HOW DO WE USE SCIENCE TO CONSTRUCT OUR PERCEPTION OF REALITY?
Science is the construction of calculable analogies to experience by means of instrumentation consisting of tools for correspondence and logics for coherence.
(reposted for archiving purposes)
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-06 10:18:00 UTC
CORRECTING GEORGE LAKOFF’S POSTMODERN FASCINATION WITH THE EXPERIENTIAL CONCEPTS; “EMBODIED” and METAPHOR
Just reading his work makes me agitated. As if introspection could tell us something on the one end, and as if reduction could tell us something on the other.
What follows are three important points. The second of which is profoundly important.
Propertarianism:
REGARDING #1 BELOW
(a) We must use a variety of instrumental systems (logics) and instrumental means (technology) to reduce that which is imperceptible with our senses, to analogies to experience.
(b) That our senses are limited to that which we can experience with our bodies is certainly true. However, that metaphors which can easily be loaded, are equal to logics which cannot be, is to make the postmodern error that our feelings are more than descriptions of changes in state given our CURRENT knowledge. They tell us only whether we are ignorant of something or not. They don’t tell us anything meaningful about the universe. This is why introspection is meaningless activity, while action is meaningful.
(b) Given that we must reduce to analogy to experience that which we wish to perceive, then there is a maximum level of precision that humans can make use of in any theory of action in any given context. In this sense, newton’s theory is the greatest precision we need for all perceptible human action. As such it is not false, it is just only applicable to the instrumentation that is available to our senses. (I haven’t said this quite right. I have to think about how to state it better.) There is a maximum level of precision that we need to understand human behavior. I am fairly sure that propertarianism is the maximum level of precision necessary for the formulation of political cooperation.
REGARDING #2 BELOW
(a) All experience can be expressed in operational terms. Otherwise, per ’embodiment’ we cannot express it. The profundity of this statement should not be overlooked. In other words, there is nothing we cannot express that we can experience. We may lack the language for it. But that is all. For example, as I have argued, mathematics can be expressed entirely operationally, yet mathematicians persist in discourse about ‘mathematical reality’, when no such thing exists or can exist in any meaningful sense other than as imagination. So, due to the necessity of simplifying terms, and the advantage of highly loading and framing terms, we obscure content. However, no content is actually obscurable in operational language. The problem is that as complexity increases the ability of the both the speaker and the listener to construct an and share an experience requires some sort of reduction. But that does not mean that the entire experience cannot be articulated operationally. (If I could get this one point across then my work would be done. lol) This is what praxeologists have failed to understand. All experience may be reduced to operational language, and therefore truth tested, but not much can be deduced from that statement without the additional use of logic, science and instrumentation to extend our perceptions to that which we cannot perceive without their assistance.
REGARDING #3 BELOW
(a) Reason is not very complicated. Experience is the use of short term memory to determine changes in the state of our assets both real and imagined in real time, and storing those changes in state in long term memory given the amplitude of the change. We then compare experiences with other experiences. And we test those differences. We are very limited in the number of differences that we can test. So we rely on our logical technologies to extend our memories so that we can break a problem into simple sections which our simple minds are able to solve one at a time. As such reason and experience are only different from the natural world in that they exist only with the passage of time.
———-
#1″ Reason is not disembodied, as the tradition has largely held, but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experience. This is not just the innocuous and obvious claim that we need a body to reason; rather, it is the striking claim that the very structure of reason itself comes from the details of our embodiment. The same neural and cognitive mechanisms that allow us to perceive and move around also create our conceptual systems and modes of reason. Thus, to understand reason we must understand the details of our visual system, our motor system, and the general mechanisms of neural binding. In summary, reason is not, in any way, a transcendent feature of the universe or of disembodied mind. Instead, it is shaped crucially by the peculiarities of our human bodies, by the remarkable details of the neural structure of
our brains, and by the specifics of our everyday functioning in the world.”
