Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • Psychology… Am I the only person who self-anchors when speaking? I don’t like

    Psychology…

    Am I the only person who self-anchors when speaking? I don’t like to say certain things because it anchors my thinking, whereas I don’t anchor if I don’t speak it.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-26 05:21:00 UTC

  • The critic criticizes, the creator makes. OMG. That’s it. ENVY AND CONTROL

    The critic criticizes, the creator makes.

    OMG. That’s it. ENVY AND CONTROL

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-26 05:16:00 UTC

  • Are Criticism and Critique nothing but justifications for people who cannot inve

    Are Criticism and Critique nothing but justifications for people who cannot invent? Isn’t that what the record of history tells us?

    interesting…

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-26 05:15:00 UTC

  • Ludwig Wittgenstein on Bertrand Russell (nerd humor) —“Russell’s books should

    Ludwig Wittgenstein on Bertrand Russell

    (nerd humor)

    —“Russell’s books should be bound in two colors, those dealing with mathematical logic in red – and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue – and no one should be allowed to read them.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-26 03:49:00 UTC

  • So wait. If a warrior militia tells the truth. And if a warrior militia is all t

    So wait. If a warrior militia tells the truth. And if a warrior militia is all that is available to hunter gatherers under harsh environmental conditions, where others are valued rather than disposable, is civilization simply a means of increasing our ability to lie with increasing impunity? Sure looks like it…..

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-26 03:01:00 UTC

  • POINCARÉ ON CANTOR’S MYSTICISM Poincaré rejected the later foundational work of

    POINCARÉ ON CANTOR’S MYSTICISM

    Poincaré rejected the later foundational work of Cantor, saying that

    —“There is no actual infinity, the Cantorians have forgotten that, and they have fallen into contradiction. It is true that Cantorism rendered services, but that was when it was applied to a real problem whose terms were clearly defined, and we could walk safely. Logisticians as Cantorians have forgotten. (Poincaré 1908: 212–213; 1913b: 484)”—

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-26 02:00:00 UTC

  • CONFLATING TRUTH WITH TRUTHFULNESS / AND THEORY AS PSYCHOLOGIZING THE UNIVERSE.

    CONFLATING TRUTH WITH TRUTHFULNESS / AND THEORY AS PSYCHOLOGIZING THE UNIVERSE.

    (probably a little difficult for most but possibly profoundly useful)

    —“But we can claim that our theory is true and often do so. In fact, the idea that we cannot do so is itself a theory which, if true, cannot be claimed to be true.”—

    Of course, I didn’t make that claim. I only claimed that we can test if you speak truthfully, as in honestly and diligently, not whether your theory is true.

    Any statement reducible to human actions is open to sympathetic testing, and is no longer subject to the errors of meaning. Processes work or do not, there is no error of meaning in them. That which is demonstrated is true. Theories are the opposite. Very little of what is spoken is other than a word game.

    We can state human actions both as actor and observer.They are the same, merely from a different point of view. But, we must anthropomorphize the “actions” of the physical universe if we state the universe’s position (theoretical definitions) — or we can state the observer position (operational definitions). When we state the observer position we need not add imaginary content. When we state the universe’s position we must always add imaginary content – we must hypothesize.We can not read the mind of the universe (at least yet).

    This is what mises intuited by imitating the ideas of other thinkers, but he was not able to state it, and fell into pseudoscience instead.

    In economics we have a constant problem of this nature between Austrians and mainstream macro. Austrians stress the human position as both actor and observer. However, in the mainstream is common if not universal to state that ‘the curve moves this way” in response to some change. when the cause is human activity.

    (Sometimes I wonder if all this talk of theories is just another type of justification, and recipes are the only truth we can or do know. We can categorize our recipes, but that is all. Everything else, is imaginary.)

    This is probably more important than is obvious at first blush. Between the problem of (a) anthropomorphizing the physical universe (theoretical definitions), (b) the obscurity provided by functions, (c) the obscurity provided by experiential definitions, (d) the obscurity provided by imaginary definitions (analogies), (e) the obscurity provided by the verb to-be, (f) the variety of cognitive biases that we know of, (g) and pervasive human framing and loading, if not (h) the cosmopolitan techniques of critique as means of overloading (deception), it seems that human beings are desperate to add meaning wherever they can – when the exercise of science is in no small part an effort to remove meaning.

    We do not need to psychologize the universe. Which is in no small part what is being done.

    (psychologizing the universe: I have to work on this a bit more but it’s pretty close to the criticism I’m looking for.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-26 01:11:00 UTC

  • Curt: Why Do You Keep Saying Truth Is Not Extant?

