(FB 1546188259 Timestamp) —“Intellectual paradigms must surely require a different system of qualification besides functionality?”— Lisa Outhwaite All these tests are either additive (or not subtractive): 1 – True (not false), 2 – Excellent(not faulty), 3 – Actionable (not inactionable), 4 – Good (not-ir-reciprocal), 5 – Beautiful (not ugly). So yes. And this is yet another EXCELLENT example of why I do not use sets or set logic, but series, supply demand, Limits, and multi-dimensionality. No ideal types, Ideals – single dimensional tests of multi dimensional questions are just a convenient way of using aggregation for the purpose of obscurantism, loading, framing, and deceit. I suppose I should harp on the deconflation problem more often and explain why more often, but THREE POINTS TEST A LINE. A line of two points has no test of error. In other words, contrasting by one axis (statement, comparison) is a simple game – and a game too simple for any question of substance. Yet it is the preferred (lowest cost) method of human speech. Which is why we rely on justification (low cost meaning) versus falsification (high cost truth). This is why I consider all speech representable as geometry. And it is how I approach all speech: geometrically.
Category: Epistemology and Method
-
Curt Doolittle shared a post.
(FB 1546284026 Timestamp) DEFINING QUALITY OF THE WEST’S SUCCESS Increasing precision, resolution and conciseness results in packed terms which when understood provide decidibility. Increasing ambiguity, obfuscation and verbosity results in overloaded terms which when unpacked contain little substance. The former an investment with dividends, the later malinvestment which causes damage. Western civ = disambiguation across domains, scales and orders of complexity
-
Curt Doolittle shared a post.
(FB 1546284026 Timestamp) DEFINING QUALITY OF THE WEST’S SUCCESS Increasing precision, resolution and conciseness results in packed terms which when understood provide decidibility. Increasing ambiguity, obfuscation and verbosity results in overloaded terms which when unpacked contain little substance. The former an investment with dividends, the later malinvestment which causes damage. Western civ = disambiguation across domains, scales and orders of complexity
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1546464457 Timestamp) —“Curt, is your field (philosophy) art or science?”— Francesco Principi As I understand my work, given that science is an extension of the law, these are the three options: 1) Law, Sciences(Logics/Mathematics), Measurements. -vs- reality, competition, and testimony w/ warranty THE TRUE (EXISTENTIAL/REAL) – I consider this a ‘a science’. -vs- 2) Philosophy, Literature, History, -vs- sophism, justification, and deceit w/o warranty THE IDEAL – I consider this an ‘art’. -vs- 3) Theology, Scripture, Mythology -vs- supernaturalism, authoritarianism, and deceit w/o warranty THE FANTASY(IMAGINARY) – i consider this a ‘fraud or deceit’ In other words, I am not sure that the old versions of these terms have any meaning. I consider philosophy that which is yet unsolved in the narrow sense, OR the imagination of possible worlds (fantasy literature) in the broader sense. So in the narrow sense I see philosophy closed (completed), and what was philosophy of ‘the big questions’ are solved. In the broad sense of imagining and reconstructing relations that we might prefer or that might be good, there will never be an end to that category of philosophizing. As far as I know theorizing about the true and possible has replaced philosophizing, and theorizing completely under testimonialism has replaced the limited theorizing of the 19th and 20th century sciences. So I tend to say I am a philosopher of natural law because it is all people can understand in the historical context of the available term. But, technically speaking, what I understand that I am doing is the science of the law. Which in itself I think is what natural law must eventually mean. Where natural law and the laws of nature are separated only by conscious choice. And so I don’t see any difference between science and law other than warranty. And as we have seen, science without warranty of due diligence is largely pseudoscience. and pseudoscience is just another term for fraud. So as I understand it, truth = law, and all else are sub-grammars of that law if that is all that is required to solve that problem, or deciets that violate that law. 1) The Physical Laws (invariability), 2) the Natural Law (decidability), 3) History, and Literature (meaning), … … are the only non-false domains and methods of inquiry remaining. Drug addicts defend their habits. There are many ways of drugging the mind. Lies are the most common of them. And stoicism, family, oath-feast-festival, and our nation of all those that came before, all those that are, and all those that are yet to be, are the cure for that addiction.
