Curt Doolittle

Theme: Operationalism

  • THE IRONY OF AUSTRIAN APRIORISM (profound) (reformation of libertarianism) From

    THE IRONY OF AUSTRIAN APRIORISM

    (profound) (reformation of libertarianism)

    From my position as a scientific realist, understanding that praxeology is and must be an operational discipline, the advocates of apriorism and the universal deducibility of economics appear humorously ironic – whenever they are not exasperatingly frustrating.

    SUBJECTIVE TESTING

    We cannot deduce economic phenomenon (laws) from fist principles. We have not. We do not. We will not. The matter is settled by the evidence that we did not deduce sticky prices, consumer irrationality, the extraordinary impact of morality on economics, and the multitude of cognitive biases that incorrectly inform our intuitions.

    But, what we CAN do, given an empirically, instrumentally observed phenomenon, is to deduce the incentives to act, and therefore the actions that produce economic phenomenon, particularly emergent economic phenomenon, once they are empirically observed.

    And conversely, we can test the rationality of incentives, and the voluntary or involuntary transfer of property, of economic propositions, if they are stated in operational language: as a SERIES OF HUMAN ACTIONS. (ie: operationalism)

    We can perform this test because human incentives sufficient for the voluntary organization of production are marginally indifferent. If they were not marginally indifferent then the voluntary organization of production in a polity of humans would be if not impossible, at least far more difficult.

    We do experience this level of difficulty whenever the difference in the portfolio of property rights used in any two polities are sufficiently different that trade must be reduced to the lowest common denominator. This is the case for trade barriers.

    Trade barriers compensate for differences in local purchasing power, but also for differences in local property rights – for example, when the export of natural resources are subject to tariffs for redistribution to the polity. But the more common example is trade with primitive societies in which intertemporal contract and property do not exist.

    OPERATIONALISM = HUMAN ACTION

    Operationalism is the requirement that we express statements as a series of actions. Operationalism requires that we demonstrate knowledge of construction, because one cannot make operational statements without knowledge of construction.

    Human action is an operationalist discipline. It a contradiction to state that the study of human actions differs from the study of operations in sequence. These terms are synonymous. The logic of describing the world in terms of human actions.

    Kant invented his philosophy to construct obscurantism in an effort to restore authority lost by religion in the enlightenment. It is an anti-scientific, anti-anglo empiricist philosophy of social rebellion. Cognitive science has come down on the Anglo side of the argument. The study of economics is, like all human investigation into phenomenon, one requiring the scientific method.

    The scientific method is not particular to science. It only emerged in that discipline and therefore bears the name of that discipline. The scientific method is the only known means of organized, intentional, investigation of reality.

    The scientific method is the universal epistemological method. It is the best one that we have found.

    SCIENCE VS EMPIRICISM, POSITIVISM, AND FALSIFICATION

    One of the most common fallacies of libertarian arguments is the conflation of science and the scientific method with either empiricism or positivism or both.

    Science as it is practiced states that we never know the most parsimonious theory with the greatest explanatory power that explains causal relations and changes in state. And, that any model we construct whether verbal, operational, or logical and axiomatic rests upon a network of concepts that can be restructured at any point forward. This is a skeptical position and science has taught us it is correct to be skeptical. But in economics and politics, this uncertainty is not a weakness. It is a strength. We do not need greater certainty to act. We need greater certainty only to compel others to action. And in libertarian theory we should never seek to compel others to action except through fully informed voluntary exchange.

    -Context and Precision-

    Some of the time our theories are entirely false (phlogiston theory) some of which are limited by precision (newton’s theory of gravity). Both theories are false. But phlogiston theory is false in all circumstances, and newton’s theory of gravity is only false outside of the boundaries of “human scale” (the very small and the very large). Economic theories, referring to aggregates, are almost always false for any given case within the aggregate, but not for the aggregate expression itself. So theories, correspondence with reality, always and everywhere, are context dependent.

    -Math and Logic-

    Now, the same is true for most mathematical theories. The goal of mathematics is to create context independent general rules. So rules of arbitrary precision. And mathematics has had terrible difficulty in maintaining deductive certainty while trying to create rules independent of context. ie: with arbitrary precision. They solved it with the axiom of choice and maintaining the law of the excluded middle. Both of which are logical violations necessary to construct rules using arbitrary precision independent of context

    -Falsification-

    Falsification only requires that a statement be both falisifiable and that we can no longer identify new tests. It does not say that we need to repeat tests. Just the opposite. It says that we must create more precise, narrower tests, to further harden a theory if we wish to further test it. In fact, confirmation (repeating a test) is, under falsification, a fallacy. Since it merely confirms the prior test, and says nothing about the theory itself.

    -Sufficiency For Voluntary Action-

    *The Only Form Of Scientific Certainty Is The Level Sufficient For Voluntary Action*: Science states that we can never know enough to be certain, only that we can know enough to willingly ACT using the best of our knowledge at any given point; and that our confidence in those actions must be limited by the durability of a theory.

    The important point for libertarians being, that unlike the ironic fallacies put forth by Mises, the scientific argument is that there is NEVER a case where if you are not convinced of something, that you may be deprived of your property for political purposes – unless you are free riding.

    Some theories are very durable. We call them laws. A law is a theory that we cannot figure out how to disprove, and whose precision and explanatory power we do not yet know how to increase.

