Две беседы про этику. 1. Музыка или физика?
http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/177660.html#comments
D. B неживой природе - воля Б-га - точнее, наше понимание ее и способность ей следовать - выясняются физикой - и никакие поползновения моего сердца, никакие священные книги не могут служить альтернативным источником. То же самое в этике. Все смутные поползновения, внутренние голоса - ересь. Воля Б-га - в той мере, в какой она нам доступна - лучшая на сегодняшний день этическая теория.
S. Why do we have ethics theory at all? Perhaps for the same reason we have music theory. Music is not music theory. Not all people are receptive to music, but the majority of people appreciate it. While many people say they love music, few of them can make it well or even at all. Even fewer of them can hear playing it in their heads, and let the others know the harmonies that they've heard. This music is written down, and we play it over and over again. Music theory is not the theory of where music comes from - or what it means. It formalizes the laws of music with regard to itself, but even this internal structure only generalizes music playing inside people's heads. Music theory sufficies for entering the world of music as a novice, rather than reaching its pinnacles.
D. Tут главный вопрос - на что больше похожа этика - на физику или на музыку. Eсли на музыку, вы правы - музыкальная теория есть просто почти ненужный придаток, если на физику - то вы неправы - ибо в физике физическая теория и есть физика, ее основное содержание. почему больше на физику? страшно даже представить себе, что было бы, если бы в своих действиях человек руководствовался этически-музыкальной интуицией. Tакой человек описан у Hицше и у Pуссо.
S. My music tastes are old fashioned; the line is drawn at Mozart. I like contapuntal music. So the music that I like best is precisely from the period when music was still considered to be applied mathematics. The chasm between music and physics that you invoke - I do not feel it at all. It is two complementary ways of thinking about the world, each based on its own harmonies. Music and physics are not meant to be different things, it is one entity that was separated by tone-deaf, science-deaf people, like Nietzche and Rousseau. Ethics is also there, in this true unity.
The Scripture is this music crystallized; made into words and illustrated with poetry, history, and lore. I learn from it that I am not alone. The music has been heard before, by people that have better ear for this music than mine. But this transcribed music and the rules of composition that it dictates are not the same thing as composing music or inventing new physics. The rules can decide whether the tone is harmonius; they cannot produce a harmonious tone; moreover, sometimes music demands atonality and syncopation. The rules exist to develop ear; much like the purpose of physical theory is in developing of physical intuition. This intuition is more important than any physical theory, as it is creative. May be it is scary to imagine ethics being like music, but best physics is also like music.
D. B физике еще маленькое условие - надо чтобы экспериментам удовлетворяло и что-то объясняло, а в этике - чтобы не было кровавой бани и газовых камер...
S. So it's in ethics: I need to be absolutely certain that everyone hears the same music.
D. Bы уже сделали первый маленький шажок от мелодии к теории. В музыке никаких подобных требований нет. Есть конечно пожелание, чтобы все слышали одно и то же, но в определении музыки это не заложено. В этике же - в самом определении есть идея, что все слышат одно и то же. Вообще, из-за чего вам недостаточно требования, чтобы не было кровавой бани?
S. Because that's just the extreme case of a more general pattern. Only a handful of ethical systems are compatible with long term survival, and even fewer are compatible with civilization. When it comes to "preventing" the bloodbath, it is usually too late to be prevented. One operates over a span of time where causes and effects are separated by hundreds or thousands of years, and these connections are complex and nontrivial. Observing these causes and effects is already problematic; rationalizing these connections is still more problematic. We have some idea what works, but we do not have access to countless abortive experiments, because all we have left of these experiments is bones in the desert. Moral experiments that are conducted today tend to become even shorter ordeals, collapsing faster than the utopias are erected.
Ethics, among other things, is rationality of our existence and, in this sense, it is law as objective as the laws of physics. This inherent rationality of all existence is the same as the Divine will, so it cannot be omitted from the conversation. The alternatives can be chosen freely, but those lead to annihilation. The collapse can be slow or dramatic, but the end is the same. Human mind is incapable of parsing through complex causes and effects stretched over long periods of time, and so it is not arriving on its own steam at the principles underlying these causes and effects. But inhuman mind can - and goodness finds a way of sharing these insights. How that is done is a separate matter; we do not need to go into the mechanics. The important thing is that the normative character of ethics follows from the objective truth of one's accurate knowledge of humanity, which is greater than any knowledge that we ourselves produce. In the same sense, your genes "know" more about yourself than you know of thyself.
There is nothing obvious about the commandments. It always appeared that cutting corners would be an easier way to live. On the scale of individual human life, the advantages of strictly following these commandments accrue too slowly to be recognized. It is like the question, where babies come from. If you know the answer, retrospectively it makes a lot of sense. Yet no one I know arrived at this answer on their own steam. No one around me arrived at the idea of following the commandments on their own steam, too. The best proof of that is that neither the benefit of hindsight nor witnessing of a bloodbath have prevented another one from coming. Arriving at these principles by contemplation seems impossible. What amount of observation do you need to conclude that, say, idol worshipping ALWAYS ends badly? Really? Why always? What if one worships free markets instead of the Mammon?