#2 “Reason is evolutionary, in that abstract reason builds on and makes use of forms of perceptual and motor inference present in “lower” animals. The result is a Darwinism of reason, a rational Darwinism: Reason, even in its most abstract form, makes use of, rather than transcends, our animal nature. The discovery that reason is evolutionary utterly changes our relation to other animals and changes our conception of human beings as uniquely rational. Reason is thus not an essence that separates us from other animals; rather, it places us on a continuum with them.
#3″ Reason is not “universal” in the transcendent sense; that is, it is not part of the structure of the universe. It is universal, however, in that it is a capacity shared universally by all human beings. What allows it to be shared are the commonalities that exist in the way our minds are embodied.”
• Reason is not completely conscious, but mostly unconscious.
• Reason is not purely literal, but largely metaphorical and imaginative.
• Reason is not dispassionate, but emotionally engaged.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-01 16:02:00 UTC
THANK YOU -ALL- FOR LETTING ME TEST MY RECENT IDEAS ON YOU AND YOUR PATIENCE 🙂
It was necessary. It’s the only way to test ideas that I know of. I just construct arguments. They’re like little robot gladiators. If they succeed we learn, if they fail we learn. But the only way to test your own understanding is to argue your points, and see if they survive.
UNITING FACTIONS
I should, at this point, be able to achieve my goals, and unite the Conservative (normative and moral), Dark Enlightenment (scientific and political) and Anarcho Capitalist (economic and philosophical) movements in a common rational, political and moral language.
Each group is ‘right’ about something and ‘wrong’ about other things. This is because each group gives greater weight to some social properties and less to others.
POLITICAL IDENTITIES
The rough strategy involves giving each group an identity or specialization, and using propertarian language as a means of working together, so that each group does not have to master, or even value, the biases of the other.
Although the work of doing all that ought to be a bit daunting. Mostly because intellect is not evenly distributed across these groups. It’s hard enough to have a challenging talk with libertarians, but …. you know, having that talk with conservatives, and some DE folks, is an exercise in futility.
But reality is created by chanting. Repetition allows us to gradually connect the networks of neurons needed to understand associations.
The grammar of this language is pretty simple. It takes some getting used to. Because we’re linguistically lazy, and formal logic is linguistically burdensome, in exchange for argumentative clarity, and praxeological testability.
I HAD TO TEST MY ARGUMENTS AGAINST ROTHBARDIAN ETHICS TO REPLACE THEM WITH PROPERTARIAN ETHICS.
I’m sure that I frustrated some libertarians. No one likes the slaughter of their sacred cows. Even though, it’s pretty clear that I’ve forever dispatched Rothbardian ethics from rational consideration.
I put a bullet in the NAP/PrivateProperty that it cannot recover from. The wound is mortal. It just depends on how long it will take for the idea to die.
I’ve demonstrated that either the NAP is the wrong test of violation of property, OR that the definition of property is insufficient in scope for rational use in a polity.
In propertarianism I have taken the approach of extending the definition of property and maintaining the principle of aggression against it because I have based, correctly, the source of property rights on the organized use of violence, and aggression is consistent with that argumentative logic.
I HAD TO TEST OPERATIONALISM AS AN ATTACK ON PLATONISM IN ORDER TO CREATE UNIVERSAL ETHICS, AND CONVERT PRAXEOLOGY INTO THE MISSING BRANCH OF LOGIC.
It was actually fascinating to see people in math and science DESPERATELY cling to their platonic arealism with the same fervor that mystics justify their defense of a supernatural god.
I’m still …. really… awed, that anyone presented with constructive(intuitionist,realist,operational) arguments would even for a MOMENT question that platonism was merely a crutch for the weak mind.
But operationalism and the logic of cooperation (praxeology) form the missing logic with which we begin to see all philosophy as a theory of action.
SO THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE
I guess I have to get serious now about (a) contributing to the other political dialogs, (b) introducing them to these ideas, and (c) producing the grammar and (d) finishing the first book (at least).
