It seems the higher the IQ, the more that one can deceive himself

There are a lot of mistakes about what is going on in physics and in particular philosophers seem to get everything wrong about it. It seems the higher the IQ, the more that one can deceive himself about what reason actually says. Like Rav Nachman said reason reason fools to those that possesses it[. In fact, Einstein never showed that absolute space ether does not exist bur t rather that it is undetectable. And in and an odd way photons and matter are really harmonic oscillators vibrating violin string. Just like Pythagoras held that about the Music of the spheres. What else could that be except vibrating musical instrument. And in fact, the uncertainly principle of Heisenberg really fit in perfectly into the harmonic oscillator equations of some kind of oscillating medium The uncertainty of momentum and position of any particle fits in the standard variation, the average value of a harmonic oscillator. The average value of momentum is equal to the mass times the angular velocity times h bar over 2. The

Debunking Skepticism, At some point, rational people should just disregard everything we have to say about our radical skeptical theories.

Debunking Skepticism Michael Huemer Mar 23 Here, I debunk the debunkers — the moral skeptics.* [ *Based on: “Debunking Skepticism,” in Higher-Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology, ed. Michael Klenk (Routledge, 2020). ] 1. Introduction Moral skeptics argue that either there aren’t any moral facts, or there are but we don’t know them. Why? Because our mechanisms for forming moral beliefs are not reliably truth-directed. Two sub-arguments: a) Our moral intuitions are produced by something that is insensitive to moral truth, like natural selection, or the cultural traditions we happened to be born under. b) There is so much disagreement among moral judgments that we have to conclude that humans can’t reliably judge morality. I suggest that there are similar arguments debunking skepticism itself: skeptical beliefs are produced by unreliable processes that produce lots of disagreement. 2. Skeptics Are Unreliable 2.1. Philosophers’ General Skeptical Leaning Philosophers as a group have an extreme skeptical leaning, compared to people from other disciplines. For virtually anything that philosophers talk about (not just morality), one of the leading philosophical theories will be an extreme form of skepticism. This is not true of any other field of study that I know of. E.g., among chemists, a leading theory is not that there are no chemicals or that we know nothing about them. Among geologists, there is no theory that anyone takes seriously that says there are no rocks. Among art historians, a major view isn’t that there is no art or that it has no history. But among epistemologists, a leading theory is that there is no knowledge. Among ethicists, a major theory is that there is no right or wrong. When philosophers theorize about free will, someone is going to say that there is no such thing; when we talk about beauty, someone will say there is no beauty; when we talk about time, someone will say it isn’t real; etc. Basically, for anything that philosophers talk about, some of us are going to pipe up and propose that that thing “isn’t real”, or that we know literally nothing about it. Of course, these radical skeptical positions are usually small minority views. Nevertheless, the profession takes them seriously and spends a lot of time discussing them, as no one in any other discipline would do. 2.2. When Beliefs Are Open to Bias What kinds of beliefs are most susceptible to being influenced by bias? Here are some: Beliefs based on abstract reflection, rather than observation, scientific study, etc. Beliefs stated in vague terms rather than precise terms. Beliefs that rely on empirical speculation. Beliefs that are ideologically significant. Beliefs that require high-level judgment calls, e.g., weighing up complex bodies of evidence. I assume it’s obvious why each of those types of belief would be relatively easily influenced by bias. Notice that moral skepticism, or the premises of the arguments for it, have all five of these traits. (Examples of 3: the claim that moral beliefs are adaptations; specific evolutionary explanations for specific moral beliefs.) So moral skepticism and the arguments for it are exactly the type of belief and argument that we would expect to be easily influenced by bias, should someone have a pro-skeptic bias. 2.3. Sources of Pro-Skeptical Bias Why might philosophers have a skeptical bias? There are many reasons. I can’t list them all; here are a few: Some people have an abnormal fear of being duped, which they express by taking extreme skeptical philosophical stances. Some people get a sense of superiority and cleverness, or a pleasurable feeling of rebelliousness, from “debunking” the beliefs of others. Skeptical stances make intellectual life simple and easy. It’s a lot easier to just reject or pretend to doubt X than it is to figure out the actual nature of X. Arguing with others is easier too; just reject every premise that the other person puts forward, or claim to not see why it’s plausible. The profession (academic philosophy) rewards people who give clever defenses of “interesting” positions — which often means surprising and radical positions. Skepticism is perhaps the easiest such position to think of. Those are all about skepticism in general. Now a few about moral skepticism in particular: Many people think that it’s bad to be “judgmental”. The ultimate in not being judgmental is being a skeptic. Many people have succumbed to the ideology of scientism. Since ethics doesn’t sound like “science” (i.e., natural science), the science-worshippers have to reject it. Morality is often inconvenient for us. 2.4. Bias or Virtue? Ok, philosophers are way more skeptical than researchers in any other field. There are two salient explanations: (a) Maybe it stems from philosophers’ intellectual virtues; e.g., perhaps we are more rational, open-minded, and intelligent than other researchers, and maybe these things lead to skepticism because skepticism is correct. (b) Maybe it is a bias, as I’ve been suggesting. Theory (b) is obviously more plausible than (a), for at least 3 reasons. Again, philosophers develop and take seriously radical