Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • UPDATE ON PROPERTARIAN ETHICS “Proof and Calculability” = Ethical Truth in Polit

    UPDATE ON PROPERTARIAN ETHICS

    “Proof and Calculability” = Ethical Truth in Politics

    I got stuck while writing Propertarianism in 2010 on the ethical requirement that at that time I called “Calculability”. I knew it was needed in any contractual government to prevent externalizing costs – if not outright acts of abuse and fraud.

    For all intents and purposes, I was forcing contractual and monetary (numeric) constraints into political ethics. But I knew something was ‘wrong’ in verbal constructions as well. Even if strict construction and original intent were known issues, how could I prevent fallacious argument in politics (lying)?

    And I just couldn’t get my arms around it. And it’s taken me really, what, three and a half years to solve it with Operationalism? So, instead of one ethical addition called ‘calculability’ which we need to keep, I need to add Operationalism as well (ie: ‘Proof”). I suppose I could work the language a bit and demonstrate that they’re in fact, the same principle applied to calculable and argumentative problems but I think that would only complicate matters. So I’ll keep them separate and overlapping (which is a theme I keep finding myself using.)

    So Truth(Testimony) Operationalism(Proof), and Calculability(testability of contract) are the additional properties of political ethics I’ve added to to propertarianism. I am not sure but I think that’s the hardest problem I had to solve in this entire program so far.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 06:26:00 UTC

  • Explanatory Power vs Parsimony Verification vs Falsification Correspondence vs O

    Explanatory Power vs Parsimony

    Verification vs Falsification

    Correspondence vs Operations?

    Proof vs Truth?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 05:51:00 UTC

  • Good friends ask you the right questions, and give you the right criticisms. Goo

    Good friends ask you the right questions, and give you the right criticisms. Good friends make you more of what you can be, than you could be without them. I am lucky I have such good friends.

    Thank you.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 05:40:00 UTC

  • OK. I just blew my own mind. Now, I need more coffee. It’s noon. Dark as hell. R

    OK. I just blew my own mind. Now, I need more coffee. It’s noon. Dark as hell. Raining like an Nor’easter downpour, with thundering and lightning like the Catatumbo delta. I need more coffee. Yeah. And to let all this settle in a bit.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 05:38:00 UTC

  • OPERATIONALISM AS COMPLETING THE TRANSFORMATION OF MAN? I want to talk about the

    OPERATIONALISM AS COMPLETING THE TRANSFORMATION OF MAN?

    I want to talk about the experience of the mind, under economics, science and operationalism, versus under language, logic and math under platonism. But I don’t know the words to use. There is a very great similarity between language, logic, math, mysticism and religion, that is not extant in economics, science, and operationalism. Now, I sort of ‘get’ it. But I can’t quite figure out how to talk about it. One of the problems is that under internally consistent mythos (declarative inventions) we call axiomatic systems, and objective reality (externally correspondent descriptions (descriptive statements) we call theoretical systems, is that there is some strange appearance of the infinite in axiomatic (mythical) systems that does not exist in theoretical (descriptive) systems. And I can’t quite put my finger on it. But I think Operationalism cures it. Maybe that is one of the metaphysical consequences of studying science and economics? Does it cure our native imaginary mysticism? Usually by writing something like this I can touch what is on the tip of my tongue. And I’m failing. But I know it’s something like this: when we describe an axiomatic system, it is unbounded by reality’s limits. I even know why it is so – the limit of the number of concepts we can run at one time. I know that we are often ‘awed’ by what should not awe us but be obvious: that whenever we stipulate models or axioms we construct all possible consequences in that utterance, even though we cannot ‘imagine’ all such possible consequences. Our imagination takes license to create ‘the imaginary reality’ out of what was merely a computationally larger set of consequences than our feeble minds can process. What bit of cognitive bias and psychology makes us attracted to the imaginary? Is it another garden of eden? An intellectual space where we are unbounded by reality for just a moment? I think so. I think it evokes the feeling of the undiscovered valley full of new resources and prey. It’s a cognitive bias. An evolutionary instinct. And another instinct or cognitive bias that is no longer useful in our current state. Does science train us out of it? I think so. We still have people, and I think we try to create people, who obtain their awe from scientific, or in the case of TED viewers, pseudoscientific, rather than imaginary exploration? But without operationalism the ‘conversion’ of scientific man is incomplete. Maybe that is what the 20th century represented? The last throws of mysticism? Our attempt to hold onto the imaginary garden of eden where we are unburdened by reality? Is that fascination in the 20th century a reaction to the vast increases in scale that affected all of our lives? Is it a distraction from alienation, disempowerment, the loss of our traditions, and the desperate need to feel we could regain previous sense of control and certainty. Is our job to complete the transformation? To abandon our last mysteries? So that we can RESTORE OUR CIVIL SOCIETY and once again eliminate our alienation? The central problem of modernity?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 05:33:00 UTC

