Theme: Decidability

  • Eli. Libertarian cognitive bias and computation. LIBERTARIANS HAVE A MODEL – NO

    http://ivo.co.za/2007/08/09/libertarian-iq/From Eli. Libertarian cognitive bias and computation.

    LIBERTARIANS HAVE A MODEL – NO ONE ELSE DOES

    (actually I argue that we have the correct model and everyone else’s enlightenment model is false.)

    —“Just as programmers have a model of computation, libertarians have what I call a model of interaction. Just as a programmer can “play computer” by simulating how specific lines of code will change program state, a libertarian can “play society” by simulating how specific actions will change societal state. The libertarian model of interaction cuts across economic, political, cultural, and social issues. For just about any given law, for example, a libertarian can tell you exactly how such a law will affect society (minimum wage laws create unemployment by setting a lower-bound on entry-level wages, drug prohibition artificially inflates drug prices which leads to violent turf wars, etc.). As another example, for any given social goal, a libertarian will be able to tell you the problems generated by having government try to achieve that goal and will tell you how such a goal can be achieved in a libertarian society.I believe this is qualitatively different from other predictive models because of the breadth of the model and the focus on transitions (both of which are also true of programming). On newsgroups I often see questions … [that] … libertarians almost always quickly answer by saying, “I’ll tell you exactly what would happen…” And, surprisingly, the libertarians tend to give the same answer in most cases.

    I think most people find this odd about libertarians. They understand how an economist might be able to predict the effect of a certain law on the economy or how a social scientist might be able to predict how drug legalization might affect the ghettos, but they don’t understand how somebody could predict all of these things, especially someone who has no formal training. Libertarians, on the other hand, don’t seem to understand how someone could fail to have such a model of interaction… The nonlibertarians have no comprehensive model of interaction, and as a result, they can’t communicate in a meaningful way with those who do. Their attention is always focused on misleading superficial problems rather than on the underlying causes of such problems.”—


    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-11 09:15:00 UTC

  • Talking with Don at the moment on why so many CS guys leann libertarian: because

    Talking with Don at the moment on why so many CS guys leann libertarian: because our generation understands (a) information transfer, (b) undecidability of propositions, (c) correspondence vs causation (d) the frailty of reason that writing software forces you to accept (e) the problem of computability (existence proof), (f) the incentives provided to users via interacting with information they observe.

    Hoppe’s generation did not have it. Plus he was trained by Marxists and their reliance on rationalism, in German universities under german rationalism. He didn’t have the luxury of standing on the shoulders of Turing, and so when he read through the Intuitionist and Operationalist argument he did not understand that they had found what Mises had failed to.

    I’m lucky. I can stand on the shoulders of Hoppe and On the shoulders of Turing, Poincare, Brouwer, Bridgman.


    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-11 08:26:00 UTC

  • DECIDABILITY IN ETHICS AND LAW: DYSGENIC, STATIC OR EUGENIC. (very dense but ver

    DECIDABILITY IN ETHICS AND LAW: DYSGENIC, STATIC OR EUGENIC.

    (very dense but very important argument) (edited and reposted)

    From David Hamilton:

    —“Why not just admit that ethics is ultimately about our being in fundamental states of conflict with each other – that we are all simply trapped in the same metaphorical room preferring either Matisse or Picasso to hang on the common wall, and that ethics is ultimately about our agitating to impose our aesthetic tastes and preferences on everyone else, lest they impose theirs on us?”—

    Well written, common frustration, but, No.

    Determination of criminal, ethical, immoral, and conspiratorial actions are universal. There exists only one universal law: the prohibition on free riding (imposed costs / lost time and effort).

    It’s true that by analogy, we refer to contractual obligations, commands, and regulations as law, to grant them the same standard. Just as we refer to a host of signals as ethical or moral, when they are only analogies thereof. But this analogy conveys import by analogy not truth content.

    MORAL THEORY RESULTS IN LAW

    So while you are correct that we are, outside of kin, ultimately in conflict on ends and means, we can develop rules – Like monogamy, for Nash equilibria – that allow us to cooperate on means if not ends: to engage in productive conflict rather than unproductive conflict. That is, after all, the function of the market.

    And if such rules are sufficiently internally consistent that (a) they can be used as general rules (b) applicable to all, for (c) a multitude of conditions we can then use such rules deductively. If these three (a,b,c) properties exist then such a general rule can be embodied in law, under rule of law. And only under such deductive, universally applicable, general rules can we live under rule of law, rather than arbitrary decision predicated upon the biases of an authority.

    So ethics, politics and law constitute reasoning by which we can construct general rules of cooperation (competition:productive conflict) WITHOUT relying on individual bias, given the reality of our conflict.

    So the question becomes one of ensuring that such general rules are decideable. Which is the central problem of all general rules in all logical models. The only means of decidability, is either dysgenic (socialism: the female reproductive strategy) or eugenic (libertarian meritocratic) or static (authoritarian).

    As far as I know that is a logical box without exit.


    Source date (UTC): 2014-10-08 02:26:00 UTC

  • REFORMING PHILOSOPHY: ITS ALL CALCULATION NOW. ALGORITHMS WIN OVER SET OPERATION

    REFORMING PHILOSOPHY: ITS ALL CALCULATION NOW. ALGORITHMS WIN OVER SET OPERATIONS.

    That any general rule,

    Requires a utilitarian context (a ‘question’)

    AND

    That answering that question,

    Requires an hypothesis{intuition,->hypothesis, ->theory, ->law}

    AND

    Any hypothesis,

    Requires a test of verbal construction,

    Requires tests of internal consistency,

    Using the instruments of logical operations{identity, ->category(logic proper), ->scale, ->relation, ->time, ->cause, ->cooperation}

    AND

    Requires tests of external correspondence,

    Using the instruments of physical operations {a sequence of actions},

    Recorded as a sequence of actions and measurements(observations)

    That can be followed and reproduced by others,

    AND

    Requires Warranty,

    Provided to the self, or to others, consisting of:

    Tests of falsification recorded

    Using instruments of physical and logical operations.

    Recorded as a sequence of actions and measurements(observations),

    That can be reproduced by others.

    AND

    Requires Warranty,

    Provided to the self and others, consisting of:

    Testimony to the truthful witness of all the above.

    This algorithm applies in all cases of human construction of general rules. There is no need for any other model except to lower the standard, and to obviate the individual from warranty.

    Philosophy suffers, possibly catastrophically, from verbalism: syllogism and set operation, rather than algorithmic operations. These verbalisms rely on extant meaning of words, themselves general rules. These words carry properties and relations whenever used. We use only some subset of those properties and relations in any context.This means that the use of words can add informational content to any statement that would not be extant if expressed as an operation.

    As such philosophy as a discipline tolerates polluted (extra information) that obscures, incorrectly weights, confuses and conflates theories. The majority of errors come not from comparisons (calculations) but from information external to the operation included in the language. This is why defining terms is so important. It is equivalent to using pure ingredients in chemistry.

    As far as I know, once we have solved the problem of ethics, morality, and politics, we possess all necessary logical instrumentation, and philosophy is a closed domain in which all statements can be represented logically through operations.

    As far as I know, if we follow what originated as the scientific method, but is simply the algorithmic application of instruments both mental and physical: “THE method”, no other method is needed.

    Worse philosophy, outside of science, appears to be extremely useful for the purpose of conducting interpersonal, social, political, and economic, fraud. In fact, the singular purpose of the vast majority of philosophy, has been used for the purpose of justifying these categories of fraud: justifying takings.

    Apriorism, as we have seen in Mises and Rothbard, can be abused, can be used to state pseudoscience (misesian praxeology), and to state immorality as moral (Rothbard), and requires no warranty. And all products in the market, whether physical operations (goods and services) or mental operations (hypothesis) can cause negative externalities that impose costs upon others.

    When our theories were confined to human action at human scale, mythology was adequate, and even when our investigation of the physical world was limited to human scale, our reason was largely adequate. Because humans can test arguments at human scale. But all theories exceeding human scale (human perception) require instrumentation. And instrumentation is required for any operation that is not possible to conduct with human sense perception alone.

    So, while it may be true that relying upon apriorism is useful. It is also true that constructing and publishing a theory in that manner is an avoidance of providing warranty to your ideas. And labeling your ideas as a black-market product that may have dangerous, keynesian levels, freudian levels, cantorian levels, rothbardian levels, of side effects.

    And any moral man should seek to prosecute you in every possible venue for the pollution of the commons.

    (I think I can wrap it all together even better, but I’m getting there.)


    Source date (UTC): 2014-09-29 04:52:00 UTC

  • on Ray Percival’s commitment to reason. STIPULATIONS It is rational to hold opin

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Closed-Mind-Understanding/dp/0812696859/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top/181-2526688-3304011Thoughts on Ray Percival’s commitment to reason.

    STIPULATIONS

    It is rational to hold opinions.

