[paganel]

Really interesting transcript, highly recommend it. Regarding this:

> Well, what if I do that an infinite number of times, then it's no longer a mountain. When does it not become a mountain, right? So we don't quite have answers to that.

Is interesting how 21st century technologists are basically asking the same questions as Socrates and his disciples were asking ~2500 years ago. If I remember correctly (I last read some Plato about 15 years ago) the example that Socrates gives related to that is one about a table. Is a table with only 3 legs still a table? Probably, many would say. Is a table with only 2 legs still a table. Less probably. Is a table without any legs still a table? Probably not. Is it correct to ask about the idea of a table? i.e. is there such a thing as a table in the abstract? (or a mountain in the abstract, to go back to Norvig's example). Plato famously thought that there was such an idea, many other Greek philosophers were a lot more ambivalent about it (with Heraclitus I think the best-known example).

What I'm trying to say is that maybe today's engineers should go back to reading some philosophy, not the modern US-version of analytical philosophy which doesn't teach anyone almost anything, but all the way back from the Greeks up until the late 19th-early 20th century, maybe that way those engineers would also be more forthcoming in accepting their ethical responsibilities. I personally didn't like how Norvig was quick to set aside AI's ethical responsibilities, passing the hot potato to the general field of engineering, i.e. to no-one in particular.

[vintagedave]

> Is it correct to ask about the idea of a table? i.e. is there such a thing as a table in the abstract?

If you rephrase the question as, "Is there such a thing as a more real table than this table?", or if "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" sparks joy (or puzzlement) in your heart, you might enjoy reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem.

I can't write why, for spoilers. I can say the book is heavily inspired by Platonism, as well as many other things. If a science fiction story about philosophical monks, astronomy, and adventure appeals to you, give it a read.

[bsaul]

My personnal favorite regarding this kind of philosophical thinking similarities is Husserl "eidetic variations" method for finding what properties constitutes the essence of a concept (*).

We programmer do it instinctively, but having read about it gives me such a greater confidence to actually apply it methodically every time i design a type hierarchy...

(*) basically, the idea is to mutate the property, and see if the object's essence is unchanged. If it is unchanged, then the property isn't constitutive of its essence. As an example, changing the color of a table doesn't change the fact that it's a table, so "color" isn't an attribute of the "Table" concept. Number of feet, however, could very well be (or at least a boolean "has feet" ;)

[xtagon]

In ontology, you can think of the concept of "table" as being a role that an object can fulfill (possibly for a given period of time) rather than strictly a specific class of object. For example, let's say you move into a new home and haven't set up all the furniture yet, so you temporarily use a crate as a table. Even the phrase "as a table" suggests that it's more of a role than a class. If a crate can be a table, and a crate has no feet, what makes a table with feet more of a table than that? It serves the same utility and can naturally be described as such in conversation.

By that line of thinking, the essence of a table may have very little to do with it's shape, and more to do with it's purpose. But I can see how that just opens up a new rabbit hole to go down...

[ineedasername]

Is it correct to ask about the idea of a table?

That's pretty much what Plato believed, but also that for the most part we can never access that Platonic Ideal. We could only, in effect, access the equivalent of shadows on the wall case by light against objects. Seeing only shadows for all of our lives, we believe they are the true reality since that is all of reality that we perceive.

As a concept it is a strong precursor (and no doubt a strong influence) on Immanuel Kant's work. He basically pointed out that we have only 5 senses, and each those are intermediated by various layers, and so even through those sense we do not experience the thing in itself, and are limited by those 5 senses. And of course we know that other animals have other senses. We have invented some of artificial ones of our own (vision that is heat based instead of light based, etc).

If you're interests go in that direction. his work Prolegomena to all Future Metaphysics is where he begins to explore this. It's dense, but not too inaccessible as philosophical texts go especially if you have the background in logical reasoning and layered abstractions that programming instills. Here's a link to a free Google Books version that also allows PDF download: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Kant_s_Prolegomena_to_A...

