[J]oel Mokyr did a wonderful job in Gifts of Athena, but he has the strange Jewish predilection for conflating verbalisms with existence. He refers to “Knowledge of how” and “knowledge of what”. But these are verbal categories only. They aren’t causal categories. I use the terms “Knowledge of Construction” and “Knowledge of Use” (how). While “Use” and “How” share similar properties, “Construction and What” are sufficiently different in properties to mean considerably different things. “Construction” requires action in time. I have no idea what “What” should mean other than an empty verbal category. It’s a purely self-centered, experiential statement. I am fairly sure that if someone says they understand something, it means a knowledge of construction. Whether they can use it or not is only a small portion of the possible domain. (Properties: a)Construction, b)Use, c)Intended Consequence, d)Unintended Consequence.)
Theme: Truth
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Knowledge: Knowlege of Construction vs Knowledge of Use
[J]oel Mokyr did a wonderful job in Gifts of Athena, but he has the strange Jewish predilection for conflating verbalisms with existence. He refers to “Knowledge of how” and “knowledge of what”. But these are verbal categories only. They aren’t causal categories. I use the terms “Knowledge of Construction” and “Knowledge of Use” (how). While “Use” and “How” share similar properties, “Construction and What” are sufficiently different in properties to mean considerably different things. “Construction” requires action in time. I have no idea what “What” should mean other than an empty verbal category. It’s a purely self-centered, experiential statement. I am fairly sure that if someone says they understand something, it means a knowledge of construction. Whether they can use it or not is only a small portion of the possible domain. (Properties: a)Construction, b)Use, c)Intended Consequence, d)Unintended Consequence.)
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Against Ideal Worlds
1) I think it is a philosophical error (or at least naivety, and possibly profound arrogance) to think in terms of ideal worlds. I tend to think in terms of improving the world we live in, without causing externalities that negate the improvement. It is the latter part of that statement that changes philosophy from an interesting parlor game to one of consequence. 2) I think the purpose of philosophy is to integrate expansions in scientific understanding into our current understanding of the world, such that we improve our ability to reason and act in such a way as to take superior advantage of the difference between our rate of change and the universe’s suite of constant relations. 3) I think value claims are normative. In my work, I have found that if one looks at a) the structure of production b) the structure of reproduction (family) c) the class and status of the extended family d) the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the polity. e) the gender and generation of the individuals. That moral biases are predictable portfolios that reflect our reproductives strategies. 4) I think we can agree on means but not ends. And if we could agree upon ends, we increase fragility and risk. But that said, it is non-rational to expect one group to sacrifice its reproduction for another group’s reproduction. And people demonstrate this universally in all polities (at least over time.) As such I see the only ‘good’ as creating sufficient prosperity, and maintaining it, so that we are all wealthy enough to obtain what we desire individually or in small groups, but certainly not en masse. And neither equality nor diversity assist us in this objective. And that is demonstrably empirical, and very difficult to refute without selective reasoning. If it stands that women are at maximum density in one sector or other the economy, then that is the optimum best for all, because any other arrangement, whether prohibited from their potential, or prohibiting some male from his potential, is detrimental to the fulfillment of all potentials. That is, unless, you feel one of the luxuries that we can afford, is false status signals. An that is a valid preference. It may be that we prefer to create certain false signals because we are wealthy enough to do so. The problem is in anticipating the externalizes (consequences) of such false signals. And whether one or many have the right to involuntarily cause others sacrifice for self benefit.
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Against Ideal Worlds
1) I think it is a philosophical error (or at least naivety, and possibly profound arrogance) to think in terms of ideal worlds. I tend to think in terms of improving the world we live in, without causing externalities that negate the improvement. It is the latter part of that statement that changes philosophy from an interesting parlor game to one of consequence. 2) I think the purpose of philosophy is to integrate expansions in scientific understanding into our current understanding of the world, such that we improve our ability to reason and act in such a way as to take superior advantage of the difference between our rate of change and the universe’s suite of constant relations. 3) I think value claims are normative. In my work, I have found that if one looks at a) the structure of production b) the structure of reproduction (family) c) the class and status of the extended family d) the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the polity. e) the gender and generation of the individuals. That moral biases are predictable portfolios that reflect our reproductives strategies. 4) I think we can agree on means but not ends. And if we could agree upon ends, we increase fragility and risk. But that said, it is non-rational to expect one group to sacrifice its reproduction for another group’s reproduction. And people demonstrate this universally in all polities (at least over time.) As such I see the only ‘good’ as creating sufficient prosperity, and maintaining it, so that we are all wealthy enough to obtain what we desire individually or in small groups, but certainly not en masse. And neither equality nor diversity assist us in this objective. And that is demonstrably empirical, and very difficult to refute without selective reasoning. If it stands that women are at maximum density in one sector or other the economy, then that is the optimum best for all, because any other arrangement, whether prohibited from their potential, or prohibiting some male from his potential, is detrimental to the fulfillment of all potentials. That is, unless, you feel one of the luxuries that we can afford, is false status signals. An that is a valid preference. It may be that we prefer to create certain false signals because we are wealthy enough to do so. The problem is in anticipating the externalizes (consequences) of such false signals. And whether one or many have the right to involuntarily cause others sacrifice for self benefit.