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-31 03:54:00 UTC
KNOWLEDGE OF CONSTRUCTION VS KNOWLEDGE OF USE
Joel Mokyr did a wonderful job in Gifts of Athena, but he has the strange jewish predilection for conflating verbalisms with existence. He refers to “Knowledge of how” and “knowledge of what”. These are verbal categories only. They aren’t causal categories.
I use the terms “Knowledge of Construction” and “Knowledge of Use” (how). While “Use” and “How” share similar properties, “Construction and What” are sufficiently different in properties to mean considerably different things.
“Construction” requires action in time. I have no idea what “What” should mean other than an empty verbal category. It’s a purely self-centered, experiential statement.
I am fairly sure that if someone says they understand something, it means a knowledge of construction. Whether they can use it or not is only a small portion of the possible domain.
Construction, Use, Intended Consequence, Unintended Consequence.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-26 11:16:00 UTC
AN OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF “MEANING”
Meaning: the experience produced by the interaction between memory and stimuli caused by human action in time. This definition survives criticism even if the action is purely passive observation. All symbols for meaning are constructed from some set of analogies to experience. These constructs evolve through repetition and loading, until their constituent causal relations are lost, and all that remains is the habituated experience caused by the term. At which point ‘meaning’ is a purely experiential, rather than constructive. At that point, reason no longer can be said to apply. If one cannot explain something in analogies to experience, where analogies to experience are statements in operational language, one does not understand the terms one uses. They are merely experiential metaphors, used to transfer experiences rather than causal properties independent of experiences.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-24 09:34:00 UTC
My definition of Truth under Scientific Realism, is that any notion of Truth can only exist if we say it is a) Performative, consisting of b) Correspondence and c) Coherence (internal consistency). And that all other statements are analogies to some subset of these properties. And that d) formal theories of truth (the ‘logics’) are each subsets of Coherence, which test certain properties of any “True” and therefore Performative, Correspondent and Coherent statement. And that e) property and involuntary transfer constitute a missing logic of cooperation, that renders all transfers open to analysis and criticism. And that f) praxeology constitutes a missing logic of the rationality of decisions and incentives, that renders all actions open to subjective testing. But because humans are marginally indifferent in their rationality and incentives, such subjective, SYMPATHETIC testing functions as an objective test of the rationality of incentives. And that: g) Constructive (meaning socially constructive, including Consensus theories) and Pragmatic theories of truth are failed attempts at obscurant coercion (theft) by adherents to enlightenment democratic equalitarianism, socialists, postmodernists, and totalitarian humanists. Just as the Rawlsian veil is yet another attempt at obscuring involuntary transfers, while relying on the impossibility of human judgement to make such decisions as would be required to achieve the abstract concept of ‘justice’. As such I view truth as Performative (attestation) constrained by and consisting of { i) Correspondent (with reality); ii) Cohesive (internally consistent and formal); iii) Identitarian (categories, properties and names) iv) Propertarian (cooperative moral action); v) Praxeological (rational action) } properties – each subset set of properties requiring separate logics for the isolation and analysis of each subset. Conversely, no ‘complete attest-able truth’ can be constructed in any subset without consideration of all. It may be (as in the case of any of the formal logics) that no external dependency is present (although I cannot think of one). But I am unaware of any formal logic without external dependency. This is a non contradictory, fully explanatory theory of the criteria for truth. And so far I am unable to formalize a criticism of CR, because for all intents and purposes that I can imagine, the CR definition of truth is platonic and non existent, and impossible. Since the only truth that can exist is attestation: the constant reduction in our own errors as we try to describe the properties of the universe. We can know what is false. That is our only certainty. But we can never know a platonic truth other than a tautology, because only tautological statements are complete. A complete statement is not open to attestation. If any statement is not tautological, and therefore incomplete, it is open to attestation. But how can we say an attestation is meaningful if it’s tautological? We are, with the concept of truth, improving our attestations about the universe. This is what we improve. That is the purpose and function of truth. Since only by improving our attestations and constantly testing them can we improve our actions, and by our actions, continue to increasingly outwit the deterministic processes in the universe by constructing minor alterations to that universe such that we can make use of the universe as we will. If I am to defend the claim that obscurantism must be prohibited from political speech (argument), then I cannot make this claim on irrefutable terms, without at least addressing the relationship between the logical disciplines, and the very nature of philosophy, as a moral endeavor. No man is an island. No argument in any sub discipline is either.