    Most theories that describe economic aggregates are imprecise, time variant, and open to additional precision, and externalities. In fact, it is nearly impossible to make statements about economic phenomenon that are not imprecise, time variant, and open to additional precision and externalities.

    So as general, imprecise, time variant, rules, open to increases in precision, for the description of aggregates, most ‘laws’ are not useful for the ascertainment of any individual case within that aggregate. We can make a general statement about aggregates, but we cannot make particular statements about cases.

    In other words, economics is a young, immature, scientific discipline, consisting of observations both external and internal, logical instrumentation to prove the internal, physical to measure the external, and reason to judge the sufficiency of correspondence.

    The question of whether or not state manipulation of information carried by the pricing system as a means of producing incentives to increase consumption and employment, is one not of scientific validity – but whether one uses false claims of certainty to justify the immorality of stealing from people by various means of involuntarily transfer for the purpose of conducting experiments that produce negative externalities equal to or worse than the benefits of consumption and employment.

    REFORMATION OF LIBERTY

    Three cultures: the anglo transparent and empirical, german continental obscurant and authoritarian rational, and the jewish cosmopolitan separatist obscurant pseudo-rational, were all different reactions to the enlightenment that attempted to preserve group evolutionary and competitive strategy in their arguments.

    However, only one of those three strategies is true, transparent, operational, and scientific: the anglo empirical. Anglos were an homogenous outbred polity on an island. Germans a semi-homogenous semi-outbred polity holding borders. Jews where an unlanded, unwanted, outcast polity held in isolation within host countries. The evolutionary, competitive, cultural and therefore philosophical needs of these groups reflected their circumstances. Anglo transparency is evidence of a lack of fear of conflict of interest.

    So, liberty must be resurrected from the failed Continental and Cosmopolitan programs, and, like all other disciplines, restated scientifically such that it can evolve into the 21st century, and lose it’s cultish and archaic dogma. Without that reformation, it is impossible to engage the majority polities, that do rely on scientific language in rational arguments. And if we are to escape the justified criticism of dogmatic and false misesian and rothbardian arguments, then to escape ridicule and fallacy alone we must make this transformation.

    Jewish Cosmopolitanism attempted to preserve group cohesion by adapting their cult language and philosophy to rely upon secular arguments. Cult language and philosophy creates barriers to cooperation outside the group and increases utility of cooperation within the group. Science instead, is an attempt to create a universal language independent of group esotericists designed for group cohesion. (Against religions in particular.) And that attempt to create a universal language, succeeded. Science has won. The universal language, grammar, and process consist of scientific realism, and the scientific method, and it’s inclusion of empiricism, instrumentalism, operationalism, and falsificationism.

    Misesians and Rothbardians and their ‘Austrian’ offshoots, all engage in loading, framing and overloading. Loading is the act of adding moral and emotional content to an argument. Framing is a form of fraud by omission, in which only preferred causes and effects are used for the argument, usually in support of some form of loading. Overloading is a form of deception, and exaggerated form of framing, where you construct a great body of information and argument using framed and loaded (selective) arguments in order to overwhelm the listener’s ability to conduct truth tests against it. And the reduction of statements to operations on the exchange of property eliminates this ability to conduct deception by loading, framing, and overloading.

    THE ETHICS OF OPERATIONALISM

    Science, by use of the scientific method, tries to solve the problem of causal density by breaking the the infinite causal density of the universe into discreet statements of cause and effect. The use of Operationalism in ethics, is an attempt to solve the problem of obscurantism, which is deceptive or self deceptive construction of artificial causal density for the purpose of persuasion.

    If you cannot state something in operational language that demonstrates knowledge of construction,then you cannot make a truth claim about it, because you do not possess knowledge upon which to make such a truth claim. Moreover, since any true statement can be made operationally and therefore transparently and subject to subjective testing for rationality, then the only reason to NOT make a statement in operational language is to construct obscurant deception. Once aware of this fact, then you are by definition and necessity violating the ethics of debate by relying on other than transparent and operational arguments.

    Libertarians are laughable for good reason. If we are to reform libertarianism we must restore liberty to anglo empirical aristocracy, and pull it from german continental authoritarian obscurantism, and jewish cosmopolitan hermeneutic ghetto obscurantism. Libertarianism must evolve so that honest transparent debate in rational and scientific terms can be conducted in favor of liberty and against collectivism in all its forms.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    Kiev Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-30 07:58:00 UTC

  • THE IRONY OF APRIORISM IN PRAXEOLOGY (profound) (reformation of libertarianism)

    THE IRONY OF APRIORISM IN PRAXEOLOGY

    (profound) (reformation of libertarianism)

    From my position as a scientific realist, understanding that praxeology is and must be an operational discipline, the advocates of apriorism and the universal deducibility of economics appear humorously ironic – whenever they are not exasperatingly frustrating.

    SUBJECTIVE TESTING

    We cannot deduce economic phenomenon (laws) from fist principles. We have not. We do not. We will not. The matter is settled by the evidence that we did not deduce sticky prices, consumer irrationality, the extraordinary impact of morality on economics, and the multitude of cognitive biases that incorrectly inform our intuitions.

    But, what we CAN do, given an empirically, instrumentally observed phenomenon, is to deduce the incentives to act, and therefore the actions that produce economic phenomenon, particularly emergent economic phenomenon, once they are empirically observed.