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Reality Is More Limited Than Imagination: The Moral Nature of Truth In The Logics an Sciences
REALITY IS MORE LIMITED THAN IMAGINATION: THE MORAL NATURE OF TRUTH IN THE LOGICS AND SCIENCES 1) We can mathematically represent more relations than can exist in reality. And we can state more things than we can demonstrate correspond with reality. And we can suggest more means and ends of cooperation than can be organized in reality. 2) Set theoretic axioms assist us in making internally consistent statements. But they may or may not correspond to reality. 3) Tests of internal consistency reduce error. But since truth means and must mean correspondence, only external consistency (correspondence) is a test of truth. 4) The value of our imagination, followed by our logical systems is in reducing the cost of testing our ideas about reality. 5) The comparative value (goodness or less good, or even badness) of our spectrum of different logical systems, from: i) the functionally descriptive, to ii) the logically descriptive to iii) the historically descriptive to; iv) the mythically allegorical, and finally to; v) the mystically allegorical; – is the degree with which those systems reduce the cost of exploration by increasing degrees of correspondence. The error we make is in placing greater value on the network effect of existing logical networks (paradigms), than on the possibility of new correspondence with reality. 6) The comparative MORALITY of different logical systems is in the degree to which they pose restraints upon the externalization of costs to those form whom exploration is involuntary, versus the externalizations of benefits to those for whom exploration is involuntary. HIERARCHY OF TRUTH That is, unless we state, that we must create a hierarchy of truth: AXIS 1: (i) that which is complete (reality) but the completeness of which is unknowable, (ii) that which is incomplete but correspondent (action/science) (iii) that which is incomplete but internally consistent (logics) (iv) that which is incomplete, for which correspondence is unknown, and for which internal consistency is unknown. (theory) (v) that which we are unaware of. (ignorance) (I am not settled on the order of (ii) and (iii) since as far as I can tell, our arguments to internal consistency are verbal justification that merely improve our theory, while our actions are demonstrated preferences in favor of our theory.) And the praxeological test of our confidence in our statements (our WARRANTY) for making true statements: AXIS 2: i) That which we do not know ii) That which we intuit we can to act upon iii) That which we we desire we can act upon iiv) That which we can argue we rationally can act upon. v) That which it is non rational to argue against. vi) That which is self evident. Error in science may be a privilege of rank. Science is largely outside of the market. Error in cooperation is not outside the market, and constitutes the market, and is necessity. My voluntary action requires only that I have confidence, since I warranty my own actions by necessity. But as we move from voluntary exchange, to corporate cooperation, to state monopoly corporation, the standard of truth increases, since others pay for any error. The only solution is that those who desire pay, and those that do not, do not. Therefore, we also understand, that the prohibition on error in science is immaterial if unspoken and constrained to the self. But if science or any other discipline, makes public claims, we require a higher standard. This prohibition is a MORAL one, because lower standards of truth in science externalize costs on to other scientists. The standard of truth is inseparable from the moral impact that any statement will have. I am not free to make any statement. We are not free to make any statement. We are free only to make true statements without punishment of some kind – even if it is just to be ignored and therefore boycotted. In many civilizations one is even prohibited from making true statements if they cause discomfort. In science we reverse this social intuition, and state that we specifically SEEK criticism, rather than confirmation. If we take this argument all the way down to the very meaning of ‘debate’, we will grasp that the only reason we yield our opportunity for theft and violence, is on the presumption of honest discourse. (argumentation ethics). It is this sacrifice of violence, and grant of peerage in exchange for the cooperative pursuit of truth, that was the unique development of western civilization. And it is this one axiom that led to all of western science and reason. And why no other civilization developed it. The only reason to argue against the requirement for moral public statements adhering to increasing standards of truth, is that one wishes to externalize costs onto others, or to not be held accountable for the externalization of costs onto others. In other words, because one is an immoral individual, the definition of which is to externalize costs to the anonymous. One can say, that like free speech in politics, we insure each other against ignorance and error. And some might say we insure each other against loading and framing. And some might say we insure each other against fraud by omission. And some might say that we insure each other against fraud by deception. But insurance then, is limited to the willingness of others to pay for it. And our contract for this insurance in public debate has been dramatically loosened by the courts (by the left wing) such that we tolerate (insure) obscurant, immoral, deceptive and plainly fraudulent discourse, as well as eliminate the prior prohibition on libel and slander. Insurance in any body cannot pay out more than it takes in. And in this case we are already paying out more than we take in. So the policy must change so to speak.
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Reality Is More Limited Than Imagination: The Moral Nature of Truth In The Logics an Sciences
REALITY IS MORE LIMITED THAN IMAGINATION: THE MORAL NATURE OF TRUTH IN THE LOGICS AND SCIENCES 1) We can mathematically represent more relations than can exist in reality. And we can state more things than we can demonstrate correspond with reality. And we can suggest more means and ends of cooperation than can be organized in reality. 2) Set theoretic axioms assist us in making internally consistent statements. But they may or may not correspond to reality. 3) Tests of internal consistency reduce error. But since truth means and must mean correspondence, only external consistency (correspondence) is a test of truth. 4) The value of our imagination, followed by our logical systems is in reducing the cost of testing our ideas about reality. 5) The comparative value (goodness or less good, or even badness) of our spectrum of different logical systems, from: i) the functionally descriptive, to ii) the logically descriptive to iii) the historically descriptive to; iv) the mythically allegorical, and finally to; v) the mystically allegorical; – is the degree with which those systems reduce the cost of exploration by increasing degrees of correspondence. The error we make is in placing greater value on the network effect of existing logical networks (paradigms), than on the possibility of new correspondence with reality. 6) The comparative MORALITY of different logical systems is in the degree to which they pose restraints upon the externalization of costs to those form whom exploration is involuntary, versus the externalizations of benefits to those for whom exploration is involuntary. HIERARCHY OF TRUTH That is, unless we state, that we must create a hierarchy of truth: AXIS 1: (i) that which is complete (reality) but the completeness of which is unknowable, (ii) that which is incomplete but correspondent (action/science) (iii) that which is incomplete but internally consistent (logics) (iv) that which is incomplete, for which correspondence is unknown, and for which internal consistency is unknown. (theory) (v) that which we are unaware of. (ignorance) (I am not settled on the order of (ii) and (iii) since as far as I can tell, our arguments to internal consistency are verbal justification that merely improve our theory, while our actions are demonstrated preferences in favor of our theory.) And the praxeological test of our confidence in our statements (our WARRANTY) for making true statements: AXIS 2: i) That which we do not know ii) That which we intuit we can to act upon iii) That which we we desire we can act upon iiv) That which we can argue we rationally can act upon. v) That which it is non rational to argue against. vi) That which is self evident. Error in science may be a privilege of rank. Science is largely outside of the market. Error in cooperation is not outside the market, and constitutes the market, and is necessity. My voluntary action requires only that I have confidence, since I warranty my own actions by necessity. But as we move from voluntary exchange, to corporate cooperation, to state monopoly corporation, the standard of truth increases, since others pay for any error. The only solution is that those who desire pay, and those that do not, do not. Therefore, we also understand, that the prohibition on error in science is immaterial if unspoken and constrained to the self. But if science or any other discipline, makes public claims, we require a higher standard. This prohibition is a MORAL one, because lower standards of truth in science externalize costs on to other scientists. The standard of truth is inseparable from the moral impact that any statement will have. I am not free to make any statement. We are not free to make any statement. We are free only to make true statements without punishment of some kind – even if it is just to be ignored and therefore boycotted. In many civilizations one is even prohibited from making true statements if they cause discomfort. In science we reverse this social intuition, and state that we specifically SEEK criticism, rather than confirmation. If we take this argument all the way down to the very meaning of ‘debate’, we will grasp that the only reason we yield our opportunity for theft and violence, is on the presumption of honest discourse. (argumentation ethics). It is this sacrifice of violence, and grant of peerage in exchange for the cooperative pursuit of truth, that was the unique development of western civilization. And it is this one axiom that led to all of western science and reason. And why no other civilization developed it. The only reason to argue against the requirement for moral public statements adhering to increasing standards of truth, is that one wishes to externalize costs onto others, or to not be held accountable for the externalization of costs onto others. In other words, because one is an immoral individual, the definition of which is to externalize costs to the anonymous. One can say, that like free speech in politics, we insure each other against ignorance and error. And some might say we insure each other against loading and framing. And some might say we insure each other against fraud by omission. And some might say that we insure each other against fraud by deception. But insurance then, is limited to the willingness of others to pay for it. And our contract for this insurance in public debate has been dramatically loosened by the courts (by the left wing) such that we tolerate (insure) obscurant, immoral, deceptive and plainly fraudulent discourse, as well as eliminate the prior prohibition on libel and slander. Insurance in any body cannot pay out more than it takes in. And in this case we are already paying out more than we take in. So the policy must change so to speak.