skeptic theories about virtually everything they look at. If we did it for just one thing (say, morality), it might be plausible to say that that one thing isn’t real or isn’t knowable. But the prior probability that multiple different things that everyone else thinks we obviously know about are all unreal — morality, time, consciousness, free will, numbers, matter, meaning, truth, beauty, causation, epistemic reasons, theoretical entities in science — is near zero. All of those are things that philosophers have rejected, and been taken seriously by other philosophers. The prior that skepticism is a reasonable position for multiple of those things is much lower than the prior that philosophers have a general bias toward skepticism. Philosophers have taken up forms of skepticism that would impugn the work of all other researchers in all other fields. E.g., inductive skepticism would impugn all work in all the sciences. Therefore, either the skeptical philosophers are being overly skeptical, or everyone else in every other field is insufficiently skeptical. The former is obviously more likely. Skeptics are always telling us that disagreement about X supports skepticism about X. But there is huge disagreement among philosophers about the merits of skeptical theses and argument. This shows that the belief-forming methods that philosophers are using are unreliable. 3. Unreliability Undercuts Skepticism 3.1. The Import of Higher-Order Evidence You might wonder: Why not just directly evaluate the arguments given by moral skeptics? Once we do that, there will be no need to speculate about the psychological infirmities of their authors. The answer is that if there is a pro-skeptical bias among philosophers, then the people evaluating the skeptical arguments are likely to share that bias, and thus our direct evaluation of the skeptical arguments will be unreliable. We need to look at the second-order evidence, which suggests the unreliability of the belief-forming mechanisms leading to skepticism. This, by the way, is perfectly parallel to what the skeptics themselves say about why you shouldn’t just directly evaluate moral propositions and see whether any of them are true. 3.2. Third-Order Evidence Restores Belief What’s the result of becoming skeptical of skepticism itself? Do we just become completely skeptical about everything? Or do we return to our normal beliefs? The answer is the latter. This is the process: a. First, we have prima facie justification for believing certain first-order moral propositions, like “you shouldn’t torture babies”, because these things seem obviously correct and we have no reason (yet) for doubting them. b. Skeptics present second-order evidence that our moral intuitions are unreliable. This undercuts our justification for the 1st-order moral claims. c. Anti-skeptics present third-order evidence that the (alleged) 2nd-order evidence given by the skeptics is unreliable. This undercuts our justification for believing that our moral intuitions are unreliable. With no justification for believing that anymore, we no longer have an undercutting defeater for the 1st-order moral claims. So the 1st-order moral claims are justified again. 4. Objections 4.1. “Philosophers are superior thinkers.” More about the theory mentioned in 2.4 that perhaps philosophers’ tendency to skepticism is due to our being better thinkers: There is at least some reason to think this. E.g., philosophers appear to be on average more open-minded, more rational, clearer-thinking, and more disposed to ask fundamental questions than people in other fields. If philosophers were overall more reliable than other researchers, what would we expect to see? Two things: (a) We’d expect to see philosophers making faster progress than others. (b) We’d expect to see more agreement in philosophy than in other fields. Needless to say, these predictions are the opposite of the truth. So while philosophers may be better thinkers than others in some respects, there is no reason to think we are better at getting to the truth. 4.2. Is Meta-skepticism self-defeating? Some of my arguments suggest that philosophical reasoning in general is unreliable. But that would mean my own reasoning for that conclusion is unreliable, so we should disregard it. But then, we should also disregard the reasoning for disregarding that reasoning, etc. This paradox would confront the view that no philosophical argument provides any justification at all for anything. But that’s a silly view. The paradox doesn’t really confront the moderate view that we should lower our confidence in philosophical arguments, upon learning that philosophers are really unreliable. Moreover, not all philosophical arguments are equally unreliable. We should be especially suspicious of arguments that contradict extremely widely-shared beliefs that we initially would have ascribed very high credence to; follow a more general pattern of arguments that contradict other widely-shared, high-credence beliefs; turn on subjective, speculative, vague, or otherwise unreliable abstract judgments. These are all true of arguments for moral skepticism. They are much less true of the argument, here, for disregarding moral skepticism. 5. Conclusion Appearances can be revealing. A fundamental rule of rationality is to start from the assumption that things are pretty much the way they seem, unless and until you have specific reasons to doubt that. Sometimes, something surprising is the case. If you have a friend who has a conspiracy theory, perhaps you should listen to him — after all, sometimes there are conspiracies! But if your friend repeatedly comes up with conspiracy theories, for virtually everything he thinks about, then at some point, you should just disregard everything he says about these theories. You shouldn’t listen to all the details and try to rebut each specific argument. You should just disregard them wholesale. Philosophy is the friend with a million conspiracy theories. Kant called philosophy “the queen of the sciences,” but perhaps it were better named “the Alex Jones of the sciences.” It’s not one time that philosophers came up with the idea that maybe we’re being radically deceived. It’s every goddamned time we talk about anything. At some point, rational people should just disregard everything we have to say about our radical skeptical theories.