    And conversely, we can test the rationality of incentives, and the voluntary or involuntary transfer of property, of economic propositions, if they are stated in operational language: as a SERIES OF HUMAN ACTIONS. (ie: operationalism)

    We can perform this test because human incentives sufficient for the voluntary organization of production are marginally indifferent. If they were not marginally indifferent then the voluntary organization of production in a polity of humans would be if not impossible, at least far more difficult.

    We do experience this level of difficulty whenever the difference in the portfolio of property rights used in any two polities are sufficiently different that trade must be reduced to the lowest common denominator. This is the case for trade barriers. Trade barriers compensate for differences in local purchasing power, but also for differences in local property rights – for example, when the export of natural resources are subject to tariffs for redistribution to the polity. But the more common example is trade with primitive societies in which intertemporal contract and property do not exist.

    OPERATIONALISM = HUMAN ACTION

    Operationalism is the requirement that we express statements as a series of actions. Operationalism requires that we demonstrate knowledge of construction, because one cannot make operational statements without knowledge of construction.

    Human action is an operationalist discipline. It a contradiction to state that the study of human actions differs from the study of operations in sequence. These terms are synonymous. The logic of describing the world in terms of human actions.

    Kant invented his philosophy to construct obscurantism in an effort to restore authority lost by religion in the enlightenment. It is an anti-scientific, anti-anglo empiricist philosophy of social rebellion. Cognitive science has come down on the Anglo side of the argument. The study of economics is, like all human investigation into phenomenon, one requiring the scientific method.

    The scientific method is not particular to science. It only emerged in that discipline and therefore bears the name of that discipline. The scientific method is the only known means of organized, intentional, investigation of reality.

    The scientific method is the universal epistemological method.

    SCIENCE VS EMPIRICISM, POSITIVISM, AND FALSIFICATION

    One of the most common fallacies of libertarian arguments is the conflation of science and the scientific method with either empiricism or positivism or both.

    Science as it is practiced states that we never know the most parsimonious theory with the greatest explanatory power that explains causal relations and changes in state. And, that any model we construct whether verbal, operational, or logical and axiomatic rests upon a network of concepts that can be restructured at any point forward. This is a skeptical position and science has taught us it is correct to be skeptical. But in economics and politics, this uncertainty is not a weakness. It is a strength. We do not need greater certainty to act. We need greater certainty only to compel others to action. And in libertarian theory we should never seek to compel others to action except through fully informed voluntary exchange.

    -Context and Precision-

    Some of the time our theories are entirely false (phlogiston theory) some of which are limited by precision (newton’s theory of gravity). Both theories are false. But phlogiston theory is false in all circumstances, and newton’s theory of gravity is only false outside of the boundaries of “human scale” (the very small and the very large). Economic theories, referring to aggregates, are almost always false for any given case within the aggregate, but not for the aggregate expression itself. So theories, correspondence with reality, always and everywhere, are context dependent.

    -Math and Logic-

    Now, the same is true for most mathematical theories. The goal of mathematics is to create context independent general rules. So rules of arbitrary precision. And mathematics has had terrible difficulty in maintaining deductive certainty while trying to create rules independent of context. ie: with arbitrary precision. They solved it with the axiom of choice and maintaining the law of the excluded middle. Both of which are logical violations necessary to construct rules using arbitrary precision independent of context

    -Falsification-

    Falsification only requires that a statement be both falisifiable and that we can no longer identify new tests. It does not say that we need to repeat tests. Just the opposite. It says that we must create more precise, narrower tests, to further harden a theory if we wish to further test it. In fact, confirmation (repeating a test) is, under falsification, a fallacy. Since it merely confirms the prior test, and says nothing about the theory itself.

    -Sufficiency For Voluntary Action-

    *The Only Form Of Scientific Certainty Is The Level Sufficient For Voluntary Action*: Science states that we can never know enough to be certain, only that we can know enough to willingly ACT using the best of our knowledge at any given point; and that our confidence in those actions must be limited by the durability of a theory.

    The important point for libertarians being, that unlike the ironic fallacies put forth by Mises, the scientific argument is that there is NEVER a case where if you are not convinced of something, that you may be deprived of your property for political purposes – unless you are free riding.

    Some theories are very durable. We call them laws. A law is a theory that we cannot figure out how to disprove, and whose precision and explanatory power we do not yet know how to increase.

    Most theories that describe economic aggregates are imprecise, time variant, and open to additional precision, and externalities. In fact, it is nearly impossible to make statements about economic phenomenon that are not imprecise, time variant, and open to additional precision and externalities.

    So as general, imprecise, time variant, rules, open to increases in precision, for the description of aggregates, most ‘laws’ are not useful for the ascertainment of any individual case within that aggregate. We can make a general statement about aggregates, but we cannot make particular statements about cases.

    In other words, economics is a young, immature, scientific discipline, consisting of observations both external and internal, logical instrumentation to prove the internal, physical to measure the external, and reason to judge the sufficiency of correspondence.

    The question of whether or not state manipulation of information carried by the pricing system as a means of producing incentives to increase consumption and employment, is one not of scientific validity – but whether one uses false claims of certainty to justify the immorality of stealing from people by various means of involuntarily transfer for the purpose of conducting experiments that produce negative externalities equal to or worse than the benefits of consumption and employment.

