Curt Doolittle

Category: Epistemology and Method

  • DRAFT OF “THE TECHNIQUE OF CRITIQUE” (understanding dishonest debate tactics and

    DRAFT OF “THE TECHNIQUE OF CRITIQUE”

    (understanding dishonest debate tactics and propaganda)

    The complex deceptive argument structure called Critique, it consists of these tactics,

    (a) Straw men points of advocacy as mere vehicles for criticism and attack,

    (b) Avoiding support of their argument, and using empty verbalisms defend it, confirming it with criticisms by returning to the attack rather than the demonstration of the strength of their ideas.

    (c) Using the “reasonable man” argument including moral appeals, appeals to reasonableness, to making individual exceptions to cases on an individual rather than facts and the problem of the consequences of exceptions at scale.

    (d) “Psychologizing” an ad hominem attacking the motivations of the opponent rather than the facts and structure of the argument.

    (e) Attempting to invoke guilt however possible.

    (f) Use of Ridicule, Shaming and Rallying as Moral Authoritarianism;

    (g) Overloading (saturation), Loading and Framing. (Use of suggestion)

    (h) Use of Verbalisms (analogies, moral reasoning, and pseudoscience);

    (i) Use of terminology as a logically authoritarian truth, rather than convention and claiming ignorance or incomprehension of alternatives.

    (j) Retreat into Dogma, and moral offense, and return to critique

    (k) Appeal to heroic figures with unworthy praise;

    (l) Flooding a market with confirmatory propaganda.

    (m) Use of dogma and verbalism to create a sectarian language with sectarian meaning and thereby constructing in-group/out-group conditions (a cult).

    (n) Offering in-group membership for compliance, and threatening out-group membership for non-compliance.

    In other words, they don’t defend their ideas (because they aren’t defensible) they merely use any weak idea, and the weaker the better, because it is easier to defend verbally and harder to attack logically, as a means of attacking your idea. (See Lew Rockwell’s most recent book as an example of a promised solution but delivering nothing but chapters of criticism without any solution provided.)

    The strategy of Critique is to use western altruism (exaggerated universal morality) to create a sense of guilt against in-group members, and to invoke western altruistic punishment against in-group members, and therefore create an environment where out-group members can use deception, trickery and verbalism to employ systemic parasitism, rather than engaging in mutually beneficial production – while arguing that the approach is for the good of all.

    In effect it is an elaborate set of deceptions and lies in order to overload the conversation such that we must rely on moral intuition rather than reason.

    It is another assault on truth telling, and the aristocratic society. An attempt to cast immoral as moral.

    Understand that the Misesian/Rothardian “Austrian” split is not Austrian at all, but yet another avenue for Critique. The only Austrians are the classical liberals at GMU etc.

    COUNTERING CRITIQUE

    1) As in any argument counter with the truth by calling out their tactic, refuse guilt for what is in your group interest, then return to the central argument.

    DONE

    So, it’s done. They’re done. It’s just a matter of putting in enough hands, and filling it all in.

    Put a fork in it.

    Ready to serve.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-30 13:31:00 UTC

  • I UNDERSTAND HOW THEY HAVE DONE IT – OVERLOADING (important sketch) A puzzle tha

    I UNDERSTAND HOW THEY HAVE DONE IT – OVERLOADING

    (important sketch)

    A puzzle that doesn’t fit together, but consists of many moral statements. Like any puzzle we heuristically fill in the gaps because we want to justify the moral statements – rather than object to the gaps because of illogical or immoral statements.

    It’s freaking genius. It’s brilliant. You just need to be a little better at verbal storytelling and it’s performing ‘suggestion’ on a grand scale. You need to be able to lie in greater numbers, and more frequently, then we can correct for the lies.

    They start with a metaphysical intuition to lie, and just use many, many, micro-narratives to overload us. Like a massive organized form of psychopathy.

    We are the most *objectively* moral people who most aggressively defend teh commons, and so we are vulnerable to overloading the same way we are programmable by religious narratives and myths. If we were not programmable by myths and religious narratives we would not be programmable by norms.

    Likewise, conservatives win elections using overloading, and so do progressives. Rathe than reason. Because reason is frail, but intuition is extremely powerful. They overload our reason while over-saturating our intuition.

    It’s not that he who is right wins. It’s he who talks most.

    Medial, like the church, is a vehicle for programming.

    And they programmed us with every pseudoscience possible.

    They created religion – the first lie. Then they created Pseudoscience – the second great system of lies.

    They used the same technique both times.

