Thread by @BenCKinney

Here we go, folks! The first talk (of those that I'll be trying to livetweet) at #SoCIA18: "Logic, Ethics and History: the Mistake is Thinking It's a Mistake," by Daniel Wueste.

How will alien contact change our understanding of ethics, logic, and history? People think logic and ethics as having some kind of fixed rules. We ask questions to fit things into our heuristics. ("Is it conscious? If so, rational conclusion is...")

But people really like the idea of getting objective, rational certainty. Even though it's mostly a fairytale.

One theory is that moral reasoning is mostly ex post facto - one has intuitions, makes judgments, then reasons afterward. But this produces a false dichotomy. Like in law, where judge decisions are seen as "law" or "judicial fiat" like it's an either-or.

Rational/legalistic arguments are good for communicating and explaining. But, as with any argument, it's vulnerable to argument from authority - where the forms of authority become more important than the content.

"You can give any conclusion a logical form."

Idea (from Oliver Wendell Holmes) that there's a "vital logic" that stands behind, and leads to the creation of formal/legal logic. The logic of inquiry, as opposed to the logic of exposition.

Despite the archaic 1920s term of "vital logic," these two types of logic aren't exclusive, but complementary. We need to know BOTH what caused the conclusion and what justification can be provided.

I want more aliens in this talk, alas.

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