—“Operational logic requires demonstrated knowledge and everyone relies on their own available vocabulary. Which reveals something about the speaker, but is why it’s so hard for people without a whole lot of REAL knowledge or the precise means measurements to use (their vocabulary). But once it clicks…you can do it. Just a matter of differing speeds of success. It’s really hard for me. Takes me a while to produce.”— Adam
It’s hard for everyone. But that’s why it’s such a good test.
“Is Public Epistemology In Decline?” https://propertarianism.com/2020/02/25/is-public-epistemology-in-decline/
Source date (UTC): 2020-02-25 17:23:33 UTC
Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1232355464005984256
I’ve been working on the problem since about ’92 and like many things, the curatorial function performed by the top handful of intellectuals alive at any given time is not able to keep pace with the volume of pseudoscience, sophistry, ideology, propaganda, and marketing over the past thirty or more years. This is not the first time there has been a rebellion against science and reason. It happened in the ancient world and resulted in the medieval dark ages. That the rebellion against science and reason is nothing more than a reflection of a rebellion against western evolutionary pressure is less obvious. If not for immigration it appears that we would have succeeded in falsifying the Jewish pseudoscientific counter-enlightenment just as we survived the German Rationalists (kant et all an the german secular theologists) and the French Moralists (Rousseau et al and the French Revolution). The difference being that the Jewish counter enlightenment (exemplified in Cantor-Bohr, Boas-Freud, Marx, Adorno-Fromm, Trotsky-Strauss-Kristol, Derrida, Friedan, and ongoing by Krugman-Stiglitz-DeLong et al ) is so broadly based, covers the entire scope of the disciplines, and is united in the past century, just as were Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the ancient world, to resist Evolution. Or stated more simply, the current debate remains the same, which is dysgenic female equalitarian strategies, vs the eugenic, male, hierarchical strategies. In other words, both the ancient world religions and the modern world ‘cults’ of pseudoscience, sophistry, and denial, are united in a single purpose, and that is the suppression of evolution by competitive, hierarchical, market meritocracies, of any kind, whether genetic (hindu), bureaucratic (chinese), or technical (european). So in summary, (a) democracy combined with underclass or out-class immigration has created continued market demand for falsehoods. (b) resistance to the increase in market demand for falsehoods has created market demand for counter-arguments. (c) monopoly democracy (selection of priorities for the application of scarce resources) is incapable of suppression the increase in demand for falsehoods. (d) the Finance, State, Academy, Media, Entertainment, Advertising industries benefit from the the sale and distribution of these falsehoods. So yes, market demand for falsehood is increasing market demand for conflict, which cannot be resolved due to the cheap cost and incentives for the distribution of falsehoods, and suppressed the production and distribution of truths. And that is why yes, intelligence, education, the quality of information, and the curatorial function of intellectuals have all declined. Either you have a eugenic polity whose wealth is limited to productivity independent of increases in population, or you will have a dysgenic polity whose accumulated genetic, behavioral, cultural, institutional, territorial capital are consumed by a small number of generations. This isn’t a novel theory. The cycles of rise and decline have been studied by multiple historians for thousands of years. The chinese found a method of persistence through vicious prosecution of criminals, intolerant colonization and forcible integration, and perhaps most importantly agrarian and financial eugenics that over three generations continuously cull family after family from the reproductive pool. America was founded by eugenicists -they just didn’t use that terminology. They used ‘people of good character’. And we maintained the eugenic movement through the first world war. It was the intentional effort of the post war eastern european ashkenazi that worked full time every day to underming every single institution. Conspiracy? No It’s their way of life. Just like islam is the muslim way of life. Just like sovereignty and markets are the european way of life. Just like harmony, hierarchy and bureaucracy are the Chinese way of life.