    LAW AND DEFENSE ARE DIFFERENT FROM LYING AND ADVOCACY

    Our system is purely defensive. We prevent against lies, leaving only truth. We prevent against free riding, leaving only production. The common law is not a form of advocacy, it is a form of defense. Liberty is not a commandment it’s a defense against creating tyrants, and it leaves freedom to innovate behind. Science is not a form of advocacy, it’s a form of correcting our interpretations of the world, and it leaves techniques and technology behind. Conservatism is not a means of advocacy, it’s scientific: if it works we will adopt it, but do not forcibly adopt that which hasn’t been demonstrated to work. We don’t tell people what to do, we tell people what not to do:

    It’s the job of the church (public intellectuals) to advocate for private action, but advocacy for public action is theft, and destroys the civic society.

    Political advocacy is lying. In fact, isn’t all political speech an attempted theft?

    The Nazarene was wrong, and Aethelred was right: you don’t do unto others as you would have done unto you. You do not unto others as they would not have done unto them.

    We had it right: church/academy/intelligentsia for advocacy, state for resolution of disputes, militia for prevention of power accumulation, and the civic society for action. There are no unemployed in the civic society. There is always civic work to be done.

    All so that we could steal the state from the aristocracy and use it to improve our economic standing, by using the state and the military to improve it. We opened Pandora’s box. And the new world funded it.

    ADVOCACY IS AGGRESSION, BECAUSE POSITIVE ACTION BY THE STATE CAN ONLY BE VIA AGGRESSION.

    We were the people who told the truth. We were conquered by the people who lied. For the N’th time.

    F__k.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-30 01:17:00 UTC

  • NEXT PROBLEM TO SOLVE: TABLE OF COMPARATIVE TRUTH So, now I have to work on comp

    NEXT PROBLEM TO SOLVE: TABLE OF COMPARATIVE TRUTH

    So, now I have to work on comparative “truth” in each civilization, by revisiting huntington and Fukuyama. But today, I’m spending the day with Macdonald again. Because while he has outlined the jewish strategy, I still must outline the anglo, german, and maybe islamic and Chinese strategies. I’d originally intended to tell the tale of the English, German and Jewish ‘cities’ but maybe I have to broaden it?

    Or do I just focus on the three important to the west, and give light treatment to the others. Strangely, because I studied chinese history in College, and because its an almost entirely military culture, I understand the Chinese strategy pretty clearly. Islam is fairly easy because it consists so thoroughly of a limited set of principles, tribalism, and inbreeding. I guess, german is the most simple. Because duty is not a hard concept to get across. It’s also martial.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-29 04:15:00 UTC

  • Knowing is an Experience, Not an Action

    [K]nowing is an experience. Constructing an existence, logical, or mathematical, proof is an action. We can demonstrate them. That is not to say that they are true, it is to say that they are proofs. If we have constructed proofs, we may err, but it is very hard to lie. And even if one does, err, we need not hold him accountable for his error. Speaking truthfully, constructing a proof, and possessing the ultimate truth are very different things. I can however speak truthfully, and I can construct an existence proof, and that is the most that I can do. I can know those things even if I cannot know if I possess the truth. So what does that do for me? I doesn’t tell me anything about whether I possess the ultimate truth, but it does allow me to speak truthfully to the best of my ability – and that is all that we can ask of anyone. Because it is all that is possible for anyone. Conversely, we must ask it of anyone who seeks to place an argument into the commons the result of which would subject others to harm.

  • Knowing is an Experience, Not an Action

    [K]nowing is an experience. Constructing an existence, logical, or mathematical, proof is an action. We can demonstrate them. That is not to say that they are true, it is to say that they are proofs. If we have constructed proofs, we may err, but it is very hard to lie. And even if one does, err, we need not hold him accountable for his error. Speaking truthfully, constructing a proof, and possessing the ultimate truth are very different things. I can however speak truthfully, and I can construct an existence proof, and that is the most that I can do. I can know those things even if I cannot know if I possess the truth. So what does that do for me? I doesn’t tell me anything about whether I possess the ultimate truth, but it does allow me to speak truthfully to the best of my ability – and that is all that we can ask of anyone. Because it is all that is possible for anyone. Conversely, we must ask it of anyone who seeks to place an argument into the commons the result of which would subject others to harm.

  • Truth Telling (Witness).

