Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 <affirmative>. Um, I'm Scott Schiff with the Atlas Society. I'm, again, honored to host these two great minds. Probably the best part of the job, uh, doing all these clubhouses with our scholars. We've got, uh, tonight Atlas Society Senior Scholar, Steven Hicks, and Atlas Society founder David Kelly. Uh, they'll be answering our questions for the next 90 minutes. Uh, we wanna encourage participation. I've got my own questions here, uh, from different channels as well, um, including my own. Thank you. Um, I'll give you a chance if you wanted to, you know, say anything about, uh, the new year, thoughts on, uh, philosoph trends, any big picture stuff before I jump into things.
Speaker 1 00:00:44 Hmm. Well, not so much from me. I've been in my own intellectual bubble for the last little while with the end of semester stuff and wrapping up year end projects. So what's going on in the broader philosophical world? Um, I'm not journalistically, uh, up to speed, so
Speaker 0 00:01:02 That's fair. All right. Well, uh, I'm
Speaker 2 00:01:04 Not either. I've been living in my retirement bubble, uh, which means I don't have to <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:01:10 Well, maybe that should be the first question. Uh, define retirement.
Speaker 2 00:01:15 Uh, that's very hard. Uh,
Speaker 1 00:01:18 I know it is. Especially for someone like you,
Speaker 2 00:01:21 <laugh>. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 0 00:01:23 I mean, how, how retired are you if you have to be somewhere at a certain time?
Speaker 2 00:01:29 <laugh>, uh, not very, I still work about, you know, probably 40 hours a week average. So
Speaker 1 00:01:36 That's, maybe we could talk about that. Uh, theory practice, dichotomy issue,
Speaker 2 00:01:41 <laugh>. Yeah. Right. <laugh>. I
Speaker 0 00:01:43 Wanted
Speaker 2 00:01:43 To, well explain
Speaker 0 00:01:44 The, go
Speaker 2 00:01:45 Ahead, explain the theory, and then we'll try to coordinate that with practice <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:01:51 I wanna encourage participation from the audience, but I did just wanna go back to one thing I brought up last month. I think it, the chat g p t thing had just come out. I think, uh, you two have, uh, maybe had more of a chance to, uh, look at it since then. I, I didn't know if you, uh, thought about some of the, you know, philosophical implica creativity.
Speaker 1 00:02:18 Yeah, this is,
Speaker 2 00:02:20 Go ahead, Steven.
Speaker 1 00:02:21 Yeah. I've not investigated it thoroughly, but I've had some further thoughts and read some journalistic things about it. And in one sense, obviously this is very impressive technology, uh, but most of the discussions I've seen have been in higher education context. People immediately worrying about what this means for, for cheating. If students can just, uh, get, get a, a well-crafted answer to a standard essay type of topic. And once, my reaction is that this is impressive technology, but it's not going to change anything. Uh, in the sense that right now students want to cheat and they have an essay assignment from their professor. They can go online and find to write an essay for them, whatever the going rate is, and give you, uh, or three days the amount of time, and you'll deliver me this thoughtful essay and I'll submit it at work. So that technology already exists, and that actually for a long time, the only thing that chat, uh, g PT changes is the, the cost and the time.
Speaker 1 00:03:38 So instead of your, your search time being a, you know, a few hours online and then having to wait a few days and it costing you a hundred dollars or whatever, now it can be done in, uh, in 10 minutes. So the technology just is enabling a trend, uh, that's already, and from this more narrow, higher education context, I think what it just means is that we, professors or teachers who are assigning essays are going to be, uh, niche, need to be more, uh, uh, clever about, uh, how we craft the essay topics and, uh, maybe follow up with one-on-one discussion with students in tutorial form about their essay to, to verify that they've, that they've done. So, um, and, uh, probably the bigger issue is that it really points up the motivational is about higher education. So why are so many students cheating in the first place?
Speaker 1 00:04:43 So that we, if we're doing some sort of mass produced education, I've got 200 students in my class, and I give them all this essay topic, but it's assigned in a more authoritarian and fashion. So they don't really want us to do it. And so they look for a cop out, and that's why they cheat. Well, if, if, if that's what's going on, and that's why the cheating is happening, that's the issue that we need to address. Why are we doing education in such a way that students are demotivated or unmotivated to actually learn anything? And so, rather than worrying about technologies that students to cheat more easily, we should be focusing on why do we, uh, uh, seem to be manufacturing so many cheaters in the first place. So that's my only, uh, thought since last month when we first raised this issue.
Speaker 2 00:05:34 Yeah, I haven't, um, this is David. I, I haven't thought, I haven't been a teacher for decades now. Um, in any formal organization, when I was a teacher, I used to tell my students relating to what Steven said, is that if, if you cheat, what you're doing is confessing your lack of pride in your, in yourself, in your work. If, if you don't feel you're good enough, um, that's the problem. That that's what lies behind cheating. Or you are, um, you know, not not trying to learn. You are trying to get the best grade. And that, of course, is true for some students. And, but I tried to shame them. Um, and I, if a teacher had said that to me, I would've, um, curled up <laugh>. I never cheated. But if I, if I had cheated and got caught, I would curl up in my chair and, uh, want to die.
Speaker 2 00:06:31 But anyway, I, I did look at this, um, after, when it first came up a month ago or so, I had never heard of it. I looked, I, I then it was all over the media, and I looked at it, um, a bit and read some things. You know, it's really astounding. And I wanna know what AI developments made, made it possible to do, you know, to produce these, you know, you if it, uh, you know, an assignment. Um, and, uh, on a wide range of things, it'll come up with, um, a piece of writing that it's pretty good. Not every time it, it flunks on some things, but, um, like, and a, when it flunks, as is often the case of ai, it, it, it plunks in a completely inhuman way. I mean, just bizarre. But, um, it's so impressive. I just, you
Speaker 1 00:07:29 Know, I'm, yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 00:07:30 I'm, I'm astounded and I think, okay. I feel like that, you know, back in the, there was a story in the early days of motor vehicles when, um, someone had a car, I, I think it was in Germany or something anyway, and a skeptical person, uh, was watching, and he said, okay, well, where's the horse? I wanna know <laugh>, where, where the Cho Omni mission person is inside this program. And the wizard, you know, answering the questions because it's so, you know, I, I, I'd like ai and I used to follow it somewhat when I was involved in cognitive science. It's come a long, long way, um, if this program is any indication. So I, I don't know the insides, but anyway, um, yeah, I think it's cool. I
Speaker 1 00:08:22 Think my only additional, oh, sorry. Go ahead, David.
Speaker 2 00:08:25 No, no, that's it.
Speaker 1 00:08:27 Uh, okay. Yeah. My, I guess I did have one other thought. I had noticed immediately of my fellow professors and teachers be moaning this as the, the death nail of higher education. And that usually prompts me to say, but let's also look at the upside. Cause every technology, of course, can be abused, but it also can be used for good. And I, uh, did find, uh, fairly quickly some impressive positive things that, uh, this technology is going to be able to, to do for, so if it's the mind with voice recognition, for example, a lot of those annoying, uh, um, phone trees that we have to work through <laugh> are gonna become a lot smarter. Uh, and, and, and a lot more nuanced, uh, in, in being able to get to the source of whatever you were trying to, to do. Lot of the optical character recognition, the digitization of books and manuscripts, and, uh, kinda very clunky spell checks from the last generating, uh, actual human beings to go through and make about, uh, partially degraded texts and what, what the best interpretation is. And there's been, you know, obviously over the last 20, 25 years, huge amounts of resources, getting things digitized and online, all of those can be run through the new AI programs and corrected instead of 90% accurate and become 99. That's gonna be just great for, uh, for scholars. So I think, uh, um, obviously there are problems that will come out. I'll have to deal with it, but I think the upside is, is, uh, is tremendous, and I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 0 00:10:14 Great. Uh, I think, um, I couldn't tell if you stopped talking or, um, got cut off, but, uh, I wanted to go to Brian. Brian, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4 00:10:28 Hey, is it okay if I shift gears
Speaker 0 00:10:29 Sure. And ask me anything on philosophy? Of course.
