-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Robert Cordingley wrote: > re: important point 1. It is easier for me to see/say that it is > _unethical_ to _not_ lend some assistance to deprived segments in order > to improve their lot. Reduce the segment to one deprived human being > that you pass in the street. There are may variables in the encounter: > one's schedule, feeling of well-being, attire of the unfortunate being > and the urge to extend a helping hand. Where does that come from if not > from one's ethical background.
Exactly! For problems with many variables, _local_ controls are adequate (or even common). An example of a local control would be an individual's ability to regulate how much "spare change" they hand to a transient based on the measurements they take in context. An example of a non-local control would be, e.g., banning all transients from the city of Santa Cruz. In the first case, the individual gets to handle it all, including how much money (resources) is doled out, whether the subject is a "transient", the attire of the subject, how much spare change is available in the individual's pocket or in the subject's can, etc. In the second case, some generic definition of "transient" must be found, some definition of "ban" must be found, some definition of "Santa Cruz" must be found. And these definitions would provide umbrellas for many finer-grained variables. > Where does that come from if not from one's ethical background. This is where the trick lies. Ethical indocrination is sub-group dependent. Let's say I was reared in New York where it is ethically acceptable to ignore transients. Then there are zero problems when I translate to Santa Cruz and ignore transients there (except for the aggressive ones, of course ;-). But, if I were reared in Santa Cruz, where it used to be considered "good" to help homeless people, and I translated to New York, I'd soon be broke from handing out all my cash! This is handled in a non-local way, however. In Santa Cruz and New York, the collective gets together and hammers out policy that somehow embodies the generalized individual ethics of many of the people. But when an individual translates from one context to the other, the non-local control structure changes (the individual's ethics don't... or not as fast, anyway). And the result is dissonance between the individual ethic (local control) and the non-local control structure. Hence, how much money I give to a beggar does NOT merely come from my ethical background; but, it also comes from whatever non-local control structure in which I sit. In places where the homeless are partially taken care of through government sponsored programs, I may choose not to give anything to a transient even though my ethical background would suggest otherwise. > re: important point 2 It wasn't my point to say the labels were > ethically justified but to point out that labels e.g. one being > "libertarian", were not clear cut definitions. One can hold x political > view in some issues and y on others when pedants might object to say > that x and y were incompatible. There may be no ethical dilemma for one > to believe in x and y, though other's may debate it. Right. I did not intend to suggest that you were providing ethical justifications for any given label. But, your list of causal relations between the label and some context points out that justification is important. Not necessarily "ethical justification"... plain old rhetoric. If the justification for a label is not accepted by others, then the justification is _questionable_. This covers your point that the labels are not clear cut. But it also includes situations where the definition is fine but the grammar that leads from one statement to another can be called into question. Sorry for my poor choice of words before. > I thought the "extent of a control structure" and "the number of > objectives" were two attributes of government that your studies, or at > least your thinking, had connected as related through an inverse power > law. Neither needs justifying. I'm probably missing the point or not > familiar with your definition of 'justified'. It's mostly just my _thinking_, not my studies. I don't work in sociology, politics, or any of that. But both measures need justification. A measure of the extent of a control structure could be manipulated to give any sort of answer. So, a concrete measure of extent needs justifying. For example, is it enough to define "extent" in terms of space and time? Can a politician in DC actually write, enforce, or judge actions based on laws governing people in Washington state? Is a law written in 1878 (Posse Comitatus) applicable in 2006? Or is it also necessary to consider some sort of cultural extent as well as spatial and temporal extent? Such rhetoric is "justification". And both measures (extent and number of objectives) require such justification. > re: Q1) "Do non-local control structures exist that regulate many > variables?" - I have no idea, but suggest that getting some agreement > on the definition of the terms of the question may take some time even > if it's possible. Well, as usual, we won't get agreement first then experiment later. It's normally the case that some yahoo just settles on concrete meanings of the terms and does the experiment. If they're a scientist, they tend to also write down their definitions and methods. After several such experiments have been executed and argued about, agreement starts to settle in. > re: Q2) Can particular variables (e.g. hunger) be factored completely > out of the system so that no animal/plant experiences extreme changes in > those > variables? - I'd vote for working towards improvement in the social > variables knowing that absolute success may be beyond us - but wait, > what about small-pox, or death by dinosaur? When you say 'variable' do > you mean 'vector'? But then there are 8 meanings of "vector" in Wiktionary. Yes, we could easily rid the world of Poverty and Hunger (note the capital letters) by ridding the world of humans! (Analogous to the "death by dinosaur".) When I say "variable" I don't tend to mean "vector". But, a "vector" can be a variable and vice versa. For example, "poverty" might be a variable and it (as currently understood) has several components. Hence the modern concept of poverty (or "poverty level") is a vector in a pseudo-mathematical sense. But you can understand my language (if not a path to concreteness ;-) by thinking of variables as scalars. They imply not only a quantification but also a common medium (a space or hyper-space) in which they are embedded. Otherwise, it would be silly to relate them. In the case of something like small-pox, my ethical background tells me that we ought to prevent any further outbreak or transmission of small-pox over the entire globe. And such a non-local control would not violate an IPL between extent and number of objectives. But, my common sense tells me that there's a cost to such prevention. And that cost is not necessarily all in money. For example, what if we only have the resources to feasibly control, say, 10 diseases in this global way? This leads me to consider the pros and cons of small-pox. Of course, were I to make serious attempts to justify (or even hunt for) the good side of the sporadic small-pox epidemic, I would (rightfully) be vilified. So, one can never _seriously_ consider the pros and cons of it. And therein lies the dilemma. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com We think in generalities, but we live in detail. -- Alfred North Whitehead -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG3xnKZeB+vOTnLkoRAm+2AJ0RizrHrPGkgcLP3X7yMieL6Zh2qgCgvoKm 6lOHjlLdiJ2bsAk4/xzxQwY= =0S48 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
