FUTURE IMPERFECT SUNTO di David D. Friedman - open source 9

NINE Reactionary Progress - Amateur Scholars and Open Source

• Splendidi dilettanti: Malthus and Darwin were clergymen, Mendel a monk, Smith a mining engineer, Hutton a gentleman farmer, Mill a clerk and writer, Ricardo a retired stock market prodigy. Of the names I have listed, only Newton was a university professor
• In the twentieth century, on the other hand, most of the major figures in all branches of scholarship have been professional academics.
• Why did things change? One possible answer is the enormous increase in knowledge. When fields were new, most scholars did not need access to vast libraries.
• The Web, while not a complete substitute for a library, makes enormous amounts of information readily available
• An alternative explanation... downward spread of education. In the eighteenth century, someone sufficiently well educated to invent a new science was likely to be a member of the upper class, and hence had a good chance of not needing to work for a living.
• most educated people today are rich - rich enough to make a tolerable living and still have time and effort left to devote to their hobbies.
• These arguments suggest that, having shifted from a world of amateur scholars to a world of professionals, we may now be shifting back.
• Two examples: Robin Hanson... His hobby was inventing institutions. His ideas - in particular an ingenious proposal to design markets to generate information - were sufficiently novel and well thought out to make corresponding with him more interesting than corresponding with most of my fellow economists.
• Esempio 2. One of my hobbies for the past thirty years has been cooking from very early cookbooks... When I started... There were no translations of early cookbooks in print and very few in libraries... The situation has changed enormously over the past thirty years... the biggest change is that there are now at least seven English translations of early cookbooks on the Web, freely available to anyone interested... Most of the translations were done by amateurs for the fun of it.
• The professionals, on average, know much more than the amateurs do, but there are a lot more amateurs and some of them know quite a lot.
• amateurs have access not only to information but to each other, as well as to any professional
• OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
• rising incomes and improved communication technology make it easier to produce things for fun.
• The best-known example is Linux... graduate student named Linus Torvalds.
• The mechanics of open source are simple. Someone comes up with a first version of the software. He publishes the source code. Other people interested in the program modify it - which they are able to do because they have the source code - and send their modifications to him. Modifications that he accepts go into the code base,
• Eric Raymond: open source has its own set of norms and property rights.
• Linus Torvalds owns Linux. Eric Raymond owns Fetchmail. A committee mittee owns Apache... anyone is free to modify... provided that he makes the source code to his modified version public... each can take advantage of improvements made by the others.
• such ownership is controlled by rules similar to the common law rules. Torvalds: If he loses interest he can transfer ownership to someone else.
• There is a second form of ownership in open source - credit for your work. Each project is accompanied by a file identifying the authors.
• open source movement is simply a new variation on the system under which most of modern science was created. ated. Programmers create software; scholars create ideas.
• Scientific theories do not have owners in quite the sense that open source projects do, but at any given time in most fields there is considerable able agreement as to what the orthodox body of theory is.
• JIMMY WALES'S IMPOSSIBLE SUCCESS
• Few projects seem less suited to the open source approach than writing an encyclopedia. For it to be a success readers must rely on it, so a mistake in one article casts doubt on others.
• In 2001, Jimmy Wales created Wikipedia
• Open source radicale. With rare exceptions, any article can be edited anytime by anyone.
• More often than one might expect, the article evolves to a consensus, a statement of differing views that both sides can agree on.
• MARKET AND HIERARCHY
• firms themselves are miniature socialist states... There is one crucial difference between Microsoft and Stalin's Russia. Microsoft's interactions with the rest of us are voluntary.
• The easier it is for a dispersed group of individuals to coordinate their activities, ities, the larger we would expect the role of decentralized coordination, market rather than hierarchy, in the overall mix... the existence of the Internet had shifted the balance between center and periphery.
• Eli Lilly had decided to subcontract part of its chemical research to the world at large... according to a story in the Wall Street Journal, they had gotten "about 1,000 scientists from India, China, and elsewhere in the world"
• Problema: lavoro occulto: Consider a chemist hired to work in an area related to one of the problems on the list. He has an obvious temptation to slant... A chemist paid by firm A while working for firm B
• INFORMATION WARFARE
• Internet supports decentralized forms of cooperation. It supports decentralized forms of conflict as well.
• Una brutta storia con scambi di identità e furti di password
• Case 1: The Tale of the Four Little Pigs
• The year is 1995, the place Cornell University. Four freshmen have compiled piled a collection of misogynist jokes entitled "75 Reasons Why Women (Bitches) Should Not Have Freedom of Speech" and sent copies to their friends.
• The central question is whether creating such a list and using email to transmit it is an offense that ought to be punished or a protected exercise of free speech.
• La preside ipicrita:     the students have offered to do the following: Each of them will attend the "Sex at 7:00" program... the students have offered to do the following: Each of them will attend the "Sex at 7:00" program... Each of them has committed to perform 50 hours of community service.
• There are at least two ways to interpret that outcome. One is that Ms. Krause is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - Cornell imposed no penalty on the students, they imposed an entirely voluntary penalty. Molto syranom
• The alternative interpretation starts with the observation that university sity administrators have a lot of ways of making life difficult for students.
• Risultato: They publicly maintained their commitment to free speech while covertly punishing students for what they said.
• Someone who preferred the second interpretation thought up a novel way of supporting it. An email went out: Now that we have had time to evaluate the media response, I think we can congratulate ourselves on a strategy that was not only successful cessful in defusing the scandal, but has actually ally enhanced the reputation of the university as a sanctuary for those who believe that "free speech"... Yours sincerely Barbara L. Krause...
• The letter was not, of course, actually written by Barbara Krause... It was written, and sent, by an anonymous group calling themselves OFFAL - Online Freedom Fighters Anarchist Liberation. The letter was a satire,
• unattractive picture of what its authors suspected Ms. Krause's real views were.
• Email is not only easily distributed, it is easily answered.
• OFFAL produced a second email, containing the original forgery, an explanation of what they were doing,
• Their summary: We believe that ridicule is a more powerful ful weapon than bombs or death threats. And we believe that the Internet is the most powerful ful system ever invented for channeling grassroots roots
• The correct point was that Cornell's actions could plausibly be interpreted preted as hypocritical - attacking free speech while pretending to support it.
• What I find interesting about the incident is that it demonstrates a form of information warfare made practical by the nature of the net - very low transaction costs, anonymity, no face-to-face contact.
• Some years ago on a Usenet group, I read the following message: I believe that it is okay to have sex before marriage unlike some people... Please write me and give me your thoughts on this. You can also tell me about some of your ways to excite a woman because I have not yet found the right man to satisfy me....
• It occurred to me that what I was observing might be a commercial variant of the OFFAL tactic.
• that form of information warfare has been used frequently enough online to have acquired its own nickname: "Joe job."
• A Sad Story
• Furto d'identità e di password. Tizio finisce dentro xchè qlcn accede alla sua mail.
• For my present purposes what is interesting is not which side was guilty but the fact that either side could have been, and the problems that fact raises for the world that they were, and we will be, living in.
• solution is some way of knowing who sent what message.... One possible solution is the use of biometrics, identification linked to physical characteristics such as fingerprints or retinal patterns.
• digital signatures,
• OPEN SOURCE CRIME CONTROL
• Fregato su ebay reagisce: online private investigator who, from the buyer's cell phone number, was able to get his real name and landline phone number. Attempts to interest the Chicago police department, the FBI, and the Secret Service were unsuccessful... "not large enough to interest us"
• Finta asta. decided on a little private entrapment, set up an auction on eBay of the same computer under his girlfriend's name... Markham police... arrested the criminal with more than $10,000 in bogus checks in his possession.10
• The reason I know about it is that, when looking for material for this part of the chapter, I put a post on my blog asking for examples of open source crime control. The next day I had responses with links to several stories, including Jason's. I found his story the same way he found his criminal.

