Curt Doolittle

Theme: Truth

  • THE PATTERN OF HUMAN ERROR IN PSEUDOSCIENCE (from elsewhere) Mark, There is a pa

    THE PATTERN OF HUMAN ERROR IN PSEUDOSCIENCE

    (from elsewhere)

    Mark,

    There is a pattern to human error.

    There is a particular pattern to 20th c. error, if not to enlightenment error, and certainly to French->Cosmopolitan error.

    One does not need to necessarily know the answer to a scientific question as much as know the categories of error that humans make in pursuing answers to questions. In other words, when confronted with a complex problem, it is just as valuable to look at cognitive, personal, social, cultural, and methodological biases as it is to explore the question. (Einstein’s late discovery is an example of our assumption of the nature of such a basic concept as length.)

    Anti-spanking, like anti-fist-fighting, like anti-duelling, like anti-hanging (death penalty), like anti-war sentiments fall into a category of common human errors. Just like democracy, universalism, scale, peace, and predictability fall into that same category of human error.

    Maximizing the pleasure or comfort of individual life on a society-wide scale is the result of conspicuous consumption in an era of windfall-wealth.

    A simple person can isolate a particular cause effect relationship but this fails to make take full accounting of the consequences of ‘the peace’: fragility, vulnerability, overextension, risk expansion.

    How do you know that the luxury good of not-doing X (in this case spanking) is in fact a good, rather than an example of hyperconsumption that causes externalities that are the opposite of what one predicts?

    And is not the Period of the 19th and 20th century science not one of a series of optimistic predictions the culmination of which are rather obvious bads?

    Keynesian economics appears to be a good. Democracy appears to be good. Universal enfranchisement seems to be a good. No fault divorce seemed to be a good. Social security seems to be a good. Welfare seems to be a good.

    We have attempted to create many goods that are dependent upon what we call ‘science’. But the experiment that we have been conducting since the enlightenment seems entirely predicated upon the physical sciences – and almost everything we have attempted in the social sciences that was the product of the Cosmopolitan enlightenment (Boaz, Marx, Freud, Adorno-et-al) appears to be false. If for no other reason than the time scale of our measurements.

    In other words, our SENSES and our REASONING from our senses appears to be just as erroneous in social science as it was in physical science prior to empiricism. And we solved much more of physical science precisely because it’s more simple than social science given the rate at which changes are reflected in the universe.

    We have mostly overthrown all Boaz, Marx-Keynes, Freud by the replacement of their disciplines with anthropology, genetics, and cognitive science. Our libertarian and conservative movements are attempting to overthrow Adorno-et-al. But the reason that we are the victims of pseudoscience in anthropology, politics, sociology, psychology, economics, and to a lesser degree in physics, came out of the enlightenment – an era in which each society (british, american, german, french, jewish/cosmopolitan, and russian) attempted to state their LOCAL group evolutionary strategy as a universal moral good, as a justification for overthrowing the church-monarchy balance of powers with a political monopoly we call ‘democracy’.

    Now, I work on this problem, so does Taleb – albeit we work from different perspectives – but any number of historians work on it (Ferguson, Acemoglu, Emmanuel Todd et all.) And we are all engaged in attempting to correct these erroneous presumptions that have caused the accumulated damage to western civilization despite the vast returns on (largely 19th c.) science.

    And it’s very easy, from the perspective of “humans are making these kinds of errors all over the place for these historical reasons”, simply because of the insufficiency of what we call the scientific method, to identify areas of high probably of error by the kind of arguments made and the means of decidability those arguments depend upon.

    And spanking, like all anti-violence, anti-stress, hyperconsumptive arguments fall into that category.

    Cheers

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-05 07:46:00 UTC

  • “Curt, what readings do you recommend for epistemology? Specifically, I want to

    —“Curt, what readings do you recommend for epistemology? Specifically, I want to source the work you put into testimonialism. And, can you add those to your reading list?”—

    I relied on I think four different axis:

    1) I consider Testimonialism a completion of the critical rationalism project. You can read popper for that. If you understand the philosophy of science and falsification vs justificationism that’s half the battle.

    2) I came in via Locke/Weber/Mises/Rothbard/Hoppe’s attempt to reduce all moral questions to statements of property rights, and used Haidt’s research to tie it back to evolutionary biology. And that taught me that the only empirical social science was the common (natural) law.

    3) I have had a long history of programming and an equally long-running issue with mathematical platonism and so I have spent a significant amount of time on the foundations (theory) of mathematics, and computer science

    4) Hayek is the author that I most relate to. And he was the first that I know of to identify the shift from thinking in terms of forces, to electromagnetism, to information – not just in physics – but as the general model for all thought. This corresponds with the evolution of computer science out of mathematics (which is chiefly concerned with forces).