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1546464457 Timestamp) —“Curt, is your field (philosophy) art or science?”— Francesco Principi As I understand my work, given that science is an extension of the law, these are the three options: 1) Law, Sciences(Logics/Mathematics), Measurements. -vs- reality, competition, and testimony w/ warranty THE TRUE (EXISTENTIAL/REAL) – I consider this a ‘a science’. -vs- 2) Philosophy, Literature, History, -vs- sophism, justification, and deceit w/o warranty THE IDEAL – I consider this an ‘art’. -vs- 3) Theology, Scripture, Mythology -vs- supernaturalism, authoritarianism, and deceit w/o warranty THE FANTASY(IMAGINARY) – i consider this a ‘fraud or deceit’ In other words, I am not sure that the old versions of these terms have any meaning. I consider philosophy that which is yet unsolved in the narrow sense, OR the imagination of possible worlds (fantasy literature) in the broader sense. So in the narrow sense I see philosophy closed (completed), and what was philosophy of ‘the big questions’ are solved. In the broad sense of imagining and reconstructing relations that we might prefer or that might be good, there will never be an end to that category of philosophizing. As far as I know theorizing about the true and possible has replaced philosophizing, and theorizing completely under testimonialism has replaced the limited theorizing of the 19th and 20th century sciences. So I tend to say I am a philosopher of natural law because it is all people can understand in the historical context of the available term. But, technically speaking, what I understand that I am doing is the science of the law. Which in itself I think is what natural law must eventually mean. Where natural law and the laws of nature are separated only by conscious choice. And so I don’t see any difference between science and law other than warranty. And as we have seen, science without warranty of due diligence is largely pseudoscience. and pseudoscience is just another term for fraud. So as I understand it, truth = law, and all else are sub-grammars of that law if that is all that is required to solve that problem, or deciets that violate that law. 1) The Physical Laws (invariability), 2) the Natural Law (decidability), 3) History, and Literature (meaning), … … are the only non-false domains and methods of inquiry remaining. Drug addicts defend their habits. There are many ways of drugging the mind. Lies are the most common of them. And stoicism, family, oath-feast-festival, and our nation of all those that came before, all those that are, and all those that are yet to be, are the cure for that addiction.
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1547132816 Timestamp) YES, METAPHYSICS HAS BEEN OVERVALUED FOR 2500 YEARS (very ,very, important concept) —“The athenian tradition did not account for costs. (1) the peerage was small and wealthy with common interests – and costs were as rude then as today” (2) discussion of costs immediately changes from ideals to reals thereby self selecting into class interests.” — CD Adam Voight asks a profound question: —“Does this mean that doing metaphysics has been overvalued for 2500 years?”— Adam Voight Yes, (which is why I piss on the subject all the time) it’s just a means of trying to find a reason not to account for costs. Which I think i’ve tried to state repeatedly, is that the universe operates on least cost principles because it has no choice. Humans do also because they have no choice. We are more complicated than the universe because we have memory, can use that memory to predict, and therefore select delayed actions or early actions an capture that difference in calories as reward. Measurement(math), Science (measurement), engineering (measurement), accounting/finance (measurement), economics(measurement), and Law (measurement) all account for costs. Philosophy and theology and the Occult do not account for costs. IMO Popper and Kuhn did not account for costs. Hayek half-succeeded and half failed, in that law is the only ‘science’ and that all else is merely some fewer number of dimensions we consider under the law. Science and philosophy and religion evolved out of law, with economics and physics the only two to account for costs, and keynesian economics an attempt like philosophy and religion to NOT account for costs. So here is the simple psychology of it: Those of us and our disciplines who account for costs. Those of us and our disciplines who avoid accounting for costs. The issue: you can rally people politically very easily by not accounting for costs. That is the secret to religion and philosophy versus science and law. Hence my work at ‘fixing’ the law such that it is a cult in and of itself, that is extremely intolerant of not accounting for costs.
