Curt Doolittle

Theme: Truth

  • DEMOCRACY AS THE CAUSE OF NONSENSE OPINION (cross posted) Some people will work

    DEMOCRACY AS THE CAUSE OF NONSENSE OPINION

    (cross posted)

    Some people will work very hard to justify their intuitions as a source of knowledge, rather than to hypothesize, discover and decide what operational statements are necessary and sufficient for the most parsimonious definition of any idea despite what they intuit. It takes great courage to accept that our intuitions tell us little, and what they do tell us is most often false. And it requires sufficient intelligence and general knowledge to replace intuition as a means of decidability. So for many people, for the vast majority of people, intuition must suffice; since otherwise they would be unable to decide and act. Unfortunately, under social democracy and universal education we have convinced the average person that his opinions can and must have merit, in order to justify the popular vote. Whereas in prior eras people would have correctly said “I don’t know enough about such things”, the average person today forwards and intuitionistic opinion consisting of randomly constructed nonsense, for no other reason than he was told to, in order to justify the legitimacy of the democratic state by inflating support with artificial numbers.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-06-21 03:25:00 UTC

  • COPULA: THE VERB TO-BE. A LABOR SAVING FUNCTION, AND A SOURCE OF OBSCURANTISM. I

    COPULA: THE VERB TO-BE. A LABOR SAVING FUNCTION, AND A SOURCE OF OBSCURANTISM.

    In the English language, the verb ‘to be’ (also known as the copula) has several distinct functions:

    SET MEMBERSHIP

    1) IDENTITY***, of the form “noun copula definite-noun” [The cat is my only pet]; [The cat is Garfield]

    2) CLASS membership, of the form “noun copula noun” [The cat is an animal]

    CURRENT STATE OR PROPERTIES

    3) PREDICATION***, of the form “noun copula adjective” [The cat is furry]

    4) AUXILIARY, of the form “noun copula verb” [The cat is sleeping]; [The cat is bitten by the dog]. The examples illustrate two different uses of ‘be’ as an auxiliary. In the first ‘be’ is part of the progressive aspect, used with “-ing” on the verb, and in the second it is part of the passive, as indicated by the perfect participle of a transitive verb.

    EXISTENCE

    5) EXISTENCE, of the form “there copula noun” [There is a cat]

    6) LOCATION, of the form “noun copula place-phrase” [The cat is on the mat]; [The cat is here]

    ***Bourland sees specifically the “identity” and “predication” functions as pernicious, but advocates eliminating all forms for the sake of simplicity. In the case of the “existence” form (and less idiomatically, the “location” form), one might (for example) simply substitute the verb “exists”. Other copula-substitutes in English include taste, feel, smell, sound, grow, remain, stay, and turn, among others a user of E-prime might use instead of to be.

    (src wiki)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-06-20 11:58:00 UTC

  • A PRIORISM IS A SUBSET OF EMPIRICISM —“Anything that can be shown apriori can

    A PRIORISM IS A SUBSET OF EMPIRICISM

    —“Anything that can be shown apriori can be demonstrated or translated empirically with higher confidence but not everything that is empirical can be demonstrated apriori.”— Ayelam Valentine Agaliba

    (brilliantly succinct)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-06-20 10:57:00 UTC

  • “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

    –“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”–

    Source date (UTC): 2014-06-19 06:31:00 UTC

  • THE PROBLEM OF INCOMPLETE STATEMENTS OF TRUTH PROPOSITIONS Operationally, I cann

    THE PROBLEM OF INCOMPLETE STATEMENTS OF TRUTH PROPOSITIONS

    Operationally, I cannot rely upon the verb to be, particularly in the case ‘…is X true?’, which is platonic and obscurant, and must say instead “am I willing to…?” or “…can I…?” Carrying it further, I am not sure of the value of the statement ‘is X true’, because, outside of an analogy for proofs of consistency within a tautological system, I think as an incomplete statement, it is an empty statement. Instead, I would ask a complete question: ‘Is X sufficient for me to act at cost Y?’ which requires only knowledge of use, or ‘Is it ethical for me to claim that X is true, or is it merely an hypothesis?’ which requires knowledge of construction. We know it is never possible to say ‘X is ultimately true’, because, outside of reductio examples, we lack the ability to ever know if it is the most parsimonious set of statements (constructions) with the greatest explanatory power (empirical content).

    (Note: I’m getting closer. Not quite there yet. But very close.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-06-19 00:10:00 UTC

  • CONTRA JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF Justified true belief is not an important question

    CONTRA JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF

    Justified true belief is not an important question – it is purely utilitarian. Your belief is not an ethical question. Your testimony is however, an ethical question. . You may believe whatever you have knowledge of use of. But you may not testify that you know that which you cannot construct in operational language.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-06-18 13:21:00 UTC

  • If you can construct a general theory from a set of particulars, and test that t

    –If you can construct a general theory from a set of particulars, and test that theory for correspondence you still must demonstrate construction to testify that it us true.–

    I think that’s about right.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-06-18 10:04:00 UTC

  • Worth Repeating

    **If you can’t state it operationally, then it’s merely an analogy. Analogies are informative, but they are not truth propositions.**

  • Worth Repeating

    **If you can’t state it operationally, then it’s merely an analogy. Analogies are informative, but they are not truth propositions.**

  • Against Justified True Belief – Toward Ethical Speech Instead

    [J]ustified true belief is not an important question – it is purely utilitarian. Your belief is not an ethical question. Your testimony is however, an ethical question. . You may believe whatever you have knowledge of use of. But you may not testify that you know that which you cannot construct in operational language.