Source: Facebook

WHY DO WE JUSTIFY OUR ARGUMENTS?

(a) To convey meaning – to provide a path by which we incrementally transfer properties by analogy to achieve conclusions.

(b) To convey honesty – to demonstrate that we are telling the truth to the best of our understanding.

(c) To demonstrate the we adhere to NORMS in our reasoning – that we have not violated the social contract. (This is how we get into all sorts of interesting problems. Because truth is only truth in the sense that we mean it, in the west.)

AND CONVERSELY:

(d) To lie – to lead others to false conclusions by design.

(e) To vector a lie for pragmatic purposes – to lead others to conclusions we prefer using the arguments of others as a matter of practical action.

AND HOW DO WE ACHIEVE THE FORMER WITHOUT THE LATTER?

(f) separate the route by which we establish meaning, from the route by which we demonstrate truth. It is possible to construct a theory by any means, but it is only possible to testify to the truth of it by operational means – existentially possible means, and in matters of human action, SUBJECTIVELY TESTABLE means. (rationality of incentives).

MATH CONFUSED US.

In mathematics, at least, for the most part, the means of conducting operations to solve a problem is nearly identical to the means of demonstrating the construction of a solution using existentially possible operations.

We sought to copy mathematics – starting with the Greeks. But we lacked the understanding of why math was so effective at the ascertaining truth of relations: because there is very little difference between the process of theorizing and the process of construction.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute