233. The View from Nowhere & Aliens

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Q is a bit of a puzzle - on the one hand, he's an incomprehensibly intelligent being from outside time & space. On the other hand, he's incredibly aggravating & petty. One might say that, with such phenomenal insight, he should be more objective...but what does that mean, exactly?

- Links for the Curious -

[imkharn]

"Is the picture distorted or is it me?" asked the camera to the other camera. Neither understood how they were built.

[TheGemsbok]

Happy to hear you're reading Nagel. I'm very fond of his work across several of philosophy's big topics.

[ToriKo_]

Wow, it’s pretty cool to come across this argument from a place completely different to where I did.

I found learning about Relevance Realization from John Vervaeke really interesting, and it’s one of those things that have stuck with me beyond most others, and I find myself using it/thinking about it almost everyday. I read ‘Data Detective: 10 rules for thinking about numbers’ by Tim Harford, and was hoping for a epistemological, practical, and maybe an ontological approach to Thinking (about numbers) and Truth. It didn’t live up to my hopes but it wasn’t terrible. But the point is that I found myself catching the numerous times Tim mistook different instances of Relevance Realization for something that was more or less “objective”. I found that learning about RR made catching this mistake way more obvious that it would have been otherwise. And yeah so I found it cool to hear this confusion explained separately and from a different viewpoint


For an example, in chapter 5, he tells the reader that familiarizing themselves with ‘landmark numbers’ is useful for being more objective with numbers we are not used to. For example, knowing a country spends $7 gazillion on its annual healthcare is not very understandable, but knowing a landmark number, ~*that it spends $64 zabillion trillion on its military annually*~ helps us realize that healthcare spending is only 4% he size of military spending. These landmark numbers make the information much more *useful* . You can be more objective about it.

But useful to ~who~ ? In what way? You’ve slipped into assuming that being able to compare those “landmark numbers” is more “objective” somehow, that not doing so. End of story. But if we want to go a little deeper, how do you choose those landmark numbers? Which ones do you pay attention to. Which ones do you not. And even if you manage to figure that one out, what does healthcare being 4% the size of military spending really tell you? How does that actually inform your actions? It can only do so... completely and utterly subjectively.


Sorry for giving you my whole life story’s worth of sentences in a comment

[Xob_Driesestig]

When I try to be more impartial I don't try "the view from nowhere" but instead try to imagine myself in the other persons position. The ideal wouldn't be a "view from nowhere" but instead a "view from everywhere", and I think thought experiments like Harsanyi's veil of ignorance help with that. Of course that still leaves open the question of who counts as "another person", a century ago philosophers wouldn't consider the perspective of a pig to be relevant to how we should structure society, but now a lot of philosophers do. The thought-experiment doesn't make us impartial, but it does make us less partial.

[marcnorderland]

Haven't watched the video yet, but being a huge Star Trek TNG nerd, I'm in for a treat.

[bthomson]

Hey! I actually have that book "Power of Ten!" 🤔🤗

[natealbatros]

really intersting video and concept thanks

[doktor_ghul]

The main conceptual difficulty with Q is that he's created by human writers, and share their, and our, conceptual and perceptual limitations. A true Q-like being would not think remotely like humans, would not have our limitations, and would not be a petty trickster who, when judging us, would act like a cranky child, aka Trelane. We can't conceive of a being that truly removed, because we cannot BE that removed. The best we can do is imagine a human ACTING like we would imagine that being would. Marvel's Watcher is closer to that conception than either Q or Trelane...

[mattdangerg]

Perspective without a perceiver harkens to special relativity to me

[ngoriyasjil]

What are we actually achieving when we play the "objective observer" game? Nothing? Or is the game still useful somehow even if the perspective we imagine is constructed within our own perspective and own limitations?

Great episode, great concept!

[bthomson]

What is important and what is not? How should we behave in any given situation? Is hedonism better than selflessness? Should we always strive for moderation? Why get out of bed? Is friendship worth the effort? Will AI destroy us or help us? Are the ins and outs of climate change just too complicated? Is homelessness just so intricate a problem it can never be solved? Will the widening monetary gap destroy capitalism? Will the lure of drugs and alcohol (the deadening of our pain) continue to side track so many? Will nationalism stay stronger than globalism? Asking for a friend! 🤔

[examinatorant]

Clearly, you haven't seen the last episode of Picard ( amazon prime) nor have you read Starry Messenger a cosmic perspective By Degrass-Tyson.
Not to give everything away Q is featured. In DT's book and his youtube "star talk" he takes the perspective of Groot (a plant life form ) from the Guardians of the Galaxy and asks what do we suppose they would see with our species eating their fellow plants and decapitating them in their prime or eating their young ( seeds).
With the advancing of technology I have become increasingly skeptical of SETI Because :
- Of the distances involved, the time a real "intelligent " signal would take to get to us meaning millions of light years possibly before our solar system existed or human life on earth... They or their planet may not even exist now.
Then there is the movement i.e. the stars we see from the earth today would have been in a very different place now... ergo would we be looking in the right place.
- then there's the answering any signal.... a conversation forget it.
- Getting there again forget it
- let's suppose HGWells (?) was right and the first contact was with a honeymoon ( alien) couple on a camping trip, they sprayed the local farmer's crops with a spray and the crops grew several times larger but changed in taste. The farmer cut his thumb and noticed his blood tasted like the enlarged vegetables and chickens Would we really want to tell an alien where we are? If they were far more advanced than us well?
But seriously I have issues with the whole point of space exploration ... the reality of Physics etc I don't believe it's value for effort.
My biggest issue with your philosopher is that he/ you are limited ( blessed) by a standard "normal" mind.
i.e. I am on the autism spectrum but clearly not nonverbal etc. But I lack the limitation of predominant emotional constraints ... I have difficulty with social cues and that includes some societal givens. i.e. I don't have the same human responses I tend to think in analytic terms... If a family member raises a topic with me ( in their mind gossip/news) my reaction is to analyze it and consider plausible alternative interpretations. Or I watch a YouTube on an event on American politics. I automatically start considering plausible alternative interpretations of some pivotal conclusion the YouTuber has ( jumped ?) to. The point here is their conclusion is colored by their emotional
( comfort zone) inclinations. Which I take is your point. But I'm not so inclined. Objective to me is based on context and is the argument based on reasoned provable facts. I don't have a real difficulty in ( after the fact) being able to change the whole argument around to a different perspective. The issue is when it comes to "alien life's perspective ", clearly I'm almost human and I would need some parameters, to begin with, see 'Groot' although he/ she ? had been somewhat anthropized to maximize the human acceptance.
In short, it all depends on your definition of objective i.e. I take the emotion out. And treat every issue as an object but you must have a perspective to see the item.
Think in terms of the maths problem ... you run an infinitely large motel, with an infinite number of rooms and an infinite number of guests. Suddenly 2 more guests arrive where do you put them. The mathematician fills up the page with numbers....charts with diagonals to me the issue is one of the definition of "infinity" i.e. Clearly the motel isn't infinite etc. ergo infinity is an unknown and thereby theoretical concept. ( unknowable) ... to know everything one must be everything.
FYI I was a relatively successful Volunteer Telephone Crisis Counselor Almost owning the holiday/ bad weather graveyard shift ( a time when the suicide threats and the most traumatic calls came in.) Off and on for nearly 20 years.