Curt Doolittle

Theme: Operationalism

  • Testimonial Pragmatism & Propertarian CalculusTestimonial Pragmatism & Propertar

    Testimonial Pragmatism & Propertarian CalculusTestimonial Pragmatism & Propertarian Calculus

    SINGULAR SPEECH·THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2018

    Presuppositions of the Scientific Process

    The scientific process allows us to create and test hypothesis such that we can use them to explain phenomena (within a degree of precision) and act on that knowledge (within the scope given by precision); but even such use comes with presuppositions (inherent limits).Presuppositions = [ Regularity | Shared Language ]One needs to presuppose that the phenomena under investigation have useful regularities which we can capture in a model (precise enough for us to act on it). If no regularity existed, our model would fail to help us make any prediction with any degree of reliability, and as such, it would work no better than fiction.Regularity := Unpredictable > Heuristic > Probabilistic > Deterministic > ConstantRegularity (constancy) sets an ideal limit on testing criteria, whose repeated application tests the consistency of models as they evolve, this guarantees constant maintenance of coherent models as a response to advances in instrumentation and logic.Science requires a common set of testing criteria, since without such common criteria, anyone could claim scientific status for their propositions. Science must work by the mapping of the “platonic folds” where theories fail to correspond enough with our data as to have any practical use.Shared Language := Nonsense > Associative > Meaningful > Operational > SynchronousSimultaneity (synchronism) sets an ideal limit on shared languages, which allows us to elaborate descriptions and constrain our imagination to that which someone seeks to communicate.Without (at least) an operational shared language, others will not execute commands (to measure, compare and transform) as intended. Deviations from shared language can result in many self-proclaimed “scientific” communities talking past each other.

    Assumptions & Tools in Specific Disciplines

    Beyond the core presuppositions that define science itself, specific disciplines adjoin premises (which complement the method), procedures (which sets a standard of action), techniques (which defines a common set of operations), and instruments (which expand the scope of exploration).Assumptions = [ Premises | Procedures | Techniques | Instruments ]Premises either evolve all the way from initial hypothesis towards its foundational status (in the scientific field) or result from the addition of ontological and logical assumptions from an expanded shared language.Ontological premises increase the vocabulary of a particular discipline beyond that of the scientific method, thus it provides the basic conceptual framework for further discussion. Scientific revolutions often result from the inspection into the “platonic foldings” (which define limits) for these systems.Logical premises restrict the range of linguistic operations upon which formal models get constructed. One can find the limits of a theory by mapping the points of failure where those limited set of operations predict beyond an acceptable margin of error.Techniques and Instruments evolve along with advances in technology (which expand that our physical senses), developments in the formal logic (which restrict our mental operations), and establishment of social institutions (which organize the community).Procedures evolve along with the tools of science (techniques and instruments) as operational definitions that convert theoretical constructs into measurable, comparable and transmutable data which one can then use.

    Testing Criteria and Testimonial Constraints

    Testing Criteria = [ Categorical | Logical | Empirical | Operational | Moral ] Testimonial Constraints = [ Scope | Information | Time ]The Categorical (which we may also call naming or identity) criterion refers to the proper avoidance of conflation by making explicit the ontology of a theory through labels and definitions, this allows us to eliminate a great deal of ambiguity and vagueness.The Logical (which we may also call internal consistency) criterion refers to the correct use of logical structures in our formal models of a theory and consistent narrative in informal models, this allows to eliminate ambiguity, restrict linguistic operations and to make further inferences.The Empirical (which we may also call external consistency) criterion refers to the use of data obtained from observations and experiments (through procedures) in order to verify predictions from theory.The Operational (which we may also call existential) criterion refers to the use of procedures in order to map from categories extant in our models into data which we can measure, compare and transform.The Moral (which we may also call reciprocal) criterion refers to the preservation of human cooperation, and for such to happen, our transactions must remain productive, symmetrical, warrantied, voluntary, and without negative externality.The Scope (which we may also call falsifiability) constraint refers to the use of empirical data and logical systems to find the limits where a theory fails to work with enough precision for us to act on it.The Information (which we may also call full accounting) constraint refers to the proper accounting of all relevant information through bias removal mechanisms such as double-blind, controlled, randomized trials; evaluation of construct validity; and market judgement (survival upon application).The Time (which we may also call survival) constraint refers to the survival of ideas after repeated exposure to testimonial judgement by all previous criteria to such an extent that we just integrate them into our assumptions.The Categorical, and Logical, and Empirical, and Operational, and Moral criteria judge the regularity of theories on (independent) dimensions of truthfulness, whereas the Information, and Scope, and Time criteria define constraints and obligations upon the application of all.