למרות שזה די מובן מאליו, אני חושב שאוכל להזכיר איך הרמב''ם מבין את הגמרא בעמוד י''ט בבא קמא. הרמב''ם לדעתי הכי פשוט. הגמרא אומרת, "אם יש שאלה לגבי אזהרה, זה אומר אוטומטית שאין שינוי". ואז הגמרא הופכת את זה, ואומרת שהשינוי בעצם מוטל בספק. אולם, בצד שאין ספק, חייבת להיות שאלה לגבי אזהרה. הרמב''ם מבין שזה פשוט כדי לשנות את כיוון הסיבתיות. עם זאת, הנחת היסוד עומדת. כלומר לפי הרמב''ם, שאם יש התראה, אין שינוי. לתוספות ההבנה של הגמרא היא כך. אם יש ספק לגבי שינוי, לא יכולה להיות אזהרה. כלומר, שאזהרה ושינוי הם משתנים התלויים זה בזה. אם יש אזהרה על צרורות לפי דרכן הרגילה, חייבת להיות אזהרה גם על שינוי. אם אין שינוי, לא יכולה להיות אזהרה על אזהרה כאשר צרורות מגיעות בדרכן הרגילה------כדאי להזכיר שלרב שך, יש פירוש אחר על הרמב''ם שהוא יותר מתאים לתוספות, אבל לא בדיוק. לפי רב שך, הרמב''ם מבין ששאלות האזהרה או השינוי הן בדיוק אותה שאלה. כלומר, אם אזהרה שייכת, אז יש שינוי. כלומר, נזק ברגל של שור השתנה לנזק על ידי קרן של שור, ולכן אזהרה אוטומטית חלה. אבל אם אזהרה לא חלה, זה אומר שהצרורות נשארות נגזרות של נזק על ידי רגל, ולכן שינוי לא יכול לחול. השינוי חל רק על נזק באמצעות קרן

Even though it is kind of obvious I think I might mention how the רמב’’ם understands the גמרא on page י''ט (that is brought here in my previous blog entry). The רמב’’ם I think is the simplest. The גמרא says, “If there is a question about warning, that automatically implies there is no change.” Then the גמרא turns that around, and says that change is, in fact, in doubt. However, on the side that there is no doubt, there must be a question about warning. The רמב’’ם understands that that is simply in order to change the direction of causation. However, the basic premise stands. That means according to the רמב’’ם, that if there is warning, there can be no change. There can only be doubt about one, or the other. They are variables that are exclusive. To תוספות the understanding of the גמרא is thus. If there is doubt about change, there can be no warning. That is, that warning and change are mutually dependent variables. If there is warning about צרורות according to their regular way, there must be warning about change also. If there is no change., there cannot be warning about warning when צרורות come their normal way.

bava kama page 19. The difference how tosphot and ramban understand the gemara.

