[PREV - DARK_BALZAC] [TOP]
PLATONIC_HATE
February - May, 2008
Throughout the Black Swan, Taleb
repeatedly uses Plato as a swear BLACK_SWAN
word. From the Prologue, p. xxv:
"What I call _Platonicity_, after the ideas
(and personality) of the philosopher Plato,
is our tendency to mistake the map for the
territory, to focus on pure and well-defined
'forms,' ... When these ideas and crisp
constructs inhabit our minds, we privilege
them over other less elegant objects,
those with messier and less tractable
structures ... "
"Platonicity is what makes us think the
we understand more than we actually do. ..."
I suspect that this is a bit harsh
on Plato. Arguably, Socrates
was continually rubbing people's
nose in the fact that they don't
understand much about the things ARROW_OF_DEMOCRACY
that are most important to them.
I found Taleb's repetitive
use of the term "Platonicity"
irritating.
What's wrong with just saying
"idealized" or "over-simplified"?
"... I do not want to be drawn into
philosophical debates with my Black
Swan idea. What I mean by Platonicity
is not so metaphysical." -- p. 291
He just uses metaphysical jargon
when it sounds impressive.
But then, it is certainly true that many a
person out there is afflicted with a need
for certainty that can only be satisfied by
delusion.
And indeed, many of these people have
technical backgrounds -- it does seem
that one of the reasons people move
into a technical fields is to try to Myself, I continually
find a firm place to stand, to avoid seem to be at war with
those fuzzy problems associated with people like this.
the humanities.
People who think
dictionaries
But Taleb often seems to dictate usage
be overstating the case instead of just
with his attacks on track it.
"Platonicity".
Wikipedia nerds who think
There's a temptation to you can discuss human
quote things like this knowledge objectively,
at him: uncontaminated by
human judgement or desire.
"The triumphs of modern
science, from Copernicus People with Computer
and Kepler, Descartes and "Science" backgrounds
Newton, had all involved who think that the
the application of precise utility of a programming
mathematics to the material language is proportional
world, and this apparently to it's mathematical
requires abstracting away elegance.
from the grubby accidental
properties of things to COMPUTER_SCIENCE_PROOF
find their secret
mathematical essences." Doctrinaire libertarians
who think a handful of
Daniel Dennet, insights into "supply and
"Darwin's Dangerous Idea" (1995) demand" and rational
p. 37, Touchstone, 1st ed. incentive are enough to
redesign human society.
There may not be a
"platonic ideal" of an WHEN_THE_DEVIL_QUOTES_SCRIPTURES
electron, but there
might as well be: every
one of them is perfectly
identical to the point
where the physicist John
Wheeler hypothesized
that they were all the (The electrons look like
same electron replicated positrons when moving
through a time-travel backwards, which implies
trick, bouncing we have an equal number
back-and-forth between of each, so if you buy
the beginning and end of this theory we have a bad
the universe. "missing anti-matter"
problem.)
The approach of idealization was
tremendously successful for a wide
class of problems.
The attempt at applying them to human
affairs was inevitable, however doomed
the effort.
If you were to quote Dennet at Taleb
(and one reason I selected that quote
is that I would guess he's already
read it), he would file you away as
one of the many people who just don't
get what he's saying.
I submit that he gets this a lot because he's
not terribly consistent in what he says
(though I'm sure that he thinks that he is).
Taleb leads with a denial,
from p. xxv: TALEB
"But I am not saying that Platonic forms
don't exist. Models and constructions,
these intellectual maps of reality, are not
always wrong ... you do not beforehand
... know _where_ the map will be wrong ...
These models are like potentially helpful
medicines that carry random but very severe
side effects."
But this is the last you'll hear of
any reasonable compromise on
subject of the utility of "To clarify, Platonic is
abstractions... he goes on to top-down, formulaic,
sneer at "Platonicity" with every closed-minded, self-serving,
other breath. and commoditized; a-Platonic
is bottom-up, open-minded,
And I would argue he retracts skeptical, and empirical."
this compromise later: on
p. 181, he claims Hayek's -- p. 182
criticism of "scientism" in the
social sciences should really
be extended to all fields of "Platonified economists
knowledge... ignored the fact that
people might prefer to
He seems to be saying that do something other than
the case of physics is an maximize their economic
exception, and that even interests." -- p. 184
among the sciences,
"platonic" idealism harms INTO_THE_BRAINPAN
more than hurts.
" Alfred North Whitehead called it the
'fallacy of misplaced concreteness' "
-- p. 181
But the trouble there lies
in it being misplaced.
As concrete as
possible, but
no more. (Without being
a block-head?)
--------
[NEXT - THE_SWAN_SLEEPS]