Incidentally, Kant was 100% correct: His ideas were so compelling that pretty much any philosopher after him looking to explore metaphysics could not simply dismiss them out of hand.

Secondarily, Prolegomena was also somewhat of a response to work by David Hume on the nature & human perception of causality, and together they formed the foundations upon which science has continued develop that area of physics, even if it has moved on somewhat from those earlier ideas.

I think Philosophy often gets a bad name today as a useless of self-indulgent field, but it's important to remember that philosophers were in many ways the first scientists and refined the ideas & practices that ultimately developed into the scientific method, breaking off into a separate (but still connected) branch of study. For modern examples where that synergy still exists, the works of Danielle Dennet are an excellent example.

[ethn]

Critique is the response to Hume vs Berkeley, not Prolegomena.

Prolegomena is less rigorous and in-style than Critique.

[yesenadam]

i.e. The Critique of Pure Reason. (Kant wrote 3 Critiques) It's known as one of the most difficult-to-read philosophy books in history, though, so don't expect to pick it up and understand what he's saying. I did an entire university course on the book—I mostly studied philosophy at university—which was gruelling, and sometime later when a girlfriend saw the fat book on my shelf and asked what it's about, looked horrified when I couldn't tell her. Never heard anyone say he was 100% right, though. Particularly his own successors (Neo-Kantians) who, I believe, thought important parts of his system should be dropped—mainly, Kant's reality/the noumenon/thing-in-itself that we can never know or say anything about.

(The most helpful link I can think of is James Franklin's article on Stove's Gem, the "Worst Argument in the World"—Very lucid writing, and not a bad introduction to talk of things-in-themselves. https://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/worst.html )

[ethn]

Neo-Kantian generally refers to the application of the style and epistemology provided by transcendental idealism in treatment of other subjects, rather than as a departure from Kant.

The Thing-in-Itself was once controversial but undeservedly. It's necessary to prevent the subject knowing the object fully, so thus it is treated in the sense of Cassirer/Cohen's Infinitesimal. No one has trouble with Noumenon maybe only in the disappointment with the intractability of metaphysics to answers some of the most pressing questions.

[ineedasername]

Yes, so difficult to read that he wrote the much more accessible Prolegomena a few years later to summarize his ideas. Critique if Pure Reason is a classic, but what bootstrapped his ideas into the public academic society if the time was Prolegomena.

[ineedasername]

Prolegomena is the introduction to his Critique of Pure Reason, published after that work because he realized he needed a something more accessible to introduce his concepts. Condensed, it stands as a summary, and thus still his response to Hume. That response in fact is a critical part of the opening pages of Prolegomena. My statement was correct.

[ethn]

Hume would not have considered the analytical response as adequate indeed neither does Kant. Only a synthetic treatment of the subject of logic and causality itself could resolve the Scottish Skepticism--that's why these books do not have a comparable degree of profundity. It is the synthetic movement from experience to intuition and back to concept which is the great achievement. The analytical treatment provided by Prolegomena does not afford this.

It is not intended as an introduction to Critique of Pure Reason it works from the conclusions of that work and why those conclusions are necessary.

We can remember the title isn't Prolegomena to Critique of Pure Reason but instead Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics.

[joe_the_user]

Questions like that, "the paradox of the heap", etc are kind of the unanswered question of ontology. Modern AI research has been criticized for not being especially interested in those questions when building their devices.

Such questions reappear on higher levels when you're reasoning about AI. But since the field hasn't been grappling with them overall, I'm doubtful they'll come up with great insight at this point.

[ffhhj]

Zeno's paradoxes are still unsolved, and these hide some deep knowledge about time, reality, intelligence and supertasks. Calculus is just a tool to model it, not the solution to the paradox and its relatives: Thomson's Lamp, Parmenides static universe, and the gap between logic/Turing machines and human intelligence.

