Curt Doolittle

Category: Epistemology and Method

  • Or, “All theories, general rules of arbitrary precision, protocols, processes, f

    Or, “All theories, general rules of arbitrary precision, protocols, processes, formulae, recipes must always include limits beyond which the warranty of applicability no longer holds.”

    Source date (UTC): 2018-09-03 17:00:40 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1036660259534856193

    Reply addressees: @nntaleb @charlesmurray

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1035121052886728704

    IN REPLY TO:

    @nntaleb

    What works on a small scale almost NEVER expands to large scale. https://t.co/S8HW5eeaj6

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1035121052886728704

  • by Alex Macleod —“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are

    by Alex Macleod

    —“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” —

    For that to be a true statement, those ‘more things’ must be knowable unknowns, known to the speaker but not to Horatio.

    Likewise with the electromagnetic spectrum, it was a knowable unknown, but could not be claimed to exist before knowledge of it.

    It’s not possible to refer to an unknowable unknown. No one can make a valid (true) claim to the existence of unknowable unknowns, such as ‘god’ or ‘a spiritual experience’ or ‘self-realisation’, unknowable unknowns cannot have any bearing on existence, as they cannot be experienced, testified to or referred to.

    They cannot exist. It’s an empty box, so fuck off with your empty box.

    A philanthropist might take the time to point out that what people claim to be ‘spiritual’ must be emotion, thought or sensation, and either diseased emotion, thought or sensation, or beautiful emotion, thought and sensation, that the person has been persuaded to have hijacked by someone else’s psychic disease, and flown to the destination ‘I felt god speak to me’ etc

    Source date (UTC): 2018-09-02 14:08:00 UTC

  • The Problem with “logic”

    Hierarchy of Constant Relations

    1 – identity: tests of intra-reference constant relations 2 – logic: tests of inter-reference constant relations. 3 – mathematics: operations on positional relations, which by definition remain constant. 4 – construction: operational construction (arithmetic) 5 – deduction: deduction from a construction. (geometry/algebra) 6 – elimination (subtraction): deduction by falsification of all alternatives. (fields – effectively trial and error) the problem is that mathematical trial and error is cheap while verbal and existential trial and error is prohibitively expensive. We are trained in construction, deduction, induction, abduction, guessing, and free association. But mathematicians are trained in the trial and error method. In science we practice the trial and error method. In law we practice the trial and error method. It’s only (silly) justificationism that construction and deduction have any function, and even then that function, like the formal logics is of very limited value: it tells us only that something is false. You don’t prove anything (non trivial) with logic. You just falsify with it.

  • The Problem with “logic”

    Hierarchy of Constant Relations

    1 – identity: tests of intra-reference constant relations 2 – logic: tests of inter-reference constant relations. 3 – mathematics: operations on positional relations, which by definition remain constant. 4 – construction: operational construction (arithmetic) 5 – deduction: deduction from a construction. (geometry/algebra) 6 – elimination (subtraction): deduction by falsification of all alternatives. (fields – effectively trial and error) the problem is that mathematical trial and error is cheap while verbal and existential trial and error is prohibitively expensive. We are trained in construction, deduction, induction, abduction, guessing, and free association. But mathematicians are trained in the trial and error method. In science we practice the trial and error method. In law we practice the trial and error method. It’s only (silly) justificationism that construction and deduction have any function, and even then that function, like the formal logics is of very limited value: it tells us only that something is false. You don’t prove anything (non trivial) with logic. You just falsify with it.

  • —“So… fk off with your empty box”—

    by Alex Macleod

    —“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” — For that to be a true statement, those ‘more things’ must be knowable unknowns, known to the speaker but not to Horatio. Likewise with the electromagnetic spectrum, it was a knowable unknown, but could not be claimed to exist before knowledge of it. It’s not possible to refer to an unknowable unknown. No one can make a valid (true) claim to the existence of unknowable unknowns, such as ‘god’ or ‘a spiritual experience’ or ‘self-realisation’, unknowable unknowns cannot have any bearing on existence, as they cannot be experienced, testified to or referred to. They cannot exist. It’s an empty box, so fuck off with your empty box. A philanthropist might take the time to point out that what people claim to be ‘spiritual’ must be emotion, thought or sensation, and either diseased emotion, thought or sensation, or beautiful emotion, thought and sensation, that the person has been persuaded to have hijacked by someone else’s psychic disease, and flown to the destination ‘I felt god speak to me’ etc

  • —“So… fk off with your empty box”—

    by Alex Macleod

    —“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” — For that to be a true statement, those ‘more things’ must be knowable unknowns, known to the speaker but not to Horatio. Likewise with the electromagnetic spectrum, it was a knowable unknown, but could not be claimed to exist before knowledge of it. It’s not possible to refer to an unknowable unknown. No one can make a valid (true) claim to the existence of unknowable unknowns, such as ‘god’ or ‘a spiritual experience’ or ‘self-realisation’, unknowable unknowns cannot have any bearing on existence, as they cannot be experienced, testified to or referred to. They cannot exist. It’s an empty box, so fuck off with your empty box. A philanthropist might take the time to point out that what people claim to be ‘spiritual’ must be emotion, thought or sensation, and either diseased emotion, thought or sensation, or beautiful emotion, thought and sensation, that the person has been persuaded to have hijacked by someone else’s psychic disease, and flown to the destination ‘I felt god speak to me’ etc

  • A Thing is Demonstrated not Claimed. Ergo, yes false.