I’ve been working on the problem since about ’92 and like many things, the curatorial function performed by the top handful of intellectuals alive at any given time is not able to keep pace with the volume of pseudoscience, sophistry, ideology, propaganda, and marketing over the past thirty or more years. This is not the first time there has been a rebellion against science and reason. It happened in the ancient world and resulted in the medieval dark ages. That the rebellion against science and reason is nothing more than a reflection of a rebellion against western evolutionary pressure is less obvious. If not for immigration it appears that we would have succeeded in falsifying the Jewish pseudoscientific counter-enlightenment just as we survived the German Rationalists (kant et all an the german secular theologists) and the French Moralists (Rousseau et al and the French Revolution). The difference being that the Jewish counter enlightenment (exemplified in Cantor-Bohr, Boas-Freud, Marx, Adorno-Fromm, Trotsky-Strauss-Kristol, Derrida, Friedan, and ongoing by Krugman-Stiglitz-DeLong et al ) is so broadly based, covers the entire scope of the disciplines, and is united in the past century, just as were Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the ancient world, to resist Evolution. Or stated more simply, the current debate remains the same, which is dysgenic female equalitarian strategies, vs the eugenic, male, hierarchical strategies. In other words, both the ancient world religions and the modern world ‘cults’ of pseudoscience, sophistry, and denial, are united in a single purpose, and that is the suppression of evolution by competitive, hierarchical, market meritocracies, of any kind, whether genetic (hindu), bureaucratic (chinese), or technical (european). So in summary, (a) democracy combined with underclass or out-class immigration has created continued market demand for falsehoods. (b) resistance to the increase in market demand for falsehoods has created market demand for counter-arguments. (c) monopoly democracy (selection of priorities for the application of scarce resources) is incapable of suppression the increase in demand for falsehoods. (d) the Finance, State, Academy, Media, Entertainment, Advertising industries benefit from the the sale and distribution of these falsehoods. So yes, market demand for falsehood is increasing market demand for conflict, which cannot be resolved due to the cheap cost and incentives for the distribution of falsehoods, and suppressed the production and distribution of truths. And that is why yes, intelligence, education, the quality of information, and the curatorial function of intellectuals have all declined. Either you have a eugenic polity whose wealth is limited to productivity independent of increases in population, or you will have a dysgenic polity whose accumulated genetic, behavioral, cultural, institutional, territorial capital are consumed by a small number of generations. This isn’t a novel theory. The cycles of rise and decline have been studied by multiple historians for thousands of years. The chinese found a method of persistence through vicious prosecution of criminals, intolerant colonization and forcible integration, and perhaps most importantly agrarian and financial eugenics that over three generations continuously cull family after family from the reproductive pool. America was founded by eugenicists -they just didn’t use that terminology. They used ‘people of good character’. And we maintained the eugenic movement through the first world war. It was the intentional effort of the post war eastern european ashkenazi that worked full time every day to underming every single institution. Conspiracy? No It’s their way of life. Just like islam is the muslim way of life. Just like sovereignty and markets are the european way of life. Just like harmony, hierarchy and bureaucracy are the Chinese way of life.
The Most Interesting Living Philosophers: https://propertarianism.com/2020/02/25/the-most-interesting-living-philosophers/
Source date (UTC): 2020-02-25 16:26:34 UTC
Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1232341122447544320
(Repost from 2018) [I]nteresting question. Let’s look at how we can ask and answer this question. 😉 Technical Innovation <——–> Practical Utility <——> Popular InfluenceSuccessful Technical Hard to argue that the Russel-Frege-Kripke chain didn’t provide answers but it’s also hard to argue that they weren’t wasting their time. Because Babbage-Cantor-Godel-Turing produced superior methods and answers. Failed Technical The failure of Brouwer(Physics), Bridgman(mathematics), Mises (economics), Hayek(Law), and Popper(Philosophy) to understand that the ‘ideal’ disciplines had failed to include operations as a test of possibility, operational grammar to prevent pretense of knowledge, Influential and Contributory: Searle(cognition), Jonathan Haidt(morality), Daniel Kahneman(cognition), Nassim Taleb (probability and cognitive biases). Unfortunately we can’t list Popper(via negativa), Hayek(Social Science = Law), Keynes(Monetary Marxism), Turing, and Rawls who are demonstrably more influential but not living. Popular Influence But Otherwise Meaningless: Dennet et all. Categorical Construction: Scientific <—————-> Ideal <—————–> Experiential Descriptive Causality Experiential Causality Scientific Categories Normative Categories Arbitrary Categories Operational Analytic Literary Conflationary Continental Aristotle Plato (many) Tends to Result In: Truth Utility Preference Markets, Regulation Command Nash Equality Pareto