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1547059043 Timestamp) THE LANGUAGE OF MATHEMATICS AND MAN Mathematics is just the most SIMPLE possible language since it has only one property: positional name. And positional names are unique and perfectly deflationary (non-conflationary) and as such very difficult to subject to our principal category of error: conflation. LET’S TAKE A JOURNEY: A CHANGE IN STATE (TIME) consists of entropy at the local rate of entropy. An INTERVAL (CHANGE) of time consists of a change in state. EXPERIENCE(PERCEPTION) consists of the conflation of sense-perception, memory, and neural prediction with that memory, over some interval of time. A set of CONSTANT RELATIONS (CATEGORY) consists of a set of properties reducible to analogy to experience, and commensurable (differentiable) by human experience. A REFERENCE (ASSOCIATION) consists of a set of constant relations. CORRESPONDENCE (NAMES) consists of a name (INDEX) of a comparison of indifference between a name (referrer) and a reference. NUMBERS (NOUNS) consists of positional names, and the correspondence of positional names with some referent. ARITHMETIC (VERBS) consists in the study of the grammar of numbers, and the properties possible operations upon and between them (addition, subtraction, and their iterations in multiplication, and division). ALGEBRA (GRAMMAR) consists in the study of the grammar of mathematical language: the production of well form statements in mathematical language, and the manipulation of symbols (words, phrases, sentences) in that mathematical language, allowing for the deduction, induction, abduction, and guessing of the missing content of those statements, or range of possible content of those statements. A DIMENSION (PHRASES) consist of a set of constant internal relations, and each additional dimension consists of a shared dependency between dimensions the accumulation of which produces a chain, hierarchy, or network of dependencies. A dimension can refer to any difference reducible to analogy to perception by the human mind, and therefore capable of commensurability, comparison, and decidability. GEOMETRY (SENTENCES) consists in the study of dimensions of STATEFUL shapes described by positional relations we call numbers, in n-number of dimensions (although most commonly in four), and the use of triangles to measure area and volume. CALCULUS (MEANING) (from Latin calculus, literally ‘small pebble’, used for counting and calculations, as on an abacus) is the mathematical study of continuous change. It has two major branches: a) Curves: differential calculus (concerning instantaneous rates of change and slopes of curves), and; b) Curved Areas: integral calculus (concerning accumulation of quantities and the areas under and between curves). –“These two branches are related to each other by the fundamental theorem of calculus. Both branches make use of the fundamental notions of convergence of infinite sequences and infinite series to a well-defined limit. (marginal indifference).”– This paragraph consists of nonsense-speech. Calculus, like geometry, uses a very large number of approximations of the area under a curve, where we choose some arbitrary degree of precision to determine the smallness of each approximation. This means that all measurements must specify some point of marginal indifference, (scale dependence, ‘limit’). HIGHER MATHEMATICS (DEDUCTION, INDUCTION, ABDUCTION, GUESSING), (most analysis) consists in using the available set of constant relations, and some combination of negative (deduction) and positive (construction) to engage in trial and error, to narrow the range of possible solutions. EMERGENT PATTERNS OF CONSTANT RELATIONS Any and all networks produce patterns of constant relations (‘symmetries’) of that which is frequent and possible and that which is infrequent or impossible. We then can name these symmetries, assign them positional names, and repeat the descriptive language we call the process all over again. This is how the universe functions from its yet unknown time-space substance, to the quantum level of behavior upon it, to the atomic level of behavior upon that, to the carbon level beyond that, to the life, the complex life, to the sentience beyond that. One level of operations produces some maximum set of operations which is then results in some maximum set of operations until we have reason, and mathematics, and sufficient knowledge to forecast (imagine, predict) potential alternative ‘sentences’ and act upon them to change state ourselves, and to capture the energy from having done so, so that we ourselves continue to defeat entropy. All Reason consists of this using this series, all of which are simply statements of available information: 1. Identity 2. Equality 3. Deduction 4. Induction 5. Abduction 6. Guessing 7. Free Association 8. Intuition. 9. Unobservable. In reasoning we can either: 1. construct (justify), 2. test (falsify) 3. continuously recursively disambiguate.(analyze with language) 4. eliminate by trial and error in construction, falsification, and analysis. 5. eliminate by trial and error in the market for application. We can deceive by: 1. Failure of due diligence 2. Denial 3. Obscurantism, loading, framing 4. Conflation 5. Inflation 6. fictionalization 7. Deceit 8. Environmental deceit (saturation, popaganda) EVERYTHING WE DO FOLLOWS THE SAME EPISTEMIC PROCESS The competition between: 1. construction by continuous recursive disambiguation (free association), and; 2. continuous prediction (anticipation), and; 3. continuous falsification (elimination). In this order: 1. Experience (market for association in memory) > 2. Free Association (prediction/falsification in reason) > 3. Hypothesis (criticism/falsification in testing) > 4. Theory (criticism/falsification in application ) > 5. Law(survival) > 6. Habituation (presumption) > 7. Revision (iterate) Philosophizing only tells us if something is false. Nothing more The only means of due diligence is falsifying each dimension of possible human perception: 1. survival from falsification of identity 2. survival from falsification of internal consistency (logic) 3. survival from falsification by external correspondence (empiricism). 