Speaker 4 00:10:33 Perfect. Um, so when I think about what made Iran so compelling and, and insightful, she seemed to have characters that were, you know, in stark contrast, those were Tuy, James Tager two versus John ga, you know, et cetera. And, and so I'm trying, I'm, I'm creating some programs here in my organization, and I'm trying to think, and I'm, and I've taught before, so I've thought about this, but I, I, I'd like your, uh, guys' perspective, um, if we want to say that the, you know, the, the goal is to create traits and skills and characteristics within people, let's say young people or even adults who are open to learning and, uh, upgrading, if you will. What are the, what are the most common or, or influential? Where would you start, you know, with like, skills and traits that allows, uh, at a, at a, at a organizational or, or even societal level to grow more people like, like say John Ga or, or Howard Rourke?
Speaker 1 00:11:43 Hmm. That's a huge question.
Speaker 2 00:11:46 Yeah. Um, Steven, you're, you're a working teacher right now, and, uh, with a, a, you know, detailed interest in, uh, writing specialty and, uh, education. Do you want to take a crack at that?
Speaker 1 00:12:03 Yeah, I got a few thought, but I gotta pull it together. Yeah. My natural, uh, reaction is to go to younger people and say the, uh, for the skills, the traits, the habits, the knowledge set, uh, the sooner that can be formed healthily in the child, the better. Um, and so, yes, some amount of work on philosophy of education and some psychology of education now. And the thing that's impressing me the most is, uh, the concept of play. It's been around for quite a while in the modern world. And it goes through, through going back to John Locke in the 1690s, one of the first founders of this modern liberal approach to education emphasizing.
Speaker 1 00:13:00 Uh, so if from an early age, people learn that they are in charge of their learning of their lives, they have a lot of scope for, uh, free play, then they naturally explore, and they cur they're curious intellectually, and they wanna develop their bodies. And so they're active physically and intellectually. And as a result of that, uh, obviously parents providing resources and, and some more formal teachers providing resources, students go a huge way in cultivating a huge knowledge stock, uh, uh, um, play and experimental and creative methods of using their minds and bodies to develop and discovering what they're actively interested in. And once they're actively interested in, you know, kinda just astounding teachers and how much they can, uh, learn in a very short period of time. So, my, my, uh, short answer is to say what we do with children at, uh, at our best.
Speaker 1 00:14:14 Uh, we give them lots of play, lots of freedom, lots of encouragement, lots of resources. Uh, if we can extend that into formal schooling, extend that into family structure, and then as we get into adult life, extend that into the workplace, uh, that's going to be, uh, uh, the way we do it. So, to extend it, to come back to your workplace example, uh, the kinda work environments where people, uh, report the most satisfaction, you seem to be the most productive, precisely those environments where obviously they have the resources available to them, but they, they know what they want to work on. They're already self-motivated people who chosen our particular profession. And inside that re uh, that, uh, that organization, they have a benevolent resource providing environment in which they can do what, what they're doing best.
Speaker 2 00:15:23 I would just add, um, a small point to that. Steven. Uh, thank, thank you. Uh, as I said, uh, you know, you, you have a high degree of expertise in education, but, um, my sense is that, that you can't create or lay the ground for, um, or promote people like, uh, Howard Ro, John Gat, uh, Hank ridden. They're self-starters, and what they're doing is off the charts. And, you know, they will emerge if you create the right conditions and give them the freedom. But everyone can do that at their own level if they are in here. What I think is an environment in which reality counts that is, you know, they're a reality focus. Uh, I've tried to teach creativity in philosophy. I think I'm, I've been a creative philosopher, but, um, I don't know how to teach it. I, I realize that, and I talked to a very successful businessman, ed Snyder, who's a board member, but a, uh, he created a, a sports network, um, in Philadelphia and, uh, passed away a few years ago.
Speaker 2 00:16:50 But he's, uh, he was a genius. And he and I were talking at one point, and he said, I can't teach entrepreneurship. I just see things. And that, I think that is true of many, many people who are highly successful. They just see things. There was a story about John d Rockefeller, um, in a book. I remember, uh, you know, the, the original Rockefeller who created the oil, standard oil. And, um, some of the stomp executives said, you know, we thought we were pretty good. We could see pretty far down the road, but John d he could see down the road as far as we could. And then around the corner and <laugh>, you, you can't really teach that. But what you can do is create the conditions where people who are capable of that can emerge and do their thing. And I'm, you know, every year there's, um, these science contests, uh, among, uh, high school students.
Speaker 2 00:17:49 And when I've seen those, I'm just amazed at what these kids are doing. You know, the inventiveness and the, you know, innovations. Uh, I don't think they're taught how to do that. They're taught to think, and it'd be aware of reality, and they take it from there. Um, and, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of, um, parental social and educational values that, um, that can encourage them more. But I think, um, the main thing is to make it possible, create a condition in which people like that, with that ability can do their thing.
Speaker 1 00:18:35 Yeah, I think that's what it said. I can add onto that, wanted to say two things about different age levels. I'm, I'm agnostic right now on the issue of whether, basically all children are born geniuses or potential geniuses, and some of 'em, uh, have it suppressed in them or stifled outta them through, uh, parenting and formal schooling, or whether basically every child can achieve something significant, even if not at the genius level. Uh, but there are some natural levels built into, uh, human psychobiology. I, I, I don't know good data one way or the other on that, but I do think, uh, uh, by the time we get to adulthood, um, things are more fixed. I think people can continue to learn, and at the margins, they can become more creative, more logical, more rational, and so on. But I think the, uh, the scope for improvement is, is more set now.
Speaker 1 00:19:41 Come to this somewhat, uh, reluctantly over the years of teaching, uh, university students. The one course that solidified this, uh, reluctantly in my mind, was many years of, uh, teaching logic. Um, and, you know, think of myself as a good ex teacher of logic, making it fun and enjoyable and good resources. Actually, for many years, I've been using David's Logic book, look for this. What I found, uh, after maybe five or six years of full-time teaching was my grade distribution was, was, uh, exhibited a very common pattern that there was three types of students in my logic course. There were students who got an A or basically excellent without very much effort. Uh, there were another group of students who would get a C, but they had to work at it. And then another group of students would get an F or maybe maybe a D.
Speaker 1 00:20:43 And the people who got a D or an F were students who could have gotten an A if they'd done any work, or they could have gotten a C if they had worked. They work hard at it. So there's the effort issue. But cutting across that very clearly was already with 18 to 20 year olds, some students could very easily think at the level of abstraction necessary to do logic and be playful and creative with whatever information and logic problem we were, we were dealing with. And it came automatically and almost effortlessly to them. And the, uh, those were the A students and the C students were ones who could get it, but they had to work at it, uh, uh, and so they could be creative within bounds, and they could get comfortable at a certain level of abstraction, but it took them more time and their more effort. And what I came to realize was that nothing that I did in the course of one semester or one year was going to change anything significantly about the abilities, logically and creatively of my students. Where they were at age 18 to 20, that was their level, and that was most likely where there were for.
Speaker 1 00:22:03 So management implication of that to come back to, uh, is it Brian? Brian's question is, I think partly the management function then will be very quickly to, uh, get to know your employees as individuals and, uh, sort them according to these dimensions. And then, uh, manage them in a way that they can, uh, uh, you know, optimize whatever skill level they have.
