[FRIAM] query and observation

[uǝlƃ ☣]

The best answer to "so what?" comes in Hoffman's paper:

  Natural selection and veridical perceptions
  http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/PerceptualEvolution.pdf

from the abstract:
> We find that veridical perceptions can be driven to extinction by non-veridical strategies that are tuned to utility rather than objective reality.This suggests that natural selection need not favor veridical perceptions, and that the effects of selection on sensory perception deserve further study.

I haven't seen the book Dave mentions. But I suspect whatever it says cites these *games*. It's basically antithetic to the idea that the truth will win out over time/evolution. I.e. trust in the progress of metaphysical ideas is misplaced.

Coincidentally, I found this article interesting:

  Anti-Realist Pluralism: a New Approach to Folk Metaethics
  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13164-019-00447-8

> Abstract
> 
> Many metaethicists agree that as ordinary people experience morality as a realm of objective truths, we have a prima facie reason to believe that it actually is such a realm. Recently, worries have been raised about the validity of the extant psychological research on this argument’s empirical hypothesis. Our aim is to advance this research, taking these worries into account. First, we propose a new experimental design for measuring folk intuitions about moral objectivity that may serve as an inspiration for future studies. Then we report and discuss the results of a survey that was based on this design. In our study, most of our participants denied the existence of objective truths about most or all moral issues. In particular, many of them had the intuition that whether moral sentences are true depends both on their own moral beliefs and on the dominant moral beliefs within their culture (“anti-realist pluralism”). This finding suggests that the realist presumptive argument may have to be rejected and that instead anti-realism may have a presumption in its favor.



On 9/12/19 10:59 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> By coincidence I had dinner and beers with Glen
> along the way, and I'm pretty sure he has brought Hoffman's work up here
> a few times?
> [...]   So while I think Hoffman might be dead on, I
> still hold a bit of "so what?" and "what does it help me do?". 

-- 
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