Category: Epistemology and Method

AN END TO A CENTURY OF PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC MYSTICISM

ATHENS(BRITAIN) VS JERUSALEM(THE GHETTO) WHILE SPARTA(GERMANY) SPINS IN THE WIND.

Yes, well, it looks like I’ll put an end to a century of mysticism erected on a scaffold of critique and pseudoscience.

Here is a nice sketch that for those who want to know: (From the CR group)

(IN SEARCH OF TRUTH: Some of us search for products to distribute in exchange for individual heroic achievement – status. Some of us search for god without offending the priesthood. The perspective of Athens vs Jerusalem.)

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The reasons I criticizes Popper here, despite the excellence of his work, is so that defenders like yourself will provide perspective – all of which helps me narrow and improve my own work.

The reason I don’t produce citations is that it’s costly in time, and I’m rarely making a tactical criticism which would require a few citations, and instead a categorical one that would require many. Lets look at why:

If popper’s criteria for truth as you said is ‘ultimate truth’ (the most parsimonious statement possible) not truthful construction, then newton’s theory is false. However, newton’s theory is not false at human scale. Since increase in the scale of our arguments due to increased capacity of our instruments placed pressure on our logic thought leaders in multiple fields have been attempting to solve this issue. Popper’s answer is to avoid the issue by casting all as false and permanently open to revision, rather than to solve the logical problem that increases in scale have placed upon our family of logical instruments. This is a practical solution but it is not an explicative one. I am trying to solve the explicative problem. My motivation is not limited to the physical sciences. Physical sciences ignore philosophy altogether. My motivation is to prevent pseudoscience and pseudo rationalism in intellectual speech, politics and law.

There is nothing I need to cite in order to levy my criticism other than the two principles of CP and CR. These tools use common logic of Critique any student of jewish law (philosophy) must master. They do not use the common logic whose origin is testimony as used in anglo empiricism.

Now, I try to be respectful as long as people to not levy ad hominems at me of any kind. I try at most times to be respectful of people here and I appreciate all the help I get from this group of what I consider experts in this field. But you should not make the assumption that I do not understand the criticisms that I levy, the mission that I am on, or the subject matter in its broadest context. I am not an acolyte studying one philosopher, but every possible philosopher that I can find, for solutions to a very serious, and somewhat ancient problem.

The fact that I will not degenerate into Critique myself, in and endless he-said,she-said, and preserve attempts to hold arguments at first principles, is simply a strategic choice that any professional would hold himself to.

First principles are enough in this case. “Truth is that which is unknowable, and all we can do is provide critique.” This is Popper’s application of cultural bias to the philosophy of science. Any student of theology would recognize it as such.

****The interesting thing about westerners is that while we can make this observation about other cultures, we cannot introspectively make this observation about our own: that truth is a promise about a product that you testify and warranty – a product that you place into the market for use until someone invents a better one. Nor is it obvious the value of this approach over the approach that truth is unknowable – something platonic or divine.****

So please judge my attempts at argument here as investigations using good manners designed to ask uncomfortable questions that may help me on my journey, without causing much offense. Unlike many thinkers I am not skilled at empathizing with other points of view and am a little autistically stuck with scientific (necessary and demonstrable) arguments and naturally allergic to verbalisms: analogies as substitutes for causality. Poppers value in pedagogy is in part due to his use of allegory rather than causality. But analogies are not truths.

(***That paragraph should blow your mind.) (revised it a bit for clarity)

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Operationalism succeeded in science where it is one of the canons although only stated explicitly in experimental psychology, where it was most needed, it has been adopted as a norm in science: a sequence of observations must be stated in objective measures.

Operationalism succeeded in mathematics in requiring all mathematical statements be reducible to operations – but preserved classical mathematics as a cognitively efficient tool for the exploration if not proof of mathematical statements.

Operationalism succeeded in the discipline of logic culminating most recently with Kripke’s application of Cantor to language.

[Operationalism succeeded in computer science where it is not an option: if it cannot be acted upon it cannot exist. ]

Operationalism succeeds (I hypothesize) in economics where mises failed, to develop operationalism, because he, as a borrower of ideas from other fields, did not understand the meaning of them. He correctly intuited that something was correct, but not that ‘investigation can be done by any means possible, but proof of internal consistency requires operational definitions’.

So operationalism provides in all human actions, not just math, or logic, or science, also economics, a proof of internal consistency: that we rely upon actions and observations not analogies and the imaginary.

In the sense that an idea is a product manufactured for consumption, this is the greatest warranty that I can give it. No greater warranty is possible. But that product of intellect is warrantied if operationally stated. And it can be used as a recipe by others until a better one is found. However, I am accountable for it. whereas under popper’s cosmopolitanism, I am unaccountable for my testimony, and my work product is not warrantied. This is why science was an heroic achievement in the west. It was paid for by social status obtained in reward for production of a commons. Thus providing incentive.

Now empirically test which method produces a greater rate of human scientific innovation? We know that already.

Ideas have consequences. Even the ideas within our ideas. Even our metaphysical assumptions that we are unaware of.

Operationalism and instrumentalism are part and parcel of empiricism, made so by the vast increase in the scale of our observations. This is for example why the Bayesian’s have successes but don’t understand them: because the algorithms assist us with problems of scale. They are merely accounting systems. But as scale increases we require accounting systems for the same reason we required number systems: to compensate for the limited cognitive ability nature gave us.

Curt

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Those two comments should be enough to make my case, and demonstrate the progress I have made. Again, as always I appreciate the help I get from this group. It has been immensely valuable to me. And I will be forever grateful. But at some point you might want to consider that Popper is like any other intellectual, and that time and intellectual history move forward.

All ideas have consequences.

— NOTES:—

) Proof != Truth. I was going to ask this of the group earlier, but how many of us understand that proof is a test of internal consistency, not of external correspondence? Mathematicians construct proofs, but do not lay claim to truths. That is outside of their purvey.

2) Operationalism is not a test of truth but of internal consistency: operational definitions test whether one’s statements are real(actionable and causal) or imaginary(allegorical and correlative).

3) Popper constantly confuses parsimony(precision) with truth(correspondence).

4) Unfortunately, despite is many successes, Popper ultimately failed, right? Or he would have provided the answer to that which he does not. His generation all failed to provide an answer to the increase in scale of concepts that began in the 19th century. Like many of his peers he had to resort to platonism when he could not find the answers by other than means of analogy.

5) I now understand (Thanks again to Alex Naraniecki) that popper was a cosmopolitan. I understand (and this may be novel) the difference between cosmopolitan, continental, and anglo empirical truth. It is not necessary that a philosopher be perfect, only that he contribute an idea. Popper gave us more than one. But he is a victim of his heritage, just as was Mises. And just as we all are. I cannot put this to bed quite yet, but I am very close. And this explains what has been troubling me for many years: why does popper speak in allegory rather than operations? What did he have wrong that required him to resort to ‘ways of thinking about what might be true, rather than truth itself?”

Cheers.