    It is rational to hold desperately to opinions.

    It is rational to hold desperately to opinions even in the face of overwhelming argumentative evidence that one cannot refute.

    It is rational to hold to opinions and beliefs as a deliberate choice if one prefers to imagine the world as one wishes, versus represent it correspondingly.

    It is rational to hold to opinions and beliefs and to conduct constant selection bias because there exist a multitude of applications in which arational, and seemingly irrational behavior are beneficial strategies, immune to argumentative change.

    THEREFORE

    The rationality of a belief is not a truth proposition post-hoc, but a volitional necessity given the preconditions set by one’s ignorance.

    This constrains rationality to constituent ignorance.

    ??No opinion then is criticizable as irrational?? Or is it that only simple and well constructed ideas are criticizable as irrational.

    ABSENT FROM CONSIDERATION

    The opportunity cost of erroneous ideas is neutral.

    The cost of conducting persuasive argument is immaterial.

    The difference in cost between the construction and distribution of various false and deceptive arguments, and truthful and honest arguments is immaterial.

    The persistence of human cognitive biases, of metaphysical assumptions, of religious, philosophical, intellectual, and normative convictions, are rational tools, and therefore immaterial.

    FALSE DICHOTOMY

    First criticism as a false dichotomy:

    1) Irrational: a statement that is internally inconsistent in construction, and we cannot determine if it would produce desired outcomes, or if it would produce undesirable outcomes.

    2) arational: a statement that is not internally consistent in construction but whose use produces desirable outcomes.

    3) rational: a statement that is internally consistent, and whose use produces desired outcomes.

    As far as I know, an arational argument is scientifically demonstrable (knowledge of use), even if scientifically inexplicable (knowledge of construction).

    As far as I know, a rational argument must be both explicable (knowledge of construction), and demonstrable(knowledge of use).

    As far as I know, an irrational argument is neither explicable (knowledge of construction) nor demonstrable(knowledge of use).

    FURTHERMORE

    The absence of a logic of cooperation renders all moral arguments extant untestable, yet all political arguments are governed by moral constraints. As such no moral arguments can be rational?

    The use of language consisting of aggregated meanings (functions) masks the underlying assumptions and renders arguments untestable, and deceptive.

    The use of in-group identity bias literally ‘pays’ people to believe things that are irrational as stated, but rational to pursue for their group’s purposes. In other words, religious and cultural ‘beliefs’ produce high returns, and therefore may not be rational, or irrational, but arational.

    CONCLUSIONS

    Therefore unlike the calm, timeless, costless world of scientific philosophy, and its pursuit of platonic truth, the opposite is true, particularly under democracy: we are fighting, always, to use the violence of government to extract money from some purpose to apply it to some other purpose, in real time, with real consequences, and ignorance is a luxury in the philosophy of science but not in life.

    Scientists consider the pursuit of truth independent of cost. No one else has that luxury. Scientists are a privileged class and advocate the belief systems of a privileged class. Unlike scientists, who are not temporally bound, or theologians who are neither temporally, or existentially bound, human action requires we compensate for temporal and existential constraints, as well as opportunity costs.

    Because the purpose of thought is action. We do not live in the garden of eden. And that is the culture of the Academy: the Cathedral. The pretense of costlessness in a world constituted of the necessity of human action guided entirely by prices.


    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-22 06:46:00 UTC

  • Is It Possible To Reconcile Tort Reform And Libertarian Philosophy?

    Um.  This isn’t necessarily a libertarian issue so much as a logical one.  The problem is that jury determination of penalties is arbitrary, and incalculable so that risk is un-measurable, and that penalties of scale are just passed on to consumers.  This means that lawsuits can be pursued as lottery ticket purchases by all but the defendant, and that organizations must seek to escape rather than honestly resolve disputes.

    The libertarian argument would require the elimination of limited liability, the removal of employee indemnification, and of management and board liability. All of these existing protections were provided by the government in order to allow abuses of the law in order to increase employment and tax revenues. So, instead, libertarians would recommend that all employees and all employers carry insurance against malfeasance. And that insurance companies would require a great deal of contractual adherence, training in exchange, in order to cover losses.  Misbehavior would break the contract, pierce any corporate veil, and open every employee, manger, executive, and board member in the causal chain to personal suit.

    If you want a less corrupt america, then remove the government from the process – because the government is the cause.

    This is the best I can do in short form, but it should get the libertarian point across: the common law, civic participation, personal accountability, and insurance companies provide market incentives that bureaucratic monopolies do not.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-reconcile-tort-reform-and-libertarian-philosophy

  • PROPERTARIANISM: DECIDABILITY VIA CALCULABILITY If moral a proposition can be ex

    PROPERTARIANISM: DECIDABILITY VIA CALCULABILITY

    If moral a proposition can be expressed in propertarian terms, the matter is metaphysically extant, and free of loading. It is also rationally decidable.

    This is an incredibly cool thing if you’re a philosopher. 🙂


    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-31 04:17:00 UTC

  • UPDATE ON PROPERTARIAN ETHICS “Proof and Calculability” = Ethical Truth in Polit

    UPDATE ON PROPERTARIAN ETHICS

    “Proof and Calculability” = Ethical Truth in Politics

    I got stuck while writing Propertarianism in 2010 on the ethical requirement that at that time I called “Calculability”. I knew it was needed in any contractual government to prevent externalizing costs – if not outright acts of abuse and fraud.

    For all intents and purposes, I was forcing contractual and monetary (numeric) constraints into political ethics. But I knew something was ‘wrong’ in verbal constructions as well. Even if strict construction and original intent were known issues, how could I prevent fallacious argument in politics (lying)?

    And I just couldn’t get my arms around it. And it’s taken me really, what, three and a half years to solve it with Operationalism? So, instead of one ethical addition called ‘calculability’ which we need to keep, I need to add Operationalism as well (ie: ‘Proof”). I suppose I could work the language a bit and demonstrate that they’re in fact, the same principle applied to calculable and argumentative problems but I think that would only complicate matters. So I’ll keep them separate and overlapping (which is a theme I keep finding myself using.)

    So Truth(Testimony) Operationalism(Proof), and Calculability(testability of contract) are the additional properties of political ethics I’ve added to to propertarianism. I am not sure but I think that’s the hardest problem I had to solve in this entire program so far.


    Source date (UTC): 2014-07-11 06:26:00 UTC

  • Failure To Use Operational Definitions In Economics, Politics and Law Is Criminal (Really)

    (Profound)(reposted)(worth repeating) [W]hile a failure to rely upon operational definitions in mathematics, logic and philosophy may only be immoral, and in science unethical – in economics, politics and law it is criminal. In Mathematics avoiding operationalism merely perpetuates an error; in logic and philosophy it is deceptive of both others and one’s self; in science wastes others’ time. But in economics, politics and law, failure to use operationalism creates theft. That is the answer to the riddle Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe couldn’t solve in economics and ethics. Nor Hayek and Popper and their followers in politics and philosophy. But then, neither did Bridgman and his followers in science, nor Brouwer and his followers in math. I don’t think the long list ending with Kripke solved it either in logic. One cannot use this heavily loaded term ‘true’ as other than analogy without a constructive knowledge of its meaning. And the only meaning that is constructively possible is testimony: performative truth. All else is merely proof. And the quaint linguistic contrivance that conflates the most parsimonious possible theory with testimony is, much like multitudinous abuses of the verb to-be, nothing more than a means by which we obscure our ignorance as a means of making mere analogies as a substitute for truth claims. Only constructive proofs demonstrate that one possesses the knowledge to make a truth claim. Everything else is merely analogy.

  • Failure To Use Operational Definitions In Economics, Politics and Law Is Criminal (Really)

    (Profound)(reposted)(worth repeating) [W]hile a failure to rely upon operational definitions in mathematics, logic and philosophy may only be immoral, and in science unethical – in economics, politics and law it is criminal. In Mathematics avoiding operationalism merely perpetuates an error; in logic and philosophy it is deceptive of both others and one’s self; in science wastes others’ time. But in economics, politics and law, failure to use operationalism creates theft. That is the answer to the riddle Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe couldn’t solve in economics and ethics. Nor Hayek and Popper and their followers in politics and philosophy. But then, neither did Bridgman and his followers in science, nor Brouwer and his followers in math. I don’t think the long list ending with Kripke solved it either in logic. One cannot use this heavily loaded term ‘true’ as other than analogy without a constructive knowledge of its meaning. And the only meaning that is constructively possible is testimony: performative truth. All else is merely proof. And the quaint linguistic contrivance that conflates the most parsimonious possible theory with testimony is, much like multitudinous abuses of the verb to-be, nothing more than a means by which we obscure our ignorance as a means of making mere analogies as a substitute for truth claims. Only constructive proofs demonstrate that one possesses the knowledge to make a truth claim. Everything else is merely analogy.