Don’t know much about history, don’t know much psychology

In philosophy you had two camps: one group considered logic as the physics of thought

logic is the set of laws that describe how we think, just like the law of gravitation describes how things fall

Ok, that’s clear. The other group? 😊

The others thought logic is like an ethics of thought: what we should do if we want to think right

I do understand the difference between those, but I’m still not sure why this would matter so much … for AI 🤔

Well, if I got things right, then the point is that in one case we can’t disobey the laws of thought, it’s just how we are wired?

In the other case we choose to try to follow those laws, but we can fail. An AI could do the first, but not the second.

Ah, now it is becoming clearer what the issue is! An AI can only do what it’s told to do, not choose what rules to follow.

Yes, also the difference would be between logic as an ideal theory or as a human practice

Right, so is logic pre-given or do we develop it as seems fit to us?🤨

Exactly! That why everyone was accuring everyone else of being some kind of “psychologist”.

What so bad about being a psychologist? I don’t get it …

In German there’s a difference between someone who practices psychology and philosophers who apply psychology where it doesn’t fit

Somewhat like science and scientism?

Yes, that’s a good analogy: overextending the tools of one discipline to everything else

But why was everyone name-calling everyone then? Isn’t is clear to which camp they would belong?

Well, if logic is hard wired in the brain, then you would be a “psychologist” in one sense, 😊

but if logic is something humans build to fit their own needs then you would be a “psychologist” in another sense.

This is all very confusing, I hope we can simplify that for the article.

Yes, perhaps we should leave the whole “psychologist” thing out, and focus on the physics vs ethics

That would seem like a good idea, and make the link to AI more explicit!

I’ve actually got some good material on that from another group!