Ode to the ISS

Tonight, I saw a point of light in the sky.

It could have been a burning ball of hydrogen, millions of miles across, and trillions of miles away. But I knew it wasn't a star, because it was much too bright.

It could have been a ball of rock, brightly reflecting sunlight off its clouds of acid. But I knew it wasn't Venus, because it was moving much too quickly.

It could have been a bit of dust, falling to the earth a hundred times as fast as a speeding bullet. But I knew it wasn't a meteor, because it lasted much too long.

It was a structure the size of a football field, made of aluminum, titanium and silicon, over two hundred miles above our heads, always falling, but always missing the ground, current home to six. It was the International Space Station.

Hypothetical Imperatives

In my last few posts about morality, I've been pretty confident about my conclusions. From here on out, it will start getting more speculative. Some of my ideas may have merit, some may not. Please, tell me what you think about what I got right, and what should be changed.

In my last post, I asked how you could derive "ought" from "is". For a certain type of "ought" that's not hard at all. That type of "ought" that is a course of action to accomplish a given goal. For example, if  your goal is to lose weight, you ought to eat less fat. It is possible to empirically observe and test that to see if it effectively achieves the goal. This type of "ought" is called a hypothetical imperative and it's existence is the logical consequence of the existence of goals.

But is that the type of "ought" we're interested in? If we're talking about morality, shouldn't we be talking about something that's objective, and independent of individual goals?

One way of being independent of individual goals is to relate to all goals. If there were such a course of action, you would clearly want to follow it, because it would be a way to achieve your goals, regardless of what your goals are. But it's clear that there is no course of action to accomplish any goal. No matter what course of action you propose, you can come up with a goal counter to it. For example. you can't say that you should never steal to accomplish any goal, because that doesn't effectively achieve the goal of stealing.

Another way of being independent of individual goals is to not relate to goals at all. But in that case, why should you follow such a course of action? That approach seems to fall headlong back into the problem we're trying to answer. There's no apparent way to derive such an "ought" from an "is".

So are we back where we started? Unable to connect morality to reality? Well, not necessarily. We failed to find a special kind of "ought" that in independent on individual goals. But we did find the hypothetical imperative, which is a kind of "ought". Maybe it's the only "ought" we need. Maybe morality can be built entirely out of hypothetical imperatives. Again the question remains: How?

The Is-Ought Problem

In my last post, I asked what empirical observations you would be able to make that would be different if morality existed than if it did not. Some of you may have objected that that defies the is-ought problem.

Hume said that you can't derive "ought" statements from "is" statements alone. That is, you cannot determine what is moral or how the world should be just from how the world is. For example, suppose a runaway trolley is heading toward people who are tied to the track. There is a lever, which if pulled will divert the trolley onto another track, where it will cause no harm. Those facts alone are not enough to conclude that you ought to pull the lever. You can only conclude that if you add another "ought" statement to the premise, such as, "You ought to save lives.".

If Hume is correct, then morality is not observable in any way. Which would mean either that morality does not exist, or that morality is meaningless. Either way, it would be completely pointless to talk about morality.

So why are we talking about it? For that matter, why would anyone ever talk about it? No one ever talks about unobservable flergamarms, why would they talk about unobservable morality? Why would they even come up with the idea? Maybe people are just hopelessly confused. Or maybe Hume is wrong. Maybe ought can be derived from is. The question remains: How?

Does Morality Exist?

Does morality exist?

Well, what do you mean by morality? Keep in mind that an answer like "Morality is what is good." or "Morality is what is right." don't really answer the question. That just shoves the ambiguity onto another word. What you need is an explanation that breaks it down and really clarifies it.

If you're not sure how to answer that (and I'm not), the next thing to do is look at what you can observe. What empirical observations would you be able to make that would be different if morality did exist than if it did not?

So, what do you think?

Meaning

Do flergamarms exist?

Well, what do you mean by "flergamarms"? Or to put it more precisely, what empirical observations would you be able to make that would be different if flergamarms did exist than if they did not?

Flergamarms are invisible, intangible, and in fact, cannot be observed in any way. They have no observable effects, nor are they a logical consequence of something observable. As such, there is no such observation that would be different depending on the existence of flergamarms. So, do they exist?

Well, I wouldn't say they exist, but I'm also wouldn't say that they don't exist. Rather, I'd say that the question is meaningless. I would say that something can only have meaning if it's in some way connected to reality, and to be connected to reality, it has to be observable, or the logical consequence of something observable.

I'm not completely certain about that. Maybe there is some sense in which the term "flergamarm" is meaningful. I can't think of anything that could be though. And even if there is, there's still not much point in discussing such entities.

The Autumnal Equinox

We live on the surface of a giant spinning ball. From our perspective, everything else appears to move around us as we spin. The sun, the moon, the planets, the stars. As we spin to face the sun, it appears to rise the sky. As we spin to face away is appears to set. It is no coincidence that we spin around exactly once each day. It is our spinning that determines the length of the day.

But we don't just spin in place. As we spin, we move in a circle around the sun. But the way we spin is tilted compared to the way we move around the sun. And the direction we're tilted doesn't change as we move around the sun, which means that sometimes we're tilted toward the sun, and sometimes we're tilted away from it. When you're tilted away from the sun, the days are shorter and the nights are longer, which makes it colder. The winter solstice is the day when you're tilted exactly away from the sun. When you're tilted toward the sun, the days are longer and the nights are shorter, which makes it hotter. The summer solstice is the day when you're tilted exactly toward the sun. It is no coincidence we move around the sun exactly once each year. It is our moving around the sun that determines the length of the year.

Not to scale. Credit: NOAA

Keep in mind that when the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, the southern hemisphere is tilted away, and vice versa. The summer solstice in the northern hemisphere is the winter solstice in southern hemisphere, and the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere is the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere.

But today, we aren't tilted toward the sun, or away from it. Today, we are tilted perpendicular to the sun. Today is the autumnal equinox, the day when the day is equal to the night.

The equinox is a time of change. It marks the midpoint in the transition from the summer solstice to the winter solstice. Beyond that, it is also an inflection point. After the summer solstice, the days get shorter. At first, only a little bit. One day will be only a few seconds shorter than the day before it. But over time, the change increases, until one day will be minutes shorter than the day before it. The solstice is the time of the fastest change. After the solstice, the days will continue to get shorter, but the speed of the change will slow down again.

Free Will

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Alice says yes, because it would produce a pressure wave through the air. Bob says no, because it wouldn't be perceived by anyone.

Alice and Bob aren't disagreeing about what happens when a tree falls down, they're disagreeing about the meaning of the word "sound".

Do we have free will?

Well, what do you mean by "free will"?

One notion of free will is that it is the ability to make decisions that are neither deterministically caused, nor random. This concept is called libertarian free will (unrelated to the political party), and it doesn't make much sense to me. To start off with, what's the middle ground there? How can something be neither determined, nor random?

Further, a non-determined decision wouldn't resemble a decision at all. Consider this scenario: you're in a building when a fire alarm goes off. So, you make a decision to evacuate the building. The only reason to evacuate the building was because the alarm went off. If the alarm hadn't played a role in determining your decision, then you wouldn't have made it.

So, that means we don't have free will, right? Well, it certainly means we don't have libertarian free will. But when you say things like "Free will doesn't exist.", people tend to react by saying things like "That means we can't make decisions!".

Which isn't true. Things that are completely physically determined can still make decisions. Consider a simple thermostat. If the temperature is below 18°C turn the heater on, otherwise, turn the heater off. Admittedly, that's in the fuzzy area between "decision" and "reaction", but I don't think it's fundamentally different than an undeniable decision, just simpler. (Which leads to another question of definition. What exactly is a decision?)

The fact that people tend to react that way implies that the libertarian notion of free will isn't the concept most people mean by the term "free will". So, we should find another definition that more closely matches people's free will. Here's my suggestion - Free will is the ability to make very complicated decisions that are determined by a very large number of factors and is very difficult to predict in advance.

Under this definition, we obviously do have free will. This doesn't resolve the issue. I'm still not certain exactly what a decision is. But I think it's a good step forward that helps avoid common misconceptions.