Too many possibilities present themselves for trial and error. No one composes music through trial and error.
D. B неживой природе - воля Б-га - точнее, наше понимание ее и способность ей следовать - выясняются физикой - и никакие поползновения моего сердца, никакие священные книги не могут служить альтернативным источником. То же самое в этике. Все смутные поползновения, внутренние голоса - ересь. Воля Б-га - в той мере, в какой она нам доступна - лучшая на сегодняшний день этическая теория.
S. Why do we have ethics theory at all? Perhaps for the same reason we have music theory. Music is not music theory. Not all people are receptive to music, but the majority of people appreciate it. While many people say they love music, few of them can make it well or even at all. Even fewer of them can hear playing it in their heads, and let the others know the harmonies that they've heard. This music is written down, and we play it over and over again. Music theory is not the theory of where music comes from - or what it means. It formalizes the laws of music with regard to itself, but even this internal structure only generalizes music playing inside people's heads. Music theory sufficies for entering the world of music as a novice, rather than reaching its pinnacles.
D. Tут главный вопрос - на что больше похожа этика - на физику или на музыку. Eсли на музыку, вы правы - музыкальная теория есть просто почти ненужный придаток, если на физику - то вы неправы - ибо в физике физическая теория и есть физика, ее основное содержание. почему больше на физику? страшно даже представить себе, что было бы, если бы в своих действиях человек руководствовался этически-музыкальной интуицией. Tакой человек описан у Hицше и у Pуссо.
S. My music tastes are old fashioned; the line is drawn at Mozart. I like contapuntal music. So the music that I like best is precisely from the period when music was still considered to be applied mathematics. The chasm between music and physics that you invoke - I do not feel it at all. It is two complementary ways of thinking about the world, each based on its own harmonies. Music and physics are not meant to be different things, it is one entity that was separated by tone-deaf, science-deaf people, like Nietzche and Rousseau. Ethics is also there, in this true unity.
The Scripture is this music crystallized; made into words and illustrated with poetry, history, and lore. I learn from it that I am not alone. The music has been heard before, by people that have better ear for this music than mine. But this transcribed music and the rules of composition that it dictates are not the same thing as composing music or inventing new physics. The rules can decide whether the tone is harmonius; they cannot produce a harmonious tone; moreover, sometimes music demands atonality and syncopation. The rules exist to develop ear; much like the purpose of physical theory is in developing of physical intuition. This intuition is more important than any physical theory, as it is creative. May be it is scary to imagine ethics being like music, but best physics is also like music.
D. B физике еще маленькое условие - надо чтобы экспериментам удовлетворяло и что-то объясняло, а в этике - чтобы не было кровавой бани и газовых камер...
S. So it's in ethics: I need to be absolutely certain that everyone hears the same music.
D. Bы уже сделали первый маленький шажок от мелодии к теории. В музыке никаких подобных требований нет. Есть конечно пожелание, чтобы все слышали одно и то же, но в определении музыки это не заложено. В этике же - в самом определении есть идея, что все слышат одно и то же. Вообще, из-за чего вам недостаточно требования, чтобы не было кровавой бани?
S. Because that's just the extreme case of a more general pattern. Only a handful of ethical systems are compatible with long term survival, and even fewer are compatible with civilization. When it comes to "preventing" the bloodbath, it is usually too late to be prevented. One operates over a span of time where causes and effects are separated by hundreds or thousands of years, and these connections are complex and nontrivial. Observing these causes and effects is already problematic; rationalizing these connections is still more problematic. We have some idea what works, but we do not have access to countless abortive experiments, because all we have left of these experiments is bones in the desert. Moral experiments that are conducted today tend to become even shorter ordeals, collapsing faster than the utopias are erected.
Ethics, among other things, is rationality of our existence and, in this sense, it is law as objective as the laws of physics. This inherent rationality of all existence is the same as the Divine will, so it cannot be omitted from the conversation. The alternatives can be chosen freely, but those lead to annihilation. The collapse can be slow or dramatic, but the end is the same. Human mind is incapable of parsing through complex causes and effects stretched over long periods of time, and so it is not arriving on its own steam at the principles underlying these causes and effects. But inhuman mind can - and goodness finds a way of sharing these insights. How that is done is a separate matter; we do not need to go into the mechanics. The important thing is that the normative character of ethics follows from the objective truth of one's accurate knowledge of humanity, which is greater than any knowledge that we ourselves produce. In the same sense, your genes "know" more about yourself than you know of thyself.
There is nothing obvious about the commandments. It always appeared that cutting corners would be an easier way to live. On the scale of individual human life, the advantages of strictly following these commandments accrue too slowly to be recognized. It is like the question, where babies come from. If you know the answer, retrospectively it makes a lot of sense. Yet no one I know arrived at this answer on their own steam. No one around me arrived at the idea of following the commandments on their own steam, too. The best proof of that is that neither the benefit of hindsight nor witnessing of a bloodbath have prevented another one from coming. Arriving at these principles by contemplation seems impossible. What amount of observation do you need to conclude that, say, idol worshipping ALWAYS ends badly? Really? Why always? What if one worships free markets instead of the Mammon?
Too many possibilities present themselves for trial and error. No one composes music through trial and error.