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Dilettanti e professionisti nell'era di internet

If we side too much with the outsiders, we risk nihilism, in which good science is too easily dismissed. If we side too much with the insiders, we risk groupthink, in which bad ideas persist because contrary analysis is suppressed.

"La bellezza disarmata", presentazione a Rimini del libro di don Julián Carrón 03/12/2015 - YouTube

"La bellezza disarmata", presentazione a Rimini del libro di don Julián Carrón 03/12/2015 - YouTube:



'via Blog this'



è la cc ad aver abbandonato l'uomo o viceversa? tutt'e due: le responsabilità sono reciproche.



con le guerre di religione salta l'unità cristiana dell'europa. non esiste più fede condivisa. Kant: condividiamo la ragione e salviamo i valori cristiani, che sono cmq buoni. fallimento: la fede nn condivisa si rispecchia in valori nn condivisi



il dono del cristianesimo: la dignità



zaccheo: la condanna sociale nn aveva smosso nulla in lui. la misericordia e la dignità riconosciutagli da g. lo cambia nel profondo.



ma oggi la dignità è di nuovo invisibile. come risolvere il problema? c'è chi si affida solo alla conoscenza quantitativa.



soluzione: far riaccadere l'evento di gesù che ci cambia il cuore.



gesù ci seduce. è bello. è mite. è una bellezza disarmata



non dobbiamo chiederci "che fare?" ma "chi sono?". interrogativo: ma questo davvero basta? l'organizzazione nn serve?

l'imprevisto è l'unica speranza. il cristianesimo è un evento che deve riaccadere in continuazione

quando l'amore è finito restano le regole. quando il crstianesimo finisce resta kant. riaccendiamo la luce.

I, Pencil By Leonard Read

I, Pencil By Leonard Read

• Parla una matita: I am a mystery
• I am taken for granted by those who use me,
• Chesterton: "We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders."
• Una strana semplicità. not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me
• Innumerable Antecedents
• a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon.
• Now contemplate all the saws and trucks and rope and the countless other gear used in harvesting and carting the cedar logs
• numberless skills that went into their fabrication: the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors;
• The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California.
• Can you imagine the individuals who make flat cars and rails and railroad engines and who construct and install the communication systems
• The cedar logs are cut into small, pencil-length slats less than one-fourth of an inch in thickness. These are kiln dried and then tinted for the same reason women put rouge on their faces.
• How many skills went into the making of the tint and the kilns, into supplying the heat, the light and power, the belts, motors, and all the other things a mill requires? Sweepers in the mill among my ancestors? Yes, and included are the men who poured the concrete for the dam of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company hydroplant which supplies the mill's power!
• Once in the pencil factory... each slat is given eight grooves by a complex machine, after which another machine lays leads in every other slat, applies glue, and places another slat atop— a lead sandwich, so to speak.
• The graphite is mined in Ceylon. Consider these miners and those who make their many tools and the makers of the paper sacks in which the graphite is shipped and those who make the string that ties the sacks and those who put them aboard ships and those who make the ships.
• The graphite is mixed with clay from Mississippi in which ammonium hydroxide is used in the refining process.
• Then wetting agents are added such as sulfonated tallow—animal fats chemically reacted with sulfuric acid.
• treated with a hot mixture which includes candelilla wax from Mexico, paraffin wax, and hydrogenated natural fats.
• My cedar receives six coats of lacquer. Do you know all the ingredients of lacquer?... growers of castor beans and the refiners of castor oil
• the labeling...applying heat to carbon black mixed with resins.
• My bit of metal... persons who mine zinc
• Those black rings on my ferrule are black nickel.
• La gomma? Da dove arriva? An ingredient called "factice"... product made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride... there are numerous vulcanizing and accelerating agents. The pumice comes from Italy; and the pigment which gives "the plug" its color is cadmium sulfide.
• No One Knows
• There isn't a single person in all these millions, including the president of the pencil company, who contributes more than a tiny, infinitesimal bit of know-how.
• Indeed, there are some among this vast multitude who never saw a pencil nor would they know how to use one. Their motivation is other than me.
• exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants.
• No Master Mind
• There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind
• the configuration of creative human energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity
• Conoscenza dispersa. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation's mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil.
• Lezione (anche) morale:  the lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson.
• Difendere il miracolo della matita significa difendere la libertà.

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FUTURE IMPERFECT SUNTO David D. Friedman - 18 nanotecnologie