Even though it is kind of obvious I think I might mention how the Rambam understands the Gemara on page 19 (that is brought here in my previous blog entry). The Rambam I think is the simplest. The Gemara says, “If there is a question about warning, that automatically implies there is no change.” Then the Gemara turns that around, and says that change is, in fact, in doubt. However, on the side that there is no doubt, there must be a question about warning. The Rambam understands that that is simply in order to change the direction of causation. However, the basic premise stands. That means according to the Rambam, that if there is warning, there can be no change. There can only be doubt about one, or the other. They are variables that are exclusive. To Tosphot the understanding of the Gemara is thus. If there is doubt about change, there can be no warning. That is, that warning and change are mutually dependent variables. If there is warning about pebbles according to their regular way, there must be warning about change also. If there is no change., there cannot be warning about warning when pebbles come their normal way. I might mention thar רב שך has a different interpretation of the רמב''ם that is more in line with תוספות, but not exactly. According to רב שך, the רמב''ם understands the questions of warning or change are exactly the same question. That means, if warning applicable, then there is change. That means damage by foot of an ox has changed to damage by horn of an ox, and so automatically warning is applicable. But if warning does not apply, that means that צרורות remain a derivative of damage by foot, and therefore change can not apply. Change is only applicable to damage by horn.]

אני חושב שה רמב''ם (ניזקי ממון פרק ב' הלכות ה' ו') סובר שלא יכולים להיות שלושה מיני תשלום עבור צרורות לתנא אחד, וכך הוא מבין את הגמרא על דפים י''ח וי''ט בבא קמא. זאת אומרת שיכול להיות חצי נזק ורביעי; או חצי ושלם, אבל לא שלושתם. כדי להסביר למה אני מתכוון אביא את הגמרא בדף י''ט. שם רב אשי שאל אם יכול להיות שינוי עבור צרורות להוריד את התשלום מחצי לרביע. הגמרא מציע שנוכל לדעת זאת משאלת רבא אם יכולה להיות אזהרה לצרורות? הגמרא אומרת כיון שזו שאלה לרבא, ולכן לא יכול להיות שינוי לרביע. (זו בעיה כי לרב אשי היה ספק אם השינוי שייך. אם התשובה פשוטה לא הייתה לו שאלה). אז גמרא מציע שאולי רבא התכוון לומר שאם אין שינוי, אז חייבת להיות שאלה אם ניתן להפעיל אזהרה. (כלומר לא שאין שינוי בוודאות. אלא אולי יש שינוי, ולכן אין לנו שאלה לגבי אזהרה. או שאולי לא יש שינוי, ולכן יש שאלה לגבי אזהרה.) אפשר לסכם את הגמרא הזו כך. אם יש שאלה לגבי אזהרה, השינוי אינו שייך. כְּלוֹמַר. השאלה לגבי האזהרה גורמת לכך שאין שינוי. ואז הגמרא הופכת את זה, ואומרת אם אין שינוי, צריכה להיות שאלה לגבי אזהרה. כלומר שחץ הסיבתיות מסובב. אבל מכל מקום, הרמב''ם מוטרד תחילה מאותה שאלה שמטרידה את התוספות. איך יכולים להיות שלושה סוגי תשלום, רביע, חצי ושלם. לרמב''ם אפשר לקבל שלושה סוגי תשלום, אבל רק שני מינים לכל תנא (מורה). ר' אלעזר מחזיק שיש חצי ללא אזהרה, וזה עולה לתשלום מלא כשיש אזהרה, (ושינוי לא משנה בכלל, אם הוא קיים או לא). החכמים מחזיקים חצי תשלום לצרורות, ואם יש שינוי, זה יורד לרביע, (והאזהרה אינה חלה כלל, בין אם ניתנה אזהרה ובין אם לא). דבר אחד עדיין מפריע לי במסקנת הגמרא הזו: איך העובדה שאין שינוי תגרום לשאלת אזהרה? אני רוצה להוסיף כאן רעיון נוסף. רב שך מעלה שאלה ברמב''ם. למה הוא מביא את השאלה על שינוי, אבל לא את השאלה על אזהרה? אני רוצה להציע תשובה אפשרית לשאלה זו. אני חושב שהרמב''ם גורס שבגמרא שלנו, אנחנו יכולים לראות ששינוי ואזהרה הם משתנים לא תואמים. אם יש שינוי יורד לרביע, התראה אינה שייכת (שתעלה התשלום לנזק מלא). אם יש אזהרה שעולה לתשלום מלא, לא יכול להיות שינוי יורד לרביע. לכן, הוא הביא רק את השאלה על שינוי, כי הדין אינו כמו ר' אלעזר שגורס שעם אזהרה, התשלום עולה לתשלום מלא. (ר' אלעזר מחזיק את זה בסיטואציה של המשנה על הכלב עם הכיכר והפחם הבוער. הוא מחזיק בזה שזה דורש תשלום מלא כשיש אזהרה שלוש פעמים). אבל הרמב''ם החליט שהדין הוא כמו החכמים שבמקרה זה נדרש רק חצי תשלום. אבל רב אשי שאל לפי החכמים אם אפשר ששינוי יוריד את התשלום לרביעית. לפיכך החליט הרמב"ם ששינוי לצרורות הוא בספק והשמיט אפשרות של אזהרה להעלות את התשלום לנזק מלא כי הדין אינו כמו ר' אלעזר. אולם תוספות גורס שהסבר הגמרא שלנו בדף י''ט שונה. הוא גורס שמשמעות הגמרא היא זו. אם אזהרה חלה על צרורות (כדי שהתשלום יהיה נזק מלא), אז היא תחול גם על שינוי בצרורות. כלומר יש שינוי בצרורות שמביאים אותו לרביעית, והאזהרה הזו ישימה בצורה כזו שתחזיר אותו לחצי. (זה לא יביא לנזק מלא כי זה יהיה קפיצה גדולה מדי כמו שתוספות אמרו קודם. תוספות גם גורס שהגמרא גורסת שאם אזהרה לא חלה על צרורות (להביא תשלום לנזק מלא), אזהרה לא יכולה להיות חלה גם על שינוי. כלומר, בשלב זה עשוי להיות שינוי, אבל אזהרה לא תחול על זה להביא את זה לחצי תשלום

