Source: Original Site Post

  • The Foundations of Mathematics Are Simple. (really)

    The foundations of mathematics are so simple. Seriously. The fact that they even phrase the question as such is hysterical. The reason mathematics is so powerful a tool is precisely because its foundations are so trivial. Like discourse on property in ethics and law it is a word game because no one establishes sufficient limits under which the general term obscures a change in state. Math very simple. Correspondence (what remains and what does not), Types, operations, grammar, syntax. Generally we use mathematics for the purpose of scale independence. in other words, we remove the property of scale from the set of correspondences. But we might also pass from physical dimensions to logical dimensions (there are only so many possible physical dimensions). So now we leave dimensional correspondence. In mathematics we remove time correspondence by default, and only add it in when we specifically want to make use of it. In sets we remove temporal and causal correspondence … at least in most cases. So we can add and remove many different correspondences, and work only with reciprocal (self referencing) correspondence (constant relations). But there is nothing magic here at all except for the fields (results) that can be produced by these different definitions as we use them to describe the consequences of using different values in different orders. But if you say “I want to study the parsimony, limits, and full accounting, of this set of types using this set of operations, with the common grammar and syntax” that is pretty much what someone means when they say ‘foundations’. Most of the time. Sometimes they have no clue. There is nothing much more difficult here in the ‘foundations’ so to speak. What’s hard in mathematics is holding operations, grammar and syntax constant, what happens as we use different correspondences (dimensions), types, and values in combination with others and yet others, to produce these various kinds of patterns that represent phenomenon that we want to describe. And what mathematicians find beautiful is that there is a bizaare set of regularities (that they call symmetries or some variation thereof), that emerge once you becomes skilled in these models, just like some games become predictable if you see a certain pattern. But really, math is interesting because by describing regular patterns that produce complex phenomenon, we are able to describe things very accurately that we cannot ‘see’ without math to help us find it. Its seems mystical. It isn’t. Its just the adult version of mommy saying ‘boo’ to the toddler and the joy he gets from the stimulation. There is nothing magical here. it’s creative, and interesting, but it’s just engineering with cheaper tools at lower risk: paper, pencil, and time.

  • Via Negativa (Evolutionary Argument) in Historial Explanation

    by James Augustus My central argument is that Europe benefited by having an evolutionary environment that allowed for a high frequency of cultural, institutional and intellectual iterations, and that truth, sovereignty and natural law produce an existential advantage, so that what survived is what we call Western Civilization and its peoples. It is easy to look back at what survived and construct a rational narrative, but by doing so we are being fooled by randomness as Taleb is so succinct at pointing out. Evolutionary arguments are superior inasmuch as they point to what didn’t survive (via negativa) deterministically due to selection pressures.

  • Via Negativa (Evolutionary Argument) in Historial Explanation

    by James Augustus My central argument is that Europe benefited by having an evolutionary environment that allowed for a high frequency of cultural, institutional and intellectual iterations, and that truth, sovereignty and natural law produce an existential advantage, so that what survived is what we call Western Civilization and its peoples. It is easy to look back at what survived and construct a rational narrative, but by doing so we are being fooled by randomness as Taleb is so succinct at pointing out. Evolutionary arguments are superior inasmuch as they point to what didn’t survive (via negativa) deterministically due to selection pressures.

  • Deflationary Language in Ethics

    Mar 01, 2017 6:51pm James Augustus I suspect one of the factors contributing to deflationary language in ethics, law and science is that we needed a rational, empirical means of decidability in matters concerning rule, organization and extra-familial cooperation. (Note that legal realism, contractualism and truth telling (science and it’s precursors) coincided with conquest and colonization of non-kin groups. Myth (context driven means of decidability) doesn’t scale past regulating/adjudicating tribal and familia affairs; Natural Law does because it serves as the only universally decidable means of adjudication between heterogeneous peoples.) On the institutional level, the West was blessed with a geography that produced a high frequency of warfare in a manner that made institutional monopolies evolutionarily disadvantageous. An institution was able to survive if it wasn’t conflated with the current power structure (think of the Church and it’s relation to political power during the Middle Ages). In othewords, the incentive for institutions was to secure their existence by remaining autonomous/separated from the institutions of rule scince there was constant and frequent shifts in political power—the opposite of China. These are just loose thoughts. I’ve been mulling this over in hopes that I can write a more formal evolutionary argument for Western Dynamism.