 EIGHTEEN Very Small Legos FUTURE IMPERFECT David D. Friedman - 18 nanotecnologie

• the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom.
• 602,400,000,000,000,000,000,000.... number is the number of atoms in a gram of hydrogen.
• all living things, are engineered at the atomic scale.
• When an atom in a strand of DNA is in the wrong place, the result is a mutation. As we become better and better at manipulating very small objects it begins to become possible for us to build as we are built... That is the central idea of nanotechnology
• Since the bonds between atoms are very strong, it should be possible to build very strong fibers from long-strand molecules.
• Mechanical parts move very slowly compared to the movement of electrons in electronic computers. But if the parts are on an atomic scale, they do not have to move very far.
• a cell repair machine. Think of it as a robot submarine that goes into a cell, fixes whatever is wrong,
• build an assembler. An assembler is a nanoscale machine for building other nanoscale machines. Think of it as a tiny robot
• it would be interesting in surgery if you could swallow the surgeon. Richard Feynman
• Ralph Merkle proposed and Robert Freitas further developed an ingenious proposal for an improved version of a red blood cell... Its advantage becomes clear the day you have a heart attack
• Scettici. Some authors arguing that the technology is and always will be impossible for a variety of reasons. The obvious counterexample is life, a functioning nanotechnology based on molecular machines constructed largely of carbon.
• Il solito problema. if the design works why don't we already have them?
• Inefficienza dell'evoluzione. evolution can produce large improvements that occur through a long series of small changes, each itself a small improvement... But if a large improvement cannot be produced that way, if you need the right twenty mutations all happening at once in the same organism, evolution is unlikely to do it. The result is that evolution has explored only a small part of the design space... Hence we would expect that human beings, provided with the tools to build molecular machines, would be able to explore different parts of the design space, to build at least some useful machines that evolution failed to build.
• VERY HARD SOFTWARE
• To build a nanotech car I need assemblers - produced in unlimited numbers by other assemblers - raw material, and a program, a full description of what atoms go where. The raw material should be no problem.
• An acorn contains design specifications cations and machinery for building an oak tree, but it needs sunlight to power the process. Similarly, assemblers will need some source of energy.
• Once we have the basic technology, the hard part is the design... software
• One implication of nanotechnology is an economy for producing cars very much like the economy that currently produces word-processing programs. A familiar problem in the software economy is piracy.
• Come piratare. I cannot simply put my friend's nanotech car or nanotech computer into a disk drive and burn a copy. I can, however, disassemble it. To do that, I use nanomachines that work like assemblers, but backward. Instead of starting with a description of where atoms are to go and putting them there, they start with an object - an automobile, say - and remove the atoms, one by one, keeping track of where they all were.
• Soluzione 1. One approach to dealing with the problem of copying is an old legal technology, copyright,
• The solution may break down if instead of selling the car the pirate sells the design to individual consumers, each with his own army of assemblers ready to go to work.
• Soluzione 2. One possibility is tie-ins with other goods or services that cannot be produced so cheaply - land, say, or backrubs.
• Pubblicità incorporata. the melodious voice telling you everything thing you didn't want to know about the lovely housing development completed last week, designed for people just like you. On further investigation, tigation, you discover that turning off the advertising is not an option.
• You cast your mind back to the early years of the Internet, thirty or forty years ago, and the solution found by web sites to the problem of paying their bills.'
• Soluzione 3. Another possibility is a customized car. What you download, this time after paying for it, is a very special car indeed, one of a kind... But if you disassemble it and make lots of copies, they will not be very useful to anyone but you.
• This again is an old solution... all it requires is a CPU with its own serial number... it is possible to produce a program that will only run on one machine.
• Soluzione 4. A third possibility for producing nanotech designs is open source: a network of individuals cooperating to produce and improve designs, motivated by some combination of status, desire for the final product, and whatever else motivated the creators of Linux, Sendmail, and Apache.
• THE GRAY GOO SCENARIO
• Virus. Now consider a replicator designed to build copies of itself, which build copies, which....in a startlingly short time, it could convert everything from the dirt up into copies of itself, leaving only whatever elements happen to be in excess supply.
• One precaution you could apply to assemblers as well as other replicators tors is to design them to require some input, whether matter or energy, not available in the natural environment.
• Another is to give them a limited lifetime,
• Almost Worse than the Disease
• I have described a collection of precautions that could work in a world in which only one organization has access to the tools of nanotechnology and that organization acts in a prudent and benevolent fashion... such a monopoly seems extraordinarily unlikely
• One organization makes the breakthrough; it now has an assembler. Very shortly, after about forty doublings, it has a trillion assemblers. It sets them to work building what it has already designed. A week later it rules the world. One of its first acts is to forbid anyone else from doing research in nanotechnology... The result would be a world government with very nearly unlimited power.
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place
• Suppose we avoid world dictatorship and end up instead with multiple independent governments
• One possibility is that everyone treats nanotech as a government monopoly, with the products but not the technology made available to the general public...The problem with this solution is that it looks very much like a case of setting the fox to guard the hen house.
• Consider two possible worlds. In the first, nanotechnology is a difficult cult and expensive business... In that world, gray goo is unlikely to be produced deliberately by anybody but a government
• In the second world, perhaps the first world a few decades later, nanotech is cheap... Gov. going to keep the technology out of the hands of anyone who wants it. And it is far from clear that even that would suffice.
• Virus di internet. designer plagues will exist for much the same reasons that computer viruses now exist. Some will come into existence the way the original Internet worm did, the work of someone very clever, with no bad intent, who makes one mistake too many. Some will be designed to do mischief and turn out to do more mischief than intended. And a few will be deliberately created as instruments of apocalypse by people who for one reason or another like the idea.
• Il lato positivo. With enough cell repair machines on duty, designer plagues may not be a problem. Human beings want to live and will pay for the privilege. The resources that will go into designing ing protections against threats, nanotechnological or otherwise, will be enormously... The only serious threat will be from organizations tions willing and able to spend billions of dollars creating really first-rate molecular killers
• In dealing with nanotechnology, we are faced with a choice between centralized solutions - in the limit, a world government with a nanotech monopoly - and decentralized solutions. As a general rule I much prefer fer the latter. But a technology that raises the possibility of a talented teenager producing the end of the world in his basement makes the case for centralized regulation
• Analogia. Smallpox. the only remaining strains of the virus were held by U.S. and Russian government laboratories. Because it had been eliminated, and because public health is a field dominated by governments, smallpox vaccination had been eliminated too... If a terrorist had gotten a sample of the virus... he could have used it to kill hundred of millions, perhaps more than a billion, people. That risk existed because the technologies to protect against replicators - that particular class of replicators - had been under centralized control. The center had decided that the problem was solved.

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Economics and Evolutionary Psychology* by David Friedman