    REFORMATION OF LIBERTY

    Three cultures: the anglo transparent and empirical, german continental obscurant and authoritarian rational, and the jewish cosmopolitan separatist obscurant pseudo-rational, were all different reactions to the enlightenment that attempted to preserve group evolutionary and competitive strategy in their arguments.

    However, only one of those three strategies is true, transparent, operational, and scientific: the anglo empirical. Anglos were an homogenous outbred polity on an island. Germans a semi-homogenous semi-outbred polity holding borders. Jews where an unlanded, unwanted, outcast polity held in isolation within host countries. The evolutionary, competitive, cultural and therefore philosophical needs of these groups reflected their circumstances. Anglo transparency is evidence of a lack of fear of conflict of interest.

    So, liberty must be resurrected from the failed Continental and Cosmopolitan programs, and, like all other disciplines, restated scientifically such that it can evolve into the 21st century, and lose it’s cultish and archaic dogma. Without that reformation, it is impossible to engage the majority polities, that do rely on scientific language in rational arguments. And if we are to escape the justified criticism of dogmatic and false misesian and rothbardian arguments, then to escape ridicule and fallacy alone we must make this transformation.

    Jewish Cosmopolitanism attempted to preserve group cohesion by adapting their cult language and philosophy to rely upon secular arguments. Cult language and philosophy creates barriers to cooperation outside the group and increases utility of cooperation within the group. Science instead, is an attempt to create a universal language independent of group esotericists designed for group cohesion. (Against religions in particular.) And that attempt to create a universal language, succeeded. Science has won. The universal language, grammar, and process consist of scientific realism, and the scientific method, and it’s inclusion of empiricism, instrumentalism, operationalism, and falsificationism.

    Misesians and Rothbardians and their ‘Austrian’ offshoots, all engage in loading, framing and overloading. Loading is the act of adding moral and emotional content to an argument. Framing is a form of fraud by omission, in which only preferred causes and effects are used for the argument, usually in support of some form of loading. Overloading is a form of deception, and exaggerated form of framing, where you construct a great body of information and argument using framed and loaded (selective) arguments in order to overwhelm the listener’s ability to conduct truth tests against it. And the reduction of statements to operations on the exchange of property eliminates this ability to conduct deception by loading, framing, and overloading.

    THE ETHICS OF OPERATIONALISM

    Science, by use of the scientific method, tries to solve the problem of causal density by breaking the the infinite causal density of the universe into discreet statements of cause and effect. The use of Operationalism in ethics, is an attempt to solve the problem of obscurantism, which is deceptive or self deceptive construction of artificial causal density for the purpose of persuasion.

    If you cannot state something in operational language that demonstrates knowledge of construction,then you cannot make a truth claim about it, because you do not possess knowledge upon which to make such a truth claim. Moreover, since any true statement can be made operationally and therefore transparently and subject to subjective testing for rationality, then the only reason to NOT make a statement in operational language is to construct obscurant deception. Once aware of this fact, then you are by definition and necessity violating the ethics of debate by relying on other than transparent and operational arguments.

    Libertarians are laughable for good reason. If we are to reform libertarianism we must restore liberty to anglo empirical aristocracy, and pull it from german continental authoritarian obscurantism, and jewish cosmopolitan hermeneutic ghetto obscurantism. Libertarianism must evolve so that honest transparent debate in rational and scientific terms can be conducted in favor of liberty and against collectivism in all its forms.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    Kiev Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-30 04:20:00 UTC

  • Operationalism, by which I mean, strict construction from a sequence of descript

    Operationalism, by which I mean, strict construction from a sequence of descriptive actions, solves so many philosophical problems that are no more than artifacts of obscurant language.

    Chief among them the fallacy of Natural Rights, and the fallacy of aggression.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-25 05:18:00 UTC

  • OPERATIONALISM, TRUTH AND HONESTY (a little deep for FB, but worth reading) (sho

    OPERATIONALISM, TRUTH AND HONESTY

    (a little deep for FB, but worth reading) (should be getting easier to understand)

    I’m going to ‘correct’ this statement by Brouwer, and say that the (law of the excluded middle) LEM was abstracted from contexts of correspondent precision, to general statements, independent of context and therefore of arbitrary precision. (The same criticism applies to the AOC: axiom of choice.)

    —“Intuitionistic logic can be succinctly described as classical logic without the Aristotelian law of excluded middle (LEM): (A ∨ ¬A) or the classical law of double negation elimination (¬ ¬A → A), but with the law of contradiction (A → B) → ((A → ¬B) → ¬A) and ex falso quodlibet: (¬A → (A → B)). Brouwer [1908] observed that LEM was abstracted from finite situations, then extended without justification to statements about infinite collections.”— S.E.P.

    The fact that these philosophers and mathematicians failed to see the implication of their work on intuitionism and operationalism as one of arbitrary precision, is as humorous or ironic, as it is that advocates of praxeology (operationalism in economics) rely passionately on apriorism. In hindsight (since I only intuited this problem and did not immediately understand it) this is all absurdly obvious. But the work to remove ‘spiritual and platonistic’ language from our vocabulary and our thoughts is still in need of a great deal of work. As an Operationalist, when I hear people rely upon Continental and Cosmopolitan arguments, I hear exactly what an atheist hears when he listens to religious arguments: really weak and ill founded analogy and nothing more.

    The insight that we find from studying the loss of precision (context) in the construction of general rules in mathematics, and therefore the loss of LEM and AOC, can be applied to economics, where we lost constant relations. We can no longer predict constant relations out of a causally dense, kaleidic system, open to black swans. But that does not prevent us from using analysis of events to describe general cases, and from those general cases, attempt to state those cases in operational language. And once stated in operational language to determine whether or not they possess the status of laws (subject to manipulation, shocks and black swans, but as general rules, subject to the limits of non-contradiction).

    In my attempt to reform ethics and politics, I am fighting an extraordinarily difficult battle that essentially boils down to ‘your linguistic conveniences and contrivances, which provide such utility, and as such which you understand as knowledge of use, are, like religious analogies, producers of profound social and economic external consequences, because those analogies are as devoid of knowledge of construction as are religious arguments.”

    Math works. Religion ‘works’ too. That something ‘works’ does not mean you understand its construction, or the external consequences of your employment of analogy rather than description. That mathematics, other than the natural numbers, consists entirely of functions, not numbers, is a matter of convention, not reality.

    if you cannot state something in operational language you do not understand it. If you do not understand it you cannot make truth claims about it. Its impossible. Period. You can state an hypothesis. But you cannot claim it is true. And once aware of this fact, you cannot claim you are making an honest statement either.

    This is the insight that I want to bring to praxeology and economics. To restore ethics and morality to economics and politics by the requirement for operational language. To require fully informed, warrantied, productive, voluntary exchange free of negative externality (free riding), rather than the construction of laws (commands), constructed of moralistic deceptions.

    Because cooperation is either mutually beneficial or it is parasitism, and that is a contradiction. Cooperation is either fully informed, warrantied, productive exchange free of negative externality (free riding) or it is by law of contradiction, not cooperation but parasitism, conquest, or destruction.

    And one need not abandon his wealth of violence, nor refrain from violence when he is the subject of non cooperation: parasitism, conquest, or destruction.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    Kiev Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-24 03:16:00 UTC

  • IN DEFENSE OF EMPIRICISM, OPERATIONALISM AND INSTRUMENTALISM. Theories must some

    IN DEFENSE OF EMPIRICISM, OPERATIONALISM AND INSTRUMENTALISM.

    Theories must somehow be made extant (constructed). What action renders them extant? If falsification hardens theories, why must they be hardened? What is the purpose of talking about that which we imagine, if not to test it? Why do we need truth except to test correspondence with reality?

    I intuit a problem. I imagine a theory. I describe it in words. I imagine a test of that theory. I construct a test of that theory using instrumentation. I test that theory by taking actions to do so. I observe the results of those actions with and without instrumentation. (repeat).

    This process requires observation (empiricism), instruments(instrumentalism), operations(operationalism). But in all cases, we start with intuition (pre-cognitive) and imagination (cognitive), and in all cases, all observations of actions in the real world must be reduced to an analogy to experience such that we can apprehend it with our senses. With practice we can learn to habituate general rules that we in turn can apprehend, because of habituation of individual cases. But in all cases, we apprehend only what we can apprehend with our senses.

    Likewise we lack the ability to compare and contrast complex information, and as such we must rely on instrumentation (numbers, symbols, transformations (operations) to assist us in our thinking.

    Note that In the preceding three paragraphs I rely upon actions, not platonism or obscurantism (the use of ‘is’).

    Falsification forces us to overcome the cognitive bias of confirmation (a biological necessity for the conservation of energy). Operationalism forces us to overcome the cognitive bias of conflating imagination and action such that we know whether or not we understand the means of constructing (acting) such that the concepts we rely upon are understood, and therefore our claims are ‘true’ – or whether they are conveniently not understood and therefore our claims CANNOT be true and are therefore ‘false’.

    One cannot attest to unconstructed imagination and make a true statement, any more than one can attest to the truth of a theory that has not been subject to falsification.

    As far as I know it is impossible to refute this argument, and it is, at least in sketch, a refutation of Kant’s appeal to the authority of apriorism. And that refutation is supported by the relatively recent findings of cognitive science and experimental psychology.

    This bundle of ideas meaning that the failure of the previous generation in which popper was a member, was an insufficient disregard for remnants of religion and platonist philosophy, entrapment in the russellian program’s attempt at claiming philosophy as science, and an insufficient regard for the operational methods of science.

    If one cannot state one’s concepts in operational language, one does not understand them. And as failing to understand them, cannot levy truth claims about them. Knowledge of use != Knowledge of construction. I may ACT with knowledge of use, but I may not make truth claims without knowledge of construction.

    This constraint for operational language places higher demands on speakers in the same way that falsification places higher demand on speakers.

    Cheers

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-24 00:51:00 UTC

  • WHY DID THE PHILOSOPHERS OF SCIENCE ONLY PARTLY SUCCEED? (cross posted for archi

    WHY DID THE PHILOSOPHERS OF SCIENCE ONLY PARTLY SUCCEED?

    (cross posted for archival purposes)

    Did you ever read a novel, which you felt passionate about, and thought that the story was enthralling and insightful, then returned years later to re-read it thinking it was ok, but childish? You wonder what you were thinking?