Equality Command Equality Natural Hierarchy Political Hierarchy Bureaucratic Hierarchy Classical Liberalism Social Democracy Socialism Rapid Adaptation Windfall Consumption Redirected Consumption Hyper Competitive Competitive in Windfalls Competitive when Behind I would make the following observations: 1) The continental (German) program has been a failed attempt, since the time of Kant (through Heidegger), to produce a secular, rational, version of Christianity. The French program (Rousseau through Derrida) has been a demonstrably successful program but a devastatingly destructive one. The Abrahamic program’s second revision (Marx, Freud, Boaz, Cantor, Mises, Rothbard, Strauss) has been catastrophic. And between the French Literary, Continental Rational, and Abrahamic Pseudoscientific movements, the attempt to restore the Aristotelian(scientific)/ Stoic(Mindfulness) / Roman(Law) / Heroic(Truth, Excellence, Beauty) program responsible for human progress in the ancient and modern world has been nearly defeated. 2) The analytic program was exhausted with Kripke, and in retrospect the analytic attempt to produce both formal logic of language, and a science of language will be considered a failure. For example, there is nothing in analytic philosophy that is not better provided by Turing. 3) The principle function of academic philosophy today appears consist of the self correction of existing errors prior to exhaustion of the philosophical program (termination of the discipline) in the same way that the analytic program exhausted itself. (If you list philosophers and their innovations this is what appears to be occurring. The discipline is exhausting itself as a dead end). 4) The principal influences on intellectual history are being provided by the sciences. In particular they are eliminating the last refuge of philosophy: the mind. And science is doing so via-negativa: through the incremental definition and measurement of cognitive biases (errors). 5) Science, if understood as an organized attempt to produce deflationary truthful (descriptive) speech, and the use of scientific categories (necessary and universal), will continue to displace the discipline of philosophy, and the use of philosophical categories, terminology and concepts. And (assuming I am correct), what remains of the discipline of philosophy will be reducible to the continuous refinements of the scientific method’s production of constant descriptive categories, terminology, and operational grammar. And the cross disciplinary adaptation of local categories into universal categories. 6) Science is less vulnerable to error , bias, suggestion and deceit, in no small part because the common problems of philosophy: suggestion, loading, framing, obscurantism, overloading, and the Fictionalisms (pseudoscience, pseudo-rationalism, and pseudo-mythology(theology)) are prohibited by the demand for Operational language, declared limits, and full accounting of consequences. It certainly appears that since the beginning of the 20th century we have been far busier eliminating errors of philosophy than philosophers have been busy discovering innovations. 7) Greek philosophy arose out of the common law of torts. Roman philosophy explicitly functioned on the common law of Torts. The Abrahamic Dark Age (conflating idealism, law, and religion) followed, but we were rescued by the reconstruction of north sea trade and the English common law of Torts (Bacon). And as far as I can determine, 8) As we have seen with continental and political philosophy, just as we saw with theology, and especially Abrahamic theology, the principle purpose of unscientific speech has been deception, propaganda, the propagation of ignorance, and the conduct of rule, and the expansion of warfare. With theologians and philosophers responsible for more deaths than generals and plagues. Between Zoroaster, Muhammed, and Marx, we have more deaths than all but the great diseases including malaria and the black plague. Philosophers and theologians have done more harm than good, largely functioning as a middle class opposition to the current form of rule. 9) Philosophical language then is a dead language, and perhaps an immoral one – and rationalism a dead technology. And they will be incrementally combined institutionally and normatively into theology, with Literary Philosophy(Plato and his heirs), merely representing it’s position on the spectrum of Aristotelian/Stoic/Roman/English Law (science), Confucian Reason, French Literary Idealism, Platonic Rational Idealism, Continental and Augustinian Fictionalism, and Abrahamic and Zoroastrian Fictionalism. 10) The use of non philosophical categories to construct moral literature in the French and Italian model will persist forever. Although largely as a means of resistance against the sciences, and the status social, economic, and political status quo. In this context we have to ask what we mean by Influential, or Great Philosophers, because: (a) Unless we are talking scientists who function as public intellectuals, philosophers, or Social Critics (practitioners of critique), or Moral Fictionalists (wishful thinkers), it really doesn’t appear that philosophy is a living or useful language or discipline. (b) it’s hard to argue there are any currently living and working rationalists of any substance. They are largely Moral Fictionalists. Let’s look at the list: Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins. The atheists. It’s worth noting that Dawkins was correct and Gould was wrong – about almost everything. (Surprisingly). Harris and Hitches