loststargrazer-blog - Tumblr blog

[loststargrazer-blog]

Does Conceptions + Causations = Science?

I have written about conceptions (blog 19) and causations (blog 6); however if you add them together do you have science? I started reading 'Making Things Happen' by James Woodward, and he promotes a pragmatic description of science as the useful manipulation of causal events. It seems to me that with the building blocks we have created that we could create a conceptual 'Theory of Science' that would satisfy pragmatic needs, and this theory would also add a more absolute nature to scientific truth with the techno-religious status that brings - as well as being compatible with religion as set out in blogs 17-18. Is this desirable?

I am not embarrassed to aim for a certain level of hypothetical certainty in theory, even if it is not completely escaping some relativism, perceptual baggage etc. There is more charm in claiming to talk about the universe than in talking about how to manipulate an unknown system in order to make money or other goals, which strikes me as rather an ugly personal philosophy, and especially when such a level of cynicism is not necessary. Of course in reality we treat our deeper theories as absolute (see blog 18). Science, like philosophy, has a number of roles, but it has as yet not been adequately defined by philosophy, although there have been attempts like falsificationism. Perhaps we could separate out the natural philosophy from the conceptions and causations of science itself. I shall treat this blog 23 as a pinnacle on previous blogs, more important for the view than the new elevation. So let us finish the journey to see what we can see.

* * *

When we look at science we see several approaches in its day to day description; for example if you put "what is science" into YouTube (March 2022) you get a mish mash of the semantic (i.e. science is learning through observation); the practical steps (like observation, hypothesis, observation, communication, review, and acceptance); and the aims of science (i.e. wondrous technology or a greater understanding of the universe). However, I would like to suggest that all of these approaches are looking at science side on rather than top down as would be philosophical. One side is the inputs, another side the outputs, but none of these elements are necessary to make up the science in the middle. So as Woodward points out there is presently a significantly different approach to the theory of scientific activity depending on which branch of science you attend to and even between scientists in a similar field. A simple example might be in economic science, with some economists thinking complex mathematical models are economics, while others holding models are a distraction from observing the reality that is the interplay of economic forces in circumstances that are often cultural or non-linear or unknowable. It could be that some things scientists think of as science are psychological, practical, mundane, or excessively idealised.

As this is a philosophical blog, we need to seek the schematic for the conception of science. From blog 19, conceptions were defined as:

1) Named and referenced

2) Have a schematic

3) The schematic creates names or allows the substitution of a name for other names

4) Does not exist as an object

5) Is expressed in the hyperreal

6) Is an extension of language

7) Can be compatible with an implicit logic or model

Once we start analysing conceptions of science, we can see there is more than one, or many. For example, 'Science' can be an administrative generalisation for the faculties or set of courses that administer science qualifications that meet the technical requirements of at least a Bachelor's degree in science. The technical requirements might talk of having high standard assessed elements of theory, the ability to access and assess prior research, experimental practice, use of technology and technique, and relevant mathematical tools. So there is a conception related to science as a degree that is named and referenced (1); (2&3) has a schematic where it is a substitutable generalisation for all the relevant degrees; (4) science itself is not a physical object but is expressed in (5) a hyperreal advert for the rigour of the subjects, while extending language (6) with the logic of the technological term (7). However, even in concluding this conception of science is valid, I do not think it is the best explanation of science if we wanted to give science a techno-religious status. So we shall have to start again.

Let us try to abstract a conceptual schematic for science in a different way, a mixture of root cause analysis, definition, observation, and implication and metaphysics. First, science is associated with observed knowledge (for example based on its Latin root), however, as we saw in blog 14, language terms generally are associated with the organisation of observations directly or indirectly; so, as this is metaphysically general, science needs to be more specific unless you want to deconstruct science and the framing of our neuro-linguistic world view. Given normal usage of science, I don't think we want to collapse it with this other related epistemological model we discussed in blog 14 as we want to give science a special status. There are not that many things in our domain of discourse as set out in these blogs that science could substitute for, however we can have a conception (blog 19), which includes a generalisation (blog 5). Also for science we have causation as a thing that is necessarily and implicitly observed in accepting the possibility of making valid observations (as set out in blog 6). So we can consolidate this to show experimental science involves making generalisations of causations, and theoretical science involves making conceptions of the generalisations of causations. These conceptions are our incarnation of scientific laws; so not given by monotheism, but because conceptions + causations = science.

So we are, with the help of James Woodward, expressing the nature of science as a relationship of 'a' observes 'b', where 'a' is the scientist and 'b' is a causal demonstration of the physical world existing. We can add to that 'a' generalises 'b' to create 'c' a causal conception. And also 'a' systematises 'c' to organise further 'world-mechanics' conceptions 'd'. The move from 'c' to 'd' is similar to the creation of grand narrative, religion, philosophy, or rationalist modelling, but based on the specific nature of d's relationship with 'c', and its special relationship with 'b' in the mind of 'a'; so it is science that 'a' is performing in this case when he claims 'd'.

By systematising causal observations, we can lift them from the mundane to the general, to the universal, to techno-religious status. A victory within limits. However, could you or another theorist downgrade this? It seems that to change this conception for another one would be difficult as you would be making a different conception and calling it "science". A new 'science-like' conception would not be boxed in by the limitations set out in the prior blogs with its limits not being chosen on the merits of the previous blogs, so would need substantive justification. So we first defined science as a taught faculty subject group, and then science as a deep concept, a deep knowledge methodology. Obviously language is mutable so you could have other conceptions of science, for example science within a post-doctoral research facility, or as a department in a company. However, these are additions, not replacements of the concept of science as a techno-religious investigation of causal conceptions which is its most general and basic foundation.

* * *

We can perhaps consider other conceptions: For example, the observations of relations between hyper real objects (see blog 11) could be demarcated from science where the hyper real objects do not represent and model causal reality. Literature studies or law are rich in narrative causation, but are not science. To this non-science I would add other abstract art and logics like theories with impossible postulates (as discussed in blogs 19 and 21). In this way certain higher mathematics and logic is not scientific, which may be a shock to some, but given its extreme creativity and detachment from reality, it is a rendering of impossible meaning, so while technically virtuoso, it is actually art.

We can remark that some areas are not scientific, but also that the reverse is true. In blog 8 we described the non-reductionist modelling that might occur, for example if a scientifically minded historian made a computerised model of the economy of the Roman empire. This attempt to model the historical reality and its causal relations might be as scientific as modelling the impact of mammoths on the northern ecosystems, so possibly quite scientific, but more importantly it is the approach rather than the fact categorisation that is significant.

In defence of the status quo, perhaps the different conceptions of science mean that science is not one thing. Splitting parts of the formal sciences out while expanding the social sciences to include technical treatments of arts subjects may not be accepted even as a trend. It could be that our philosophy is now far in advance of common usage, including amongst scientists.

The elevation of this blog is not going to induce vertigo, but given the dominant religion of a technological society is science, we should consider its limitations seriously. For example, when someone argues that infinite infinities is a number, should we assume they are being mystical or artistic or religious or outside of religion or scientific or metaphysical. Your guardianship of this kind of question controls whether you will let mystical elements of the folk religions into your science religion. Likewise the necessity of linking concepts to generalisations to observations of change grounds science away from idle speculation. So whether the scientific concepts originated in what order, observation or theory or communication, or various observations and theories is circumstance irrelevant to a philosophical definition of science. A philosophical description of science is an exacting reference to why it is an attractive method of finding and organising knowledge of the empirical world and isn't just a description of the world's usage of the scientific term. Science is a concept, and I conclude that this concept of science is at least as worthwhile as what has gone before.

* * *

I would like to conclude these blogs, a journey of many steps towards defining our dominant religion. It shows that science is more than speculation, pragmatism, induction, rationalisation, faith. We show how it is different from pure logic and various truths; we show that it is an incomplete description with religious gaps, and show what these terms mean. This is all part of the wonderful walkway we have passed through. Now all this philosophy has emptied itself onto the page, I am a mere shell. I am a shell that knows little, but has faith in human endeavour, science, concept building, truth, and even metaphysics. These are worthwhile pursuits, and I accept their necessity as part of an intelligent and free thinking life.

I would have liked to have described conceptions from blog 19 in more detail, so I leave you with this table comparing three conceptions. By showing their differences you can think things through for yourself. This method I call simply a Conceptual Table.

[loststargrazer-blog]

Can You Have Just Taxes?

After too much logic, what we need, like a warm cup of cocoa, is an ethical case study in order to put the world to rights. One area which affects us all is taxes, and how disgusting are present tax systems such that I am sure that whatever we say will be an improvement. There is nothing more lobbied and corrupt and arcane than the tax system. In fact it is so revolting I am not going to dirty my page with its present content, but start again from principles to policy - a manifesto for a tax revolution. Taxes are not really boring after all; they just tell you that to stop you demanding this total overthrow.

So what do we want an ethical tax system for a just society to look like? Well really it should be up to us, and this 'us' means legally resident people, not corporations or even the elite clientele of top tax accountants or international accounting foundations, so following the constitutional practice set out in blog 12 on a good life in a just society. Under a democracy a pauper's wish is equal to that of a billionaire, and in this tax model I mean what I say. So we need to decide what we want the tax system to do. Well I suggest that as we are a community, the community requires a public purse to function meaningfully. That we are a community was described in blog 3 - "Who Are You, Who Are We?". Also, in blog 9 on capitalism we realised that taxes would affect the economic transactions society participated in with an impact on turnover, profitability, and capital.

Some tax systems make a smoke screen of arguments about capital and income, corporate and private, profit and salary: These arguments are all diabolical nonsense derived from historical aristocratic theft, sophism, and lobbyist exceptionalism. In all cases they are maintained to increase the complexity of the tax system in order not to pay an equitable share of the tax burden. To start with, everything belongs to somebody, by which I mean a real person; even government owned corporations are really owned by the citizenry. A government or a corporation is only a way of organising the ownership by the people. The phantasm of the legal person that the corporation represents should not have the slightest difference on calculating your taxes. Likewise, all transactions lead to changes in capital, and the net change in capital from all sources is the most absolute description of the gross income. Dividing monies up is just a trick for accountants, and given how easy it is to set up a shell company, it's not a very subtle trick. Nowadays you can receive cash, share buybacks, shares, options, salary, bonuses, benefits - all of this is the same money rearranged. Money should be pooled and have tax paid on it equally.

You might say, wait a minute, don't we need special tax incentives? This I doubt, but if you did, then you could give a grant for a purpose with a contract from the public purse, monitored as expenditure, without blindly allowing the public purse to be robbed without scrutiny. We also could perhaps take a view that economic freedom should be open to everyone and not just special interest groups. So, base taxes should be lower with upward exceptions for unwanted activity rather than the other way around. I discussed freedom and justice in blog 13, and this seems clearly more just than giving in to some corporate lobby.

So what should we tax? We should make all tax personal, so by taxing a person's expenditure plus net change in capital. We could exempt all bodies whose capital is owned by our government. We could make it a rule that all assets must be repriced sooner than every seven years so that hidden capital must be flushed into the system.

In order to tax companies, I suggest that taxing profit is a bad incentive for investment. I suggest instead that a share of profit, say 25%, is divided equally between the tax resident staff as a fixed amount per full time equivalent employee. This would be tremendously progressive, incentivise work, incentivise restructuring to a more profitable business, boost the efficiency of the company, and boost worker income and income taxes - all while respecting stakeholder capitalism. To offset lost revenue to the public purse I would advocate for a higher value added tax ("VAT") on goods and services that would generate lots of revenue; and, even higher rates of VAT could be used to discourage unfortunate activity like production using dirty energy. Having higher value added taxes and lower corporation taxes is associated with economic dynamism in a number of economies like Ireland.

So we have decided where we want most revenue to come from, people and value added taxes. With VAT I suggest that the higher punitive levels are given an explicit target, for example to reduce the turnover of the disliked segment by 5% per year. In this way the unfair taxes should be monitored against their targets and adjusted if ineffective or overharsh. The specific and monitored penalty VAT levels should yield good revenue. The VAT rate for basic foods, education, and charity subscriptions could be exempt, but by very strictly limited criteria so most things pay VAT included in the price.

This still leaves the question of how people should be taxed. There has been the suggestion of a universal basic income, but its numbers do not stack up very well within our present economy. Nonetheless, the idea that the poor in our society receive money from the public purse seems just. Whether it is a tax credit or a benefit, it is still money from the public purse. Again this is a horribly confused topic that could be simplified at a stroke; so we shall by stroking a graph.

We take our new figure of gross income and we need to translate this into a take home figure that is a fair function of needs:

A fair share of what is earned.

A sufficient income to support a poorer household.

There should be a net contribution to the public purse.

A formula that is very simple and good is one based on affordability criteria, and that measure gives us an affordability number of 2 plus the number of dependents. How you measure dependents versus those who file their own taxes is a social issue, but I would suggest a family with two working parents and two children would file two returns of 2+2 and 2+0, while a single worker with an at home spouse and two children would file a single return of 2+3. Actually due to the resilience of the model I am choosing, where two parents are working it would not make any difference to the net household income who registers the dependents as you will see shortly. All tax resident humans would either file a return or be a dependent.

So this affordability number is multiplied by a basic income grant to give the minimum living income and can replace child benefit, income support, tax credits, unemployment benefit [particularly good in a gig economy], and hardship benefits. Then on all the income we tax a flat tax at a top rate to pay for this.

This system incentivises everyone equally to work as they are all paying the same tax rate. The rich cannot cheat and the poor cannot get stuck in a poverty trap.

Obviously the tax rate and even the allowance needs to be decided in a budget. The abolition of the present tax allowances and certain benefits would generate income, while the additional affordability credit would cost, but not as much as a universal basic income. For corporations, they would not pay corporation tax but would pay additional VAT on a similar scale plus a share of profit to their employees.

So we have some ideas about how to pay taxes more equally, humanely, simply, with better incentives, no loopholes, with the ability to inhibit unpleasant activity, or manage the economy into a transition. The revaluation of assets, including homes, would increase income so that tax rates would not need to be so high. This would also end the stupidity of rich people suppressing their income while sitting on lots of appreciating assets as most billionaires and millionaires do. It might initially sound strange to pay tax on asset appreciation which does not generate cash, but people would quickly get used to this operating expense. I would also consider and promote abolishing property taxes and recoup the money from the income tax rate which would now be collected fairly to simplify and improve the tax system.

We have some ideas about the tax system, and you can add your own, but let us consider our tax themes for just taxes as an evaluation criteria:

Theme 1) Simple vs. Complex vs. Incomprehensible

Theme 2) Cheap to run vs. A burden to complete vs. A cost that outweighs its benefit

Theme 3) Progressively adds to equality vs. Equal vs. Regressive

Theme 4) Incentivising vs. Inhibiting vs. Poverty trap

Theme 5) Creating social harmony vs. Entrenching injustice vs. Exploitation by an oligopoly

At the end of the day, if the state is to carry out its function to support society it will need money. As we are all part of society it falls on us to pay our taxes. What we want from a tax system is part of that social choice as much as the overall level of taxation that we vote for. It seems to me that there is far too much focus on the tax rate and not nearly enough focus on how it is calculated and the basic tax structure.

In terms of virtue ethics, I do not think there is any absolute thing as 'fair' that could be used in 'fair taxes'; but I do think there are definitely worse tax outcomes and we live with these outcomes every day.

There are plenty of politicians who campaign on issues, however very few tackle just taxes. I put this down to a monotheist moral totalitarianism where people do not question adequately the morality of the systems imposed on them. People instead bow to unjustified authority and accept dubious explanations assuming the nature of the tax system is designed in their, or the public's, interest when historical oddity, lobbying, and political donations have probably played a bigger role. The damage the tax culture has done is evident around the world in the enormous public debts and weak rules.

When we look at our five themes on just taxes we can give the present system a rating on each metric. You can even compare the themes with your ideas on taxes and give that a new rating. At present you will see that for the average person the present system is (theme 1) incomprehensible; (theme 2) taking advantage of all its provisions like setting up shell companies and offshore trusts is a cost that outweighs the normal benefits; (theme 3) it is highly regressive with the very rich avoiding most taxes; (theme 4) most tax and benefit systems do not tie together nicely to smooth income growth; (& theme 5) almost all debate on tax structures is funded by the extremely wealthy with no regard for philosophical justice. Moving the tax system from averaging 1.5 stars to being 4 star really wouldn't be that hard, although transitioning to a high VAT system would need to be gradual.

Going back to the philosophy, is this star scale meaningful? I would suggest it is meaningful, but its reference is a little obscure. The words in each theme suggest a triplet of division; this is a structuralist framework for each dimension, so de Saussure would approve (see blog 15). Each dimension would also be theoretically observable: For example, the number of hours required to learn the entire tax code for theme 1; or the total cost of administering and checking taxes for theme 2; a comparison of the overall tax rate for theme 3; a study of pay and benefits in reality for theme 4; and finally for theme 5, a measure of who specifically promotes, controls, and changes the tax structure, and whether this is actually democratic in practice.

It is possible to look at the sameness and difference of two tax models as we did in blog 14, and from this we could see if one was 'better'. The exact scoring might have room for some interpretation. This interpretation might be unavoidable as we spread the net of language over the world (of tax systems); however we should not let lawyers and sophists divide our attention from the basics of people, capital, transactions, and refilling the public purse.

In conclusion, there is a lot spoken about taxes, but it is all rather grubby and lacks principles. By taking a philosophical approach, even a metaphysical analysis, combined with some clear principles based on democratic ethics and applying them to a systems analysis we can quickly unwrap substantial improvements. So philosophy is sometimes good at cutting through time-hardened twaddle as well as generating theory.

[loststargrazer-blog]

Does Logic Make Any Sense?