Economics and Evolutionary Psychology* by David Friedman

• Homo economicus: non abbiamo una buona teoria degli errori
• EP contributo 1 specifica l'obiettivo dell' HE e 2 specifica che la ns razionalità nn è relativa al  ns contesto ma a quello della ns specie
• L' uomo è irrazionale x' è strutturato x essere razionale in un contesto di 10000 anni fa
• Caso 1: just price e code prevedibili
• Il boicottaggio singolo nn serve a niente ma 20000 anni fa, quando gli scambi erano ristretti, sd non bilaterali, servivano eccome
• Caso 2: preferenze iterpersonali. X' lo sconto diminuisce nel tempo. Il ns. cervello ha un fattore di sconto interiore poichè non è immaginabile un "futuro certo". Ma oggi un futuro certo esiste (vedi bot)
• Caso 3: effetto dotazione. Valuto di più ciò che possiedo. X'? Animale territoriale: il territorio indica ciò x cui mi batterò fino alla morte e qs determina la pace nelle società primitive
• PE spiega ciò che l' ec. classica non spiega ma aiuta anche a specificare ciò che l' EC lascia sul generico
• .....
• we have no good theory of mistakes... Evolutionary psychology offers, among other things, a theory of mistakes
• The human mind is best understood not as a general purpose computer but as a set of specialized software modules, each designed to deal with a particular subset of problems... Those programs have been designed by Darwinian evolution to produce reproductive success
• we are adapted not to the world we now live in but to the environment in which our species spent most of its history.
• What Evolutionary Psychology Adds
• Economists assume that individuals have objectives... Evolutionary biologists, on the other hand, know the objective
• Problema. But despite those traits human beings, in the environments of recent centuries, produce far fewer children than they could produce
• Knowing the objective of our genes is not sufficient to tel us, with confidence, the objectives of the human beings that those genes build.
• Economic Puzzles
• The first puzzle is the existence of predictable lines.
• La parabola dei ristoranti: offend its customers and thus lose more in the long run
• why firms that sel the same product at different prices at different times almost invariably describe their policy as a normal price and a discount rather than a normal price and a surcharge.
• Next consider the history of price control... Individuals believe that the proper price for a good is the price at which they are used to buying the good,
• Evolutionary Psychology and the Just Price
• Now shift the analysis back twenty thousand years.
• In this world al markets are thin—it is, after al, a smal band—so the typical transaction is a bilaterial monopoly bargain.
• There is a solution to this problem. A seler charging an unusualy high price can defend himself against the buyer’s commitment strategy by offering to show the buyer that his costs realy are unusualy high.
• Pulsioni egalitariste e gerarchia. Anthropologists Kim Hil and Hilard Kaplan, in their study of the Ache,[23] discovered an interesting pattern: Individuals were identified as good or bad hunters and good hunters had substantialy greater reproductive success, more surviving offspring, than bad hunters. Their explanation was that, despite the apparent egalitarianism of the sharing of meat—which provided the bulk of the calories consumed—good hunters were stil rewarded.
• tempo. The usual pattern appears to be a very high discount rate for choices in the near future and an increasingly low discount rate as the alternatives become more distant. [27] Evolutionary psychology suggests a straightforward explanation for such a pattern... The world in which our species evolved did not have such contemporary institutions. In that world it was rational to discount promises of future performance.
• Endowment Effects
• Esperimento. 
• On average, people value a mug more when they have it than when they do not The explanation of this pattern of behavior starts with the observation that it is not limited to humans.... It has long been known that some species of animals exhibit territorial behavior.
• Strategie per minimizzare i conflitti con la deterrenza. Some method, possibly as simple as physical possession, is used to define what belongs to whom. Each individual commits himself to fight very hard to protect his property—much harder than he would be wiling to fight in order to appropriate a similar object from someone else’s possession
• a fight to the death is a losing game for both parties, since even the winner risks substantial injury... effect—each individual wil fight much harder to keep his territory than he wil to conquer someone else’s territory.
• Filling in the Utility Function
• One obvious example is parental altruism towards children.
• A less obvious example is concern with status. As Robert Frank has convincingly argued, [33] humans appear to care about both real income and relative income... How many children I can feed depends on my real income. But my ability to persuade one or more women to produce children with me depends on my resources—material and otherwise—relative

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L'illusione dell'ateismo di Roberto Timossi