practice critique but nothing else. Zizek practices Critique and has nothing to offer – and is honest about it. I mean, what solutions does Zizek provide? None. And he says so. Chomsky practices Critique, has nothing to offer – and is dishonest about it. He is an interesting example of how people with high intelligence and verbal acumen can construct elaborate deceptions. Between Chomsky and Paul Krugman, a half dozen people could spend their entire careers demonstrating their use of cherry picking, loading, framing, overloading with incommensurables, straw men, and heaping of undue praise. His insight into ‘universal grammar’ but categories of increasing complexity is largely correct and we can see that in brain structure today. However, he speaks about world affairs by constantly making the error (intentionally), that rational choice is scalable – just as did Marx. And he has no concept of economics whatsoever, and no political statement can be made any longer independently of economics – especially once we understand that the term economics has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the voluntary organization of individuals through the use of incentives provided by money. Hofstadter is a good example as any, but again, he is a public intellectual and a literary aesthete. Did he really provide any insight that was not visible in the literature of the time? So in closing, I would say, that: 1) There are no influential rationalists, because the program is complete and it’s been a dead end. The reasons for this would require I write a tome. 2) That there are many scientists that serve as public intellectuals, and this will continue. 3) There remain and always will be a market for moral literature. 4) That scientific philosophy, if completed, as ‘the discipline of due diligence against ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, overloading, and deceit, will replace the discipline of philosophy. But that won’t stop people over invested in a dead frame of reference from attempting to practice it. Why? It’s cheap and science is expensive.
(Repost from 2018) [I]nteresting question. Let’s look at how we can ask and answer this question. 😉 Technical Innovation <——–> Practical Utility <——> Popular InfluenceSuccessful Technical Hard to argue that the Russel-Frege-Kripke chain didn’t provide answers but it’s also hard to argue that they weren’t wasting their time. Because Babbage-Cantor-Godel-Turing produced superior methods and answers. Failed Technical The failure of Brouwer(Physics), Bridgman(mathematics), Mises (economics), Hayek(Law), and Popper(Philosophy) to understand that the ‘ideal’ disciplines had failed to include operations as a test of possibility, operational grammar to prevent pretense of knowledge, Influential and Contributory: Searle(cognition), Jonathan Haidt(morality), Daniel Kahneman(cognition), Nassim Taleb (probability and cognitive biases). Unfortunately we can’t list Popper(via negativa), Hayek(Social Science = Law), Keynes(Monetary Marxism), Turing, and Rawls who are demonstrably more influential but not living. Popular Influence But Otherwise Meaningless: Dennet et all. Categorical Construction: Scientific <—————-> Ideal <—————–> Experiential Descriptive Causality Experiential Causality Scientific Categories Normative Categories Arbitrary Categories Operational Analytic Literary Conflationary Continental Aristotle Plato (many) Tends to Result In: Truth Utility Preference Markets, Regulation Command Nash Equality Pareto Equality Command Equality Natural Hierarchy Political Hierarchy Bureaucratic Hierarchy Classical Liberalism Social Democracy Socialism Rapid Adaptation Windfall Consumption Redirected Consumption Hyper Competitive Competitive in Windfalls Competitive when Behind I would make the following observations: 1) The continental (German) program has been a failed attempt, since the time of Kant (through Heidegger), to produce a secular, rational, version of Christianity. The French program (Rousseau through Derrida) has been a demonstrably successful program but a devastatingly destructive one. The Abrahamic program’s second revision (Marx, Freud, Boaz, Cantor, Mises, Rothbard, Strauss) has been catastrophic. And between the French Literary, Continental Rational, and Abrahamic Pseudoscientific movements, the attempt to restore the Aristotelian(scientific)/ Stoic(Mindfulness) / Roman(Law) / Heroic(Truth, Excellence, Beauty) program responsible for human progress in the ancient and modern world has been nearly defeated. 2) The analytic program was exhausted with Kripke, and in retrospect the analytic attempt to produce both formal logic of language, and a science of language will be considered a failure. For example, there is nothing in analytic philosophy that is not better provided by Turing. 3) The principle function of academic philosophy today appears consist of the self correction of existing errors prior to exhaustion of the philosophical program (termination of the discipline) in the same way that the analytic program exhausted itself. (If you list philosophers and their innovations this is what appears to be occurring. The discipline is exhausting itself as a dead end). 4) The principal influences on intellectual history are being provided by the sciences. In particular they are eliminating the last refuge of philosophy: the mind. And science is doing so via-negativa: through the incremental definition and measurement of cognitive biases (errors). 