The undeniable thing about logic is that it makes people believe they are right when they argue with you, but are they actually making any sense? I would not like to argue that it is better to scorn logic entirely, but there are definitely problems with logic. These problems are ignored by people who claim they are logical. They don't mention problems when creating logic from the world. A good and historically significant example of this is A.J.Ayers book 'Language, Truth, and Logic'. I am not going to go through my criticisms of this book, but I will start by discussing what logic is, and what it isn't. Logic isn't a magic way of being right. My view of Ayer is he really is not logical enough.

To start with there are three distinct ways of looking at logic, one as language, the second as an axiomatic system, and third as something you use to make arguments. The history of logic also follows a similar pattern. First you had Aristotle formalising bits of language and looking at the relations of all and some like: "All men are mortal. All of Socrates is a man. Therefore: All of Socrates is mortal." This imposition of relations and behaviours I have mentioned previously as part of the logic of the hyper real in blog 11.

Second, from a German called Gottlob Frege, came a system of logic that after work from others including Bertrand Russell created a mathematical type system at the beginning of the 20th Century, and the logical revolution. Although this logic used Aristotle's foundation, it had rendered Aristotle's logic obsolete and incomplete. This new logic is discussed widely in philosophy, for example in the 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' by Wittgenstein. The point about this logic is that it was more like a branch of mathematics; even people explicitly treated logic and set theory as branches of mathematics when we can now successfully argue that they are just an abstraction of language involved in describing conceptions symbolically (see blog 19 on conceptions). However the mathematical nature of this logic gave a very false sense of impregnable superiority, because, while it was defined and could be 'proven', we know that, like some mathematical language (see blog 15) , it is very hard to attach it to sense statements in the real world without making assumptions that are similar to the conclusions or are at least metaphysical (which Ayer denied we should).

The next stage of thinking, especially in the humanities, is the postmodern view that the interpretation trumps logic. Sometimes people might note that logic seems to give the conclusions the logician wants. They may not know how or why, but the exterior observation is damning, whether this is about power, colonialism, or racism etc. I will attempt to reconcile these opposing views for you to see how logic is used in these blogs. This is both to rehabilitate some logic, and to deny the validity of oppression through logic. Here ends the introduction to this blog.

* * *

As blogs are short I will try to describe logic by describing the action of doing logic. This is not the normal approach to teaching logic, but is very instructive and fits in with the learning by doing approach of these blogs. Suppose we take a Logical Positivist like Ayer at their word: The situation is this, you are standing and walking in a fog so thick you cannot see the ground, it is quite dark. As you walk to the left of you a light or lights flashes occasionally (exhibit A); even more occasionally to the right of you a light or lights sometimes flashes at the same time (exhibit B). You are not sure if the lights are moving as you walk or are different lights at intervals, or are far away, or even if the second light is the occasional reflection of the first light; perhaps the lights are narrow or sweeping beams and not flashing.

This is the outer loop of doing logic: We supposedly turn this situation into logical statements, and without making a metaphysical assumption. To start with, if you assume the lights can be named as objects you are assuming a metaphysics of object names (see blog 6 on causation and names). Then if you assume the lights are related you would have to make some metaphysical assumptions: For example, Leibniz said they were separate monads that didn't interact but were set in perfect and continuing harmony by god at the beginning of time. While I am not endorsing Leibniz, I do think you might really need some metaphysical concepts such as i) causation, ii) identity, iii) response to stimuli, iv) chance association, and v) no relation etc.

The real questions you might actually experience might be many: For example, are the lights on a timer, are they linked together partly or totally, are they communicating, what happens if you walk backwards, which direction should you walk towards to avoid getting lost etc. However, according to the logical positivists what you know is not any metaphysics at all but clear logic that is called modus ponens. [I would like to point out that this is not obvious to me from this example either.]:

  Light B implies Light A

  Light B

  Therefore Light A

The fact you already know 'A and B' suggests to me that it is difficult to use 'implies' (which is sometimes called the material implication) without having already assumed the conclusion or at least 'A and B; therefore A'. This doesn't tell you anything much; Wittgenstein actually says logic doesn't tell you anything new, and in this outer loop of doing logic we can see his point. Points of disagreement are usually rooted here, with the premises.

The inner loop of doing logic is the internal process of finding contradictions and tautologies and even open questions. The last point is the most important: What we can say about the lights in the fog is mostly open questions:- However the view that there is no logical conclusion is not that popular in life where people like certainties so much that if there is a gap they will invent religion or theory or grand narrative to fill it with premises, as we saw in blog 18. This is not to say all logic is useless for, if you can make premises, you can make a conclusion, and sometimes the conclusion is new. This is done by giving the relations between names a logical description using a truth table. For example 'B implies A' is the relation 'B → A':

     B   →    A

 True True  True

 True False False

False True True

False True False

Here we give A and B the total combinations of true and false in the truth table; there are 2^n number of true and false combinations where n is the number of defined objects, so in this case 2^2 = 4 rows. Then in bold I have put in the truth value of the combined entity based on the definition of the ‘implies’ relationship, and this is a new object. We can use this new object further to calculate the truth of more complex statements. So we can say that 'B implies A' is true except when B is true but A is false as underlined.

We can describe the arrangement of lights by using the table after making some metaphysical assumptions and associative set names (such as A & B), [see blog 14 on separating out experiences into concept names]. So if we look at the lights as a series of three experiences we can say (assume) the following about the scenario that will be more intuitive and obvious:

                   Not B and Not A       written as      (¬ B & ¬ A)

  Alternatively A and Not B            written as     XOR (A & ¬ B)

  Alternatively A and B                   written as     XOR (A & B)

We can see if this is the same as 'B implies A' by making a giant truth table. The numbers are the steps, the steps can vary, but it is necessary to start with the objects B and A, then build them up until you come to the intermediate objects and then to the conclusion. I have added some brackets to help you. The truth table relations between the objects are true by the definition of the relations we have chosen above:

By assigning every possible truth T or F value to 'A' and 'B' and using the logic tables for the symbols and combining them we can see the conclusion in the final step 11 in bold: In step 11 it is always true that they are equal (T means True) so the 'B implies A' object is a tautology with our three observations of the lights A and B. If you are not aware of how inner loop logic works then this is a bit like being thrown in at the deep end.  This does show something, probably not useful to getting lost in the fog, but it is a simplification of your three observations to explain the relation between two lights as simply as possible. In this case it shows we can define the lights with one symbol 'implies', so we are being consistent even if this conclusion is not actually that obvious.

Whether this truth table tells you something new is debated. I would say it does, especially if you build the system into a complex one with emerging properties. However at a simple level philosophers like Ayer and Wittgenstein said nothing new is shown; but, perhaps they were wrong because they chose simple examples, were tricked by their own cleverness, did not have the conception of conceptions, and above all they disliked any form of rationalism. Rationalism is the belief that new information can be derived by reason like mathematical modelling. Their extreme empiricism denies the obvious, that we learn new things from reasoning all the time and can even use systems with impossible objects to do it like imaginary numbers, (see blog 19 for an example).

In the inner loop of logic we can give all the different combinations of 'True' and 'False' a name and a symbol (like 'implies' or 'and'); alternatively we can use less types of symbol and have combinations of a few symbols that do the same thing. In fact it is possible to have long combinations of just one symbol; for example, computers do logic just using a gate called the NOR symbol gate as this is what is printed on their chips. Not all gates can be singly combined to be complete descriptions of all combinations like NOR or NAND, but in combinations it is possible with the ones in the table.

As you can see from the description of logic, the issues are often not really about tautologies, contradictions, or a lack of conclusions in the inner loop which most logic books and courses focus on. These can be analysed quite simply. In fact you could take a piece of complex logic like a computer program and analyse it, simplify it to its simplest description, and compile it into a different logical language. This is the kind of thing programming language compilers do, although their outputs are only read by computers. The deep problems are how you make premises in the outer loop, and I shall talk more about that and the metaphysics involved,  

* * *

In the earlier example we have approached 'B implies A' in two ways. The first was as an obvious expression of the sense data, however this was unsatisfactory for me. For example it would require a lot more code to automate this observation task by a computer with a significant number of associations and assumptions across the sightings. Therefore I declare Ayer's view illogical and even emotional (an angry young man to quote the Penguin Classics introduction to his book).

Second we had a processing of some descriptions of the states of the lights and we simplified them. I suggest this suffers from the same problem. The simplification is mechanical and it works, but according to Ayer and Wittgenstein would be subject to exactly the same assumptions and associations. This is as the three descriptions and the final conclusion are claimed to be the same thing. For me, whether they are the same thing depends to a significant amount on the definition of 'same' and 'thing'; I would prefer to say linked, but agree they have some shared assumptions and associations.

So we have a question, how can one thing 'imply' another, even if it is presented as a yummy three layered logical cake. Are we saying:

1) B causes A, or are we saying

2) B and A are part of the same thing, perhaps

3) B and A are associated, or

4) B and A are just by chance coincidental, or

5) B and A work on a parallel principle like each being set on an equal clock.

We discussed causation in blog 6, and I was in favour of it in principle, but it did suggest that 1) and 2) are linked because causation is a lot about the identity and continuity of named sets of objects expressing themselves. In the example of the lights it is not clear that we have enough information to establish 1) or 2). The lights appear associated, but a statistical association is not very reliable compared to logical certainty, even less reliable is 4). Of course if we knew something more or technical about beacons then 5) might be supported, but we don't. Thus I would say Ayer's logical positivist approach, where we strip out the metaphysics, leaves very uncertain logic and is even just scepticism dressed up in new clothes. If we added some knowledge of beacons we would not need to wonder if they were objects, or flashed, or had timings, or whether we would get lost.

'Implies' is just one relation, you can consider the same problems with all logical relations. Is 'and' stating a shared identity; 'not' stating the existence of an anti-object; does 'or' mean a thing has parts etc. Ayer would claim that actually trying to describe reality is metaphysics and should be dismissed, but then the useful meaning of logic is dismissed too.

The problems with the outer loop get worse upon consideration: Consider if 'B implies A', why is it not 'B = A' if B causes A or if B and A are one? Surely we should shift our name definitions to make this so? Why is there an asymmetry? Are we assuming directional time, or action at a distance? What else are we assuming and perhaps we should assume more things like as A flashes without B it is not that B implies A, but that A is free. You would get a complete contradiction if you added 'not(B implies A)'.

Further, the mapping between 'B causes A' and 'B implies A' is not necessarily a match, for example if you find an egg by the waterside: This is probably although not necessarily caused by a duck, perhaps it was caused by an alligator. So 'egg implies duck' is possibly incomplete. Any logical statement about the world could be incomplete. This has consequences for the arguments, for example there is an argument called modus tollens:

  'Egg implies Duck'

  'Not Duck'

  'Therefore Not Egg'

There is an asymmetry of knowledge, so modus tollens is not reliable unless you know everything about the domain. Knowing everything about the domain may be true of a mathematical construction, but it is not true of the real world where there could be an alligator.

Logic is incomplete in the real world, and, as a result, is also asymmetric. It breaks down at the boundaries of your knowledge. Wittgenstein says you need to list all statements before processing them, but this is impossible to know in the real world.

Finally if you add names, they are sets of multiple identities, or even conceptions of other names. This baggage is almost certainly adding extra layers of definitions to the confusion. Logic can use quantifiers to make it essentialist, as mentioned in blog 15. This means the names of the objects are defined as variables and given a scope or essence like 'all ducks'. However this is complex or inadequate for the outer loop because by assuming an essentialist position you are determining rather than describing what is what, so the nature of causation and continuation and an arbitrary demarcation of the world. This arbitrariness leads to assumptions and errors like essentialism itself; this is that things have an inner identity like a soul or Platonic Form.

Problems clearly arise, for example if you divide people up, you could quite quickly start creating arbitrary hierarchies like an imperialist or slaver. This is even a behaviour which is a problem with machine learning classification systems based on all too human data sets.

* * *

In conclusion, I do not expect you to be able to do inner loop logic manipulations after just reading this blog. You should read a guide to logic if you want to do this. However, perhaps you now know logic's limitations better, especially in the outer loop where you try to turn circumstances into symbols. Also you can see that even if parts of logic are mechanical, the other parts do not go away even if you ignore them. Their issues are about much of the philosophy in these blogs like names, generalisations, conceptions, natural laws, theories, descriptions, language, definitions, truth, and hyper reality. So real world logic is not a simple answer that just makes sense.

[loststargrazer-blog]

Can You Build a Philosopher?

Is being a philosopher too weird for you; well perhaps we could just build an artificial philosopher as then you could have objective philosophy? But what do philosophers do?

What do philosophers do? This is an interesting question, and there seems to be plenty to go on. One thing academic philosophers do is they study philosophy. I mean they really seem to care about who wrote what when, who commented on it and why, and who was influenced by them, where the philosophers lived, and what they had for breakfast. So philosophers on this view are a funny type of historian of ideas. They are not really that bothered about the right answer in philosophy, much more in what historically people believed. The problem with this is that I am not sure you need a PhD level detailed search through dusky archives to give you irrelevant information like what mental diseases Socrates had, or whether Anaxagoras disliked bacon sandwiches. Alternatively you could upload every surviving work of philosophy and get your robot 'Phylis the Philosopher' to spit out random passages and questions, which Phylis could then try to answer based on the library and archives using a combination of random shouting, search, and a machine learning algorithm. Is this job done?

Unfortunately when you look at philosophy, particularly modern philosophy, you get a different answer as to what philosophers should be doing. If we look back to the 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' by Wittgenstein where he says philosophy is not a body of knowledge, but is a process. Interestingly, could we automate this process? What would it give us?

Wittgenstein says that much of philosophy is meaningless. The questions of philosophy are either based on confusion - so are part of philosophy, or are meaningless - so should be binned, or are questions of fact - and are part of science. So his philosophy is a facility for analysing language about confusions, and for clarifying them into logical relations and atomic statements of fact. Could you build this?

I shall call it the 'Wittgenstein Test', and it is a more sensible version of the Turing Test, not just to chat about human niceties, but to have Phylis shout either: "You are asking meaningless pointless questions you superstitious worm!" Or: "You are confusing x with y and z when they are different things you confused slug!" Then, like Wittgenstein himself, Phylis could spit out some tape of predicate logic in a weird mix of obscure and obsolete Greek, mathematical, and Hebrew symbols.

On a more serious note, Wittgenstein does give some more details about how to pass a Wittgenstein Test, and it is very like machine recognition (as you would find in a self-driving car):

- First, you take the sensory information about the world and describe it as a picture.

- Second, you identify everything in the picture in a finite number of statements or logical atoms (or (Ǝx)fx as Wittgenstein unhelpfully describes it - he also has a symbol for the set of statements that I can't draw).

- Third, you can describe the relations between the logical atoms.

- Fourth, you make propositions with the logical relations of the atoms and manipulate them tautologically [I shall discuss tautologies in my next blog - basically this means in a way that can't be logically false - so is a logically valid manipulation].

Really Wittgenstein doesn't give too many examples, so I am not sure if Phylis would be useful, but by showing the link to the logical statements from your question you would either be finding a tautology - so the answer would be yes, or finding a contradiction - so the answer would be no, or if neither of these it would be irrelevant to the picture. If irrelevant to the picture, Wittgenstein and the logical positivists (although not me) said the question was actually meaningless. I can see Phylis in this mode being able to answer things like is there a cat on the road? But less, should we stop? Also, there seems to be a large computational jump to being able to analyse a philosophical confusion from this. It is probably terribly politically incorrect, but I do often mock Wittgenstein in my head, despite his 'algorithm' for philosophy having been written before electronic computers were invented at the end of the first world war. Nonetheless Phylis could probably do 'philosophy' as set out by Wittgenstein in steps 1-4 only, which is good because I don't think a normal brained human could, but bad because I don't think this would solve many philosophical questions. But isn't philosophy a bit more creative?

Well is philosophy creative? There are plenty of things philosophy could be said to be, but I am not convinced that wild bouts of creativity are as prevalent as you might think, although perhaps they should be; but philosophy is not supposed to be fiction. So what do philosophers do again? One theory is that philosophers only do philosophy to promote themselves in society, but given the number of philosophers who rejected social niceties this seems an only partial view at best. Also philosophers would probably make more money if they became accountants, so I think this Nietzschean view is not really a comment on philosophers, but rather a comment on some human ambition and rather flawed too. Personally I just like to share my thoughts with you my friends, however it does lead us into a discussion of the role in society of philosophers separate from producing philosophy.

Quite interestingly for me, philosophy in academic groupings is lumped together with religious studies; which, based on Wittgenstein's probable account that the word god is meaningless, I find to be quite hilarious. Nonetheless it does suggest that Phylis, our robot philosopher, might need to have a religious role within society following on from our definitions of religious in blog 18 to be a true philosopher. Following on from the last two blogs, we can see that, especially historically, philosophers have been crucial to describing the generalisations, theories, and conceptions that govern our political and moral lives. Along with economists and sociologists, philosophers are the new priests of our secular society working alongside the vestiges of the religious organisations that never go away.

Philosophers probably aspire to incitefully solving confusions through educating and clarifying public thought. Also, they may polarise or distract the debate by adding logic, or even dogma, or even just by clinging to the views of their favourite school of philosophy. A surprising number of philosophers are advisors on panels and think tanks on a wide range of issues, and may even influence governments, or at least provide some alternative insane views to the prevailing orthodoxy. In fact academic philosophers in particular often love the thrill of having their interpretations being taken seriously, and not just by gullible students. So could Phylis become a secular priest, and influence society with awkward and backward philosophy from a long dead philosopher? Could she educate and corrupt the youth by providing an unhelpful academic education like Socrates?

