Curt Doolittle

Theme: Decidability

  • The Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Calculability, The Solution To Direct Redistribution (Part 1)

    Positioning Libertarian Ethics By Philosophical School 1) CLASSICAL “PSYCHOLOGICAL” (Smith,Hume,Locke,Burke)(BHL’s) 2) GHETTO COSMOPOLITAN (Rothbard), 3) CONTINENTAL RATIONAL (Hoppe), 4) ANGLO ANALYTIC (Doolitte), I keep intuitively wanting to classify the Bleeding Heart Libertarians led by Matt Zwolinski as right-continental rationals, but it’s pretty clear if you go through the past two years of articles on BHL, that their arguments are consistent with the classical psychological while borrowing arguments from everyone else where helpful. I pretty much agree with the BHL’s sentiments. But formal institutions that depend on psychological (and normative) moral intuition and belief, cannot possibly survive postmodern, obscurant, and pseudoscientific propaganda. Worse, they cannot survive the dissolution of the nuclear family. And it’s the nuclear family, or the Absolute Nuclear Family of the anglo tradition that is the primary source of our anglo american moral code. And in a world where immigrants no longer practice that family structure, where single mothers produce 40% of the population, and where ‘alternative marriages’ and ready divorce undermine the institution of the nuclear family, the moral intuitions upon which the Psychological School depends are statistically irrelevant. The family structure is the constructor of moral intuitions which merely direct and modify genetic and gender driven differences in moral sensitivity. Period. Conservatives were correct about the family and norms and we were not. In a democratic polity, where the majority can implement policy, the family structure of the majority will determine morality. And since morality determines property rights, no such property rights can exist within a democracy. We are in our current crisis because the American founders did not grasp the necessity and utility of the principle of calculability (no did any one until Weber). Had they for example, required original intent, and strict construction, and placed explicit authority in the common law, our world might be a very different place. At that time, given the state of science, and the prevalence of religious and poetic phrasing, it was impossible for them to grasp the concept of operational language as a necessary structure of all calculable statements. The BHL’s are not able to innovate per se, because they have no calculable and rational argumentative structure to rely upon. And so their arguments are victim to the moral predisposition their audience. But instead they are positioning libertarian arguments through sympathetic psychological contrasts and advocacy. Which is excellent marketing. And given the damage done by Rothbard’s morally reprehensible parasitic Ghetto Ethics to the cause of liberty, we certainly need good marketing. Propertarianism is not morally loaded. It’s analytic and calculable. In propertarian ethics I’ve placed the formal requirement for operational language. For that reason it isn’t morally aspirational – like most scientific argument it’s a little unsatisfying to reduce all human behavior to it’s physical properties – but it’s factually moral and defensible by science and reason. Whereas the Psychological model may advocate the correct ideas but they are not argumentatively powerful unless one is predisposed to agree with them. As such they are not arguments, but statements of confirmation bias. I have tried to provide the BHL’s with a Propertarian argument for redistribution. My argument requires full calculability from start to finish. And it fully warrants, justifies, explains in causal terms, why direct redistribution to consumers is necessary compensation mandated by respect for property rights. My criticism of the BHL’s to date has been limited (as my autistic arguments often are) to the fact that they are not contributing to innovation in libertarian theory, only to libertarian propaganda. Because I don’t disagree with their sentiments. I disagree with their Psychological School arguments. My hope is that at some point they will grasp that the formal logic of property is sufficient to justify their psychologically argued, and morally intuited ends. And they can back their good marketing with good science, reason, and institutional solutions that are calculable and therefore impervious to the multitudinous forms of fraud that are used by the obscurantist left both socialist, Postmodern, Feminist and whatever else they manage to invent. Property under Propertarianism is a scientifically moral, not rationally moral, or psychologically moral construct. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev

  • Were The Conservatives Right All Along

    (interesting) We cannot, like mathematicians tried to do, define something into existence. We can define rules of deduction, but not define something into existence. Truth consists of correspondence and cause, not definition. Definitions are our choice. Truth is not. That is the entire purpose of ‘truth’ – that which we cannot choose. So, if instead of some artificial scheme, we understand that PROPERTY is nothing but what remains, after we suppress all possible DISCOUNTS, by every means possible. Then, does that mean that the conservatives were right all along? That, since discounts, as a spectrum, are suppressible by a spectrum of actions which include the organized threat of violence, ostracization, boycott, reduction of opportunity, and the consequential limits on consumption, then the conservatives, correctly value NORMATIVE CONFORMITY TO SUPPRESSION OF DISCOUNTS, and that the model of property articulated by rothbard, taken as it was from the low trust society he was familiar with, In effect, Rothbard’s ethics are an attempt to preserve ‘cheating’ as a viable means of profiting from others, whereas conservative, aristocratic, ‘high trust’ ethics are an effort to suppress ALL cheating. Rothbard masks this cheating by stating that competition will suppress such cheating. But empirically, and praxeologically, this is demonstrably and logically false. So what are we left with no possible conclusion that either he committed a significant error or, that Rothbard’s ethics are an attempt, intentionally, to preserve cheating: which is precisely what the left correctly argues – albeit in their amateurish terms. The formation of a government, which is a monopoly that suppresses violence and theft, and then by taxation, suppresses free riding on the government’s suppression of violence, then, as a consequence, because of its monopoly, only displaces free riding with rents. The formal question remains the same, which is that rule of law, or liberty, is a prohibition on discretionary compulsion, but is only possible by the prohibition of all discounts. And the only possible means of both suppressing discounts, and preventing the conversion of free riding into rents, is to rely on competition for the suppression of these discounts. That is, I think, the fundamental equilibrial analysis of political order. The sequence is: 1) Suppression of discounts results in property rights. 2) Property rights lead to the division of labor, and prosperity. 3) Property (capital) and prosperity lead to greater opportunity for discounts. 4) The cost of suppressing discounts increases demand for specialized suppression. 5) The specialized suppressing discounts leads to free riding (fee avoidance) 6) The specialized suppression of free riding (taxation) leads to opportunity for rent seeking. 7) Opportunity for rent seeking leads to bureaucracy. 8) Bureaucracy leads to subjugation and expropriation. 9) Expropriation leads to circumvention (Religiosity, black markets, tax evasion, nullification, secession and revolt and revolution) 10 (fragmentation) The only solution is rule of law: no state, merely laws, and judges who resolve disputes. Governments must be local and under direct democracy. Everything else provided competing firms. CHEERS

  • Were The Conservatives Right All Along

    (interesting) We cannot, like mathematicians tried to do, define something into existence. We can define rules of deduction, but not define something into existence. Truth consists of correspondence and cause, not definition. Definitions are our choice. Truth is not. That is the entire purpose of ‘truth’ – that which we cannot choose. So, if instead of some artificial scheme, we understand that PROPERTY is nothing but what remains, after we suppress all possible DISCOUNTS, by every means possible. Then, does that mean that the conservatives were right all along? That, since discounts, as a spectrum, are suppressible by a spectrum of actions which include the organized threat of violence, ostracization, boycott, reduction of opportunity, and the consequential limits on consumption, then the conservatives, correctly value NORMATIVE CONFORMITY TO SUPPRESSION OF DISCOUNTS, and that the model of property articulated by rothbard, taken as it was from the low trust society he was familiar with, In effect, Rothbard’s ethics are an attempt to preserve ‘cheating’ as a viable means of profiting from others, whereas conservative, aristocratic, ‘high trust’ ethics are an effort to suppress ALL cheating. Rothbard masks this cheating by stating that competition will suppress such cheating. But empirically, and praxeologically, this is demonstrably and logically false. So what are we left with no possible conclusion that either he committed a significant error or, that Rothbard’s ethics are an attempt, intentionally, to preserve cheating: which is precisely what the left correctly argues – albeit in their amateurish terms. The formation of a government, which is a monopoly that suppresses violence and theft, and then by taxation, suppresses free riding on the government’s suppression of violence, then, as a consequence, because of its monopoly, only displaces free riding with rents. The formal question remains the same, which is that rule of law, or liberty, is a prohibition on discretionary compulsion, but is only possible by the prohibition of all discounts. And the only possible means of both suppressing discounts, and preventing the conversion of free riding into rents, is to rely on competition for the suppression of these discounts. That is, I think, the fundamental equilibrial analysis of political order. The sequence is: 1) Suppression of discounts results in property rights. 2) Property rights lead to the division of labor, and prosperity. 3) Property (capital) and prosperity lead to greater opportunity for discounts. 4) The cost of suppressing discounts increases demand for specialized suppression. 5) The specialized suppressing discounts leads to free riding (fee avoidance) 6) The specialized suppression of free riding (taxation) leads to opportunity for rent seeking. 7) Opportunity for rent seeking leads to bureaucracy. 8) Bureaucracy leads to subjugation and expropriation. 9) Expropriation leads to circumvention (Religiosity, black markets, tax evasion, nullification, secession and revolt and revolution) 10 (fragmentation) The only solution is rule of law: no state, merely laws, and judges who resolve disputes. Governments must be local and under direct democracy. Everything else provided competing firms. CHEERS

  • THE BLEEDING HEART LIBERTARIANS, THE PRINCIPLE OF CALCULABILITY, THE SOLUTION TO

    THE BLEEDING HEART LIBERTARIANS, THE PRINCIPLE OF CALCULABILITY, THE SOLUTION TO DIRECT REDISTRIBUTION (Part 1)

    POSITIONING LIBERTARIAN ETHICS BY PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOL

    1) CLASSICAL “PSYCHOLOGICAL” (Smith,Hume,Locke,Burke)(BHL’s)

    2) GHETTO COSMOPOLITAN (Rothbard),

    3) CONTINENTAL RATIONAL (Hoppe),

    4) ANGLO ANALYTIC (Doolitte),

    I keep intuitively wanting to classify the Bleeding Heart Libertarians led by Matt Zwolinski as right-continental rationals, but it’s pretty clear if you go through the past two years of articles on BHL, that their arguments are consistent with the classical psychological while borrowing arguments from everyone else where helpful.

    I pretty much agree with the BHL’s sentiments. But formal institutions that depend on psychological (and normative) moral intuition and belief, cannot possibly survive postmodern, obscurant, and pseudoscientific propaganda.

    Worse, they cannot survive the dissolution of the nuclear family. And it’s the nuclear family, or the Absolute Nuclear Family of the anglo tradition that is the primary source of our anglo american moral code. And in a world where immigrants no longer practice that family structure, where single mothers produce 40% of the population, and where ‘alternative marriages’ and ready divorce undermine the institution of the nuclear family, the moral intuitions upon which the Psychological School depends are statistically irrelevant.

    The family structure is the constructor of moral intuitions which merely direct and modify genetic and gender driven differences in moral sensitivity. Period. Conservatives were correct about the family and norms and we were not. In a democratic polity, where the majority can implement policy, the family structure of the majority will determine morality. And since morality determines property rights, no such property rights can exist within a democracy.

    We are in our current crisis because the American founders did not grasp the necessity and utility of the principle of calculability (no did any one until Weber). Had they for example, required original intent, and strict construction, and placed explicit authority in the common law, our world might be a very different place. At that time, given the state of science, and the prevalence of religious and poetic phrasing, it was impossible for them to grasp the concept of operational language as a necessary structure of all calculable statements.

    The BHL’s are not able to innovate per se, because they have no calculable and rational argumentative structure to rely upon. And so their arguments are victim to the moral predisposition their audience. But instead they are positioning libertarian arguments through sympathetic psychological contrasts and advocacy. Which is excellent marketing. And given the damage done by Rothbard’s morally reprehensible parasitic Ghetto Ethics to the cause of liberty, we certainly need good marketing.

    Propertarianism is not morally loaded. It’s analytic and calculable. In propertarian ethics I’ve placed the formal requirement for operational language. For that reason it isn’t morally aspirational – like most scientific argument it’s a little unsatisfying to reduce all human behavior to it’s physical properties – but it’s factually moral and defensible by science and reason. Whereas the Psychological model may advocate the correct ideas but they are not argumentatively powerful unless one is predisposed to agree with them. As such they are not arguments, but statements of confirmation bias.

    I have tried to provide the BHL’s with a Propertarian argument for redistribution. My argument requires full calculability from start to finish. And it fully warrants, justifies, explains in causal terms, why direct redistribution to consumers is necessary compensation mandated by respect for property rights.