 L'illusione dell'ateismo di Roberto Timossi

• Cap1 scienza e fede
• il revival dell ateismo: dawkins e i suoi amici italiani
• Ateismo contemp: pretende di dimostrare la nn esist. Per il resto simile al passato
• un fatto contro l'incomp.: Gli scienziati credenti: molti
• einstein: un panteismo confusionario dietro il quale, comq, trapela un sentimento religioso
• Argumeentum ad verecondiam: si chiama uno scienziato e lo so fa parlare d altro. Di dio x es. poi lo si prende sul serio per il suo grande sapere in altre materie
• Tesi: scienza e fede hanno l una bisogno dell altra
• Odifreddi: religione = superstizione
• Carnap: la parola dio nn ha senso
• Odifreddi: la logica confuta dio. Critica: la logica si ferma alla validità formale nn si occupa di "esistenza"
• Mainardi: fede = irrazionalità freud: fede e consolazione
• Barrett vs freud: xchè dio nn avrebbe dovuto farmi in modo da credere? Se la scienza mi spiega xchè amo mia moglie significa forse che nn la amo? Se siamo nati x credere significa solo che credere è l opzione più semplice
• La stessa scienza comprende molto atti di fede. ammissione di odifreddi.
• I postmoderni eco e vattimo: tutto è vanità. La verità filosofica è deleteria in politica. Matrice cattolica del postmodernismo italico. Critica: i numi postmoderni nietzsche e heidegger nn sembrano molto democr.
• Steven weinberg: universo senza scopo. tipica tesi neopositivista. w aggiunge: è una posizione che ci rende infelici, anzi, appena in grado di sopravvivere
• La tesi di w ripugna alla mente umana: john eccles. alternative di pari potenza sono preferibili
• Paul davis: x dare senso a x devi uscire da x
• e qui si torna a swinburne: o recgresso infinito o causa prima: la seconda alternativa è più semplice
• imho: discorso tipico 1) l'universo nn ha senso 2) la cosa ci ripugna e dio dà senso all'universo 3) e chi dà senso a dio: regresso infinito 3) arg. swin: l'ipotesi si sio è più semplice 4) e se l'universo fosse eterno e da sempre esistente? 5) ci sarebbe cmq la domanda perché esiste anziché no e si tornerebbe all alternativa regresso infinito/dio 6) non posso dire che l'universo ha senso in sé? eviterei di introdurre l'ente dio e occam sarebbe più felice 7) certo che puoi ma devi introdurre cmq uno spirito connaturato all'universo, una specie di posizione panteista, l'universo come mero oggetto fisico nn puo' avere senso, tu stesso lo dici al punto 1 8) ok, allora sono panteista, mi sembra meglio che teista 9) il panteismo, che resta una religione, da un lato è cervellotico da comprendere (cos'è sto spirito immateriale presente anche nei sassi?), il teismo ha a disposizione molte più analogie semplici per essere compreso (dio crea come creo io quando costruisco un manufatto), inoltre, proprio per rendersi comprensibile, il panteismo si trasforma sempre in un politeismo primitivo: il dio del fuoco, quello del fiume ecc. perdendo sul fronte di occam.
• l epistemologia contemporanea, rispetto al muscolarismo neopositivista, sottolinea i limiti della scienza: per popper puo' solo falsificare, per kuhn è soggetta a elementi sociologici, per quine è sempre indeterminata...
• l'unico vero alleato dell'ateismo scientista: il fideismo. innegabili i pregiudizi anti-scientifichi
• la via estrema di paul davis: per arrivare a dio la scienza è una via migliore rispetto alla teologia
• cap3 la prima mossa fede ed evoluzione
• l argomento nuovo dello scientismo contemporaneo: l'evoluzione ci ha mostrato la potenza del caso. 
• ob: non è tanto all'evoluzione che dobbiamo vedere ma all'origine dell'universo: big bang vs universi paralleli
• il letteralismo non è tipico solo dei fondamentalisti ma anche degli scientisti: serve per confutare la bibbia e dichiarare l'incompatibilità con la scienza. vedi asimov. in questo progetto collaborano inconsapevolmente i concordisti alla Capra.
• bibbia: scrigno di metafore, storia e poesia. una biblioteca con diversi generi
• perché le condizioni di partenza dell'universo erano quelle? una scienza che non risponde è una scienza a metà!
• il teorema della singolarità ci dice che non possiamo dimostrare le cause certe di un evento singolo ma cio' non toglie che possiamo formulare ipotesi più o meno plausibili
• aggirare il problema della prima mossa: universo inflazionario: l'espansione iniziale è talmente rapida da realizzare infinite combinazioni anche nei parametri fondamentali della fisica fino al raggiungimento di un equilibrio, in qs modo il nostro universo è un sopravvissuto spiegabile con le probabilità.
• ob: teoria meramente speculativa, del resto per avere un fenomeno inflattivo occorrono condizioni di contorno (ogni evoluzione richiede  esse stesse improbabili cosicché il dilemma della prima mossa resta intatto
• altra idea: universi paralleli. ob: ad hoc, controintuitiva e infalsificabile
• altra idea: universo oscillante o ciclico: stesse critiche che le altre + critiche all universo infinito qualora si presenti come tale
• altri modelli: stringhe, universo senza confini... più che altro modelli estetici
• conclusione: il problema della prima mossa resta intatto e il modello teista il più semplice e pragmatico
• nota: è lo stesso dawkins ha dare il massimo valore al requisito della semplicità. per lui l'ipotesi multiverso è più semplice di quella teistica: l'intelligenza di dio è complessissima!
• ob di barrow: non è affatto detto che gli altri universi siano poi così semplici come vorrebbe dawkins
• ob decisiva: ad ogni modo l'ipotesi degli universi paralleli non è affatto scientifica (anche se formulata da scienziati) il che va contro tutti i dogmi dawkinsiani
• ipotesi di smolin (una variante della teoria inflattiva): l'universo cresce combinando i suoi elementi a velocità esponenziale finché non imbrocca un eq a prima vista statisticamente impossibile come il nostro. la legge di darwin seleziona i parametri della fisica (ovvero le leggi fondamentali della materia). 
• ob: se gli universi sono sequenziali allora si deve parlare cmq di universo unico e all'interno di un unico universo economia vuole che fino ad evidenza contraria le leggi della fisica individuate vengano mantenute fisse. Perchè ipotizzarne una selezione? Solo per eludere la prima mossa? Se gli universi sono molti e collegati tra loro con i buchi neri, allora l'ipotesi è inverificabile, e quindi ancora ad hoc.
• tesi di dawkins: l'intelligenza di dio è talmente complessa da essere improbabile
• ob: dawkins giudica la complessità di un ipotesi guardando la realtà ma questo ha poco senso, se dispongo di una descrizione dettagliata dell'ipotesi devo giudicare quella.
• ob2: forse d ha in mente il cervello: ci vuole un cervello complesso per elaborare progetti complessi. ok, ma noi coincidiamo col nostro cervello? prob no: vedi brain split
• cap4 creazione ed evoluzione
• l evoluzione spiega il potere del caso, questo è vero. ma questo potere è una confutazione di dio?
• l ipotesi di dio, la più credibile per quanto detto prima, non è certo confutata dall evoluzionismo che puo' essere accettato e visto come finalizzato (dio conosce tutto fin dall inizio). l ammissione di telmo pievani
• molti filosofi atei lo comprendono meglio solo vedendolo come finalizzato: nagel, fodor, piattellini...
• curioso: molti scienziati si sono messi a filosofeggiare formulando ipotesi su dio e facendo della scienza una dottrina filosofico/teologica (scientismo)
• l'errore creazionista: credere che dio sia difendibile solo confutando l evoluzionismo
• nemmeno tra evoluzionisti c'è accordo: gould (eq punteggiati (stasi+ev veloce) vs ultradarwinisti (evol costante). esiste dunque una pluralità di teorie in un unico paradigma
• l evoluzione viaggia verso il più complesso: c'è chi nega: gould: il successo dei batteri
• come procede l evoluzione?: il suo forte è la diversità: tutte le nicchie vengono esplorate tra cui anche quella dell intelligenza. è lì che il tentativo uomo ha avito successo ed è emerso. in questo senso l'uomo è tut altro che un ipotesi meramente casuale, l evoluzione procede seguendo anche spinte direzionali ben precise
• per alcuni l evoluzionismo è una teoria a metà tra scienza e storia
• tre ipotesi evolutive: 1 ev specifica 2 ev casuale (darwiniana) 3 ev direzionata
• escludiamo 1. l ipotesi 2 rende difficile pensare ad un processo cmq guidato: o caso o guida. anche se l idea di dio non è certo confutata. miller barr e altri scienziati credenti stanno in qs solco.
• 3: esiste una spinta sottostante ad evolversi dal semplice al complesso il che in qualche modo guida l ev e rende prevedibili alcuni sviluppi. nota che il massimo della complessità è l intelligenza
• il precursore di 3: theillard de cardin. ma anche presso i neodarwiniani ci sono chiare aperture a 3 (gaylord simpson, dobzhansky)
• il sistema terrestre è sufficientemente chiuso per generare autoorganizzazione
• ipotesi teleologica: l ev ha una sua tendenza a generare complessità, se la tendenza non è la più economica cio' si deve anche al fatto che il creatore oltre a creare l uomo deve creare l ambinte in cui inserirlo e in cui testarlo.
• nell ipotesi finalista creazione ed evoluzione convivono eludendo l aut aut neodarwiniano. un nome per ev convergente: simon conway morris: the deep structure
• cap6 riepilogo
• Cos è la fede. Un tempo si distingueva tra fede e conoscenza. Oggi tutto è credenza ovvero un misto di fede e conoscenza. edmund gettier ha spianato le barriere http://broncobilli.blogspot.it/2014/10/credenza-e-conoscenza.html
• Se tutto è credenza capiamo bene come la fede nn coincida con l irtazionalità e come la distinzione tra fatti e fede è problematici
• Oggi il probabilismo bayesiano domina ma il prob ha una radice soggettiva
• Cos è scienza? Il prob della demarcazione
• Da carnap a popper a quine tornando a bayes
• Withehead: molta teologia nella scienza contemporanea
• L assunto della scienza: esiste un ordine. Parentela con la teologia medievale: la sequenza di cause
• Fede degli scienziati: molte teorie sono meramente speculative: teorie del tutto. Es stringhe multiverso ecc
• Smolin sullo srimghismo: surrogato della fede
• Feynman: la scienza si occupa dell osservabile. Verificazionosmo. Assenza di fede nella scienza. Insanabile alternativa con la teligione
• Relazioni possibili tra fede e scienza
• 1 conflitto. Es galilei
• 2 indipendenza. Es gould
• 3 concordismo e Tappabuchi
• 4 dialogo x un sapere più armonioso e completo
• Critica alla teologia: ha fatto poco x nutrire qs dialogo. Ha fatto di più la filosofia quando nn la scienza stessa. La teol è rimasta al tomismo e quindi alla scienza aristotelica
• Newman: la scoperta scientifica sposta la ns fede, non respingiamo la sfida
• Con frege: capiamo il senso ma nn il signifocato del tutto. Dio porta significato. il senso è una coerenza interna del pensiero ma il significato è il suo referente esterno