Presently there is educational software, but it is quite textbook like, so Phylis could be loaded with someone's perceived wisdom. It is unlikely though that she could yet mark an essay correctly, and philosophy students generally have to write essays. In Socrates's day of course they had to use dialectic, verbal discussions. While it might be difficult to get a robot to discuss philosophy, it might be easier to get it to say: "You don't know that," at regular intervals. Socrates's education system was very much focused on denying speculative knowledge, although strangely not so much about the gods so much as political authority. Apart from Socrates there is a tendency to promote philosophy that is politically expedient, for example Confucius, or that tries to make you happier or more respected, like Aristotle. This philosophy is not necessarily truly justified by dialectic argument beyond an end justifying the means. For example, Socrates is probably correct in his view that an Emperor does not know what he is talking about; however Confucius tries to reconcile this by saying it is in the interest of a harmonious state to respect the Emperor. That this is oppressive totalitarianism is not relevant to Confucius's moral view that anarchy or civil conflict is a less favourable alternative. So sometimes philosophy is not about philosophy but about the conflicts in society, psychology, science, politics, even economics. This conflict can be captured in an essay or dialectic, but less in robot marking.

At present we could use search technology to search digital libraries, and digitalisation itself would much improve the availability, cost, and ease of access to philosophy. The delivery of education could be semi-automated with texts, comments, lectures, and criticisms loaded online. Interactive forms and worksheets would be useful in teaching the facts, particularly in topics like logic exercises. However this leaves quite a lot remaining. To study philosophy is also to test out how you think. This remains outside of technology for the moment.

In some respects contemporary philosophy is like a bunch of cut flowers, cut from other disciplines. Logics, which I shall talk about in my next blog, are cut from language arguments; philosophy of mind from psychology; meta-physics from physics and religion; ethics from decision making; political philosophy from campaigners; and of course running through almost all philosophy is history, the history of ideas. Can Phylis, our computer philosopher, do this? I think the flower arranging and ensemble is beyond the ability of a present computer system. When we look at what philosophers have done historically, there are both tasks that can be done better by a computer and tasks that are beyond Phylis, most notably the synthesis of a new religion for society. However, what about a future academic philosopher? What would happen in sci-fi philosophy?

There are at least three ways we could study how we think and whether our philosophy is valid in the world of sci-fi:

- One is to think the thoughts while in a brain scan: It would show the neural logic, the associations, the premises, the actual logic, and the exact references and the scope of the conclusions.

- A second way is to use a computer brain, perhaps taking a step by step analysis of neural learning methods as it goes from the explicit inputs via an analysed neural net to a weighted conclusion. Alternatives, like a Wittgenstein Test, might also be helpful in providing different cognitive analyses of a problem. This would transform philosophy from being based on opposing historical arguments to showing how the interpretation of an input, or the weighting of a learned emphasis could create tipping points in the logic and worldview; so one way you get the ethics of Jihadi John, and another way the generosity of the enlightenment.

- The third way is dystopian and that would be to create unethically a large organic brain, perhaps by hormones or gene therapy - so you could brain scan an experimental brain; perhaps it would be a monkey with the IQ of 300. This could be used to solve the hard problems, but would probably work out how to enslave humanity and conquer the universe with a race of monkey cyborgs. Okay this is definitely sci-fi, but the point remains that you could brain scan something other than a regular human brain, perhaps a large vat of neurons.

There are other experiments that could be carried out in sci-fi, for example testing the differences in perception and thinking between a primate brain (like a human) and a bat. This might be the case of building some simplified computer models of bats and primates in a super computer and reverse engineering the brain simulations to investigate the difference. Perhaps the sensation of being a bat could even be simulated for the curious using virtual reality. Would this still be philosophy, probably not? Probably it would be a form of science like computational psychology, but it would answer a current question of philosophy. So philosophy will both expand and shrink.

Back to the here and now for a conclusion; can you build a philosopher? The answer to this is that on Wittgenstein's definition, you might yes, however this definition ignores much of what philosophers actually do. However neither Wittgenstein's machine nor most academic philosophers spend that much time systematically rethinking and refining general philosophy. Academics do spend a lot of time on the quasi-religious public worship of old theories. There are therefore two final conclusions you can draw from this: One is what philosophers do might change radically in the future if digitalisation technology evolves into digital cognition. The second is that it is good to re-explore philosophy in this live flash blog form and try to revamp, and join up, our thinking; for academic philosophy is religious and has a backward influence with gravitas.

[loststargrazer-blog]

Can You Smell Infinity?

Astrophysicists have been trying to find out how big the universe is and their inconclusive measurements suggest it could even be infinite. What does philosophy make of that? In order to do certain mathematics, like Sir Isaac Newton's calculus, you can use certain concepts like infinity (the amount without limit) and the infinitesimal which is what you get when you divide something down infinitely. These concepts, or I shall call it a 'conception' (as a technical term) of infinite, has not been mainstream for that long, only really from Newton onwards. Aristotle said whatever could be described using non-finite concepts could also be described using finite concepts; so Aristotle was what is called a 'finitist', and a very influential one until Newton. In blog 11, "What Makes Us for Real?", we discussed whether certain things exist, and we decided that mathematics was a part of the hyper real: What then of the infinite?

The infinite cannot literally exist in the hyper real as you would need infinite storage to store the items, and we live in a finite and digital mind space here on earth. So there must be a massive sphere confusion (see blog 1) somewhere in mathematics as many mathematicians believe in the everyday infinite. We shall discuss why non-finitists believe in the absoluteness of the infinite, and then we will discuss what the infinite is as a conception of the number line and follow on to a more sensible conclusion compatible with the hyper real experience.

It is true that the infinite conception works in mathematics to solve equations. The simplest form of this I can think of is the sum of a geometric progression. This takes a series, and if the series is declining geometrically, will come to a finite value after infinite terms; for example:

   1/1 + 1/2 + 1/4 +1/8 + 1/16 ... 1/∞ = 2

Here the first term is the coefficient a=1, and progression is multiplied by the common ratio r=1/2, and the series is summed to infinite terms. Where r<1, this can be proved using algebra to give the formula:

    a/(1 - r)

    or 1/(1/2) = 2 in our case.

So to conclude this paragraph, there is something that works about infinity that needs to be explained; perhaps how does it work finitely?

In previous blogs (particularly blog 8 on reductionist science), I have mentioned that even in STEM subjects there can be heavy sphere confusion. Here the idea of infinite, like eternal, or all powerful has been absorbed into and from monotheism, and it is probably a nonsense. Even medieval Christian philosophers had a conception of god's eternal property to be outside of time entirely and not infinite. So the familiarity of infinite or eternal cannot hide the possibility that it is an example of a religious theoretical entity, like those in the last blog 18. This infinite likely cannot exist, so not only is it superfluous, but it contradicts the way we can count space & time so can be rejected.

This notion of eternal outside of time is also probably nonsense, but does make two suggestions: The first trivial one is to reject eternal as everything happens in finite time, for time is just a function of change. The second more important one for us is that 'infinite' the conception is not infinite, being a conception. So the infinite is not infinite as many had confused religion with metaphysics, metaphysics with a mental conception, and a conception with a placeholder in an equation. So what then is a hyper real conception that acts as both a placeholder and a concept?

Before we begin on conceptions, we should look a little more broadly at the issues conceptions need to cover. Can impossible things work in mathematics? Yes they do seem to be able to. We have the infinite series, the infinitesimal calculus, and there are others. A simple example of something impossible is the imaginary number i, which is defined as the square root of minus 1, or (√-1). No number multiplied by itself equals -1; yet using i you can solve real world problems of engineering and even some simple algebra:

   Suppose you have two lots of partition walls for two square boxes that will reduce the clutter in your bedroom, one by -4m2 of clutter and the other by -9m2 of clutter; and you wanted to make the boxes equal sized rectangles using the existing pieces; how much clutter would they store?

    √(-4m2) x  √(-9m2) = 2im x 3im = 6i2m2 = -6m2  as  i2 = -1

    so 2 boxes x -6m2 = -12m2 of clutter. This is not better than -4m2 -9m2 = -13m2 of clutter before, but at least you know that the cost of making them equal and rectangular is +1m2 of extra clutter in your bedroom.

So conceptions such as i, need not be infinite, and can sometimes be used in mathematics, also they are not really existing.

If a conception is not the real thing, then we can treat it as a name for a thing; so implicitly a name is a new type of set as first described in blog 6 on causation. This conception though is more than a normal name; by normal I mean a key for filtering and grouping objects so we can categorise and understand them. A conception is more like a meta name, a description of multiple circumstances or sets: In the case of natural numbers, the name's schema describes increasing +1 from 0 repeatedly without a limit. In the case of i, as a replacement for (√-1), and reversibly as replacing i2 with -1. In the case of a number line, it is the natural numbers increasing and subtracting from zero, each number of which can be divided by any other number to a point on the line. Finally, we can conceptually add an infinite term, and divide by it to create an infinitesimal and so create some place holding names for something that doesn't exist, but can be used to cancel out other series. So what else can be a conception?

I suggest anything that automatically creates a system of names - by which I mean the new sets - is a conception. So you could invent a conception to name every brick in your house by an index linked to a database of baby names; a fairly useless conception, but one you could spontaneously create for Bob, Billie, & Barbara Brick. So conceptions are clearly arbitrary. Conceptions have no ultimate or transcendent existence. We have created them as hyper real artifacts by abstraction from our language.

So conceptions are names attached to more complex descriptions, usually of name schemes, that help us manipulate schematic concepts. I disagree that the manipulations of conceptions are obvious as Wittgenstein says in 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus', but I do agree that they have implicit or explicit rules. These rules create a model, and flexing the model within the hyper real can tell you new things about the real and your concepts. For me here it is less interesting whether Wittgenstein was a finitist, but more of more interest in whether he, and therefore we, should be sceptical of the infinite, as I think we should. Having come to this conclusion, what can philosophy say to mathematicians about their working with infinity and some mathematicians' odd views that mathematical objects have transcendent existence?

I don't think philosophers have a lot to say to mathematicians on this topic because mathematicians, like Hilbert with his paradox of the Grand Hotel and the finitists, have already done extensive work themselves. So philosophers can only point out that some mathematicians are taking religious prejudices to work and should rethink their metaphysical assumptions and listen to the finitists. However the use of a finite model called infinity instead of an actual infinity may not always be that important if the placeholder allows the proof to be shown and an answer to be given. The conception of infinity has as much to say about metaphysics and language analysis as maths; so these I will discuss next.

In metaphysics there are two sides to the same argument, the first is the necessary non-existence of infinite properties as I mentioned previously. The other is that if we consider oneness, an axiom I used in blog 12 on axioms, we can suggest that there could be no unity to something if it was infinitely diffuse. There wouldn't be a facility to see the universe as a multidimensional monad, or pulsing with cause and effect as mentioned in blog 6 on causation. As Hilbert pointed out, there would be potentially infinite distances between points on an infinite line. This conclusion suggests distance would stop everything from interacting absolutely. So you couldn't smell infinity because it would be too far away.

In terms of language analysis, a conception is a function of the hyper real (as described in blog 11). We can see that there is more than simple names and propositions (as Wittgenstein described), for a conception is:

1) Named and referenced,

2) Has a schematic,

3) The schematic creates other names or allows substitution with other names,

4) Does not exist as an object (so may be impossible),

5) Is expressed in the hyper real,

6) Is an extension of language,

7) Can be compatible with an implicit logic or model.

Given the language and metaphysical analysis of infinity, we can see some parallels with our finding in the last blog, blog 18. Something has been theorised to exist which probably doesn't, and it became part of our grand theory or religious views. But, how excitingly, we can see that the normal expression of a grand theory is through a conception. So now we have a micro mechanism in language to anchor what we analysed was happening at a macro level in our theorising. We previously talked of making generalisations, now we can see that the language for generalisations are conceptions. From the last blog we know that generalisations/conceptions don't exist as objects, but are just patterns in the hyper real language, moving beyond a sign about signs, or language about names. So a generalisation is just one form of a conception. Specifically, a generalisation allows the substitution of a value loaded general term to take the place of multiple names.

How do we ground conceptions further? We can go further and say that the 'conception' is a conception itself. It is (1) named; (2) it has a schematic; (3) it is substitutable to its subsets including generalisations; (4) it is not an object but exists in language; (5) it is hyper real as we are thinking and writing about it; (6) it does extend language to a new area from Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus...'; and finally (7) it is compatible with the epistemological model of generalisation, induction, and identity mentioned in blog 5 on making generalisations as well as the last blog 18.

This is all very exciting philosophy tying together loose ends, but we can also comment a little more explicitly on rationalism, the belief you can learn new things by reasoning. Flexing a conception, a hyper real model, based on the rules of the schematic, will give logical and mathematical answers to hypotheses. This does not give a clear answer as to why rationalism works or when it will work, but it does explain why we get an answer. If we add in the principle of non-contradiction (see blog 6) and apply the schematic only to applicable real world objects, we can model those objects and learn new things about them rationally. I wouldn't (unlike Wittgenstein) call this information obvious or implicit as it might be complex, emergent, or even chaotic, and certainly not always an obvious tautology.

In the final conclusion, the smell of infinity opens up a lot of further analysis on knowledge, language, and the hyper real. So it is very useful even though we can show infinity doesn't exist in any objective terms. We can also account for infinity without relying on any dodgy metaphysics (like the flawed circularity of Plato's eternal forms), even if infinity has applications that are still partly mysterious within mathematics. I would encourage STEM students amongst others to focus more on the schematic descriptions used in their conceptions as experimenting might yield new mathematical or theoretical architecture, both through substitution and the conscious creating of schematics for new groups of names. As I will discuss in my next blog, this is not really the job of professional philosophers any longer.

[loststargrazer-blog]

What Comes First, Theory or Reality?

In the history of natural philosophy and in fact all philosophy and much academic work besides, there has been a strong tendency to create theory, whether this is Aristotle's Physics or even a topic like modern critical theory. In fact every university subject today is brimming with theory, and a churn of half baked theories continues; it is what drives academic careers. One can question this: Should there be theories for everything? Also, can we know if there is a valid theory for all topics? Can we even justify turning all this theorising into syllabus, and of course dogma, that is taught, read, and absorbed into our beliefs as part of the creative greater self?

There have been philosophers like Sir Karl Popper who held that knowledge wasn't proven, but theorised, and these theories were tested, if not falsified, then held as provisional pragmatic truths. But given that there is almost an infinity of theory and likely only one true minimal and complete description, it doesn't seem to me that Popper's approach would be very successful in finding a true description of the universe unless there was a pre-selection, a seeing of what is going on in order to select/build a theory. However, empirical observation relies on a theory of logical consistency, a theory of how the domain works, an analysis of objects in the field, the mindset of the observer, and a number of factors local to the experiment. So it becomes clear that most theorising is the process of adding layers of philosophical speculation to other philosophical speculation. Is all this theory a load of rubbish?

* * *

With empirical results there is often a repeatable observation, however with theory there is just the adding of layers, one on top of the other. If a single flaw exists then the tower is unsound. There is also a difference between the mathematical descriptions of physics and economics and the analysis of critical theory in literature studies or psychoanalysis. The mathematical sciences are more highly defined, with problems fitting to the world as described in blog 15, 'What Does It All Mean?', but interpretations are less of an issue. Other subjects have greater interpretation issues, for example finding it inexact when offering theories about theory about descriptions about interpretations. As a result, the theories morph according to things like political interest. An example of disagreement is a Marxist interpretation of counter revolutionary facts, like believing the CIA can drive history and economics single handed. This is less of a problem in physics, but still dogmas persist like the millenium long reign of Aristotle's physics, only punctured by the heroic efforts and experiments of free thinking giants like Galileo, Newton, and Einstein who rejected more theory than they created.

In the analytical philosophy tradition of the 20th Century there was a rejection of some theorising, particularly metaphysics, as it was argued it was meaningless because it had become detached from its empirical foundations. An aggressive form of empiricism became dominant in the UK. I see this historical debate as flawed on both sides (see blog 11: 'What Makes Us for Real?'), however it has asked some questions which are still important like:

1) How can we justify theories and theorising;

2) Does everything need theories;

3) Are more abstract theories like cultural theories valid like scientific ones, or are they pseudo-intellectual and meaningless;

4) Is it possible to create grand narratives from systematizing theory or are they all just local and observable?

I have previously touched on a number of these themes, but we will briefly try to answer these questions here with reference to the previous blogs as a conclusion to our endeavours that will help you understand and argue with people who want to inflict a grand narrative on you, or their value judgements, as is often the case in education, religion, politics, debate, or even just the marketing of products promoting a way of doing things.

The first question, how can we justify theories, is another way of asking about justifying generalisations that we discussed in blog 5: 'Were You or Your Big Data Given to Generalising...?'. If we are making a generalisation, we are creating a simple theory that the world works in a particular way. The problem becomes a new problem when we extend the theory so that it changes from becoming a local theory, for example Napoleon was erratic, to becoming so wide and far from the evidence; for example Napoleon was an agent of the spirit of history that had manifested itself since creation (to slightly abuse Hegel). This proceeds to our second question, does everything need theories. For example, has Hegel's view of history been a positive influence, is it valid, is it false, can we tell the difference?

These questions lie within the last blog on religion, (blog 17: 'What Good Is Religion after the Lies?'); for if a theory is not a local scientific theory, given at the correct level of non-reduction (as mentioned in blog 8: 'Is AI & Science Stuck in an Unhelpful Reductionist Paradigm...?'), then the role of the theory must be religious. We have accepted that although grand narrative theories (or religious theories) may not or can not be proven or even correct, we need religion. So we need religious theory to provide us with a framework for our worldview, lives, and judgements.

This answers our third question, are abstract theories like religious ones meaningless. The answer to this is they define people, so even if you think square circles lay eggs on Tuesdays, this is still meaningful even though it doesn't apply to anything. Many theories may be pseudo-intellectual as, like religion, they can't be falsified, and this is the definition of pseudo-scientific provided by the Vienna Circle group of philosophers. Unlike the Vienna Circle, we can see this lack of falsifiability does not make the theory meaningless, but religious.