    If you were to spend some time reading, my pieces in the FB group “scientific praxeology’ (which is a kind of slur against Misesians) cover the vast majority of the subject.

    Here is how I look at it:

    When we hit the late 1800’s we surpassed human scale in nearly everything we did, and because of the corrupt incentives provided by the developments of universal democracy, marxism/keynesianism, statistical analysis, Cantorian mathematics, and the distraction of the philosophical community as it tried to create a science out of the study of language, the movement that involve Poincare’, Brouwer, Bridgman, Popper, Hayek, and Mises (and others) including the attempt to create strict construction in law, all failed.

    I think what I have tried (and I think succeeded) in accomplishing is the unification of science, philosophy/morality, and law into a single discipline (Testimonialism) by completing the failed project of the 20th century in defining the means of falsifying enough dimensions of reality that we can implement demands for truthful speech in law.

    Everything else that I’ve done flows from this. The argumentative technique that you see my followers use, is an application of testimonialism (epistemology) and propertarianism (ethics) under what we consider to be a formal logic of natural law.

    SOURCING.

    Well I just gave you the sources, but you know, putting that rather obscure set of blocks together requires fairly deep knowledge of a set of complex disciplines, and it’s non trivial.

    I think it’s better to read my writing and work backward from it rather than to read others and attempt to understand it.

    (But ask Ayelam Valentine Agaliba, Bill Joslin, Josh Jeppson, William Butchman, Moritz Bierling, James Augustus Berens, Con Eli Khan, Ricky Saini … and the whole gang that comments less frequently. I mean, I don’t know how Eli Harman did it. He’s just intuited it I think. Josh says that if you have a grasp of any advanced science and the scientific methods used in it, then its a lot easier. But honestly, there is a reason no one did it before me….. I am not sure it was possible before. It was too much of a leap prior to widespread understanding of the problems of computer science vs mathematics.)

    SEE THIS SERIES OF READINGS

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/scientific.praxeology/permalink/750994611656577/

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-03 21:01:00 UTC

  • (depends on your definition of philosophy. we don’t have a word in the west for

    (depends on your definition of philosophy. we don’t have a word in the west for ‘thinker’ that separates Reason from Mysticism the same way that Scientist is separated from Philosopher. But as far as I know there is only one family of philosophers: European and its reaction by Indo-Europeans, Greek, and it’s reaction by Confucius, and Anglo and the reaction by all after the enlightenment. )

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-03 07:34:00 UTC

  • Rational != Rationalism. SERIES: REASON Imaginable > Reasonable > Rational > Rat

    Rational != Rationalism.

    SERIES: REASON

    Imaginable > Reasonable > Rational > Rationalism > Logical > Mathematical > Identitarian: the sequence of testing methods of internal consistency.

    SERIES: SCIENCE

    While they say it poorly, science makes use of the tests of:

    > internal consistency (logical)

    > external consistency (empirical repeatability)

    > existential consistency (operational definitions)

    > scope consistency (full accounting, limits, parsimony)(falsification)

    Social science should add:

    > reciprocal consistency (moral)

    So just as we can say that there exists a discipline called mathematics in which we test axiomatic systems consisting of the dimensions {identity(naming), number(arith.), ratio(math), distance(space), and movement (calculus)}, and just as there is a means by which we test rational systems{(see above)}, we can also say that there exists a discipline called truth, which we call ‘science’ that tests existential rather than axiomatic dimensions{(see above)}.

    So science exists as the largest test of reality (causal relations).

    Rationalism exists as a test only of internal verbal consistency (semantic relations).

    Logic exists as a test of internal consistency (set relations).

    And mathematics exists only as a test of relational consistency (constant relations).

    So yes, science exists just as mathematics, logic, and rationalism do.

    And science is to all other disciplines as calculus is to arithmetic: an increase in the dimensions tested by the method.

    TRUTH

    The truth of a proposition is permanently uncertain in science, although, while knowable, the physical sciences we do not know the first principles of the universe, meaning the base entities, operations and limits of the universe. We can test the operations of humans by subjective sympathy – which is where mises went wrong. So we can test even if we cannot yet quantify, the limits of human thought instrumentally. We can test social science under the test of reciprocity (productive, fully informed, voluntary exchange, limited to productive externalities). So we can test the physical, personal, and social sciences using the SERIES I listed above.

    Truth = a statement that survives.

    Testimony = testimony that survives.

    Only people can testify that they speak truthfully.

    They cannot know they speak the truth – in the sense of most parsimonious description possible – they can only know that they have performed due diligence against the series above (science), and that their utterance has survived those tests.

    SPECIFICS

    —“The truth value here is not placed on a conclusion, but on a method.”—

    The warranty against falsehood is placed upon survival of tests of due diligence. To make the statement ‘truth value’ is a categorical error similar to applying probability to asymmetric distributions (fat tails). you cannot calculate a probability from an unknown scope. Just as you a bell curve is always false, a probability is alway false, and a truth statement is always false. We can know we speak truthfully but we cannot know we speak the truth, nor can we quantify truth.

