Curt Doolittle

Theme: Causality

  • Q&A: Martial Epistemology

    —“Where did you learn that the roots of science are in martial epistemology? Who on your reading list?”— Well, it’s not a novel idea. I just frame it more precisely. I think I intuitively understood it just because of all the history I’ve read. But it was the sequence Marija Gimbutas > J. P. Mallory > Karen Armstrong that provided such consistency that I was able to make use of it.

    IMHO Karen Amstrong does the best job of the worldwide analysis of the age of transformation, and the foundations of our differences as the martial structure of that time. That said, Taleb also covers it in the Black Swan when he says that military people are the least ideological because they have the most skin in the game.

  • ON MSG – MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (worth repeating) Now, you know, that ‘after lunch

    ON MSG – MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE

    (worth repeating)

    Now, you know, that ‘after lunch food coma’ is likely msg effecting you. That ravenous ‘this tastes good’ you get from snack, fast, and packaged foods, is almost certainly msg.

    For some percentage of us, the after lunch food coma puts us to sleep for 6-24 hours and the ‘confused’ or ‘food coma’ reaction lasts for three or more days.

    So, it affects all of us, but it affects all of us with different levels of intensity.

    For me, msg makes me confused, sleepy, … and agitated, and it doesn’t wear off for three to five days.

    https://www.facebook.com/notes/10150578864161103/

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-13 09:10:00 UTC

  • The Laws of Nature (correcting Aristotle) …. Physical Laws ( TRANSFORMATION?) th

    The Laws of Nature (correcting Aristotle)

    …. Physical Laws ( TRANSFORMATION?) the POSSIBLE

    …. …. …. Physics: Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology, Sentience, Engineering, Mathematics

    …. …. Law of Man (properties of man) ACTION) the NECESSARY

    …. …. …. ….. ( acquisition, perception, memory, psychology, sociology )

    …. …. …. Law of Nature – COOPERATION – THE GOOD

    …. …. …. ….. …. ethics, morality, (law), (economics)

    …. …. …. …. Law of Testimony (TRUTH)

    …. …. …. ….. …. …. Testimony, (logics), epistemology, rhetoric

    …. …. …. ….. …. Law of Aesthetics (BEAUTY)

    …. …. …. ….. …. …. …. sense, beauty, design, craft, content. manners. sport (fitness)

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-09 09:44:00 UTC

  • “If the universe offered no resistance than it would offer no reward for the mos

    —“If the universe offered no resistance than it would offer no reward for the most capable and no punishment for the less capable and rather than evolution we would have biological chaos.

    Our species has been (and will continue to be) sculpted by this resistance as we now consciously seek adaptation to it. The universe has no evident purpose or interests, it is not “against us”, it simply is.

    It is our own weakness which is against us and this weakness is a lack of adaptation to natural law.

    To “conquer the universe” is really only to conquer our own deficiencies.— Joel Davis

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-05 09:23:00 UTC

  • “You can never prove how life originated but what we can now wonder is, ‘Is ther

    “You can never prove how life originated but what we can now wonder is, ‘Is there a plausible way that life arose from nonliving inorganic chemistry?’ And it’s starting to look like you can connect the dots between the periodic table, the atoms available to us in the universe, and life as an emergent property of matter,” —Harry Noller, 77, Molecular biology professor, University of California at Santa Cruz,

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-05 05:27:00 UTC

  • “The laws of thermodynamics in general and entropy in particular, make the unive

    —“The laws of thermodynamics in general and entropy in particular, make the universe hostile to us. Everything tends to come apart over the long term – even our cells and their component parts, on up to planets and stars.

    Whatever “coming back together” that might occur on the larger time scale of the universe is beyond any meaning to us in practical terms – other than enjoying the knowledge of it, and perhaps gleaning from it any useful bits in regards physics that we can put to work in our machinations of survival and continuation, development, and improvement of the species.

    Within the short time scales that we deal with as biological agents it’s this constant “coming-apart” that forces us to defeat the red queen. To survive we must find ways to build bastions and bulwarks against this one tendency of the universe.

    I would submit that it’s most accurate to say that the universe is indifferent to the fact that the way it operates is hostile to us.” — Shanaynay Tomson

    (CD: edited to: remove suggestion that the universe has intent; fully expand sentences; rephrase parentheticals. tip. I try to use parentheticals to create parallel sequences between vernacular terminology and technical terminology, or to insert my ‘voice or opinion’ into the middle of an objective text. I recommend that you write however you are comfortable to get an idea out of your head and into text, but then go through it, organize it and fully expand it. -cheers)

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-04 13:19:00 UTC

  • And the stronger the case for restriction of reproduction of those requiring red

    And the stronger the case for restriction of reproduction of those requiring redistribution,right? That’s the causal problem.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-03 02:37:02 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/804877071331815424

    Reply addressees: @charlesmurray

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/804414883898851328

    IN REPLY TO:

    @charlesmurray

    The higher the heritability of qualities determining success, the stronger the case for redistribution. As noted in The Bell Curve, BTW. https://t.co/nFirLLwXRo

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/804414883898851328

  • consciousness consists in our experience of the recursive effect of constinuous

    consciousness consists in our experience of the recursive effect of constinuous perception’s causation of searches and short term memory, and the ‘persistence of vision’ of short term memory.

    What I am unclear about is how we ‘focus’ on choosing between search results.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-02 03:04:00 UTC

  • THE REASON WE USE OPERATIONALISM the reason we place emphasis on operations is t

    THE REASON WE USE OPERATIONALISM

    the reason we place emphasis on operations is to force the author to articulate causal relations (so we know there is one), and to use a consistent grammar of existence (operation(observer), intention(actor), or experience(perceiver)). Since intentions or experiences are subjective nonsense, we ask for a consistent perspective: the observer. This prevents loading and framing, as well as substituting experiences or intentions for facts.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-11-30 18:00:00 UTC

  • Twitter is an impossible vehicle for articulating chains of causality

    Twitter is an impossible vehicle for articulating chains of causality.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-11-29 18:19:36 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/803664726542655488

    Reply addressees: @blahblahblah9tn @Anti_Gnostic @charlesmurray @JonHaidt @nntaleb

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/803664576415989760

    IN REPLY TO:

    Original post on X

    Original tweet unavailable — we could not load the text of the post this reply is addressing on X. That usually means the tweet was deleted, the account is protected, or X does not expose it to the account used for archiving. The Original post link below may still open if you view it in X while signed in.

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/803664576415989760