[machello13]

In general, many engineers could benefit from a well-rounded education in the humanities.

[ithkuil]

And vice versa

[enw]

> Is it correct to ask about the idea of a table? i.e. is there such a thing as a table in the abstract?

I don't understand. The "idea" of a table is an object that provides a level surface to place stuff on.

What am I missing? What is the interesting part?

[herbstein]

> The "idea" of a table is an object that provides a level surface to place stuff on.

You surely wouldn't call a boulder sticking out of the earth "a table", even if it did have a conveniently level surface to place stuff on? The point is that what we call "a table" is not just about function - it's also about form.

[wruza]

You surely wouldn't call

In my view, this is the basis of any philosophy – the confidence that some conception is (and must be) defined like you do it out of habit. Philosophy is psychology under cover. Ask a psycho what is a table and they will easily point at a heap of flesh and bones, or at their t-shirt. Table is a word. All philosophy does is an iterative pseudoagreement between human minds, which were randomly trained at verbalizing inputs. Sometimes it finds similar sounds, but that’s it.

[Filligree]

Sure I would, after making a habit of using it as such.

[JoeAltmaier]

https://www.visitnc.com/listing/FmKV/table-rock

[pontifier]

https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/mesa

[webmaven]

Is a stone altar a table?

[state_less]

Is this sand a castle?

[robotresearcher]

You’d never mistake the kitchen counter for the kitchen table, yet each meets your description equally well.

[atoav]

As someone who both studied philosphy and product design I'd argue: A table is, what can be used as a table.

Heidegger would probably say something like "the table tables" (more on brand in German "Der Tisch tischt") - so a table is a thing that supports tablelike actions.

Of course "table-like" is a gradient instead of a binary flag. An archetypical four-legged table is the way you might draw a table when asked about it — so it might — for that individual living at that time in bistory be as table-like as it gets. However, there are totally recognizable tables with just one leg, or even with no legs (e.g. carved into a stone wall) or with alternative ways of suspensions (hanging from the ceiling, mounted on the wall, etc). In the end even a rock could act as your table when you are out hiking. Of course you still recognize it as a rock, but it has shown table-like qualities now, it can be your table for the moment.

Then there are also different kind of tables: work benches, kitchen tables, desks, coffe tables, long and thin tables, more akin to shelves, but used as tables, folding tables, tables with rolls on them etc. They can totally differ in their proportions and usage, yet we call them tables, mostly because ofhers will know which object we mean, when we say it. When you however demanded a table at work and they gave you a tiny coffee table you would exclaim: "This is not a table!". Rightfully so, for the context you are in it is not useful (it differs too much from an office table).

So if instead of asking if something is a table, asking whether something can be used as a table (if it has table-like qualities to it) is more like how I think object-subject relations work in practise. We call things a table because we use it as a table. We don't call things a table because somewhere out there in the universe exists a clear definition of what the concept of said table constitutes.

If you were to shoot a film or direct a theatre play, then you wouldn't be interested in whether in principle the object can be used as a table, you would be interested in it's readability as a table that hints to the viewer a certain millieu or social background. This might also be something you'd consider when the primary purpose of your table/desk is to impress your subordinates.

Of course the table-like quality of an object would be just one of its many dimensions. One could also go in and ask about arbitrary dimensions like the bulkyness of the object, about the intentionality (that hiking picnick rock is a table, but an unintentional one). One could ask about many aspects that constitute subject-object relations, however it is important not to forget that in our daily lives we just ballpark these categories intuitively. So what I might still call a table might not at all be seen as a table by another person ("This is not a table, it is a rock") and yet both of us a right and wrong at the same time.

Interestingly AI goes a lot into looks, where the dimension of usability might be more useful (but harder to extract from images). So internally an AI would represent table-likeness as a floating point number and only says something is (or isn't) a table based on thresholds somebody found useful.