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Reforming Libertarian Ethics
FAIR WARNING (I dont engage in justification. I try to determine the truth. And so if you manage to get through this little essay, you might not emerge with your high investment in rothbardian libertarianism intact.) PART 1 THE AXIOM OF SELF OWNERSHIP Regarding: “…the self-ownership axiom is the only one of those under consideration that is sound…” Ethical statements cannot be ‘sound’ since that’s an allegorical and untestable statement. The testable term is ‘internally consistent’. However internal consistency (error free construction) doesn’t tell us anything about external correspondence (truth). Instead, ethical statements must adhere to a higher standard of argument than the internally consistent: Ethical arguments must be: a) preferable (to their absence) b) necessary c) sufficient d) possible e) durable (survivable over time) How does the self ownership Axiom survive this test? a) The S.O. axiom Is probably preferable (I can’t imagine a rational creature for whom it wouldn’t be preferable. I think it’s a precondition of autonomous sentience. So I have to stipulate that while I can’t determine the preferences of others, that it is hard for me to understand how it isn’t preferable for any being for whom action in real time is necessary for survival.) b) it may or may not be sufficient; c) it is certainly possible since it’s demonstrably extant; d) it is rationally, praxeologically, and demonstrably durable. Self Ownership and the NAP are very hard to argue with, except with regard to sufficiency. Are Self Ownership, Private Property, and NAP sufficient? They are sufficient for the purposes that Hoppe has put them to: which is the ability solve (almost) all problems of human cooperation while relying on self ownership, private property, and NAP. The questions are: a) whether the these rules are sufficient to obtain sufficient voluntary adoption and adherence such that this libertarian state of affairs are possible? b) is there an alternative axiom or set of axioms that permits the deduction of the various solutions to voluntary cooperation? c) is there a superior alternative axiom or set of axioms that permit the deduction of the various solutions to the problem of liberty (voluntary cooperation). It would be unscientific to suggest that no other argument exists other than {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. (Self ownership, Private Property, Homesteading, Voluntary Exchange and Non Aggression). It is also pretty hard to imagine something more compact with the same explanatory power. Why? Because these three statements: 1) Metaphysics: Self Ownership:(Existence); 2) Epistemology: Private Property with Homesteading and Voluntary Exchange :(Scope); 3) Ethics: NonAggressionPrinciple:(Test); …are pretty narrow requirements for an axiomatic system. In fact, one statement per major domain of philosophy is so compact that it’s pretty hard to argue that it can be improved upon. Instead, it’s actually kind of awe-inspiring that all of the philosophy of human cooperation can be reduced to just these three statements. Even better, technically all five philosophical domains are answered by SO,PP+H+VE,NAP: 4) Politics: Politics is solved by market, anarchy and voluntary insurance organizations. 5) Aesthetics: Aesthetics is satisfied by the fact that we stipulate that liberty is desirable. So, if you’re asking the question, ‘how can we cooperate peacefully and voluntarily?’ and Hoppe has demonstrated that from these simple axioms we can cooperate peacefully and voluntarily, then it isn’t NECESSARY to devise an alternative axiomatic system. (I”m not even sure it’s helpful) It may be accurate to state that we not claim (actually, that **HE** not claim) no other set of statements would be superior (even if it is improbable) . But that is not to say that it is necessary, since he has demonstrated them to be sufficient for the deduction of all the institutions formal and informal for a voluntary system of cooperation. WEAKNESSES? SUFFICIENCY. (Now, lest you assume I am an apologist, I’ll take this a little farther.) “BUT” (and it’s a big but) is the set {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP} sufficient for voluntary and therefore preferential adoption of such set, either empirically (historically) or rationally (praxeologically)? And I think that is probably where it fails to sustain scrutiny, because we can demonstrate that the demand for external intervention (the state) does not decrease sufficiently in any population, to permit the rational and praxeologically testable, preferential and demonstrably voluntary, adoption of anarchy, in any population by other than by a tiny minority – at least as it stands. So while {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP} may be sufficient for the DEDUCTION of all means of voluntary cooperation, it does not provide sufficient INCENTIVE to reduce demand for external (state) intervention by a sufficient body of the population such that the a self-interested monopoly bureaucracy is not necessary for either: (a) the systematic enforcement, of private property for the prevention of free riding, theft and violence, or; (b) necessary for the systematic violation of private property to compensate for predation, as well as preventing theft and violence. Again, it appears that {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP} is sufficient for deduction of the informal and formal institutions of voluntary cooperation, but provides an insufficient incentive for the voluntary adoption of informal and informal institutions of voluntary cooperation. In that case, if the incentives are insufficient, then we have two possible means of constructing anarchy under {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}: (i) involuntary coercion under threat of boycott, ostracization, and/or threat of violence. (ii) improvement of incentives such that anarchy is voluntarily adoptable (praxeologically possible). (iii) A combination of both. So, let us see if either or both solutions are possible or necessary. HISTORY History tells us that liberty only exists where nearly all involuntary transfers of property are prohibited – including those which are not visible or known of. And the few circumstances where all involuntary transfers of property were prohibited was limited to european warriors who granted each other prohibition on involuntary transfer (property rights) in exchange for military service. Property rights were a ‘right’ that was obtained in a contract for voluntary exchange. The incentive to gain access to the privilege of private property was one that was both materially, and reproductively advantageous. These property rights were an artifact of the accumulation of wealth first in simple goods, cattle and horses, later in land and built capital. Fighters who took risks, kept their winnings. Later, all free men kept their property. Later under manorialism and agrarian farming, a married couple was needed for the rental of land. This delayed marriage, and forced the absolute nuclear family that we understand today. When the church sought to break up the large landholders they interfered with inheritance rights, which are the source of the family structure, and consequently, the source of moral code variation, throughout the world. To break up the families they prohibited inbreeding out to as many as eight or even twelve generations, and granted women property rights. The combination of property rights for all, the near elimination of free riding, even by family members (offspring), and the persistence of the militia as a fighting force, created the high trust universal social order we call the protestant ethic. The enlightenment’s intellectual effort was an experiment in both justifying the middle class seizure of political power, and transferring the rights of the upper and ‘middle’ classes (small business owners : ie: farmers) to all land holders. The culmination of this experiment was the near prohibition on involuntary transfers that was embodied in the American Constitution. The aristocracy of everyone who had a stake in the preservation of property rights. (Unfortunately, that experiment has shown that universal enfranchisement, especially the enfranchisement of women, was incompatible with liberty, because participatory government by those whose interest is to seek rents and free riding, is an organized means of disempowering armed property owners, and systematically removing their property rights. Thereby returning us to the consanguineous or serial-marriage family structure in corporate (state) form. LIBERTARIAN ETHICS: NECESSITY. BUT SUFFICIENCY? It’s kind of hard to disagree with libertarian ethics as stated in {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. If only because they’re necessary, and the alternative to disagreeing with libertarian ethics, is demonstrably, a nearly universally undesirable state of affairs involving constant property violations (theft and violence) that make cooperation in a division of labor all but impossible – even among members of a consanguineous community of primitive hunter gatherers it may be beneficial. Lets look at classes of involuntary transfers of property as people demonstrate them: (1) Criminal statements are those that involve violence and theft. (2) Ethical statements are those which prohibit involuntary transfer of property by asymmetry of information between those internal to the action. (3) Moral statements are those which by definition apply to unknown persons external to the action: anonymous involuntary transfers of property. (4) Conspiratorial Statements: Statements of Political Morality (conspiracy) are those which prevent the organized and systemic involuntary transfer of property, whether criminal, ethical, or moral. The NAP only has a mechanism for fairly simple, obvious property violations: criminal violence and theft of class (1) The NAP has no mechanism for any of class (2) or class (3), and arguably sanctions and encourages these involuntary transfers by NOT preventing them. The NAP prevents class (1) PORTIONS of class (4), but it does not prohibit class (2) and (3) portions of class (4). Now, if you are a member of the majority tribe, you will suppress (1) to increase trust and therefore productivity. But if you are an extractive minority tribe without political power, you may in fact prefer to preserve (1) as a means of competing with and draining the majority of resources. We libertarians tend to laud intersubjectively verifiable actions. But again, those actions that are intersubjectively verifiable may be visible, they may be verifiable. But they are trivially primitive in scope because they are limited to merely theft and violence – and only to fraud where it is specifically defended against by written warranty in advance. As such intersubjective verifiability is, like the NAP too simple a test for the suppression of ethical and moral violations that are required for the development of sufficient trust that liberty can exist by voluntary adoption, because the demand for a third party to prevent these transgressions by way of law-making, and institutional formation, is all but eliminated. The NAP is insufficient criteria for the suppression of sufficient involuntary transfers of property to counter the demonstrated universal human disdain for ‘cheating’. This is because private property open to intersubjective verifiability is insufficient a description for the types of property people demonstrate that they TREAT as their property. So it is one thing to state that we can deduce all necessary formal and informal institutions for the support of private property from the {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. It is another to state that we can either deduce sufficient institutions formal and informal, or create sufficient incentives for the voluntary adoption of those institutions, from {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. Just as it is demonstrable both rationally and empirically that socialism is impossible because of the impossibility of twin problems of economic calculation, and the absence of incentives, we also must observe that the set {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP} is demonstrably impossible because of the impossibility of suppressing sufficient cheating that people will possess the rational incentives, because planning and organizing are higher risk and more expensive under a low trust ethic, to adopt {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. This is a very damning criticism of the sufficiency of {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. Or correctly stated, it is a just as damning and inescapable criticism of the NAP, as economic calculation and incentives were for the socialist means of production. Once you understand this you will realize that {SO,PP+H+VE} survive, but that {NAP} is as great a logical failure as was the socialist means of production. It is non rational to ask humans to adopt the NAP since it suppresses crime, but not ethical, moral, and arguably, not even conspiratorial, violations of one’s property rights, as people demonstrate their understanding of property rights by their behavior. PART 2: THE RESISTANCE TO LIBERTY: GENDERS, RACES, CLASSES, AND AGES: VOLUNTARY COOPERATION, COMPETITIVENESS AND PROPORTIONALITY. (undone) =================== POST SCRIPT 1 ————– (a) the market cannot suppress sufficient ‘cheating’ that property rights will be willingly given in exchange (respected) by masses of individuals; nor that the demand for third party intervention (government) will be suppressed as a substitute for failure to suppress ‘cheating’. Nor that those who specialize in organizing against the market will forgo their opportunity to exploit this demand for intervention. (b) the source of property rights (and liberty as we know it) was not natural, was the product of a combination of the organized application of violence to both concentrate capital, and to suppress all forms of theft, cheating and free riding; as well as certain rare genetic biases in the west, the fertility and water availability of land, the hostile winters, and forcible destruction of familialism and tribalism by the church, so that it could interfere with inheritance practices and purchase land from the large land holders. (c) Given the diversity of reproductive strategies, and the different capabilities of the classes, private property is undesirable and poses a threat to many of their reproductive abilities. We are no longer equal enough, as we were under agrarianism and animal husbandry, that the marginal difference in our abilities is neutralized by mental and emotional discipline. While most humans can be disciplined and tamed for farm labor, not all humans can be taught to calculate using abstract concepts. As such the division of knowledge and labor provides sufficiently asymmetric rewards that the incentive to conform to property rights is non-rational for most actors. (d) Hoppe correctly deduced that from the institution of private property we can in fact solve all institutional problems necessary for cooperation at scale in a complex division of knowledge and labor. Unfortunately, this state of affairs is undesirable by a majority of the population whose reproductive strategies rely on tactics outside of voluntary cooperation in the market, for success. (e) Private property is contrary the the female reproductive strategy. Nuclear marriage is the optimum compromise between male and female reproductive differences. (f) Therefore it is praxeologically non-rational, and anti-scientific, to suggest that liberty will be willingly adopted without the forcible suppression of the reproductive ability of the lower classes, and the ability of women to return to their natural reproductive bias, by restoring communal property via the state. (g) As such, there are three options available to those of us who desire liberty, that we may employ one or all of: i) forcible application of organize violence to re-obtain our liberty. ii) modification of the ethics of liberty to suppress sufficient means of ‘cheating’ that demand for third party intervention (the state) will be diminished. iii) extension of the hoppeian model of competing private institutions to preserve his solution to the problem of monopoly bureaucracy, yet permit the resolution of reproductive differences between classes which cannot be solved by individual action in the market, and only collective action via organizational proxies. At my present level of skill I believe this is about as simply as I can articulate the idea. Rothbard used the low trust of the ghetto, and it was a failure because, regardless of rothbard’s arguments, any person from a high trust society will reject rothbardian ethics as immoral. Hoppe used the high trust of the homogenous polity to restore the city state, but did not answer the problem of incentives in the absence of the absolute nuclear family. My solution is to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the polity and to attempt to offer ethical and institutional solutions to the problem of cooperation in heterogeneous polities. Because what we are doing demonstrably hasn’t succeeded, and with what we have learnd over the past twenty years about human cognitive and gentic biases, it is non-rational to think that we have provided sufficient incentives for the voluntary adoption of property rights (and in particular, high trust property rights, not the low trust property rights of rothbard). Pretty damning criticism I think. But we need to keep advancing our philosophy until we find an answer. My answer might not be right, but it is likely to be less wrong. Cheers. ————- POST SCRIPT 2 ————- One last simple fact: people demonstrate that they are willing to pay something like twice as much to punish a cheater as they are desirous of personal gain. (at least in-group). This means that decisions of rational actors are morally non-netural, and this further erodes the misesian and rothbardian ordinality of preferences, as well as the value of prices, as well as the argument to indifference in all transactions. Prices are less important than signals and far less important than the suppression of cheating. If you combine this with both differences in reproductive strategies and the different abilities of the classes, then the argument that prices (and economics) are more material than morals falls. People will act morally if you suppress immorality well enough. but since their dislike of immorality is higher than their desire for other satisfactions, you must suppress far more than rothbard’s ghetto ethics if you want the obtain even basic private property rights. And you must suppress nearly all cheating if you want to eliminate the demand for government. As far as we know, this level of suppression of cheating can only be accomplished in a small homogenous outbred polity. (scandinavia). And it is possible that it is a genetic bias (I am not sold on that). (I think I went to far again too fast with that bit… sorry.) ———— POST SCRIPT 3 ———— One more try at the elevator speech. To reduce the demand for intervention, and obtain property right voluntarily, the standard of etics must be far and above those of the NAP. They must extend to all involuntary transfers, of all kinds, under all circumstances. and as far as I can tell, that requires the right of ostracization (exclusion). Hoppe was right so far as he took it. On everything. His generation did not have the science, so they had to rely on deduction alone. We have science. So I use it.