    (from CR discussion) [W]ell, I have very consistently argued that platonic ‘ultimate’ truth is not extant, which is exactly what CR says: I can never possess it. (this may not be true at some point in the future but it is now, since we cannot reduce the universe to first principles as yet). Once we have reduced the universe to first principles It becomes difficult to understand how that would not be the most parsimonious truth, just as voluntary exchange is the most parsimonious ethical truth. So popper defines truth … as in-extant. I am just agreeing with you all because I see no way of reconciling performative truth with absolute truth other than my oft-repeated argument that it is possible to produce many truthful statements(true), none of which are complete(ultimate truth). So I’ve had to stick with truthfulness and ultimate truth as a means of not fighting a linguistic argument over habituated semantics. As far as I know I am correct in making both arguments, even if the argument that I can’t ‘sell’ is the accurate one. Platonic truth is a moral, not necessary or logical constraint. Whereas performative truth, always open to revision, offered to the market as products for consumption is probably the most accurate version of truth I or anyone else, has been able to construct, for non-formal languages. (which is something I think some of people in this group don’t understand the meaning of.) (And I have kind of been fussing with this problem for a year now. It’s freakin’ killing me. no wonder so much ink has been spent on it.) So again, I can go either way with it, and I suspect that in my book I will answer it correctly first, then say why it is so culturally impossible to change platonic truth, and then simply surrender to the dichotomy of using performative truthfulness, and platonic truth. “Cause if I can’t seem to even get one of you guys to at least see it, then I kind of think the only people who will, are going to be specialists. ie: a handful of people. So the best solution is to address both audiences. That way I get the specialists with the accurate version and the passionately interested with the utilitarian version. I mean, I bet I could have this conversation with, say, Dennett or Searle if I explained the reason for it, and and I don’t think it would be very hard. Eh… most of the top 100 would be pretty easy. They might not like my application but I doubt they would disagree with my logic. Thanks. Curt

  • Curt: Why Do You Keep Saying Truth Is Not Extant?

    (from CR discussion) [W]ell, I have very consistently argued that platonic ‘ultimate’ truth is not extant, which is exactly what CR says: I can never possess it. (this may not be true at some point in the future but it is now, since we cannot reduce the universe to first principles as yet). Once we have reduced the universe to first principles It becomes difficult to understand how that would not be the most parsimonious truth, just as voluntary exchange is the most parsimonious ethical truth. So popper defines truth … as in-extant. I am just agreeing with you all because I see no way of reconciling performative truth with absolute truth other than my oft-repeated argument that it is possible to produce many truthful statements(true), none of which are complete(ultimate truth). So I’ve had to stick with truthfulness and ultimate truth as a means of not fighting a linguistic argument over habituated semantics. As far as I know I am correct in making both arguments, even if the argument that I can’t ‘sell’ is the accurate one. Platonic truth is a moral, not necessary or logical constraint. Whereas performative truth, always open to revision, offered to the market as products for consumption is probably the most accurate version of truth I or anyone else, has been able to construct, for non-formal languages. (which is something I think some of people in this group don’t understand the meaning of.) (And I have kind of been fussing with this problem for a year now. It’s freakin’ killing me. no wonder so much ink has been spent on it.) So again, I can go either way with it, and I suspect that in my book I will answer it correctly first, then say why it is so culturally impossible to change platonic truth, and then simply surrender to the dichotomy of using performative truthfulness, and platonic truth. “Cause if I can’t seem to even get one of you guys to at least see it, then I kind of think the only people who will, are going to be specialists. ie: a handful of people. So the best solution is to address both audiences. That way I get the specialists with the accurate version and the passionately interested with the utilitarian version. I mean, I bet I could have this conversation with, say, Dennett or Searle if I explained the reason for it, and and I don’t think it would be very hard. Eh… most of the top 100 would be pretty easy. They might not like my application but I doubt they would disagree with my logic. Thanks. Curt

  • We Can Prevent Lies Easily If The Normative Commons Is Common (Shareholder) Property

    [S]o, under freedom of speech, libel, slander, defamation, are acceptable to you? So are Keynesian economics, Marxism upon which it is based, Freudian Psychology, Cantor’s sets, Mises’ Praxeology, Rothbard’s Ethics, The Frankfurt School, Feminism (feminist socialism), Boasian Pseudo-Anthropology, Postmodernism (the attack on truth), the marxist attack on education, the marxist attack on art? All of which were constructed of pseudoscientific arguments and all of which were permissible under free speech, but none of which would have been possible if individuals possessed the right of standing to require truth in free speech. It is ok I suspect to pollute the physical commons but not the normative commons? Do you have some evidence that such constraints place such limits on progress rather than improve progress? Or even a rational argument to demonstrate why (because you can’t, which is Bridgman’s position). Calling a woman a whore under anglo saxon law was equivalent to attempted murder that exposed the skull. Words have consequences. Why would some people prefer that words NOT have consequences unless they feared being held accountable for their consequences? THE PEOPLE WHO TAUGHT US TO LIE