Speaker 4 00:22:34 Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:22:36 You know, it's interesting, JAG just interviewed Michael Baron Baum, uh, on Tassa. And, uh, he was, um, talking about three types of students for even, you know, whether it was the Holocaust or anything else, he was teaching the surface ones, the swimmers, and then the deep divers. Um, and maybe that relates some to, uh, those three types of students you found.
Speaker 1 00:23:01 Interesting metaphor.
Speaker 0 00:23:03 Yeah. Um, but I want to go to Alan. Alan, thank you for your patience.
Speaker 5 00:23:08 Sure. You know, I, I wanted to ask, there have been a lot of rooms, <laugh> discussions on clubhouse on capitalism versus other forms of, uh, e e economic systems. And in my mind, I think it's a basic human instinct that a person, an individual, wants to be rewarded directly for his or her efforts, and they wanna see those rewards relatively quickly, um, and <laugh>. So, and, and I can't think of any other economic system more if, if that provides for that. Now, I'm wondering if there <laugh>, if there is, please enlighten me. Because <laugh>, um, when you come to other systems such as, uh, specifically, uh, communism or Marxism or any of its other iterations, it's always this idea of ex what I would call extreme delayed gratification. Well, we're doing it for the state, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 00:24:28 Well, let me jump in, um, with a initial comment, Alan, um, the Marxist, the socialist and Communists, um, the underlying ethic is you as an individual, don't matter. It's what you con contribute to the society, to the whole. And that's inevitably, but, you know, tends to be long term. Um, but capitalism by contrast is oriented around the individual and the individual's ability to, you know, shape his life, achieve, achieve, and earn, um, whatever we can. So it's partly the egoist versus altruist distinction that I think underlies the, the difference here. But e even within the individual's perspective, people have different time horizons about, um, what they're, when, what, what, what the, uh, relation is between the effort they put in and the results that they see. I mean, I, I'll just give you two examples from my own life. I'm a philosopher, so I write something and I, um, but I don't have any expectation.
Speaker 2 00:25:49 Sometimes I hear back that, well, thanks that, that helped me understand something. Most of the time, I don't if there's gonna be any effect. It will probably be decades in the future, and I won't see it. So, I mean, so that's why I, I love gardening cuz I can see results instantly. <laugh>, it's kinda upset. But, um, and teaching is in many ways the same way. I mean, Steven, you can testify to this probably more than I can, but when a student, you know, I, I killed myself over 10 years that I was teaching, uh, college. And, uh, I mean, I, you know, exaggerate, I've worked really hard to provide the best, uh, best I could to my students. And, you know, I know I heard back from only a tiny fraction of the people that I know I've probably influenced in some ways. Um, I mean, it's, and it's very rewarding when a student comes back and says, you know, I really, you know, I really loved your course, Dr. Hicks or Dr. Kelly, whatever. Um, it, it made a difference. And you think, oh,
Speaker 1 00:27:06 Hmm, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:27:07 That's fabulous. It worked. <laugh>, <laugh>, um, how many more of you are there that I've never heard from? Um, I, I, you know, we've, I've heard that from so many teachers that, um, so the, the length between effort and reward is, um, an effort and result is sometimes delayed. And people differ in their cognitive style as to what they need. And so, I, I, that's a, this is again, another virtue of capitalism. I think that people are free to, um, pick a job where they're, um, that, that meets whatever the cognitive needs they have. Or, uh, I, I wouldn't call it a reward. I call it an earning. Um, that is, you know, you, you're not re when you, when you do a good job in a corporation and get a salary increase, yes, you are being rewarded in a sense. But the proper way to think of it is, you are an entrepreneur in your own life, and you are, um, that salary increase is you, you've chosen this mode of life within a corporation, so you don't pull all the strings and you're dependent on others, but still, um, it's best to see what you, um, you know, success as the result of your effort.
Speaker 2 00:28:33 And I think that's, you know, the mismatch there is sometimes, um, why people leave a job because they're not getting, they, they don't think that they're being recognized for what they've done anyway. Um, that was not as short as an answer, uh, comment as I scoped, but I'll leave it there.
Speaker 1 00:28:56 Say something, uh, complimentary to, uh, David's remarks, to go back to Alan's initial point about capitalism and comparative systems on this issue of effort and reward. Um, you know, a lot of times the discussion about the relative merits of different systems focuses on how productive they're and gdp. And I think all of that's important and wonderful, but there is a way in which the moral issue, uh, uh, is, is fundamental here. So, uh, Alan says it's an instinct, and I don't know that it's an instinct to expect, uh, reward from one's efforts, but I think it is something that people learn very quickly, that whatever good comes into the world, whatever values they have to be created, and that they are the effect of various causes. So, uh, effort and reward is a, like a subspecies of cause and effect. So there's causes in the world and they have certain effects.
Speaker 1 00:30:03 And if I, uh, initiate certain causes, then certain effects will be visited upon me. I do value creation, I get the rewards, I do value destruction. I, I suffer pain or, or loss or something like that. So the way to conceptualize that is as a, as a kinda, uh, justice. And in this subspecies of, of justice, there is a, justice is a kinda a recognition of cause and effect. If you create value in the world, then it is just that you get the rewards for the creation of that value in the world. And that then becomes a, uh, a point of, uh, of, of, of, uh, uh, uh, I, I then am going to take responsibility for creating value in the world. And I'm expecting that I'm going to get the rewards for creating value in the world. And if then I create value in the world, but I don't get the rewards cause someone stole it or gets reconstituted, then that's breaking cause and effect.
Speaker 1 00:31:13 But it's breaking justice in the same way. And it breaks me as morally outrageous. So, to come to the moral comparisons of these different systems, what capitalism is saying as one of its core features is exactly this moral thing that you, uh, if you create value, then you have the right creation of that value, and that's the property rights point. And if it's in the market economy, you get to keep the rewards, uh, uh, for the value that you have created socially. And that's them to say, we're recognizing the causal, uh, creator of the value with the rewards that accrue to the creation of the value. And so capitalism wants to maintain that very tight justice connection. And what's interesting is that all of the other social systems want precisely to break that causal connection. So if you think of, you know, just, uh, traditional tribal plunder, you know, you might create value, but then we just swoop in, uh, as members of another tribe beat you up and take your stuff.
Speaker 1 00:32:27 And, uh, if we then reify that into a way of life, well, there's no <laugh> expectation of, of creation, of value being reported. It's completely unjust system. And it might be that I'm a very successful predator and I on my way to the top of a social heap, and I then label myself the king and my, my extended family become the nobles. And everybody else has to create the value that we're going to just confiscate it not through, uh, naked plunder, but through taxation. Uh, but then that's also severing cause and effect severing the people who are actually creating the value from their rewards, from their value. And that exact same point is, and this is partly what David was alluding to in his comment here, you find in socialism, Marxism, and the other, uh, other kinds of collectivist systems, almost explicitly what they will say is, yes, we want you to be the creator of the value, but you as the individual don't get to, uh, have the rewards for your creation or how creative you are.
Speaker 1 00:33:34 Uh, any excess beyond what we think you need is going to be taken away from you and other people who have not created the value are going to get the reward. So again, it's a breaking of, of, of, uh, causal productive. Cause caus I'm reminded right now of, uh, state from, uh, Michael Harrington is very famous American socialist, uh, the, the, the middle and latter part of 20th century. Uh, he's one, one of the ones who popularized the notion of relative poverty. Um, back in the sixties, I think it was when, you know, the old socialist argument used to be capitalism was driving people into poverty, and socialism would be, uh, you know, an era of plenty. And then by the time we got to the fifties and sixties, it was pretty clear the capitalism was producing plenty. And that even poor people in the, the relatively capitalist nations weren't poor, were absolutely, now they had plenty of food and many could afford cars and air conditioners and so on.
