Curt Doolittle

Category: Epistemology and Method

  • AN ADVANCEMENT ON E-PRIME, I THINK? CHANGING IT FROM PREFERENCE FOR MEANING TO N

    AN ADVANCEMENT ON E-PRIME, I THINK? CHANGING IT FROM PREFERENCE FOR MEANING TO NECESSITY FOR TESTIMONY?

    I’ve been reading more on General Semantics and their meme E-Prime, and it’s pretty interesting how they advocate GS/E’ for the purpose of clarity and meaning.

    Now, I advocate E’ and Operationalism because one cannot testify to the truth of a statement if one cannot state it in operational language. Because you can’t possibly state that you know what you’re talking about.

    So, I think my argument in favor of E’ as a moral and ethical constraint, (and in the case of negative externalities, a criminal constraint) is stronger than the argument for ‘clarity and meaning’.

    ON A MY CONTINUED FRUSTRATION WITH A PRIORISM AS A VERBALISM

    I’ve still got to address the strange a priorist argument that there is something particularly interesting about decreasing precision (making general statements). Yes we can drop properties of many similar instances in order to construct sets of commons properties, and give them names. But this is an inverse of the problem of making general observations and investigating which properties we observe are necessary and which are not.

    Some descriptions, if made more precisely have no meaning: “wind” and “wave” are pretty good examples. At human scale they are meaningful statements. below human scale they are not. All statements of precision have maximum and minimum points of demarcation.

    I mean, i guess if you start with instrumentalism, you implicitly start with human scale and the problem of precision and arbitrary precision as necessary properties of any description (theory).

    I just guess this is one of those things that’s so obvious to me that I can’t imagine a literary alternative because I did not learn philosophy by literary (allegorical) means.

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-04 04:49:00 UTC

  • Karl Brooks wins the Propertarian smart of the month award. 🙂 —– Experience

    Karl Brooks wins the Propertarian smart of the month award. 🙂

    —–

    Experience – Apprehending sensory or mental events.

    Thinking – The mental process of reviewing what one knows and integrating that knowledge to create new knowledge or to calculate a probable result.

    Reasoning – Using heuristics to aid thinking.

    Rationalism – The belief that deductive reasoning, starting from either a priori intuitive knowledge or an established premise, is the optimum heuristic for gaining new knowledge.

    Scientific Descriptions – Descriptions of results obtained through the operations known as the scientific method.

    Operational Definitions – Defining discreet actions and results, labeling them with a unique name, and arranging them in a specific order. A cumulative process where each ordered set is also labeled with a unique name. Used to assemble complex constructions which demonstrate an empirically constructed truth, or identify component failure leading to falsification, of a specific ordered set.

    Analytic Rationalism – Existence exists. (Ok, that’s just a stab at it. Don’t know about this one, I know the difference between and analytic and synthetic proposition, but have not come across the term used with rationalism).

    Formal Logic – A specific language construction that allows inferences to be followed. The two branches I know of are syllogistic and symbolic. Here’s a syllogism I wrote about 10 years ago:

    God is truth

    Truth is love

    God is love.

    You’re scientism friends with love that one (heh)!

    Symbolic logic is the use of variables:

    A = B

    B = C

    A = C.

    Mathematics – Synthetic propositions expressed in symbolic logic.

    Arithmetic – Calculations using uniquely named components that have physical correspondence (real numbers).

    Naming – Unique identifying label.

    —-

    Karl Brooks (Rational numbers, not real numbers).

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-04 04:37:00 UTC

  • CAN WE PLAY A GAME? (learn something interesting) 1) So, can you explain the dif

    CAN WE PLAY A GAME?

    (learn something interesting)

    1) So, can you explain the difference between the following terms?

    – Experiencing

    – Thinking

    – Reasoning

    – Rationalism

    – Scientific Descriptions

    – Operational Definitions

    – Analytic Rationalism

    – (Formal) Logic

    – Mathematics

    – Arithmetic

    – Naming

    The structure of this list isn’t arbitrary. And it should tell you something very important.

    **Operationalism** + **Testimonal Truth**

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-01 08:43:00 UTC

  • THE CHOICE OF TERMS: “TESTIMONIAL TRUTH” I was going to go with performative tru

    THE CHOICE OF TERMS: “TESTIMONIAL TRUTH”

    I was going to go with performative truth, which is an established term, but which applies to formal languages and is already heavily loaded within the analytic movement. So I’m going to go with “Testimonial Truth” because it is easily understood and not encumbered by existing loadings.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-01 07:46:00 UTC

  • IDEOLOGICAL SUPPLY LINES: A FRAMEWORK IS A NECESSARY SOLUTION TO LOGISTICS You s

    IDEOLOGICAL SUPPLY LINES: A FRAMEWORK IS A NECESSARY SOLUTION TO LOGISTICS

    You see I’m building an entire philosophical frame. From truth, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics, as well as the moral arguments for and against. And I’m giving people moral authority to put it into action.

    This is what our people need. And once they have it they will work autonomously to develop their own narratives, applications and arguments.

    I am very excited. It’s been a long journey.

