[FRIAM] Pascal's Wager and Kant's Categorical Imperative

[David Breecker]

Sorry Nick, I inadvertantly omitted your key question to which I was  
replying, which was:

 >>I do worry about complexity thinking leading to fatalism.  If a  
goddamned
butterfly can cause a climate crash, why take responsibility for  
ANYTHING
we do.  We should all be dionysians.

I think Kant offers a solid explanation for why one should (must) act  
"responsibly."   At the very least, he's the only reason I vote in  
Presidential elections.  More tomorrow if folks are still interested,  
when I'm less Dionysian and more sober-- I mean, Apollonian ;-)

And BTW, I think the Pascal analogy is excellent, with due attention  
to Marcus' caveat about measurability.
db


On Aug 13, 2007, at 10:05 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

>
> David,
>
> Can you explain this relation a bit further.  Sorry if I am being  
> dim, but I did not quite understand your comment.   Let's say we  
> are on the QE2 which, for some reason is inclined to be a bit  
> tippy.  We notice that the passengers are gathering on the right  
> side of the ship, which is OK so long as the water is calm, but  
> would be disastrous if a storm came.  We have no particular reason  
> to believe that a storm is coming, except that half the  
> meteorologists in the Captain's meteorological committee think that  
> there is.   You and I get together and decide that it would be a  
> good idea for some of us to move over to the other side of the  
> boat.  Now, certainly this is not a CATEGORICAL imperative.  I  
> certainly cannot will that EVERYBODY go over to the other side of  
> the boat.  So what kind of an imperative is it.  How is it possible  
> for everybody to act so that the boat is in balance.  This would  
> have everybody constantly moving from one side of the boat to the  
> other, like one of those models of neighborhood integration where  
> either the neighborhood is unintegrated or everybody is unhappy.
>
> How DOES one square Kant with ABM's???
>
> And what did it have to do with Pascal's Wager in the first place?
>
> Nick
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Breecker
> To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied  
> Complexity Coffee Group
> Sent: 8/13/2007 4:31:20 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Pascal's Wager and Global Warming
>
> Kant's Categorical Imperative is the answer:   http:// 
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
>
> He defined an imperative as any proposition that declares a certain  
> action (or inaction) to be necessary. A hypothetical imperative  
> would compel action in a given circumstance: If I wish to satisfy  
> my thirst, then I must drink something. A categorical imperative  
> would denote an absolute, unconditional requirement that exerts its  
> authority in all circumstances, both required and justified as an  
> end in itself. It is best known in its first formulation: "Act only  
> according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that  
> it should become a universal law." [1]
>
> db
>
>
> On Aug 13, 2007, at 3:53 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
>> All,
>>
>> The best argument for worrying about global warming presented so  
>> far in
>> this interesting correspondence is the one that says it costs us  
>> relatively
>> little to worry about it and and costs us LOT if we dont.
>>
>> Sort of like Pascal's argument for prayer, right?
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)
> Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University  
> (nthompson at clarku.edu)
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

dba | David Breecker Associates, Inc.
Santa Fe: 505-690-2335
Abiquiu:   505-685-4891
www.BreeckerAssociates.com



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20070813/6402963b/attachment.html