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Parfit on brute facts By Edward Feser-ITA+HL+FACE+SAGGIO

NICHILISMO TAPPABUCHI

Perché esiste l’universo? Tre risposte:

(1) Fatto bruto: l’esistenza del nostro universo è una coincidenza inspiegabile.

(2) Teismo: l’universo è creato da Dio.

(3) Molti universi: poiché gli universi sono molti, il fatto che ci sia anche il nostro non deve sorprendere.

Derek Parfit, il più grande filosofo a mia conoscenza, difende (1), e la cosa mi induce a pensare. Riguardo a (1) vorrei solo precisare che sostiene la non-esistenza di una spiegazione, non il fatto che non la conosciamo o non possiamo conoscerla.

L’ipotesi (1) ha il vantaggio di essere semplice (non deve postulare Dio) ma d’altra parte nega il “principio di ragion sufficiente” (PRS), quello per cui tutto ha una spiegazione, anche se non le conosciamo tutte. Se tutto ha una spiegazione, possiamo dire che la “coincidenza” non è mai una buona spiegazione. Si tratta infatti di una soluzione “tappabuchi” buona per tutte le occasioni, il che la scredita in partenza.

Dio toglie di mezzo la coincidenza: se Dio esistesse le probabilità che esista anche il nostro universo s’impennano. D’altra parte Dio complica il quadro aggiungendo un’entità che nell’ ipotesi (1) non era necessaria. Qualcuno potrebbe obbiettare che nel passaggio dal fatto bruto a Dio l’assenza del PRS non viene sanata ma solo traslata: anziché sospendere la spiegazione dell’universo, infatti, dovremmo sospendere quella di Dio. Questo è vero: se prima rinunciavo a spiegare un fatto fisico, ora rinuncio a spiegare un fatto metafisico. Tuttavia, la traslazione non è neutrale: ci sono più probabilità che una proprietà singolare si applichi ad un ente singolare che non a un ente comune. Perché mai l’universo materiale non dovrebbe avere una spiegazione visto che tutte le cose materiali ce l’hanno? Dio, invece, è qualcosa di molto diverso dall’universo, e il fatto che sia incausato rientra nella sua definizione. A questo punto Parfit potrebbe dire che anche il comportamento delle particelle elementari (realtà materiali) è in gran parte senza spiegazioni, ovvero casuale. Questo è vero ma è anche vero che considerare la meccanica quantistica come una teoria è alquanto avventato, meglio considerarla come un mero algoritmo per risolvere problemi pragmatici.

Ma torniamo al confronto tra (1) e (2). Perché mai dovrei passare dalla prima ipotesi alla seconda, perché mai dovrei sanare la presenza di un caso tappabuchi perdendo in semplicità?

A mio avviso perché la semplicità deve essere al sevizio della probabilità, e non un valore in sé. La semplicità è importante in quanto indizio di maggior probabilità, quando cessa di essere tale perde gran parte del suo valore. Esempio: postulare che la mente non esista ma esista solo il cervello semplifica la descrizione della realtà. Ma nessuno – a parte i bizzarri “eliminativisti” – adotta questo punto di vista, il motivo è chiaro: per quanto l’ipotesi semplifichi, non ci sembra probabile. Facciamo esperienza tutti i giorni della nostra mente e non siamo disposti a dire che sia una mera illusione. Ancora: il fatto che il colore giallo coincida con una lunghezza d’onda semplifica la descrizione della realtà. Tuttavia, sono in pochi coloro che considerano illusorie le esperienze che abbiamo tutti i giorni con il colore giallo. Per noi il colore giallo esiste. [ avevo indagato la relazione semplicità/probabilità in questo articolo].

Ma se la probabilità domina la semplicità, allora passare dal fatto bruto (1) a Dio (2) è opportuno. Dio riduce le coincidenze (ovvero aumenta le probabilità) al costo di perdere parte della semplicità; tuttavia, se la semplicità è solo un mezzo al servizio della probabilità, questo inconveniente cessa di essere tale.

Per chiudere vorrei solo dire che il concetto di “semplicità” resta comunque piuttosto ambiguo e c’è anche chi mette in discussione che il passaggio da (1) a (2) complichi realmente il quadro. Dio, innanzitutto, è un’entità semplice da descrivere, una mera intelligenza che possiede tutti gli attributi positivi in quantità infinita. L’infinito è molto più semplice del limitato, poiché il limitato implica una descrizione, talvolta estremamente complicata, delle soglie. L’universo pensato senza creatore, d’altro canto, è più complicato di quel che si pensi. Faccio un esempio: come mai lo stagno conserva le sue proprietà di oggi anche domani? Si risponde: perché è così, punto. E il carbone? Perché è così, punto. E la bauxite? Perché è così, punto. Non esiste cioè un singolo sorprendente fatto bruto da assumere ma una miriade. Non potendo generalizzare, devo moltiplicare l’assunzione di “fatti bruti” Ogni singola particella dell’universo richiede un’assunzione ad hoc. L’assunzione di un Dio, per contro, assorbirebbe tutte queste assunzioni che non sarebbero più necessarie: il fatto che esista un ordine nell’universo non sorprenderebbe più nessuno e non richiederebbe spiegazioni in termini casuali. Questo esito assomiglia molto a una semplificazione piuttosto che a una complicazione. Il concetto è che l’universo pensato da solo è inutilmente complicato rispetto all’universo pensato come creato.

NICHILISMO TAPPABUCHI

Perché esiste l'universo? Tre risposte:

(1) E' una coincidenza che non ha cause.
(2) E' creato da Dio.
(3) Ne esistono molti, ed esiste anche il nostro.

Derek Parfit, il più grande filosofo di mia conoscenza, difende (1): non è che noi non sappiamo spiegare l'esistenza dell'universo, è che una spiegazione non esiste.

L'ipotesi è semplice (non deve postulare né Dio né molti universi) ma ha un punto debole: nega il principio di ragione sufficiente, quello per cui tutto ha una spiegazione, anche se non la conosciamo. Se tutto ha una spiegazione, possiamo dire che la "coincidenza" non è mai una buona spiegazione.