Speaker 1 00:34:38 So this notion of absolute poverty, uh, went outta fashion. And the notion of relative poverty came in and the, uh, the modern focus on egalitarian distribution came in. But to come back to Michael Harrington, remember reading in, uh, in an article of his, where he said explicitly on this point about justice, he said, you know, under capitalism, if you create stuff, you're supposed to be able to keep however much you create. And he says, we socialists want to break exactly that principle. What you get should have absolutely no relationship to what you have produced. Uh, and so he was, uh, recognizing the cause and effect point, but saying the capitalist understanding of justice that has to be built way can replace it with something else, social justice or whatever you wanna wanna call it. So, um, so that's, that's just a <laugh> that's a very deep question. The more I, uh, more I think about it, but I'll stop there so we don't turn into a lecture.
Speaker 5 00:35:42 Yeah. Well, thank you for that. And if I can quote that great philosopher, Daffy duck, mine, mine, mine, all mine. But, um, <laugh>, but, you know, you brought, and I'll, I'll, I'll just end with this. Um, you brought up that there are three kinds of students, um, on my college orientation. The, the counselor basically said, kind of, you know, the, on the other side of the podium, he said, there, you'll have three kinds of professors in your college careers. One's the, there will be a couple you absolutely love, most of them will be okay, and there will be a few you absolutely hate. So, so, so I think it goes both ways. But, uh, thank you for both your answers.
Speaker 1 00:36:33 Thanks.
Speaker 0 00:36:35 Great.
Speaker 2 00:36:36 I just, I, I, let me just throw in one other thing. What Steven is, Steven went to the, uh, essence of the is cause and effect is the underlying reality principle that, um, governs the, the whole principle of justice. And think of the Marxist phrase, uh, from each, according to his ability to each according to his need. That is an explicit statement that we're breaking. Like Harrington said, marks wasn't not quite as explicit, but Harrington, Steven, I, I never, I never appreciated that statement from Harrington that, that is so revealing, and that should have been the end of any interest in socialism on any rational person's part. Um, and if you wanna understand more, just read the story of the Starksville factory told in Atlas drug, which I think is called for me too, according to his ability. Anyway, uh, onto the next,
Speaker 6 00:37:34 Yeah, I actually, uh, I came in at a perfect time. Uh, Mr.
Speaker 0 00:37:39 Hicks greatly appreciate it. I'm, I'm sorry, I just, uh, we, we do have an order we're following.
Speaker 6 00:37:44 Okay, Roger,
Speaker 0 00:37:45 We'll get to you. Um, actually speaking of Roger, he was unable to speak right now, but he asked Stephen for a concise and clear definition of postmodernism.
Speaker 1 00:37:59 Oh, my <laugh> <laugh>. Is this a time for commercial advertisement for my
Speaker 0 00:38:05 Book? Sure. That's the way to find the answer,
Speaker 1 00:38:08 <laugh>. Alright. I, as a philosopher, my natural, uh, reaction is to say, to define postmodernism clearly and concisely. It's a comprehensive philosophical position, but any philosophical position has a metaphysics, any epistemology of you, of human nature, a uh, a value theory for individuals, and then socially, typically a political theory. So what I would then say is metaly, uh, post-modernism is anti-real. That is to say their view is that it's meaningless to try to come up with any account of what the nature of reality is. And that means they retreat to a kind of social constructionism or, or social subjectivism, epistemologically. They are anti reason, and they will argue that we don't know the nature of reality. Instead, all we have are narratives. And narratives are meant to be subjective stories that we tell ourselves socially, in terms of human nature. They don't believe in individuals, uh, neither individuals as the unit of reality, nor individuals as autonomous agents.
Speaker 1 00:39:27 And they will, uh, then be collectivists in their understanding of human beings. Uh, and that, uh, uh, individuals are a collective product. Their value theory is typically, uh, egalitarian and, uh, a suspicion of anybody who has more of anything social status, well, uh, physical power, physical beauty, uh, any claim to greater virtue, uh, a bias toward egalitarian understanding of all, uh, of all values. And then typically, uh, consequentially to this, there is some variation here. They will be, uh, anti-liberal, anti uh, capitalist, anti-democratic Republican in favor of some sort of forceful collectivism politically. But there's a lot more slippage there. So whether that means the criterion for conciseness, I don't know, but that's how I would respond.
Speaker 0 00:40:40 That wasn't bad.
Speaker 2 00:40:43 <laugh> <laugh>. I, I would suggest that, uh, since this is recorded, as I understand, um, we tap that recording and transcribed what Steven just said, that was so, I mean, concise in the context. Um, that was brilliant. Thank you, Steven.
Speaker 1 00:41:00 Well, thanks guys. Thanks.
Speaker 0 00:41:04 Great. Well, let's go to Craig. Craig, thanks for joining us. Are you able to unmute? Sometimes there's an issue with that, and when it happens, um, you have to leave the room and come back, unfortunately. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. So I had two issues. One of, I wanted to add something to what you'd already brought up, and then I had a new, one of my, on the old one, I believe it was
Speaker 7 00:41:32 Lex Friedman, but I'm not sure who was an m I t graduate, and he said, why doesn't m i t produce a a bunch of Elon Musks? And, and they don't, they, m i t has produced some entrepreneurs, the founder of analog devices, for example, and there are others, but it also produced a lot of failures like, uh, Tyler and so on. So, but it's an interesting question. Can the, can being an Elon Musker and Hank Rearden be taught? And if so, why isn't m i t doing it? And if not, how do you find people like that in their raw state, as it were, and help nurture them? So that was my, my first question. My second question was a technical, philosophical question, David, you've said that Objectivism lacks a theory of propositions, and I wanna know why the first order of predicate calculus can't be used used for that purpose.
Speaker 2 00:42:26 Oh my God. Um, I could go on and on about that. Um, the, um,
Speaker 7 00:42:36 The reason I asked that question is Roger Bissell's written the whole book, which claims to provide objectivism with a theory of propositions. Have you read his book?
Speaker 2 00:42:45 I have not, no. I'm sorry. I I have written my own article. Um, it's not been published. Um, we've used it in, um, a number of contexts within the Atlas Society discussions,
Speaker 7 00:42:58 How could I read it?
Speaker 2 00:42:59 Propositions? Uh, yeah. Um, let me, um, just, you've
Speaker 7 00:43:05 Got, you've got my email address.
Speaker 2 00:43:07 Okay. Is this Craig Franklin?
Speaker 7 00:43:09 Yes.
Speaker 2 00:43:10 Okay. Um, I will send, uh, but, um, I thought a lot about first order, uh, you know, the, uh, pre calculus and, um, mm-hmm. <affirmative> when I was writing my logic book. And this goes back to some 30 years. Um, but I'm, uh, I think they're, they're starting off from a, you know, the field. So they're starting off from a FRA and Russell Rosselli. And, uh,
Speaker 7 00:43:43 I, I, I've written a monograph on that topic. Yeah, I know about, they're starting off from set theory, but, but the question is, if we had a rigorous objectives set theory, or concept theory, which I think we, we do, why can't we adapt the first order predicate calculus as our propositional ca uh, theory of prop? Well,
Speaker 2 00:44:03 Because, because the propositional, the, I'm sorry, the propositional calculus, um, is all built around the, um, truth functional analysis of connectives. And the predicate calculus is based on, uh, reducing everything to individuals, individual references. It doesn't not take concepts seriously. It resolve 'em as predicates. Um,
Speaker 7 00:44:28 Well, I'll read your paper and think about it. Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:44:31 All right, let's do that. It, um, be a lot to go into much further. So Craig, I'll send you the paper. Um, thank
Speaker 0 00:44:40 You very much, David. Great. Appreciate that.
