Category: Epistemology and Method

WE ARE ALL WORKING ON THE SAME PROBLEM

(from elsewhere, for NNT)

– We are all making the same point, I’m just providing the full implications – the full framework. I don’t have the metric. I am not sure we have the means of collecting enough data to discover it.

– Taleb’s making the same point, he just looking for the metric rather than the framework. But his work so far is close enough: the cost of discovering the point of demarcation is so expensive that it cancels the value of the opportunity, and requires then that we demand warranty of the distributor of the information.

– Wolfram’s making the same point, he just hasn’t put it into the full context.

– Mantelbrot was making the same point, he just couldn’t generalize it. Yes, there exist sets of operations in all systems of operations that survive (prevent entropy).

– Minsky makes the same point but he doesn’t understand the implications.Yes, programming (tests of existential possibility) is a new method of human thought, just as were calculus, geometry, algebra, and accounting.

– Mises was making the same point but he didn’t understand the model or context. Instead he tried to create a pseudoscience by conflating logic and science.

– Poincare was making the same point but couldn’t generalize it – he just knew it was ‘wrong’.

– Brouwer was making the same point, it’s just not a strong criticism of ordinary mathematics which is already operationally constrained. It’s Brouwer that did most of the heavy lifting, even if he could not, correct Cantor’s re-platonism of mathematics.

– Bridgman was making the same point, and he was reasonably successful, but didn’t understand the enormity of it. He will seem prescient once we discover the basic operations of the natural universe.

THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCE IS THE COMMON LAW

The history of western reason, from the early indo europeans, to Aristotle’s invention of reason, to bacon’s invention of empiricism, to Popper and Hayek’s incomplete test of ‘existential possibility’, is derived from the study of the common, germanic, european, indo-european, law of sovereign men. Science is a byproduct of the common law.

The philosophers of the 20th century failed to solve the problem of defining science as a set of warranties of due diligence for each dimension of reality, against error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, pseudo-rationalism, pseudoscience, propaganda and deceit.

The 20th century, as Hayek posited, will be remembered in history, as the second attempt to christianize the west: this time by pseudoscience, pseudorationism, mathematical platonism, and outright deceit.

And the list of all of us above is but part of the many who have intuited but until now, failed, to defeat the conquest of our civilization by pseudoscience, pseudorationalism, mathematical platonism, propaganda and deceit.

For reasons that are obvious in retrospect, it is those of us who have tried to construct models in software that have come to our various conclusions.

Tests of Constant Relations:

1) Categorical Consistency (identity consistency)

2) Internal Consistency (logical consistency)

3) Empirical Consistency (external correspondence)

4) Existential Consistency (operational definitions)

5) Cooperative Consistency (voluntary exchanges)

6) Scope Consistency (Parsimony, Limits, and Full Accounting)

If we perform due diligence in these six dimensions, and we enforce involuntary warranty on financial, economic, political speech, then it will be very hard to engage in, publish, or propagandize falsehoods by which we rely on error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, pseudo rationalism, mathematical platonism, pseudoscience, propaganda and deceit.

And, without stretching our imaginations, it is likely that the consequences of the suppression of the century of pseudoscience, will yield as great a benefit to mankind as the suppression of mysticism by empiricism, that rescued the west from its dark age.

I hope this provokes a bit of thought.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine.

(from elsewhere, for NNT)

– We are all making the same point, I’m just providing the full implications – the full framework. I don’t have the metric. I am not sure we have the means of collecting enough data to discover it.

– Taleb’s making the same point, he just looking for the metric rather than the framework. But his work so far is close enough: the cost of discovering the point of demarcation is so expensive that it cancels the value of the opportunity, and requires then that we demand warranty of the distributor of the information.

– Wolfram’s making the same point, he just hasn’t put it into the full context.

– Mantelbrot was making the same point, he just couldn’t generalize it. Yes, there exist sets of operations in all systems of operations that survive (prevent entropy).

– Minsky makes the same point but he doesn’t understand the implications.Yes, programming (tests of existential possibility) is a new method of human thought, just as were calculus, geometry, algebra, and accounting.

– Mises was making the same point but he didn’t understand the model or context. Instead he tried to create a pseudoscience by conflating logic and science.

– Poincare was making the same point but couldn’t generalize it – he just knew it was ‘wrong’.

– Brouwer was making the same point, it’s just not a strong criticism of ordinary mathematics which is already operationally constrained. It’s Brouwer that did most of the heavy lifting, even if he could not, correct Cantor’s re-platonism of mathematics.

– Bridgman was making the same point, and he was reasonably successful, but didn’t understand the enormity of it. He will seem prescient once we discover the basic operations of the natural universe.

THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCE IS THE COMMON LAW

The history of western reason, from the early indo europeans, to Aristotle’s invention of reason, to bacon’s invention of empiricism, to Popper and Hayek’s incomplete test of ‘existential possibility’, is derived from the study of the common, germanic, european, indo-european, law of sovereign men. Science is a byproduct of the common law.

The philosophers of the 20th century failed to solve the problem of defining science as a set of warranties of due diligence for each dimension of reality, against error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, pseudo-rationalism, pseudoscience, propaganda and deceit.

The 20th century, as Hayek posited, will be remembered in history, as the second attempt to christianize the west: this time by pseudoscience, pseudorationism, mathematical platonism, and outright deceit.

And the list of all of us above is but part of the many who have intuited but until now, failed, to defeat the conquest of our civilization by pseudoscience, pseudorationalism, mathematical platonism, propaganda and deceit.

For reasons that are obvious in retrospect, it is those of us who have tried to construct models in software that have come to our various conclusions.

Tests of Constant Relations:

1) Categorical Consistency (identity consistency)

2) Internal Consistency (logical consistency)

3) Empirical Consistency (external correspondence)

4) Existential Consistency (operational definitions)

5) Cooperative Consistency (voluntary exchanges)

6) Scope Consistency (Parsimony, Limits, and Full Accounting)

If we perform due diligence in these six dimensions, and we enforce involuntary warranty on financial, economic, political speech, then it will be very hard to engage in, publish, or propagandize falsehoods by which we rely on error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, pseudo rationalism, mathematical platonism, pseudoscience, propaganda and deceit.

And, without stretching our imaginations, it is likely that the consequences of the suppression of the century of pseudoscience, will yield as great a benefit to mankind as the suppression of mysticism by empiricism, that rescued the west from its dark age.

I hope this provokes a bit of thought.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine.