Category: Epistemology and Method

  • Curt Doolittle updated his status.

    (FB 1547138370 Timestamp) THE ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS OVER METAPHYSICS —“Anytime you utter the word “emergent phenomenon”, you automatically need another science. In order to count as such, a science needs to satisfy what constraints?”— Help me understand this because there is no limit that I can imagine to the scale of a neural (bayesian) network, and no limit to the cognitive ability of a hierarchical and recursive network – other than inputs and outputs. The limits we have today are mechanical – we have built the wrong kind of computers. Even such, at great heat-cost, we are able to replicate those networks. So for ‘speech’ to emerge just like for the touch ui to emerge we require hardware (biological ware). So somehow (random selection, intentional manipulation) the real-world interface determines what can be ‘identified, predicted, and judged’ by that recursive, hierarchical, network. —“real”– As far as I know real = existential = persistent = observable = observable directly, by instrumentation, or by deduction from deduction using instrumentation, where that instrumentation can be either physical(external) or logical (internal). As far as I know ‘real’ in the colloquial, refers to ACTIONABLE. As far as I know the only open question is an empty verbalism: experiences are constructed from a combination of perception with memories of perceptions, limited by the grammar of conception, which is brain structure, which appears to be little more than the neurological homunculus – which the more I understand, the less ‘human’ I feel. So do experience (concepts, etc) exist, or do they have the potential be experienced, and do they persist if and only if some number of us share the potential to experience them? Once we operationalize these questions they turn out to be quite simple. Do unicorns exist? Well, No. Do does the word unicorn exist? Well, a lot of us have memory (knowledge) of that word. So it we have knowledge of it. That knowledge persists in some distributed and fragmentary form. But it only exists as POTENTIAL. Whereas that which we claim exists already does so. Does that idea of a unicorn exist? Well, a lot of us have memory (knowledge) that can be accessed by that word, and using that index (word) we can recall some combination of fragmentary images of a unicorn (mine are the scenes in Blade Runner and after that, Legend of all things). So in Does the referent exist? Well, No. Does the index of the referent exist? Well, Yes. Does knowledge of the referent exist? Well, Yes. Yet again, we see, that a series stated in operational language solves the problem of the sophism of reductive questions. Unicorns don’t exist. An index (word) appears to have little or no direct sensation of itself. An index evokes a network of fragments, that recursively reflect additional fragments, and so on until we have exhausted our memories. the cortex (brain) is a continuous prediction system using fragments , and we can apply that prediction system to the real, the linguistic, and the imagined. What we call mind, probably an consequence of either cooperation, communication or language, or the sequence in total, consists largely in the direction of that forecasting (attention) and recursion (concentration). Is knowing this the same as experience? well no. Knowing this is however, defensive: eliminating the errors, bises, and deceits, that we and others engage in, with ourselves and others. WHAT ABOUT “NEED” – HUMAN DEMAND FOR COMFORTING FALSEHOODS Demand for Falsehoods today are driven by signal pressure and alienation pressure. In the past they were driven by signal pressure, competitive pressure, alienation pressure, and suffering pressure. We cannot fix signal pressure since it is necessary for selection, but we can fix mindfulness. We can’t fix alienation pressure but we can improve mindfulness and the civic society to reduce it. We can limit competitive pressure through the civic society and political ethnocentrism. And we can dramatically (and have) eliminated suffering pressure through mindfulness and medicine. Yes, the truth is that comforting lies (sophistry pseudoscience, the occult and denial), cults and groups, and sedation by alcohol, an drugs are CHEAP and DISORGANIZED means of providing mindfulness in the face of signal, alienation, competitive, and suffering pressures. However, we can likewise take and ORGANIZED and EXPENSIVE means of serving those market demands by non false and healthy and productive means. But like all contemporary problems (a) the collection of rent-seekers that will be displaced by the efforts to produce that order will fight desperately against these reforms (improvements) just as they will the legal and financial, because rent seeking that leaves people subject to pressures but gives them false hope is the most profitable industry of all. (b) not enough of us (yet) have taken up arms to alter that circumstance. NO MORE LIES