    Assertions and Arguments under Testimonial Pragmatism

    Assertions := Conceptual > Preferential > Practical > Moral > Rational > Decidable > Objective > IdenticalIdentical (tautological) propositions set an ideal limit on assertions, such that they describe with the greatest parsimony and precision possible.Arguments = [ Emotional | Normative | Logical | Analogical | Empirical | Economic | Testimonial ]Emotional arguments support (or contradict) an assertion by relating it to an emotional response upon the subject. It also includes arguments based on one’s intuitions.Normative arguments support (or contradict) an assertion by comparing it against the rules and norms which one considers to apply, whether its origin is biological, social, economic, or religious.Logical arguments support (or contradict) an assertion by analysis of the conceptual (its categorical consistency) and linguistic structure of the argument (its internal consistency).Analogical arguments support (or contradict) an assertion by means of a comparison with similar assertions about events in different contexts, such as the reference to specific examples.Empirical arguments support (or contradict) an assertion by using procedures to obtain data (measurement) and compare it with an assertion derived from an hypothesis (its external consistency).Economic arguments support (or contradict) an assertion by means like those of empirical arguments, but whose data comes from uncontrolled variable which one cannot measure directly.Testimonial arguments make use of normative, logical, analogical, empirical, and economic arguments in order to make practical, moral, rational, decidable, and objective assertions that survive the tests of categorical, logical, empirical, and operational consistency under the scope, information, and time constraints.

    Evolutionary Epistemology under Testimonial Pragmatism

    The scientific process works by use of its scientific method, which refers to the application of testing criteria as a way to filter out that which one finds untrue, rather than selection of that which is true.Assumptions := Association > Hypothesis > Theory > Law > AssumptionOne can visualize the process, being one of inquiry, as starting with a problem and proceeding towards a solution, but it does not impose limits upon how one arrives to the initial hypothesis, one is free to engage in creative association.Upon achieving crucial ideas by free association (of ideas), one needs to formulate an hypothesis by proper organization of concepts (hypothesis must survive identity and logical tests) and their operational definitions (which allows one to apply empirical tests).The hypothesis which survives further testing (by our application of empirical tests) become theories which we will perpetually submit to further testing as we evolve beyond our previous assumptions.Once a theory survives application in the markets it becomes a law, which in the case of human cooperation includes the test of reciprocal consistency. Those laws which survive the tests of time (continuous application of tests over time) may evolve into assumptions (our collective premises).While the previous description applies to the evolution of knowledge into premises, similar series apply to the evolution of other discipline specific assumptions such as procedures, techniques, and even instruments.

    Knowledge beyond Testimonial Pragmatism

    Knowledge = [ Presuppositions | Assumptions | Traditions | Experiences ]One can also consider a broader pragmatic hierarchy, where testimonial pragmatism remains at the center as its core (along with its presuppositions). Beyond this core we see each discipline add further assumptions, which must still submit to testimonial judgement.Beyond core presuppositions and discipline specific assumptions one can include inherited traditions and personal experiences. Time tested heuristics (embedded in traditions) have survival value, even if we cannot ascertain its reason in declarative propositions.Personal experiences which do not contradict testimonial law also take part on the hierarchy. Such experiences may help one to compose their own personal morality and may aid in the discovery phase of the scientific process.

    Demonstrated Property under Propertarian Calculus

    Self-Property – Body, Time, Actions, Memory, Concepts, Status, etc.

    Personal Property – Houses, Cars, “Things”, etc.

    Kinship Property – Mates, Children, Family, Friends, etc.

    Cooperative Property – Organizational and Knowledge ties.

    Shareholder Property – Recorded and Quantified shares.

    Common Property – Citizenship, Artificial Property.

    Informal Institutional Property – Manners, Ethics, Morals, Myths, Rituals.

    Formal Institutional Property – Religion, Government, Laws.

    {TO BE CONTINUED…}

    Source date (UTC): 2019-02-20 17:03:00 UTC

  • CLOSING IN ON METAPHYSICS AS NON-EXISTENT, or simply cogn sci: demarcation betwe

    CLOSING IN ON METAPHYSICS AS NON-EXISTENT, or simply cogn sci: demarcation between observable and experienceable.

    What is metaphysics other than either operational description(existential) or fiction(inexistential)? Why is M not just another scale of physics just as chemistry another scale of atomic states, and atomic states just another scale of particles, and particles just another scale of fundamental forces, and fundamental forces just another scale of information? Sentience and consiousness are just another scale of the physical world in operation. So just as space time is the result of underlying physical reactions, so are experience and consiousness.