    [N]ow, let us say in scenario (a) you observe a traffic accident. In scenario (b) you are standing outside of a building and hear noises inside. In scenario (c) you report on a stress test you performed. In scenario (d) you propose a theory of the behavior of a set of gasses under pressure. In scenario (e) you propose a solution the explanation of a particular trade cycle. Giving witness in these cases, and in all cases, requires giving a sequential record of OBSERVATIONS, containing the information observed, without the addition of imaginary and hypothetical content. Now, why is it that we rely upon all sorts of physical **instrumentation**, to extend our perception, improve our memory, reduce that which we cannot perceive to an analogy to experience which is open to perception and **comparison**? Why is it that we rely upon all sorts of conceptual **instrumentation** to test our own thoughts and perceptions: experience, reason, math, and logic? Because our memories are reconstructed from fragments every time, and because it is extremely difficult for us to compartmentalize memories – our minds evolved to do just the opposite, which is why we can construct generalizations of similar phenomenon much better than we can (like chimps) remember past events. So truthful testimony is recitation of observation of differences which we call measures in terms which if repeated wold lead to the same conclusion. In other words, the operationalists in all fields failed, (Poincaré being first, Brouwer, Bridgman, Mises being the first in each specialty) for the same reason that I am having a bit of difficulty making this very important point: that we do not know if you speak the truth, and you do not know if you speak the truth, if you cannot convey your argument as an extant (real and possible) construction of physical and mental operations, producing changes (or not) in state according to independent scales (measures), which if repeated would produce the same result. Meaning: that operationalism is a MORAL AND ETHICAL constraint. And the assumption of moral and ethical conduct in fields of inquiry rapidly expanding beyond human scale, was an artifact of the past. Poincare, Brouwer, Bridgman and Mises were all trying to express in necessary terms that which was ethical and moral. Like ‘free speech’ at human scale (where the cost of speaking and publishing are high) the threat only emerged when the population involved and the problems involved expanded such that ‘honor’ (threat of outcast) was not sufficient a moral boundary. The same is true for political speech in mass market period after 1870, and accelerated with radio, television, and the internet: honor has no operational meaning because there is no peer group to ostracize anyone using norms. Instead, at scale, just as we require laws at scale, and the market at scale, or we require relativity at scale when the speed of light matters to the calculation versus the instantaneous perceptions we make use of at Newtonian scale, our political institutions, and moral and ethical institutions, lagged behind our technological means of publishing falsehoods. [W]e educated folk with our high mindedness (smart people bias) argue that the market corrects the truth over time. But this isn’t demonstrably true – and we have a lot of data to prove it. That is because negative information and lies spread faster than positive information and truths. The reason is that negative information that we can cheat with spreads faster than positive information that prevents us from cheating. It is much more expensive and lower incentive to produce truths and falsehoods because they are cheaper to construct and distribute faster. So just as in the market for goods and services, we see market failure, in the market for truth and fallacy we see market failure. People in both the market for goods and services and the market for truth and fallacy, commit fraud for personal gain. The small scale response, the human scale response (solution), is to rely upon an authority to set rules. The catallatic response (solution) is to define the conceptual commons as a community property, to which all of us are owners, and allow all individuals to bring suit against what we believe to be fraud. This does not require people who bear witness to speak the truth, which as we know from both popper and our examples above, is impossible, because causal density in all observations is a long exhausting chain. But it requires that we bear good witness. We cannot be held accountable for err if we bear true witness. If I have a sport camera and record an accident, that does not mean it is ‘true’ in the sense that all the causal information is present. It means that I can bear witness with it. And, that is speaking truthfully. (ALSO: I think it might be obvious now how theorizing can be intentionally performed as a means of distorting the truth, and furthermore for the purpose of outright lying. We cannot assume that the scientist much less the ordinary man, and certainly less, those who seek power to alter the state of affairs by other than market means, are honest. This is a fallacy that is embedded in the act of argument: we assume the other person is honest. Because in history, the only reason not to stick a pointy metal object into someone, is when, like family members, they are honest with you. ) Now, I try to refrain from throwing out my theory until I can support it pretty thoroughly. But at this point, it should be pretty clear from the above paragraphs that I have pretty much put the problem of the 20th century to bed. I didn’t realize the severity of impact that the cosmopolitans had on western civilization precisely because we did not understand the uniqueness of our truth-telling culture, or that we assume aristocratic truth from others, and that those who sought status in our culture also had to demonstrate aristocratic truth. But one can blame one’s aggressors (germans, french, jews) or one can blame one’s self (anglos) for failing to look into the mirror and solve the problem. I solved the problem. Too late maybe. But I solved it.

  • Truth Telling (Witness).