Dio e i "molti universi" tolgono di mezzo la coincidenza ma complicano il quadro aggiungendo entità di dubbia utilità.

La mia opinione è che il rasoio di Occam di cui si avvale chi sostiene (1) sia un po' sopravvalutato, innanzitutto non è ben chiaro cosa sia la "semplicità". In secondo luogo la semplicità è solo un indizio di maggior probabilità. Nel momento in cui il legame tra semplicità e probabilità si rompe, la seconda prevale sulla prima.

Ma anche far fuori il principio di ragion sufficiente non è prudente, si rischia di fare del caso un dio-tappabuchi.

PDFS.SEMANTICSCHOLAR.ORG

pdfs.semanticscholar.org

Parfit on brute facts By Edward Feser

• Derek Parfit’s article “The Puzzle of Reality: Why Does the Universe Exist?”... It’s an admirably clear and comprehensive survey of the various answers that have been given to that question,
• Parfit appears to sympathize with the “Brute Fact View”according to which the universe simply exists without explanation, and that’s that. The claim here is not that there is an explanation but that we don’t and even can’t know what it is. It is rather that there is no explanation at all,
• This is , of course, implicitly to deny the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), according to which everything does have an explanation,
• Parfit describes and defends the Brute Fact View in the following passage:
• there would exist an arbitrary set of messily complicated worlds. That is what, with a random selection, we should expect. It is unclear whether ours is one such world... It would be in one sense inexplicable why the Universe is as it is. But this would be no more puzzling than the random movement of a particle. If a particle can simply happen to move as it does, it could simply happen that reality is as it is...
• For one thing, he seems to allow at least for the sake of argument that there might be a kind of “process”which “selects”whether anything exists etc. but in a “random”way that is not ultimately explicable.
• If you’re going to commit yourself anyway to the idea that the universe is just an unintelligible Brute Fact, why not simply say that the universe just exists and that’s all that can be said and leave it at that? Why posit, between the universe on the one hand and sheer Bruteness on the other, some intermediate “process”of “selection”
• Aquinas argues, chance always presupposes the convergence of lines of causation: example, when a farmer finds buried loot while he is out plowing his field, that is a chance occurrence. But that a robber decided to bury his loot there and that the farmer decided to plow the field that day were not chance occurrences.
• Analogia. To see what is wrong with this, suppose police come across a dead body and start batting around possible explanations -- murder, suicide, accident, heart attack, etc. Suppose one of the policemen who has heretofore been silent interrupts and says: “I don’t know why you guys are wasting time considering these different explanations. I say it’s just an unintelligible, inexplicable brute fact that this corpse turned up here and now. Case closed, we can go home now... No one would accept this for a moment, of course.
• A third issue raised by Parfit’s remarks is the stuff about the random behavior of particles,
• No one claims that the motion of the particles in question is simply unintelligible... random motion of particles is something which it makes sense to think of as occurring given quantum mechanics. The theory provides an explanatory context
• If you’re giving a theoretical description of some “random”phenomenon which gives it a kind of intelligibility, then you are ipso facto using “random”in a qualified sense.)
• There is no larger background theory in the context of which such a “random” occurrence makes sense. So there just isn’t any parallel here with quantum mechanics.
• Parfit’s remark that “randomness may even be less puzzling at the level of the whole Universe, since we know that facts at this level could not have been caused.”
• he is blatantly begging the question when he says that “facts at this level could not have been caused.”For isn’t the claim that such facts are caused precisely what theism says? But Parfit is not ruling out theism a priori here.
• he is saying that even if God is the cause, God’s own existence would not have a causal explanation and thus would have to be explained in some other way.
• So far so good, then. The problem is with what Parfit seems, at the end of the essay, to think follows from this point... from the premise that “X does not have a causal explanation”it simply doesn’t follow that “X is random,”
• Something that lacks a causal explanation could have an explanation instead in terms of its own nature, say, or by virtue of being a necessary truth. The fact that 2 + 2 = 4 does not have a causal explanation but it is hardly “random” that 2 + 2 = 4.
• Anyway, even apart from the problems with Parfit’s account of it, we can know the Brute Fact View is false, because we can know that PSR is true.

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Edward Feser: Parfit on brute facts

Edward Feser

Citation (APA): Feser, E. (2016). Edward Feser: Parfit on brute facts [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

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Parte introduttiva

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2

Parfit on brute facts By Edward Feser

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 6

Derek Parfit’s article “The Puzzle of Reality: Why Does the Universe Exist?”

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 8

It’s an admirably clear and comprehensive survey of the various answers that have been given to that question,

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 11

the “Brute Fact View” according to which the universe simply exists without explanation,

Nota - Posizione 11

Le simpatie di P

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 11

The claim here is not that there is an explanation but that we don’t and even can’t know what it is. It is rather that there is no explanation

Nota - Posizione 12

Detto meglio. Nichilismo tappabuchi

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 13

This is, of course, implicitly to deny the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), according to which everything does have an explanation,

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 18

Parfit describes and defends the Brute Fact View in the following passage:

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 22

The Brute Fact View may seem hard to understand. It may seem baffling how reality could be even randomly selected.

Nota - Posizione 22

Si ammette la sorpresa

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 27

this would be no more puzzling than the random movement of a particle. If a particle can simply happen to move as it does, it could simply happen that reality is as it is.

Nota - Posizione 28

Analogia

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 30

he seems to allow at least for the sake of argument that there might be a kind of “process” which “selects”

Nota - Posizione 31

Ammissione

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 33

why not simply say that the universe just exists and that’s all that can be said and leave it at that?

Nota - Posizione 34

Primo dubbio

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 37

why call something a “process” which functions to “select” the universe if one thinks it is not something whose operation is ultimately intelligible?

Nota - Posizione 38

Secondo dubbio

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 44

when a farmer finds buried loot while he is out plowing his field, that is a chance occurrence. But that a robber decided to bury his loot there and that the farmer decided to plow the field that day were not chance occurrences.

Nota - Posizione 46

Caso e necessitá. Esempio.

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 54

To see what is wrong with this, suppose police come across a dead body and start batting around possible explanations -- murder, suicide, accident, heart attack, etc. Suppose one of the policemen who has heretofore been silent interrupts and says: “I don’t know why you guys are wasting time considering these different explanations. I say it’s just an unintelligible, inexplicable brute fact that this corpse turned up here and now. Case closed, we can go home now.

Nota - Posizione 57

Analogia del nichilista tapoabuchi

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 60

No one would accept this for a moment, of course.

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 63

does the universe exist?” than it is when we are asking “How did this corpse get here?”

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 72

A third issue raised by Parfit’s remarks is the stuff about the random behavior of particles,

Nota - Posizione 73

L analovia con la meccanica quantistica

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 77

No one claims that the motion of the particles in question is simply unintelligible.