    —Christianity is Not ‘false’, just figurative. Not literal. John Warner Mathisen has shown that the stories of the worlds religions are figurative stories(myths) describing the constellations of the night sky. This understanding is called Astro-Theology.”— A Friend Correct in their origin, but two problems with that presumption: 1) A statement is figurative if used figuratively (meaning) and false if used argumentatively (truth). How are the jewish, christian, and islamic statements used? Figuratively (analogically) or argumentatively (persuasively)? In other words, how something is used determines its constitution. There is very little evidence it was used figuratively. Especially given the doubling down by fundamentalists after the empirical, scientific, and technological revolutions. 2) The content of those statements is true if the means produce the promised or even beneficial ends. The statements are false if the means do not produce promised or beneficial ends. Judaism contributed nothing to humanity despite the most educated population in caucasia. Christianity destroyed the aristocracy of the roman world just as it was designed to do. Islam destroyed the great civilizations of the ancient world. And together these three religions ushered in 1B deaths, and a thousand year dark age we have spent the last five hundred years trying to escape – with christianity dying off, but judaism and islam still working diligently to destroy western civilization, with only the chinese, japanese, and koreans holding out. So The statements were and are not acted upon as figurative (analogies, myths) but wisdom, law, and civilizational objective. The outcome is not paradise in the afterlife, or under the pseudoscientific version of judaism (Marxism), christianity (libertarianism), Islam (neo-conservatism), prosperity and peace in this world. These three religions – all variations on abrahamism whether ancient semitic judaism, christianity, and islam, or modern marxism, feminism, and postmodernism – designed by intent to destroy “critique” the great civilizations by weaponizing the female competitive strategy of undermining and reputation destruction by disapproval, shaming, ridicule, gossip, and rallying, and doing so by taking advantage of the means of communication and immigration and publication created in the ancient world and the modern. The are not just false in statement, false in promise, but malicious in intent.

  • A Thing is Demonstrated not Claimed. Ergo, yes false.

    —Christianity is Not ‘false’, just figurative. Not literal. John Warner Mathisen has shown that the stories of the worlds religions are figurative stories(myths) describing the constellations of the night sky. This understanding is called Astro-Theology.”— A Friend Correct in their origin, but two problems with that presumption: 1) A statement is figurative if used figuratively (meaning) and false if used argumentatively (truth). How are the jewish, christian, and islamic statements used? Figuratively (analogically) or argumentatively (persuasively)? In other words, how something is used determines its constitution. There is very little evidence it was used figuratively. Especially given the doubling down by fundamentalists after the empirical, scientific, and technological revolutions. 2) The content of those statements is true if the means produce the promised or even beneficial ends. The statements are false if the means do not produce promised or beneficial ends. Judaism contributed nothing to humanity despite the most educated population in caucasia. Christianity destroyed the aristocracy of the roman world just as it was designed to do. Islam destroyed the great civilizations of the ancient world. And together these three religions ushered in 1B deaths, and a thousand year dark age we have spent the last five hundred years trying to escape – with christianity dying off, but judaism and islam still working diligently to destroy western civilization, with only the chinese, japanese, and koreans holding out. So The statements were and are not acted upon as figurative (analogies, myths) but wisdom, law, and civilizational objective. The outcome is not paradise in the afterlife, or under the pseudoscientific version of judaism (Marxism), christianity (libertarianism), Islam (neo-conservatism), prosperity and peace in this world. These three religions – all variations on abrahamism whether ancient semitic judaism, christianity, and islam, or modern marxism, feminism, and postmodernism – designed by intent to destroy “critique” the great civilizations by weaponizing the female competitive strategy of undermining and reputation destruction by disapproval, shaming, ridicule, gossip, and rallying, and doing so by taking advantage of the means of communication and immigration and publication created in the ancient world and the modern. The are not just false in statement, false in promise, but malicious in intent.

  • “Not an argument. I don’t issue opinions, I construct arguments. Arguments requi

    —“Not an argument. I don’t issue opinions, I construct arguments. Arguments require refutations. Schoolgirls engage in disapproval, rallying, shaming, gossip and reputation destruction: that is the socially dysfunctional female method of violence.”—

  • “Not an argument. I don’t issue opinions, I construct arguments. Arguments requi

    —“Not an argument. I don’t issue opinions, I construct arguments. Arguments require refutations. Schoolgirls engage in disapproval, rallying, shaming, gossip and reputation destruction: that is the socially dysfunctional female method of violence.”—