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Reforming Libertarian Ethics
FAIR WARNING (I dont engage in justification. I try to determine the truth. And so if you manage to get through this little essay, you might not emerge with your high investment in rothbardian libertarianism intact.) PART 1 THE AXIOM OF SELF OWNERSHIP Regarding: “…the self-ownership axiom is the only one of those under consideration that is sound…” Ethical statements cannot be ‘sound’ since that’s an allegorical and untestable statement. The testable term is ‘internally consistent’. However internal consistency (error free construction) doesn’t tell us anything about external correspondence (truth). Instead, ethical statements must adhere to a higher standard of argument than the internally consistent: Ethical arguments must be: a) preferable (to their absence) b) necessary c) sufficient d) possible e) durable (survivable over time) How does the self ownership Axiom survive this test? a) The S.O. axiom Is probably preferable (I can’t imagine a rational creature for whom it wouldn’t be preferable. I think it’s a precondition of autonomous sentience. So I have to stipulate that while I can’t determine the preferences of others, that it is hard for me to understand how it isn’t preferable for any being for whom action in real time is necessary for survival.) b) it may or may not be sufficient; c) it is certainly possible since it’s demonstrably extant; d) it is rationally, praxeologically, and demonstrably durable. Self Ownership and the NAP are very hard to argue with, except with regard to sufficiency. Are Self Ownership, Private Property, and NAP sufficient? They are sufficient for the purposes that Hoppe has put them to: which is the ability solve (almost) all problems of human cooperation while relying on self ownership, private property, and NAP. The questions are: a) whether the these rules are sufficient to obtain sufficient voluntary adoption and adherence such that this libertarian state of affairs are possible? b) is there an alternative axiom or set of axioms that permits the deduction of the various solutions to voluntary cooperation? c) is there a superior alternative axiom or set of axioms that permit the deduction of the various solutions to the problem of liberty (voluntary cooperation). It would be unscientific to suggest that no other argument exists other than {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. (Self ownership, Private Property, Homesteading, Voluntary Exchange and Non Aggression). It is also pretty hard to imagine something more compact with the same explanatory power. Why? Because these three statements: 1) Metaphysics: Self Ownership:(Existence); 2) Epistemology: Private Property with Homesteading and Voluntary Exchange :(Scope); 3) Ethics: NonAggressionPrinciple:(Test); …are pretty narrow requirements for an axiomatic system. In fact, one statement per major domain of philosophy is so compact that it’s pretty hard to argue that it can be improved upon. Instead, it’s actually kind of awe-inspiring that all of the philosophy of human cooperation can be reduced to just these three statements. Even better, technically all five philosophical domains are answered by SO,PP+H+VE,NAP: 4) Politics: Politics is solved by market, anarchy and voluntary insurance organizations. 5) Aesthetics: Aesthetics is satisfied by the fact that we stipulate that liberty is desirable. So, if you’re asking the question, ‘how can we cooperate peacefully and voluntarily?’ and Hoppe has demonstrated that from these simple axioms we can cooperate peacefully and voluntarily, then it isn’t NECESSARY to devise an alternative axiomatic system. (I”m not even sure it’s helpful) It may be accurate to state that we not claim (actually, that **HE** not claim) no other set of statements would be superior (even if it is improbable) . But that is not to say that it is necessary, since he has demonstrated them to be sufficient for the deduction of all the institutions formal and informal for a voluntary system of cooperation. WEAKNESSES? SUFFICIENCY. (Now, lest you assume I am an apologist, I’ll take this a little farther.) “BUT” (and it’s a big but) is the set {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP} sufficient for voluntary and therefore preferential adoption of such set, either empirically (historically) or rationally (praxeologically)? And I think that is probably where it fails to sustain scrutiny, because we can demonstrate that the demand for external intervention (the state) does not decrease sufficiently in any population, to permit the rational and praxeologically testable, preferential and demonstrably voluntary, adoption of anarchy, in any population by other than by a tiny minority – at least as it stands. So while {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP} may be sufficient for the DEDUCTION of all means of voluntary cooperation, it does not provide sufficient INCENTIVE to reduce demand for external (state) intervention by a sufficient body of the population such that the a self-interested monopoly bureaucracy is not necessary for either: (a) the systematic enforcement, of private property for the prevention of free riding, theft and violence, or; (b) necessary for the systematic violation of private property to compensate for predation, as well as preventing theft and violence. Again, it appears that {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP} is sufficient for deduction of the informal and formal institutions of voluntary cooperation, but provides an insufficient incentive for the voluntary adoption of informal and informal institutions of voluntary cooperation. In that case, if the incentives are insufficient, then we have two possible means of constructing anarchy under {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}: (i) involuntary coercion under threat of boycott, ostracization, and/or threat of violence. (ii) improvement of incentives such that anarchy is voluntarily adoptable (praxeologically possible). (iii) A combination of both. So, let us see if either or both solutions are possible or necessary. HISTORY History tells us that liberty only exists where nearly all involuntary transfers of property are prohibited – including those which are not visible or known of. And the few circumstances where all involuntary transfers of property were prohibited was limited to european warriors who granted each other prohibition on involuntary transfer (property rights) in exchange for military service. Property rights were a ‘right’ that was obtained in a contract for voluntary exchange. The incentive to gain access to the privilege of private property was one that was both materially, and reproductively advantageous. These property rights were an artifact of the accumulation of wealth first in simple goods, cattle and horses, later in land and built capital. Fighters who took risks, kept their winnings. Later, all free men kept their property. Later under manorialism and agrarian farming, a married couple was needed for the rental of land. This delayed marriage, and forced the absolute nuclear family that we understand today. When the church sought to break up the large landholders they interfered with inheritance rights, which are the source of the family structure, and consequently, the source of moral code variation, throughout the world. To break up the families they prohibited inbreeding out to as many as eight or even twelve generations, and granted women property rights. The combination of property rights for all, the near elimination of free riding, even by family members (offspring), and the persistence of the militia as a fighting force, created the high trust universal social order we call the protestant ethic. The enlightenment’s intellectual effort was an experiment in both justifying the middle class seizure of political power, and transferring the rights of the upper and ‘middle’ classes (small business owners : ie: farmers) to all land holders. The culmination of this experiment was the near prohibition on involuntary transfers that was embodied in the American Constitution. The aristocracy of everyone who had a stake in the preservation of property rights. (Unfortunately, that experiment has shown that universal enfranchisement, especially the enfranchisement of women, was incompatible with liberty, because participatory government by those whose interest is to seek rents and free riding, is an organized means of disempowering armed property owners, and systematically removing their property rights. Thereby returning us to the consanguineous or serial-marriage family structure in corporate (state) form. LIBERTARIAN ETHICS: NECESSITY. BUT SUFFICIENCY? It’s kind of hard to disagree with libertarian ethics as stated in {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. If only because they’re necessary, and the alternative to disagreeing with libertarian ethics, is demonstrably, a nearly universally undesirable state of affairs involving constant property violations (theft and violence) that make cooperation in a division of labor all but impossible – even among members of a consanguineous community of primitive hunter gatherers it may be beneficial. Lets look at classes of involuntary transfers of property as people demonstrate them: (1) Criminal statements are those that involve violence and theft. (2) Ethical statements are those which prohibit involuntary transfer of property by asymmetry of information between those internal to the action. (3) Moral statements are those which by definition apply to unknown persons external to the action: anonymous involuntary transfers of property. (4) Conspiratorial Statements: Statements of Political Morality (conspiracy) are those which prevent the organized and systemic involuntary transfer of property, whether