    [N]ow, let us say in scenario (a) you observe a traffic accident. In scenario (b) you are standing outside of a building and hear noises inside. In scenario (c) you report on a stress test you performed. In scenario (d) you propose a theory of the behavior of a set of gasses under pressure. In scenario (e) you propose a solution the explanation of a particular trade cycle. Giving witness in these cases, and in all cases, requires giving a sequential record of OBSERVATIONS, containing the information observed, without the addition of imaginary and hypothetical content. Now, why is it that we rely upon all sorts of physical **instrumentation**, to extend our perception, improve our memory, reduce that which we cannot perceive to an analogy to experience which is open to perception and **comparison**? Why is it that we rely upon all sorts of conceptual **instrumentation** to test our own thoughts and perceptions: experience, reason, math, and logic? Because our memories are reconstructed from fragments every time, and because it is extremely difficult for us to compartmentalize memories – our minds evolved to do just the opposite, which is why we can construct generalizations of similar phenomenon much better than we can (like chimps) remember past events. So truthful testimony is recitation of observation of differences which we call measures in terms which if repeated wold lead to the same conclusion. In other words, the operationalists in all fields failed, (Poincaré being first, Brouwer, Bridgman, Mises being the first in each specialty) for the same reason that I am having a bit of difficulty making this very important point: that we do not know if you speak the truth, and you do not know if you speak the truth, if you cannot convey your argument as an extant (real and possible) construction of physical and mental operations, producing changes (or not) in state according to independent scales (measures), which if repeated would produce the same result. Meaning: that operationalism is a MORAL AND ETHICAL constraint. And the assumption of moral and ethical conduct in fields of inquiry rapidly expanding beyond human scale, was an artifact of the past. Poincare, Brouwer, Bridgman and Mises were all trying to express in necessary terms that which was ethical and moral. Like ‘free speech’ at human scale (where the cost of speaking and publishing are high) the threat only emerged when the population involved and the problems involved expanded such that ‘honor’ (threat of outcast) was not sufficient a moral boundary. The same is true for political speech in mass market period after 1870, and accelerated with radio, television, and the internet: honor has no operational meaning because there is no peer group to ostracize anyone using norms. Instead, at scale, just as we require laws at scale, and the market at scale, or we require relativity at scale when the speed of light matters to the calculation versus the instantaneous perceptions we make use of at Newtonian scale, our political institutions, and moral and ethical institutions, lagged behind our technological means of publishing falsehoods. [W]e educated folk with our high mindedness (smart people bias) argue that the market corrects the truth over time. But this isn’t demonstrably true – and we have a lot of data to prove it. That is because negative information and lies spread faster than positive information and truths. The reason is that negative information that we can cheat with spreads faster than positive information that prevents us from cheating. It is much more expensive and lower incentive to produce truths and falsehoods because they are cheaper to construct and distribute faster. So just as in the market for goods and services, we see market failure, in the market for truth and fallacy we see market failure. People in both the market for goods and services and the market for truth and fallacy, commit fraud for personal gain. The small scale response, the human scale response (solution), is to rely upon an authority to set rules. The catallatic response (solution) is to define the conceptual commons as a community property, to which all of us are owners, and allow all individuals to bring suit against what we believe to be fraud. This does not require people who bear witness to speak the truth, which as we know from both popper and our examples above, is impossible, because causal density in all observations is a long exhausting chain. But it requires that we bear good witness. We cannot be held accountable for err if we bear true witness. If I have a sport camera and record an accident, that does not mean it is ‘true’ in the sense that all the causal information is present. It means that I can bear witness with it. And, that is speaking truthfully. (ALSO: I think it might be obvious now how theorizing can be intentionally performed as a means of distorting the truth, and furthermore for the purpose of outright lying. We cannot assume that the scientist much less the ordinary man, and certainly less, those who seek power to alter the state of affairs by other than market means, are honest. This is a fallacy that is embedded in the act of argument: we assume the other person is honest. Because in history, the only reason not to stick a pointy metal object into someone, is when, like family members, they are honest with you. ) Now, I try to refrain from throwing out my theory until I can support it pretty thoroughly. But at this point, it should be pretty clear from the above paragraphs that I have pretty much put the problem of the 20th century to bed. I didn’t realize the severity of impact that the cosmopolitans had on western civilization precisely because we did not understand the uniqueness of our truth-telling culture, or that we assume aristocratic truth from others, and that those who sought status in our culture also had to demonstrate aristocratic truth. But one can blame one’s aggressors (germans, french, jews) or one can blame one’s self (anglos) for failing to look into the mirror and solve the problem. I solved the problem. Too late maybe. But I solved it.