My definition of Truth under Scientific Realism, is that any notion of Truth can only exist if we say it is a) Performative, consisting of b) Correspondence and c) Coherence (internal consistency). And that all other statements are analogies to some subset of these properties. And that d) formal theories of truth (the ‘logics’) are each subsets of Coherence, which test certain properties of any “True” and therefore Performative, Correspondent and Coherent statement. And that e) property and involuntary transfer constitute a missing logic of cooperation, that renders all transfers open to analysis and criticism. And that f) praxeology constitutes a missing logic of the rationality of decisions and incentives, that renders all actions open to subjective testing. But because humans are marginally indifferent in their rationality and incentives, such subjective, SYMPATHETIC testing functions as an objective test of the rationality of incentives. And that: g) Constructive (meaning socially constructive, including Consensus theories) and Pragmatic theories of truth are failed attempts at obscurant coercion (theft) by adherents to enlightenment democratic equalitarianism, socialists, postmodernists, and totalitarian humanists. Just as the Rawlsian veil is yet another attempt at obscuring involuntary transfers, while relying on the impossibility of human judgement to make such decisions as would be required to achieve the abstract concept of ‘justice’. As such I view truth as Performative (attestation) constrained by and consisting of { i) Correspondent (with reality); ii) Cohesive (internally consistent and formal); iii) Identitarian (categories, properties and names) iv) Propertarian (cooperative moral action); v) Praxeological (rational action) } properties – each subset set of properties requiring separate logics for the isolation and analysis of each subset. Conversely, no ‘complete attest-able truth’ can be constructed in any subset without consideration of all. It may be (as in the case of any of the formal logics) that no external dependency is present (although I cannot think of one). But I am unaware of any formal logic without external dependency. This is a non contradictory, fully explanatory theory of the criteria for truth. And so far I am unable to formalize a criticism of CR, because for all intents and purposes that I can imagine, the CR definition of truth is platonic and non existent, and impossible. Since the only truth that can exist is attestation: the constant reduction in our own errors as we try to describe the properties of the universe. We can know what is false. That is our only certainty. But we can never know a platonic truth other than a tautology, because only tautological statements are complete. A complete statement is not open to attestation. If any statement is not tautological, and therefore incomplete, it is open to attestation. But how can we say an attestation is meaningful if it’s tautological? We are, with the concept of truth, improving our attestations about the universe. This is what we improve. That is the purpose and function of truth. Since only by improving our attestations and constantly testing them can we improve our actions, and by our actions, continue to increasingly outwit the deterministic processes in the universe by constructing minor alterations to that universe such that we can make use of the universe as we will. If I am to defend the claim that obscurantism must be prohibited from political speech (argument), then I cannot make this claim on irrefutable terms, without at least addressing the relationship between the logical disciplines, and the very nature of philosophy, as a moral endeavor. No man is an island. No argument in any sub discipline is either.
TRUTH: NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. AND NO LOGICAL ARGUMENT IS EITHER.
(reposted from elsewhere)
My definition of Truth under Scientific Realism, is that any notion of Truth whatsoever can only exist if we say it is a) Performative, consisting of b) Correspondence (external correspondence) and c) Coherence (internal consistency). And that all other truth claims are analogies to some subset of these properties.
Further:
That d) formal theories of truth (the ‘logics’) are each subsets of Coherence, which test certain properties of any “True” and therefore Performative, Correspondent and Coherent statement.
And that e) property and involuntary transfer constitute a missing logic of cooperation, that renders all transfers open to analysis and criticism.
