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Against obviousness
Things can be obvious if they are simple. If something complicated is obvious, such as anything that anybody seriously studies, then for it to be simple you must be abstracting it a lot. When people find such things obvious, what they often mean is that the abstraction is so clear and simple its implications are unarguable. This is answering the wrong question. Most of the reasons such conclusions might be false are hidden in what you abstracted away. The question is whether you have the right abstraction for reality, not whether the abstraction has the implications it seems to.
That's from Katja Grace. Here is a good post on murder and evil.
Addendum: I liked this bit too:
Perhaps mysterious forces are just more trustworthy than social institutions? Or perhaps karma seems nice because its promotion is read as ‘everyone will get what they deserve’, while markets seem nasty because their promotion is read as ‘everyone deserves what they’ve got’. Better ideas?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 30, 2009 at 07:45 AM in Philosophy | Permalink
Comments
That's why you need data. Nothing is obvious until it is obviously in the data.
Taking an example from macro: That investment and output co-move is obvious. That this is true because shocks to productivity drive both is an obvious possibility, but it is not obviously true.
Posted by: Felipe at Aug 30, 2009 8:55:27 AM
If something complicated is obvious, such as anything that anybody seriously studies, then for it to be simple you must be abstracting it a lot.
"... [for] something complicated ... to be simple ..." is incoherent, but I think I understand Katja's point and possibly why Tyler reposts it here.
"If it's mine, then you may not take it from me without my consent."
This simple rule is so appealing to proprietarians that they'll accept almost any logical consequence of it as well, and they'll call the rule and its logical consequences "natural" despite every contrary evidence.
Another rule is more natural.
"If it's mine, you cannot take it from me without a fight."
We hold resources physically while we "consent" verbally (formally, systematically). The whole idea of property is a product of legal positivism inseparable from the systematic standards of a state.
Also, killing people generally is not murder. Murder is killing people unlawfully. Uniformed agents of the state are killing people right now, in Pakistan and elsewhere, but they aren't murderers or evil, and we don't dislike or disrespect them. On the contrary, they're heroes, and we celebrate them.
I'm preoccupied these days with an interpretation of the Eden allegory in Genesis. What is The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Isn't it the Law itself? Doesn't Genesis 1-3 introduce the Torah, because it's about the Torah?
The Law is a formal system distinguishing Good from Evil. Within its tradition, the Torah is the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Presuming to know this distinction marks Man's departure from the bliss of ignorance and all of the trials that follow, including the many abuses and usurpations (by its own rulers) that the Torah recounts, often critically.
The Torah itself is not evil. That's not the point. The allegory applies to any systematic distinction between Good and Evil. It's like the Orthodox idea that one mustn't write the name of G-d, because reducing existence to a symbol this way is necessarily to oversimplify and misconstrue.
Posted by: Martin Brock at Aug 30, 2009 9:12:55 AM
I'll go you one better.
"If it's mine, you cannot take it from me without getting a black eye if I fight."
And, the basic purpose of government is to reduce the fighting, so sometimes they protect the protectors while other times they protect the predators. The reason we respect property is because owners take care of it and get the most out of it, generally. If they don't that's what the losses are for with bankruptcy being the orderly transfer of property that the government institutes to avoid fights over ambiguous obligations. That's why they call it bankruptcy protection.
Posted by: Andrew at Aug 30, 2009 9:33:26 AM
This goes a long way to explaining why intelligent people who disagree may often mistakenly think the other person must have some sort of "agenda" or ulterior motive since the issue is so "obvious."
Posted by: Larry G at Aug 30, 2009 9:34:14 AM
"If it's mine, you cannot take it from me without getting a black eye if I fight."
This statement, like legalistic decrees generally, is presumptuous. Maybe you get the black eye if you fight while I survive unscathed. In nature, creatures sometimes surrender territory rather than fight, so artificial states aren't necessarily more "civil". They seem beneficial to humanity in other ways, but I'm skeptical of "civility".
... the basic purpose of government is to reduce the fighting ...
So the governors tell me. I'd tell them that they only reduce challenges to their own authority, if they'd listen, but they don't.
The reason we respect property is because owners take care of it and get the most out of it, generally.
We respect property within the state because we fear the state. Without the state, we don't respect property at all. We respect natural territoriality instead.
Maybe, some states establish property to encourage "taking care" of resources. Maybe, particular property rights have this effect regardless of the intent of statesmen. That's an empirical question.
If statesmen ultimately claim every available margin of value of every resource for their own benefit, I suppose they construct "property" to protect valuable resources, and I suppose they do want everything they can take, so we agree here.
Posted by: Martin Brock at Aug 30, 2009 10:10:24 AM
"The question is whether you have the right abstraction for reality, not whether the abstraction has the implications it seems to." To anyone of a scientific bent, that's a statement of the bleedin' obvious. Not to Climate Scientologists, though.
