[hilbert42]

Point proven, your comment just confirms what I said earlier:

…an(d) why those for and against it take the (usually) entrenched stance that they do.

I'm aware of those issues and omissions for brevity's sake. Also, I would point out that what I said was a passing comment on HN and not meant for a paper in a learned philosophical journal.

BTW, in case you didn't notice, I never mentioned whether I was for or against utilitarianism specifically because discussion about it inevitability ends in arguments that usually remain unresolved. That it was just an example ought to have been obvious.

It would be informative to compare the syllabus content at your philosophy school versus that of mine.

[ctrlp]

My philosophy school was a library card. Am I presuming too much by your handle that you are a lover of the higher mathematics? Although I think it would be hard to derive a workable ethics from number theory, I believe it has been tried. Descartes and Spinoza metaphysics come to mind, but Plato's number magic is probably a more entertaining place to start.

As you say, not relevant to you, but do you think mathematicians generally have some kind of affinity for Utilitarian ethics?

[hilbert42]

"My philosophy school was a library card."

There's nothing wrong with that, sometimes it's one's best tutor.

I'm not a mathematician but I've studied mathematics in conjunction with my bread-and-butter subjects science and engineering. It's thus fair to say the analytical philosophers and their ilk have had a strong influence on my thinking—Frege, Whitehead, Russell, Wittgenstein, and G.E. Moore—I can even see my copy of Principia Ethica on the bookshelf on the other side of the room from where I'm sitting.

(BTW, In my world I cannot see any relevant connection between number theory (as mathematicians understand it) and ethics.)

The analytical strand of philosophy is particularly significant for me as formal logic has a direct bearing on some of my technical work (they're closely related). It also led to me electing to take HPS.

Philosophy is a remarkably broad church and its analytical strand is only one section, and in no way do I consider myself pigeonholed to just one or two of its strands; Being and Nothingness, The Social Contract, Leviathan, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, (the) Republic are just a few titles from the large compulsory corpus from which I was trained.

I will not delve further into utilitarianism given what I've already said except to say I have neither the talent of Shakespeare nor am I an APL programmer, so it would be impossible for me to present my rather convoluted views on the matter in a short HN post without some part being misinterpreted. To do it linguistic justice and present a watertight case that precisely and accurately explains my view I'd likely require a dozen pages of typed text, and clearly that's not possible on HN.

That's not a copout, it's just fact. Moreover, philosophy taught me long ago that précising and brevity can easily lead to misunderstandings unless one's words are very carefully chosen. I was reminded of that again earlier today when you came on the attack.

[ctrlp]

Yes, all good. I appreciate what you are saying and I'm sorry to "attack" your comment earlier. I apologize. I'm often writing for the next reader that comes around, aka the audience. Nothing personal. If you made it through Being and Nothingness then you're a better reader than I am. Kudos to you. I did find my philosophical education benefited substantially by reading outside of the syllabus. The great ethical and political books are too often treated as benighted artifacts of history until the Enlightenment, at which point they are often taught as holy writ.

I took your handle as a reference to Hilbert. Was it not? Although it might be difficult to a mind shaped very much by analytic philosophy, I do think there is "value", or at least entertainment value, in esoteric number theory (numerology or number magic) in relation to ethical systems. The ancients took it seriously and they were a lot smarter than I am. There is even a vein of mysticism in Wittgenstein. And what is infinity or the continuum? Very strange places to spend much time. Have driven some mad. Plus it's fun to consider the significance of a number. Often there are esoteric attributes attached to familiar and unfamiliar numbers that will blow your mind. Not just the puzzling oddities involving primes or transposed operations, but relating to ethics and metaphysics. If you really want to tempt madness, read up on some of the ancient Pythagorean or Kabbalah number magic. There be dragons of insanity there.

[hilbert42]

The big take from philosophy is that irrespective of just about any subject if we're to move forward then it's of paramount importance that proper debate takes place and that each protagonist's arguments and supporting propositions are properly understood.

I use those terms in the philosophical sense as distinct from the nonsensical shouting that we witness all too often on Social Media and elsewhere on the Web. That we often do not listen carefully and take time to analyze what others are saying is the cause of much of the world's ills.

I've always prized debates as I've learned so much from having taken part in them. And It's a great shame that these days formal debating seems to have gone out of fashion.

If one cannot explain or logically support one's propositions during a debate (or when trying to teach a subject) then one doesn't fully understand the matter at hand. What's also important to recognize is that there are times during a debate when a protagonist first becomes aware of fallacies and weaknesses in his/her own case and that realization can occur without his/her opponent being aware of the fact.

It's an interesting phenomenon which I've experienced albeit not for quite some while. Moreover, when I've become aware that I've been wrong under such circumstances then learning turned out to be a sharper and more positive experience than other forms of learning (trouble is that these days there's little opportunity to partake in such debates as few are prepared spend the time to take them seriously).

The reason I mention that scenario here is to show that as I'm a bit of a veteran of such discussions and that I'm used to opponents 'clobbering' me during disagreements. If I were to be offended by such criticisms in philosophical debates then I'd have quit long ago.

However, what I do find disconcerting is when I've not chosen my words carefully enough for whatever reason (usually brevity) and what comes out ends up either sounding wrong or that I'm misinterpreted. My earlier comment would likely fall into that class.

I try to avoid misunderstandings by being prolix, that is I'll restate a point using different phraseology but at times even that doesn't work. I'm often surprised how some readers even misinterpret the most straightforward of statements. [Note: I'm not referring to you in the following.] And that just happened yesterday with another of my comments when someone deliberately misquoted what I said. Clearly hide has no bounds when one's actual words are deliberately misquoted just below what one has actually written. I'm curious about the logic that underpins such strange thinking.

(I suppose one shouldn't be a bit surprised these days when the leader of the free world sets quintessential examples for all to follow. By uttering blatant and outrageous lies with a deadpan expression that'd put masters of the art like Buster Keaton to shame then it's little wonder that many are bound to emulate his practice.)

I'm unaware of any correlation between the large decline in the study of liberal arts subjects in recent decades and many of the antics we're witness in politics these days but I'd not be surprised by one iota if something of note were to be found.

Philosophy often comes under that wing which implies that fewer people are studying the subject (well, at lest so on a per capita basis), and I'd posit that's not an ideal situation by any stretch. I'd suggest that skills that philosophy teaches such as the ability to help people think logically and to examine issues from multiple perspectives and to do so from factual evidence are in very short supply at a time when the world desperately needs them.

We need aeridite people who can speak with authority on important world affairs such as Russell and the remarkable historian A.J.P. Taylor used to do, they had the ability to mesmerize just about anyone who'd listen to them. Even those who'd disagreed with their arguments and or worldviews couldn't counterattack with simplistic counterarguments without looking ill-equipped and or not in command of the facts.

It's here philosophy comes to the fore in that it educates from multiple perspectives, whether it's teaching argument (such as Socrates' wonderful demolition of Thrasymachus' stance on justice) or teaching works of great thinkers whose views on matters differ wildly from one another actually forces one to consider philosophical notions from different viewpoints. Hobbes' worldview differs widely from say Locke's, Berkeley's immaterialism is a forerunner to later works on perception, and so on.

The matter of mysticism, esoteric number theory and such, to my mind comes under metaphysics—whose definition I well remember as 'above and beyond physics', which is about as short and as apt as any definition gets. You're right, my mind endeavors to make sense of the world from an analytical perspective, like Descartes's cogito, ergo sum I have to begin my worldview somewhere and it more or less ends with my 'sense data' (like Russell banging his hand on his table to 'prove' it was there). Unlike Descartes, I don't move up the thought chain and attempt to prove God exists—after all, philosophy once taught me where Descartes's logic fell apart.

That said, I remain agnostic about most metaphysical matters but in no way do I criticize others who hold stronger views—whether they come under the purview of traditional religions or say esoteric number theory. Frankly, I don't know enough about them (except, perhaps some religious training I learned as a child). If pushed however, I reckon I'd likely agree with the saying:

"That there are more things in heaven and on earth than man will ever dream of."

OK, let me roll the metaphysical ball a little further. You correctly took my handle as a reference to that Hilbert although it's a pretty common name. Why is that relevant here? If your knowledge extends as far as mathematical Hilbert spaces and QM then you'd know that much of our knowledge (and perception) of the actual QM world only exists through mathematical analogy. Whilst, we've managed some truly remarkable feats with QM such as being able to measure alpha, the fine structure constant, to an accuracy of about 10 decimal places and use such figures to produce some remarkable engineering, we've only gotten there by cleaver trickery. Our mathematics is not up to the job, we're constantly dodging infinities in QFT and so on. Simply, what actually happens and goes on down there in the quantum realm is anyone's guess. For all intents and purposes the real quantum world may as well be metaphysical.