Speaker 1 00:44:46 Craig's first question about MIT and producing entrepreneurs. Uh, some, some years ago now, uh, I knew a lot in, in education, but I did quite a bit in entrepreneurship and interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs, graduates of, uh, Stanford, mit, Purdue, various same that Craig is here, that producing a huge number of first rate engineers, but relatively few entrepreneurs. Uh, or perhaps the, the phrase is successful entrepreneur. It might be that they're actually producing lots of entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurship has a 90% failure rate anyway. So, uh, uh, that might be the best that we can do. But there was a widespread sense in engineering schools, uh, 10 years ago when I was in the heart of doing this, that, uh, engineering education as it was, was not taking entrepreneurship seriously enough. And that engineering education needed to be reformed in that direction, so that the way engineering education was going was very scripted, somewhat authoritarian, uh, top down answers are in the back of the book, or should we, we already known. And then also not, uh, teaching, uh, engineers the social skills, the psychological skills to business skills that are going to enable them to, uh, to determine their ideas, creative ideas, into, into business. So that is an interesting problem. And, uh, uh, I do know that in the last 10 years, the major, uh, engineering schools, there has been effort to reform things precisely in this entrepreneurial direction.
Speaker 0 00:46:37 Great. Um, I do wanna get Josh in here. I know he's got to leave in a few minutes. Josh, thanks for your patience.
Speaker 6 00:46:46 Oh, much appreciated. Mr. Mr. Schiff, uh, question for Steve and Dave. I'm very happy to be here now. Uh, first of all, I feel as though there's been a paradigm shift, a paradigm shift of which many of us are, uh, are not aware of quite possibly this paradigm shift is with artificial intelligence. Maybe we've talked about it earlier in this conversation, but maybe we haven't. But I do think it's a, it's a pertinent point to bring up in the context of this conversation when we're having a conversation about what is valued, uh, post-modernism, and these types of definitions, I believe are now, um, null and void, although the phenomena may still be prevalent, uh, it's exhausted. That paradigm has exhausted, and I don't see a shift occurring within that, um, uh, that, that, that realm, if you will, uh, in the foreseeable future, it's gonna be a steady decline.
Speaker 6 00:47:38 So I think academia up bright minds as time we move on. Let's move on to artificial intelligence. When we talk about, uh, what you get, um, in relationship to what you produce, what it is that an individual produces is now, um, i, i I would say up for a discussion in that the amount of effort a person could invest into a given project can be very minuscule, and the result can be magnified at infinitum in, uh, everybody knows what chat G p T is. I hope, I think the ramifications of this here, uh, device algorithm pertain to Craig's previous question, why can't m i t replicate Lex Friedmans? Well, I mean, we can now. I mean, it, it's, it, it's in front of us. So, um, my question for you, Mr. Hicks, is how, where do, if you're familiar with this concept, uh, and it's ever present in front of you, how, how do you conceptualize algorithms of this nature in its relation to, um, human creativity and also maybe academia? I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I, I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 1 00:49:02 Hmm. Well, I think I would have to say I'm in the same situation you are, uh, trying to wrap my head around it. So I don't have any well researched or well formulated, well formulated answers. My, uh, my sense is that it's going to be one more powerful tool that will enable human beings to, uh, do more of the things that they want to do, just like any other tool, um, that a lot of the, the grunt work will be, uh, done for us. Things will be done more cost effectively, uh, more accurately, and that will just free us up for more, uh, interesting things that we want to do. So I think the, the upside is, uh, is, is overwhelming exactly what form that's going to take. I, I cannot predict that at all. But, um, in one sense, I want to say it's perhaps, uh, you know, it's a continuation of the same curve that we've been on for the last 400 years in the modern world. And, uh, it may be an accelerating upward curve, but I don't see it as different in kind. Uh, you know, we might talk third industrial revolution, fourth industrial revolution, however we categorize these things. But it's in that same order of, uh, cultural advance and saying just very general things like that is the best I can do right now.
Speaker 2 00:50:40 I wanna, uh, Josh, before we leave the, the issue, um, you had said that, that some people get great rewards for minimal effort. Is that, is that a focus of your question?
Speaker 6 00:50:54 Yeah, just, uh, something, to give it an example, concrete example. Many coders are using this algorithm to do the work for them, and many, uh, maybe, uh, letter rights are using this here algorithm to create, uh, pros of which, uh, human ingenuity and creativity and experience generally would be responsible for said pros. Uh, but now it's sort of being downloaded, pun intended, through this, through this algorithm.
Speaker 2 00:51:24 Well, I, I, I, I have one thought about that. Um, I'm, I'm not immersed in the, uh, in the issue of the way you and Steven are, but I, I, I remember an essay by, uh, Isaac Asmo years ago called, it was called Forget It. And one of his points was there are things that those, I don't even think that was there, computers were around at that time, or certainly not the digital revolution. But, um, he mentioned a number of things that, um, are now effortless because of advances. Like, I think his, one of his examples was the Arabic numeral system. You know, calculating any, anything in Roman numerals is extremely difficult in Arabic numerals. It's very easy, and we all learn it in grade school. So, um, we can forget a lot of stuff because we have algorithms that, um, help us all. And that's been going on.
Speaker 2 00:52:28 Um, I dunno if it's 400 years, but life Steven said, but it's been going on a long time. And, uh, maybe longer in this case, the ability to forget things, um, is, uh, is one of the rewards of advancing, um, outsourcing the, um, kind of skill that is needed, uh, that everyone needed. Years ago, my ex-wife used to, uh, teach, um, writing to, to take an example or writing to, uh, law firms, and worked a lot with junior people, um, uh, associates who, who had not really had a good, um, training and grammar. I mean, back in the day, it's a lost art, but, and so she had to teach them principles of, and they had to internalize them, and they wrote tons of memos. And those memos, um, were often sent back by their, um, their senior partners saying, you know, fix this, fix this, fix this.
Speaker 2 00:53:37 I can't send this out. Well, now if this, if there's some way that these things can be generated, um, in accordance with good grammar as, and, you know, good order, the positive side is that it will save a lot of time and a lot of knowledge that people can forget the, the grammar they learned. On the other hand, the cost is they don't know grammar <laugh>. Um, and as a writer, I think that's a loss. It's, I don't know how to mix that, um, how to, how to calibrate the advance against the decline. But, um, it, I have, I, as a ENT person, I think, um, I'm just, my, my bias is toward the advance.
Speaker 8 00:54:27 Great. Can I ask a question, uh, previously, uh, uh, maybe Steven or somebody else, um, just the speaker right before David, is this I is saying,
Speaker 0 00:54:39 Can, can we, uh, we, we do wanna just respect the order of everyone coming up. Um, let's, uh, we will get to you. Uh, but let's go to Connie. Connie, thank you for joining us. Are you able to unmute? Well, she may not be. Uh, while we're waiting, uh, we'll go ahead and go to Sean. Sean, thanks for joining.
Speaker 9 00:55:10 Oh, thank you. Hello. Uh, thank you for this opportunity, Scott. Uh, I had a question for Professor Hicks. Uh, I wrote it down because I wanted to be more precise, but I'm not sure whether I'm, uh, I've achieved the goal or not. But professor, if we consider debates or dialogue, if you will, as one of the pillars of Western civilization, which seeks to achieve and acknowledge the truth. So by that premise, if what we have nowadays is just an interpretation of the opinion and not the truth and evidence, when the other side of the IO sees you and sees your effort for having a dialogue as a power game to occupy and oppress the opposition and not creating and articulate harmony. So what is the point of having a dialogue? Because when the other side is absent in the dialogue, the whole structure of dialogue will be deconstructed. And it seems that this is the things they want to achieve, because I think the Western civilization was shattered, not by the death of God, but by the death of, um, dialogue and debate. So, professor Hicks, if the other side is absent and sees your effort, uh, for having a dialogue and creating harmony as a power game, and to, to oppress the other side, to oppress the opposition, what is the point of having a dialogue? Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:56:58 Right? No, that, that's very well formulated. Thanks for that. Now, if, if the other side is not interested in dialogue, then I think you're right. It does become pointless and for various reasons, sometimes genuine, and sometimes, uh, uh, tactical people, I guess broadly will call them postmodernists, will ashu, uh, any debate in dialogue, uh, just as a, as a power game. And so they'll want to do something else. So, uh, yes, uh, the re long-term response to that is to reaffirm the importance of debate, uh, and dialogue, uh, in a social context and the underpinnings for that, that, uh, we do have cognitive access to reality. Uh, but reality is complicated, and we're trying to figure out complex things. And so the process that we go through as individuals, uh, sometimes involves, you know, dialogue and <laugh> debate with ourselves about how best to interpret the data and so on.
