Curt Doolittle

Form: Argument

  • Is Conflict Costly?

    —“Conflict is too costly to be anything but an absolutely last resort.”— A friend Thats not true. (It’s a common libertarian trope.) We have MADE conflict increasingly costly. However, predation is incredibly rewarding and every expansionary empire in history is evidence of it. Hell, american ascendence, and american quality of life is perhaps the best example in history. I can’t think of any condition in history where expansionary conquest wasn’t the most profitable endeavor possible. I think we can say that SYMMETRIC conflict is costly, but ASYMMETRIC conflict is extraordinarily rewarding – hence the eternal arms race from the dawn of time. Conquest and Rule are THE MOST PROFITABLE INDUSTRIES ever invented by man. And we invented it.

  • Is Conflict Costly?

    —“Conflict is too costly to be anything but an absolutely last resort.”— A friend Thats not true. (It’s a common libertarian trope.) We have MADE conflict increasingly costly. However, predation is incredibly rewarding and every expansionary empire in history is evidence of it. Hell, american ascendence, and american quality of life is perhaps the best example in history. I can’t think of any condition in history where expansionary conquest wasn’t the most profitable endeavor possible. I think we can say that SYMMETRIC conflict is costly, but ASYMMETRIC conflict is extraordinarily rewarding – hence the eternal arms race from the dawn of time. Conquest and Rule are THE MOST PROFITABLE INDUSTRIES ever invented by man. And we invented it.

  • “Agency does not exist in a vacuum. Aggregate agency of multiple individuals cre

    —“Agency does not exist in a vacuum. Aggregate agency of multiple individuals creates limiting checks and balances, producing a market for cooperative, competitive and pro-social applications of agency.”—Simon Ström Although I would be careful to note that pro-social is a term from marxism, psychology and sociology that refers to working to benefit others (altruism) when there is no evidence of altruism in nature – only kin selection and option buying. Mutually beneficial Cooperation (which I think is the appropriate term here) is simply in our self interests, and we feel endorphins rewards for engaging in it – in part to encourage it, and in part to counter the natural fears of interaction with ‘others’ whether kin or non.

  • “Agency does not exist in a vacuum. Aggregate agency of multiple individuals cre

    —“Agency does not exist in a vacuum. Aggregate agency of multiple individuals creates limiting checks and balances, producing a market for cooperative, competitive and pro-social applications of agency.”—Simon Ström

    Although I would be careful to note that pro-social is a term from marxism, psychology and sociology that refers to working to benefit others (altruism) when there is no evidence of altruism in nature – only kin selection and option buying. Mutually beneficial Cooperation (which I think is the appropriate term here) is simply in our self interests, and we feel endorphins rewards for engaging in it – in part to encourage it, and in part to counter the natural fears of interaction with ‘others’ whether kin or non.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-02-26 07:50:00 UTC

  • “Agency does not exist in a vacuum. Aggregate agency of multiple individuals cre

    —“Agency does not exist in a vacuum. Aggregate agency of multiple individuals creates limiting checks and balances, producing a market for cooperative, competitive and pro-social applications of agency.”—Simon Ström Although I would be careful to note that pro-social is a term from marxism, psychology and sociology that refers to working to benefit others (altruism) when there is no evidence of altruism in nature – only kin selection and option buying. Mutually beneficial Cooperation (which I think is the appropriate term here) is simply in our self interests, and we feel endorphins rewards for engaging in it – in part to encourage it, and in part to counter the natural fears of interaction with ‘others’ whether kin or non.

  • If you yourself cannot constrain yourself to operational language (strictly cons

    If you yourself cannot constrain yourself to operational language (strictly constructed grammar) in ordinary language, yet you treat formal grammars (mathematics: constant positional relations), and logic (constant semantic relations), and physics (constant physical state relations) as they should be; formal grammars – then you are holding a double standard. Why is it that you cannot write in, speak in, think in equally logical and scientific prose? Yet it is that inability to speak in equally scientific prose that leads you to the conclusions you hold. Thereby attributing to your own state authority that cannot exist because it lacks the rigor of those grammar and semantics that you refer to with authority? Why would intellectual history be complicated? Why is the physical world (subatomic, atomic, chemical, biological, sentient) not ‘simple’ in, that like higher mathematics, forms lie groups (externalities) that limit the permutations of the underlying grammar (operations) – and then this cycle repeats itself, producing in the physical world, what we call sciences at every hierarchy of chose limits? All I have really done is state that: (a) via negativa is all that we can search for. What remains (as in markets) is a truth candidate. And we are actually quite good at falsification (criticism). (b) that the logics, sciences, and ethics serve only as via-negativa deflationary grammars (processes of continuous disambiguation) that remove ambiguity and error. (c) that the operational revolution failed in the 20th century due to lagging justificationism, and that the hard sciences adopted it, and that the law has always adhered to it, and that operational grammar serves as a deflationary grammar that falsifies (disambiguates) fictionalisms (fiction, pseudoscience, pseudo rationalism, supernaturalism. (d) that humans feel, reason, and act to acquire predictable categories, and that these categories are constant across all of us (given biases in the genders) – and without htat constancy we would not be able to empathize, and without being able to empathize, we would not be able to cooperate. I had to adapt or create a lot of terminology from all fields in order to produce an operational semantics (vocabulary) without resorting to continental ‘word fabrication’. And as such, it’s a bit unnatural and difficult to learn. But it is far better than colloquial or disciplinary vocabularies and their pretenses of knowledge – particularly their pretense of knowledge of existence.