    My criticism of the BHL’s to date has been limited (as my autistic arguments often are) to the fact that they are not contributing to innovation in libertarian theory, only to libertarian propaganda. Because I don’t disagree with their sentiments. I disagree with their Psychological School arguments.

    My hope is that at some point they will grasp that the formal logic of property is sufficient to justify their psychologically argued, and morally intuited ends. And they can back their good marketing with good science, reason, and institutional solutions that are calculable and therefore impervious to the multitudinous forms of fraud that are used by the obscurantist left both socialist, Postmodern, Feminist and whatever else they manage to invent.

    Property under Propertarianism is a scientifically moral, not rationally moral, or psychologically moral construct.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-11 03:52:00 UTC

  • CAN WE DEFINE TERRORISM? SURE WE CAN It is a fundamental statement of logic that

    CAN WE DEFINE TERRORISM? SURE WE CAN

    It is a fundamental statement of logic that if you cannot describe a term in operational language then one of the following statements is true:

    1) You do not understand what you are talking about, and should refrain from talking about what you do not understand, until you do understand it.

    2) Something is false with your criteria for satisfying the definition. (There are no paradoxes.)

    3) You are trying to make facts suit your theoretical preference rather than modify your theoretical preference to correspond to the facts.

    4) You are relying on normative rather than necessary properties.

    5) You are trying to justify the use of a morally or politically loaded term to suit your purposes as a means of free-riding on pop-sentiments.

    If you cannot reduce your statements to operational language then you are engaging in self deception, justification, the deception of others, or all three.

    Academic, Postmodern, pseudo-science relies on all five of these criteria.

    Am I left with the only possible conclusion, already, in just one week, that the class is not an honest pursuit of the truth, but a personal marketing campaign for justification of that which is not understood?

    Terrorism is, in both common usage, and etymological origin, a pejorative criticism. Rebellion is not a matter for criticism, but a demonstration of the failure of the government. Either because the government fails to answer the needs of some group, fails to publicly invalidate the needs of some group, or seeks dominion over some group by monopoly fiat that should be given right of secession to choose some OTHER order more beneficial to that group’s sentiments.

    The use of violence by those under the influence of the monopoly state, against state (political, bureaucratic and military), state-corporate (finance, banking, oil, infrastructure and transportation- the economy is an act of rebellion, and is a necessary and JUST USE of violence because under a monopoly, and equally under majority rule monopoly, one has no choice. If one has no choice, then rebellion is the only possible action one can take. Otherwise we say that majorities can do whatever they wish and that as such all state actions sanctioned by the majority, or even just the majority of their political representatives, no matter how immoral, unethical, or disadvantageous to some group is legitimate.)

    Violence is not equivalent to terror. We may be afraid of it. But that we are afraid is a false equivalency. The purpose of Terror is the demonstration of power for the purpose of ‘marketing’. The purpose of Rebellion is the demonstration of power for the purpose of marketing marketing. Given enough marketing, the users of violence, whether terrorists or rebels hope to generate demand for political solutions to their complaints, that the state satisfies BOTH the demands of the users of violence, rebels or terrorists, AND the demands of the public for a solution to the violence.

    The international charter of human rights consists almost entirely of enumerated anglo-american private property rights, plus four ambitions that states are chartered with seeking to solve if possible, as a limited nod to the communist movement that was popular at the time. By enacting this charter we state that STATES will hold other states accountable for the treatment of their citizens. However, we also, by ancient practice, hold states accountable for the actions of their citizens. (If your state houses terrorists then you are responsible for the consequences. (Just as the desert housed raiders in the arab conquest of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires.)

    Furthermore, the USA participates in terribly confusing rhetoric but it’s policy has been consistent in the postwar era:

    (a) The USA always supports the right of self determination wherever strategically and economically possible to do so (Saudis and Israelis the notable exceptions.)

    (b) A democratically elected government is de-facto a legitimate government.

    (c) A population can elect whatever government that it chooses to.

    (d) The USA will hold the government accountable for it’s actions as stewards of the charter of human rights, and the international pattern of finance and trade, where the only tolerable means of competition is in the market for mutually voluntary exchange. This means that USA will punish the government and it’s civilians for violations of this charter until the people select a government that does respect those rights and obligations.

    So Terrorism must satisfy these three criteria:

    (a) violence against civilians or cultural symbols and icons

    (b) that disrupts the predictable assumption of safety.

