Curt Doolittle

Theme: Measurement

  • The Problem with “logic”

    Hierarchy of Constant Relations

    1 – identity: tests of intra-reference constant relations 2 – logic: tests of inter-reference constant relations. 3 – mathematics: operations on positional relations, which by definition remain constant. 4 – construction: operational construction (arithmetic) 5 – deduction: deduction from a construction. (geometry/algebra) 6 – elimination (subtraction): deduction by falsification of all alternatives. (fields – effectively trial and error) the problem is that mathematical trial and error is cheap while verbal and existential trial and error is prohibitively expensive. We are trained in construction, deduction, induction, abduction, guessing, and free association. But mathematicians are trained in the trial and error method. In science we practice the trial and error method. In law we practice the trial and error method. It’s only (silly) justificationism that construction and deduction have any function, and even then that function, like the formal logics is of very limited value: it tells us only that something is false. You don’t prove anything (non trivial) with logic. You just falsify with it.

  • The Problem with “logic”

    Hierarchy of Constant Relations

    1 – identity: tests of intra-reference constant relations 2 – logic: tests of inter-reference constant relations. 3 – mathematics: operations on positional relations, which by definition remain constant. 4 – construction: operational construction (arithmetic) 5 – deduction: deduction from a construction. (geometry/algebra) 6 – elimination (subtraction): deduction by falsification of all alternatives. (fields – effectively trial and error) the problem is that mathematical trial and error is cheap while verbal and existential trial and error is prohibitively expensive. We are trained in construction, deduction, induction, abduction, guessing, and free association. But mathematicians are trained in the trial and error method. In science we practice the trial and error method. In law we practice the trial and error method. It’s only (silly) justificationism that construction and deduction have any function, and even then that function, like the formal logics is of very limited value: it tells us only that something is false. You don’t prove anything (non trivial) with logic. You just falsify with it.

  • Well you know this is the value of operational description rather than conflatio

    Well you know this is the value of operational description rather than conflationary names. What actions did they take, which content did they make use of, and what function did they perform in society? Were they educators in doctrine of supernatural law competing w/ state?

    Source date (UTC): 2018-08-31 16:48:17 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1035569978915864576

    Reply addressees: @ZeusHypatos

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1035566144520892417

    IN REPLY TO:

    Original post on X

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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1035566144520892417

  • I dunno. I think you mean, life with measurable purpose, and life with self dece

    I dunno. I think you mean, life with measurable purpose, and life with self deception. 😉 Lies are lies are lies. No more lies.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-08-31 15:07:55 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1035544720972414977

    Reply addressees: @Qbeck01

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1035530079005286401

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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1035530079005286401

  • IMO: Programming will help you think linguistically better than all other forms

    IMO: Programming will help you think linguistically better than all other forms of reasoning combined, other than physics. Once you have physics and programming you have a formal logic of… https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=288275718435992&id=100017606988153

    Source date (UTC): 2018-08-29 13:43:39 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1034798738412380161

  • IMO: Programming will help you think linguistically better than all other forms

    IMO: Programming will help you think linguistically better than all other forms of reasoning combined, other than physics. Once you have physics and programming you have a formal logic of thinking about the real world and the verbal world. Once you have a BASIC understanding of economics as just ‘delayed’ physics (equilibrium), then you have the world at your feet.

    Programming, as Minsky said, was A NEW WAY OF THINKING for mankind. It is not mathematical thinking or language thinking as much as scientific thinking.

    1 – Reasoning (unconstrained) -Associations

    2 – Logical Thinking (constrained, non operationally constrained) – Sets – Consistency, Non Contradiction

    3 – Operational Thinking (constrained, operationally constrained) – Operations – Operational Possibility.

    Operationalism: The absence of inference, and all the negative consequences of it.

    Source date (UTC): 2018-08-29 09:43:00 UTC

  • The Issue Is Smart Fractions

    —“In a developed country like Belgium with an average IQ of 100, thirty-four percent of the general population makes up its smart fraction. Morocco, in contrast, has an average IQ of 85. Less than eight percent of its people are capable of doing smart-fraction jobs, a fact made plain by its dreary third-world economy.”— Le Lion

  • The Issue Is Smart Fractions

    —“In a developed country like Belgium with an average IQ of 100, thirty-four percent of the general population makes up its smart fraction. Morocco, in contrast, has an average IQ of 85. Less than eight percent of its people are capable of doing smart-fraction jobs, a fact made plain by its dreary third-world economy.”— Le Lion

  • The Standard Deviation in IQ Is Misleading

    You know, I’ve tended to follow the consensus that 15 points is a standard deviation, in intelligence, but that doesn’t help so much because group standard deviations appear to range from 11 to 13, with 12.5 as the sort of median. Secondly, I’ve followed the convention of the center being 100. Both of these are kind of obscuring value. 1 – the sort of middle between expensive to train and inexpensive to train is actually 106. (I sort of think of human potential beginning in that area.) via Lion: —“A verbal IQ of about 106 defines the cognitive lower bound of the smart fraction. And, each percentage point increase in the “smart percent” is worth about $600 (1998) to per capita GDP.”— 2 – Every six points (about half a standard deviation) rather than seven, we see fairly rapid increases in ability. 3 – They suggest average is sort of 95-105, and that’s true, but that’s the arbitrary average of the population given the population. Instead, I would say the average begins at 105 or 106 (105 for simplicity’s sake), and that we are one half standard deviation below the minimum for the upper half to compensate for the lower. And one standard deviation or 12 points below the low end of the optimum for modernity. And that this minimum will increase from 112 to 118 over the next century (or faster). 4 – Roughly speaking 1/3 of the population, meaning the vast majority of the population under 95 has to disappear over the next few hundred years.

  • The Standard Deviation in IQ Is Misleading

    You know, I’ve tended to follow the consensus that 15 points is a standard deviation, in intelligence, but that doesn’t help so much because group standard deviations appear to range from 11 to 13, with 12.5 as the sort of median. Secondly, I’ve followed the convention of the center being 100. Both of these are kind of obscuring value. 1 – the sort of middle between expensive to train and inexpensive to train is actually 106. (I sort of think of human potential beginning in that area.) via Lion: —“A verbal IQ of about 106 defines the cognitive lower bound of the smart fraction. And, each percentage point increase in the “smart percent” is worth about $600 (1998) to per capita GDP.”— 2 – Every six points (about half a standard deviation) rather than seven, we see fairly rapid increases in ability. 3 – They suggest average is sort of 95-105, and that’s true, but that’s the arbitrary average of the population given the population. Instead, I would say the average begins at 105 or 106 (105 for simplicity’s sake), and that we are one half standard deviation below the minimum for the upper half to compensate for the lower. And one standard deviation or 12 points below the low end of the optimum for modernity. And that this minimum will increase from 112 to 118 over the next century (or faster). 4 – Roughly speaking 1/3 of the population, meaning the vast majority of the population under 95 has to disappear over the next few hundred years.