criminal, ethical, or moral. The NAP only has a mechanism for fairly simple, obvious property violations: criminal violence and theft of class (1) The NAP has no mechanism for any of class (2) or class (3), and arguably sanctions and encourages these involuntary transfers by NOT preventing them. The NAP prevents class (1) PORTIONS of class (4), but it does not prohibit class (2) and (3) portions of class (4). Now, if you are a member of the majority tribe, you will suppress (1) to increase trust and therefore productivity. But if you are an extractive minority tribe without political power, you may in fact prefer to preserve (1) as a means of competing with and draining the majority of resources. We libertarians tend to laud intersubjectively verifiable actions. But again, those actions that are intersubjectively verifiable may be visible, they may be verifiable. But they are trivially primitive in scope because they are limited to merely theft and violence – and only to fraud where it is specifically defended against by written warranty in advance. As such intersubjective verifiability is, like the NAP too simple a test for the suppression of ethical and moral violations that are required for the development of sufficient trust that liberty can exist by voluntary adoption, because the demand for a third party to prevent these transgressions by way of law-making, and institutional formation, is all but eliminated. The NAP is insufficient criteria for the suppression of sufficient involuntary transfers of property to counter the demonstrated universal human disdain for ‘cheating’. This is because private property open to intersubjective verifiability is insufficient a description for the types of property people demonstrate that they TREAT as their property. So it is one thing to state that we can deduce all necessary formal and informal institutions for the support of private property from the {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. It is another to state that we can either deduce sufficient institutions formal and informal, or create sufficient incentives for the voluntary adoption of those institutions, from {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. Just as it is demonstrable both rationally and empirically that socialism is impossible because of the impossibility of twin problems of economic calculation, and the absence of incentives, we also must observe that the set {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP} is demonstrably impossible because of the impossibility of suppressing sufficient cheating that people will possess the rational incentives, because planning and organizing are higher risk and more expensive under a low trust ethic, to adopt {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. This is a very damning criticism of the sufficiency of {SO,PP+H+VE,NAP}. Or correctly stated, it is a just as damning and inescapable criticism of the NAP, as economic calculation and incentives were for the socialist means of production. Once you understand this you will realize that {SO,PP+H+VE} survive, but that {NAP} is as great a logical failure as was the socialist means of production. It is non rational to ask humans to adopt the NAP since it suppresses crime, but not ethical, moral, and arguably, not even conspiratorial, violations of one’s property rights, as people demonstrate their understanding of property rights by their behavior. PART 2: THE RESISTANCE TO LIBERTY: GENDERS, RACES, CLASSES, AND AGES: VOLUNTARY COOPERATION, COMPETITIVENESS AND PROPORTIONALITY. (undone) =================== POST SCRIPT 1 ————– (a) the market cannot suppress sufficient ‘cheating’ that property rights will be willingly given in exchange (respected) by masses of individuals; nor that the demand for third party intervention (government) will be suppressed as a substitute for failure to suppress ‘cheating’. Nor that those who specialize in organizing against the market will forgo their opportunity to exploit this demand for intervention. (b) the source of property rights (and liberty as we know it) was not natural, was the product of a combination of the organized application of violence to both concentrate capital, and to suppress all forms of theft, cheating and free riding; as well as certain rare genetic biases in the west, the fertility and water availability of land, the hostile winters, and forcible destruction of familialism and tribalism by the church, so that it could interfere with inheritance practices and purchase land from the large land holders. (c) Given the diversity of reproductive strategies, and the different capabilities of the classes, private property is undesirable and poses a threat to many of their reproductive abilities. We are no longer equal enough, as we were under agrarianism and animal husbandry, that the marginal difference in our abilities is neutralized by mental and emotional discipline. While most humans can be disciplined and tamed for farm labor, not all humans can be taught to calculate using abstract concepts. As such the division of knowledge and labor provides sufficiently asymmetric rewards that the incentive to conform to property rights is non-rational for most actors. (d) Hoppe correctly deduced that from the institution of private property we can in fact solve all institutional problems necessary for cooperation at scale in a complex division of knowledge and labor. Unfortunately, this state of affairs is undesirable by a majority of the population whose reproductive strategies rely on tactics outside of voluntary cooperation in the market, for success. (e) Private property is contrary the the female reproductive strategy. Nuclear marriage is the optimum compromise between male and female reproductive differences. (f) Therefore it is praxeologically non-rational, and anti-scientific, to suggest that liberty will be willingly adopted without the forcible suppression of the reproductive ability of the lower classes, and the ability of women to return to their natural reproductive bias, by restoring communal property via the state. (g) As such, there are three options available to those of us who desire liberty, that we may employ one or all of: i) forcible application of organize violence to re-obtain our liberty. ii) modification of the ethics of liberty to suppress sufficient means of ‘cheating’ that demand for third party intervention (the state) will be diminished. iii) extension of the hoppeian model of competing private institutions to preserve his solution to the problem of monopoly bureaucracy, yet permit the resolution of reproductive differences between classes which cannot be solved by individual action in the market, and only collective action via organizational proxies. At my present level of skill I believe this is about as simply as I can articulate the idea. Rothbard used the low trust of the ghetto, and it was a failure because, regardless of rothbard’s arguments, any person from a high trust society will reject rothbardian ethics as immoral. Hoppe used the high trust of the homogenous polity to restore the city state, but did not answer the problem of incentives in the absence of the absolute nuclear family. My solution is to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the polity and to attempt to offer ethical and institutional solutions to the problem of cooperation in heterogeneous polities. Because what we are doing demonstrably hasn’t succeeded, and with what we have learnd over the past twenty years about human cognitive and gentic biases, it is non-rational to think that we have provided sufficient incentives for the voluntary adoption of property rights (and in particular, high trust property rights, not the low trust property rights of rothbard). Pretty damning criticism I think. But we need to keep advancing our philosophy until we find an answer. My answer might not be right, but it is likely to be less wrong. Cheers. ————- POST SCRIPT 2 ————- One last simple fact: people demonstrate that they are willing to pay something like twice as much to punish a cheater as they are desirous of personal gain. (at least in-group). This means that decisions of rational actors are morally non-netural, and this further erodes the misesian and rothbardian ordinality of preferences, as well as the value of prices, as well as the argument to indifference in all transactions. Prices are less important than signals and far less important than the suppression of cheating. If you combine this with both differences in reproductive strategies and the different abilities of the classes, then the argument that prices (and economics) are more material than morals falls. People will act morally if you suppress immorality well enough. but since their dislike of immorality is higher than their desire for other satisfactions, you must suppress far more than rothbard’s ghetto ethics if you want the obtain even basic private property rights. And you must suppress nearly all cheating if you want to eliminate the demand for government. As far as we know, this level of suppression of cheating can only be accomplished in a small homogenous outbred polity. (scandinavia). And it is possible that it is a genetic bias (I am not sold on that). (I think I went to far again too fast with that bit… sorry.) ———— POST SCRIPT 3 ———— One more try at the elevator speech. To reduce the demand for intervention, and obtain property right voluntarily, the standard of etics must be far and above those of the NAP. They must extend to all involuntary transfers, of all kinds, under all circumstances. and as far as I can tell, that requires the right of ostracization (exclusion). Hoppe was right so far as he took it. On everything. His generation did not have the science, so they had to rely on deduction alone. We have science. So I use it.
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Prohibiting Magical, Socialist, Postmodern, and Pseudoscientific Arguments, as Immoral Deceptions
(This is profound, and a lot to grasp. I have copied it here from elsewhere.) While one might say that ‘it does not matter what we do, that discipline over there, is none of our concern, because whether true or not, this technique is useful to us’. The fact is that such a statement is arbitrary and preferential and not ‘true’ remains. If instead of placing higher value on one’s personal utility in an isolated domain, one places higher value on suppressing immoral political speech such that freedom is possible, one might reach a different conclusion. Just as high trust ethics are possible by the suppression of additional immoral actions over low trust ethics, higher trust ethics are possibly by the suppression of further immoral actions. In low trust ethics, asymmetric knowledge is an ethical means of profit. In high trust ethics profit from asymmetric knowledge is immoral. In ‘higher trust ethics’ (In propertarianism) we place a greater ethical constraint, such that profit from obscurantism, mysticism, and platonism are prohibited. If operational language will allow you to express an idea and serves the needs of one’s function, then it is immoral to rely on platonic argument. If symmetrical knowledge will allow you to cooperate with another then it is immoral to express your thoughts in asymmetric terms. (incomplete information). If telling the truth will allow you to cooperate with another then it is immoral and unethical to express your thoughts in fraudulent terms. If voluntarily cooperating with someone such that you can obtain something without stealing, then it is immoral to steal from them. If is possible to cooperate with someone such that you can both survive then it is immoral to kill them. So, we must, in order to suppress increasingly complex forms of crime, ethical violation and immoral violation, we must forgo opportunities for self benefit by restraint, then to suppress the use of obscurant, mystical, platonic deceptions requires that we refrain, even at cost, from obscurant, mystical, and platonic statements. That this is in fact, what is required of Science (to make statements in operant language), then why is it that we cannot require this level of TRUTH in all other disciplines – especially if it prevents criminal, unethical, and immoral behavior, and enables as great a leap in cooperation as the high trust ethic did over the low trust ethic? Again, I believe I have solved the problem. But it may be just too much to ask for someone else to understand unless I am able to either condense it to a Confucian riddle, or extend it to a Hayekian narrative, or a Darwinian exposition of cases. ETHICAL BEHAVIOR COMES AT A HIGH COST. Ergo: If you want a politically ethical society we must pay this cost: the abandonment of the convenience of imaginary objects and confusing the utility of a conceptual tool with the existence and truth of that tool as a construction. This is how to make politics ‘scientific.’ We outlawed violence. We outlawed theft. We outlawed fraud. We suppressed fraud-by-omission with warranty. We suppressed free riding with marital structure and property rights. We tried to suppress corruption with the constitution, but it failed. It failed because the constitution was not precise enough – in no small part because it should have specified original intent. We have failed to suppress mysticism, monotheism, marxian obscurantism, and Hegelian and postmodern conflation of mysticism and obscurantism. The requirement for scientific speech makes such arguments impossible. It means that public discourse is a property-commons, and one may not free ride or privatize it for one’s own convenience. Because it is immoral to do so. This is pretty profound. But again, it may be that such a profound statement is not of interest to you. But to me, as someone who has tried to solve the problem of ethics in an ethically and morally heterogeneious polity and to protect us from another dark age of ignorance and mysticism that Marx, Freud and Cantor have tried to drive us into, it is of a greater priority, and it is entirely worthy of the cost. -Cheers ================ END NOTES FOR LATER REFERENCE 1) If i say that the square root if two is the name for a function but is not reducible to a number, and cannot be demonstrated to be possible, that does not in fact prevent me from using the name of that function as a symbol in deduction, because in no circumstance is infinite precision applicable. 2) (Lest we lose sight of the source of my argument here, I am trying to define extensions of political morality such that we can create institutions that permit the cooperation of individuals and groups holding heterogeneous moral codes, each of which reflects a different reproductive strategy. If you are going to create a means of resolving differences between moral codes, what constraints does one place upon the formation of argument, procedure, policy, and law, such that suppression of discounts would be possible, and theft by obscurant means would be impossible. How do we prevent the use of deception via various forms of obscurantism in a polity consisting of morally and ethically heterogeneous individuals and groups? If, as I’m arguing, mathematics is justificationary, but need not be, and need not be without sacrifice of functionality, and if it can be such that mathematicians (or members of this group) can be fooled into justificationary positions, then how would we prevent the ‘leakage’ from either this group’s ideology or the platonism of mathematics, (or that of socialists and totalitarians) into law? 3) limits solve the problem of arbitrary precision (general rules) when in physics, correspondence with reality provides the ‘limit’ of precision. This is the difference between math (the study of pure relations independent of context) and the study of reality (relations within context). But that does not mean that when we make a reference to any mathematical object, we are naming a function (label for the result of operations) not naming an extant entity. That by definition a number system can be used to construct the rules for any n dimensional construct deterministically because of the constancy of relations, we should not confuse the determinacy we have ourselves described in constant relations, with existence. I cannot speak something into material existence other than the vibrations caused with my voice. I actually find this subject fascinating because it sort of renders most of the world ‘childish’. 4) what good does a personal philosophy of ethical (interpersonal) action, and moral (political) action do you when the others do not share a marginally indifferent ethic and moral code? So, for example, what good does it do you if the vast majority economically, politically, or physically deprive you of any ability to act on this code? Politics is a contract, not a personal philosophy. And you might say that you will offer others these terms that you prefer. But if you must construct a contract (constitution) what terms must exist in this contract to make your personal philosophy both ethical and moral, possible to act upon? 5) a) Empirical means “observable”, not quantifiable: “based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.” Which is of course, the difference between the motion of planets vs unicorns (and infinity). That which is empirical is different from that which is imaginary. It is observable in time. (Very common mistake btw. You are not alone.) b) So, again, existence is different from utility. I can tell a fable with a unicorn, and I can imitate arbitrary precision with infinity. But that is different from saying such a thing exists scientifically (empirically). When you say that something is infinite, you are in fact, RELYING ON INDUCTION. (Ouch. I know.) c) God, and magic for that matter, are ‘older’ old hat. And they well served the purpose of their authors. Just as does infinity. d) Why is it that we need the ‘concept of limits’ (a form of justification)? It’s arbitrary precision instead of contextual precision – general rules independent of context versus precision determined by context. Why is it that we can use boolean logic (boolean algebra) for computation? (see Turing) And what utility does the function limit() serve in transforming contextual precision into arbitrary precision (general rule)? e) Constructivist, Intuitive, computational, operational, empirical, natural – all are expressions in math, logic, philosophy and science of attempts to circumvent the problem of reliance on justification. Departmental math, is justificationary. f) So, again, given that the difference is unnecessary and justificationary, and imaginary, while if stated operationally, math is descriptive, deductive, natural and ‘real’, and that the necessity of this conversation is DEMONSTRATION of the very problem of justificationary logic, even among people who assert that they deny the existence of justification, it should be somewhat obvious by now that there exists in fact the problem of externalizing immoral, unreal, illogical, platonism that is exported by justificationary departmental mathematics. g) Given that mathematical platonism is, like divine intervention, the hand of god, or some other magical mater of existence, ‘correctable’ without sacrifice of functionality in mathematics, then I will return to my asserted thesis that it is immoral to use non-operational, non-constructivist argument in public discourse (the export through obscurant language of error), because the institution of politics, exists for the purpose of transfer of wealth. Further, that we can, by placing the reuqirement for constructivist, operational, language on public discourse, we can (at least in theory) prohibit organized theft, corruption and immorality via justificationary psuedoscience, magic, or the pretense that mathematics can be used to describe phenomenon that is absent of constant relations (economics).
