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Goodhart’s Law and Stoicism (Episode 165)
630 Plays7 days ago
Goodhart’s Law says: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. But if that’s true, how should we measure our philosophical progress?
In this episode, Michael Tremblay wrestles with this question.
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoicism and Goodhart's Law
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Stoa Conversations where we talk about Stoicism and applying it to everyday life. My name is Michael Trombley and this will be a solo episode from me.
Understanding Goodhart's Law
00:00:13
Speaker
Today I want to focus on good heart's law and applying that to Stoicism.
00:00:18
Speaker
it's ah It's a really interesting concept. It's one that we see in Epictetus. So Good Heart's law says, when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Education and the Misuse of Test Scores
00:00:31
Speaker
And what this means is that whenever you're engaged in any sort of pursuit, you want a way to measure that. you know Am I getting better at that thing? And then so you develop some sort of measure. But when that measure becomes a target, something you aim towards, it actually ceases to be an effective measure. And so an example of this, you think about this in terms of school. So we we want children to get smart. That's why we send them to school. We want to be smart as adults and that's why we go to school.
00:01:00
Speaker
um And so the way to measure that is through test results, right? But then students will often optimize for test results. And you see this in high school, for example, this concern of people um studying for the test with SATs or optimizing for getting it as good of a score as possible, acing these multiple choice tests, and then maybe forgetting things right after.
00:01:25
Speaker
So they become really good at taking tests, but they're not actually learning. They're not achieving the goal of going to school. And so that's an example of where a measure, which is your score on a test, becomes a target. And then once it becomes the target, it ceases to be a good measure. It stops actually measuring who's learning and who's not. It's just measuring who's good at taking tests and who's not, who's practicing taking tests and who's not.
Health Perception and Targeting Appearance
00:01:52
Speaker
Another example I think of is one around health. So we admire health, we think health is a good thing, and we measure that by appearance often. We we make judgments about who's healthy and who's not by appearance.
00:02:08
Speaker
But then we become so focused on ah targeting appearance that it actually stops being a good measure for health. And I think of this in terms of bodybuilders or professional athletes. um These are lifestyles that are are not healthy.
00:02:24
Speaker
um I think they can be really admirable. They can be excellent. I think bodybuilding is a great sport. um Many sports, I think, is something like mixed martial arts or boxing. These are sports that I've been involved in. They're excellent sports, but they in in very objective ways stop being healthy.
00:02:43
Speaker
And so that's an example of where you have a goal that's health. You create a measure that's saying, well, people that generally look a certain way are healthy. But then when you start targeting that measure, you can actually do unhealthy things to achieve it because you make it a target. It ceases to be a good measure.
Stoicism: Knowledge vs. Application
00:03:02
Speaker
So what does that have to do with stoicism?
00:03:06
Speaker
Well, stoicism is a philosophy as a way of life. It's about how we live, how we act, what kind of people we are. That's what stoicism values, right? So the way that you the way that you put your stoicism into practice, it's it's it's how you act, it's how you behave.
00:03:29
Speaker
and But we want to understand, you know, am I progressing as a Stoic? we want to ask that We want to ask that question, we want to evaluate our own progress, and so we introduce measures. And sometimes we introduce that measure sometimes we introduce the measure of our ability to ah interpret, read, or understand philosophy.
00:03:51
Speaker
So sometimes we introduce as a measure how many people we've read, how well we've understood what we read, how well we're able to recite, quote, drop examples of philosophers that we've read, be them stoic or otherwise. We start to, we introduce as a measure, obviously it's almost like an intellectual quality, our ability to you know sound convincing or sound compelling when we talk about philosophy.
00:04:21
Speaker
And like anything else, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm not trying to say that that's a bad thing. I'm saying that it falls victim to good heart's law, which is to say we we can then take that, which is ah this measure of progress, how much we've read, how much we can talk about stoicism or other philosophies, but we don't want to make the mistake of making it a target because when we make it a target, it ceases to be an effective measure.
00:04:46
Speaker
And this is something actually that Epictetus experienced. this is This is human nature. So this is something that Epictetus experienced in his own students. And I'll read some examples of that for you now. I'm going to start with Epictetus's handbook. This is section 49. And Epictetus talks about this phenomenon.
00:05:05
Speaker
Epictetus says, When a person shows himself vain at being able to understand and interpret the works of Chrysippus, say to yourself, If Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this person would have no occasion for his vanity. Now, what do I want?
