From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Wed Jun 11 2003 - 05:01:28 MDT
> From: Emlyn O'regan
> Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 9:26 PM
>
> > Greg Burch wrote,
> >
> > > Crucial elements of carrying on a civilized discussion about such
> > > topics are respect for one's audience and toning the
> rhetoric DOWN
> > > as the inflammatory nature of the subject matter goes UP.
> >
> > > Another rule -- that rises to the level of a natural law in
> > my book --
> > > is that effective communication and economy of words go
> > hand in hand.
> >
> > > The persuasiveness of rhetoric is in inverse proportion to the
> > > number of adjectives used.
> >
>
> Harvey replied:
> > Excellent advice! As you say, these come close to becoming
> > natural laws.
>
> Except that we don't believe in natural law, do we? (I hope not)
In a limited sense, I do. (As usual) without the time to be complete in
explaining myself, I think that some elements of social interactions are
universal and derive from the very nature of (thus, "natural")
intentional beings interacting with each other. Almost all of what I
would call "natural law" I ascribe to the logic discernable in game
theory, especially the prisoners' dilemma, most especially the iterated
prisoners' dilemma. Beyond this (perhaps more correctly, "beneath"
this, in the sense of more fundamentally), I think there may well be
some moral content in the very nature of knowing and intending beings,
although I'm not as sure about that as I am about the social rules
derivable from game theory. If I had to quickly point to (but
definitely not even describe, much less explain) what I mean by this,
I'd say that certain principles of "cognitive liberty" are inherent in
the problem of moral interaction among information systems, especially
self-aware information systems. Deep in the archives is a discussion
between me and Robert Bradbury about this -- years ago...
In a connected sense, there may well be "natural laws" of rhetoric, in
the same sense that there are truly "real" (but flexible) rules
connecting structure and function, much as there are in engineering. In
this regard, one can see a hierarchical structure of
nature --> morality --> law --> rhetoric --> art
in the same way one sees a hierarchical structure of
nature --> science --> engineering --> art
Which last observation itself is so vague that it is more in the nature
of (ahem) a haiku than a philosophical observation. (Wasn't Anders
saying something about adjusting his powdered wig the other day ... ?)
Greg Burch
Vice President, Extropy Institute
My Blog: http://www.gregburch.net/burchismo.html
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