5) Science, if understood as an organized attempt to produce deflationary truthful (descriptive) speech, and the use of scientific categories (necessary and universal), will continue to displace the discipline of philosophy, and the use of philosophical categories, terminology and concepts. And (assuming I am correct), what remains of the discipline of philosophy will be reducible to the continuous refinements of the scientific method’s production of constant descriptive categories, terminology, and operational grammar. And the cross disciplinary adaptation of local categories into universal categories. 6) Science is less vulnerable to error , bias, suggestion and deceit, in no small part because the common problems of philosophy: suggestion, loading, framing, obscurantism, overloading, and the Fictionalisms (pseudoscience, pseudo-rationalism, and pseudo-mythology(theology)) are prohibited by the demand for Operational language, declared limits, and full accounting of consequences. It certainly appears that since the beginning of the 20th century we have been far busier eliminating errors of philosophy than philosophers have been busy discovering innovations. 7) Greek philosophy arose out of the common law of torts. Roman philosophy explicitly functioned on the common law of Torts. The Abrahamic Dark Age (conflating idealism, law, and religion) followed, but we were rescued by the reconstruction of north sea trade and the English common law of Torts (Bacon). And as far as I can determine, 8) As we have seen with continental and political philosophy, just as we saw with theology, and especially Abrahamic theology, the principle purpose of unscientific speech has been deception, propaganda, the propagation of ignorance, and the conduct of rule, and the expansion of warfare. With theologians and philosophers responsible for more deaths than generals and plagues. Between Zoroaster, Muhammed, and Marx, we have more deaths than all but the great diseases including malaria and the black plague. Philosophers and theologians have done more harm than good, largely functioning as a middle class opposition to the current form of rule. 9) Philosophical language then is a dead language, and perhaps an immoral one – and rationalism a dead technology. And they will be incrementally combined institutionally and normatively into theology, with Literary Philosophy(Plato and his heirs), merely representing it’s position on the spectrum of Aristotelian/Stoic/Roman/English Law (science), Confucian Reason, French Literary Idealism, Platonic Rational Idealism, Continental and Augustinian Fictionalism, and Abrahamic and Zoroastrian Fictionalism. 10) The use of non philosophical categories to construct moral literature in the French and Italian model will persist forever. Although largely as a means of resistance against the sciences, and the status social, economic, and political status quo. In this context we have to ask what we mean by Influential, or Great Philosophers, because: (a) Unless we are talking scientists who function as public intellectuals, philosophers, or Social Critics (practitioners of critique), or Moral Fictionalists (wishful thinkers), it really doesn’t appear that philosophy is a living or useful language or discipline. (b) it’s hard to argue there are any currently living and working rationalists of any substance. They are largely Moral Fictionalists. Let’s look at the list: Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins. The atheists. It’s worth noting that Dawkins was correct and Gould was wrong – about almost everything. (Surprisingly). Harris and Hitches practice critique but nothing else. Zizek practices Critique and has nothing to offer – and is honest about it. I mean, what solutions does Zizek provide? None. And he says so. Chomsky practices Critique, has nothing to offer – and is dishonest about it. He is an interesting example of how people with high intelligence and verbal acumen can construct elaborate deceptions. Between Chomsky and Paul Krugman, a half dozen people could spend their entire careers demonstrating their use of cherry picking, loading, framing, overloading with incommensurables, straw men, and heaping of undue praise. His insight into ‘universal grammar’ but categories of increasing complexity is largely correct and we can see that in brain structure today. However, he speaks about world affairs by constantly making the error (intentionally), that rational choice is scalable – just as did Marx. And he has no concept of economics whatsoever, and no political statement can be made any longer independently of economics – especially once we understand that the term economics has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the voluntary organization of individuals through the use of incentives provided by money. Hofstadter is a good example as any, but again, he is a public intellectual and a literary aesthete. Did he really provide any insight that was not visible in the literature of the time? So in closing, I would say, that: 1) There are no influential rationalists, because the program is complete and it’s been a dead end. The reasons for this would require I write a tome. 2) That there are many scientists that serve as public intellectuals, and this will continue. 3) There remain and always will be a market for moral literature. 4) That scientific philosophy, if completed, as ‘the discipline of due diligence against ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, overloading, and deceit, will replace the discipline of philosophy. But that won’t stop people over invested in a dead frame of reference from attempting to practice it. Why? It’s cheap and science is expensive.