    I am getting closer I think to understanding the confusion of those who claim it exists but I still have to agree with those who say it is handwaving.

    AFAIK. the human experience is just a continuation of physics, and all operations and experiences explicable in fairly simple terms the underlying mechanics of which only matter in producing aggregates.

    Metaphysics as far as I know, simply means the ontology(paradigms) of cognitive science at different levels of commensurable operations (scales), just as physics consists of ontologies(paradigms) at different levels of commensurable operations(scales), and I have seen nothing to alter that understanding (even in aristotle) that proposition other than attempts at sophism, pseudoscience, occult, and fraud. And I am absolutely positive that this will persist.

    My understanding of the reason is that different disciplines use incompatible (incommensurable) paradigms (ontologies) and as such people have to fictionalize relations between them.

    However, operatios (analogy to experience no matter how difficult to experience) serves as a universally commensurable system of measurement within and across all scales whether physical or cognitive (or linguistic) and as such M is not a discipline but simply cog sci, and all attempts to say otherwise are simply fictionalisms to compensate for incommensurability generating demand for fictions.

    In other words fictions produce conflation inflation and opportunity for inductive and deductive error from false premises (ontologies, paradigms), and simply serve as sources of ignorance, fraud, and deceit (Popper).

    Ergo, metaphysics consists simply an extension of physics in the same commensurable language of operations, and there are not multiple metaphysics, just ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion and obscurantism, fictionalism and deceit..

    And I can’t find any alternative explanation. And I’m not at all unique in this understanding. (Van Frassen, McGinn, Thomassen cited in SEP). And the anti-positivist criticism does not hold against falsificationism/critical naturalism – only asks for commensurability across scales, to maintain coherence and parsimony in defense against error, bias, fiction and deceit.

    And I am still stuck with the non-anglo desire for empathy with ontologies (experiencing) rather than objectivity(describing).

    Is this purely cultural or are scandinavian(northern european) peoples genetically different in that we have greater distance (agency) between intuition and cognition.

    AFAIK every problem I have encountered that we call metaphysics is simply a grammatical error. In fact, I’m not sure philosophy exists of much other than grammatical errors (Malformed calculations).

    And this is because language is a system of measurement that is only as useful as grammatical demands (tolerances) allow. And that as a system of measurement the only deflationary and inflationary method of speech is operations.

    While certain philosophers have made this claim and have been attacked, these attacks occur under the fallacy of closure in the system of language itself. Which is a common sophomoric argument in philosophical discourse. The only closure is reality itself in toto.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-02-17 12:05:00 UTC

  • “There’s another way to sum up your approach, Curt Doolittle—Critical Naturali

    —“There’s another way to sum up your approach, Curt Doolittle—Critical Naturalism with an Operational Epistemology requires “metaphysical humility” before the Natural Law. Nature has many undiscovered secrets to be sure, but we use Testimonialism and Scientific investigation rather than metaphysical speculation to gain insight.”–Nick Dahlheim

    Source date (UTC): 2019-02-15 20:58:00 UTC

  • I don’t know what a metaphysics is if I have constructed one. I know I have defl

    I don’t know what a metaphysics is if I have constructed one. I know I have deflated and disambiguated LANGUAGE.

    1. I have enumerated the known grammars used by human beings and the history of their development in each era and why.

    2. I have articulated the dimensions of those grammars and how they all function.

    3. I have articulated the constitution of grammars although this is merely a refinement of chomsky.

    4. I have deflated disambiguated, operationalized, and serialized terms from across the fields, reducing all fields to a common vocabulary absent pretense of knowledge (largely idealism).

    And a lot more.

    Physical science, cognitive science, and if grammars are separate from cognitive science then the grammars, and as far as I know the rest is just ‘lies’.

    As far as I know philosophy is dead, just as theology is dead.

    There is only one testifiable method we have today (and have always had) and that is the law, and science is just an application of the law (due diligence and warranty of the truthfulness of one’s statements.)

    So as far as I know metaphysics as defined in every source I know of (which includes the SEP section 5, stating it does not exist) does not exist as other than an attempt to do as I stated above: fictionalism and lies.

    In other words, as far as I know P constitutes a logic of constant relations using actions which are all subjectively testable and marginally indifferent as a system of measurement.

    And language consists entirely of measurement. the question is only the precision of those measurements.

    Science has demonstrated parsimony.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-02-14 10:15:00 UTC

  • METAPHYSICS: “FITTING” You see, you start with the supply side error of ‘fitting

    METAPHYSICS: “FITTING”

    You see, you start with the supply side error of ‘fitting’ and tell me what the unicorn of metaphysics ‘is’.

