"My point is that as society "progresses" - as we have to deal with larger and more difficult to interpret social structures - as democracy arguably breaks down - philosophy becomes vital because it is in some sense our actual lingua franca."
This is what I don't get: wouldn't it make much more sense to study economics and complex systems to get an idea of what the outcomes of any particular choice of social structure are? It worries me that people want to build these decisions on "Ethics" (I assume you meant this special case of philosophy), because they are just a poor substitute for real understanding (morals = how to act when I don't have clue about the consequences of my actions). How can we make a philosophical decision, without having an idea of the actual, physical outcomes of our actions? Especially in the face of growing complexity, I would call for maths to the rescue, not philosophy. Economics can tell us what are the outcomes of Democracy or Communism or whatever (like in Democracy, I guess some people will be exploited, but the average is happier, or whatever). Once we know the likely outcomes, we can apply our values to them and decide which system to use. I don't see where Philosophy enters (in picking social structure, physical power decides in the end, nobody asks the philosophers anyway - better to convince the "powers" with hard facts that some particular choice is also better for them.)
"They can't prove their ideas all the way down to ZFC"
I don't think that is true in general. They build on other mathematicians proofs, which build on other proofs, which eventually go down to ZFC (or whatever foundation you choose). Of course there can be errors and holes in the chain, but ultimately, to have an unbroken chain is the goal. I am aware that the consistency of mathematics can not be proven, though - sure, the whole thing could collapse from on moment to the next. Let's hope it won't ;-)
I am not saying that there aren't any mysteries in the world...
Also sorry if I sounded aggressive at some times, I didn't mean to attack anybody personally (even the prof from the lectures seems to be a smart guy after all). I guess my anger is really just the frustration that the really important questions are left unanswered.
"wouldn't it make much more sense to study economics and complex systems to get an idea of what the outcomes of any particular choice of social structure are?"
Ok, well, this is a fine idea in theory, but there are tons of problems:
1.) Actual social structures are way more complex than anything we could ever hope to model - ever. We can't make predictions about them - period.
2.) Even if we could, there is no means, and has never been a means, for manipulating social structures directly. The dynamics of social change are even more complex and less well understood than the structures themselves. At the very least we can classify the structures - the dynamics are a whole other world of complexity. It's not as if we, the intellectuals, are sitting on high and that everyone else listens to us and changes their behaviors accordingly.
3.) Your ideas about economics and complex systems require semantic mapping - they require that we can take a real-life situation, map it into the model, manipulate the symbols, and output a result. Unfortunately, this mapping falls OUTSIDE of the domain of the fields themselves. This is my whole point: one role of Philosophy is the creation of the mapping.
I think you are confusing my -descriptive- claims with -prescriptive- ones. I'm not telling you that ethics is -good-, I'm saying that it is the principal means by which society discusses difficult problems. Ethics, morality, religion, are all ways that society has a discussion with itself, if you want to think about it that way.
Can you give me a good, concrete, example of how you can use math to prove anything about society, without relying on assumptions about what is "good" or "right?"
A large part of what modern philosophy (post-modernism, post-structuralism) (which I am now assuming you are wholly ignorant of) talks about is the boundaries of what we can coherently talk about. A lot of it is hyper-skeptical and actually probably asserts things that you'd agree with (like that we can't claim moral absolutes, they are culturally dependent, etc.). Philosophy now serves as the kind of watchdog of language - it says what we can say and what we can't.
(For instance, the statement "God Exists" is not wrong, it's incoherent. Have you ever thought about it that way? What's god? What does it mean for an undefined entity to "exist?" Does dflskajfk exist? More precisely, it's incoherent in the context of assertions of objective truth. It's NOT incoherent in the context of religious discourse, in which it's taken to be a transcendental truth (axiom). Only by engaging our structural ideas about society can we think about why people "believe in god" and realize that "believing in god" is not a metaphysical but rather a cultural condition)
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"Economics can tell us what are the outcomes of Democracy or Communism or whatever"
No it cannot. This statement is absurd unless you make tons of assumptions.
"like in Democracy, I guess some people will be exploited, but the average is happier, or whatever"
Lots of "whatever"'s here. You really aren't making a good case for "economics." Do you even know economics? Have you taken any graduate courses in it?
"Once we know the likely outcomes, we can apply our values to them and decide which system to use."
Which values do we use?
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""They can't prove their ideas all the way down to ZFC"
I don't think that is true in general."
Do you actually know?
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Look, I don't mean to be mean, but it really doesn't seem like you're interested in Truth per se. You're interested in truth in terms of how you see the world. I guess that's fine (and necessary). I understand what you're saying. I guess problems start to arise when you try to understand what I'm saying (and fail). If you don't want to understand what I'm saying, that's OK too.
You have to understand that from my perspective, your belief in "math" and "economics" and your constant appeals to them as "things" and "bringers of truth and wisdom" seems borderline religious. You might be able to say the same thing about me re: philosophy, but I keep claiming that "Philosophy is not a thing" (and neither is Math or Economics, incidentally), so that wouldn't make sense.
Consider for a moment what it would be like to believe in god. I'm sure you've had arguments about god with Christians/believers. I'm sure they've been frustrating. There's always a sense that you "just can't get through." Consider that perhaps I feel the same way with respect to you. Consider the possibility that you are stuck in the same sort of mind-dungeon that religious people are stuck in. The only tools you have to interpret your world are the tools are you arguing for. You interpret other tool sets in terms of your set of tools. It's like trying to convert someone who uses C++ to use Lisp (have you ever tried?). They say "why should I use that? It's the same! They're both Turing Complete!"
I do not believe that any argument can be non-ad-hominem. We are both people, arguing.
The truth is complex and neither you nor I understand it. The deepest claim I'm trying to make is that I think we should be humble and err on the side of assuming that we don't understand things (until we are absolutely certain that we do). This is what I originally took offense to in your original post - your claim that your "prejudice had been validated." It hadn't been. I don't understand why you are more comfortable saying Philosophy (which you don't understand) is useless and meaningless instead of just saying "I don't understand Philosophy." It's OK to not understand things. (again, I'm not even saying that I "understand" any of these things, but then again I still haven't claimed to)
Another, famous example that maybe sums it up nicely:
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages." - Adam Smith
In other words, I expect the baker to not poison the bread he sells me not because it would be immoral to poison the bread, but because it would have bad consequences for him. That is why I think economics trumps ethics. Ethics are really just rules for "stupid" agents who don't understand why the rules make sense or what implications they have. Take the rule to not eat pig's meat - it made sense in the hot desert back in the day, when pigs were competing for the scarce food with humans and were transmitting their diseases. Probably some smart people figured that out and made up the rule (and were in the position to enforce it), that now billions of people are senselessly stuck with.
I think a society based on selfishness would be much superior to a society based on morals. With morals, there will always people who don't comply and mess everything up, who feel unsatisfied and create revolutions and upheavals. In a selfish society, things should be clear. For example, I don't think we should help the poor because we are morally obliged to do so. We should help them because otherwise they will end up lingering on our doorstep and trying to rob us (or also simply because it is a kind of insurance system, in case we become poor ourselves). In our current system, there is constant bickering about giving away too much money for social causes. In a selfish view, there would be no discussion - there would be a desired outcome (no robberies and beggars) and a means to achieve it. The only discussion left would be the best way to achieve the outcome (welfare systems? death penalty for throwing chewing gum on the floor? legalized abortions?...), and how much investment it would be worth to the individual. But those would not be philosophical discussions, they would be technical discussions.
Incidentally, it is one of the achievements of economics to show that selfishness can benefit everyone. There was actually an artificial life researcher who committed suicide when he learned of that, because he wanted to believe in true altruism. Such a shame.
"Actual social structures are way more complex than anything we could ever hope to model - ever. We can't make predictions about them - period."
Nonsense. Of course we can not make exact predictions (like the real thing), but we can get a pretty good idea of some things. We have good idea why capitalism works better than communism, for example. Honestly, I think you are just nitpicking. Of course we can not predict everything, but we can get estimate of SOME things, which is better than nothing, and certainly more useful than philosophy.
Even ethics are eventually just subject to Evolution - evolution decides on the ethics that prevail, not philosophers.
" It's not as if we, the intellectuals, are sitting on high and that everyone else listens to us and changes their behaviors accordingly."
That's why philosophy is useless and economics is not. If economics can show that some path of action is beneficial, people might well listen. Or at the very least, they might listen if you exploit that path yourself and get rich by it. Economics is not just a theoretical things, it is happening all around us.
"Can you give me a good, concrete, example of how you can use math to prove anything about society, without relying on assumptions about what is "good" or "right?"
I can recommend the book "Priniciples of Economics" by Gregory Mankiw, it is full of examples. I don't see why you would need assumptions about "good" or "right" at all? Also, check out many of the economics submissions on HN, there were some good ones. One interesting experiment was the one about freeloaders, and groups in which people could spend "money" to punish the freeloaders, vs groups in which they couldn't - one could eliminate the freeloaders problem, the other couldn't. That seems a very useful result, for example.
I am more an artificial life guy, one example that amused me was a simulation of agents eating a "sugar mountain", and a comparison of the "society" with and without tax (showing that agents ended up better off on average with taxes - the tax was evenly distributed among all agents). But that is a long way from practical application (I tried to find it, but Google let me down - it was from an artificial life professor in Amsterdam). Another thing is catastrophe simulation, where mass events are being simulated to discover dangerous areas during panic outbreaks for example in football stadions or pilgrimages to mekka. But these are just very specific examples - honestly, most economics textbooks are full of answers to the question you are asking.
"Do you even know economics? Have you taken any graduate courses in it?"
Uh - do you know economics? Sorry, but I think this is getting silly. You seem to put exaggerated emphasis on academic titles - I really thought people on HN were beyond that. To answer your question: no, I have not taken such courses, I have only read some books and articles. I don't claim to be an economist, either, but I think I have a sufficient idea of what it is all about. My own definition might deviate from the public opinion, for example I think evolution theory is also relevant for economics - and some parts of biology could as well be called economics.
""They can't prove their ideas all the way down to ZFC"
I don't think that is true in general."
Do you actually know?"
Have I personally verified every mathematical proof that has ever been published? No, as it is impossible and would not be very useful. Another silly question, I am sorry. I think you are just nitpicking. Of course mathematicians sometimes work with unproven concepts, but the concept of a proof is fairly established I should think. If a mathematician publishes something conceptual, they won't call it a proof (or at least it won't be accepted as such as long as the community has not verified it). Actually "proof theory" and "logic" was also my main subject in my maths degree - so at the very least, I am sure some mathematicians have a very precise idea of what a proof is, namely the ones doing "proof theory".
"For instance, the statement "God Exists" is not wrong, it's incoherent. Have you ever thought about it that way? What's god? What does it mean for an undefined entity to "exist?""
Now it is getting interesting, the failure to address such questions is exactly what disappoints me about philosophy. If you are saying post-modern philosophers are doing a better job with it, point me to a worthwhile book.
Although if you quote something like "like that we can't claim moral absolutes, they are culturally dependent, etc." I say why bother at all? Why not just do our economics calculations, ie "moral rule #1 would make one billion people unhappy and save one million lives, moral rule #2 would make 500 million people unhappy and save 500000 people's lives" and let society decide (I made it up, but for example moral rules about smoking could well have such statistics). Of course there is still an issue with physics, we don't know what it means that something exists, but why bother with metaphysics if "normal" physics already provides all the answers?
This is what I don't get: wouldn't it make much more sense to study economics and complex systems to get an idea of what the outcomes of any particular choice of social structure are? It worries me that people want to build these decisions on "Ethics" (I assume you meant this special case of philosophy), because they are just a poor substitute for real understanding (morals = how to act when I don't have clue about the consequences of my actions). How can we make a philosophical decision, without having an idea of the actual, physical outcomes of our actions? Especially in the face of growing complexity, I would call for maths to the rescue, not philosophy. Economics can tell us what are the outcomes of Democracy or Communism or whatever (like in Democracy, I guess some people will be exploited, but the average is happier, or whatever). Once we know the likely outcomes, we can apply our values to them and decide which system to use. I don't see where Philosophy enters (in picking social structure, physical power decides in the end, nobody asks the philosophers anyway - better to convince the "powers" with hard facts that some particular choice is also better for them.)
"They can't prove their ideas all the way down to ZFC"
I don't think that is true in general. They build on other mathematicians proofs, which build on other proofs, which eventually go down to ZFC (or whatever foundation you choose). Of course there can be errors and holes in the chain, but ultimately, to have an unbroken chain is the goal. I am aware that the consistency of mathematics can not be proven, though - sure, the whole thing could collapse from on moment to the next. Let's hope it won't ;-)
I am not saying that there aren't any mysteries in the world...
Also sorry if I sounded aggressive at some times, I didn't mean to attack anybody personally (even the prof from the lectures seems to be a smart guy after all). I guess my anger is really just the frustration that the really important questions are left unanswered.