Curt Doolittle

Category: Epistemology and Method

  • THEORIES FROM INTUITION TO CONVICTION TO UNCONSCIOUS ASSUMPTION when I intuit a

    THEORIES FROM INTUITION TO CONVICTION TO UNCONSCIOUS ASSUMPTION

    when I intuit a ‘problem or opportunity’

    when I intuit a relationship or pattern

    when I think of a theory

    when I speak a theory

    when I write a theory

    when I write a theory in formal language

    when I compose tests of a theory

    when I perform tests of a theory

    when I measure the results of many tests of the theory

    when I attempt to falsify a theory

    when I use the results of the tests to refine the theory

    when I can no longer refine the theory

    when I succeed in expanding the scope of the theory to more instances

    when I distribute this theory (publish in some manner), even just by imitation.

    when all further expansions of the scope increase precision of the theory but fail to refute it in the precision of the context it was created. (newton)

    when the theory is applied in many general circumstances

    when the theory is reduced to behavior adopted as a norm

    when the theory is reduced to as a metaphysical and unconscious assumption.

    when the value of the theory is put into question

    –THE METAPHYSICAL CYCLE–

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-03 11:05:00 UTC

  • THE ART OF DEBATE One of the things I gave up on a long time ago was focusing on

    THE ART OF DEBATE

    One of the things I gave up on a long time ago was focusing on people’s stupid errors unless they start to rely on ad hominems.

    Disputes can almost always be reduced to a central argument, which is either one of taste, utility or truth.

    If people use ad hominems I try to call them out and then return to the central problem of the argument.

    And I don’t really even like focusing on their errors. I just try to restate their words in the context of the central argument.

    One tactic that I do use, is to taunt people in order to obtain their participation. I probably shouldn’t do that, but when the opposition is so ready to rely on every rhetorical fallacy in the book, it just seems …. fair…. and warranted. 🙂

    But the best advice is to stay in the context of the central argument.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-03 10:04:00 UTC

  • To self: New Year. I wanted to know. I do. That is enough. Truth is not a matter

    To self: New Year. I wanted to know. I do. That is enough. Truth is not a matter of agreement or consent. It s not a matter of popularity or acceptance. It is merely greater correspondence than all known alternatives. That is all. And that is all it can be. The rest is vanity. And truth has no place for vanity.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-31 17:01:00 UTC

  • THREE POINTS PROVE A LINE – IN PHILOSOPHY TOO In propertarian methodology I have

    THREE POINTS PROVE A LINE – IN PHILOSOPHY TOO

    In propertarian methodology I have explicitly argued in favor of an expanded version of the golden mean: that is that definitions of states or objects or properties are not testable unless they are described in the context of a spectrum (or axis), either end of which the concept fails to meet the criteria of the axis.

    This habit, like equilibrial thinking, is not terribly natural. Humans tend to gravitate to the simplest mode of comparison: ideal types, just as they tend to gravitate to finite states instead of equilibrial thinking.

    So, whenever I define something I try to construct the axis.

    In the propertarian method, what little I’ve written about it, in the few examples, I suggest the simple method of collecting as many related terms as possible, and arranging them into axis by playing what thing is like the other and not games so to speak.

    This allows us to construct the equivalent of supply demand curves for human concepts and behaviors.

    I find that most philosophical error comes from either:

    (a) failure to state human concepts as human actions (as if they are geometric, or platonic, rather than praxeological).

    or

    (b) definitions (like ‘knowledge’) that are specious by construction, because they describe a fixed state rather than a spectrum.

    or

    (c) Failure to account for equilibrial processes

    or

    (d) Failure to account for opportunity costs.

    This (geometrization) is a curable habit in human cognition, by training us to be less solipsistic and increasingly sympathetic and then autistic in our understanding of the world.

    Now, this might be a little deep for the mind to grasp, but the reason we make these mistakes can be accounted for by a particular spectrum as well:

    The Increasing Abstraction Of Point Of View:

    1) Self (solipsism) – Awareness

    2) Other (the insight of introspection) – Comparison

    3) Categories (the insight of numbers) – Numbers

    3) Relationship (the insight of geometry) – Measurement

    4) Independence from the self (the insight of calculus) – Motion

    5) Equilibria (the insight of economics and physics) – Systems

    6) Opportunity (differences in multiple ‘worlds’) – Possibilities

    Each of these increasingly complex ideas places a higher burden on us by requiring that we make comparisons against less perceptible and intuitive objects of consideration.

    A loose spectrum is more precise than the most precise definition, whose spectrum must be assumed.

    This is the value of the “golden mean” in virtue, but it is a generic test of any concept: if you don’t state the properties of the spectrum, you must assume them.

    In most of western philosophy, like all philosophy, despite being rational, the assumptions are unstated. The virtues are stated but without axis. The logics are stated but without axis.

    But one needs axis. We are terrible at conceiving more than one flight of an arrow. But We are terrible at it. But no question of consequence consists of a single arc.

    And no definition consists of a single state.