  • If you yourself cannot constrain yourself to operational language (strictly cons

    If you yourself cannot constrain yourself to operational language (strictly constructed grammar) in ordinary language, yet you treat formal grammars (mathematics: constant positional relations), and logic (constant semantic relations), and physics (constant physical state relations) as they should be; formal grammars – then you are holding a double standard.

    Why is it that you cannot write in, speak in, think in equally logical and scientific prose? Yet it is that inability to speak in equally scientific prose that leads you to the conclusions you hold.

    Thereby attributing to your own state authority that cannot exist because it lacks the rigor of those grammar and semantics that you refer to with authority?

    Why would intellectual history be complicated? Why is the physical world (subatomic, atomic, chemical, biological, sentient) not ‘simple’ in, that like higher mathematics, forms lie groups (externalities) that limit the permutations of the underlying grammar (operations) – and then this cycle repeats itself, producing in the physical world, what we call sciences at every hierarchy of chose limits?

    All I have really done is state that:

    (a) via negativa is all that we can search for. What remains (as in markets) is a truth candidate. And we are actually quite good at falsification (criticism).

    (b) that the logics, sciences, and ethics serve only as via-negativa deflationary grammars (processes of continuous disambiguation) that remove ambiguity and error.

    (c) that the operational revolution failed in the 20th century due to lagging justificationism, and that the hard sciences adopted it, and that the law has always adhered to it, and that operational grammar serves as a deflationary grammar that falsifies (disambiguates) fictionalisms (fiction, pseudoscience, pseudo rationalism, supernaturalism.

    (d) that humans feel, reason, and act to acquire predictable categories, and that these categories are constant across all of us (given biases in the genders) – and without htat constancy we would not be able to empathize, and without being able to empathize, we would not be able to cooperate.

    I had to adapt or create a lot of terminology from all fields in order to produce an operational semantics (vocabulary) without resorting to continental ‘word fabrication’. And as such, it’s a bit unnatural and difficult to learn.

    But it is far better than colloquial or disciplinary vocabularies and their pretenses of knowledge – particularly their pretense of knowledge of existence.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-02-25 12:04:00 UTC

  • If you yourself cannot constrain yourself to operational language (strictly cons

    If you yourself cannot constrain yourself to operational language (strictly constructed grammar) in ordinary language, yet you treat formal grammars (mathematics: constant positional relations), and logic (constant semantic relations), and physics (constant physical state relations) as they should be; formal grammars – then you are holding a double standard. Why is it that you cannot write in, speak in, think in equally logical and scientific prose? Yet it is that inability to speak in equally scientific prose that leads you to the conclusions you hold. Thereby attributing to your own state authority that cannot exist because it lacks the rigor of those grammar and semantics that you refer to with authority? Why would intellectual history be complicated? Why is the physical world (subatomic, atomic, chemical, biological, sentient) not ‘simple’ in, that like higher mathematics, forms lie groups (externalities) that limit the permutations of the underlying grammar (operations) – and then this cycle repeats itself, producing in the physical world, what we call sciences at every hierarchy of chose limits? All I have really done is state that: (a) via negativa is all that we can search for. What remains (as in markets) is a truth candidate. And we are actually quite good at falsification (criticism). (b) that the logics, sciences, and ethics serve only as via-negativa deflationary grammars (processes of continuous disambiguation) that remove ambiguity and error. (c) that the operational revolution failed in the 20th century due to lagging justificationism, and that the hard sciences adopted it, and that the law has always adhered to it, and that operational grammar serves as a deflationary grammar that falsifies (disambiguates) fictionalisms (fiction, pseudoscience, pseudo rationalism, supernaturalism. (d) that humans feel, reason, and act to acquire predictable categories, and that these categories are constant across all of us (given biases in the genders) – and without htat constancy we would not be able to empathize, and without being able to empathize, we would not be able to cooperate. I had to adapt or create a lot of terminology from all fields in order to produce an operational semantics (vocabulary) without resorting to continental ‘word fabrication’. And as such, it’s a bit unnatural and difficult to learn. But it is far better than colloquial or disciplinary vocabularies and their pretenses of knowledge – particularly their pretense of knowledge of existence.