  • Deflationary Language in Ethics

    Mar 01, 2017 6:51pm James Augustus I suspect one of the factors contributing to deflationary language in ethics, law and science is that we needed a rational, empirical means of decidability in matters concerning rule, organization and extra-familial cooperation. (Note that legal realism, contractualism and truth telling (science and it’s precursors) coincided with conquest and colonization of non-kin groups. Myth (context driven means of decidability) doesn’t scale past regulating/adjudicating tribal and familia affairs; Natural Law does because it serves as the only universally decidable means of adjudication between heterogeneous peoples.) On the institutional level, the West was blessed with a geography that produced a high frequency of warfare in a manner that made institutional monopolies evolutionarily disadvantageous. An institution was able to survive if it wasn’t conflated with the current power structure (think of the Church and it’s relation to political power during the Middle Ages). In othewords, the incentive for institutions was to secure their existence by remaining autonomous/separated from the institutions of rule scince there was constant and frequent shifts in political power—the opposite of China. These are just loose thoughts. I’ve been mulling this over in hopes that I can write a more formal evolutionary argument for Western Dynamism.

  • Natural Law, Sovereignty, and the Restoration

    Mar 02, 2017 9:42am NATURAL LAW, SOVEREIGNTY, AND THE RESTORATION NATURAL LAW Testimonialism: Epistemology and Truth (Testimony), and Propertarianism: Ethics and Natural Law (Cooperation), and Natural Common Law (a grammar), provide the means of producing contracts (Constitutions), that are ‘scientific’ – which in testimonialism means ‘truthful’, and not open to creative interpretation by the judiciary. This ‘precision’ was necessary in order to increase the demand for warranty of due diligence against fraud from covering products and services, to covering information (speech). SOVEREIGNTY (WESTERN CIVILIZATION) Sovereignty (‘liberty in fact not by permission’), Market Civilization (association, cooperation, production, reproduction, production of commons, production of polities, production of group evolutionary strategy), and Western Group Evolutionary Strategy (Transcendence / Domestication), Provide an analytic explanation of the reasons for western rapid evolution in the bronze, iron, and steel ages. THE RESTORATION 1 – How we were met by supernatural mysticism, monotheistic religion, and pseudoscientific/pseudorational ‘religion’ by the people to the east, in each era. And how the current pseudoscientific came about. 2- How we can use Natural Law to restore western civilization, by reforming or rewriting our constitution and that of others. 3 – Including various institutional methods of producing commons truthfully. 4 – Including the necessity, under Sovereignty, of markets for the production of commons. 5 – Including the necessity of various policies under the group strategy of Transcendence So, given that we can use propertarianism and testimonialism to produce ANY government truthfully, what I THINK you are asking, is that if we chose to pursue Sovereignty and Transcendence to restore western civilization under strictly constructed natural law, what would be the optimum(?) end state? We can choose from any number of options, but the lowest risk is to selectively revoke, restore and amend the constitution and with it the judiciary, restore the monarchy and militia, reduce any ‘federal’ government to a corporeal insurer of last resort, with courts limited to dispute resolution on narrow forms of commercial non normative property; with a market for commons consisting of multiple “houses” representing various classes, (Territorial, Commercial, Familial, and Dependent) which vote by apportionment (put money to what they want), and any contract not opposed by the other houses on legal basis survives. In other words “a market” using some of the proceeds of “the markets” for the production of commons, that improve the returns in the market. My ‘belief’ (forecast) is that the proceeds of suppressing falsehood (by testimonialism) will be greater than the proceeds of suppressing mysticism (by empiricism). The converse question is that if you cannot provide warranty of due diligence of your words, then why should others tolerate them any more than whether they tolerate a lack of due diligence of your actions (services), or productions (goods)?f Every liar no matter how well intentioned finds an excuse to defend his lies. But why is it that we must tolerate lies?