    The story didn’t change, you did.

    I’ve spent a lot of time on the problems of ethics and politics and found my way to Instrumentalism, Operationalism, and Intuitionism as means of placing higher constraints on our theories (and arguments) such that we are unable to engage in deception and self-deception.

    So when I read almost all philosophers, popper included, I have the same reaction to their ‘allegorical’ imaginary arguments, that others would have to even weaker allegorical religious or platonist arguments.

    Now, in many cases, you can convey the same relationships (understanding) through supernatural, platonist, abstract imaginary, and operational terms. But the difference in correspondence between your terms and reality is narrowest at the operational end of that spectrum, and widest at the supernatural end.

    Popper is one of the best philosophers of the past century. Certainly one who had the most impact upon me. But he had the most impact on me because I am predisposed to think scientifically, and in the manner that he sought to convince us.

    Only a minority of us are predisposed to think as such. For those who are not so predisposed, they fail to grasp Popper’s arguments. And unlike other philosophers (Smith and Hume for example) Popper failed to sufficiently articulate his ideas such that one not be predisposed to agree with them. And the evidence confirms this.

    The reverse test is also telling: if one cannot articulate poppers ideas operationally, then one merely agrees with them allegorically, but does not understand them operationally. Now, I can articulate CR/CP operationally, but I’m less certain about falsificationary ideas, and I’m less sure about verisimilitude.

    If we put popper’s work into the context of ethics and politics, he is in the same position as Taleb, Hayek, and the rest: the moral prohibition on government, is to make small tests and measure the results, rather than large risk-inducing, fragility-creating irreversible programs. However, it is in the interests of the redistributionists, if not all rent-seekers, to do precisely that.

    Telling us what NOT to do, is very different from telling us WHAT to do. And this is the problem with taking the philosophy of science, which pursues absolute, most parsimonious theories, in pursue of absolute truth, regardless of time and cost, and applying it to human affairs whose purpose is to outwit the dark forces of time and ignorance at the lowest possible current cost.

    Human cooperation requires solutions to the problem of institutions that facilitate our cooperation in ever expanding ways, most quickly, at the lowest cost. To tell us what we should not do, is not very useful in telling us what we should do. But they cannot tell us what we should do, because they failed to solve the problem of the social science. And they failed to solve that problem, because the dramatic increase in the legitimacy of science due to its successes encouraged philosophers to copy the methods and assumptions of science, which does not equilibrate in reaction to investigation, and apply those methods to human cooperation which does equilibrate in reaction to investigation.

    As such, Popper remains, largely a moral philosopher. He tells us what not to do. His recommendations are simple enough to apply to the problem of science, which does NOT require complex coordination in real time, and incentives needed to construct a voluntary organization of production. But it is not explanatory enough, that he could provide a solution to the problem of

    I suspect that he maintained the error of classical liberalism: “Us and We where there is neither.” Once we abandon that fallacy, politics and ethics are no longer an impossible equation to solve, they are solvable entirely. Because one can calculate means of cooperation, but one cannot calculate ends of cooperation.

    So, this is why I have a different perspective from you. To move from A to B is one thing. To move from B to C is another. Popper brings us to B. But in light of the fact that the problem is to bring us to C, he fails, like all other philosophers of his era failed. And we continue to bear the problem of that failure.

    I hope that adds some clarity to my position. 🙂

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-22 01:51:00 UTC

  • Operationalism Is Synonymous With Human Action

    [I] guess, I just assumed that it was so obvious that I didn’t need to say it. But apparently it’s not. So why would you try to rely on all this Kantian nonsense, in order to justify human action? Instead, why wouldn’t you base the philosophy of human action, on human action? What is the difference between, say, justifying something aprioristically, and simply stating that it appears that we are able to use description, deduction, induction, abduction given the amount of information available to us. But that deduction is possible only when describing constant relations? What is the difference between stating, the obvious falsehood, that categorical descriptions of human actions are axiomatic, as in mathematics, and therefore not bounded by reality, rather than that any general description of human actions is theoretical, parsimonious, with broad explanatory power, but remains bounded by reality? Why would one want to appeal to an authority using verbal contrivances, instead of honest descriptions of human actions? Why would you base the theoretical system upon which we analyze human actions on anything other than human actions? Especially when to do so you must misrepresent that which is ‘axiom-like’ but not axiomatic, as that which it is not? Unless you were trying to justify an appeal to an authority? To grant to that which is empirical, scientific and theoretical, the authoritative content of mathematics and logic, which because both are axiomatic, are fully tautological and unbounded by reality? Misesian reasoning, and rothbardian ethics, could be simply an intellectual error. Or it could be a dishonest use of obscurantism to hide the fact that human actions are observable. Even introspective actions are observable by the actor who makes them, and if communicated, observable by others. And as observable, those actions are empirical. Theories may be very hard or very weak. Some theories are very hard, in that under most conditions they are true. But because of time and space, no economic theories are axiomatic. They are bounded by reality. This does not mean that they need to be tested. That is a fallacy of positivism. It means that there are always the possibility of conditions under which they may or may not apply, for any given period of time. In axiomatic systems this is never true. That is what defines them as axiomatic. Operationalism solves the problem of reducing all statements to empirical (observable) and therefore sympathetically testable terms. Praxeology is either an empirical science for the purpose of determining the rationality of human actions, and the voluntary exchange of property, and therefore it is the test of moral action – or it is another of the many, many, cosmopolitan and continental fallacies. If you cannot explain human actions as human actions, then you are either unsure of what it is that you speak, or engaging in obscurantist deception. Continental and Cosmopolitan authors were (and are) trying to preserve traditional authority in the face of science, for the purpose of maintaining group homogeneity. We must treat their arguments as specious. Because they are. All we need is property rights, a contract for their fullest expression enforceable under the private, common, law, and the willingness to organize and use violence for the purpose of obtaining the opportunity to construct those property rights, contract, and private common law. Everything else is obscurant nonsense. Science won. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute. Kiev.

