Ben Askin’s Reviews > Chance, Love, and Logic: Philosophical Essays > Status Update
Ben Askin
is 32% done
Taking a probabilistic view of the world is useful but has a caveat. In probability problem sets there is often the assumption that the cards in the deck, the marbles in the jar, etc, are perfectly shuffled.
Life does not work this way. Life is an imperfectly shuffled deck, where cards are often stacked in clumps. A coin flip will over iterations approach 50%, but human habit & material variance prevents equality.
— Aug 09, 2020 02:07AM
Life does not work this way. Life is an imperfectly shuffled deck, where cards are often stacked in clumps. A coin flip will over iterations approach 50%, but human habit & material variance prevents equality.
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Ben’s Previous Updates
Ben Askin
is 32% done
Life is difficult. In this way, it is probable that a healthy amount of denial and blissful optimism may even be adaptive. The important thing often for organisms is not that they have a completely correct view of the world, but that they can move forward even though their view is flawed
— Aug 10, 2020 12:06PM
Ben Askin
is 30% done
“The doctrine of chances” life is at the end of the day probabilistic. We must gamble one way or another. But certain strategies seem to be aligned with more success than others, statistically. Men certainly act against reason, as men have desires that are complicated and self contradictory. Still, there is an element of reason in our actions, given the amount that we are aware of the rules.
— Aug 08, 2020 03:17PM
Ben Askin
is 26% done
Much of philosophy is not scientific quest for truth, but loyalty to a particular creed. Catholics seek to align their values with the church. Followers of Aristotle likewise. The underlying message, belief will always be unaligned, different schools of thought will always conflict.
This is not the case in science. Practitioners will start at different points, but through analysis, will gradually converge.
— Aug 08, 2020 02:19PM
This is not the case in science. Practitioners will start at different points, but through analysis, will gradually converge.
Ben Askin
is 26% done
“How to make our ideas clear” is the second essay presented. It is ridiculous to say we understand how Force impacts things and to not say we understand force itself.
For individuals, it is better to understand a couple of things very well, than understand a great multitude of things only partially.
Men are sometimes captivated by a vague idea, live their life by it, only to find it gone, and their life with it.
— Aug 08, 2020 10:44AM
For individuals, it is better to understand a couple of things very well, than understand a great multitude of things only partially.
Men are sometimes captivated by a vague idea, live their life by it, only to find it gone, and their life with it.
Ben Askin
is 12% done
We cannot doubt everything, even if we declare it as a maxim, we will always have the assumptions that we take to move forward in life, we should doubt only that which springs to us to doubt. Anything else is dishonest.
Belief is the state we prefer to occupy. Doubt is a state of mind that we enter only to return to belief. We don’t want a true belief, we want a belief that works.
— Aug 07, 2020 02:10PM
Belief is the state we prefer to occupy. Doubt is a state of mind that we enter only to return to belief. We don’t want a true belief, we want a belief that works.
Ben Askin
is 10% done
Sanders comes to philosophy as a scientist, and is in this way, freed from some of the blindspots of more armchair thinkers. Admirer of Darwin, but skeptical of reductionist ideologies that spawn from his followers. Strikingly balanced for a philosopher.
— Aug 07, 2020 10:21AM