  • MAN MUST ACT? Well, sure, but to act one must PLAN at least one step: envision a

    MAN MUST ACT?

    Well, sure, but to act one must PLAN at least one step: envision an alternative and choose it. If that is not the case, one cannot claim to have acted. So action is a two sided coin: we must both plan and act, or acting has no meaning. Man must act, sure, but to act he must perceive and plan (choose) action. Even non sentient beings can react, but only a creature that can forecast the future can ‘act’. Like the golden vs the silver rule, or like liberty and property, both planning and acting are necessary for the consideration of either. As such I don’t find it very useful to rely on the requirement that man MUST act, without also taking into consideration that man must plan in order to act. All plans are theories and all actions are tests. This is an immutable property of reality. It is this relationship between planning (theories) and acting (testing) that leads us all the way to the scientific method, as complexity of that which we seek to act upon exceeds our perceptions. So while action and testimony must be reduced to personal perception, where we are capable of making judgements, we must rely upon empiricism and instrumentalist to reduce that which we cannot sense, perceive, and judge. And we must use operations to test internal consistency and external correspondence where possible. Only if we can reduce operations to the perceptible can we possibly make judgments, and only then can we say we possess the knowledge necessary to levy a truth claim.

    (sketch) (something of that order)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 04:27:00 UTC

  • 20th CENTURY PHILOSOPHERS WERE SEEKING POWER, NOT TRUTH Operationalism construct

    20th CENTURY PHILOSOPHERS WERE SEEKING POWER, NOT TRUTH

    Operationalism constructs rigid correspondence, eliminates the problem of imprecise language, even non-existent language, by creating names for operations rather than allegories, normative usage, or worst of all, relying upon names of experiences rather than the actions that cause them.

    It has become increasingly frustrating, if not dismissive, to read the philosophical arguments of the 20th century, which seek to find truth in language through a variant of set operations – which of course, must be nothing more than circular. When the answer was just sitting there for everyone to pick up and run with.

    But It was apparently much better to seek truth as a means of persuasion of others, rather than to seek truth as a means of testing the content of one’s testimony. And I think the psychologists and intellectual historians could spend a lot of time analyzing that particular bit of 20th century mysticism. Or perhaps pseudoscience. Or more graciously ‘error’.

    What vanity, or error would lead a body of people to seek authority rather than duty?

    I hope the depth of that question comes across.

    We all seek power. But the truth is just as likely to impede our ambitions as assist in them. But the academy, sought to take power from the church. Moral power. Reason and Science were the first blow. Darwin was the second. The Universalist State the third. It was all in pursuit of power.

    Philosophers of the 20th century, knowingly or not, were seeking power, not truth.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 04:08:00 UTC

  • Sorry Hans. I have passed you now. I solved what Mises didnt. Thank you for givi

    Sorry Hans. I have passed you now. I solved what Mises didnt. Thank you for giving me shoulders to stand on. And the inspiration. But I think you cannot follow me on this journey.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 03:48:00 UTC

  • QUESTION? What is the difference, if any, between following the rules in Sinic s

    QUESTION?

    What is the difference, if any, between following the rules in Sinic society, and doing one’s duty in German society?

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 02:49:00 UTC

  • WE CAN CHANGE THAT…. “The primary problem of politics is the lag in the develo

    WE CAN CHANGE THAT….

    “The primary problem of politics is the lag in the development of political institutions behind social and economic change”– Huntington.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-10 18:18:00 UTC