00:05:23
Speaker
to understand nature and follow her. I seek for someone then to interpret her, and hearing that Chrysippus does so, Chrysippus interprets nature, explains philosophy, I go to him. But I do not understand his writings. I seek, therefore, a person to interpret them. I seek a philosopher to explain Chrysippus to me.
00:05:44
Speaker
Thus far, there is nothing to be vain about, and when I find the interpreter, what remains is to make use of what has been transmitted. This alone is the thing to be proud of. But if what I admire is the mere act of interpretation, what else have I ended up as but ah as a grammarian instead of a philosopher, except, indeed, that instead of interpreting Homer, I interpret Chrysippus?
00:06:10
Speaker
So when somebody says to me, read me some Chrysippus, I blush rather than feel proud, when I cannot show him actions that are in agreement and harmony with Chrysippus' words.
00:06:22
Speaker
So to break that down, Epictetus is always writing in that kind of no-nonsense way. But Epictetus is are saying, look, there's there's nothing to be proud of. If you want to be a good philosopher, you want to be a good person. To be a good person, you need to understand the world. And so you go to smart people that understand the world. You go to these interpreters. These are philosophers. I actually love that way of framing it, framing philosophers as interpreters, as people who are making sense of things for you.
00:06:50
Speaker
And so when you go and you study these these interpreters, there's nothing to be proud of until you've become a good person, right? No matter how many books you've read, no matter how much Chrysippus you can write about or talk about, there's nothing to be proud of until you have done something well.
00:07:09
Speaker
Otherwise, youre like um you're like a grammarian, which is to say you're like ah an interpreter of other people's works the same way some people talk about Homer, people would talk about Shakespeare, people might talk about any other sort of work of somebody else, you're you're you're not doing philosophy at that point. You're doing um almost like literature, kind of literary analysis. And there's value to that, but it's not philosophy. It's not philosophy the way the Stoics thought of it. And there's nothing to be proud of, ah not qua philosopher. And as Epictetus says, he says, you know, when somebody asks me to read Chrysippus,
00:07:49
Speaker
philosophy, Epictetus is this teacher, right? He's saying this as a teacher of a Stoic school. He says, when somebody asks me to read Chrysippus, I'm not proud. I don't show off how much I know. I actually blush because as I read these passages, I realize I'm not actually living up to this stuff. Chrysippus is saying, I'm not actually living up to what he's talking about. um And some some context there that I could have added earlier is that Chrysippus was the third leader of the Stoic school and he would have lived around 300 or 400 years before Epictetus so he's ah he is long in the past by this point and So oh Epictetus is actually he's it's really he's been around so long that it's there is those has been around so long that he's talking about the same thing that we do is we go and we read Seneca we read Marcus Aurelius we read Epictetus and
00:08:40
Speaker
But in his time, they would have been reading Chrysippus. They would have been reading this ancient source of stoicism for themselves as well, which I think is pretty cool. it just how There's such a parallel there. And so again, um Epictetus is just warning us about Good Heart's Law.
Action Over Knowledge in Philosophy
00:08:57
Speaker
We want to be good people, so we create a measure of that. We say, well, ah one way to measure that is how much Chrysippus you've read, it's how much stoicism how much sonicism you've read, it's how much philosophy you've talked about.
00:09:10
Speaker
Okay, that's one way to measure it. But if you make that a target, if you make that an aim, then you become like the grammarian that interprets Homer. You make that the thing you're proud of, then you've entirely missed the point. Epictetus comes back to this in another passage. This is Discourses 1.4, so Book 1, Chapter 4.
00:09:33
Speaker
And he's talking he's talking to students. He's saying, you know show me what you've learned. when Again, you've been reading Chrysippus. You've been enrolled at my school. Show me what you've learned. And they say they recite to him a line of Chrysippus. They say, well, Chrysippus says such and such about desires. It says such and such about what's up to us and what's in our control. And Evictetus kind of laughs at these students. and In Discourses 1.4, he says, quote,
00:09:59
Speaker
It's as if I was talking to an athlete and said, show me your shoulders. And he then replied, look at my weights. That's quite enough of you and your weights. What I want to see is what the weights serve to achieve.
