Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • SORRY. BUT I LIKE CHURCH. Sorry. But I like church. I like monumental architectu

    SORRY. BUT I LIKE CHURCH.

    Sorry. But I like church. I like monumental architecture. I like Catholic pageantry. I like Protestant ceremony. I wish we still ‘stood and voiced our minds’. I prefer the heroic pagan ethos to that of christian suffering. I prefer the historical narrative of Athens to that of Babylonian mysticism. But mostly I like the whole listening and singing and chanting together thing – because for a few minutes each week I get to feel part of an enormous extended family – a big, safe, pack. 🙂

    It has never bothered me that some people do not distinguish between mystical allegory and historical fact, while others fail to grasp the value of mystical allegory as more accessible, less subject to human error, and less fragile than reason.

    The reason that religion can be a problem is because we can, especially under democracy, use government to apply violence based upon on mythological principles, rather than use religion as a means of including others in our manners, ethics, morals, myths and rituals so that we extend kinship trust to those who are not our kin, and to ostracize those who will not adopt those manners, ethics, morals, myths and rituals. Not because myths and rituals are true, but because the cost of observing those myths and rituals is evidence of one’s commitment to his moral kin.

    Secular ratio-scientific education provides us with myths, but few and infrequent rituals, and ignores the necessity to pay costs to demonstrate and adhere to kinship trust that facilitates the extension of kinship trust.

    Consumerism is a nice temporary alternative to kin, but it’s a devil’s bargain. We are lost and lonely at the end of that selfish satisfaction.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 10:20:00 UTC

  • ALTERNATIVE TO IMAGINARY, UNATTAINABLE AND IMPOSSIBLE TRUTH? Isn’t this more sen

    ALTERNATIVE TO IMAGINARY, UNATTAINABLE AND IMPOSSIBLE TRUTH?

    Isn’t this more sensible than an unknowable unattainable imaginary ‘truth’?

    THEORIES: correspondence with reality for desired use. A theory should map to reality (properties should correspond to reality), given the utility claimed by the author.

    TRUTH: performative: you testify that this theory does what you claim, just as you testify to any other statement you claim corresponds to reality. You claim (warranty) that your theory corresponds with reality for the purposes intended. You do not claim that there is not a better theory that more narrowly corresponds, because you never can. (Although at some point further precision becomes farcical.) All theories that correspond to reality for the purpose claimed are true.

    There is nothing novel here. What differs is that the execution of math, logic and science are not ethically constrained as the claims about math logic and science are. And even those claims are not as ethically constrained as economic, political, legal, ethics and moral claims are. So while it’s probably correct that Performative truth is ‘truth’ and everything else is some derivative thereof, there has simply been no reason to ‘correct’ math, logic, and science because the consequence of their ‘mystical language’ or ‘conveniences’ is not damaging. However, as we can see from the fact that we must have this argument, it’s not that their ‘mystical language’ abuse of truth as a matter of convenience does not produce damaging externalities. Because they do. Otherwise we would not have to correct this problem.

    CRITICAL PREFERENCE

    –“…clearly scientific inquiry is subject to economic limitations.”–

    It’s not that it’s subject to economic limitations, its whether or not following the least cost course leads EMPIRICALLY to the ‘truth’ more rapidly than alternatives (although I question the popperian use of that term for theories). I suspect that it does. And I want to see if it does. And I’m hoping someone has done some work on this. As far as I know it holds up.

    Given the choice between pursuing any N theories, will following the least cost experiment with the greatest explanatory power more likely lead to the truth. It would seem so. But I would like to see someone research and test that.

    –“You need to understand that there exists infinitely many internally consistent bodies of knowledge that have not been falsified.”–

    In any given context, this is demonstrably not true. It is true axiomatically but not empirically. We can STATE less than infinitely many theories. Much less than that number are semantically meaningful. Those that we can demonstrate are smaller still. Those that are falsifiable are smaller still. And the choice between those available options is quite small. I suspect that following the least expensive test with the greatest explanatory power is in fact, probabilistically, more likely to result in contributions to the ‘truth’.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 09:21:00 UTC

  • (cars) Problem Solved: Real 4wd (low) and rough terrain ability that competes wi

    (cars)

    Problem Solved: Real 4wd (low) and rough terrain ability that competes with a Jeep – it can go anywhere you want it to. Bulletproof engineering. 38MPG. Unremarkable and draws no attention. Can be lifted easily. A bit low on power and bad in the corners. Otherwise, perfect. Like any other vehicle it’s three times as expensive here as in Germany. So I think I can just get one in Germany and drive it across. 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 08:56:00 UTC

  • IS COST A MISSING VARIABLE FROM CRITICAL PREFERENCE? Has anyone done any work on

    IS COST A MISSING VARIABLE FROM CRITICAL PREFERENCE?

    Has anyone done any work on the costs of critical preferences to see if there is an empirical correlation between the costs to pursue a particular choice of one preference over another? I would really like to know, empirically, why we seem to be fairly good at attacking theories. Or whether this is a bias that I can’t seem to see around.

    I suspect that the available field of choices to eliminate at any given time is quite small. And I wonder if we can include or eliminate costs from the logic since we ignore it presently, and all fields other than science do not eliminate it.

    I suspect that there is a causal property of discovery that we do not incorporate in CR/CP. I do not think it has anything to do with induction. But I think there is something that we are missing. I would like to eliminate costs as a variable, since it is the most obvious, because it is included in all other fields of inquiry. It would seem logical that iterating on lowest costs of discovery would produce increasingly parsimonious new theories, while higher cost discoveries would increase the content that must be subject to falsification. This is true in almost every field. I suspect that it is also true in science. And I suspect that while the possibility that we cannot choose between theories is logically true, that empirically it is only true about A vs B, but not true about the sequence of tests starting with A vs starting with B.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 06:41:00 UTC

  • THE SIMPLICITY OF THIS ARGUMENT

    http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/oceanography/researchers/francois/RESEARCH/RESEARCH_NOTES/SCIENTIFIC_NOTES/Popper-as-an-exception-to-Bayes.htmlLOVE THE SIMPLICITY OF THIS ARGUMENT

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 06:30:00 UTC

  • A COUP IS CHEAPER THAN SECESSION Our nearest solution, as Thomas Sowell suggeste

    A COUP IS CHEAPER THAN SECESSION

    Our nearest solution, as Thomas Sowell suggested, is probably a military coup. And of course they need a good reason. And you have to give them that reason. The problem with a coup, is that the military, being the military, needs a plan. Because military folks like plans. One of our jobs, is to produce that plan. That plan isn’t actually all that complicated. It has to be something that the military can do in 30 days or less. And not one that tries to solve everything.

    COSTS FROM LEAST TO MOST EXPENSIVE

    1) NULLIFICATION

    2) COUP (RESTORATION)

    3) SECESSION

    4) REVOLUTION

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 05:13:00 UTC

  • Six people in the past 24 hours have told me that russia will invade and conquer

    Six people in the past 24 hours have told me that russia will invade and conquer Ukraine shortly – perhaps as early as tomorrow. Fucking barbarians. I love Ukraine. I have nothing from the american side except a few emails from the state department stating that all americans should leave and particularly leave the east. But you know, it’s a little like our invasion of Iraq. Just took a lot of time to get that equipment there.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 04:24:00 UTC

  • PROPERTARIAN ETHICS VS ROTHBARDIAN ETHICS (worth repeating) –“Under rothbardian

    PROPERTARIAN ETHICS VS ROTHBARDIAN ETHICS

    (worth repeating)

    –“Under rothbardian ethics the buyer must beware, and under propertarian ethics the seller must beware. Propertarian ethics put warranty in the hands of the person with the greatest knowledge and therefore produces the least asymmetry of knowledge. ‘ —

    Propertarian ethics solve the problem of libertarian morality.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 03:19:00 UTC

  • (ack. allergy season is back. all this tree and grass sex. yuck.)

    (ack. allergy season is back. all this tree and grass sex. yuck.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 01:39:00 UTC

  • (occulus rift)

    http://digg.com/video/russian-guy-freaks-out-while-using-oculus-rift(fun) (occulus rift)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 00:50:00 UTC