  • The Central Argument: Western Testimonial Truth vs Platonic Truth

    (the central argument)( profound)

    [T]he central argument regarding truth:

    1) … is that giving witness to one’s observations, is testable by reproduction of a set of operational definitions. That operational definitions produce the equivalent of names, just as positional numbering provides quantities with names. Such names are insulated from deception, distraction, loading, framing and overloading. Theories are not. While we cannot demonstrate the absolute parsimony of a theory (that we know of), we can demonstrate that we truthfully conveyed our observations. In other words, we can testify truthfully to an ordered set of facts, even if we cannot testify truthfully to parsimony of a theory.

    2) … that physical science is a narrow and special case of human activity, and popper was defining truth for that special case – a definition which is not applicable outside of the special case, and even inside the special case, he made questionable use of the term in order to retain its moral loading for purely social reasons. Justifiable social reasons, but social reasons none the less.

    3) ….that it is possible to state instead that all outputs of scientific investigation are true, if they are truthfully represented – where ‘scientific investigation” refers to the use of the scientific method, regardless of field of inquiry. But that we seek the most parsimonious statement of a theory, and we can never know that we have obtained it, we can only develop consensus that we cannot cause it to fail. This is, as far as I know, the best non-platonic description of truth available. Everything else is a linguistic contrivance for one purpose or another – possibly to obscure ignorance, and possibly to load ideas with moral motivation. Scientists load their contrivance of truth, and mathematicians load their contrivance of numbers, limits, and a dozen other things – most of which obscure linguistic ‘cheats’ to give authority to that which is necessary for the construction of general rules. (ie: the problem of arbitrary precision).

    4) … that popper did no investigation into science or the history of science prior to making his argument, and that as yet, we do not have a systematic account of the history of science. However, what history we do have, both distant and recent, is that science operates as I have suggested: by criticism upon failure via overextension. The reason being that it is economically inefficient (expensive) to pursue criticism rather than to extend a theory to its point of failure then criticize it. And as far as we know, this is how science works, and must work, because it is how all human endeavors must work. Because while a small number of scientists may seek the ‘truth’ whatever a platonist means, what scientists try to do is solve problems – ie: to manufacture recipes for useful cognition.

    5) … that popper’s advice was merely moral given that the scale of inquiry in all human fields had surpassed that of human scale, where tests are subjectively verifiable. (I think this is an important insight because it occurred in all fields.) Einstein for example, operationalized observations (relative simultaneity for example) over very great distances approaching the speed of light using Lorenz transformations. And as Bridgman demonstrated, the reason Einstein’s work was novel was because prior generations had NOT been operationalizing statements ,and as such, more than a generation and perhaps two were lost to failure of what should have been an obvious solution. (See the problem of length, which I tend to refer to often as the best example.) I addressed this in a previous post, and what popper did was give us good advice, and while he made an argument that appears logical, like most rational arguments, unsupported by data, it is not clear he was correct, and in fact, it appears that he was not. The question is not a rational but empirical one.

    6) … and I am not terribly interested in criticizing popper, any more than criticizing any other philosopher I admire, since popper unlike Misesian Pseudoscience, or Rothbardian Immoral Verbalisms, was engaged in a moral attempt both in politics and in science, and perhaps in science as a vehicle for politics, to prevent the pseudoscientific use of science – particularly by fascist and communists, to use the findings of science as a replacement for divine authority by which to command man. What popper did, particularly with his platonism, was to remove the ability for the findings of science to be used as justification for the removal of human choice. Popper, Mises, and Hayek were responsible for undermining pseudoscientific authoritarianism. Of the three popper is perhaps less articulate (possibly to obscure his objective), but certainly not wrong, so to speak. While mises’ appeal to authoritarianism (which is part and parcel of jewish culture) was entirely pseudoscientific, by claiming that economics was deductive rather than empirical, and justifying it under apriorism, instead of as I’ve stated, understanding that he was merely trying to apply operationalism to economic activity, which would merely demonstrate that Keynesian economics was immoral, not unscientific.

    But Popper, Mises, Hayek, Bridgman and Brouwer, did not find a solution to restoring the western aristocratic conditions for public speech.
    They too were a lost in platonism a bit. Bridgman and Brouwer did understand that something was wrong, and were very close,b ut they could not make the moral argument. We have had a century now of attacks by verbal contrivance and we can demonstrate the destruction of our civilization by way of it. So the moral argument is no longer one of undemonstrated results. WE have the results. And we have a generation of men, myself included, trying to repair it.

    One must speak truthfully, because no other truth is knowable. Intellectual products that are brought to market must be warrantied just as are all other products that are brought to market, and the warranty that you can provide is operational definitions (recipes, experience), not theories (psychologism, projections). And if you are not willing to stand behind your product then you should not bring it to market. Because you have no right to subject others to harm.

    Intellectuals produce ideas (myself included), that is our product. We are paid in measly terms most of the time, for our product, but that is what we do. But it is no different from hot coffee or dangerous ladders, or defective gas tanks.

    And given that one particularly prolific group of people has created marxism, socialism, postmodernism, libertine-libertarianism, and neoconservatism, it is about time we stopped allowing them to ship lousy products into society.

    And rather than regulate them by government, the common law and universal standing will allow punishment of those who bring bad products to market.

    OBSCURITY
    I am entirely capable (as above) of writing clearly, but it is tedious when most logical connections appear to be obvious to the informed person. I will cop out to being lazy, particularly when I have no idea whether the others involved in the debate will be worthwhile. But it’s not that I can’t drill down to necessary arguments. OK? It’s just a lot more work than incrementally testing an idea and making sure that others follow the breadcrumbs….

    CLOSING
    I am pretty sure the above analysis is correct. It’s going to be very hard to demonstrate otherwise: that popper used a pragmatic theory of truth, just like all of us do. But there is only one possible extant truth, and that is testimony. All else is but moral rule, not logical necessity. OK? That’s just how it is. Period, end of story.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Philosophy of Aristocracy
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine

  • The Central Argument: Western Testimonial Truth vs Platonic Truth

    (the central argument)( profound)

    [T]he central argument regarding truth:

    1) … is that giving witness to one’s observations, is testable by reproduction of a set of operational definitions. That operational definitions produce the equivalent of names, just as positional numbering provides quantities with names. Such names are insulated from deception, distraction, loading, framing and overloading. Theories are not. While we cannot demonstrate the absolute parsimony of a theory (that we know of), we can demonstrate that we truthfully conveyed our observations. In other words, we can testify truthfully to an ordered set of facts, even if we cannot testify truthfully to parsimony of a theory.

    2) … that physical science is a narrow and special case of human activity, and popper was defining truth for that special case – a definition which is not applicable outside of the special case, and even inside the special case, he made questionable use of the term in order to retain its moral loading for purely social reasons. Justifiable social reasons, but social reasons none the less.

    3) ….that it is possible to state instead that all outputs of scientific investigation are true, if they are truthfully represented – where ‘scientific investigation” refers to the use of the scientific method, regardless of field of inquiry. But that we seek the most parsimonious statement of a theory, and we can never know that we have obtained it, we can only develop consensus that we cannot cause it to fail. This is, as far as I know, the best non-platonic description of truth available. Everything else is a linguistic contrivance for one purpose or another – possibly to obscure ignorance, and possibly to load ideas with moral motivation. Scientists load their contrivance of truth, and mathematicians load their contrivance of numbers, limits, and a dozen other things – most of which obscure linguistic ‘cheats’ to give authority to that which is necessary for the construction of general rules. (ie: the problem of arbitrary precision).

    4) … that popper did no investigation into science or the history of science prior to making his argument, and that as yet, we do not have a systematic account of the history of science. However, what history we do have, both distant and recent, is that science operates as I have suggested: by criticism upon failure via overextension. The reason being that it is economically inefficient (expensive) to pursue criticism rather than to extend a theory to its point of failure then criticize it. And as far as we know, this is how science works, and must work, because it is how all human endeavors must work. Because while a small number of scientists may seek the ‘truth’ whatever a platonist means, what scientists try to do is solve problems – ie: to manufacture recipes for useful cognition.

    5) … that popper’s advice was merely moral given that the scale of inquiry in all human fields had surpassed that of human scale, where tests are subjectively verifiable. (I think this is an important insight because it occurred in all fields.) Einstein for example, operationalized observations (relative simultaneity for example) over very great distances approaching the speed of light using Lorenz transformations. And as Bridgman demonstrated, the reason Einstein’s work was novel was because prior generations had NOT been operationalizing statements ,and as such, more than a generation and perhaps two were lost to failure of what should have been an obvious solution. (See the problem of length, which I tend to refer to often as the best example.) I addressed this in a previous post, and what popper did was give us good advice, and while he made an argument that appears logical, like most rational arguments, unsupported by data, it is not clear he was correct, and in fact, it appears that he was not. The question is not a rational but empirical one.

    6) … and I am not terribly interested in criticizing popper, any more than criticizing any other philosopher I admire, since popper unlike Misesian Pseudoscience, or Rothbardian Immoral Verbalisms, was engaged in a moral attempt both in politics and in science, and perhaps in science as a vehicle for politics, to prevent the pseudoscientific use of science – particularly by fascist and communists, to use the findings of science as a replacement for divine authority by which to command man. What popper did, particularly with his platonism, was to remove the ability for the findings of science to be used as justification for the removal of human choice. Popper, Mises, and Hayek were responsible for undermining pseudoscientific authoritarianism. Of the three popper is perhaps less articulate (possibly to obscure his objective), but certainly not wrong, so to speak. While mises’ appeal to authoritarianism (which is part and parcel of jewish culture) was entirely pseudoscientific, by claiming that economics was deductive rather than empirical, and justifying it under apriorism, instead of as I’ve stated, understanding that he was merely trying to apply operationalism to economic activity, which would merely demonstrate that Keynesian economics was immoral, not unscientific.

    But Popper, Mises, Hayek, Bridgman and Brouwer, did not find a solution to restoring the western aristocratic conditions for public speech.
    They too were a lost in platonism a bit. Bridgman and Brouwer did understand that something was wrong, and were very close,b ut they could not make the moral argument. We have had a century now of attacks by verbal contrivance and we can demonstrate the destruction of our civilization by way of it. So the moral argument is no longer one of undemonstrated results. WE have the results. And we have a generation of men, myself included, trying to repair it.

    One must speak truthfully, because no other truth is knowable. Intellectual products that are brought to market must be warrantied just as are all other products that are brought to market, and the warranty that you can provide is operational definitions (recipes, experience), not theories (psychologism, projections). And if you are not willing to stand behind your product then you should not bring it to market. Because you have no right to subject others to harm.

    Intellectuals produce ideas (myself included), that is our product. We are paid in measly terms most of the time, for our product, but that is what we do. But it is no different from hot coffee or dangerous ladders, or defective gas tanks.

    And given that one particularly prolific group of people has created marxism, socialism, postmodernism, libertine-libertarianism, and neoconservatism, it is about time we stopped allowing them to ship lousy products into society.

    And rather than regulate them by government, the common law and universal standing will allow punishment of those who bring bad products to market.

    OBSCURITY
    I am entirely capable (as above) of writing clearly, but it is tedious when most logical connections appear to be obvious to the informed person. I will cop out to being lazy, particularly when I have no idea whether the others involved in the debate will be worthwhile. But it’s not that I can’t drill down to necessary arguments. OK? It’s just a lot more work than incrementally testing an idea and making sure that others follow the breadcrumbs….

    CLOSING
    I am pretty sure the above analysis is correct. It’s going to be very hard to demonstrate otherwise: that popper used a pragmatic theory of truth, just like all of us do. But there is only one possible extant truth, and that is testimony. All else is but moral rule, not logical necessity. OK? That’s just how it is. Period, end of story.

    Curt Doolittle
    The Philosophy of Aristocracy
    The Propertarian Institute
    Kiev, Ukraine

  • CENTRAL ARGUMENT: WESTERN TRUTH VS PLATONIC TRUTH (the central argument)( profou

    CENTRAL ARGUMENT: WESTERN TRUTH VS PLATONIC TRUTH

    (the central argument)( profound)

    On this topic, ‘truth’, my central argument…

    1) … is that giving witness to one’s observations, is testable by reproduction of a set of operational definitions. That operational definitions produce the equivalent of names, not descriptions. Such names are insulated from deception, distraction, loading, framing and overloading. Theories are not. While we cannot demonstrate the absolute parsimony of a theory (that we know of), we can demonstrate that we truthfully conveyed our observations. In other words, we can testify truthfully to an ordered set of facts, even if we cannot testify truthfully to parsimony of a theory.

    2) … that physical science is a narrow and special case of human activity, and popper was defining truth for that special case – a definition which is not applicable outside of the special case, and even inside the special case, he made questionable use of the term in order to retain its moral loading for purely social reasons. Justifiable social reasons, but social reasons none the less.

    3) ….that it is possible to state instead that all outputs of scientific investigation are true, if they are truthfully represented – where ‘scientific investigation” refers to the use of the scientific method, regardless of field of inquiry. But that we seek the most parsimonious statement of a theory, and we can never know that we have obtained it, we can only develop consensus that we cannot cause it to fail. This is, as far as I know, the best non-platonic description of truth available. Everything else is a linguistic contrivance for one purpose or another – possibly to obscure ignorance, and possibly to load ideas with moral motivation. Scientists load their contrivance of truth, and mathematicians load their contrivance of numbers, limits, and a dozen other things – most of which obscure linguistic ‘cheats’ to give authority to that which is necessary for the construction of general rules. (ie: the problem of arbitrary precision).