I think that the רמב’’ם in [('ניזקי ממון פרק ב' הלכות ה' ו] holds that there cannot be three kinds of payment for צרורות לתנא אחד and that that is how he understands the גמרא on דפים י''ח וי''ט בבא קמא. I mean that there can be half damage and a fourth; or a half and a whole, but not all three. To explain what I mean let me bring the גמרא on דף י''ט. THERE רב אשי asked if there can be change for צרורות to bring down the payment from חצי to רביע. The גמרא suggests that we can know this from the question of רבא if there can be warning for צרורות? The גמרא says since this is a question to רבא, therefore there cannot be change to a רביע. (This is a problem because רב אשי had a doubt if change is applicable. If the answer is simple he would not have had a question). so גמרא then suggests that perhaps רבא meant to say that if there is no change, then there must be a question if warning can be applied. (That Is to say that it is not that there is no change for sure. Rather there might be change, and therefore we have no question about warning. Or there might be no change and therefore there is a question about warning.) This גמרא can be summed up thus. If there is a question about warning, then change is not applicable. I.e. the question about warning causes there to be no change. Then the גמרא turns that around, and says if there is no change, there has to be a question about warning. That means to say that the arrow of causation is turned around. But at any rate, the רמב’’ם is first bothered by the same question that bothers תוספות. How can there be three kinds of payment, רביע, חצי and a whole. The רמב’’ם that you can have three kinds of payment, but only two kinds for every תנא (teacher). ר’ אלעזר holds there is חצי with no warning, and that goes up to full payment when there is warning, (and change does not matter at all, whether it is present or not). The חכמים hold there is חצי payment, and if there is change, that goes down to רביע, (and warning does not apply at all, whether warning was given or not). One thing still bothers me about the conclusion of this גמרא is this: how would the fact that there is no change cause there to be a question about warning? I would like to add one more idea here. רב שך brings up a question on the רמב’’ם. Why does he bring the question about change but not the question about warning? I would like to suggest a possible answer to this question. I think the רמב’’ם holds that in our גמרא, we can see that change and warning are incompatible variables. If there is change going down to רביע, there cannot be warning. If there is warning going up to full payment, there cannot be change going down to a רביע. Therefore, he brought only the question about change because the law is not like ר’ אלעזר who holds that with warning the payment goes up to full payment. (ר’ אלעזר holds this in the situation in the משנה about the dog with the loaf and burning coal. He holds this requires full payment when there is warning given three times). But the רמב’’ם decided the law is like the חכמים that that case required only half payment. But רב אשי asked according to the sage if change is possible that would bring the payment down to a fourth. The רמב’’ם therefore decided that change for צרורות is a doubt and leave out the possibility of a warning bring up the payment to full damage because the law is not like ר' אלעזר. However, תוספות however holds that the explanation of our גמרא on דף י''ט is different. He holds that the meaning of the גמרא is this. If warning is applicable to צרורות (so that the payment would be full damage), then it would also be applicable to a change in צרורות. That is to say there is change in צרורות that bring it down to a fourth and that warning is applicable in such a way that would bring it back up to a half. (It would not bring to full damage because that would be too much of a jump as תוספות said before. תוספות also holds that the גמרא holds that if warning is not applicable to צרורות (to bring payment to full damage), then warning cannot be applicable to change either. That is, at this point there might be change, but warning would not apply to it to bring it to half payment. Or there might not be change at all. That is even if change happen the payment is still חצי