BTW, Being and Nothingness and No Exit (Huis clos) and related material were on the syllabus, so one had to wade through the Book. That's now quite some time ago but I don't recall it being anything other than tedious (perhaps, that was down to the translation).

Given the outrageous political behavior we're witnessing in the world today I reckon No Exit paints a remarkably apt metaphor.

[ctrlp]

Ah metaphysics, can't live with it, can't live without it. I wish I had the depth to join you in a meaningful discussion of abstract geometry but I'm a dilettante when it comes to philosophical math. Instead, I'll only offer a couple of parting observations on until next we meet in the comments section. I'm perhaps in the minority on HN when it comes to how I perceive our political moment. Recent comments I made on the topic will give an idea of my positions, if you care to know them. I like to think they are non-obvious and somewhat well-defended. My philosophical interests are mostly in political philosophy and somewhat in ethics and metaphysics, of necessity. I respectfully disagree with the interpretation that Socrates "demolished" Thrasymachus's arguments. He was a bit of a paper tiger in the dialogue. For my money, Callicles is the dark horse of that section of Republic and Plato doesn't really have a satisfying rebuttal for him. I think philosophy is valuable but it seems relatively easy to run up against epistemological walls in analytic philosophy (or any school, really). Wittgenstein's gnomic turn in the Philosophical Investigations is an example. "About that which we cannot speak, thereof must we remain silent."

Relatedly, the "saying" you referenced is actually a slight misquote from Shakespeare's Hamlet that changes the meaning significantly. It comes from a scene where Hamlet is rejecting his schoolmate Horatio's dependence on naturalist/rationalist explanations for the supernatural appearance of old King Hamlet's ghost. Significantly, they were both students in philosophy! The complete quote is "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

[hilbert42]

[This requires two goes so I hope it works.]

As time is running out to post here there are few points I wish to mention.

Your last reply left some issues dangling and it's clear my comments have left you with an inaccurate view about my position about several matters. Note the problem mainly rests with me for shortcutting explanations, also forums such as HN make it difficult to put complex arguments let alone have them resolve cleanly.

Second thoughts made me post this late comment. Earlier, just after your post, I made three separate attempts at replying but aborted them because of their excessive length. Each time I had to shorten what could easily pass as a multipart blog and before it was finished it'd become clear it was too long and would have bombed out if I'd tried to post it—and that's after I'd deleted the largest part which was about mathematics† and its relationship to/overlap with philosophy. (Editing comment so that it's difficult to misinterpret its contents and still keep it short and succinct is difficult—at least it is for me.)

You're probably asking why I would commit so much effort to reply to a comment. There are many reasons and I can't mention them all but I've extracted and précised a few from the longer draft. Perhaps the most significant reason is that whenever I've made a general comment that lacks detail or references there are always those who either misinterpret the message or use its limitations to lever their contrary position.

There's nothing wrong with protagonists leveraging their propositions but in any discussion it makes sense to put one's points as clear and as succinctly as possible. With mathematics and science/technology putting one's case is comparatively straightforward as equations and accepted facts (scientific evidence/the scientific method) provide a solid framework from which to state one's case. In physics, whilst opinions often differ wildly and despite controversies such as the relevance of the Scientific Method and Popper's Falsifiability/Refutability rage on, consensus is often reached even if it takes decades. There comes the realization the properties of nature are immutable, Nature doesn't give a damn about physicists' opinions. Physicists can't argue when Nature says m(e) = ~9.10938371393×10^−31 kg. In the end it's no-contest, Nature's position always wins out.

On the orher hand, things are rather different with philosophy for multiple reasons. With philosophy a wide and diverse range of opinions are to be expected due to its inherent nature and structure. In short, philosophical concepts are usually founded on earlier frameworks which of themselves have no universally-accepted 'truths'. Moreover, with philosophy, linguistics, semantics and even its epistemological underpinnings—the theory of knowledge—continue to be subject of argument. In Principia Ethica G.E. Moore questions the foundations of ethics. One can't put a measure on "good", similarly, one can't explain or convey a sense of "yellow" to someone who's been blind from birth. In his books Language, Truth, and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge A. J. Ayer continues in a similar vein to the effect that sentences about ethics and ethical constructs are more emotional than propositional.