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Prohibiting Magical, Socialist, Postmodern, and Pseudoscientific Arguments, as Immoral Deceptions
(This is profound, and a lot to grasp. I have copied it here from elsewhere.) While one might say that ‘it does not matter what we do, that discipline over there, is none of our concern, because whether true or not, this technique is useful to us’. The fact is that such a statement is arbitrary and preferential and not ‘true’ remains. If instead of placing higher value on one’s personal utility in an isolated domain, one places higher value on suppressing immoral political speech such that freedom is possible, one might reach a different conclusion. Just as high trust ethics are possible by the suppression of additional immoral actions over low trust ethics, higher trust ethics are possibly by the suppression of further immoral actions. In low trust ethics, asymmetric knowledge is an ethical means of profit. In high trust ethics profit from asymmetric knowledge is immoral. In ‘higher trust ethics’ (In propertarianism) we place a greater ethical constraint, such that profit from obscurantism, mysticism, and platonism are prohibited. If operational language will allow you to express an idea and serves the needs of one’s function, then it is immoral to rely on platonic argument. If symmetrical knowledge will allow you to cooperate with another then it is immoral to express your thoughts in asymmetric terms. (incomplete information). If telling the truth will allow you to cooperate with another then it is immoral and unethical to express your thoughts in fraudulent terms. If voluntarily cooperating with someone such that you can obtain something without stealing, then it is immoral to steal from them. If is possible to cooperate with someone such that you can both survive then it is immoral to kill them. So, we must, in order to suppress increasingly complex forms of crime, ethical violation and immoral violation, we must forgo opportunities for self benefit by restraint, then to suppress the use of obscurant, mystical, platonic deceptions requires that we refrain, even at cost, from obscurant, mystical, and platonic statements. That this is in fact, what is required of Science (to make statements in operant language), then why is it that we cannot require this level of TRUTH in all other disciplines – especially if it prevents criminal, unethical, and immoral behavior, and enables as great a leap in cooperation as the high trust ethic did over the low trust ethic? Again, I believe I have solved the problem. But it may be just too much to ask for someone else to understand unless I am able to either condense it to a Confucian riddle, or extend it to a Hayekian narrative, or a Darwinian exposition of cases. ETHICAL BEHAVIOR COMES AT A HIGH COST. Ergo: If you want a politically ethical society we must pay this cost: the abandonment of the convenience of imaginary objects and confusing the utility of a conceptual tool with the existence and truth of that tool as a construction. This is how to make politics ‘scientific.’ We outlawed violence. We outlawed theft. We outlawed fraud. We suppressed fraud-by-omission with warranty. We suppressed free riding with marital structure and property rights. We tried to suppress corruption with the constitution, but it failed. It failed because the constitution was not precise enough – in no small part because it should have specified original intent. We have failed to suppress mysticism, monotheism, marxian obscurantism, and Hegelian and postmodern conflation of mysticism and obscurantism. The requirement for scientific speech makes such arguments impossible. It means that public discourse is a property-commons, and one may not free ride or privatize it for one’s own convenience. Because it is immoral to do so. This is pretty profound. But again, it may be that such a profound statement is not of interest to you. But to me, as someone who has tried to solve the problem of ethics in an ethically and morally heterogeneious polity and to protect us from another dark age of ignorance and mysticism that Marx, Freud and Cantor have tried to drive us into, it is of a greater priority, and it is entirely worthy of the cost. -Cheers ================ END NOTES FOR LATER REFERENCE 1) If i say that the square root if two is the name for a function but is not reducible to a number, and cannot be demonstrated to be possible, that does not in fact prevent me from using the name of that function as a symbol in deduction, because in no circumstance is infinite precision applicable. 2) (Lest we lose sight of the source of my argument here, I am trying to define extensions of political morality such that we can create institutions that permit the cooperation of individuals and groups holding heterogeneous moral codes, each of which reflects a different reproductive strategy. If you are going to create a means of resolving differences between moral codes, what constraints does one place upon the formation of argument, procedure, policy, and law, such that suppression of discounts would be possible, and theft by obscurant means would be impossible. How do we prevent the use of deception via various forms of obscurantism in a polity consisting of morally and ethically heterogeneous individuals and groups? If, as I’m arguing, mathematics is justificationary, but need not be, and need not be without sacrifice of functionality, and if it can be such that mathematicians (or members of this group) can be fooled into justificationary positions, then how would we prevent the ‘leakage’ from either this group’s ideology or the platonism of mathematics, (or that of socialists and totalitarians) into law? 3) limits solve the problem of arbitrary precision (general rules) when in physics, correspondence with reality provides the ‘limit’ of precision. This is the difference between math (the study of pure relations independent of context) and the study of reality (relations within context). But that does not mean that when we make a reference to any mathematical object, we are naming a function (label for the result of operations) not naming an extant entity. That by definition a number system can be used to construct the rules for any n dimensional construct deterministically because of the constancy of relations, we should not confuse the determinacy we have ourselves described in constant relations, with existence. I cannot speak something into material existence other than the vibrations caused with my voice. I actually find this subject fascinating because it sort of renders most of the world ‘childish’. 4) what good does a personal philosophy of ethical (interpersonal) action, and moral (political) action do you when the others do not share a marginally indifferent ethic and moral code? So, for example, what good does it do you if the vast majority economically, politically, or physically deprive you of any ability to act on this code? Politics is a contract, not a personal philosophy. And you might say that you will offer others these terms that you prefer. But if you must construct a contract (constitution) what terms must exist in this contract to make your personal philosophy both ethical and moral, possible to act upon? 5) a) Empirical means “observable”, not quantifiable: “based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.” Which is of course, the difference between the motion of planets vs unicorns (and infinity). That which is empirical is different from that which is imaginary. It is observable in time. (Very common mistake btw. You are not alone.) b) So, again, existence is different from utility. I can tell a fable with a unicorn, and I can imitate arbitrary precision with infinity. But that is different from saying such a thing exists scientifically (empirically). When you say that something is infinite, you are in fact, RELYING ON INDUCTION. (Ouch. I know.) c) God, and magic for that matter, are ‘older’ old hat. And they well served the purpose of their authors. Just as does infinity. d) Why is it that we need the ‘concept of limits’ (a form of justification)? It’s arbitrary precision instead of contextual precision – general rules independent of context versus precision determined by context. Why is it that we can use boolean logic (boolean algebra) for computation? (see Turing) And what utility does the function limit() serve in transforming contextual precision into arbitrary precision (general rule)? e) Constructivist, Intuitive, computational, operational, empirical, natural – all are expressions in math, logic, philosophy and science of attempts to circumvent the problem of reliance on justification. Departmental math, is justificationary. f) So, again, given that the difference is unnecessary and justificationary, and imaginary, while if stated operationally, math is descriptive, deductive, natural and ‘real’, and that the necessity of this conversation is DEMONSTRATION of the very problem of justificationary logic, even among people who assert that they deny the existence of justification, it should be somewhat obvious by now that there exists in fact the problem of externalizing immoral, unreal, illogical, platonism that is exported by justificationary departmental mathematics. g) Given that mathematical platonism is, like divine intervention, the hand of god, or some other magical mater of existence, ‘correctable’ without sacrifice of functionality in mathematics, then I will return to my asserted thesis that it is immoral to use non-operational, non-constructivist argument in public discourse (the export through obscurant language of error), because the institution of politics, exists for the purpose of transfer of wealth. Further, that we can, by placing the reuqirement for constructivist, operational, language on public discourse, we can (at least in theory) prohibit organized theft, corruption and immorality via justificationary psuedoscience, magic, or the pretense that mathematics can be used to describe phenomenon that is absent of constant relations (economics).