    (c) for the purpose of generating demand for political policy.

    (d) by non state actors.

    One of the ways we reduced product tampering was to stop reporting on it. If we didn’t report on terrorism the impact would not be as dramatic but would follow that trend. (A.C. Nielsen was influential in demonstrating that the problem was providing a venue.)

    Rebellion must satisfy the following criteria:

    (a) violence against military, political, economic and symbolic targets.

    (b) that disrupts the assumption of sufficient legitimacy of the government

    (c) for the purpose of generating demand for policy

    (d) by citizens under the control of a monopoly government

    Warfare constitutes the remaining state actions.

    Crime constitutes the remaining actions by the citizenry.

    A normal 2×2 grid is sufficient for determining whether an action constitutes crime, rebellion, terrorism and war – in that order.

    This classification prevents the false attribution of legitimacy to the state by classifying crime and rebellion as terrorism.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-02 09:41:00 UTC

  • TO “RETIRE” THE CONCEPT OF INFINITY (and cantor’s contribution to 20th century m

    http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/12/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement-edge-org?CMP=twt_fdTIME TO “RETIRE” THE CONCEPT OF INFINITY

    (and cantor’s contribution to 20th century mysticism with it)

    from: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/12/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement-edge-org?CMP=twt_fd

    —–

    MAX TEGMARK

    Physicist, researcher, precision cosmology; scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute; author of Our Mathematical Universe

    I was seduced by infinity at an early age. Cantor’s diagonality proof that some infinities are bigger than others mesmerised me, and his infinite hierarchy of infinities blew my mind. The assumption that something truly infinite exists in nature underlies every physics course I’ve ever taught at MIT and indeed all of modern physics. But it’s an untested assumption, which raises the question: is it actually true?

    There are in fact two separate assumptions: “infinitely big” and “infinitely small”. By infinitely big, I mean the idea that space can have infinite volume, that time can continue for ever, and that there can be infinitely many physical objects. By infinitely small, I mean the continuum: the idea that even a litre of space contains an infinite number of points, that space can be stretched out indefinitely without anything bad happening, and that there are quantities in nature that can vary continuously. The two are closely related because inflation, the most popular explanation of our big bang, can create an infinite volume by stretching continuous space indefinitely.

    A galaxy photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope

    ‘We don’t actually need the infinite to accurately describe the formation of galaxies.’ Photograph: Scott Camazine/Alamy

    The theory of inflation has been spectacularly successful, and is a leading contender for a Nobel prize. It explained how a subatomic speck of matter transformed into a massive big bang, creating a huge, flat and uniform universe with tiny density fluctuations that eventually grew into today’s galaxies and cosmic large-scale structure, all in beautiful agreement with precision measurements from experiments such as the Planck satellite. But by generically predicting that space isn’t just big, but truly infinite, inflation has also brought about the so-called measure problem, which I view as the greatest crisis facing modern physics. Physics is all about predicting the future from the past, but inflation seems to sabotage this: when we try to predict the probability that something particular will happen, inflation always gives the same useless answer: infinity divided by infinity. The problem is that whatever experiment you make, inflation predicts that there will be infinitely many copies of you far away in our infinite space, obtaining each physically possible outcome, and despite years of tooth-grinding in the cosmology community, no consensus has emerged on how to extract sensible answers from these infinities. So strictly speaking, we physicists are no longer able to predict anything at all!

    This means that today’s best theories similarly need a major shakeup, by retiring an incorrect assumption. Which one? Here’s my prime suspect: infinity.

    A rubber band can’t be stretched indefinitely, because although it seems smooth and continuous, that’s merely a convenient approximation: it’s really made of atoms, and if you stretch it too much, it snaps. If we similarly retire the idea that space itself is an infinitely stretchy continuum, then a big snap of sorts stops inflation from producing an infinitely big space, and the measure problem goes away. Without the infinitely small, inflation can’t make the infinitely big, so you get rid of both infinities in one fell swoop – together with many other problems plaguing modern physics, such as infinitely dense black hole singularities and infinities popping up when we try to quantize gravity.