  • Natural Law, Sovereignty, and the Restoration

    Mar 02, 2017 9:42am NATURAL LAW, SOVEREIGNTY, AND THE RESTORATION NATURAL LAW Testimonialism: Epistemology and Truth (Testimony), and Propertarianism: Ethics and Natural Law (Cooperation), and Natural Common Law (a grammar), provide the means of producing contracts (Constitutions), that are ‘scientific’ – which in testimonialism means ‘truthful’, and not open to creative interpretation by the judiciary. This ‘precision’ was necessary in order to increase the demand for warranty of due diligence against fraud from covering products and services, to covering information (speech). SOVEREIGNTY (WESTERN CIVILIZATION) Sovereignty (‘liberty in fact not by permission’), Market Civilization (association, cooperation, production, reproduction, production of commons, production of polities, production of group evolutionary strategy), and Western Group Evolutionary Strategy (Transcendence / Domestication), Provide an analytic explanation of the reasons for western rapid evolution in the bronze, iron, and steel ages. THE RESTORATION 1 – How we were met by supernatural mysticism, monotheistic religion, and pseudoscientific/pseudorational ‘religion’ by the people to the east, in each era. And how the current pseudoscientific came about. 2- How we can use Natural Law to restore western civilization, by reforming or rewriting our constitution and that of others. 3 – Including various institutional methods of producing commons truthfully. 4 – Including the necessity, under Sovereignty, of markets for the production of commons. 5 – Including the necessity of various policies under the group strategy of Transcendence So, given that we can use propertarianism and testimonialism to produce ANY government truthfully, what I THINK you are asking, is that if we chose to pursue Sovereignty and Transcendence to restore western civilization under strictly constructed natural law, what would be the optimum(?) end state? We can choose from any number of options, but the lowest risk is to selectively revoke, restore and amend the constitution and with it the judiciary, restore the monarchy and militia, reduce any ‘federal’ government to a corporeal insurer of last resort, with courts limited to dispute resolution on narrow forms of commercial non normative property; with a market for commons consisting of multiple “houses” representing various classes, (Territorial, Commercial, Familial, and Dependent) which vote by apportionment (put money to what they want), and any contract not opposed by the other houses on legal basis survives. In other words “a market” using some of the proceeds of “the markets” for the production of commons, that improve the returns in the market. My ‘belief’ (forecast) is that the proceeds of suppressing falsehood (by testimonialism) will be greater than the proceeds of suppressing mysticism (by empiricism). The converse question is that if you cannot provide warranty of due diligence of your words, then why should others tolerate them any more than whether they tolerate a lack of due diligence of your actions (services), or productions (goods)?f Every liar no matter how well intentioned finds an excuse to defend his lies. But why is it that we must tolerate lies?

  • Poverty and Lack of Agency

    YOUR POVERTY AND YOUR LACK OF AGENCY You’re poor because you lack Agency sure. But you know, even if we remove obstructive institutions, and even if we create institutions to invest in overcoming your initial circumstance, we are still stuck with the fact that we cannot change YOU, and that YOU can lack Agency for your own informational, intellectual, emotional, or physical reasons. We know for certain that you cannot tell if you are able or not. We don’t like to choose whether you are able or not – we can err. All we can do is invest in eliminating impediments so that you can DEMONSTRATE whether you possess agency and ability – or not. Anyone who tells you more money will matter is simply lying to you. You’re poor because you lack Agency, because you or your parents or your ancestors have lacked intellectual, emotional, or physical ABILITY as well as informational (ignorance) or institutional impediment.

  • Poverty and Lack of Agency

    YOUR POVERTY AND YOUR LACK OF AGENCY You’re poor because you lack Agency sure. But you know, even if we remove obstructive institutions, and even if we create institutions to invest in overcoming your initial circumstance, we are still stuck with the fact that we cannot change YOU, and that YOU can lack Agency for your own informational, intellectual, emotional, or physical reasons. We know for certain that you cannot tell if you are able or not. We don’t like to choose whether you are able or not – we can err. All we can do is invest in eliminating impediments so that you can DEMONSTRATE whether you possess agency and ability – or not. Anyone who tells you more money will matter is simply lying to you. You’re poor because you lack Agency, because you or your parents or your ancestors have lacked intellectual, emotional, or physical ABILITY as well as informational (ignorance) or institutional impediment.

  • Western Civilization and “Skin in The Game”

    Your narrative is exceptional – as wisdom. But wisdom cannot be converted into law unless in a formal, deflationary argument. The west differs from the east. We never conflated law with other fields. And the skin of the loan IN put = the warranty OUT put. High trust civilization (the west) could use warranty rather than skin. So what happened that the west stopped demanding warranty? Without low trust SKIN IN -or- high trust WARRANTY OUT, western civ kept high trust population but low trust economics and policy. Now, if the west relied upon high trust warranty, how could we rely once again on high trust, or must we move to low trust Skin? When you discuss cultural deltas I hear (a) levantine low trust with (b) mathematical and literary platonism. Not Natural Law.