus still a mysterious, supernatural phenomenon.

B) Even if true, it's just 'free will of the gaps.' The vast majority of the universe remains uncaring and humans making free will decisions is so irrelevant that the rules of physics need not even consider this issue to rule.

C) It is special pleading in the extreme. Why are human brains the only thing that could have such an antennae? Why not cats? or cows? or fish, insects, trees, or even rocks? There are massive unstated assumptions as to why the human brain would have access to "The free will dimension" and yet other configurations of matter would not. How would this even evolve unless it was an intentional design?

Ultimately this is the same class of argument as e.g. Maxwell's Daemon, (IF this impossible thing exists, natural laws could be falsified!) but it is barely enough for me to leave aside some small probability for things working in ways we haven't fully understood yet.

I’ve seen a really appealing idea that the sort of “observer” you use for quantum experiments allows for an expression of free will. If our brains had some quantum-scale machinery which put a thumb on the scale when collapsing waveforms, then maybe we could sneak in some concept of preferences. Then we mumble mumble multiverses, and…

Needless to say, this was somewhere on LessWrong. I also think it was followed by the most gentle sort of debunk: an article saying that scientists had worked on one or more testable claim from the theory, and found it wanting. Sadly, I can’t find either.

You don't need quantum mechanics for that sort of interference though. Even in an apparently deterministic universe, you could just say that your mind influenced what happened. Quantum mechanics adds nothing to either the plausibility or mechanics of the thought experiment.

That's what OP is suggesting and it works in every possible universe. There are an infinite number of possible models that describe our universe and the only thing constraining them is their complexity.

Rationalism is choosing the least complex option; because, it makes the best predictions.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats