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From: kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: rational behavior
Message-ID: <755@hounx.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Mar-86 07:58:22 EST
Article-I.D.: hounx.755
Posted: Tue Mar 25 07:58:22 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Mar-86 07:17:08 EST
References: <12518@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <12539@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <738@hounx.UUCP>, <533@umich.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 25
Xref: watmath net.puzzle:1562 net.philosophy:4661
Summary: (was "Re: Newcomb's Paradox")

Paul Torek joins the discussion on specifying the prescription 
for "rational behavior"...

>> What *exactly* do we mean by completely rational behavior? [Kort]

>We mean, behavior that follows the norms of reason.  Some examples:  modus
>ponens and the law of non-contradiction are norms of reason.  Somewhat
>more controversially, the principle "maximize subjective expected utility"
>is a norm of reason.  Still more controversial are norms for the formation
>of "expectation" in this sense (i.e., probability judgements) and "utility"
>functions (i.e., value systems).

Is it not the case that the "norms of reason" are not only controversial,
they have evolved steadily over historical times, with major and lasting
contributions from many times and cultures?  Even today, we see such
contributions as Axelrod's work on the Evolution of Cooperation, and
new branches of Logic such as Combinatorial Logic, Frege Logic, and
the like (or dislike).  Is it not the case that each generation of
philosophers found a dilemma in the preceding structure, and resolved
it by enlarging the dimensionality of the space in which the philosophical
structure resided?  (Example:  Law of the Excluded Middle.  We now have
propositions which are formally undecidable as True or False.  They
have "truth-value" somewhere in betweens, as in Fuzzy Logic.)

--Barry Kort   ...ihnp4!hounx!kort