Speaker 1 00:58:06 Uh, but then more explicitly in a social context, if we want to cooperate with people for some reason, we do have to have dialogue and sometimes debate about the nature of that cooperation. But also, uh, sometimes we are interested in social interactions with other people for the purpose of trying to further our knowledge. And we're doing that with other people because we recognize that I have some experiences and they have some experiences, and perhaps their experiences can be useful to, to me, and supplemental to mine and, and vice versa. And so, dialogue is a way of sharing our experiences, uh, to the mutual benefit of both. But then, uh, debate, uh, often comes up because, you know, again, reality is complicated. And in many cases, initially with, uh, a certain data set, uh, there are different ways of trying to put the, the, the elements of the data together into an overall interpretive picture.
Speaker 1 00:59:11 And so debate is the way of testing each other's interpretive, uh, interpretive, uh, uh, results. Uh, and the only way that the debate can work is if it's done in a, in a, in a, in a beneficial factor or fashion, rather. So the ground rules have to be there. And I think you, you're right, that in the early modern world, especially when that became recognized on principle and institutionalized, uh, that is one of the, the great foundations for the progress we've made in the modern world. Now, the post-modernists or the, the, the skeptics of various sorts, uh, they reject everything that I've just said from, from top to bottom. They don't believe that we have cognitive access to reality, that we're trying to figure out the truth, uh, and that, uh, uh, that there's any value then to going through these civil discussion and civil debate procedures to, to, uh, to be willing to change our minds and, and, and learn from each other.
Speaker 1 01:00:15 They don't believe in any of that, uh, cognitive theory. They also, uh, come in with a much more jaded and cynical social theory that everything is adversarial. Uh, your values and my values are our values. And, and your group's values are, are in conflict with each other, and there's no way to, uh, resolve those value conflicts. And that, therefore, civil discussion is just a pretense, uh, uh, by, by some to, uh, to try to acquire power over other people. So they will, uh, say, look, we're just being honest here. We just think this is a, this is a power game. Words are just one more form of power, but we're just not going to play your particular verbal power game. And so we're not, not gonna debate. Now, I think your, your final conclusion is right, once you recognize that you're dealing with someone who's not actually interested in discussion or debate, this includes people who are not only post-modernists. There's lots of people who are not interested in discussion and debate. Then, uh, don't discuss and debate with them. Just find a way to, uh, distance yourself from them and go about your life, or if necessary, uh, protect yourself against them. But, uh, yeah, don't set yourself up for, for frustration. Instead, uh, uh, find other people to cooperate with cognitively and socially
Speaker 0 01:01:42 What happens when they start taking over cultural institutions? <laugh>?
Speaker 1 01:01:47 Well, yeah, that's the we're that we're having right now,
Speaker 0 01:01:52 <laugh>. Uh, great. Well, uh, thank you, jp. Thanks for your patience.
Speaker 10 01:01:58 Thank you. Uh, this is a question that I want to direct to, to professor, uh, text there. Uh, exactly. One day ago, there was a tweet, um, that was made by a philosopher and mathematician of Chicago, um, that started with, uh, philosophy is the ultimate luxury. Maybe I can read it later after my, my, my, my question is formulated. Um, and, and then you were counted by things, but along with three other intellectuals, in saying that you'd be upset that, uh, this, this philosopher was claiming that, uh, philosophy wasn't, uh, a subject matter, uh, that it was acceptable by the, uh, by the, the normy, uh, layperson. And you promptly, um, responded. And I am going to quote you here in saying, um, that you disagreed that, uh, philosophy was, uh, applicable by, by a hundred percent of people. And everybody, uh, should, uh, should, uh, should, uh, learn it.
Speaker 10 01:03:07 Uh, and, and, and this struck me, uh, very deeply because it was one of the big grapplings I've been holding in my own, um, uh, think process. Of course, I, I was, I always sucked at math. And, um, in, in school and, and university even, I mean, calculus was a big challenge for me. And, um, I've always felt that, um, philosophy was, was only merely brushed on in my education process until I made it an endeavor of mine to pursue it. And, uh, once I, one of my entry points actually to philosophy was philosophy. Who needs it by Angel, a rand? And there she says that, uh, of course, the main premise of that book is demonstrating to you that everybody should, uh, have philosophy, uh, as the basic, uh, principle, uh, tool of survival. Uh, so it angered me to an unknown end that the, the education system wasn't, wasn't big on philosophy, uh, as it was, for example, on math.
Speaker 10 01:04:16 And, uh, I reckon that, uh, well beyond algebra, you don't really need that much math in life unless you're go into stem fields. And, uh, that is what most people grapple with, uh, once they hit calculus. And, and it becomes a pain point in education to, to have to go through math. And, and, and I said, well, maybe it's purposeful, you know, this is math is since education needs, needs obedient folks and, and, um, non-critical thinkers, it would seem to me that philosophy is far more effective in developing and a equitable by the common labor person's mind as a tool and more useful even because it delved also into morality and, and ethics and, and many other things that math doesn't. So why is it so suppressing the, in the, in the education system? Thanks. Hmm.
Speaker 1 01:05:15 Well, I think, uh, what you said is, uh, just beautiful and, uh, very articulate. And, uh, I, I agree entirely with it. Um, to come back to the, the initial observation, the idea that philosophy is not for the normies or, or, or for the masses, sometimes, uh, that comes from an kind of an explicit platonism. The idea that the, the normies or the masses don't have the intellectual capacity to, uh, to deal with high abstractions. That it's only a, an elite, uh, who are capable of doing so, or that, uh, the masses are dealing with mundane, ordinary day-to-day concretes, and they don't have the, the leisure time to be able to, uh, devote themselves to, to philosophy. And some of that is still present in contemporary philosophy. So sometimes the position that philosophy is a luxury not for the masses is, uh, is coming from, from, from that as well.
Speaker 1 01:06:19 Um, another angle on that is, uh, the idea that philosophy is dealing with kind of irrelevant questions. And, uh, you know, that there are questions that might be of interest to anybody, uh, but they don't really have any practical application. You know, they might be the modern version of, uh, how many angels can dance on the head of, of a, of a pin. And so philosophy's a luxury in the sense that it's this add-on intellectual, uh, uh, exercise that doesn't have any real practical outlook. And so sometimes that's where that, that position is coming from. But for exactly the reasons that you, you said, uh, wonderfully, that's not my view of philosophy, uh, is I know it's not David's view, and it's not Iran's view of philosophy that, uh, philosophy is a practical discipline. It's trying to figure out your views on reality, how you're gonna use your powerful cognitive equipment that is your brain and mind formulating your core values, and then, uh, uh, committing yourself to it, including creating, uh, institutions in a broader society to enable the pursuit of those values.