And that f) praxeology constitutes a missing logic of the rationality of decisions and incentives, that renders all actions open to subjective testing. But because humans are marginally indifferent in their rationality and incentives, such subjective, SYMPATHETIC testing functions as an objective test of the rationality of incentives.
And that: g) Constructive (meaning socially constructive, including Consensus theories) and Pragmatic theories of truth are failed attempts at obscurant coercion (theft) by adherents to enlightenment democratic equalitarianism, socialists, postmodernists, and totalitarian humanists. Just as the Rawlsian veil is yet another attempt at obscuring involuntary transfers, while relying on the impossibility of human judgement to make such decisions as would be required to achieve the abstract concept of ‘justice’.
As such I view truth as Performative (attestation) constrained by and consisting of {
i) Correspondent (with reality);
ii) Cohesive (internally consistent and formal);
iii) Identitarian (categories, properties and names)
iv) Propertarian (cooperative moral action);
v) Praxeological (rational action)
} properties – each subset set of properties requiring separate logics for the isolation and analysis of each subset.
Conversely, no ‘complete attest-able truth’ can be constructed in any subset without consideration of all. It may be (as in the case of any of the formal logics) that no external dependency is present (although I cannot think of one). But I am unaware of any formal logic without external dependency.
This is a non contradictory, fully explanatory theory of the criteria for truth. And so far I am unable to formalize a criticism of CR, because for all intents and purposes that I can imagine, the CR definition of truth is platonic and non existent, and impossible. Since the only truth that can exist is attestation: the constant reduction in our own errors as we try to describe the properties of the universe.
We can know what is false. That is our only certainty. But we can never know a platonic truth other than a tautology, because only tautological statements are complete. A complete statement is not open to attestation. If any statement is not tautological, and therefore incomplete, it is open to attestation. But how can we say an attestation is meaningful if it’s tautological?
We are, with the concept of truth, improving our attestations about the universe. This is what we improve. That is the purpose and function of truth. Since only by improving our attestations and constantly testing them can we improve our actions, and by our actions, continue to increasingly outwit the deterministic processes in the universe by constructing minor alterations to that universe such that we can make use of the universe as we will.
If I am to defend the claim that obscurantism must be prohibited from political speech (argument), then I cannot make this claim on irrefutable terms, without at least addressing the relationship between the logical disciplines, and the very nature of philosophy, as a moral endeavor.
No man is an island.
No argument in any sub discipline is either.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-22 07:11:00 UTC
Over the past five or six years I’ve wondered how to measure the ability of human beings to identify relations. We know that it’s hard work and there is a limit. We know that we must be able to construct those relations in a fairly short period of time. But, how do we measure it?
I didn’t think it was possible. But now I think it might be.
Sure, IQ is still a loose proxy. But it describes our relative differences, it does not tell us enough (that I am aware of) about how to weigh the different types of content other than verbal and mathematical. While I don’t discount empathic intelligence, I dont think it tells us much of value, about our minds, even if it’s utilitarian in practice.
The question I’m struggling with is, that given our sort of fascination with ideal types, and given the clear necessity for logics (instrumentation) and our clear inability to think in increasingly complex numbers of dimensions without the help of cartesian or three dimensional models, and given our need to name functions (sets of operations) there is some sort of limit that I cannot put my arms quite around. But I am fairly certain if I struggle with that I will be able to eventually answer.
We have IQ, and response time. We know that it only takes about 300 words to articulate all human experiences. We know that we can load terms, phrases, sentences, explanations and narratives, almost infinitely. But we also know that at some point we lose the ability to reconstruct or deconstruct those terms. So how do we measure that?
What is the objective, experiential difference between concepts?
I know that figuring out that property was the sort of unit of commensurability helps get to a solution. But what is that solution?
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-19 09:44:00 UTC
Why does the UK demonstrate lower trust than the USA, but people in the UK *SAY IN SURVEYS* that they have higher trust.
I think there are better tests of trust in every country: banking policy and regulation.
The more. The less.
But I can’t find any papers on Banking policy trust levels in SSRN.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-15 07:36:00 UTC