    Because no such arcs or states are sufficiently testable, and therefore are loaded with metaphysical assumptions.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-31 06:42:00 UTC

  • ON STATING POPPER SCIENTIFICALLY: AS ACTION Popper, like most Jewish philosopher

    ON STATING POPPER SCIENTIFICALLY: AS ACTION

    Popper, like most Jewish philosophers, is overly fascinated by words, and under fascinated by actions. I haven’t quite figured out the cultural fascination with pseudoscience in that community, but I’ll leave that to others who hypothesize that the Talmudic discipline of memorizing meaningless nonsense

    Popper tries to give us categories of thinking without solving the problem of acting. We do not require additional modes of platonic thought, whether Popperian (verbal), Platonic (imaginary), or Religious (Supernatural). We have a mode of thought: action, which we call ‘science’: demonstrated correspondence with reality.

    As such, theories are recipes for actions that produce outcomes. These sets of ACTIONS (recipes) help us IMAGINE what are IMAGINARY causes, relations and properties , that we might further attempt to reduce to actions by theory and test.

    This categorization as actions (operations) prohibits platonic ideas from clouding discourse, and divides theories into imaginary recipes that we must test and falsify and those which we have tested the outcome, (reproduced) and falsified (tested the internal statements).

    I would clarify the Popper quote above saying INSTEAD that:

    “Theories are recipes consisting of actions that we duplicate by the use of instrumentation to determine correspondence between imagination and reality. Those forms of instrumentation that test correspondence are:

    0) narrative (sequences in time)

    1) logic (words),

    2) numbers (counts),

    3) measures (relations)

    3) math (ratios),

    4) physics (causes),

    5) economics (cooperation)

    6) praxeology (rational incentives and actions).”

    Each additional recipe reduces to analogy to experience, the external world which we cannot sense, perceive, count, measure, determine the causes of, and act upon without such instrumentation. As such each recipe extends our perception.

    Unfortunately, these recipes are socially constructed organically in a network of dependent assumptions both conscious, unconscious and metaphysical, almost entirely dependent upon the forms of instrumentation used to extend perception and calculation. And we must reassemble entire networks of objects, causes, relations and properties, when we improve our instruments. This is why we construct and destruct paradigms.

    And the fantasy that we hold ‘beliefs’ is verbal and arbitrary, when what we hold are ‘incentives’, investments and opportunities that are not arbitrary or easily disposed of. This difference between verbal and platonic ‘belief’ and praxeological incentives in objective reality is another influential factor in failing to grasp the ‘stickiness’ of paradigms, being even greater than the stickiness of prices, contracts, careers, and Patterns of Sustainable Specialization and Trade.

    Also unfortunately, given that learning stresses individuals, and that such paradigmatic shifts impose high costs on adherents, all people, in all walks of life, from professors to ordinary laborers, fight paradigmatic change whenever possible since it will of necessity reduce the value of their current paradigmatic mastery. People Will Not Change Ever by Means of Argument. EVER on any sufficient investment that they have made, whether material or intellectual. This applies in every walk of life from the moral to the philosophical to the political, to the scientific, and entrepreneurial. Although the entrepreneurial leaves them less choice.

    This is why science only advances with the death of prior paradigmatic advocates. Just as our political theory and institutions will only advance upon the death (none too soon) of the boomer generation.

    But, that does not eliminate the fact, that our knowledge does increase and our correspondence with reality increases along with it, and we adapt our actions more closely to a more expansive reality.

    At some point, the MARGINAL INDIFFERENCE of further knowledge (recipes) means that no further benefit can be gained from any available action, and as such, it is possible to CHOOSE BETWEEN THEORIES. Meaning that at any given point the number of available theories open to exploitation given instrumentation available, and the marginal difference in value, DOES give us reasons to choose between theories. Which is precisely why we are apparently, so good at choosing them. And the errors we do make, (mysticism in the 20th century in science and philosophy) can be prevented by adhering to scientific discipline: expression in operational language: the language of science. Of RECIPES for actions that with any given set of instrumentation, allow us to test the correspondence of our imaginations with reality, and without which we cannot test or even conceive of such a reality as exists.

    I think this description of actions, is more accurate than the verbal and allegorical description of the imaginary that Popper gives us.

    There is a very clear relationship between our inability to introspect upon our own mental processes, and imagination, platonism, and spiritualism. And this relationship tends to force us in philosophy to reduce all philosophical statements to an infinitely recursive discourse on norms. Introspection and intuition are cheap. Reason is more expensive, and instrumentalism is vastly more expensive. However, science: cataloguing sequences of actions using instrumentation that limits the distortion between our imagination and objective reality by extending our ability to sense, perceive, remember, and calculate, is, as in all sciences, a method for the prevention of error.

    Popper himself did not solve this problem. He just solved enough of it to tell us how to solve it for him.

    The distinction may appear subtle, but it is not. Mathematical platonism, which we falsely use as the gold standard for reason, has infected pretty much all of analytic philosophy, and I’m not sure it hasn’t infected physics. And my argument, like Hayek’s is that the 20th century was an age of mysticism because of the return to platonic analogy and loss of an emphasis on action.

    (I know I tend to aggravate you with these comments, but there is a method to my strategy. And I appreciate your ideas even if my thoughts annoy you. 🙂 )

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-30 10:18:00 UTC

  • (sketch) (morality of logical methods) Infinity is a property of the set. It’s i

    (sketch) (morality of logical methods)

    Infinity is a property of the set. It’s imaginary. Operations are not imaginary, nor infinite. Operations, even imaginary operations, must be performed. I cannot perform any operation indefinitely, and so no operation can be performed infinitely.

    Likewise, no infinite set can be constructed. It can however be imagined we are told. But this is not true. No human imagination can demonstrate infinity. We can only construct imaginary operations where the scale is greater than our perception.

    We can imagine the flight of an arrow, and when we imagine infinity we do precisely the same operation. The arrow leaves our vision, the scope of measurement leaves our imagination. The trajectory is all we remember in either case.

    Even in the vaulted pairing off examples we are not measuring the size of anything, because for anything beyond our perception, that size is unimaginable. Instead, we generate more operations more frequently with some pairing offs, than we do with other pairing offs. So we may say that the operational members of any function, occur with greater frequency or higher density, but we cannot make an argument as to size, since no end is possible in the infinite, but no infinite is possible.

    The net result is that mathematicians arbitrarily alter scale, because while mathematical relations are constant, the scale is arbitrarily defined, and its correspondence with reality is likewise arbitrarily defined. As such, all mathematicians do is alter the PRECISION of any model at whim.

    The reason is that scales are utilitarian. In the sense of measuring real world objects, such scales are limited by some meaningful amount of precision. If I cut a piece of wood or metal there is some limit to the necessity of precision, and that precision determines the point of demarcation between one unit and another.

    Mathematics cannot rely on externally defined precision so they rely on sets and the excluded middle to accommodate what is in reality their arbitrary use of precision, given their arbitrary use of scale.

    I actually find this kind of cute really. Like children inventing magical causes.

    But it’s not cute. It’s magian really, and this kind of magical nonsense, or platonic fantasizing has created the pretense of mysticism that partly drowned the 20th century.

    If we can hold the inquisition responsible for burning witches out of mystical ignorance, can we hold mathematicians and physicists responsible for the mysticism that was the 20th century? Or do we blame it on the introduction of the proletarians to the demands of education and the work force?

    I don’t know who to blame. I just want to fix the problem.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-28 18:03:00 UTC

  • One cannot reason without logic. One cannot describe cause and consequence witho

    One cannot reason without logic.

    One cannot describe cause and consequence without narrative.

    One cannot create record and transport knowledge without writing.

    One cannot count and compare units without numbers,

    One cannot compare spaces without measurement

    One cannot cooperate without property

    One cannot plan production, without prices.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-26 03:11:00 UTC

  • Question. Is Praxeology a science, by which I mean a methodology for the purpose

    Question.

    Is Praxeology a science, by which I mean a methodology for the purpose of extending and testing our reason and perception by reducing that which we cannot sense or perceive to analogies to experience. Or is Praxeology a form of logic, like mathematics, or reason? And, is praxeology complete?

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-23 20:39:00 UTC

  • THE DIALECTIC IS BETWEEN OUR FRAGILE MINDS AND OBJECTIVE REALITY… And that deb

    THE DIALECTIC IS BETWEEN OUR FRAGILE MINDS AND OBJECTIVE REALITY…

    And that debate is conducted in four languages, each of which supplies only one quarter of the solution, but togehter, explain all.:

    THE FOUR MORAL SCIENCES

    1) Reason = The instrumental logic of Perception.

    2) Mathematics = The instrumental Logic of Relations

    3) Physics (Science) = The instrumental logic of Causes

    4) Property (Economics) = The instrumental logic of Cooperation

    We have spent more than a century trying to construct morality as a science, without grasping that the scientific method is in fact, moral philosophy.

    You don’t need to go to a place if you’re already standing there.

    We were standing there all the time.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-18 06:56:00 UTC

  • ENGLISH TERMINOLOGY: NAMES FOR MEALS Breakfast: first morning meal “Break the Fa

    ENGLISH TERMINOLOGY: NAMES FOR MEALS

    Breakfast: first morning meal “Break the Fast”.

    Brunch : Late morning breakfast, usually on weekends after sleeping late.

    Luncheon: Large noon meal eaten with a group (formal)

    Lunch: Small mid-day meal, or at any time of day (informal)

    Dinner : The major meal of the day, whether at noon or night, eaten with others.

    Tea : mid afternoon snack between noon and evening.

    Supper : A casual family meal eaten in the kitchen, or small late night meal.

    In most of our history, the mid day meal was the largest, because light was available. Once we began to work outside of the home and farm, the large meal was pushed into the evening. As electric lights made food preparation possible, the big meal of the day has moved into the evening for most of us (unfortunately).

    Basically, counter to american propaganda, one big meal a day is sufficient, and four other meals of smaller size are probably the best for you.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-16 13:27:00 UTC