    4) … that popper did no investigation into science or the history of science prior to making his argument, and that as yet, we do not have a systematic account of the history of science. However, what history we do have, both distant and recent, is that science operates as I have suggested: by criticism upon failure via overextension. The reason being that it is economically inefficient (expensive) to pursue criticism rather than to extend a theory to its point of failure then criticize it. And as far as we know, this is how science works, and must work, because it is how all human endeavors must work. Because while a small number of scientists may seek the ‘truth’ whatever a platonist means, what scientists try to do is solve problems – ie: to manufacture recipes for useful cognition.

    5) … that popper’s advice was merely moral given that the scale of inquiry in all human fields had surpassed that of human scale, where tests are subjectively verifiable. (I think this is an important insight because it occurred in all fields.) Einstein for example, operationalized observations (relative simultaneity for example) over very great distances approaching the speed of light using Lorenz transformations. And as Bridgman demonstrated, the reason Einstein’s work was novel was because prior generations had NOT been operationalizing statements ,and as such, more than a generation and perhaps two were lost to failure of what should have been an obvious solution. (See the problem of length, which I tend to refer to often as the best example.) I addressed this in a previous post, and what popper did was give us good advice, and while he made an argument that appears logical, like most rational arguments, unsupported by data, it is not clear he was correct, and in fact, it appears that he was not. The question is not a rational but empirical one.

    6) … and I am not terribly interested in criticizing popper, any more than criticizing any other philosopher I admire, since popper unlike Misesian Pseudoscience, or Rothbardian Immoral Verbalisms, was engaged in a moral attempt both in politics and in science, and perhaps in science as a vehicle for politics, to prevent the pseudoscientific use of science – particularly by fascist and communists, to use the findings of science as a replacement for divine authority by which to command man. What popper did, particularly with his platonism, was to remove the ability for the findings of science to be used as justification for the removal of human choice. Popper, Mises, and Hayek were responsible for undermining pseudoscientific authoritarianism. Of the three popper is perhaps less articulate (possibly to obscure his objective), but certainly not wrong, so to speak. While mises’ appeal to authoritarianism (which is part and parcel of jewish culture) was entirely pseudoscientific, by claiming that economics was deductive rather than empirical, and justifying it under apriorism, instead of as I’ve stated, understanding that he was merely trying to apply operationalism to economic activity, which would merely demonstrate that Keynesian economics was immoral, not unscientific.

    But Popper, Mises, Hayek, Bridgman and Brouwer, did not find a solution to restoring the western aristocratic conditions for public speech.

    They too were a lost in platonism a bit. Bridgman and Brouwer did understand that something was wrong, and were very close,b ut they could not make the moral argument. We have had a century now of attacks by verbal contrivance and we can demonstrate the destruction of our civilization by way of it. So the moral argument is no longer one of undemonstrated results. WE have the results. And we have a generation of men, myself included, trying to repair it.

    One must speak truthfully, because no other truth is knowable. Intellectual products that are brought to market must be warrantied just as are all other products that are brought to market, and the warranty that you can provide is operational definitions (recipes, experience), not theories (psychologism, projections). And if you are not willing to stand behind your product then you should not bring it to market. Because you have no right to subject others to harm.

    Intellectuals produce ideas (myself included), that is our product. We are paid in measly terms most of the time, for our product, but that is what we do. But it is no different from hot coffee or dangerous ladders, or defective gas tanks.

    And given that one particularly prolific group of people has created marxism, socialism, postmodernism, libertine-libertarianism, and neoconservatism, it is about time we stopped allowing them to ship lousy products into society.

    And rather than regulate them by government, the common law and universal standing will allow punishment of those who bring bad products to market.

    OBSCURITY

    I am entirely capable (as above) of writing clearly, but it is tedious when most logical connections appear to be obvious to the informed person. I will cop out to being lazy, particularly when I have no idea whether the others involved in the debate will be worthwhile. But it’s not that I can’t drill down to necessary arguments. OK? It’s just a lot more work than incrementally testing an idea and making sure that others follow the breadcrumbs….

    CLOSING

    I am pretty sure the above analysis is correct. It’s going to be very hard to demonstrate otherwise: that popper used a pragmatic theory of truth, just like all of us do. But there is only one possible extant truth, and that is testimony. All else is but moral rule, not logical necessity. OK? That’s just how it is. Period, end of story.

    And yes it’s not worth your time (or mine) to continue if we must resort to color by numbers. The central argument is either advanced or not. Otherwise it’s just a waste of time. But thank you for your help, as always.

    Curt Doolittle

    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-28 02:22:00 UTC