Posted by: dearieme at Aug 30, 2009 10:12:23 AM
What M. Brock said. Murder isn't the same as killing. Murder is unjustified, illegal killing (i.e not manslaughter). Hence saying "murder is unjustified and illegal" is a tautology.
Posted by: Gil at Aug 30, 2009 10:13:31 AM
"Tautology" is just the word. "Justice" is all about the self-serving tautologies of statesmen. If the tautologies seem designed to serve me, I must think more about how they serve the statesmen.
Posted by: Martin Brock at Aug 30, 2009 10:21:23 AM
Most of the reasons such conclusions might be false are hidden in what you abstracted away. The question is whether you have the right abstraction for reality, not whether the abstraction has the implications it seems to.
This is the correct response to most of the vast number of Internet arguments that cite "Econ 101" as their basis.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Aug 30, 2009 10:55:38 AM
--or, to paraphrase Shestov: "Self-evident: the status of a thing whose identity, meaning, sense, or value is unknown."
Posted by: Edward Burke at Aug 30, 2009 10:56:38 AM
Yes, yes, this is exactly the problem with all those other people who draw "obvious" conclusion with which I disagree. If only they could see the clear *obvious* arguments (using my favorite abstractions) that show just how very wrong they are. :)
Posted by: Robin Hanson at Aug 30, 2009 11:06:07 AM
I disagree. Think of a lecture by Milton Friedman or Gary Becker. They were/are gifted at communicating complex ideas in simple terms.
Just as a top athlete will often see the game from a different perspective, with greater clarity, so a gifted scholar can quickly remove the noise and communicate the true essence of a problem.
More often then not if a person tells me how difficult a problem is what they are really saying is that they don't really have a good handle on the problem.
Posted by: DanC at Aug 30, 2009 12:34:51 PM
it's clear none of the commenters write software.
it's not possible to count the number of obvious but incorrect things i have to work with on a daily basis.
daily: misconceptions, shortcuts, and changes to the essential situation.
if you are working in an area where generalizations and rules of thumb are acceptable or where data is uncertain, you can probably get away with making hard conclusions that hold over time. but otherwise not.
Posted by: babar at Aug 30, 2009 1:44:20 PM
Bah. Their are thousands of jobs in this country that rely on making things more complicated than they appear, including much of your own field, Pastor Cowen.
Posted by: josh at Aug 30, 2009 2:51:59 PM
A more concise formulation that I've often heard is: "every complex problem has a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong"
Posted by: anonymous at Aug 30, 2009 4:39:11 PM
I write software, so I'm acutely aware of the limitations of formal logic.
I read markets as "you accept what I offer, and I accept what you offer". What we have to offer is a separate issue. If one of us bargains from a position of much greater strength, that's not the market. It's forcible propriety, for better or for worse.
I don't assume that whatever we call "property" these days is necessarily for the better, but I'll still take market organization over the hierarchical organization of central authorities, because while I wonder about my weakness vis a vis other participants in the market, I have no doubt about it vis a vis the state's most central authorities. They order uniformed men with sidearms, and I don't. They possess nuclear weapons, and I don't. Biannual plebiscites can't cleanse them of original sin, because their entire enterprise is original sin.
Posted by: Martin Brock at Aug 30, 2009 5:41:44 PM
Statist believe it is moral to murder people if you are a agent of the government and some people in the government want you to murder.
[TC: YouTube reference was causing glitch and required an edit.]
Posted by: Gabe at Aug 30, 2009 8:53:55 PM
@Brock
The religion is the knowledge of good and evil, and was thus from the story, the creation of which was original sin.
Now its impossible to stuff back in the jar, its impossible to not have views on good and evil, so we can't get away from it.
Posted by: Doc Merlin at Aug 30, 2009 10:57:34 PM
I've often thought the pop-karma idea that "what goes around comes around" doesn't really transcend the quid-pro-quo market-reciprocal attitude; rather, it dogmatically asserts that all costs are internalized.
Posted by: Lee at Aug 31, 2009 7:31:52 AM
Doc, That's it. Beautifully ironic, isn't it? I like the book much better after learning to read it this way.
Posted by: Martin Brock at Aug 31, 2009 7:27:03 PM
I wonder about my weakness vis a vis other participants in the market, I have no doubt about it vis a vis the state's most central authorities. They order uniformed men with sidearms, and I don't. They possess nuclear weapons, and I don't.
Posted by: Underground Hypnosis at Sep 1, 2009 10:02:05 AM
Don't get it, UH. Are you hypnotizing me?
Posted by: Martin Brock at Sep 1, 2009 12:01:31 PM