4. survival from falsification by operationalization and operational description. 5. survival from falsification by subjective test of rational choice 7. survival from falsification by reciprocal test of rational choice. 8. survival from falsification by tests of limits and full accounting (scope). 9. survival from falsification by of internal consistency across all of these methods of due diligence (coherence). In summary, operational grammar is the same as mathematical grammar: extremely difficult to circumvent tests of deflation and disambiguation in that hierarchy of real world dimensions. The human body, intuition, and mind, is a standard of measurement because of the marginal indifference of perception cognition and action, and the ‘grammar’ of operations, provides continuous consistency from the subatomic universe to the experiential. Once you understand this, the demand for ePrime (operational language), in complete sentences will be rather obvious.
- Cheers
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1547142603 Timestamp) —“What is it that we mean by “metaphysics”? Is it the reverse-engineering of human cognition? Is it really so useless to try to reverse-engineer the mind? I could accept something of the sort of: “doing metaphysics even of the sort of naturalistic inquiry that you profess requires the sort of social institutions or commons that would be too vulnerable to parasitism”.”— Adam Voight Short Answer: Metaphysics is looking for means of cheating. What I think we call metaphysics is the discipline of trying to create a fictional narrative that justifies our means of survival, competition, prospering, and signaling given our abilities, means, and conditions. So an ‘ontology” (paradigm) that ‘lets me get what I want’. Where my approach is ‘here is the paradigm’ now negotiate within it for what you want, don’t make an excuse that what you want is ‘good’ so that you can engage in all sorts of discounting (cheating). The rest of the ontologies (paradigms) are just networks on top of that base ontology (paradigm) of human action (perception, cognition, memory, calculation, speech, negotiation, action). Well, I mean I worked on AI, and now we have cognitive science, and we have language that expresses the content of the mind, so it’s pretty easy. I mean, I think I have a pretty good understanding of how the mind works, and I’ve come to understand it’s actually not complicated, it’s just an emergent phenomenon of enough hierarchical memory, and the devotion of so much of that memory to the continuous production of serialized speech so that we can negotiate cooperation with others, because cooperation produces such ridiculously outsized returns on calories that language and cooperation are more valuable than any other caloric expenditure. In my book I teach that the human body, intuition, and mind provide a the system of measurement we work with because it is all that we can work with because it is the only comparisons we are able to make – and that all language consists of measurements culminating in transactions. The question is only the precision of those measurements on the one hand, the correspondence of those measurements, and the ignorance, error, bias, and deceit in those measurements. I then use that system of measurement (operational language) to provide commensurability, and reframe all human experience, knowledge, and disciplines in that commensurable language. Then I document every known method of deflating language to produce increased precision and decreased opportunity for conflation. Then I document every known method of inflating language to engaging the masking of ignorance, and the generation of error, bias, and deceit. Then I account for costs. In other words the Metaphysics of Action turns out to be the only non-false model. The metaphysics of speech limited to action turns out to be the only non-false model. And the tests of costs whether at the physical or human level turns out to be the only non-false model. This turns out to be what we do in court already when prosecuting a crime. Which is why the west developed reason, empiricism, science: it all evolved out of our natural common law of sovereignty. The moment you base your cognitive hierarchy on sovereignty (the individual) then there is no conflation available by which to ignore costs. This sentence is very profound. if you base it on anything else you invite (make excuses for) the unaccountable, adn the undecidable, leaving room for authoritarian or communal calculation. This hierarchy of concepts is quite important really. It explains why so many thinkers went off the rails and why there is a proliferation of incommensurable ‘fictions’ in philosophy and theology and opinion. “How can I cheat others?” “How can I use cheating to rally large numbers of others?” “How can I use cheating and rallying large numbers to obtain power?” I see history as a few people trying to create truth and productivity, a lot of people lying and cheating, and a lot more trying to get by with the lies, cheating, and stealing that they can get away with in the current context. Because I study science and the law and economics and not philosophy ,theology, literature, or what passes for history but is largely propaganda.