Speaker 1 01:07:39 So all of those things are philosophically guided, and they are done better and more effectively to the extent that we are philosophical about it. So we need to think about our lives as a whole, uh, and our lives are, are very complicated, and we need to think for the long term for, in terms of decades. And the more that we do that, the better we're in a position to, to, uh, to live our lives practically. Now, why, uh, your final question. Why, uh, say in, um, in schooling, formal schooling, uh, philosophy is not prioritized, uh, in contrast, say to mathematics, uh, or, or other things? Uh, well, I think there's a lot going on there. Partly, it's, it's matters of turf war. It's always hard to find space in the limited number of hours. Uh, teachers have access to the students to have one more subject, and everybody has a huge list of things that they wanna, wants to teach.
Speaker 1 01:08:44 But, uh, philosophy largely for traditional reasons was seen as something, uh, abstract. And so for a long time, uh, professional educators thought students abstract ability was not developed until they were well into their teens. And so it was rather pointless to try to introduce philosophy formally to, to younger people. And I think there's been, I don't wanna say a c, but there's a significant minority movement of people in education who, uh, disagree with that view, who are more impressed with, uh, children, including young children's capacity for, uh, doing philosophy, even pretty abstract philosophy to younger age. So the developmental psychology is, uh, is improving. And so there have been some reform movements, uh, try to introduce philosophy at earlier ages, but that's still an ongoing, an ongoing process. Um, so I'll stop there. Uh, but uh, feel welcome to come back on that. If there's a, a nuance I'm missing out on,
Speaker 2 01:10:01 I'd like to jump in for one, um, one point, uh, and that is it philosophy. The academic philosophy has gotten very technical and very removed from the issues that, um, classically occupied, have occupied philosophers from the time of play in Aristotle. And so it's actually not of much use <laugh>, frankly. Um, I mean, I speak as a philosopher that went through the same, you know, education, uh, in philosophy major and a PhD. But, um, and so it's not surprising to me that it's marginalized it, my view, and I think this is a way of putting the objective issue that Steven and I share, is philosophy is at once paradoxically both the most abstract and the most practical of disciplines, the most abstract because it deals with the most fundamental issues in life and about the nature of the world, human nature, knowledge, and, uh, the good life.
Speaker 2 01:11:04 But it is also the most practical for the very same reason that, um, uh, and as Ren said, these are the issues that people have to decide in their lives. Um, and so the kind of guidance that, I mean, objectivism is really unique in that it goes back to a more classical conception of, of philosophy, the kind of philosophy that the, um, the founding fathers read, um, even though they were not philosophers, but, um, it was thoughts about, you know, how society works, how individuals work, the compass of reason. Uh, and that's what philosophy can do, but it's not doing it today in academic life. You have to look elsewhere.
Speaker 1 01:11:56 Just jump in with one more kinda anecdote about the cognitive capacities of, of kid. This is the personal anecdote. I remember my, my daughter when, uh, she was, uh, six years old playing in a sandbox with a five year old neighbor kid. And I just, uh, happened to be sitting outside. It was a summer afternoon, I think I was drinking a beer, and I realized they were having a discussion about life and death, but it was all couched in terms of zombies. Cause there were all kinds of zombie video games and, and, and television shows going on. And they were having a very sophisticated discussion, a six year old and a five year old about whether zombies were alive or dead. And one of them, uh, this was the neighbor kid was taking the view that zombies were dead, uh, that human beings have a soul.
Speaker 1 01:12:47 And the zombie was just a body going through mechanical motions that had soul had left the body. And then my daughter was arguing that zombies couldn't be completely dead. That death wasn't just this either or thing, because zombies were still trying to get people's brains to eat them, and were still sort of able to be, uh, kind of aware. And so they must have some soul still left in them. And they went back and forth on this for about 10 or 15 minutes, uh, uh, listening to each other and responding to the points on, uh, so that I thought was a beautiful thing, but it was totally unscripted, totally unprompted, and kids can do philosophy and they're, they're doing it a lot.
Speaker 0 01:13:37 Great. Um, I do, uh, just, you know, I, I know Tom is a deep diver. I love that about him. I, I know handsome was chomping at the bit to get in. Maybe we can get one or two others, just, uh, but go ahead, Tom. Thank you for your patience.
Speaker 11 01:13:54 Well, I hope you can hear me. I'm outside in this cold weather, but, uh, I hear you. Will, uh, the question I have is, um, well, let me see if I can make it practical. Uh, it applies to ai and, and, uh, for the longest time, I've always thought, uh, what is the distinction between, uh,
Speaker 11 01:14:19 An an invalid concept and an anti concept? And, uh, if I remember right, uh, it's, it's an invalid, um, concept means it can't, um, have any reference to, uh, to reality and so on. Uh, but then, uh, and so I thought, um, maybe it's not a, a species of invalid concept in the same way, uh, as many of the fallacies that in, uh, David's, uh, Kelly's book, uh, that they're all fallacies. They're not species of, of, of it. So, again, um, the, the anticon is an invalid concept. It's not a species thereof, but then why give it a different name for it? So, so, uh, check, uh, I, I wanna ask, uh, any of you to find out if my thinking is correct to say that, uh, anti concepts are, uh, sort of a cross classification kind of concept, but not a, a concept that, uh, is, um, that, that takes the c c d of the genus meaning inva concept as part of the way it becomes an intensive concept of, uh, of that. But instead it uses a different, um, a different characteristic in this case, uh, purpose, purpose for sabotaging or invalidating a a valid concept. So what do you think is, is an in anticon a kind of cross classification? And if so, what are the criteria for forming, um, uh, let's say cross class, cross classified concepts? Fair? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 1 01:16:26 Sounds like a natural for you to start with David.
Speaker 2 01:16:30 Yeah, I'm gonna jump in on this because I've written about it and, um, it's <laugh> on a long list of best essays I wanna write and publish. I've spoken about it. My short answer would be an invalid concept is, um, any a concept that is misformed that integrates by non-essentials or, uh, just not refer to anything in reality. Um, and that's a broad class. An anticon is an, a type of invalid concept, but with the distinguishing property that it is intended or used to, um, invalidate a valid concept. So, um, Rand described extremism, for example, as an invalid concept because it says on referring to political positions, uh, the, the term extremism says that the extremes on any political spectrum like liberty versus, um, sadism are invalid. We should have the middle ground only. Um, and that is designed to invalidate the concept of political ideology or political philosophy, um, which Encomp encompasses a liberal, uh, freedom respecting call, a libertarian view, as opposed to a state of his view.
Speaker 2 01:17:59 An invalid concept would be, uh, and, and another example is, um, the, uh, the famous statement by <inaudible>, the French thinker, the 19th century property, all property is theft, but you can't have the concept of theft depends on the concept of property. If there's no property, <laugh>, if property is not a valid concept, it's not, you know, a term we can refer to as in, as something true in reality, then, uh, theft makes no sense. So, um, but there are many invalid concepts. Um, I think, uh, from a objective standpoint, um, I think I got it. I gave lectures on this, but oh, 15 years ago, um, I'm not coming up with a good example of a, just a pure analog concept. Um, Steven, maybe you can help me on this, but if, uh, but it's not a, it, it is a cross classification in that there is with, um, an anticon, there is the feature not just in it's ill formed.
Speaker 2 01:19:15 That's true of all invalid concepts, but that it is malicious, it is intended to do, um, uh, you know, engage in cognitive destruction in invalidating another co useful concept, valid one. So it's cross classification, but we've, um, but it's still, it's like, you know, um, you could say that the concept of a professor like Stephen and me, um, is a subcategory of human being, uh, with a cross, cross classified by profession. Um, so there's nothing wrong with cro, you know, a huge range of concepts, and I've written about this too, uh, involve our cross category, cross classification concept. Um, but there's nothing wrong with that. We, we have conceptual distinctions and divisions for many things that are, are virtually valid. Um, profession is a valid concept. So nothing wrong, the concept of professor, but, um, things like extremism, um, were, uh, um, that's the only real example of an inva concept I've given. I, you're, you're encouraging me to, uh, you know, go back to my, I, I gave a whole lecture on this, uh, at a summer seminar years ago. I should go back and rewrite and write that up. So I was in public, sorry for my memory failure.