    Let a thousand flowers bloom… 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-31 09:22:00 UTC

  • TRUTH THAT EXISTS : PERFORMATIVE: TESTIMONIAL I can describe performative truth

    TRUTH THAT EXISTS : PERFORMATIVE: TESTIMONIAL

    I can describe performative truth as extant. Can you describe platonic truth as extant? No? I didn’t think so. What you mean is that you are seeking the most parsimonious testimony you could possibly give. You use this obscurant term called ‘The Truth’. You say, ‘I seek The Truth’. But that is analogistic – because if we don’t know what it is that you’re seeking except as vague general idea. But the operational definition of ‘the truth’ is the ONLY one that can be stated. And it can ONLY be stated as testimony. Because only humans can reduce complexity to symbolic statements interpretable by humans. So when you use the platonic term ‘The Truth’, you are using a heavily loaded allegorical substitute for what is operationally performed: ‘the most parsimonious testimony I can give’.

    (Yep we are there on that one. I just gotta work on the information thing a bit.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-31 05:03:00 UTC

  • “SHOW ME” : A NICE TERM FOR “AN EXISTENCE PROOF” (more important than is obvious

    “SHOW ME” : A NICE TERM FOR “AN EXISTENCE PROOF”

    (more important than is obvious)

    1 – Show me the money. (Contract) Money as information.

    2 – Show me the property. (Morality) Property as information.

    3 – Show me the energy (Physics) Energy as information.

    4 – Show me the information. (Logic) Decidability as determined by information.

    The problem with apriorism is its analogistic: argument by syllogism. The problem with analytic philosophy: argument by sets. The virtue of operational philosophy: argument by information.

    ***Show me the information***

    (Getting very close on this one now. I can’t make it ring true for everyone yet, but I am getting pretty close. It will come to me.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-31 04:58:00 UTC

  • PROPERTARIANISM: DECIDABILITY VIA CALCULABILITY If moral a proposition can be ex

    PROPERTARIANISM: DECIDABILITY VIA CALCULABILITY

    If moral a proposition can be expressed in propertarian terms, the matter is metaphysically extant, and free of loading. It is also rationally decidable.

    This is an incredibly cool thing if you’re a philosopher. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-31 04:17:00 UTC

  • THE DEVELOPMENT, DESTRUCTION AND RESTORATION OF TRUTH THE CONSEQUENCES OF TRUTH

    THE DEVELOPMENT, DESTRUCTION AND RESTORATION OF TRUTH

    THE CONSEQUENCES OF TRUTH TELLING

    What we westerners didn’t and don’t understand is the importance of truth telling as constant training for seeing the world in terms that we would eventually call ‘scientific’. And, consequently, if you tell the truth then you require debate to resolve conflicts. If you conduct debate you require reason. If you conduct reason you will eventually require science (evidence). If you conduct science you will eventually run into the problem of observability and scale and require instruments (instrumentalism). You do not require a third party ideal mythology as means of arbitrating rules. If you tell the truth you can use a jury, and do not need a third party authority arbitrating disputes. Instead of a mythology you can construct common laws. If you tell the truth and have common laws you can build trade FASTER than other people build trade. And that is the secret to the west. We started the bronze age later than everyone else, and produce the first steps of the industrial revolution in greece. We were forcibly indoctrinated into authoritarianism under Christianity, but once we rid ourselves of the authoritarianism, we built the second industrial revolution, and dragged the world out of ignorance and poverty in only 500 years.

    Truth telling creates universalism. Just as much as distributed family structures do under manorialism.

    BRIBERY INTO A CULTURE OF LIES

    Meanwhile the utility of not speaking the truth, or speaking in allegory (loaded and framed language) or using overloading to force allegorical speech (monotheistic religion), is a constant competitor to the high cost of truth telling to the individual, but the high value of truth telling to the group.

    So, competitor need only bribe you marginally, and eliminate the punishment for not telling the truth, and eventually, not thinking truthfully, or even, turning lying into a ‘good’, in order easily persuade a population to justify not telling the truth.

    The easiest way to to do that is by overloading: To use the media. Public intellectuals. Academics. Writers. To saturate society with bribes to cease paying the high cost of truth telling.

    The conspiracy against truth telling. Bribery into lying. And funding it with the state redistribution, and entertainment media.

    THE RESTORATION

    The commons is our property. The property of any man who would fight to keep the land upon which we build physical and normative commons. Any shareholder can bring a suit against violations of that property. And under common law we can force the truth. And we can re-habituate truth by prosecuting and punishing liars, and those who create the incentive to lie. There is no difference between a virus that damages hardware and a meme that damages the commons of truth telling. Intellectuals produce products for the commons, and if you are paid for the production of those products then you are open to prosecution for the selling of defective and harmful products.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-31 03:21:00 UTC

  • TELLING THE TRUTH VS BUILDING HIGH TRUST An essay on responsibility for speaking

    TELLING THE TRUTH VS BUILDING HIGH TRUST

    An essay on responsibility for speaking the truth, producing the consequence of high trust.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-30 13:34:00 UTC