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1547142386 Timestamp) ARISTOTLE AS OUR LAWGIVER, vs THE PROPHETS AND THEIR LIES. The first reason to reform Aristotle by translation of his works into operational language is to lionize him and make him the founder of western thought – the via negativa, to the Nihilism of Socrates and the Idealism of Plato, and the lies of the Abrahamists whether Abraham, Saul, or Mohammed. This form of heroic Idolization anthropomorphizes the character (and his military peer alexander) such that we can engage in hero-competition with competing civilizations and their advocates, and our own sophists within, (b) and anchor western civilization as a continuous tradition from our origins in European customary law of sovereignty and tort, to the present anglo common law of tort. The second reason is to falsify all the pseudo-philosophy and theology that exists between aristotle and the present. Now re-writing Aristotle in operational prose would be the equivalent of the work undertaken to produce the king james bible, and the basis of a western education – particularly the Ethics. When combined with the foundational myth of the Trial of Achilles (taught to children by dividing up the work and memorizing it by chanting – given that vast parts are repeated over and over again – and presented by classes as a holiday play). We would have the Hellenic tradition restored. Doing the same for each series of festivals for the old germanic and celtic in fall and winter, and preserving Easter for the christian and mayday would be relatively simple. We can re-ritualize our civilization as historical play. Because, as Nietzsche taught us, it is the participation of the chorus, whether in games, play, ritual, church, or prayer that provides the mindfulness of associating the sacred and collective with the mythos that binds them. If we have an education system (church limited by the natural law) that teaches mindfulness, history, the tools of calculation (reading, writing, numbers, economics, physics), reduce education to part time as soon as children are able to engage in part time work, and put as great an emphasis on apprenticeship as we do higher education, and limit ‘higher education’ to that which requires advanced calculation (stem+l) we can restore the civic society and eliminate the alienation and signal warfare endemic to consumer modernity. If this church, which provides education, also serves the function of consumer banking, savings, and investment, with near-zero interest on durable goods, then we will have restored the ancient order and destroyed the entire network of parasites and rent seekers in academy, finance, and state. We do not need to establish this church. We merely need to provide the economic incentives to do so, and the regulatory law that binds them to the construction of that common good. The most notable exception would be the use of successful retired people in the administration and teaching of these things rather than those who have been insulated from market forces, market competition, and demonstrated market achievement.
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1547140855 Timestamp) SHELVING ARCHAIC LANGUAGE: PHILOSOPHY Again, I would simply use the terms existence, category, theory, and paradigm, rather than trying to keep alive heavily loaded archaic terms that have been used and abused in every possible way, such that they only invite frauds. But as usual, the truth provides decidability, where the useful, preferable, and good are not truths (decidable) but choices (utilities, individual and group preferences). Truth provides decidability in matters of conflict between paradigms. The higher the correspondence between perception, cognition, memory, speech, negotiation, action, and cooperation and reality the higher the discount at the expense of ignorance, error, bias, deceits, and frauds. There is no argument to be had that we can defraud ourselves and others for utilitarian and preferential purposes. However, in matters of conflcit we can decide those difference REGARDLESS OF how badly we have invested in those utilities, wants, and frauds. So I take the position that there is only one most parsimonious consistent correspondent and coherent paradigm possible and that this is the object of metaphysics. And that we can use this most parsimonious truth to conduct more directly expensive but more collectively and indirectly rewarding methods of achieving individual and cooperative (and conflicting) means and ends. If not, then metaphysics is merely the study of means of deceit, just as theology is the study of useful deceits, and the systems of measurement are nothing more than the prevention of useful deciets in those cases where they violate reciprocity. As in all things – via negativa and via positiva in competition. We may not know what its true but we know what is false.