And these issues are still being debated. Simply, if one can't anchor and measure a "notion" or "concept" then one's pretty well stuffed to define it as an axiom. That's not to say we should give up worrying about ethics, as you'd know we don't. You'd also note that arguments about these matters get very messy.

It's clear my roots are anchored in the analytical tradition. And from what you've mentioned, the factors that have shaped your philosophical views are based more on metaphysical lines, thus I doubt you and I would ever fully agree on certain topics. There's nothing wrong with that and it's to be expected. That's how philosophy works in practice and it's always worked that way (except perhaps in some parts of analytical philosophy such as formal logic which is more akin to mathematics).

That there's a wide divergence of opinion over philosophical matters is an important aspect of philosophy as it shapes the way the discipline is conducted in practice, it's also a weakness. I've had to omit detailed discussion about that here but it has an important bearing on these comments. Human factors shape one's worldview and here our worldviews are different—they've not only shaped what we've commented upon but also they've influenced the emphasis we've placed on what we've said.

Some HN stories are such that comments have a clearly defined focus and that attracts those of a certain ilk, they pinpoint and confine comments to within narrow bands. In those situations I'll do likewise. However, that's not the situation with most stories on HN it's why I assume a general audience, I thus take the position that participants hold a broad spectrum of views—from those with little or no understanding of the issues through to experts and professionals.

The quandry is how best to respond, there's always the dilemma of how to best pitch my post, and my usual solution is to write to the LCD on grounds that everybody will understand what I've written.

I'm mindful to keep comments short and at a high-level (thus they lack rigor). That's the intention but all too frequently I'll get bogged down in detail. Also, short and simple replies sans detail come with the advantage that they'll capture more readers (very few ever read long posts, I know from experience).

Unfortunately, the shortcomings of a simplistic, overly-general comment invites criticism from the cognoscente. Here, I'm reminded of the parable Try to please all and you'll please none. Moreover, commenting on political and philosophical topics is to enter a minefield, one cops it from all directions—broad sweeping generalizations are criticized for having no depth, more involved comments (especially those without strong supporting evidence) attract those with contrary views who attack the lack of rigor, and long detailed analyzes are rarely read.

Essentially, when discussing these topics one can't win. I'll use your posts to illustrate the problem.

I'll start with how utilitarianism entered the discussion, The HN story wasn't directly about philosophy but rather "The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised", which raised a valid social concern that a section of society would be disadvantaged if apps predominated and "…all the brick and mortar close."

The retort to that was "Look at it this way: should the rest of us with smartphones pay for that bank office?", which is both a valid argument and an-all-too-common response from those who don't think they've a social obligation and responsibly to help pay for or support society's disadvantaged (this is far from an isolated example).

My response implied the matter was of ethical concern and that social responsibility was an issue, thus one would need to examine the history and I said many (but not all) issues could be found in utilitarian concepts (which is fact). My comment was of a general nature and in keeping with the granularity of the story and that's when things came off the rails. Your attack on my general comment about utilitarianism sidetracked the key issue. I'm not deliberately singling you out for criticism but I'd contend that what happened here is typical and a commonplace problem on the web and social media.

Whether I was precicely correct or not in my comment about utilitarianism oughtn't have been an issue because its intention was clear—that about social responsibly and that its history that goes back several hundred years is important for context.

BTW, as I alluded to in my subsequent post, I was well aware utilitarian principles are hotly contested. What i didn't point out was that the curriculum that I'd studied under spent an inordinate amount time on utilitarianism (too much in my opinion), thus I'm reasonably acquainted with its issues and variations/derivatives. One matter I should have mentioned is that when putting a measure on utilitarianism and valuing its worth in the context of political philosophy one finds large differences of opinion exist between populations (especially so in past decades). Where I live, there was a time when almost every utility was run by government and the majority of the population would have been aghast if it had not been the situation (perhaps that's why our curriculum covered it in such detail). For obvious reasons, utilitarian concepts hold much less sway in the US. ...

[defrost]

In general (there are exceptions) most adhere to the broader set of consequentialism of which utilitarianism is one form of.

A number would say that ethics and morality are subjective and not objective and thus an attempt to apply a utilitarian metric or measure of "good" along with a (partial?) ordering such as "greatest good" is a doomed endeavour.

Few would deny that from this, that would follow (for some specific values of this 'n that).

[hilbert42]

I'd essentially agree with that summary.