Religious or grand narrative theories can certainly be produced, in fact they are impossible to get rid of, but I would disagree with the claim they are scientific as part of the answer to the third question. Many theorists mistake their religious beliefs for scientific ones. particularly when they apply inappropriate scientific thought to areas out of scope in sphere confusions (as discussed in blog 1: 'A Little Understanding Has Big Implications'). I would define the opposite of Post-Atheism (discussed in the previous blog) to be Moral Totalitarianism, and this term applies equally to extreme religion as extreme politics like marxism, fascism, or absolute rule. There is a framework that defies justification in scientific terms, but still controls the narrative in participants through a grand narrative of a religious order.

So answering the fourth question, you can create positive impact grand narratives, although attempts to do so usually have a less good conclusion. There are some clear examples of dodgy narratives having positive effects: For example the US constitution making everyone equal before God and the law, when it is not clear that there is any true equality; but at least this helps rather than hinders justice, even if the laws themselves are sometimes highly prejudiced like the war on drugs. However, I do not think claiming equality before 'God' is a valid scientific claim. So while, like Hegel, it is possible to make grand claims, and for them to be meaningful, I don't think they are likely to be correct or justified in absolute terms.

* * *

We have an important branch of thought that is not scientific, but is rational and hyper real (see blog 11: 'What Makes Us for Real?'). It sits between mathematics, religion, science, and empirical description. I claim this whole archipelago, this whole continent, in the name of philosophy. You as philosophers shall find your kingdom here, and your hyper reality. You shall rule academies with your exciting theorising, your refining, analysing, and defining. Thinkers of all types will hang on your every word as you define their deepest prejudices.

* * *

The conclusion is passed, now we are in the post-note, the health warning; and we shall discuss the pratfalls of theory and philosophy that you need to avoid. There is the naive view that philosophers can be wrong, but we know this is usually not the biggest problem for theory. More dangerous is being confused; however the biggest existential threat is being illogical; but if you deny, defy, mould, and redefine your theory, selling it as you go, then you may hold onto it for generations until it becomes a permanent religious feature.

Being logical is not that hard, a simple guide to logic may help if it is unclear, but anyone with exposure to truth tables, computer code, electronics gates, will already be familiar with most of the useful content. To be useful with logic, you need a knack for good definitions; this comes with practice. An eye for synthesising arguments is a creative skill, like writing verse, but even your garbled thoughts can be clarified and will probably be seen as genius where there is a gap in the theory.

Now we will consider a topic of philosophy that was open to confusion in the past and even rejected from some of the philosophy canon, 'ontology' the way of existence. The aim of this exercise is for you to criticise the arguments and come up with your own bits of ontology.  There will be some clues after this stack argument:

1) Properties are real

2) Causation is the actualisation of properties

3) Emergence is caused

4) The hyper real is emergent

5) Language is hyper real

6) Description is language

7) The impossible are descriptions

Therefore: 8) The impossible are real

So perhaps you like this argument? This argument is a good example of religious thinking as it takes arguments from across the blogs, but probably this is a distraction from how you define what is real. The argument is somewhat consistent (or circular as you might otherwise call it), especially if you leave out steps 2-6.

Of course every argument benefits from follow up arguments. So if you rejected the first step ('premise 1'), consider this:

1) Unused properties do not exist in the real

2) Scientific laws are mostly about unused properties

Therefore 3) Scientific laws mostly do not exist in reality

4) Properties are a thing's nature

5) A thing's nature exists

6) Scientific laws express a thing's properties

Therefore 7) Scientific laws exist

8) If a thing is contradictory, then it is impossible

Therefore 9) The existence of scientific laws is contradictory being both true and false

Therefore 10) Scientific laws are impossible

I think this argument is interesting and is a bit like that popular meme:

Cheese has holes

More cheese = more holes

More holes = less cheese

So more cheese = less cheese

So the reason ontology is not as popular as it was two centuries ago is that there are probably multiple definitions of real, and probably even no grand narratives to realness. So ontology is a muddle that is mostly semantic; it is also highly religious and so it is difficult to be definitive; for example, does Hegel's world spirit of history exist when you can't really prove empirically that it doesn't? Accordingly, this is just one example where you can freely make up your own philosophy and add it to any theory you are interested in, so following a rich tradition of thinkers of all types, left, right, ancient, modern, scientific, or religious; examples include Plato's forms, Newton's universal time, Marx's march of history, Aristotle's forces, various theisms, the free market, mathematical objects, etc.

Based on what I said about identity in blog 6: 'Is Cause and Effect the Wonderwall of Everything?', you can also add that while properties like motion exist, the objects in motion do not persist, and this applies to all properties over time. Further factor in emergent properties and latent properties. Thus to make claims about the things existing in the world is to be open to a massive confusion of identity and the real, lending itself to much interpretation. This should keep you in theory for a while.

Before anyone decides it is clear the impossible works better than science, I will dig you out of the stack argument the way I see best: This is to say that scientific laws only exist as descriptions, like the impossible. A real description is not the same as being real unless you are talking about a theory like mathematics; so scientific laws are only descriptions of the possible. But whether you think latent properties are real, I leave to you. Perhaps they are just part of the impossible, also described like the possible, when considered in absolute terms like whether they have causal existence, which they don't. When they do have that causal existence, their identities will have changed; so that what exists in the latent category is the cause of a cause or the cause of an ability to interact to create an emergent property. This would unwrap the problem for you so you may redefine everything to your taste.

* * *

I shall now end with some final words. Philosophy is sometimes ignored, but it can be a battleground. There is something to the cliche that philosophy can alienate people, however this is much less likely if you take a post-atheist approach as described in the last blog. Although the possibility remains that people will alienate you, normally this will be based on something you now understand and can feel empowered to reason with. Philosophy is a many sided coin; one side is the power of theory to interpret meaning and change lives.

Our final conclusion to this blog question of what comes first, theory or reality, is that they live together in our minds' eye. So although much theory is a waste of time, it will define our thinking and concepts.

[loststargrazer-blog]

What Good Is Religion after the Lies?

Religion has a great grip on mankind, even though it is obscure, contradictory, full of re- or mis- interpretations. The inconvenient bits are often not discussed except when they come back into fashion after a crackpot fundamentalist revival. There are mysteries, and rebirths, and after lives, enlightenment, earthly torments, love, repudiation, judgements, forgiveness, and damnation. The whole crazy ferris wheel of lies is not going away and barely ever seems to be slowing down. Humans love this stuff. In the same way you have painkillers and heroin, so you have philosophy and religion. There is nothing better than religion for the euphoria of cult psychology, bad metaphysics, and misguided moral righteousness. Even before Christ, if you take a philosopher like Epicurus (who died in 270BC), it is clear that religion is a human failing, but nevertheless, despite being obviously nonsense, religion has permeated just about every society on earth quite completely. So what is it about religion that persists beyond the lies?

I suggest that much religion is based upon an analysis of the good. In blog 2 I looked at the meta-ethics of the good. Previously I have said good is what you want within the context of the greater self, but perhaps not all wants are equal. We have shifted the emphasis from what you should do to what you want to do, but this is incomplete. We can consider what we want to want, for example if I am hungry I want to eat chips, but I want to want salad. I want to want health, but perhaps I want to want to want something like contentment. This moving backwards may have more steps; they may not be consistent; but at the end is your most general and basic narrative want - this want is a prime good. Your prime good motivates your wants with normative statements, with all the little things you should do and want. It is your internal voice that carries the concerns of ethics into the domain of instincts and ways you navigate the world - so into the real you. Religion then, like the stories described in the previous blog 16, effects what you want to want. So religion is effective as a narrative, and, like a narrative, religion does not have to be true to function.

Now we have moved beyond the introduction, let us consider wants a little more. We can divide wants up, first by who has the wants and later by the types of wants. I don't think all the types of want are best discussed as philosophy, or religion for that matter. I would say that philosophy should cover what we should want (or want to want to want), while what others should want is covered by religion. This contrasts with what we actually want, which is psychology, and what others want, which is sociology; or contrasted with how we should get what we want, which is self-help, and how others should get what they want, which might be politics. The reason I think philosophy is so personal on this topic is that the discussion of the good in practice uses personally meaningful truths (see my blog 10 on truth); so philosophy is a bit limited structurally in what it can say about other people's notion of the good.

We can divide wants up by their type. Psychology has created things like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This has focused on security, hungers, and prestige by putting wants into this list by priority. In reality, due to different narratives (including about the greater self), it is possible to challenge this ordered list. So a brave soldier might risk his security for prestige, or for the perceived good of the greater self with a local focus, like saving the lives of his comrades. Religion usually expresses views about what others should want and how these wants mesh together. For example, for security, protect others, particularly the weak and those in authority. For hungers, generally try to control them rather than be controlled by them. And for prestige, put religion and modesty first. This is a standard narrative, but can we redefine the debate?

While the religious narrative is not destructible, we can add narratives and instincts to it. Some common ones are the importance of helping others, or creating art, or preparing for death, or even becoming an important person. Different narratives might challenge the religious one, but perhaps more often they complement it, or even just blend together in a confused neural soup. The updated narrative may function as the new normal without much underpinnings or need for consistency. Even secular morality has much confused religious debate about concepts such as 'fairness'. Considering the religious narrative behaviour we can see two things. One is that you cannot falsify religion, you can only change it. Falsifying in this sense means proving religion logically wrong by providing a single counter example to reject the whole edifice. Secondly, as the religious narrative is expandable, it covers everything you could want to have views or direction or precedent on.

So religion is the narrative which covers topics beyond science, or even most literature. As religion is not science, to ask what is after the lies misses the point of religion. It is also impolite as religion maintains as part of its mystique an aura of ancient truth and validity, handed down on dusty parchments from the arcane words of mysterious prophets. Religion is the theatre production in the philosophical mind, and you probably cannot get rid of it, even by booing. Religion is a narrative about a narrative, itself, and with it an insinuation that it can solve all issues, desires, problems. There is no magic, but if there was, and it was organised, it would be religion. Religion lives within the fabrications of the hyper real (see my earlier blog 11 on the real); so its magic is tangible within experience. Religion is the lies that shapes your truth, your wants, your sense of the good. As religion manifests, it shapes your notion of the good so it cannot be just lies, even if factually incorrect. The more incredible religion is, the more symbolic it becomes of a deeper personal truth.

This narrative view of religion is post-atheism. I call myself a Secular Animist, and this is a form of post-atheism. There are ancient strands of post-atheism, even within some early strands of thinking in Buddhism and Hinduism, although it died out significantly from the 10th century until surprisingly recently. I am not really expecting too much interest in Secular Animism, but I do think post-atheism could be the way of the future. For post-atheism to flourish, there needs to be an exchange, a swap between theists and the rest. In order to create a harmonious social contract, atheists, agnostics, etc. would need to accept the realness within the hyper real of the personal truths of the religious narrative (see my blogs 10 and 11 on truth and the real); while the religious would need to accept that their religion is personal rather than absolute, also that their narrative is and should be open to change as society develops, including absorbing other narratives, for example like equality and feminism.

The idea of a social contract comes from Rousseau and normally it is a society wide political agreement enforced by the government.  Having a wider post-atheist discussion of the good (or fair) within a society would be helpful if it lead to consensus and a healing of society. Less good would be claims that personal narratives were absolute truth and values, as this has totalitarian overtones and tends to sow discord. Discord is quite common at the moment, so the media and politicians should be discouraged where possible from too much conflicting narrative and instead focus on the solutions to regulatory and social problems that might fit within many narratives' themes (see blog 9 on capitalism for an example). Constitutionally, a clear division between the state and religions, with specific and influential dialogue, would be most helpful for calm post-atheist narrative management. Narrative management should reduce religious and sectarian conflict; so post-atheism could help religious communities work together better.

* * *

Now we can return to what we want, and to discuss what we should want and do want in contrast. I have compiled a list of wants, this list is probably incomplete and I am not going to define the items, but please consider the following for further discussion: Winning, money, power, pleasing authority, prepare for death, make the world a better place, help people, security, celebrity, to destroy things, pleasure, environmentalism, & experience love. It we consider these items, I reject that there is any intrinsic hierarchy or order to them, for example money leads to power, power leads to money, pleasing authority can also lead to money, helping people can lead to power etc. The wants are unstructured, so how we think about the wants may also have strange associations or ordering based on our personal experiences and narratives. So why do we have strong views on the good?

If wants are so chaotic, then it must be our personal narratives that are orderly for us to have an organised sense of what is good: How does this come about? I suggest that, along with the narratives we are exposed to, there is a pragmatic experience of whether approaches are rewarded in the real world. Of course, if for example a parent carries a particular narrative value system, this could be imposed both as a narrative explained to the child and what works with them as controller of the social environment. As social animals we fill niches in our environment, for example if winning is prioritised over caring in our environment, this may bring forward a competitive streak. Another child may not be practising winning at games as a social role, but may be more focused on expressing care and helping. Both of these may lead to a measure of success, as may other behaviours, especially in complex social environments. What we want may be a circular self-reinforcing system like a neural net that both categorises and trains itself at the same time, it gets trained with rewards, but often a success is judged a success because it is similar to a previous success.

What we should want then, and so what is good, may depend on who we are and our role in our social niche within the greater self. Consider the following matrix:

Matrix       Spiritual           Materialistic

Helpful       Saintly              Caring

Selfish       Philosopher       Winner

As a society we need winners; we need people to be caring. The example of saints may not be bad, and even the philosophical can be useful if they become the thinkers in society. So there is no one 'should want'; there is no justified moral totalitarianism and we still have avoided nihilism (the sense there are no values). There are lots of values.

* * *

I shall make a few concluding remarks. The values we hold are our religion, even if we are atheist or humanist. Our views on topics beyond science are likewise often religious depending on the topic. The narratives we hold, including our religious ones, define us. Narratives can be amended with difficulty. The 'should wants' or 'wants to want to want' we have are the good, and these goods are hyper real, but the goods are not each comparable without a personal narrative to interpret them by association.

Our final conclusion is that the good is real, but personal, very personal, and may be at the root of your personality. Your religion is a necessary part of that personality. So, what good is religion after the lies? Your religion makes you, and makes you function, despite the sometimes obvious lies.

[loststargrazer-blog]

What Story Are You Selling and Why Should I Buy It?

Talking about philosophy, society, and identity is all very well, but isn’t what we believe just controlled by the stories we relate to - don’t they shape our beliefs more than axioms and language? It seems to me that much contemporary popular philosophy is an interplay, not between axioms, but between fictions and narratives. In the first blog I talked of the familiar patterns we interpret everything into, but aren’t they just our cultural narratives and the types we identify everything else with; or do we create these fictions to explain reality? We shall consider culture, fiction, and some realities to see how we are using ‘archetypes’ (the correct term for patterns we recognise). Archetypes are a philosophical as well as psychological question that is important if you want to understand what people believe. I shall use three examples to tease out the arguments from different spheres, each with their own sphere confusions and interesting features.

My first example involves how we interpret new information, technology, new societal problems, and thinking from a political point of view. I suggest that we consider whether a significant portion of people’s reaction to societal issues is self-interest and a response shaped by the kinds of books and films they consumed as a teenager - please bear with me on this. If we consider progress, we see there are at least two political stories. There is the myth of progress, of enlightenment, of movement towards the singularity where the disrupter is a hero like Prometheus bringing fire and overcoming torment and oppression by conformity and tyranny to raise mankind from the dirt to a divinely powerful position.  This journey is strongly reflected in Science Fiction. 

An opposing story is the saving story of the preserver: Adam fails to be the preserver of Eden, but there are plenty of stories of heroes who defy powerful forces to save their village/society/partner from a variety of alien invaders to maintain the ecological balance, save the land for future generations, show respect for the way of wisdom, love, and the elders. Here the disrupter is the villain, the cynical, the greedy, and the callous; sometimes he redeems himself but usually not. These are strong themes in popular novels and films, particularly in the motivations of the bad guy.  

How does this division manifest itself in philosophy? Perhaps we will start by looking at some literary genres and then considering the attitudes in contemporary US politics to an American school of thought: ‘Transhumanism,’ which is an offshoot of the wider posthumanism that many are engaged with in order to reanalyse the future of humanity and even the new contemporary human essence as they attempt to modernise the humanist tradition. Some questions of the nature of humanity were considered in my third blog, so I won’t be going into posthumanism itself as it is often corrupted by agendas, for example Nietzsche’s view of the individual and what is right; these last two topics I have already dealt with alternatively in Blog 2.

I should show my own biases; according to Sir Francis Bacon this is an important step in being objective. I read a range of things as a teenager, but especially the comic fantasy fiction of Terry Pratchett who incorporates Animism and irreverent deities in a hapless world. Even now, this worldview has a certain fascination for me philosophically. This fiction has a certain disrespect for people promising to transform humanity and our ecology for the better, as is the main thrust of transhumanism.

We can consider some other genres: Science fiction is the genre closest to transhumanism, with exploration, adventure, progress, and redemption, even quasi-magical objects or technologies that suspend disbelief and normal limitations. 

Fables are perhaps the opposite of the transhuman narrative with their emphasis on accepting our current limitations, ecology, and inability to solve issues without wisdom, cunning & foresight, hard work & sacrifice, and team skills.

Novels often have messages of respect for our humanity and personal relationships. Perspectives are often complex and nuanced. The impact of change, its acceptance, its difficulties, are not glib and are often debateable. This is not naturally Transhuman.

Fantasy fiction is also significant in how we view change. It has a tendency to look at personal development in two opposing streams, the brave child growing into the hero and the hero growing into the sage, whereas the foolish or weak child grows into the weak man, who is corrupted to become the villain. There are certainly long quests and magical objects, but they can be both good and bad depending on which of the paths the main characters follow. Eventually though, a rather crude notion of the good tends to triumph as everyone overcomes the selfish fool turned bad. Often the transhumanist is overcome, and nature is put back into a historic balance.

Historical and biographical fiction is rather more serious as people and events together have consequences; some of which are terribly damaging. The events are often complicated. History has choices and is nuanced. Great movements and brilliant individuals overcome through long protracted struggles, often with incomplete or costly victories. Personal flaws create real setbacks. The direction of the historical narrative is often not strongly represented and even is just within the culture of an interpretation amongst several. Unlike fantasy fiction, there is a certain pessimism about the outcomes of progress. The good hero is not clearly represented, so does not always triumph, and often leading actors cause harm.

Archetypes, to function, must have a mechanics and an outcome. I suggest the mechanics is the arrangement of the open sets we possess in our cognition (see Blog 1). These channel our analysis of what we experience both of the external world and our internal thoughts. We divide things up, for example we have the propensity to try and categorise the disrupter as hero or villain, the defender as hero or villain. Archetypes give an instinctive reflex that may be hard to overcome without a revolutionary crisis in our worldview.

If we look at the politics, the stories are changing. The old left story was of helping people, especially those in need, with the money of those who had more than they deserved/needed. The old right was interested in helping people by allowing society to flourish, especially the economy. With disruption of global proportions though, there are new stories both radical and progressive of businesses re-making our world like Sci-Fi, and transforming humanity into a new connected and informed higher species (“the transhuman”). The story is of business, but it is not a conservative story, as it is disruptive and progressive. The story is not a utopian story of the left as even if it intends to promote humanity, even ecology, it is not a socialised vision of democracy or run by the state. The story is not of a centerism looking for gradual evolution like Burke’s ideal as there is a wish to be disruptive and move fast. There are losers in this story as many established industries will be disrupted, but these failures are just seen as inevitable, the old fashioned, inefficient, the unworthy being defeated non-inclusively. The expectation of the strengthening of society through transformation and the purification of the economy is almost the Darwinism of the far right. Yet the voters of the far right are often those least in tune with transformation, seeing their marginalisation as a case of identity politics and the repudiation of their culture. If we take the recent US Presidential election and debate there are new dialogues with competition to be the champions of the status quo: For example they declare who will defend America, defend American jobs, defend the American way of life, and defend American democracy; but against what? From an external perspective there are some flaws in all these things, see blog 12, but do they need defending from the forces that are driving a significant chunk of the US economic growth? Perhaps the US establishment feels it needs defending against the philosophy and attitude of destroying and recreating old respect and stability. This is a revisit of an ancient philosophical split between the struggles of the gods Shiva (the destroyer and creator) and Vishnu (the preserver) in Hindu philosophy.

It is actually a fundamental problem, the world is split between trans-humanists who think the answer is radical corporate technology (people like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, & Jeff Bezos and American radicals) who are pushing a powerful advancement agenda that is sceptical of traditional morality, lifestyle, and heritage, even aesthetics; they can be contrasted with the humanist & postdigital & traditional perspectives that respect who we and our ecology. The reaction to negative disruption is either more disruption to elevate us to a higher species (the transhuman) or to roll back aspects that are bad and restore and respect our humanity and its weaknesses (postdigital). This is the new political divide and it doesn't split left-right, but between disruptors who benefit and the rest who care more about the real cost and have no interest in moving to Mars if it all goes wrong. 

For me the postdigital is preferred to the transhuman as it seems a more realistic narrative to solve contemporary problems, but our culture, our narrative and fictions, our self-interest, and the seeming or actual exciting potentials of new technologies may make you think otherwise. Of course, postdigital is not against new technology if it respects the weaknesses of our humanity and earthly ecology. Much environmental legislation and public policy is in the spirit of the postdigital and contrasts with technology evangelists and capitalists who veer towards the transhuman. Society as a whole takes a case by case view which may even change over time, for example on single use plastics.

The narrative the postdigital provides is that we think for ourselves, not through machines. We experience the world authentically again after the digital experience is shown to be a fake movie, an advert rather than real art. The postdigital narrative is powerful and has mass appeal. The narrative may be more appealing than synthetic meat if it risks cancer, or animal-less leather, if it strips our countryside of its natural soil cycles and animal life while encouraging a monoculture of energy crops. The saving of the earth evokes multiple narratives, what it means varies according to your fictional framework, and not just at the extremes but through the centre.

To conclude the first example, our political pie is being resliced. How you choose to vote, think, interpret, and believe in philosophy is often a question of your narrative thrust and which orbit it blasts you into. The transhumanists may have technology on their sides, but no human can deny the narrative appeal of moving away from technology and reconnecting with our greater selves. Is this philosophy? I can only suppose it is.

* * *

For our second example we can consider an academic setting and the order of the narratives we acquire. To get good marks you need to learn a subject in the right order to match the mark scheme and the subject narrative. Cross disciplinary studies are a lot more useful at a postgraduate level where you can apply different frameworks, techniques, and technologies to give new research leads and new answers, but most education layers information quite historically; an example is the natural philosophy concept of substance in chemistry.

At the age of 15, substances in chemistry are like funny 3d jigsaws, hard plastic atoms connected with straws to make up shapes like crystals. 

At 17 there is a greater emphasis on the Rutherford model of the atom; each atom is a tiny nucleus surrounded by electron spheres. The emphasis is on the electron spheres, charged ions, the stability of molecules and the angles of the atomic bonds. 

At an undergraduate level the story is of electron wave oscillating symmetry, Schrodinger’s wave equation, and multistage reaction pathways with substance existing for minute amounts of time in transitory states. Things like molecular decay are reimagined as the quantum tunneling of energy destabilising energetic wave patterns. 

At a post-graduate level the focus explodes in range from the use of subatomic physics to the application of complex systems, the creation and tuning of industrial systems by considering each waveform minutely, the search for new compounds and reaction chains, new interpretations and models of phenomena. By the postgraduate level the notion of substance is challenged to such an extent that it becomes an almost meaningless term. 

Each level tells a different story, and these stories reflect the cutting edge of chemistry going back to the dawn of philosophy each layered one on top of the other. The ancient greek atomism of atoms being hooked together like burrs, the atom being a little solar system, substance being energy, and matter being an emergent complex system of energetic particles.

Given the depth that archetypes have, how they evolve, the order they are developed, it is understandable that you cannot easily change someone’s philosophy without a massive restructuring of their history and beliefs. This applies especially to the examiner as much as the examinee. Marks are often nonsense, and not only in creative writing do you have perspective.

* * *

Our third example is from the professional practice of therapy. In this case I shall compare the example of a fictional narrative popular with Freud and Lacan with the statistical reality to demonstrate that interpretation can in certain circumstances be contrary to well known common facts even though, or because, it is a central tenet of a belief system about the psyche. I shall discuss the power of the Oedipal story.

I personally hold this episode to be an apocryphal example bordering on abuse by, as is usually the case, the parental and in particular paternal parties of which Freud was one. First Freud sees the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles then the following year he begins talking of the Oedipal complex that becomes a core tenet of his psychoanalytic theory. Freud’s interpretation is that there is a natural desire to sleep with one parent and kill the other, in Oedipus’s case this is to sleep with his mother and kill his father. However if we look at the statistics almost all the killing and sleeping with is done by the father and almost none of it involves children as drivers, especially not under six, which is when Freud supposes this complex to arise. Let us consider what we do know about children and what an actual story might look like in repressive Vienna.

First we can say with certainty that children, especially under seven, are naturally often uncontrolled and demanding. They have a tendency to do annoying things like wet the bed, eat all the biscuits, break things, and want to sleep clinging on to their favourite parent in a way which excludes a good night's sleep or any parental hanky panky. They are also likely to be non-sexualised to an extent that they would probably be appalled that Daddy should do anything so disgusting to Mummy if only they knew. Even if they did have a glowing view of sex, this would be totally unrealistic as most sex is very shortlived and leads to years of disappointment as the lover becomes the fat unfullfilled spouse chained to matrimony in order to care for brats; but none of this is the child’s fault or concern as they will grow out of their juvenile behaviour, except in how it effects the parental behaviour. This has two aspects.

The first aspect is the emotionally immature or selfish parent, particularly the father. When the child is being naturally and unmaliciously demanding, the parent becomes hostile. In the case of Freud, he projects adult themes onto the child vindicating himself. Unfortunately these are themes of violence, rape, and aggression which have very little to do with children. Child abuse is a serious problem, neglect, violence, aggression, antagonism, even rape. The statistics are plain, while it is actually quite rare for adult children to act against their parents, normally children choose escape and estrangement. In a dog training book it says that problem dogs are almost always the product of bad training; it is a shame that Freud did not say the same about immature parents.

The second aspect is the archetype the immature parent creates of the male or female in the child. The male in particular is sexually frustrated or hyper sexual, both are domineering, powerful, controlling, and this means the children are dominated, weakened, and confounded. Often the children are overtly rejected by both parents in favour of that religious totem ‘work,’ with mothers in particular being praised, not for nurturing, but for being efficient and coping with as much as possible like having a tidy house for the father. These negative archetypes are recycled by the children as images for themselves as parents and proselytized across society, social activities, and the workplaces. These aspects create disordered lives, the sexualisation, the drive for power, the obsessive focus on material control and success, the lack of kindness, trying to have it all - these kinds of things ruin lives and societies. 

There is now attached parenting and earth mothers, but they are very much the minority as many mothers are working and outsourcing childcare to servants paid for by the hour. This probably re-emphasises the capitalist expression of love and care being bought adding to the financial cynicism of the bad archetype of a human with needs. It is unsurprising that such families hardly know each other and only congregate on certain holidays which are often the unhappiest times of the year. It would only take a minor conflict to break the familial bonds entirely. What else would you expect if the children are brainwashed with inhumane values and control procedures before being pushed on their way financially, emotionally, and physically. Children leave often before they are even financially independent and certainly once they have their first paycheck. 

So the story is really a tragedy, the tragedy of the immature parent and their destruction of the family by self-delusion, aggression, and poor role modelling. The only relevance of Oedipus is that the child gets sent away from his parents for an imagined predicted transgression by an arbitrary authority, the oracle. We can conclude from this example that stories are changed by how we want to project ourselves into them, how we want to interpret events, even what good play we saw last year, sometimes with scant regard for the facts.

* * *

This blog is long, but still requires a brief conclusion. It seems that stories do control our philosophy and life decisions and views generally, however these stories can evolve over time like the story of substance. Stories tell you what you want, and what you want determines what is good (see Blog 2 and the next blog coming); so stories deliver realities. A politician with a compelling vision is a person with a good story of who we are and who we could be. Archetypes are also used extensively in advertising, which actually works rather well, so while I am only selling you the story of self-aware philosophy, I am sure there are plenty of stories you should watch out for unless you want to be beguiled. Do you need my story, perhaps you do to deal with all the other stories about life itself?

[loststargrazer-blog]

Perhaps you would prefer to read a later version of this blog in a proper order on your kindle?

[loststargrazer-blog]

What Does It All Mean?

There was once a man who was hard to understand, so hard that he himself said that it might not be possible to understand anyone truly, and that if our thoughts corresponded when we communicated then that was just a lucky coincidence. This man was the philosopher Wittgenstein, and he asked several questions: What is language, what do we understand, how can we communicate, and are all philosophical problems just the confusions of language?  Eventually even Wittgenstein disagreed with Wittgenstein, but still these questions became significant in philosophy. As you are reading a philosophy blog, you should determine whether, or why, we think you can understand it or not? So this blog is not so much about philosophy, but whether we have the tools to do and understand philosophy. Philosophy, particularly in the 20th century, is often all about language and meaning.  These topics of meta-philosophy, some of which we have touched on (notably in blog 10 'Is this Blog True?'), are interesting in themselves, but really we need to establish how to read these blogs as hyper real artefacts.

The nature of language is a foundation and pedestal from which philosophy cannot dismount.  I have assumed some aspects of language in my previous blogs, but here we can be clearer. Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss academic who started much of the modern consideration of the structure of meaning or 'structuralism', and his thinking was supplemented by 'post-modernism'; post-modernism is a denial that meaning was free of its perspective.  Post-modernism was a reaction against structuralism.  Structuralism claimed language was based on the structure of language; however, this was all long before the advent of mind mapping using neural association and brain scanners. The application of structuralism was often by looking for structure in meaning, for example pairs of opposites with contrasting frameworks. A structuralist could take language and divide its meaning into polar opposites as a communal description of the topic. In my last blog (blog 14), I discussed the division between the subjective and the objective analysis. The split between structuralism and post-modernism is a manifestation of this division with structuralism looking at the objective and logical division of the world into generalised patterns, as we see in the brain or when we make scientific generalisations (see blog 5); while post-modernism moves from a modern scientific approach to the realities of dealing with complex and alien mental structures that express states, often emotional or personally important, on a full range of topics and even about the world. So when we read these blogs, what can we achieve?

Neuroscience is now modelling a brain map of phenomena and association; perhaps it is implicitly using the new sets I discussed in the first blog.  This suggests that structuralism can be reinvented as a science in theory; the division of the world is not into the opposites of old structuralism, or the closed lists of old set theory, but by looking at how we generalise and associate using new sets to create not so much a description of the world, but a complex key determining how we interpret it.  In terms of how we read philosophy and these blogs, we can state that our literary theory is beyond the old methods of structuralism and post-modernism to a new balance that is between them.  For a start, we can make enriched meanings with definitions that have semantic boundaries of meaning not limited to pairing off or definition as lists. We can fit our language to the world like a multi-dimensional Venn diagram with as many layers and descriptions as we care to define, and these layers multiply themselves and can overlap to deal with everything from flying pigs to impossible square circles. However, this objectivity is not the whole story; what shall we make of the gap between our different and more subjective arrangements of language, personal truths, and world view?

I suggest for us, that to move from a subjective post-modern framework to an objective framework we need to objectify the text and its context.  A text alone may be subjective, but if we can assess the document in its context by answering some questions, then we can rebuild it mentally as an objective message or description.  While the following list of questions is not all there is to be said on the matter, it should be enough to prove useful.  The questions focus on the validity of the interpretation of the literal in understanding the document.

1) Is the work collective of single? Are we looking for a single world view or a collective linguistic combination like an institutional product. On the whole these blogs are a single person's work, although with reference to the philosophical canon; so you may need to absorb the world view across the blogs in order to correctly interpret every part.

2) Is the view educated or naive? This work is on the whole educated, although as a general guide it is not attempting an intense scrutiny of all the topics like an academic journal.

3) Is the topic casually described or a subject of investigation? Most parts of philosophy have been intensely investigated.  In my case I have been considering how to describe some of the arguments for over twenty years, but these are also blogs designed for ease of consumption.

4) Is the text descriptive, explanatory, or presumptive?  The blogs try to be explanatory, but philosophy is a large subject so is more presumptive than a detailed description of who wrote what when. The blogs are a reference to some philosophical arguments, but are not really a description of the philosophers personally.

5) Is the text considered and radical, or socially acceptable and shallow?  The blogs cover a number of conventional topics in philosophy, however the aim was to revitalise them for a post-digital context by adding a generous sprinkling of radical considerations as well as excluding some tired arguments for the ease of consumption as a blog.

So this concludes a few pointers on building your tools for objectifying a text. Literary theory often focuses heavily on the identity of the writer and characters and their world view (question 1); for example their cultural context or identity politics. However a Marxist, for example, might consider question 5 more important and have distinct views on the social acceptability, taboos, and norms relating to the dominant socio-economic model. I would like to point out that while we may have objectified the subjective, we have not ruled out all the problems in philosophy with language as language itself has limitations. So what is language and what are its limitations?

Language according to de Saussure is built out of signs, words that point to things. Late Wittgenstein talks of language games whose pieces are signs. Using our concept of the hyper real, we can enrich these ideas of language into a system of signs and structures. By a sign, we can now weld together our concept of a new set, a neural association, a name that has a domain over a large group of causal instances (as discussed in blog 6 on causation).  I would place these new signs as the foundation of language, and from them can be abstracted higher order language. There is a layer for natural language already sitting in the hyper real (see blog 11 on the real), and above that the abstractions of mathematics and logic together in parallel. Above logic and mathematics is abstracted symbolic set theory drawing on elements of logic and mathematics, not a foundation, but a simplification and clarification into the hyper real of key elements of natural language. How we make signs, over-simplify by abstraction, and make easy statements means we are always leaving open options for mistaken philosophy, as we shall discuss next.

Signs as names is something we need to understand properly. Natural language is very pliable, so if you analyse your metaphysics from your language use, then it is easy to make mistakes. One famous example of this sort of error was a lecture called 'Naming & Necessity' by Saul Kripke. He pointed out quite reasonably that in the common use of names there seems to be assumed some magic essence of being, particularly when we talk of people. He uses the example of Benjamin Franklin, and says Franklin would still have been Franklin even if he hadn't been the post-master general. However, he confuses a metaphysical attribute, which almost certainly doesn't exist, with our daily use of names as new sets with criteria that we build almost mechanically as a method to better describe our world (as discussed in my last blog, blog 14). As a result of this Kripke claims some sort of essentialism, an essence of being, even though his supposedly commonsense essentialism breaks down under pressure: For example, suppose Franklin was swapped at birth and swapped back on his death bed; the important last words of Franklin are clearly those of the former president and post-master general, rather than say the shoe shiner who replaced him. Thus I would like to remind you that what names refer to and what names should refer to may not always be the same, so there is a limitation in assuming that the models of language are correct models.

I would agree that the models of language and predicate logic both give an abstraction of meaning that is metaphysically incorrect in its description. This incorrectness is probably because they have internalised some monotheistic concepts like soul or pre-monotheistic nonsense like Plato's equivalent, the transcendent heavenly forms of an object. Also there is less consideration of how people and things actually change, evolve, emerge, or are subject to forgotten distinctions. Identity is only a temporary state of properties in any absolute sense (see the blog 6 on causation). Just because we do not think absolutely, it does not mean there are essences of things even if language and logic can be defined like that.  For example, no variable exists without properties even though most predicate logic starts with "there exists an x," or "for all x," prior to giving any explicit properties. There is also no sharp distinction between demarcating a piece of the universe and ranging across it looking for instances so I have to conclude that the most popular form of logic in philosophy is conceptually essentialist and misleading.