  • “Truth is temporal, not absolute”— Try to say that without appealing to platon

    —“Truth is temporal, not absolute”— Try to say that without appealing to platonism. You wont be able to. Why? If you can’t state the means of a things existence without the verb to be, then you do not know of what you speak. Reliance on the verb to-be (is, are, was, were etc) violates strict grammatical construction in our high precision, low context language. When you say that rules of logic include a litany of fallacies, again, you refer to violations in the compatibility of semantic content and the deflationary grammars (logics) with which we test commensurability of states (statements). In other words: word games. Let me state it better for you (as I did in the opening sentence) The information (semantics: consisting of networks of constant relations) we rely upon, must of necessity include symbols (referrers, terms, words), that serve as categories (general rules of arbitrary precision), that as such categorical aggregates, exclude (disambiguate) our experience of the universe. Ergo: our knowledge remains incomplete. And our language remains imprecise – including ignorance, error bias, and deceit. So in any attempt at testing one’s testimony, we must test the constant relations in each perceivable dimension of reality, and across all dimensions of perceivable reality. And to do so we require multiple grammars (rules of continuous disambiguation). So when you speak of logic(words) and science(actions) and sympathetic tests of rationality (rewards), you speak of the three (and only three) categories of grammatical tests we can employ in order to speak without ignorance error, bias, and deceit: truthfully. We speak (testify) truthfully or we do not. WORDS(LOGIC) 1.1- Categorical: We may testify to tautology and in that case must speak THE truth. We have no alternative. 1.2 – Logical: We may testify to internal consistency within a given grammar. As such we speak truthfully if and only if argument (formula, proof) is (exists as) internally consistent (consisting of constant relations between states). ACTIONS(SCIENCE) 2.1 – Empirical: We may testify to external correspondence if and only if we find external correspondence, sufficiency and parsimony. 2.2 – Operational: we may testify to the existential possibility of sequence of operations only if we can describe changes in state of constant relations due to a sequence of operations. RATIONAL (INCENTIVES) 3.1- Rational: We may testify to the rationality of choice if and only if we sympathetically test the incentives under sufficiency and parsimony. 3.2 – Moral: we may testify to the morality (Crime, ethics, morality) of any action or its consequences by tests of the productive, fully informed, voluntary, (and warrantied) transfer of that which individuals have acted to obtain an interest. We cannot know the Truth (the most parsimonious speech possible) We can know Truthfulness (survival of due diligence in the dimensions of perceivable reality. And we do that by the production of grammars that force us to continuously disambiguate our categories of perception into those categories that disambiguous describe reality. Slowly we get there….

  • “Truth is temporal, not absolute”— Try to say that without appealing to platon

    —“Truth is temporal, not absolute”—

    Try to say that without appealing to platonism. You wont be able to. Why?

    If you can’t state the means of a things existence without the verb to be, then you do not know of what you speak. Reliance on the verb to-be (is, are, was, were etc) violates strict grammatical construction in our high precision, low context language.

    When you say that rules of logic include a litany of fallacies, again, you refer to violations in the compatibility of semantic content and the deflationary grammars (logics) with which we test commensurability of states (statements).

    In other words: word games.

    Let me state it better for you (as I did in the opening sentence)

    The information (semantics: consisting of networks of constant relations) we rely upon, must of necessity include symbols (referrers, terms, words), that serve as categories (general rules of arbitrary precision), that as such categorical aggregates, exclude (disambiguate) our experience of the universe. Ergo: our knowledge remains incomplete. And our language remains imprecise – including ignorance, error bias, and deceit. So in any attempt at testing one’s testimony, we must test the constant relations in each perceivable dimension of reality, and across all dimensions of perceivable reality. And to do so we require multiple grammars (rules of continuous disambiguation).

    So when you speak of logic(words) and science(actions) and sympathetic tests of rationality (rewards), you speak of the three (and only three) categories of grammatical tests we can employ in order to speak without ignorance error, bias, and deceit: truthfully.

    We speak (testify) truthfully or we do not.

    WORDS(LOGIC)

    1.1- Categorical: We may testify to tautology and in that case must speak THE truth. We have no alternative.

    1.2 – Logical: We may testify to internal consistency within a given grammar. As such we speak truthfully if and only if argument (formula, proof) is (exists as) internally consistent (consisting of constant relations between states).

    ACTIONS(SCIENCE)

    2.1 – Empirical: We may testify to external correspondence if and only if we find external correspondence, sufficiency and parsimony.

    2.2 – Operational: we may testify to the existential possibility of sequence of operations only if we can describe changes in state of constant relations due to a sequence of operations.

    RATIONAL (INCENTIVES)

    3.1- Rational: We may testify to the rationality of choice if and only if we sympathetically test the incentives under sufficiency and parsimony.

    3.2 – Moral: we may testify to the morality (Crime, ethics, morality) of any action or its consequences by tests of the productive, fully informed, voluntary, (and warrantied) transfer of that which individuals have acted to obtain an interest.

    We cannot know the Truth (the most parsimonious speech possible)

    We can know Truthfulness (survival of due diligence in the dimensions of perceivable reality.

    And we do that by the production of grammars that force us to continuously disambiguate our categories of perception into those categories that disambiguous describe reality.

    Slowly we get there….

    Source date (UTC): 2018-02-25 10:30:00 UTC