The Problem, and note on Intellectual Property.
The problem is that our reasoning, or rather the act of concluding, is binary when our concepts are not. Calculating over typicality and other gradients is beyond our capacity!
No, that is not the problem. We can build concepts for whom membership is a binary property, really. But real world categories are not binary--if they exist at all, it is as ghosts of correlation. That is the problem.
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I wanted to form a conclusion about Intellectual Property, but it is so illusive. Amazingly, there seem to be no biological moral stances that overwhelm the discussion! Compared with the instincts for ownership or rights over material property, intellectual property instincts are flimsy, and countered often by impassioned demands to liberate all information. "Information wants to be free," they say.
Amazingly, the debate over IP is a serious human moral dilemma that transcends our evolutionary history. Cavemen don't need copyrights, nomads don't want patents. For once in public policy debate, we are biologically free to be completely and utterly pragmatic, and convince ourselves totally of our conclusions!
My frustration is that when faced with just such an opportunity, all the normal methods of analysis are failing me. There are ill-defined goals, reasonable arguments on all sides, and complicated trade offs to consider. I may be pessimistic, but I can see only two possible options at this point: total indeterminacy due to a lack of a goal function (no justified measure of success), or the terrifying and tedious hunt for optimality on a case-by-case basis on which we must result, once again, not to crusade, but to endless and grey research.
The problem: Our only way up (and out) requires us to go against our natures.
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Also, I am sick with envy towards political science and art majors.
No, that is not the problem. We can build concepts for whom membership is a binary property, really. But real world categories are not binary--if they exist at all, it is as ghosts of correlation. That is the problem.
---
I wanted to form a conclusion about Intellectual Property, but it is so illusive. Amazingly, there seem to be no biological moral stances that overwhelm the discussion! Compared with the instincts for ownership or rights over material property, intellectual property instincts are flimsy, and countered often by impassioned demands to liberate all information. "Information wants to be free," they say.
Amazingly, the debate over IP is a serious human moral dilemma that transcends our evolutionary history. Cavemen don't need copyrights, nomads don't want patents. For once in public policy debate, we are biologically free to be completely and utterly pragmatic, and convince ourselves totally of our conclusions!
My frustration is that when faced with just such an opportunity, all the normal methods of analysis are failing me. There are ill-defined goals, reasonable arguments on all sides, and complicated trade offs to consider. I may be pessimistic, but I can see only two possible options at this point: total indeterminacy due to a lack of a goal function (no justified measure of success), or the terrifying and tedious hunt for optimality on a case-by-case basis on which we must result, once again, not to crusade, but to endless and grey research.
The problem: Our only way up (and out) requires us to go against our natures.
---
Also, I am sick with envy towards political science and art majors.