It is therefore unsurprising that traditional set theory is also problematic as it is an abstraction of logic.  If we consider two sets we can see this: The set of sets that are members of themselves and the set of sets that are not members of themselves. This type of self referring structure is important as it allows us to have language about language, thoughts about thoughts. With new sets, a set is not defined by its members but by its criterion. So there is the potential for the set of 'sets that are members of themselves' to be a member of itself whatever you postulate (make as a starting assumption). With traditional set theory this is actually contradictory because if you postulate the set is a member of itself then it is, while if you assume it is not, it isn't, and traditional sets are defined by their members, so you have the set of sets that are members of itself not being identical with itself.  The logical identity relation is a cornerstone of logic, so this shows a serious flaw in the previous theory. New sets are more like a gateway than a mathematical object; this is unlike traditional sets who are in a platonic sphere confusion as adherents have not been quick to realise sets can be mutable expressions of the hyper real (see blog 11 on the real). The set of sets that are not members of themselves is also a challenge for traditional set theory as it does not look at sets as a process that can undergo recursion like my discussion of the liar paradox (in the blog on truth, blog 10). The result is a second identity contradiction. New sets on the other hand are very much a process, or filter, and separate from what has gone through it; so the new set has a separate identity to its membership group. This is particularly useful if the set memberships cannot be fully determined. So you can see, whether dealing with Benjamin Franklin, or a set, the naming of objects can lead you to erroneous conclusions if you are not careful. I shall now discuss the problems of over-simplification by abstraction.

Can the language abstraction process control meaning? Let us take curved space, as described in Einstein's field equations. These equations are mathematically a simpler description of space-time than say a model that had changing point densities in space with some form of osmotic and refractive gravitational pressure, but, as the description is almost entirely mathematical, how can you tell the nature of space based on the description of an equation? For a start it is difficult to measure space at a distance without assuming the model you want to test, but further it may be that different functions give similar outputs as was the case when comparing ellipses with certain epicycles used when calculating the trajectories of the planets in the dark ages. The Newtonian equations of gravity and motion were also simplified expressions, and incorrect technically; so it could well be that Einstein's maths is also a simplification of a more nuanced system that makes more sense than saying space is curved and this causes gravity, and doesn't assume some kind of standard space to have a variance to using mass.

So the relationship between mathematics as a language and the natural language of signs is such that mathematics is an abstraction of language; one with clearer rules of use, but diminished in meaning. Two dogs plus two cats equals four animals; 2 + 2 = 4 is clearer, but says less about whether they are cute and hairy. So giving coordinates of space-time which follow curves as descriptions may be good for calculating trajectories, but it does not say much else about the nature of space. So when we talk of space, what kind of experience are we describing? One of equations or one of enriched astro-phenomenal perspectives; which one tells us what space is like? There are two problems here, one is that abstraction leads to oversimplification and the loss of data. The second is that we start saying things which sound good in the abstract language but are not complete or even correct: For example, all those dubious claims about realising the equations of god is a clear example of a religion to science sphere confusion and lends itself to saying things about the universe in a way rejected as bad scientific practice by Newton himself.

This concludes the brief description of some problems with doing philosophy using language. The problems definitely exist, but they are not fatal to all understanding, communication, and analysis. So going back to Wittgenstein's questions, we can say that it is possible to communicate with meaning quite often using our shared language. Some problems of philosophy are based in language, but that we can, through abstraction and reference to the hyper real, provide a wider analysis.

Having considered western philosophy in the first fourteen blogs, and meta-philosophy in this fifteenth blog, I would like to conclude by talking about meaning, the meaning of life. We have considered who we are and how we are; doing what is ethical with a good life in a just political system; business, government, and research; the technology of AI, consciousness, and science; even gods, metaphysics, and the real. So what is left? What is left are a large number of ideas for you as humankind to develop and consider, but do not forget this axiom: "The meaning of life is not, not living life." So live life as your primary objective, and perhaps your contribution and understanding will come to pass into meaning with a little effort. I am also not sure you need to seek the meaning of life any more in itself, perhaps there is nothing further to be found? You should instead be focussing on good outcomes for everyone through the practical application of yourself, perhaps try action, compassion, and love. I personally quite like to hear these sort of things in the quiet quotes of the Dalai Lama even though I am definitely not a Buddhist.  He says in The Little Book of Wisdom:

“Human beings are social creatures, and a concern for each other is the very basis of our life together. … Compassion and love are precious things in life. They are not complicated. They are simple, but difficult to practise. … Love … consoles when one is helpless and distressed, and it consoles when one is old and lonely. It is a dynamic … that we should develop and use, but often tend to neglect, particularly in our prime years, when we experience a false sense of security.”

So while existing philosophy can discuss many problems, you may need to accept your own meaning of life for the grandest philosophical theories can become an unmeritorious grail, and leave you with only our humanity to tend to. Luckily, if you followed these blogs, you should have the wherewithal to develop your own thoughts whether that is in rejecting, accepting, or creating your own world view and objectives.

"Blog OUT!"

[loststargrazer-blog]

Can you answer real life questions with Philosophy?

Science was the topic of a number of earlier blogs with its emphasis on modelling data points, inductive generalisations, mathematical descriptions, and interacting layers of causation, both in the past and with big data; but, does it help us with less exact questions like whether the government is doing a good job, or how I should arrange my priorities, my religion, or beliefs about the past?  There are a number of questions where there is a confusion of the scientific and the subjective, personal and objective, discovery and instinctively accepted beliefs as well as uncertain times with things we don't know.  By examining the philosophical basis of subjectivity and looking at real issues, can we gain an insight into questions that trouble us on a daily basis?

When we consider our world we often think of it in terms of events occurring through time, otherwise referred to as history.  History, although crucial in our thinking, has been criticised, for example by the Philosopher Schopenhauer for not existing. We tend to think of history as real, historical narrative and facts too; we use them in our own interpretations of the world as an ordered place with cause and effect.  I discussed causation positively and making generalisations also in previous blogs, and I accept them and their limitations, but what about the spheres of perspective and confusion which we put into our narrative about our world as discussed in the first blog?  Our historical perspective determines much of our beliefs and has consequences like who we vote for in the future.

Historical narrative can be non-reductive and hyper real as discussed in my blogs ‘What makes us for real?' and 'Is AI & Science stuck in an unhelpful Reductionist Paradigm and we just don't know it?'; so there is the potential for historical narrative to be useful and valid.  However in practice, historical narrative can also be highly biased, selective, and its conclusions more about the person and period the narrative was created in than the truth about the period under discussion.  Historians are well aware of this, but seldom get too publicly involved unless something heinous is occurring like the denial of genocide.  History and historical analysis methods are clearly in different models with their own sphere confusions, and these have changed over time.  If historians with centuries of hindsight and a fixed amount of limited evidence can come up with startlingly different narrative revisions of events, then what hope do we have in assessing basic questions like whether this government is any good?

Philosophy is sometimes enamoured with psychology, for example illusions that trick the senses, but one thing psychologists suggest is that people are overconfident in describing patterns and coming to conclusions.  Surely this is a worry for all of us and even this blog.  Historians accept that history is often the narrative most compelling to their culture at that time; however that does not make it philosophically correct.

One way philosophers have tried to allow themselves a say, [and let's face it some like Machiavelli or Plato were clearly promoting themselves or pushing an educational product], is to say that philosophers or those educated in philosophy have special access to true understanding.  This is a sphere confusion between someone who learns to count being able to add numbers and someone reading about erroneous philosophy being able to answer correctly (rather than being sucked into a backward and confused paradigm).  One philosophical topic with a funny name is 'a priori knowledge' or just the 'a priori': This is a term that can be understood as prior knowledge, prior in this case means prior to any experience.  There is an opposite term 'a posteriori (knowledge)' for learnt after experience.  The a priori framework is historically occuring well before the hyper real.  The hyper real is a much more advanced concept of understanding which does away with the a priori and a posteriori distinction as I shall explain further - the hyper real experience is essentially both at the same time.  The point I wish to make here first is that it is not the case that philosophers have a secret channel of (a priori) knowledge as they have claimed; however perhaps philosophy can help you organise the knowledge that you do have more clearly. 

The hyper real has both observed and implicit content, in fact you need to have the implicit content to interpret the observation, while the assimilation of observations provides the new implicit rules and language of the hyper real.  Babies are evidently not pre-programmed with much knowledge, let alone the principles and mistakes of higher mathematics, likewise we learn things beyond alien dots of colour, fragments of sound, and broken sensations of touch as the a posteriori must consist of. The process of learning is in the neural layering of association, of images, of language, of logic, and these we can call the rules of the hyper real.  The question then arises how should we divide knowledge and learning up in a way that gives meaning to answer real questions?

To be compatible with the hyper real, as discussed in my blog 'What makes us for real?', we can suggest that the distinction of knowledge is best divided between 'Sameness' and 'Difference'.  The rules of the hyper real begin in my earlier blog, 'Were you or your Big Data given to generalising this Valentine's Day and do you need to stop?' with the method we use for making general statements, a process which enriches our linguistic and neural model (I like to call myself a model) with descriptions and generalisations that I later called the rules of the the hyper real.  These rules are the 'Sameness' implicit in the term of discussion, for example how we recognise a chair as a chair, so the pathways of neural association set in language if you prefer. Sameness is the basis of what was historically called rationalistic thought, which we now justify, not because of magic, but because it is a manipulation of implicit rules that gives new conclusions.  This process is a little mysterious, but seems to model and simulate things behaving causally in an enriched logical language and transacts new action scenarios within the model giving new outcomes and therefore knowledge.  As our learning and building of the rules of the hyper real is a process unique to each of us, so our reality and sameness is tinged with an individual variance, for me this is the essence (mechanism) of our subjectivity and uniqueness, and it is not something we should be frightened of from a logical perspective.  

'Difference' is the other side of the division from sameness and expresses new information like 'the chair is not at the table, but by the window'.  Importantly, we accept knowledge of sameness originates from differences which we can describe, so the 'chair' always by the 'window', becomes not a 'chair' but a 'window seat'.  The division of 'chair' and 'window seat' creates sameness in our data as the window seat has an added location dimension; it enriches our concepts of furniture and living, but this sameness comes from observing difference - the interpretation of the observation of the ever changing world.  Thus the empirical and the rational are not truly divisible; previous descriptions are misleading.  Sameness is a concept grasped for, but not understood in previous eras: We can now reject the historical attempts like a priori, rationalist, or platonic form as misunderstandings of the logic of the hyper real.  Sorry to Kant, now Russia's greatest philosopher, who was very keen on the a priori to make good moral points.  We should stick to talking about the rules of the hyper real and use sameness and difference to analyse, separate, describe, and judge those hard to answer questions beyond science.  

This completes my core argument, with 'Sameness' and 'Difference' replacing the bad terms: A priori/subjective/rationalist and a posteriori/objective/empirical.  This takes to a further conclusion work done by many philosophers including the American philosopher Quine who demonstrated that a scientific observation was usually based/understood/judged on the system of thought of a collective group of scientists and historical additions to our understanding (ie. what I (but not Quine) might now call an animist culture of the hyper real metaphysic).

Let us consider a question relevant to the modern world: Are defence pacts a good idea? On one side you could consider Nato since WWII, on the other side you could consider the defence pacts just prior to WWI.  You could see a case of the pacts being good by averting war, and also secondly as badly involved in the case of spreading war by adding participants to the conflict.  By considering the sameness and differences of these pacts, you could see whether you would like to continue to support Nato today.  Actually in this case it seems that there is a substantial and deep set of differences.  For example, Nato insists members accept their current borders (keeping the peace between members too), so Nato could not be used as a vehicle for expansionist aggression or restitution; whereas prior to WWI there were aggressive elements in regimes on both sides.  Secondly the aims, motivations, and activities of Nato are broadly accepted, public, and democratically accountable, unlike the more secretive terms of the earlier period and their less democratic governance.  So Nato is a considerable improvement on earlier pacts.

Let us consider another example:  Should I marry this person?  This consists of two clear strands, sameness and difference.  What is the sameness that I expect from this person, what differences are likely to occur, and how would this life have samenesses and differences to the alternatives like cohabiting or splitting up.  Obviously people forget that people change a lot physically, hormonally, financially, temperamentally; seven years of marriage can change a person so much that it may not matter who you marry, by then it will be pot luck as all the options have changed more than stayed the same including yourself.  So I would start by actually checking if there are any sameness deal breakers which would stop you getting to the ten year mark, for example abusive or negative behaviours.  Usually we try to impress our partner through a haze of love, so naturally only the best is what you get first and a lot worse follows.  Also, your expectations remain similar, unless dethroned, but the bad is likely to get worse and the good is likely to be different as the stress of life grinds you down and familiarity breeds contempt.  But if you can put up with someone for ten years, why not marry, perhaps you will go into a cosy arrangement?  Of course, having children, buying a house together, these can bind you together in a co-dependent way.  Perhaps the logic is that if you can love with sameness despite the differences then you have a chance, and that may depend more on the temperaments and opportunities of those involved than on whether it is a fruitful or charming marriage.  My marriage is definitely not what I expected, but continues with extreme sacrifice by both of us and our children as our unhappinesses, although significant, are usually temporary, and can be overcome by many little joys.

I have given you two examples of significant difference, the sameness being the method of analysis: That is my conclusion to the wisdom of Western philosophy.  As pestilence roams the land, the economy becomes unhinged, and we enter a new phase of homeschooling, perhaps this philosophical renaissance in my life has passed.  Philosophy, like the history of ideas, like history itself, does not readily end, but interest reaches new topics, new problems, new obsessions, and it excludes the old, sometimes detrimentally.  These days I find it harder to focus on the issues under description; the shapes they make in the mind's eye are not so vivid, multi-faceted, and do not rotate as fast.

With my fourteen blogs on philosophy I have been rude to the dead and considered the living response to what we should believe in within philosophy based on the questions of interest to me, the reader, and the syllabus of Western academic philosophy.  Whether you are the same or different now, I hope this piece of intellectual porn excited and amused you.  You will realise the wreckage of criticism leaves behind a little language, logic, maths, the simplicity of explanation, some science, some methods, technology in progress.  The rest are vanities with only their differences and similarities to show for them, important to us, but intellectually just echoes of more significant things or cultures, the hyper real, the universal.  

So does philosophy help answer questions? Well numerically the evidence suggests it is more often wrong than right, and it is still clearly open to improvement.  Philosophy may at least encourage people to think for themselves and eliminate some blind prejudices and obvious confusions; but I would value it most for its internal dramatic entertainment, which I hope I have shared with you.

[loststargrazer-blog]

Cry Freedom and be Complete?

In my last blog I mentioned that a more equal and data rich approach to negotiating problems, that you may call democratic, likely would assist in our lives... despite this being a Philosophy and not a Politics blog.  I feel I missed something out a little: What of freedom, that totem of Western Political Philosophy, monotheist religion, and even western cultural imperialism.  I think that like much in our thinking, freedom has gathered some confusions that effect its conclusive values and limitations.  These I want to discuss in a more philosophical way. The aged western debate about freedom seems to rest in almost axiomatic terms on the notion of free will as a divine gift to reject or accept the way of the Christian conception of the good.  In fact there are clear examples where a rejection of these religious doctrines also had a rejection of freedom as a method with most unpleasant consequences, especially within the context of totalitarian regimes like Communism, Fascism, or even the usurping of divine rights by rulers.  What conclusions can we draw from this?  One conclusion is that the opposite of freedom can sometimes have very negative consequences, and, even if you do not like my treatment of freedom, you may accept that freedom means no more than the absence of oppressive tyranny. So can we really be oppressed or free?  This is an interesting question and we do need to show these terms are meaningful and are not just a sphere confusion transferred once from invalid Platonic Metaphysics to invalid religion, and then again transferred to political theory. French Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had a point of view that in almost all practical cases, even when held at gun point, we are free and actually choose to comply or not.  Interestingly, this view is expanded to the view that we almost entirely determine the content and context of our lives.  In opposition to this view is a mechanistic view of who we are.  This says that free will is an illusion and that your every action is determined by cause and effect.  You are entirely controlled by who you are as defined by your mind logic and what you experience, whether this is animal urges, abusive philosophy & moralising, brain washing, peer & family interaction, or just marketing.  We can't all be free and not free, so we must be confused. Freedom has also been expanded to include positive and negative freedoms.  Both types of freedoms are usually seen as helpful.  Positive freedoms are the freedoms to do the things, while negative freedoms are others' (and your) duties not to do things - usually taken as not doing things that would impede your (or others') positive freedoms.  Even within this simplification we can see that freedom has ceased to be simply a way of expressing that people should do what they want, but freedom has acquired some baggage of being good, often from the approach of rule utility.  I have already discussed whether utilitarianism is a good idea in my second blog on good and evil and concluded that this is not really a meaningful step.  So while I am sympathetic to people doing what they want from a wider informed view of themselves and their community, it is clear that freedom has acquired another layer of confusion and dogma. Some of the confusion about freedom is based on importing bad ideas from elsewhere, but it also suffers from scope confusion.  Scope confusion is sometimes described as a problem in logic, but natural language can carry out scope problems just as well if not better.  Scope confusion is where the extension of a word or operation is not consistent as to what it covers.  Take the statement: "I am free!"  Both 'I' and 'free' are used with different scopes in the last two paragraphs.  Sartre thinks of 'I' as an output, an experience, a mode of being, and 'freedom' as the matching of actions to will.  Deterministic arguments on the other hand look at the  'I' not as a black box, but as a causal chain, and 'freedom' as the ability to make different choices.  So how do we decide which scope to use? Language, especially more formal language like logic, should be used to determine the meanings and context based on the rules of the hyper real description (see my blog 'Are we for real?' for more details).  This gives us an opportunity to decide which scope we wish to use.  I suggest that the carrying out of illogical, random, or incorrect/broken behaviour is not freedom.  So Sartre’s definition of freedom and the self is more appropriate to political philosophy than the 'free' of determinism, which, although more scientific, is used in anti-logical language that we have rejected by accepting the hyper real rational world view.  So now we can see some of the limitations of the present debate, we are in a position to start our analysis of what freedom is and whether it is a good thing. In my third blog on who we are, did we find that we were capable of freedom?  We clearly pointed out that we are almost entirely a conjunction of shared ideas, neither original or for the most part unique, and even our responses to original events are mostly that which would be shared in others of like ilk.  Therefore, if we wanted to talk about freedom, then it for the most part makes no sense to do so without looking at the powers of our collective.  This is not a traditional view of freedom, which is usually contrasted against collective responsibilities which are even described as oppressive.  However, even Sartre emphasises that we can choose to accept personal responsibilities from a black box view of the self, which is at best an incomplete view of an isolated person. So what are collective freedoms and do the differ from individual freedoms? Having completed the last blog some time ago, with a break for some ill health, I can add a little perspective.  We could interpret the useful governance of society as the freedom of a society to come to rational, optimal, democratic decisions, and come to sensible views about itself and the world, free from capture and abuse by vested interests.  This just resolution of conflict should give individuals the options they want; maybe not more options, or options they would immediately embrace when drunk, but a considered freedom to do what they really want, having considered the full extent of who they are and where they want to be going in life within the contexts of the limitations of their world.  Negative freedom expresses a real limitation, even if it is questionable philosophy, that we operate as a collective society.  Even if we only argue with ourselves, we also need to respect our differences and similarities, but this suggests that 'freedom' is being conflated with ethical and political concepts of agreed rights and responsibilities that we would have anyway in a complete democracy, as discussed in my last blog. Denying freedom might sound oppressive, but consider a doctor: You go to visit with a potentially life threatening disease, he or she treats you correctly and you are cured.  The idea that the doctors could decide not to do their jobs, or to prescribe what they want is a nonsense; they need and are bound to treat you to their best understanding of the situation.  There is no freedom, but there can be a just and happy outcome.  Being bound to the best outcome means we are making rational decisions; the opposite is to allow debilitating insanity, a sickness in our behaviour and actions.  This sickness is not hypothetical; some of the worst societies in the world are ravaged by terrible decisions due to corruption, theft, lawlessness, incompetence, and extreme poverty.  The lack of freedom in the medical case might be that the doctor tries to prescribe a medicine, but there is none because the medicine budget was stolen, so the doctor and patient were not able to exercise their entitlement. Obviously, you could try to shoe horn negative freedom into what shouldn't have happened, but in practice laws do not usually primarily express the rights of negative freedom, but curtail options and prescribe the option.  While the law does not prescribe many daily things like when you should brush your teeth, your dentist does try, and for many technical and financial matters, like handling corporate capital, there are only a few allowed behaviours defined by law.  Once a breach of law or trust has been established there can be civil litigation for deliberate or negligent losses, but this is usually a secondary step in law enforcement. When freedom is invoked, there is a certain sympathy in not being ordered around by unnecessary onerous and useless laws, for example on private sexual practices between consenting adults.  However, I suggest that the answer to such laws is not an emphasis on freedom so much as justice that appreciates differences and what we want or need.  Perhaps we are splitting hairs when we distinguish between having more 'freedom' and having more 'just' laws.  However, it seems to me that having just laws is something we could achieve, while freedom is a rather disjointed concept.  What it suggests is that the question is really: "What do we need for a happy and just society?"  And the answer is justice rather than freedom, with freedom meaning unwanted choices that we might take by weakness or accident.  For example, while it might be convenient to bribe a policeman to let us off a speeding ticket, do we really want to live in a society where the police are totally corrupt? The answer is almost certainly no.  So what do we need for just laws? If the laws are unjust that suggests to me there are three major possible causes:   1) There has not been a thorough enough consideration of the differences and similarities in the greater self.   2) The system is not democratic enough.   3) The system is obsolete or incompetently described. Freedom is not on the list; freedom is therefore a desired side effect of a just system that has the ability to handle the diverse differences in the greater self such that participants get an agreeable resolution to conflict in accordance with their needs.  Freedom is not the driver of a just system, but a consequent symptom.  I will discuss these options further, but hopefully you can see that this treatment of freedom is an extension of the last blog. If we take the specific three properties that impede a just system of law then we can equate the first area to understanding.  Consideration should lead to understanding, and this, within the context of the greater self, should lead to sympathy and a sympathetic understanding of what a law can achieve.  The second area is directed at the motivation of the system.  Is it to benefit insiders or is it, for the want of a better word, democratic insofar as it is motivated to give people what they want as generally as possible?  The third area is whether the intentions of the law are achieved free from dilution, distortion, and unintended consequences. If a law is not implemented fairly, then this arbitrariness is a problem as it can be a tool of corruption and even serious oppression.  So the social systems that laws are found within are very important and more important than the exact level of freedom designed into the law.  For example, if there is no recourse to the law for the poor or the politically marginalised, then this is a serious problem; likewise if officials harshly implement unused laws for political or corrupt reasons, this is also a serious problem.  So freedom is the product of a just society with just laws.  It is not just drafters of the laws that need to be (3) competent and honest, (2) democratic, and (1) sympathetic in their consideration, but the whole justice system and community implementation.  Public interest should control behaviour, not freedom as such; however a result which oppresses nobody is the sign of a successful system. Philosophers and even politicians have considered freedom in terms of libertarianism, anarchism, even revolution as solutions to problems like class oppression, control by insiders, and oppressive governments.  Consistent with my blog on capitalism and my last blog on resolving conflict, I again find that poor public policy due to a lack of real democracy, a lack of awareness of the greater self (see my third blog), and a lack of general competence is the main impediment to a just society.  A just society will give people the opportunity to have the opportunities they really want, and this is probably the only meaningful form of freedom that we can really have.  There could be arguments about deregulation, however I suggest these are seen in terms of best public policy, the more varied nature of our society, and the consequences for the people and their democracy, rather than freedom itself unless it merely symbolises that our sympathetic hearing quickly demonstrates a rule is oppressive and contributes little. I have to conclude that a mechanistic freedom from determinism in a political context is unlikely, an oppression of Sartre's individual undesirable, but that the debate about what we want in society should be about listening, democracy, and competence.  This will increase justice, and justice itself will give freedom, although sometimes this will be hypothetical, for example you have to pay your taxes, but the hungry should be fed.  The freedom from want, the freedom to suffer, the freedom to do undemocratic things - I finally conclude that the word 'freedom' itself means little in political debate at the moment.  More democracy is probably what we should be talking about instead.

[loststargrazer-blog]

Does Philosophy Help?  Are there axioms for a good life in a just society?

Some philosophers have lamented the lack of public interest in Philosophy, while others have provided whole books dedicated to improving oneself and one's life.  It seems that self-help is a spin off from Philosophy; so can Philosophy actually help you with your life and choices?

An axiom is a principle which is sometimes defined as a claim that is true in virtue of itself. However in this blog, I shall take my axioms from the conclusions of previous blogs, particularly the second and third ones, which discussed who we are and what is good.  This is because I am uncertain that you can have many useful axioms that are true in themselves.  Axiomatic Philosophy is the use of axioms to construct and hopefully deduce a system of thinking about a topic.  In my last blog I discussed that I thought we could create valid deductions by creating a consistent hyper real structure.  Do not worry, this illustration hopes to be reasonably simple and clear, as well as interesting to your view of life and politics, and so demonstrate that Philosophy might be able to help you.

How can a question of life be simple when Philosophy is so difficult? There are of course a significant number of Philosophers who had grand jobs in not very democratic arrangements; they seem mostly apologists, or even perpetrators, of suffering and even class war. For example Aristotle, Cicero, Confucius, Machiavelli - none of these tell you what to do if your boss is a prick, your parents unreasonable, your politicians psychopathic, or socially you are a slave or treated like a slave.  Although all have very fine words about how you should obey and respect authority, which strangely turns out to be them. Many Philosophers should have a certain discrediting, especially on topics of ethics and rights and real one person one vote democracy. So to conclude, the problem on this topic is not that it is hard; it is just we have the wrong type of slave owning Philosophers.

Often life is difficult because of who and where you are, what you want to achieve, who you want to be, and feelings about what you think you ought to be feeling or doing. My family puts pressure on me to focus on getting a better job. However because of where we live and who I am, both of which I quite like, there are sacrifices that we need to make. In my second and third blogs, I talked about the lack of good and evil, and also how our identity is a product of our community and its thinking (even individualism); I called this the greater self. This realisation and simplification of who we are from a grand perspective can give us an easier approach to making the correct thinking that will lead to better choices. We want choices you can accept as deeply reasonable and hopefully emotionally satisfying. It is a sad thing when people spend years confused, conflicted, or with hostility to those around them or even themselves.

I will now start with an axiom, the first axiom. I will make it sound mystical because otherwise this blog will be too simple to be taken for Philosophy:

(Axiom 1): Oneness (we are one, the greater self)

This is just an expression of our connectedness, which is a fairly common Philosophical theme and as discussed in my third blog.  This axiom is thousands of years old. The next stage is to focus on the question we seek and define, 'the good life'. In the second blog we realised good does not really mean much, but that if there was a good option, it was to give people what they wanted (for their greater self).

(Axiom 2): A good life is that which is wanted.

All problems seem to result in some internal conflict for the greater self, so we can try to focus on that by Axiom 2.1.  Axiom 2.1 is derived, hence the ".1", and is a loose opposite of Axiom 2 with Axiom 1 included too. This is an example of Axiomatic Philosophy:

(Axiom 2.1): Conflict is an expression of disagreement and denial of what is wanted in part of the greater self.

If we reverse Axiom 2.1, we can say:

(Axiom 2.1.1): Harmony is the just resolution of conflict across the greater self.

As I am not too convinced there is 'good' as such, the 'just' is more for emphasis. If we add Axiom 2:

(Axiom 2.1.1.1): A good life is harmony with the greater self.

This can be expanded with Axiom 2.1.1 to conclude:

(Axiom 2.1.1.1.1): A good life is harmony with the just resolution of conflicts across the greater self.

A philosopher called Spinoza is responsible for popularising Axiomatic Philosophy and he wrote a long and slightly impenetrable book which may or may not tell you anything useful about metaphysics and nature.  Nonetheless in this context, I think conclusion 2.1.1.1.1 is interesting.

The second part of this blog is more applied and political, and not axiomatic, but relies on another Philosophical approach: "The Best Explanation."  This is not a politics blog, but some of the applied ethics, by Best Explanation, may have some political implications. Political Philosophy is a major strand of Philosophy, so if Rawls and Aristotle can do it, why can't we a little?

If we wanted 2.1.1.1.1, then we need 2.1.1, the just resolution of conflicts across the greater self. I am going to discuss what might be required. I suggest firstly that there needs to be some form of agreed system, but we would not want the solving of social problems through applied ethics to lead to an impossible utopian vision. Enforced clear laws are important though, particularly for commerce, with the benefit of responsibilities being clearly known and accepted, from minimum conduct to safety to externalities to taxes to the rights of stakeholders to ensuring competitive price behaviour.  But how would we ensure that rules reflected what we wanted?

I suggest that our Social Contract with each other, whether based on norms or laws, should, by best explanation, include at least the following eight concepts: 1) Be inclusive and proportionate and not open to capture by lobbyists.   2) Be data rich by not ignoring things like second preferences and compromise choices.   3) Choice focused, so take our view of the good and just, so what we want.   4) Be frequently re-evaluated so that people can change what they want.   5) Take account of what we actually want, so not withholding information, or taking advantage of addiction, or momentary tantrums.   6) Be flexible where possible, as not all parts of the greater self are the same. This can also be seen as focusing on freedom and rights.   7) Give popular voice to those whose rights might be impinged so that they are heard, not stigmitised, and treated equally; for they are part of the greater self for sure.   8) In the event of representation, try to ensure that the representative is elected by a representative system.

Unsurprisingly this list seems fairly uncontroversial to me as I wrote it. However, if this list is applied to government it seems there is a lot lacking, even in relatively new institutions like the structures of the EU superstate or democratic places like Presidential elections in the U.S.  This could explain why government has not been making harmony and happiness in the way it might. I will now make suggestions about how all eight of the concepts might be interpreted in the event of a constitution being created. Let us consider the discussion in two ways, what the system of power would look like, and secondly, what rules there would be to protect the system from abuse. I am not a specialist in politics, so this is more of an example based on practices in the world that have been assembled together rather than a manifesto; so feel free to write your own more brilliant manifesto.

A) Compulsory attendance to vote for everyone seems like an important duty and covers most of the eight concepts.  You might even insist on extending the voting for everyone, with the votes of minors being cast by their guardians, after all, they are part of the greater self and an important customer of the state.

B) When you vote it is good to have a number of preferences, people, and parties to chose from.  No point voting if there is nothing you want to vote for.

C) In the case of referendums or constituency elections, where there should be a number of choices (see B), a system that considers ordinal choices should be used like an Alternative Vote system where you may have a say even if your earlier preferences are eliminated.  Everyone is important, even if their first choices are eliminated.

I would just like to make a (meta-ethical) point about C.  In more unpleasant times, people insisted on inflicting their view of the good on other people, even things like endorsing cruelty and slavery; this seems to me most unjust.  In this system, we are giving people what they want, so we are taking an ordinal approach and equating it, i.e. what do they want first, second, third, etc. and equating them.  Within this framework, this is the good, so Alternative Voting directly corresponds to the good and is a data rich expression of our choices and the good itself. We also want to systematise this good in a social contract that is generally the best outcome as the good.

D) Where there are different layers of legislature, I suggest you use different methods of constituency, for example proportional representation for an upper chamber, while local candidates selected by local primaries are elected to the lower house.  This should capture different aspects of the concerns of the greater self.  Also, having a lot of power invested in a small number, or single, representative, like a president, is likely less fitting to everyone's wishes than a parliamentary ministerial government, although an elected president is clearly better than an appointed house, commission, or president of the commission.  In general, due to the binary nature of the role, the president is probably best as a symbolic elected person whose sole task is to defend and implement the constitution, laws, and people's rights.  I believe the Irish presidency is largely symbolic like this.

E) Frequent elections are important. I suggest two years is ample time between elections. It works in Australia, that seems better governed than France with its seven year presidency.

Now I will consider some things that need to be avoided or regulated:

F) Strict rules against lobbying distorting the image of the greater self. I would ban all lobbying, donations, and campaigning by corporations and any non-voter.

G) Campaign Finance donations should be capped per person and raised only by standing candidates from people who can vote for them.

H) Publicly required information should be available on candidates, including their platform and pledges, voting records, organisations they are a member of or work for, full resume, and any criminal convictions or investigations.

This concludes my opinions on what is the Best Explanation of how an ethical legislature should be structured.  I will now make a few highly speculative comments, using Speculative Philosophy, on the new role of the state and the ethical policies it might implement before concluding. I do not think it is the primary role of the state to compete with other states by blowing things up, but to look after its citizens who have run out of options - with a view to long term solutions for them.  Thus it should be civilisation, not barbarism, that should be the measure of civilisation.  How opportunity is delivered is a matter for local political debate. Competition is best left to boasting rights in who has served humanity and the greater self best, and with the least resources.

Giving rights to the whole of the whole offers a blanket way of ensuring a basic level of harmony, especially when combined with social care provisions.  For example, a drug addict being able to give themselves up to the tender care of the state, rather than sinking into crime and degradation, until they are able to do what they really want (which is apparently experience love), and they can then take more responsibility for their local section of the greater self.

Monotheists in particular, think the act of charity and compassion is important, however within a secular context it is the consequences that are important.  Also within the social bond, these things are not optional, but part of being you and understanding yourself more fully in society.  If you are responsible for making dinner, passing over a fig leaf is of no use whatsoever.  In practice, in current global society, there is still a failing of connection between what people say they seek and what they ask for.  For example, lots of people talk about green issues, green jobs, and green regulations; however if you just altered the sales tax variously and significantly to match a pessimistic measure of externalities and offset it with the abolition of corporation tax so as to be tax neutral, you could price ecologically unfriendly production out of competitiveness at a stroke.  However, this would hurt some vested interests and stop greenness being a "virtue" as it would be a normal piece of business logic for regular people in regular jobs.  Practical measure should be more important than lobbying or fake virtues in an inclusive system.

So that is quite enough Speculative Philosophy, let us conclude on the question of whether Philosophy helps.  Philosophy mostly just justifies the status quo. However, Philosophy is also a tool for analysing hard to answer questions.  At the moment the solutions that could be found from Philosophy are certainly not exhausted, but it seems to me that whole false religions have been founded on small pieces of bad Philosophy.  In conclusion, Philosophy probably would not help as much as a counsellor, although I believe these are not always successful either.  Of course, a good piece of Philosophy can change an open mind, so it may be worth considering a few options, including opening your mind to new opportunities and options in order to embrace the good life.  I have to warn you though that this good life might just include 2.1.1.1.1, which is still not yet a tired cliche: "A good life is harmony with the just resolution of conflicts across the greater self."

[loststargrazer-blog]

What makes us for real?

Lightning ripped the dark sky, the backcloth to our lives, showing reality, the underlying energy.  It seems to me that when I consider the truth, who we are, capitalism and the many topics of my recent blogs, that there is a divide between arguments outside the blogs in the storm and our warm experiences within.  This is because outside there are fundamental differences in our conceptions of the real and the hyper real.  By hyper real I mean the exposure, thoughts, and communications that consume us.  This is an interesting, important, but rather unwieldy topic: Can we find the real?

