> Condorcet Paradox: a special instance of Simpson’s paradox applied to elections, in which a populace prefers candidate A to candidate B, candidate B to C, and yet candidate C to A. This occurs because the majority that favors C is misleadingly divided among different groups.
I found this really interesting because I have never thought of a Condorcet Loop, or a Smith Set, in the context of Simpson's Paradox before.
I've also enjoyed Judea Pearl's points about how Simpsons Paradox scenarios sometimes don't even have a correct interpretation until you are clear about what your assumptions are and what you are trying to measure.
I've always suspected that the Smith Set might just mean that the electorate isn't ready to decide yet, and that another round of elections might be warranted, but it's interesting to consider that a Smith Set might also give clues on what questions to ask to better determine the winner.
A Condorcet loop can happen if different parts of the electorate values different things. E.g. some people value foreign policy experience, other people value integrity, and yet other people value left vs right. Going from a foreign policy experience ranking to an integrity ranking to an economic ranking can take you around the loop.
But how would the electorate come to a conclusion about which issue is most important? The Condorcet loop could be fundamental to the voters' opinions.
> When many simple objects interact with each other, they can form a system that has qualities that the objects themselves don’t. Examples: neurons creating consciousness
There are no evidence that neurons create consciousness. For all we know neurons are receivers of consciousness.
That's not really oversimplification though, it's more like making an assumption. But I agree that it's a minor point. I mainly brought it up in my other comment in this thread because the topic of consciousness fascinates me.
I know that the examples are supposed to broadly exemplify the concept but imo that doesn't justify using statements that have no scientific backing. So we have to agree to disagree on that one.
eg: Nirvana fallacy assumes socialism is unattainable when many of the best parts of existing society are socialist (public health/education/legal aid, many small businesses, self employed people, large co-ops, credit unions, etc).
edit: Mostly The Nirvana Fallacy is itself a meta-fallacy, as most of the time it's used to justify things being shit by accusing the proposed alternative of being utopian (the sub-fallacy). I seem to remember George Orwell wrote a large part of an essay dedicated to how totalitarianism relies upon such fallacies ('pragmatism', 'realist', etc)
Those are interesting points to start understanding a gist of trend in how the world works, but more importantly would be to use these concepts to help us break out of them.
For instance, the Belief Bias can easily apply to any one of us. How can we use the awareness that we are subject to such bias to break out of it?
I mean in retrospect, when for instance I read old comments of mine I get really this odd feeling that someone else completely wrote that. How could I force break out of this?
Wonderful essay, one of the best such compilations I've read. I see myself engaging in many of these thought patterns.
I'll add one in the spirit of "none of us are perfect"...
>..neurons creating consciousness...
Is an example of something I see frequently - otherwise very smart people who assume that consciousness is just an emergent property of physical matter and who ignore the hard problem of consciousness.
This is one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever read on HN. There are at least a dozen things to address there, but, for one, going by this and the rest of your post history, it seems that smart people are only smart when they believe things you believe (i.e. mysticism over materialism).
If you keep an open mind and look into the literature you might agree that the methods of Science are more about organizing human experience than what things including Reality actually are. The job of science is to reveal more and more about the nature of reality, but we can only describe what we experience. Materialistic monism has been successful in some ways but is ultimately inadequate as a metaphysical position.
I think that I am not a mystic if by mysticism you mean something like "forsaking logic and science for delusion".
I am a mystic, however, in the sense that while I have enormous respect for logic and scientific method, and I am usually one of the most scientific-minded and skeptical people in whatever environment I am in, I do not assume that science is capable of solving all mysteries of reality.
I see no contradiction between physics, on the one hand, and thinking that consciousness may be irreducible to physics, on the other hand.
There is no reason to assume that the nature of consciousness is in principle accessible to scientific investigation.
It may be that there is some fundamental limit that prevents us conscious beings from grasping the nature of consciousness - and that's if there is anything to grasp in the first place. Maybe consciousness is essentially axiomatic and irreducible.
I have loved science since I was young, but to assume that everything about reality is accessible to scientific inquiry and/or physical explanation is dogmatic, unscientific.
You've made multiple comments saying "otherwise smart people" are revealed to be momentarily non-smart when it comes to believing in materialism and that, oh well, "none of us are perfect". Even if you disagree with materialism, calling a material view of consciousness "dumb" and incompatible with intelligent thinking just seems petty, obstinate, and extremely arrogant.