    I start with the demand side and ask what problems are you supposedly trying to solve.

    The answer is that there exist only the material with potential to know, the experiential, memory of experience, and the products of our actions with the potential to know them.

    The rest is just fictionalism.

    Why: because the scale of free association is ‘exciting’ just as hallucinogens are exciting, and for the same reasons

    So if you mean you want to engage in experiential fictionalism I understand it as a form of entertainment. But that’s all it is.

    EPISTEMOLOGY

    Experience > Free association > Hypothesis > Theory > Law.

    GRAMMARS

    Deflationary < descriptive < ordinary > narrative > Inflationary > Conflationary

    Don’t confuse ‘Philosophy’ with ‘literature’. Fantasy literature exists in every field. It’s just that we are honest about literary fiction and dishonest about literary fictional-ISM (occult, pseudoscience, idealism, sophism.)

    Source date (UTC): 2019-02-14 08:40:00 UTC

  • CHANTING THE CORE 😉 Given: Any statement passes the tests of: – categorically c

    CHANTING THE CORE 😉

    Given:

    Any statement passes the tests of:

    – categorically consistent (identity)

    – internally consistent (Logically consistent)

    – externally correspondent (empirically consistent)

    – existentially consistent (operationally stated)

    – scope consistent (limits and full accounting)

    – rational (subjectively consistent – incentives )

    – reciprocal (reciprocally subjectively consistent – exchanges)

    – with these warranties of due diligence,

    – within the limits of possible restitution,

    Therefore:

    – Any such display word or deed;

    – is free of imposition of costs,

    And Therefore;

    – free of retaliation.

    And Therefore;

    – it is truthful and moral.

    We can never know if a statement is true (“critical naturalism”).

    We can only know that we have exhausted due diligence sufficient for the demand for due diligence given the promise, claim, testimony we are making.

    This is Propertarian Natural Law’s epistemology:

    … “Testimonialism’:

    … … “The completion of the scientific method”,

    … … … or what some call

    … … … … ‘Critical Naturalism’.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-02-12 18:50:00 UTC

  • THAT THING WE CALL ‘LOGIC” We can observe our use of logic, math, geometry, just

    THAT THING WE CALL ‘LOGIC”

    We can observe our use of logic, math, geometry, just fine, the way we can observe every other one of our senses. But, until the present era would could not inspect the mechanism by which logic, math, geometry function: the detection of differences in constant relations between recursive neural networks.

    In other words, we lacked instrumentation for observation and measurement at such scales, and a paradigm (logic) for modeling them instrumental (computer science). it also is the most complex phenomenon we have examined which, because it’s heuristic (adaptive).

    But the fundamentally ability of us to sense differences, particularly in something so informationally dense (concentrated) as speech, is produced by differences in degree and distribution of excitement of neural networks. In other words we sense both constant and inconstant relations, in what babbage correctly called ‘a difference engine’.

    The logical facility consists in our ability to detect differences in constant relations between a nearly infinite hierarchy of forever-contingent associations. The discipline we call logic attempts to tests whether we ‘speak’ in constant relations. The discipline of formal logic attempts to produce a grammar of categories of constant relations in an effort to test for inconstant relations, claimed to be constant.

    —“Long before the twentieth century the prevailing opinion was that Euclidean geometry, standard mathematics, and logic did not rest on experience in any obvious way. They were largely presupposed in our empirical work, and it was difficult to see what if anything might disconfirm them. Geometry was a special case and might be handled in different ways that we shall not discuss here. That leaves logic and mathematics.”—S.E.P.

    – Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2019-01-28 07:34:00 UTC

  • No other way to turn a lot of ‘very conflated colloquial language’ for the purpo

    No other way to turn a lot of ‘very conflated colloquial language’ for the purpose of discounts on conveying meaning by free association, into a set of measurements for the purpose of prohibiting ignorance, error, bias, wishful thinking, fraud, and deceit prohibiting free assoc.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-01-25 16:12:44 UTC

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  • You’re a smart enough guy and you can probably undrestand the grammars, the oper

    You’re a smart enough guy and you can probably undrestand the grammars, the operational grammar, the epistemology, and the law fairly easily. (This is what people tell me.) But since we combine terms from so many disciplines and disambiguate them so heavily, terms are a pain.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-01-25 16:10:43 UTC

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  • On the other hand the scope of this work is huge, because it begins with the com

    On the other hand the scope of this work is huge, because it begins with the completion of the scientific method and applies it to every single field at some level or other in order to create a commensurable and therefore testable language. So, on average 6m-2y to learn it.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-01-25 16:08:34 UTC

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