  • 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 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 1547131377 Timestamp) –“PHILOSOPHY MUST BE DRAGGED OUT OF THE IVORY TOWER AND INTO THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS”– Um. I don’t think so. Unless it has a dramatic reformation. via negativa, measurement, science, economics, and law, versus via positiva, philosophy, theology, occult, daydreaming. While I find no difference between theorizing and philosophizing that is because I do not engage in empty verbalisms or sophisms, pseudosciences, nor the magic of ignoring costs. Philosophy can be laundered such that philosophizing(imaginary and verbal) and theorizing (existential and actionable) are essentially identical by the use of operational language, the full accounting of costs, and a preface of the choice of goods as those of the equalitarian herd, or the hierarchical pack. But as practiced, and as the demotion of the discipline to a peer to theology has evidenced, measuring, theorizing, philosophizing, and theologizing are simply analogous to description, deduction, induction, abduction, and guessing, using increasingly specious excuses for one’s guesswork. The athenian tradition did not account for costs. There are two principle reasons for it: (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 (3) mathematical idealism influenced greco-roman thought so heavily, giving such sophism an unearned legitimacy. (4) historically religion spoke in these ideal terms, philosophy an improvement upon them, and empiricism an improvement upon philosophy, and science an improvement upon empiricism, just as ‘Testimonialism’ is an improvement upon science. (empiricism vs science distinguished by the 20th’s implementation of operational language, and testimonialism by the completion of the scientific method). It is time for philosophy to either abandon idealism, sophism, and the ignorance of costs, or to be further demoted into the theology of ideals. Otherwise, like theology, it cannot compete in the marketplace of ideas. That is what the evidence shows us. People ask me every single day what philosophy to read and I tell them ‘none of it’ other than perhaps the bookends of Aristotle and Nietzsche. The rest is all measurement, science, economics, Law, and history. There are no crimes equal to those of abraham, saul, and mohammed in the ancient world, and marx, freud, boas, in the 19th, and adorno, derrida and foucault in the 20th. We can complain about Augustine and Aquinas as apologists, but by them the damage was done. It is very hard to criticize archimedes, democritus, aristotle, epicurus, zeno in the ancient world, and bacon, newton, hobbes, lock, smith, hume in the modern, or poincare, maxwell, darwin, menger, pareto, spencer, nietzsche and many others in the 19th, and einstein, watson-crick, and the many others in the 20th. Precision of our knowledge increases thereby justifying the pack, offset by counter-revolutions in denial, sophism, pseudoscience, and supernaturalism expanding the herd. And the war between neolithic feminine dysgenic herd strategy of the levant, and the bronze age masculine eugenic pack strategy of indo europeans. Truth is undesirable to the many.


    https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/01/philosophy-must-be-dragged-out-ivory-tower-and-marketplace-ideas?
  • 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 1547246629 Timestamp) There is no wisdom literature that is not false, that cannot be broken in to operational, fully accounted language.

  • Curt Doolittle updated his status.

    (FB 1547246629 Timestamp) There is no wisdom literature that is not false, that cannot be broken in to operational, fully accounted language.

  • Curt Doolittle updated his status.

    (FB 1547418990 Timestamp) Knowing the deflation, operationalism, and grammars is a bit like having a superpower. And I just realized that if we teach everyone Testimonialism I won’t be the only person with the superpower…. sigh… 😉

  • Curt Doolittle updated his status.

    (FB 1547339450 Timestamp) WHAT IS METAPHYSICS? —“Why study metaphysics? Metaphysics consist of the study of the (constitution) of reality. It is the (method or process) by which we come to a (paradigm) of (the laws of the universe, laws of cooperation, laws of perception-experience, and laws of reason), and from that (paradigm) make choices about what we want to think, feel, and do to make the most of our own experience of life and the world.”— The study of Metaphysics then serves our will to power (successful action). Or does it? I deflate the big question into a hierarchy : 1 – ‘What can we perceive, experience, cognate, and act upon?’ 2 – ‘How is our experience produced?’ 3 – ‘What are the limits of our perception, experience, cognition and action?” 4 – ‘What may be beyond our perceptions and experience and cognition? 5 – ‘What are the first premises (assumptions, presumptions, rules, laws) by which we test our perceptions, experience, and ideas?’ 6 – And how does our experience differ from those laws? 7 – And how can we act to take advantage of this knowledge? The problem is, that since we must act to survive and prosper, can only act within the limits of our perception, experience, cognition, and action, and can only extend perceptions by action in the universe, and all increases in our understanding of what is beyond our perception, experience, cognition, have followed consistent rules of parsimony all of which relegate our experience to a natural consequence of competitive complexity given a long enough and stable enough period of evolutionary computation. Action (operations) is the only system of measurement that is not a lie – because it is what the entirety of the set of questions depends upon: the grammar and semantics of action, cognition, experience, and perception. So the question is not what is metaphysics. The question is, Why is it men seek using metaphysics to lie? So the issue is whether we are confirming the former to the latter (lying) or the latter to the former (adapting), or whether we inventing the former to serve the latter for the purpose of fraud, rent seeking, free riding, and other forms of parasitism – because so far that seems the primary distinction between philosophers/theologians and scientists. You see, a fraud, a sophist, philosopher, or theologian uses justification to ask ‘what can I get away with?’, while a scientist and a jurist ask ‘what can we insure you’re not getting away with?’ Hence why law (man) and science (nature) account for costs, and philosophy(man) and theology(nature) do not. Because costs allow us to measure frauds, thefts, et al. How many philosophers and theologians would survive prosecution for fraud?

    • Curt