    BLAME

    we evolved reason from the common law, aristotelian reason from advances in the common law, and empiricism from advances in the common law. Because the law involved ‘skin in the game’ between aristocratic warriors and their staff, servants, and protectorate, it could not so easily be subverted by excuse making as could religious and philosophical reasoning.

    Moral sentiments evolved out of the needs of cooperation, and so did moral rules. Law evolved to codify moral rules. If one adhered to religious, moral, or legal rules, one can be forgiven for error. This is the source of JUSTIFICATIONARY reasoning.

    But that reasoning is precisely what delayed the development of science, which does not depend upon prior positive assertions, but the discovery of truth propositions by trial and error, by a relentless evolutionary increase in precision.

    The error you are making in your arguments is called ‘justificationism’. It went out with the end of the 19th century.

    There is another error you are making that went out with the 19th century, and that is that I suspect you confuse proof (possibility) with truth (causality). A proof != Truth. We use the term ‘true’ allegorically, and that is all

    There is yet another error you make and that is to resort to internal consistency instead of expanding into empiricism and then falling back to internal consistency only after you have failed to test the higher standard. This is actually a form of deception commonly employed – although in your case I suspect its merely ignorance and error.

    —“Yes, but then there can not be really a definition of the Outcome Ethics, because the knowledge how to bring the mentioned outcomes would have to be a part of the definition.”—

    But that’s not really true, now is it.

    If we possess the knowledge to test outcomes, then we may make use of outcome ethics.

    If we do not we may resort to rule ethics.

    If we do not have rules we may resort to virtue ethics.

    If we do not have a virtue ethic we can resort to moral introspection.

    Morality is serves as a form of law under which we do not hold one another accountable for our errors if we act according to those rules.

    We do not hold children, the young, adults, and non specialists for the ethics required of those with specialized knowledge.

    Conversely we DO hold accountable those with specialized knowledge in areas of specialized knowledge.

    So one of the tests of honesty (truthfulness) is whether one uses both the situational information available to him, and the ethical systems available to him, given his knowledge of a particular discipline.

    Conversely we treat as dishonest those who use lower standards of ethics, lower methods of reasoning, that make use of less information, as a means of justifying their arguments rather than eliminating the risk to others by testing at the limits of one’s knowledge.

    Furthermore, this is why the left won: we held to the lie that men merely err. The left succeeded by the construction of convincing lies.

    Rothbard certainly constructed as convincing a set of lies as did marx and the neocons.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-02 20:03:00 UTC

  • THE MEANINGFUL THINKERS Plato ->(the evil) …………..-> (theologians) ……

    THE MEANINGFUL THINKERS

    Plato ->(the evil)

    …………..-> (theologians)

    …………………………………-> Kant

    …………………………………………….-> Continentals (post-theologians)

    …………………………………………………………………..-> Postmoderns

    ……….Aristotle -> (the good)

    ……………………-> (empiricists et al)

    ……………………-> Hume/Smith

    ………………………………………….-> Durkheim/Weber/Pareto

    …………………………………………………………………………………-> Hayek

    ……………………-> Machiavelli..-> (machiavellians)

    ……………………-> (scientists of all sorts)

    Seriously, in retrospect, you can eliminate everyone other than Aristotle/Machiavelli/Locke/Smith/Hume/Durkhiem/Weber/Pareto/Hayek in the study of man.

    (IMPORTANT)

    I am increasingly influenced by the Ying/Yang between those who generate opportunities (positives) and those who generate limits (negatives). And since all positives are hypothetical and only negatives testably true, it would make sense that over time, those who study limits would survive and those who envision opportunities decay with their times.

    This is probably one of the more useful insights in the study of the history of thought: positives are temporal and particular, and negatives are intertemporal and universal.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-02 10:20:00 UTC

  • Liberals operate on sentiment not reason. Lies that justify sentiments are ‘true

    Liberals operate on sentiment not reason. Lies that justify sentiments are ‘true’ for them.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-29 20:13:12 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/814564949779447808

    Reply addressees: @AlHernandez21

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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/814562276028153857

  • A Sentence isn’t false. The Speaker States a Falsehood.

    (Bill Joslin – December 17 at 9:38pm) There is sooo much in this small conversation!:

    Curt Doolittle: A sentence does not speak. A speaker speaks a sentence. A sentence is not false. the speaker’s statement is false. Curt Doolittle: now you understand why we say ‘is true’ rather than “i promise” – to deceive. Moritz Bierling: Yeah, you’re borrowing objectivity for your personal statement. Curt Doolittle: I tend to, and I try to encourage others to, think about the information that is present and the information that is missing, and the incentives to remove information. or claim information exists that does not. We are somewhat vulnerable because the means by which we transfer meaning (substitution) is also the means by which we deceive (false substitution)

  • A Sentence isn’t false. The Speaker States a Falsehood.

    (Bill Joslin – December 17 at 9:38pm) There is sooo much in this small conversation!:

    Curt Doolittle: A sentence does not speak. A speaker speaks a sentence. A sentence is not false. the speaker’s statement is false. Curt Doolittle: now you understand why we say ‘is true’ rather than “i promise” – to deceive. Moritz Bierling: Yeah, you’re borrowing objectivity for your personal statement. Curt Doolittle: I tend to, and I try to encourage others to, think about the information that is present and the information that is missing, and the incentives to remove information. or claim information exists that does not. We are somewhat vulnerable because the means by which we transfer meaning (substitution) is also the means by which we deceive (false substitution)

  • Why Do Rationalists Avoid Testing via the Empirical, Operational, and Reciprocity?

    1) if we CAN fully expand a sentence, before we test it for internal consistency, and we do not do so, then why? In other words, what is the informational content between an unexpanded sentence, and an expanded sentence? And why would we fail to expand a sentence that can be expanded? What is the difference between the order of terms in mathematics, the order of terms in set statements, and the order of terms in operational language, and the order of terms in fully expanded natural language, and the order of terms in colloquial natural language?
    So if we start with a statement in colloquial language then fully expand it in natural language, then fully expand it in operational language, then it is almost impossible to construct the vast majority of sophomoric pseudo-philosophical questions. 2) The necessity of the prohibition on the verb to-be, (another category of expansion) evolved to prevent stating authoritatively that which is merely subjective opinion. But in addition, it also prevents conflating intention, experience, interpretations, and actions. Of which we can only test actions. 3) Promissory expansion of statements (sentences) evolved to prevent forms of suggestion and conflation. (Instead of Strawson’s light version of performative truth, use promissory – strict -construction that precedes each statement ” I promise that….” 4) In the sequence: 1 – identity (categorically consistent) 2 – logical (internally consistent) 3 – empirical (externally consistent) 4 – operational (existentially consistent) 5 – moral (reciprocally consistent) 6 – fully accounted (scope consistent) 7 – limits and parsimony (limit consistent); each dimension of which increases the informational content we are testing …. we have the choice of choosing to increase the dimensions that we test, using the methodology capable of testing that dimension, or limiting ourselves to the current dimension’s means of testing. Now, when we increase the dimensions, we gain new knowledge which we can then use to recursively test each prior dimension by its method. So why would one choose to test a question by internal consistency rather than external correspondence followed by another test of internal consistency? 5) When testing for internal consistency, we eventually run into the problem of completeness. And while we can construct relatively complete statements axiomatically we cannot do so theoretically (against reality) because of causal density, except in the special cases (reductio).

  • Why Do Rationalists Avoid Testing via the Empirical, Operational, and Reciprocity?

    1) if we CAN fully expand a sentence, before we test it for internal consistency, and we do not do so, then why? In other words, what is the informational content between an unexpanded sentence, and an expanded sentence? And why would we fail to expand a sentence that can be expanded? What is the difference between the order of terms in mathematics, the order of terms in set statements, and the order of terms in operational language, and the order of terms in fully expanded natural language, and the order of terms in colloquial natural language?
    So if we start with a statement in colloquial language then fully expand it in natural language, then fully expand it in operational language, then it is almost impossible to construct the vast majority of sophomoric pseudo-philosophical questions. 2) The necessity of the prohibition on the verb to-be, (another category of expansion) evolved to prevent stating authoritatively that which is merely subjective opinion. But in addition, it also prevents conflating intention, experience, interpretations, and actions. Of which we can only test actions. 3) Promissory expansion of statements (sentences) evolved to prevent forms of suggestion and conflation. (Instead of Strawson’s light version of performative truth, use promissory – strict -construction that precedes each statement ” I promise that….” 4) In the sequence: 1 – identity (categorically consistent) 2 – logical (internally consistent) 3 – empirical (externally consistent) 4 – operational (existentially consistent) 5 – moral (reciprocally consistent) 6 – fully accounted (scope consistent) 7 – limits and parsimony (limit consistent); each dimension of which increases the informational content we are testing …. we have the choice of choosing to increase the dimensions that we test, using the methodology capable of testing that dimension, or limiting ourselves to the current dimension’s means of testing. Now, when we increase the dimensions, we gain new knowledge which we can then use to recursively test each prior dimension by its method. So why would one choose to test a question by internal consistency rather than external correspondence followed by another test of internal consistency? 5) When testing for internal consistency, we eventually run into the problem of completeness. And while we can construct relatively complete statements axiomatically we cannot do so theoretically (against reality) because of causal density, except in the special cases (reductio).