You said that emergence of consciousness ignores the hard problem of consciousness, which isn't necessarily true at all. Consciousness could be an emergent property of physical matter and there could still be a hard problem of consciousness. Some believe there is no real hard problem of consciousness, but that's another matter.
You said that "otherwise very smart people who assume that consciousness is just an emergent property of physical matter", as if this is something they haven't thought about very carefully for decades, and as if this is at all a settled problem. No one on Earth knows exactly how consciousness comes about; not you or them. Acting with certainty that it must be immaterial is just as bad as the inverse.
In science, the burden of proof is on the claim-maker. The logic that "it's dumb to assume that what we currently know about the universe can be responsible for anything we see in the universe" is backwards. The onus is on you or others to suggest what else there may be beyond the physical universe. Otherwise, yes, we should assume that consciousness is an emergent property as a default position, until we learn about some other mechanism which it could possibly result from.
>It may be that there is some fundamental limit that prevents us conscious beings from grasping the nature of consciousness - and that's if there is anything to grasp in the first place. Maybe consciousness is essentially axiomatic and irreducible.
It may be. Or it may not be. What is your evidence for, or theory of, how it may not be? Also, even if it were essentially axiomatic and irreducible, how would that necessarily make it incompatible with physics and a material, physical universe? Both could be true.
>to assume that everything about reality is accessible to scientific inquiry and/or physical explanation is dogmatic, unscientific
I think this is using the wrong language. It's not a matter of "assume", but a matter of abiding by the scientific method. No, I don't assume that science can explain absolutely everything in the universe, but if you think it can't, there needs to be a theory or evidence of why. If there is no reason to think you can't, then the onus is on you to come up with reasons. Instead of saying "assume", you should say the null hypothesis. At this time, the null hypothesis is that everything in the universe, including animal consciousness, is entirely physical in nature. The null hypothesis may be beaten by an alternative hypothesis at some point, but so far, there are no testable alternative hypotheses that I know of.
You could say "to assume that scientific inquiry can accurately say anything about the existence of ghosts is dogmatic and unscientific". You could say it about God or ESP as well. But, again, it's reverse logic. What's scientific is following the scientific method: coming up with testable hypotheses, and testing them. If you aren't doing that, or can't, then you're the one acting unscientifically. You shouldn't assume that science can say anything about these things, but until you provide theories or evidence that 1) these things may exist, and 2) science can't say anything about them, then you shouldn't assume the opposite, either. You should remain completely agnostic, but default to the null hypothesis. Defaulting to the null hypothesis isn't the same thing as assuming the null hypothesis is true. Maybe for some philosophical definition of the word "assume", but not the way we use it in typi...
I don't necessarily assume, but I do believe, that consciousness is an artifact of the complex system of our brains, or any thinking-system-with-a-serious-representation-of-itself. I take umbrage with possibly being considered therefore to be "ignoring the hard problem of consciousness."
But more interestingly, I wonder if this has a connection to the recent "internal monologue" meme? Perhaps those of us who don't have much inner speech tend to discount the importance of the consciousness question, and those of us with strong inner speech tend to amplify the importance of consciousness?
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 51.5 ms ] threadI found this really interesting because I have never thought of a Condorcet Loop, or a Smith Set, in the context of Simpson's Paradox before.
I've also enjoyed Judea Pearl's points about how Simpsons Paradox scenarios sometimes don't even have a correct interpretation until you are clear about what your assumptions are and what you are trying to measure.
I've always suspected that the Smith Set might just mean that the electorate isn't ready to decide yet, and that another round of elections might be warranted, but it's interesting to consider that a Smith Set might also give clues on what questions to ask to better determine the winner.
But how would the electorate come to a conclusion about which issue is most important? The Condorcet loop could be fundamental to the voters' opinions.
There are no evidence that neurons create consciousness. For all we know neurons are receivers of consciousness.
You shouldn't pick out these examples, they are supposed to broadly exemplify the concept.
eg: Nirvana fallacy assumes socialism is unattainable when many of the best parts of existing society are socialist (public health/education/legal aid, many small businesses, self employed people, large co-ops, credit unions, etc).
edit: Mostly The Nirvana Fallacy is itself a meta-fallacy, as most of the time it's used to justify things being shit by accusing the proposed alternative of being utopian (the sub-fallacy). I seem to remember George Orwell wrote a large part of an essay dedicated to how totalitarianism relies upon such fallacies ('pragmatism', 'realist', etc)
For instance, the Belief Bias can easily apply to any one of us. How can we use the awareness that we are subject to such bias to break out of it?
I mean in retrospect, when for instance I read old comments of mine I get really this odd feeling that someone else completely wrote that. How could I force break out of this?
I'll add one in the spirit of "none of us are perfect"...
>..neurons creating consciousness...
Is an example of something I see frequently - otherwise very smart people who assume that consciousness is just an emergent property of physical matter and who ignore the hard problem of consciousness.
I am a mystic, however, in the sense that while I have enormous respect for logic and scientific method, and I am usually one of the most scientific-minded and skeptical people in whatever environment I am in, I do not assume that science is capable of solving all mysteries of reality.
I see no contradiction between physics, on the one hand, and thinking that consciousness may be irreducible to physics, on the other hand.
There is no reason to assume that the nature of consciousness is in principle accessible to scientific investigation.
It may be that there is some fundamental limit that prevents us conscious beings from grasping the nature of consciousness - and that's if there is anything to grasp in the first place. Maybe consciousness is essentially axiomatic and irreducible.
I have loved science since I was young, but to assume that everything about reality is accessible to scientific inquiry and/or physical explanation is dogmatic, unscientific.
You said that emergence of consciousness ignores the hard problem of consciousness, which isn't necessarily true at all. Consciousness could be an emergent property of physical matter and there could still be a hard problem of consciousness. Some believe there is no real hard problem of consciousness, but that's another matter.
You said that "otherwise very smart people who assume that consciousness is just an emergent property of physical matter", as if this is something they haven't thought about very carefully for decades, and as if this is at all a settled problem. No one on Earth knows exactly how consciousness comes about; not you or them. Acting with certainty that it must be immaterial is just as bad as the inverse.
In science, the burden of proof is on the claim-maker. The logic that "it's dumb to assume that what we currently know about the universe can be responsible for anything we see in the universe" is backwards. The onus is on you or others to suggest what else there may be beyond the physical universe. Otherwise, yes, we should assume that consciousness is an emergent property as a default position, until we learn about some other mechanism which it could possibly result from.
>It may be that there is some fundamental limit that prevents us conscious beings from grasping the nature of consciousness - and that's if there is anything to grasp in the first place. Maybe consciousness is essentially axiomatic and irreducible.
It may be. Or it may not be. What is your evidence for, or theory of, how it may not be? Also, even if it were essentially axiomatic and irreducible, how would that necessarily make it incompatible with physics and a material, physical universe? Both could be true.
>to assume that everything about reality is accessible to scientific inquiry and/or physical explanation is dogmatic, unscientific
I think this is using the wrong language. It's not a matter of "assume", but a matter of abiding by the scientific method. No, I don't assume that science can explain absolutely everything in the universe, but if you think it can't, there needs to be a theory or evidence of why. If there is no reason to think you can't, then the onus is on you to come up with reasons. Instead of saying "assume", you should say the null hypothesis. At this time, the null hypothesis is that everything in the universe, including animal consciousness, is entirely physical in nature. The null hypothesis may be beaten by an alternative hypothesis at some point, but so far, there are no testable alternative hypotheses that I know of.
You could say "to assume that scientific inquiry can accurately say anything about the existence of ghosts is dogmatic and unscientific". You could say it about God or ESP as well. But, again, it's reverse logic. What's scientific is following the scientific method: coming up with testable hypotheses, and testing them. If you aren't doing that, or can't, then you're the one acting unscientifically. You shouldn't assume that science can say anything about these things, but until you provide theories or evidence that 1) these things may exist, and 2) science can't say anything about them, then you shouldn't assume the opposite, either. You should remain completely agnostic, but default to the null hypothesis. Defaulting to the null hypothesis isn't the same thing as assuming the null hypothesis is true. Maybe for some philosophical definition of the word "assume", but not the way we use it in typi...
But more interestingly, I wonder if this has a connection to the recent "internal monologue" meme? Perhaps those of us who don't have much inner speech tend to discount the importance of the consciousness question, and those of us with strong inner speech tend to amplify the importance of consciousness?