    In the past, many venerable mathematicians expressed scepticism towards infinity and the continuum. The legendary Carl Friedrich Gauss denied that anything infinite really existed, saying “infinity is merely a way of speaking” and “I protest against the use of infinite magnitude as something completed, which is never permissible in mathematics”. In the past century, however, infinity has become mathematically mainstream, and most physicists and mathematicians have become so enamoured of infinity that they rarely question it. Why? Basically, because infinity is an extremely convenient approximation for which we haven’t discovered convenient alternatives. Consider, for example, the air in front of you. Keeping track of the positions and speeds of octillions of atoms would be hopelessly complicated. But if you ignore the fact that air is made of atoms and instead approximate it as a continuum, a smooth substance that has a density, pressure and velocity at each point, you find that this idealised air obeys a beautifully simple equation that explains almost everything we care about: how to build airplanes, how we hear them with soundwaves, how to make weather forecasts, etc. Yet despite all that convenience, air of course isn’t truly continuous. I think it’s the same way for space, time and all the other building blocks of our physical word.

    Let’s face it: despite their seductive allure, we have no direct observational evidence for either the infinitely big or the infinitely small. We speak of infinite volumes with infinitely many planets, but our observable universe contains only about 10 to the power of 89 objects (mostly photons). If space is a true continuum, then to describe even something as simple as the distance between two points requires an infinite amount of information, specified by a number with infinitely many decimal places. In practice, we physicists have never managed to measure anything to more than about 17 decimal places. Yet real numbers with their infinitely many decimals have infested almost every nook and cranny of physics, from the strengths of electromagnetic fields to the wave functions of quantum mechanics: we describe even a single bit of quantum information (qubit) using two real numbers involving infinitely many decimals.

    Not only do we lack evidence for the infinite, but we don’t actually need the infinite to do physics: our best computer simulations, accurately describing everything from the formation of galaxies to tomorrow’s weather to the masses of elementary particles, use only finite computer resources by treating everything as finite. So if we can do without infinity to figure out what happens next, surely nature can too – in a way that’s more deep and elegant than the hacks we use for our computer simulations. Our challenge as physicists is to discover this elegant way and the infinity-free equations describing it – the true laws of physics. To start this search in earnest, we need to question infinity. I’m betting that we also need to let go of it.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-12 15:51:00 UTC

  • Does The Separation Between Mathematical Truth And Mathematical Proof Necessarily Imply A Platonist View Of Mathematics?

    Here is the debate as I understand it:

    (And forgive me if I mix language from multiple domains please.)

    The Intuitionists argue that all mathematics can be stated operationally, and as such, for all intents and purposes, all mathematical symbols other than the glyphs we use to name the natural numbers, are nothing more than names for functions (sets of operations).

    However, the intuitionist (‘recursive’) solution causes a problem in that the excluded middle is impermissible – but without it, much of mathematics because much more difficult, and harder to prove. So with that constraint on the excluded middle, the higher truth requirement of computational and constructivist, intuitionist logic has been deemed not useful for departmental mathematicians.

    So under the ZFC+AC and ‘spontaneous platonic imaginary’ creation of sets, we obtain the ability to do mathematics that include both double negation and the excluded middle. 

    This ‘trick’ separates Pure math in one discipline and  Scientific math, Computational mathematics, and philosophical realism into different discipline, each with different standards of truth. In fact, technically speaking, mathematics is absent truth (correspondence) and relies entirely on proof. ie: there are no true statements in pure mathematics.

    IF ANYONE  KNOWS —>> It does not appear that Brouwer or any of his followers understood why their method failed and the set method succeeded.  But even if they failed, I am trying to figure out if the Formalists understood their ‘hack’ and why it worked. 

    And lastly, if anyone at all understood how Intuitionist, constructivist, and computational logic could be improved to solve the problem of retaining correspondence (truth) while also retaining the excluded middle (even if it was burdensome). 

    Someone smarter than I am has got to have addressed this problem already although for the life of me I can’t find anyone who has.

    https://www.quora.com/Does-the-separation-between-mathematical-truth-and-mathematical-proof-necessarily-imply-a-Platonist-view-of-mathematics

  • Does The Separation Between Mathematical Truth And Mathematical Proof Necessarily Imply A Platonist View Of Mathematics?

    Here is the debate as I understand it:

    (And forgive me if I mix language from multiple domains please.)