“[A]ny evidentiary claim must be either an example (meaning) that is followed by operational construction (falsification), or by non operational correlation, exhaustive evidence, illustrating the limits (falsification).” These are the only two search criteria available for scientific(testifiable, due diligence, warrantable) statements. Here is what we do in P: Create a series of references (examples) that define the limits of the constant relations (properties you’re arguing). This usually takes three or more examples. In most cases I use civilizations. We call this disambiguation by serialization and operationalization. Then define or explain the term in the series by stating a constructive argument from a sequence of incentives using physical and natural law. Then falsify it by testing against all eight dimensions. This is the propertarian methodology. And this is why it is so difficult to be wrong when making a P-argument.
“[A]ny evidentiary claim must be either an example (meaning) that is followed by operational construction (falsification), or by non operational correlation, exhaustive evidence, illustrating the limits (falsification).” These are the only two search criteria available for scientific(testifiable, due diligence, warrantable) statements. Here is what we do in P: Create a series of references (examples) that define the limits of the constant relations (properties you’re arguing). This usually takes three or more examples. In most cases I use civilizations. We call this disambiguation by serialization and operationalization. Then define or explain the term in the series by stating a constructive argument from a sequence of incentives using physical and natural law. Then falsify it by testing against all eight dimensions. This is the propertarian methodology. And this is why it is so difficult to be wrong when making a P-argument.
RE: “I NEVER ERR” I don’t think you understand what I mean by that statement. I mean that if I write a constructivist proof in P-logic that I don’t err. The reason is that it’s so damned difficult – impossible really – to err if you write one. But sure, I make mistakes all the time, like everyone else. A mistake has no bearing on the outcome. An error has a bearing on the outcome. It is very very difficult to make an error in P-logic. The phrasing “I never err” is to bait the other party into making an argument, thereby minimizing the frame I need to work within, rather than forcing me to explain with a wall of text in order to discover the opponent’s frame. All of this explanation written down on the “Criticisms” page links on the site. The purpose of P-logic is falsificationary: we create definitions that consists of series, and supply demand curves, and use them to create fields of arguments that falsify more than justify. So P-logic seeks to expose so many falsehoods that only truthful statements can survive. As such where traditional philosophy seeks to find agreement between parties, P-logic falsifies all possibilities other than what we must agree to. In other words, the purpose of P-logic is to eliminate falsehood. It suppresses falsehood, bias, and deceit. And this is so novel that without some experience with math, computer science, or economics, it’s somewhere between counter-intuitive and inconceivable for most people. And that’s because P-logic is prosecutorial. You do’t end up disagreeing. You end up exposing the other party as a thief. This is why P-logic is so powerful. If the technique offends you, then It’s possible you haven’t run a large organization, participated in politics, or competed in the courts against people who are dishonest. I have. I don’t presume the other party has a moral character, has good intentions, is intellectually honest, or even has any more degree of agency than a puppy. I assume everyone is a gene machine and that agency and self awareness are rare occurrences. And I assume I am a gene machine too – it’s just that my gene machine brought me here, to this function, at this point in time. And the court-jester that is my internal personality is just along for the ride.