Nota - Posizione 78

Disanalogia

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 79

random motion of particles is something which it makes sense to think of as occurring given quantum mechanics. The theory provides an explanatory context

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 81

If you’re giving a theoretical description of some “random” phenomenon which gives it a kind of intelligibility, then you are ipso facto using “random” in a qualified sense.)

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 85

There is no larger background theory in the context of which such a “random” occurrence makes sense. So there just isn’t any parallel here with quantum mechanics.

Nota - Posizione 86

Disanalogia

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 89

he is blatantly begging the question when he says that “facts at this level could not have been caused.” For isn’t the claim that such facts are caused precisely what theism says? But Parfit is not ruling out theism a priori here.

Nota - Posizione 91

La rassicurazione di Parfit: tanto nn esistono buone teorie sulla causa dell universo.

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 96

he is saying that even if God is the cause, God’s own existence would not have a causal explanation and thus would have to be explained in some other way.

Nota - Posizione 97

Forse quello che intende P

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 97

is God’s nature

Nota - Posizione 97

La tradizionale risposta

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 99

Parfit’s point is that causal explanations, specifically, cannot be the ultimate sort of explanation,

Nota - Posizione 99

Riformulazione di P

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 107

from the premise that “X does not have a causal explanation” it simply doesn’t follow that “X is random,”

Nota - Posizione 108

Obiezione a P

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 109

Something that lacks a causal explanation could have an explanation instead in terms of its own nature, say, or by virtue of being a necessary truth. The fact that 2 + 2 = 4 does not have a causal explanation but it is hardly “random” that 2 + 2 = 4.

Nota - Posizione 111

Caso e natura

Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 117

Anyway, even apart from the problems with Parfit’s account of it, we can know the Brute Fact View is false, because we can know that PSR is true.

YOU ARE NOT SO SMART di David McRaney - selling out

YOU ARE NOT SO SMART di David McRaney - selling out

• Teoria standard: il capitalismo è sostenuto dalla creazione di bisogni indotti da parte delle multinazionali...
• Comportamento classico: prendiamo le misure al mondo dove siamo capitati e ci "ribelliamo" ad esso x costruire la ns identità...
• Il ribelle è la linfa del consumismo: senza stili altrrnativi il magazzino non si rinnova
• ......
• THE MISCONCEPTION: Both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising. THE TRUTH: Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for status.
• Il ciclo. you started to realize who was in control, and you rebelled.
• you sought out something real, something with meaning.
• Think about an archetypal punk rocker with chains and spikes, gaudy pants and a leather jacket. Yeah, he bought all of those clothes. Someone is making money off of his revolt.
• Every niche opened by rebellion against the mainstream is immediately filled by entrepreneurs
• Fight Club, American Beauty, Fast Food Nation, The Corporation, etc. The creators of these works may have had the best intentions, but their work still became a product designed for profit.
• Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Cobain, Christopher Hitchens— once their output fell into the marketplace, it found its audience, and that audience made them wealthy.
• Il libro. Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, The Rebel Sell.
• Tesi: you can’t rage against the machine through rebellious consumption.
• La posizione ortodossa: All the interconnected institutions in the marketplace need everyone to conform in order to sell the most products to the most people... you must turn your back and ignore the mainstream culture.
• The problem, say Heath and Potter, is the system doesn’t give a shit about conformity. In fact, it loves diversity and needs people like hipsters and music snobs so it can thrive.
• Now people are hired by corporations to go to bars and clubs and observe what the counterculture is into... The counterculture, the indie fans, and the underground stars—they are the driving force behind capitalism.
• This brings us to the point: Competition among consumers is the turbine of capitalism.
• You attain status by having better taste in movies and music, by owning more authentic furniture and clothing... 
• so you reveal your unique character through your consumption habits.
• your desire for authenticity is what moves these items and artists and services and goods up from the bottom to the top— where they can be mass-consumed.
• trying to run counter to the culture is what creates the next wave of culture people
• The value, then, is not intrinsic. The thing itself doesn’t have as much value as the perception of how it was obtained or why it is possessed.
• Competition for status is built into the human experience at the biological level. Poor people compete with resources. The middle class competes with selection. The wealthy compete with possessions.

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Stuffing Envelopes By Steven Landsurg

Stuffing Envelopes By Steven Landsurg

• This is a story about some economists who set out to study altruism and ended up discovering something very frightening about human nature.
• Adam Smith. who needs altruism when we've got greed?... greed can be far more efficient than altruism. An altruistic butcher can't serve his neighbors well unless he knows how many want beef on the table and how many want chicken.
• Edempio. If you happen to like this article so much that you decide to buy a lifetime subscription to REASON, some Asian farmer has to grow another linseed plant. That's because the ink in this magazine is made from linseed oil. How does the Asian farmer know you need more linseed? Because rising subscription numbers set off a chain reaction: They raise the demand for ink, which raises the price of ink, which raises the demand for linseed, which raises the price of linseed.
• economists spend a lot of time theorizing about both the prevalence and the consequences of altruism. Enter Vernon Smith.
• Here's one of Smith's experiments: Two total strangers are placed in separate rooms. They never meet, they never learn each others' names, and they come and go by separate entrances. One of them is selected randomly to receive 10 one-dollar bills and an envelope. He can put any number of bills in the envelope and send it by messenger to the other subject. Then everyone takes his money and goes home. Simple economics predicts that no money ever goes in the envelope. 1/3 dà.
• Not even Mother Teresa was in the habit of sending money to total strangers about whom she knew nothing.
• Why, then, does any money ever get passed to the other room? My guess is that it has nothing to do with altruism or charity and everything to do with the subjects' suspicion that they're being observed
• La seconda inquietante versione dell'esperimento. subjects know that everything they put in the envelope will get tripled by the experimenter before it's sent to the other room... virtually all of the subjects put at least a dollar in the envelope... In other words, subjects give more generously when they can get a bigger bang for their buck.
• La scoperta: they're paying for the privilege of taking money away from one total stranger -- namely the taxpayer
• Da notare: the subjects do all this without knowing anything at all about either stranger or having any reason to believe that one is more deserving than the other... It's not like they're taking from the rich to give to the poor; they're just randomly taking from some people so they can give to others.
• they just plain enjoy the capricious exercise of power, bestowing good fortune on some and bad fortune on others
• Conclusione. the reason we have a redistributive tax system is not because people want to help the poor or the unfortunate or the incapacitated; it's because people enjoy moving other people's money around just to make mischief.
• Tentativo di assolvere: They're just not conscious of the fact that the money they transfer has to come from somewhere."
• Replica: These subjects are mostly university students, and they don't realize that when you give away money, it has to come from somewhere? And we allow these people to vote?

continua

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mA-cNbZ80fM