    The Intuitionists argue that all mathematics can be stated operationally, and as such, for all intents and purposes, all mathematical symbols other than the glyphs we use to name the natural numbers, are nothing more than names for functions (sets of operations).

    However, the intuitionist (‘recursive’) solution causes a problem in that the excluded middle is impermissible – but without it, much of mathematics because much more difficult, and harder to prove. So with that constraint on the excluded middle, the higher truth requirement of computational and constructivist, intuitionist logic has been deemed not useful for departmental mathematicians.

    So under the ZFC+AC and ‘spontaneous platonic imaginary’ creation of sets, we obtain the ability to do mathematics that include both double negation and the excluded middle. 

    This ‘trick’ separates Pure math in one discipline and  Scientific math, Computational mathematics, and philosophical realism into different discipline, each with different standards of truth. In fact, technically speaking, mathematics is absent truth (correspondence) and relies entirely on proof. ie: there are no true statements in pure mathematics.

    IF ANYONE  KNOWS —>> It does not appear that Brouwer or any of his followers understood why their method failed and the set method succeeded.  But even if they failed, I am trying to figure out if the Formalists understood their ‘hack’ and why it worked. 

    And lastly, if anyone at all understood how Intuitionist, constructivist, and computational logic could be improved to solve the problem of retaining correspondence (truth) while also retaining the excluded middle (even if it was burdensome). 

    Someone smarter than I am has got to have addressed this problem already although for the life of me I can’t find anyone who has.

    https://www.quora.com/Does-the-separation-between-mathematical-truth-and-mathematical-proof-necessarily-imply-a-Platonist-view-of-mathematics

  • ON CERTAINTY “Thou cannot be sufficiently certain of anything that you can use a

    ON CERTAINTY

    “Thou cannot be sufficiently certain of anything that you can use argument to demand my agreement. Thou canst only seek to obtain my consent by eliminating the possibility or desirability of my position in contrast to yours.”

    Source date (UTC): 2014-01-03 13:22:00 UTC

  • (sketch) (morality of logical methods) Infinity is a property of the set. It’s i

    (sketch) (morality of logical methods)

    Infinity is a property of the set. It’s imaginary. Operations are not imaginary, nor infinite. Operations, even imaginary operations, must be performed. I cannot perform any operation indefinitely, and so no operation can be performed infinitely.

    Likewise, no infinite set can be constructed. It can however be imagined we are told. But this is not true. No human imagination can demonstrate infinity. We can only construct imaginary operations where the scale is greater than our perception.

    We can imagine the flight of an arrow, and when we imagine infinity we do precisely the same operation. The arrow leaves our vision, the scope of measurement leaves our imagination. The trajectory is all we remember in either case.

    Even in the vaulted pairing off examples we are not measuring the size of anything, because for anything beyond our perception, that size is unimaginable. Instead, we generate more operations more frequently with some pairing offs, than we do with other pairing offs. So we may say that the operational members of any function, occur with greater frequency or higher density, but we cannot make an argument as to size, since no end is possible in the infinite, but no infinite is possible.

    The net result is that mathematicians arbitrarily alter scale, because while mathematical relations are constant, the scale is arbitrarily defined, and its correspondence with reality is likewise arbitrarily defined. As such, all mathematicians do is alter the PRECISION of any model at whim.

    The reason is that scales are utilitarian. In the sense of measuring real world objects, such scales are limited by some meaningful amount of precision. If I cut a piece of wood or metal there is some limit to the necessity of precision, and that precision determines the point of demarcation between one unit and another.

    Mathematics cannot rely on externally defined precision so they rely on sets and the excluded middle to accommodate what is in reality their arbitrary use of precision, given their arbitrary use of scale.

    I actually find this kind of cute really. Like children inventing magical causes.

    But it’s not cute. It’s magian really, and this kind of magical nonsense, or platonic fantasizing has created the pretense of mysticism that partly drowned the 20th century.

    If we can hold the inquisition responsible for burning witches out of mystical ignorance, can we hold mathematicians and physicists responsible for the mysticism that was the 20th century? Or do we blame it on the introduction of the proletarians to the demands of education and the work force?

    I don’t know who to blame. I just want to fix the problem.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-12-28 18:03:00 UTC