Speaker 11 01:20:55 Well, if you have the paper, send it to me please. And, uh, the update for the proposition as well. I think I've read that a long time ago as well, but if there's any update, let me know.
Speaker 2 01:21:05 Okay, thank you, Tom.
Speaker 1 01:21:07 Appreciate it. Examples of, uh, anti concepts, uh, if we have time, but I'm mindful that we have only nine minutes. That's, I wanted to ask Scott, who's managing You can brief, we should go Carrie, a brief one or brief ones. Yeah. Well, I, the three, I, actually, I have three in mind. One is the concept of justice we were talking about earlier, and then in the literature of the concept of social justice emerged explicitly as an anti concept. Uh, that initially social justice meant redistribution in some egalitarian form or transfers from rich to poor, but it was recognized that that was opposed to the traditional concept of justice. And so, uh, you can see the evolution of redistribution labeling to, uh, to call it social justice with the idea that it was going to supplant the original concept of justice. Another example is, uh, the example of the underprivileged, uh, which came into prominence in the 1960s and the 1970s when we were having lots of discussions about poverty, the causes of poverty, solutions to poverty.
Speaker 1 01:22:24 Uh, you know, how much of it has to do with, uh, individuals bad habits or bad luck or, or being victims of social forces and so on. And that nuanced discussion, uh, uh, was intended to be obliterated by this concept of being underprivileged. Instead of talking about people being poor, uh, we were supposed to refer to them collectively as underprivileged, uh, with the idea being that built into, uh, people being poor was that they were underprivileged, and that any other explanation for why they, uh, they were poor was not a legitimate explanation. It just that they had not had enough privileges granted to them. Uh, and so that was, uh, uh, an anticon maneuver in that literature as well. I'll save the third one for another time cause we're running outta time.
Speaker 2 01:23:20 Thank. Alright, thanks Steven. Um, that's great. Yeah, I agree completely.
Speaker 0 01:23:25 Great. Uh, Hansen, thank you so much for your patience.
Speaker 8 01:23:31 Yes. Yeah, no worries. Uh, cool. Uh, so I came very late at the end of the lecture, so, uh, uh, I, I just happened upon the, uh, conversation at the end question and answer session at the end. Uh, so I, I think somebody was, uh, earlier was asking about, uh, was saying something like an algorithm that can, uh, automatically compose, uh, uh, well, it, it code or, or something. And, uh, was asking about the, the, uh, uh, how we deal with it. Um, uh, I, I think that maybe he's, uh, I mean, uh, if there's no more time, then that's fine. If there is a, like, to have a clarification of the question, because I think the, uh, uh, for example, in the chat, G p t, yes, it can produce some impressive, um, the, uh, s well se like, um, compositions, uh, but it's more, it, because it's, uh, relying on the, uh, uh, language model and which is, uh, uh, relying on the probabilistic, um, model structure, uh, the assigning probability, uh, uh, over, uh, different, uh, words and phrases.
Speaker 8 01:24:53 So it does not yet have a, uh, kind of a logical understanding of the, uh, structure of the, uh, uh, the, the, uh, uh, composition. So when you pose a logical question to it, it, uh, cannot answer. Uh, usually it answers it in a erroneous manner, but in a very, uh, aerody fashion, it looks, if you don't know the, uh, don't know logic, it will sound very, uh, sophisticated, but it is wrong. So, so I don't think it's, um, we are at the stage, uh, uh, of, um, having the AI actually do anything, uh, with, with certain certainty that, uh, of correctness. So, so I, um, yeah, I am not saying that it won't be able to, it probably if you incorporate some kind of, uh, knowledge graph or, uh, logic graph, uh, uh, if the, uh, the language model is, is still down the backbone of, uh, uh, logic graph, then it may, uh, uh, remedy that problem. But, uh, it's not there yet. So, uh, so I mean, I, I, I, I'm not quite sure about the, the, the question, so if there's time and, and there's a time for clarification, that would be great. But any, uh, otherwise, uh, yeah, I, I, I listen to the, uh, uh, question and answer. It's, uh, very, uh, very, uh, uh, educational. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 01:26:29 Okay. Now, already that, uh, formulation is beyond my knowledge of what goes into some of the sophisticated algorithms and, and coding problems. Uh, so I can't speak, uh, to that specifically.
Speaker 8 01:26:48 Yeah, no, I mean, I'm saying that if the questioner is still here, maybe he can clarify his question, but I wasn't quite sure.
Speaker 0 01:26:56 Okay. We'll see. Maybe they'll have time to say something in the chat. Um, in the meantime, we can, uh, try to squeeze Brocks in with a quick one.
Speaker 13 01:27:09 Sure. Yeah, it's just Brock, um, Brock, I'm back. Brock. Okay. They, they canceled my account because I had a provocative room that was full of intellectuals, <laugh>, and Clubhouse was like, Nope, we're not gonna allow that.
Speaker 0 01:27:21 Hit us with a quick question.
Speaker 13 01:27:23 Of course, this is directed towards the philosophers, especially the professors. Uh, what is a Heaton and why is it that with given due time, the qualitative value has flipped onto the other side of the coin?
Speaker 1 01:27:44 Uh, what's the coin and what are the two sides of it that we're talking about?
Speaker 13 01:27:49 So the heat on, you know, where hedonism comes from, a
Speaker 1 01:27:53 Unit A, a unit of pleasure,
Speaker 13 01:27:56 A unit of pleasure from Epicureus. Correct. So why is it said, when give and due time, as inte shall increase psychologically, why is it it's value, it's qualitative value shifted in essence?
Speaker 1 01:28:16 Uh, why has the value of pleasure shifted the more intellectual one becomes
Speaker 13 01:28:24 Given due time? Yeah, it's been many generations. And so the value of the heat on was the qualitative value of happiness. And why is it now that a hedonistic person is somebody that has negative of value?
Speaker 2 01:28:41 Oh, a hedonist, you mean like we, we use a, we use the term hedonist to, you know, refer to someone who's governed by a pleasure principle, but not long term principles. Is that what you mean?
Speaker 13 01:28:56 Yeah, I see it linearly, mathematically.
Speaker 1 01:29:01 Okay. Or are you saying that hedonism used to be a neutral label, but it has become a pejorative?
Speaker 13 01:29:09 Well, the,
Speaker 1 01:29:11 I'm still trying to wrap around the question. So
Speaker 13 01:29:13 One, one, Heaton is equivalent to a pleasure value of one and mathematics. And it used to be the way how we could calculate who's living the best life. But now somebody that's hedonistic, they're, they're almost nihilistic.
Speaker 1 01:29:34 So it sounds like you're saying the semantic of hedonism have changed. We're using the term differently now than before,
Speaker 0 01:29:42 Gentlemen. It's
Speaker 13 01:29:43 True.
Speaker 0 01:29:44 I, um, this is sounds like a fascinating concept. We're doing these with, uh, professor Hicks and Kelly, uh, once a month. I'm sorry to interrupt, but we're at time. But, uh, I did just wanna say that, uh, the Atlas Society is the leading nonprofit, getting rand's ideas to young people in creative ways. We've got a student conference in July in Nashville, our gala in Miami in October. We have the best community and objectivism, I, I hope you'll consider joining our growth. Uh, open Objectivism is the best answer to the illiberal ideas permeating the culture today. So, uh, hope you'll join us and thank you both for, uh, doing this.
Speaker 1 01:30:31 All right, pleasure. Okay, great questions again. Thanks David. Thanks everyone. Thanks
Speaker 2 01:30:36 Scott and Steven. Um, and, uh, we'll see you next month.