00:10:13
Speaker
Same idea. right If I'm asking, show me what you've learned from Chrysippus, show me what you've learned from Stoicism, the only way to answer that question appropriately is to show it in your actions, is to show it in your behavior. It's to show it in the things that are up to you, your character, your personality, your disposition. Anything else you show,
00:10:36
Speaker
You've now confused the the one of the measures, having read a lot of Crispus, for the actual goal. And you've you've made a mistake there. Again, like the athlete who you say, show me your muscle show your muscles, and they present their weights. There's there's a real confusion here. i don't look at but I'm not interested in your weights. I'm interested in your muscles. I'm interested in what the weights have achieved, what they've produced for you.
00:11:00
Speaker
So again, the critical point is this, that philosophy is a way of life. It's an action. It's something we do. It's how we live. Studying is your training and the amount of studying you've done that can be a measure, but that measure can't be a target, right? The target has to be how you act.
00:11:22
Speaker
Otherwise, you're actually going to not just not just stunt your development, you're going to impede your development, you're going to actually have be prideful and vain about things that don't deserve your pride that you shouldn't be vain about.
00:11:39
Speaker
the the target is always our actions. And so you always need to think, do we treat people how they deserve to be treated? Do we demonstrate stoicism interactions? Are we just, are we courageous? um Are we wise in how we act? I think that is just that the reason I wanted to talk about the day is I think that's such an insightful point. I think, you know, to
00:12:04
Speaker
To look outside at other people, I think it's it's something that I see a lot in the Stoicism community, is I see a lot of people priding themselves basically in the act of interpretation. And i I
The Illusion of Progress in Learning
00:12:18
Speaker
certainly have been no different.
00:12:20
Speaker
but i And I think it's something you should look at in yourself. but I've experienced that in myself, which is a just because I understand a theory that's not the same as being able to put into practice, just because I've learned about stoicism is not the same as as to put into practice. And if I start to feel comfortable because I think I understand something,
00:12:41
Speaker
I think I understand that I caught me of control. I think I understand um Memento Mori or um ah or um loving your fate and Morfati. If I think I understand these things and then I feel comfortable, I'm like the student who has aced to the test and thinks, well, I've learned all I need to learn because I've aced the test. You've kind of gotten away from the core of it. I do this sometimes. You've missed the key idea.
00:13:08
Speaker
and so That's what good heart's law warns about. That's what Epictetus warns about just to say, you know, you need to seek out an interpreter. You need to.
00:13:21
Speaker
yeah yeah this is not this is not an anti-intellectual argument, the point is not to not read philosophy, the point is not to not go to school um if you want to learn um any more than it is don't go to the gym if you want to get big, don't use training weights if you want to develop muscle, the point is to remember that it's it's not about the weights, it's about the muscles, it's not about the intelly I would say almost propositional knowledge, the the ability to repeat things, the you ability to store things in your head. It's about how you act, what you do, how you feel.
00:13:58
Speaker
And so if you're going to have a target for yourself, make sure that is your target. It is how you put philosophy into practice and make sure the target doesn't become these other worst measures. Because as I was saying, not only does that distract from the goal, there is a further risk that it impedes the goal because it makes you vain. It makes you feel a false sense of progress, gives you a false sense of confidence like Epictetus's students.
00:14:27
Speaker
And I remember that, remember for context that Epictetus is a teacher. He's surrounded by young men. He's surrounded by, you know, 16 to 19 year old men showing off, trying to jockey for position in the classroom, um, things like this, but, but that's no different than today. We're still social. We still, um, try to.
00:14:50
Speaker
impress others, we still try to impress ourselves and try to feel comfortable with what we know. um But try to ignore this, try to ignore targeting anything besides good action. And so when studying philosophy, I just remember Good Heart's Law. Remember, as Good Heart's Law says, that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
00:15:14
Speaker
and make sure to not have any target besides good action, besides ah you know how your your character and how you act and how how you interact with the world.
Applying Goodhart's Law to Stoicism
00:15:27
Speaker
And so with that in mind, I'll finish off with Epictetus's Discourses 1.4, one last time, as I think it's a good reminder. He says,
00:15:37
Speaker
It is as if I were talking to an athlete and said, show me your shoulders. And he then replied, look at my weights. That's quite enough of you and your weights. What I want to see is what the weights serve to achieve.
00:15:53
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations.
Closing Thoughts and Audience Engagement
00:15:56
Speaker
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00:16:12
Speaker
Stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyer.com. And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.