Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
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Philosophy Mondays: From Is to Ought - Toward a Universal Moral Core (Part III)
Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
In the two prior posts in Philosophy Mondays I have argued for a universal moral core centered on knowledge. The first post shows how absorbing states curtail the growth of knowledge. The second post demonstrates the need for resources to further develop knowledge. To recap ever so briefly: knowledge is central to human affairs as it is the source of our power and responsibility. It is what uniquely sets us apart from all other species to date, although we are in the process of creating new species in the form of artificial intelligences that also have access to knowledge (and may in due time eclipse us in their power).
But just because a society has time and resources it doesn’t automatically follow that its knowledge will improve. There is one crucial missing ingredient: the critical process. The critical process consists of proposing new ideas (“conjecture”) and pointing out flaws in existing ones (“criticism”). Without the critical process knowledge becomes stagnant. Bad ideas remain unchallenged. Progress comes to a standstill.
In the prior post on resources I illustrated a lack of resources through medieval palimpsests. That period is the perfect example of societies in which the church exercised such power that it suppressed new ideas, stunting progress for hundreds of years. Humanity almost experienced an absorbing event with the rise of the Plague which killed about a third of people. In general when the critical process is suppressed the result is a lack of progress combined with severe resource misallocation. The combination of the two makes absorbing events significantly more likely.
But even when permitted, the critical process faces a crucial challenge. How are good ideas separated from bad ones? In well-functioning market based economies, companies with bad products shrink and disappear, whereas ones with good products grow. Of course “well-functioning” is doing a lot of work here. As I have written about extensively in my book The World After Capital, in the digital world we don’t have well-functioning markets.
In the two prior posts in Philosophy Mondays I have argued for a universal moral core centered on knowledge. The first post shows how absorbing states curtail the growth of knowledge. The second post demonstrates the need for resources to further develop knowledge. To recap ever so briefly: knowledge is central to human affairs as it is the source of our power and responsibility. It is what uniquely sets us apart from all other species to date, although we are in the process of creating new species in the form of artificial intelligences that also have access to knowledge (and may in due time eclipse us in their power).
But just because a society has time and resources it doesn’t automatically follow that its knowledge will improve. There is one crucial missing ingredient: the critical process. The critical process consists of proposing new ideas (“conjecture”) and pointing out flaws in existing ones (“criticism”). Without the critical process knowledge becomes stagnant. Bad ideas remain unchallenged. Progress comes to a standstill.
In the prior post on resources I illustrated a lack of resources through medieval palimpsests. That period is the perfect example of societies in which the church exercised such power that it suppressed new ideas, stunting progress for hundreds of years. Humanity almost experienced an absorbing event with the rise of the Plague which killed about a third of people. In general when the critical process is suppressed the result is a lack of progress combined with severe resource misallocation. The combination of the two makes absorbing events significantly more likely.
But even when permitted, the critical process faces a crucial challenge. How are good ideas separated from bad ones? In well-functioning market based economies, companies with bad products shrink and disappear, whereas ones with good products grow. Of course “well-functioning” is doing a lot of work here. As I have written about extensively in my book The World After Capital, in the digital world we don’t have well-functioning markets.
In science, theories eventually get discarded if they lack explanatory power. This mechanism acts quite slowly at times, as we can see in the case of string theory. But over the course of history it has worked quite well. Nobody spends time on the phlogiston theory of combustion. It is at best of historical interest but doesn’t inform current science or engineering.
The problem, however, is that we appear to lack a mechanism for separating good ideas from bad ones in philosophy. My post continues:
In philosophy on the other hand, texts continue to be studied, no matter how impractical, useless, or even detrimental the ideas have turned out to be for the lives of individuals, the functioning of communities and the progress of humanity overall. While something like string theory is an aberration in science, it is the norm in philosophy. Philosophy has turned out to be much closer to religion than to science.
Now one might think that some philosophical ideas have been successfully pruned because they are no longer politically palatable, such as the divine right of kings or justified slavery. But so far there seems to be no reliable way to assign these a permanent “falsified’ status. Instead, the most we can say is that they are “not currently” politically palatable. To see how dramatic backsliding can be one need look no further than the growing support for autocratic government in the United States.
Epistemic rather than political falsification is why scientific knowledge has been advancing so much faster than philosophical knowledge. Or more pointedly: it is why we have a robust set of universal physical laws while utterly lacking a universal moral core. My post goes on:
This has resulted in a profound asymmetry. With scientific theories pruned effectively we have been able to achieve rapid technological progress. But stuck in a morass of ever growing useless philosophy we have failed to achieve moral progress. This is an incredibly dangerous combination. E. O. Wilson perfectly captured this “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.”
This then brings me to the crucial point which completes my argument. The right measurement for philosophical ideas ought to be whether they help humanity progress. What constitutes progress? Our growing ability to reduce tradeoffs. This definition of progress is an idea that I introduced in the post on values.
So here then is my proposal for a universal moral core. Three principles forming a North Star to guide our judgment in the selection of actions and in the evaluation of philosophical ideas:
Avoid absorbing states
Mobilize resources
Sustain the critical process
This universal core is quite minimal on purpose. It leaves as much as possible open for individuals, communities and even nations to figure out for themselves. The reason for this is implied by the first principle: prescribing too much detail risks resulting in a monoculture that lacks resilience to external shocks. On the other hand I believe that it is impossible to drop one of these three principles and still achieve progress by growing our knowledge. One can think of humanity as engaged in a potentially infinite game. The first principle (avoid absorbing states) says: preserve the game itself. The second (mobilize resources) says: field the strongest team. The third (sustain the critical process) says: keep improving our strategy. Drop any one and the game will be finite.
I plan to write a series of future posts in which I work out the practical implications of this moral universal core for decision making ranging from individual to communities all the way to all of humanity.
Post written with helpful feedback from Lumen (using Opus 4.5)
Post illustrated by Claude Sonnet 4.5
In science, theories eventually get discarded if they lack explanatory power. This mechanism acts quite slowly at times, as we can see in the case of string theory. But over the course of history it has worked quite well. Nobody spends time on the phlogiston theory of combustion. It is at best of historical interest but doesn’t inform current science or engineering.
The problem, however, is that we appear to lack a mechanism for separating good ideas from bad ones in philosophy. My post continues:
In philosophy on the other hand, texts continue to be studied, no matter how impractical, useless, or even detrimental the ideas have turned out to be for the lives of individuals, the functioning of communities and the progress of humanity overall. While something like string theory is an aberration in science, it is the norm in philosophy. Philosophy has turned out to be much closer to religion than to science.
Now one might think that some philosophical ideas have been successfully pruned because they are no longer politically palatable, such as the divine right of kings or justified slavery. But so far there seems to be no reliable way to assign these a permanent “falsified’ status. Instead, the most we can say is that they are “not currently” politically palatable. To see how dramatic backsliding can be one need look no further than the growing support for autocratic government in the United States.
Epistemic rather than political falsification is why scientific knowledge has been advancing so much faster than philosophical knowledge. Or more pointedly: it is why we have a robust set of universal physical laws while utterly lacking a universal moral core. My post goes on:
This has resulted in a profound asymmetry. With scientific theories pruned effectively we have been able to achieve rapid technological progress. But stuck in a morass of ever growing useless philosophy we have failed to achieve moral progress. This is an incredibly dangerous combination. E. O. Wilson perfectly captured this “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.”
This then brings me to the crucial point which completes my argument. The right measurement for philosophical ideas ought to be whether they help humanity progress. What constitutes progress? Our growing ability to reduce tradeoffs. This definition of progress is an idea that I introduced in the post on values.
So here then is my proposal for a universal moral core. Three principles forming a North Star to guide our judgment in the selection of actions and in the evaluation of philosophical ideas:
Avoid absorbing states
Mobilize resources
Sustain the critical process
This universal core is quite minimal on purpose. It leaves as much as possible open for individuals, communities and even nations to figure out for themselves. The reason for this is implied by the first principle: prescribing too much detail risks resulting in a monoculture that lacks resilience to external shocks. On the other hand I believe that it is impossible to drop one of these three principles and still achieve progress by growing our knowledge. One can think of humanity as engaged in a potentially infinite game. The first principle (avoid absorbing states) says: preserve the game itself. The second (mobilize resources) says: field the strongest team. The third (sustain the critical process) says: keep improving our strategy. Drop any one and the game will be finite.
I plan to write a series of future posts in which I work out the practical implications of this moral universal core for decision making ranging from individual to communities all the way to all of humanity.
Post written with helpful feedback from Lumen (using Opus 4.5)
Post illustrated by Claude Sonnet 4.5
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