  • Operationalism Is Synonymous With Human Action

    [I] guess, I just assumed that it was so obvious that I didn’t need to say it. But apparently it’s not. So why would you try to rely on all this Kantian nonsense, in order to justify human action? Instead, why wouldn’t you base the philosophy of human action, on human action? What is the difference between, say, justifying something aprioristically, and simply stating that it appears that we are able to use description, deduction, induction, abduction given the amount of information available to us. But that deduction is possible only when describing constant relations? What is the difference between stating, the obvious falsehood, that categorical descriptions of human actions are axiomatic, as in mathematics, and therefore not bounded by reality, rather than that any general description of human actions is theoretical, parsimonious, with broad explanatory power, but remains bounded by reality? Why would one want to appeal to an authority using verbal contrivances, instead of honest descriptions of human actions? Why would you base the theoretical system upon which we analyze human actions on anything other than human actions? Especially when to do so you must misrepresent that which is ‘axiom-like’ but not axiomatic, as that which it is not? Unless you were trying to justify an appeal to an authority? To grant to that which is empirical, scientific and theoretical, the authoritative content of mathematics and logic, which because both are axiomatic, are fully tautological and unbounded by reality? Misesian reasoning, and rothbardian ethics, could be simply an intellectual error. Or it could be a dishonest use of obscurantism to hide the fact that human actions are observable. Even introspective actions are observable by the actor who makes them, and if communicated, observable by others. And as observable, those actions are empirical. Theories may be very hard or very weak. Some theories are very hard, in that under most conditions they are true. But because of time and space, no economic theories are axiomatic. They are bounded by reality. This does not mean that they need to be tested. That is a fallacy of positivism. It means that there are always the possibility of conditions under which they may or may not apply, for any given period of time. In axiomatic systems this is never true. That is what defines them as axiomatic. Operationalism solves the problem of reducing all statements to empirical (observable) and therefore sympathetically testable terms. Praxeology is either an empirical science for the purpose of determining the rationality of human actions, and the voluntary exchange of property, and therefore it is the test of moral action – or it is another of the many, many, cosmopolitan and continental fallacies. If you cannot explain human actions as human actions, then you are either unsure of what it is that you speak, or engaging in obscurantist deception. Continental and Cosmopolitan authors were (and are) trying to preserve traditional authority in the face of science, for the purpose of maintaining group homogeneity. We must treat their arguments as specious. Because they are. All we need is property rights, a contract for their fullest expression enforceable under the private, common, law, and the willingness to organize and use violence for the purpose of obtaining the opportunity to construct those property rights, contract, and private common law. Everything else is obscurant nonsense. Science won. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute. Kiev.

  • Why Did The Philosophers Of Science Only Partly Succeed?

    WHY DID THE PHILOSOPHERS OF SCIENCE ONLY PARTLY SUCCEED? (cross posted for archival purposes) [D]id you ever read a novel, which you felt passionate about, and thought that the story was enthralling and insightful, then returned years later to re-read it thinking it was ok, but childish? You wonder what you were thinking? The story didn’t change, you did. I’ve spent a lot of time on the problems of ethics and politics and found my way to Instrumentalism, Operationalism, and Intuitionism as means of placing higher constraints on our theories (and arguments) such that we are unable to engage in deception and self-deception. So when I read almost all philosophers, popper included, I have the same reaction to their ‘allegorical’ imaginary arguments, that others would have to even weaker allegorical religious or platonist arguments. Now, in many cases, you can convey the same relationships (understanding) through supernatural, platonist, abstract imaginary, and operational terms. But the difference in correspondence between your terms and reality is narrowest at the operational end of that spectrum, and widest at the supernatural end. Popper is one of the best philosophers of the past century. Certainly one who had the most impact upon me. But he had the most impact on me because I am predisposed to think scientifically, and in the manner that he sought to convince us. Only a minority of us are predisposed to think as such. For those who are not so predisposed, they fail to grasp Popper’s arguments. And unlike other philosophers (Smith and Hume for example) Popper failed to sufficiently articulate his ideas such that one not be predisposed to agree with them. And the evidence confirms this. The reverse test is also telling: if one cannot articulate poppers ideas operationally, then one merely agrees with them allegorically, but does not understand them operationally. Now, I can articulate CR/CP operationally, but I’m less certain about falsificationary ideas, and I’m less sure about verisimilitude. If we put popper’s work into the context of ethics and politics, he is in the same position as Taleb, Hayek, and the rest: the moral prohibition on government, is to make small tests and measure the results, rather than large risk-inducing, fragility-creating irreversible programs. However, it is in the interests of the redistributionists, if not all rent-seekers, to do precisely that. Telling us what NOT to do, is very different from telling us WHAT to do. And this is the problem with taking the philosophy of science, which pursues absolute, most parsimonious theories, in pursue of absolute truth, regardless of time and cost, and applying it to human affairs whose purpose is to outwit the dark forces of time and ignorance at the lowest possible current cost. [H]uman cooperation requires solutions to the problem of institutions that facilitate our cooperation in ever expanding ways, most quickly, at the lowest cost. To tell us what we should not do, is not very useful in telling us what we should do. But they cannot tell us what we should do, because they failed to solve the problem of the social science. And they failed to solve that problem, because the dramatic increase in the legitimacy of science due to its successes encouraged philosophers to copy the methods and assumptions of science, which does not equilibrate in reaction to investigation, and apply those methods to human cooperation which does equilibrate in reaction to investigation. As such, Popper remains, largely a moral philosopher. He tells us what not to do. His recommendations are simple enough to apply to the problem of science, which does NOT require complex coordination in real time, and incentives needed to construct a voluntary organization of production. But it is not explanatory enough, that he could provide a solution to the problem of I suspect that he maintained the error of classical liberalism: “Us and We where there is neither.” Once we abandon that fallacy, politics and ethics are no longer an impossible equation to solve, they are solvable entirely. Because one can calculate means of cooperation, but one cannot calculate ends of cooperation. So, this is why I have a different perspective from you. To move from A to B is one thing. To move from B to C is another. Popper brings us to B. But in light of the fact that the problem is to bring us to C, he fails, like all other philosophers of his era failed. And we continue to bear the problem of that failure. I hope that adds some clarity to my position. Cheers

  • Why Did The Philosophers Of Science Only Partly Succeed?

    WHY DID THE PHILOSOPHERS OF SCIENCE ONLY PARTLY SUCCEED? (cross posted for archival purposes) [D]id you ever read a novel, which you felt passionate about, and thought that the story was enthralling and insightful, then returned years later to re-read it thinking it was ok, but childish? You wonder what you were thinking? The story didn’t change, you did. I’ve spent a lot of time on the problems of ethics and politics and found my way to Instrumentalism, Operationalism, and Intuitionism as means of placing higher constraints on our theories (and arguments) such that we are unable to engage in deception and self-deception. So when I read almost all philosophers, popper included, I have the same reaction to their ‘allegorical’ imaginary arguments, that others would have to even weaker allegorical religious or platonist arguments. Now, in many cases, you can convey the same relationships (understanding) through supernatural, platonist, abstract imaginary, and operational terms. But the difference in correspondence between your terms and reality is narrowest at the operational end of that spectrum, and widest at the supernatural end. Popper is one of the best philosophers of the past century. Certainly one who had the most impact upon me. But he had the most impact on me because I am predisposed to think scientifically, and in the manner that he sought to convince us. Only a minority of us are predisposed to think as such. For those who are not so predisposed, they fail to grasp Popper’s arguments. And unlike other philosophers (Smith and Hume for example) Popper failed to sufficiently articulate his ideas such that one not be predisposed to agree with them. And the evidence confirms this. The reverse test is also telling: if one cannot articulate poppers ideas operationally, then one merely agrees with them allegorically, but does not understand them operationally. Now, I can articulate CR/CP operationally, but I’m less certain about falsificationary ideas, and I’m less sure about verisimilitude. If we put popper’s work into the context of ethics and politics, he is in the same position as Taleb, Hayek, and the rest: the moral prohibition on government, is to make small tests and measure the results, rather than large risk-inducing, fragility-creating irreversible programs. However, it is in the interests of the redistributionists, if not all rent-seekers, to do precisely that. Telling us what NOT to do, is very different from telling us WHAT to do. And this is the problem with taking the philosophy of science, which pursues absolute, most parsimonious theories, in pursue of absolute truth, regardless of time and cost, and applying it to human affairs whose purpose is to outwit the dark forces of time and ignorance at the lowest possible current cost. [H]uman cooperation requires solutions to the problem of institutions that facilitate our cooperation in ever expanding ways, most quickly, at the lowest cost. To tell us what we should not do, is not very useful in telling us what we should do. But they cannot tell us what we should do, because they failed to solve the problem of the social science. And they failed to solve that problem, because the dramatic increase in the legitimacy of science due to its successes encouraged philosophers to copy the methods and assumptions of science, which does not equilibrate in reaction to investigation, and apply those methods to human cooperation which does equilibrate in reaction to investigation. As such, Popper remains, largely a moral philosopher. He tells us what not to do. His recommendations are simple enough to apply to the problem of science, which does NOT require complex coordination in real time, and incentives needed to construct a voluntary organization of production. But it is not explanatory enough, that he could provide a solution to the problem of I suspect that he maintained the error of classical liberalism: “Us and We where there is neither.” Once we abandon that fallacy, politics and ethics are no longer an impossible equation to solve, they are solvable entirely. Because one can calculate means of cooperation, but one cannot calculate ends of cooperation. So, this is why I have a different perspective from you. To move from A to B is one thing. To move from B to C is another. Popper brings us to B. But in light of the fact that the problem is to bring us to C, he fails, like all other philosophers of his era failed. And we continue to bear the problem of that failure. I hope that adds some clarity to my position. Cheers