There is a long history of debate, long before Donald Trump and Noam Chomsky were trying to swap hyper real facts for fake news items.  Plato said in 'The Republic' that we only saw the shadows on the cave wall, not reality, while Socrates and the Ancient Greek Sceptics and Sophists argued heavily about the limits to our knowledge.  These arguments were taken up by Descartes, and may consist of his most popular bits of philosophy.  So all our usual peddlers of nonsense have taken great store by denying that we experience the real and they even claimed that there are more real things than our experience of the real like celestial forms or god or our total ignorance.  This is not a history blog, but I wanted to start by saying that questioning the real is not new, nor even that sophisticated.  So, should we take it seriously now?

The real seems like such a vague term, we need to be clearer about what we are talking about, also to see whether terms like hyper real even make sense.  This will involve a mixture of language and metaphysics.  Contemporary use of 'real' contrasts it with 'fake', but also makes it harmonious with 'existing'.  Existing is a quantifier in some logic; this means it is not used as a property of an object so much as a fundamental feature of the domain or universe, and thus overlaps with the term true.  This is why this blog follows the blog on truth.  When we talk about real, we are saying something about the universe, and this truth is about existence.  Enough word splitting, we define 'real' as 'truth' (which was defined in the last blog) + 'existence'.  As we have not defined existence yet, we have barely left the introduction.  We need to find something real.

What exists?  Perhaps we should discuss a few suggestions?  One way of deciding what exists is saying whatever is real is what the Physicists say.  This philosophical approach is called Physicallism. Physicallism has mostly taken a reductionist approach.  This means Physicallism says things are what they are made from and those things are what they are made from etc. until they are not sure what is left but say it is waves, or particles, or space, or even energy, or something we are not too sure about yet.  In my blog on the reductionist paradigm, I pointed out some reasons why I thought the reductionist approach was often unhelpful and also failed to answer questions about important topics, like most of science, as well as the outcomes at a higher level of interaction which people are mostly concerned with.

Could you have a non-reductionist Physicallism?  Well amongst the existing, you would want to have some form of non-reductive Physicallism with the acceptance of emerging properties as existing.  After all, our empirical experience would need to be real otherwise we are experiencing the real by experiencing the unreal, and I think logically that would not be possible.  I have also talked about consciousness and AI in a previous blog, so I will be consistent with those findings that experience is emergent and existing.

Buddhism and many religions are very down on existence.  Sometimes they may equate it with subjective personal experiences like suffering.  These approaches tend towards two streams, both of which float a lot of extra baggage.  One is Dualism, and the other is Idealism.  Idealism says that the real reality is the universal spirit and transcendental consciousness or god, of which we, and our experiences, are a manifestation; so the world emerges from consciousness rather than the other way round, although how consciousness works is not at all clear.  Dualism is more bonkers as it says there is Idealism and Physicallism and they are totally separate and interacting.  This blog is a philosophy blog not a religious blog, although we are nominally secular Animists in our metaphysics.  Anyway, while I have a lot of sympathy with the aims of trying to ground us away from our immediate concerns, I think that taken literally they have made some important obvious errors while trying to grasp the nature of our identity and consciousness.  I discussed our identity in one of my early blogs about who we are.  Subjective experience and the interpretation of that reality is an important part of what is existing or not.  In my previous blog I disagreed essentially that we are individual for a number of reasons, so it is not surprising that there have been some weird explanations for why we feel the way we do about reality in respect of greater consciousness.  Most of the weirdest explanations combine elements of mental ill health like paranoia and power fantasies with individualism and elements from Idealism to create religions, including based around people hearing voices.  I would not consider this to be at all reliable, especially not for a philosophical blog.  If people want to be together and feel spiritual, this does make sense to me as we are communal beings, not isolated souls.  But what else exists if we reject idealism?

If we accept that we are not individuals and that most of what we know is group-think, then we need to discuss how we communicate and whether the important aspects and contents of communication are part of existence.  Communications and interpretations are certainly an important part of our experience.  This is a big topic so we will break it down starting with stone tablets and ending with hyper reality.

I am going to take it as observable and obvious that stone tablets exist; so the writing on stone tablets obviously exists; what is written on the tablets is written in stone and is defined.  If it says something like: "Our King Ramesses the Great is a god;" this shows that not much has changed in the world of communication.  While it may not have been the case that Ramesses was a god, it is clear that there existed some people who said that King Ramesses was a god and may even have believed it.  It certainly had a strong legitimising impact on his long reign.  In fact the success of King Ramesses the Great is such that his fame and greatness have become such that they are existing today, even though not much is left of him, or his rule or beliefs, that would be acceptable or that great in the modern world.  We are left with the strange conclusion that Ramesses is no longer real, the reasons for his greatness are no longer great or real, but his greatness is real.  According to Jean Baudrillard, a model of the real without origin or reality is hyper real and blends the real with the symbol of the real.  Theistic behaviours and expressions, or even often that of 'Greatness', is hyper real and has been a consistent, if underappreciated, aspect of communication.  There has been a desperate and desperately misguided clinging to claims of absolute truth in matters relating to monotheism, social values, and even politics.  Clearly our wish to connect meaningfully to one another and share experiences of oneness through communication and empathetic connectedness is not dependent on the communications being truthful.  Nonetheless, the communications exist, even via stone tablets.  What happens when we swap a stone tablet for a modern tablet?

Our information on contemporary digital platforms, both that we project and that we consume, is a radical transformation away from the reality it portrays, and, perhaps like art, is more about the abstract object than the original subject.  The original subject may be passed, forgotten, misinterpreted, or fictional - and is in any case rapidly changing as the newsfeed changes.  This is not a hyper real fact, but immersion in hyper reality as a way of life.  The content may not be true, but, like art, is really meaningful.  In this politics, like with art pieces, there is an argument over which piece is most meaningful to our expressions now, and that piece changes with the experience of the discourse.  Like Ramesses, icons are given greatness; after all the Mona Lisa is not as realistic as a 3D photograph or as expressive as a video interview, not as sensual as a pin up, the colour scheme is dowdy, the model unattractive, the clothes undramatic, the sentiments unappealing.  Yet this picture is the existing symbol of the greatest art for no reason other than the place it has in our hyper real discourse.  If it was created today it might not even sell.  So it is with our public and political life.  We react not so much to people, but the symbolic nature of different leaders.  One day someone is an amiable mayor, the next a failure, next unreliable, next a great leader, next a hopeless sign of the weakness of our times.

There is no point asking which hyper reality is real without asking first whether hyper reality is real, and even how much it matters whether hyper reality is real.  Some hyper reality is clearly fiction, others is modern propaganda designed to manipulate people.  It is the intensity of the emotional engagement, even control outside of totalitarianism, that is new.  Not new is that we are open to systematically accepting group thinking and hyper real facts.

If we can say art and the hyper real exist, then can we say language and logic must exist too?  Well we must certainly agree with this as the hyper real is an expression of meaning, symbols, and reasoning.  This language sits encoded in Physicallist facts, manipulated by non-reductive emergent properties, even our consciousness, or the mathematics and logic of our algorithms being played out on hardware.  As you can see, the Physicallist universe can be reformed and enriched with information and communication and consciousness: So dualism and idealism are unneeded to explain anything even if they could, as even hyper reality is just emergent.  Once you can accept the hyper reality of greatness, it is consistent to accept the language of hyper reality expressing grand concepts as the pantheons of new gods.  The grand concepts are Animist expressions and incarnations as we interpret and make sense of our socio-linguistic world.  What are creativity, beauty, genius, power, love, hope, creation, destruction, corruption etc., but hyper gods; they are the logos, brands, and symbols occupying our realities.  Even Philosophy itself is a brand marked upon our texts.

I would like to talk more about the reality of reason, mathematics, and logic; for its reality might make some rational reason work.  There is the real, we can call it the non-reductive Physicallism of the universe, and then there is the way that reason can be carried out.  First there is language, so description; the second step is clarification; the third step is manipulation and deduction; and sometimes the fourth step is a new conclusion.  There is something mysterious about this process, insofar as it has confused many philosophers. Can we give an account of the real argument?

Logic is hyper real, so it exists at two levels: The real, like two bricks, and the model, like the aqueduct plan which is hyper real.  When the plan is implemented, the hyper real also creates the just real again, and they match by describing one another, emergent from bricks and bits.  Behind the hyper real is logic, and therefore maths; they are real as they are a hyper real description of the real.  Unlike Pythagoras, it is not that things are mathematical for the things are just themselves (or it is not that the real is mathematical for the real is itself); but it is that logic and mathematics sit in that reality (are emergent from that reality); first language describes the things, then the language is logic and manipulated into the hyper real fantasies.  These fantasies may or may not be created in bricks, but if they are created, and the initial description is true, then the creation will be expressed in the feasibility and rules of the hyper real.  All deduction is an expression of the logic of the hyper real, and each new deduction is an expression of the hyper real.  So hopefully deduction is grounded, realistic, and a new investigative arrangement based on what emerges from the real in the same manner as the hyper real is an emergent form of the real.

So we may begin to draw the blog to a close; we are real as our language and logics are hyper real, so exist.  Our consciousness and observations are emergent and existing.  As discussed in previous blogs, we can observe model, and generalise based on these hyper real logics.  Are we fallible?  Yes as our language signs may be applied incorrectly, but we are also for real in a deep and general sense of having existing expression and pathways to making true statements about the world.  I also like the way hyper reality and its reasoning furthers the explanation of how rationalistic thoughts can deduce new information like the maths to show whether a bridge will stand up to a load.  I would have liked to do a blog on that, but it is a question for the brave as previous foolish answers have created follies like Plato's monotheistic forms, Berkeley's monotheistic idealism, and the Hume's atheistic denial that you can solve questions rationally at all: Despite wide adoption, none of these answered the question of why rationalism deeply works when applied to bricks and many other things.  We can at least say it is because even the hyper real is real and emergent, like us and our reality - so bound by causation (see my blog on cause and effect) and being a thing in itself in the universe.

So just to recap, our world, consciousness, and hyper reality are emergent and real.  Language, logic, mathematics, and generalisations are all emerging from the hyper real as they can be talked of without specific reference to the world, but nonetheless exist in it and maintain its logical possibilities/framework by applying the definition of language to the mechanics of the reality in itself.  And of course, when you are tiring of logic, you can always consider hyper real fictions, art, politics, your profile, and the reality of funny cats.

[loststargrazer-blog]

Is this blog true?

Strangely, truth is a rather complex topic in Philosophy, but only because there are so many approaches to it.  Philosophy can be defined as a love of knowledge, and surely having knowledge and knowing truths are similar, if not the same, concepts?  The problem is that this most basic area of Philosophy has been controversial, not because it is obscure, but because the term "truth" has been so widely used that it has become distant from its core meaning to such an extent that you could argue over what its core meaning is, and even whether there is a core meaning that is shared between discussions of say science, art, ethics, and what's best for breakfast.

My truth is probably not your truth, but because I am writing these blogs and trying to say something true about truth, I will first try and give you a version of truth that is robust and consistent that I can use.  Perhaps you will still accept this truth?  When talking about cause and effect in a previous blog I mentioned the law of non-contradiction.  For me true and false claims must not contradict one another, and they usually are a digital and binary framework in our language that we can use when making statements. There can be fuzzy terms like between, and even non-binary logic attempts, but these are still digital (by which I mean discrete), because, in practice, language is a digital concept, and all meaningfully defined statements can be assigned a truth value if we only knew it.  Obviously language gets redefined, frameworks get redefined (as I mentioned in my blog on generalisations), but if we know what we are talking about, then statements are either true of false, even if we do not know which.  So what makes something true?

I wouldn't worry too much about this paragraph, but what I said in the last paragraph about statements being either true or false is sometimes controversial in Philosophy due to a popular misunderstanding of a group of statements, the most popular of which is: "This statement is false." This statement is called The Liar's Paradox.  There is in my view plenty of scope to play about with natural language and construct statements that wouldn't pass a standard computer code compiler. Natural language often does not really have to make any great sense.  In this case the code compiler might state that the statement has no external reference.  This normally is the error shown when it is meaningless as you have mis-typed the reference.  Even if the compiler allowed this statement wrapped in a function to call itself, it is clear that you have made a common programming coding error, an infinite recursion loop, by not including the break clause.  This problem is common as if you start writing some recursive code, get distracted and fail to finish it with a break statement, then run the code, the algorithm just runs forever until you close it down.  Some Philosophers said this is a 'paradox' and shows meaningful language can only be about tangible physical things we can empirically describe, so whole areas of language are meaningless and cannot describe anything as there are no truth values.  I disagree that it implies anything very much as I think this is not a paradox and is clearly both meaningful and has a truth value; however the truth value flips each time the brain algorithm loops the recursion.  If you were to break the recursion in the algorithm then "this statement is false" is assigned false, so is false.  There are plenty of false statements, but they are usually only interesting in saying the opposite is true.  The opposite is: "This statement is true." So this statement is happily true - no problem.  The only conclusion you can draw from all this is that people confuse the processing of statements with the statements themselves.  So in my version of truth, you can apply truth to statements even if they are not really about anything real or even if they are quite weird as long as they have some conceptual content, even a square circle.  Also more importantly, I would accept and suggest that statements have a reasonably complex relationship with the machines that process them.

So what does make something true for us here?  I suggest that all the different types of truth, and there are many (like scientific, political, moral, aesthetic, religious, Pythagorean/mathematical, my wife's, her mother's, the dog's, Aristotle's etc), can all be made up of four elements.  I am not quite 100% certain this is definitive, but nonetheless I am willing to commit to this four part list:-     1) Logical Truths:  This covers mathematical and linguistic structures, logic, formal and defined languages.  Science theory relies on this heavily (as discussed in my blog on reductionism in Science and AI).  Modelling, abstracting, theorising, and (re-)defining all provide a significant number of logical truths.  Do they apply to the world - sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.  I would also include the important and interesting sub-group for making generalisations as described in my blog on generalisations and Big Data that is very relevant to this type.     2) Useful Truths:  This covers really a lot.  Some Philosophers have claimed all Science consists of useful truths, unproven equations that seem to work when applied to technology; I don't totally agree with this, but it is clear that we hold onto a lot of associations, uncertainty, rules of thumb, folk wisdom, social agreements and consensus, and old mental baggage.  Also, in daily life we often act quickly and expediently, and without definite knowledge.  Pragmatism can be applied to all practical endeavours.     3) Personally Meaningful Truths:  This covers many aesthetic, religious, and even moral and political truths.  Personally I sometimes have doubts about even classing these truths as known truths as they often seem baseless to me and even clearly false if applied strictly, literally, and universally.  Nonetheless, these types of truths are very popular in philosophy, for example in Aristotle.  Aristotle's 'Nicomachean Ethics' is arguably the most influential western philosophy book in history, especially if you include the follow up book on politics called 'Politics'.  Aristotle's driving argument is that each of us has a purpose, and by working towards our purpose virtuously all of us would live better lives, even in a better society; however as his explanation of 'better' and 'purpose' are explained, they seem baseless without relying on personally meaningful truths, or the personally meaningful truths of a creator, or a society agreeing on some personally meaningful truths.  So this category, while I am reading Philosophy, is more useful as a warning sign than for providing truth.  For example, Aristotle's purpose could be a bad thing if you were carrying out genocide or environmental damage well, even if it was often helpful to your personal goals.  I suggest you may like to consider my blog on good and evil before using these kinds of truths as axioms.     4) Descriptive Truths:  This is based on observation, often related to empiricism, experiment, and seeing how things are.  It is reliant on being able to make good observations and record them meaningfully and systemically, which in turn may rely on logical beliefs like non-contradiction.  I suggest these are the least controversial types of truth based on my blog about cause and effect, however the process is not infallible, for example if you are tricked, hallucinate, or fail to spot something.

When discussing this philosophy blog I generally try to avoid totally type 3 (Personally Meaningful Truth) discussions, and I also only use type 2 (Useful Truths) when I have run out of other options from type 1 & 4.  Obviously in real life, for example when deciding what's best for lunch, I rely mostly on these type 3 and 2 truths.  If you can't switch easily, that is understandable, but it will cause sphere confusion as I set out in my first blog.  So in general this blog, as a philosophy blog, focuses on (type 1) logical truth discussions, but tries to ground them with (type 4) descriptive elements.  Given a language and logic focus, we should ask how do we define truth and make it what it is in our context?

Aristotle says things are true because they are beautiful, and there are still people who say truth is beauty; although this expression is less popular amongst wannabe lefty intellectuals since Trump unleashed his own version of the truth is ugly.  Anyway, while this is mildly absurd, I think it does go to show that you should be very careful how you define truth.  Given that there are serious disagreements, how you define truth might determine what your truth is.  I can see definite drawbacks to using Aristotle's definitions; and Plato's heavy reliance on celestial templates to decide if it is true that a chair is a chair strikes me as even more monotheistic and bonkers.  Accordingly I am going to look East and at modern formal languages as Western Philosophy is hopelessly confused and argumentative.  People don't even seem to be able to separate truth into more than one category very well.

In Hinduism (according to Wikipedia), truth is defined as unchangeable; having no distortion; being beyond time, space, and person; and pervading the universe in all its constancy.  I would say the universe is the universe and truth is language - so reject 'pervading' in favour of 'describing'; however the rest makes good sense to me as this gives the concept of truth its importance and usefulness.  Truth is a tag that we can attach to statements, the tag is defined to say the claim of the statement is something we can depend on.

If we want to describe the universe, what about things which aren't really in the universe like fictions?  I have argued in a previous blog that monotheism's deity is a fiction because his properties are contradictory with each other and what we know with more certainty about the universe.  This does not stop us from agreeing that this deity is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving, because in minds and language formats he is described thus, and these exist, open to description, in the universe.  Descartes disagreed with this, but as usual he is just a bad influence, so desperate to be theistic he can't do philosophy properly.  I hold it obvious that any lunatic can describe anything, but when we say: "Superman can fly;" or even: "Superman can fly is true;" we are not confirming the type of existence of Superman, just that he can fly.  Language contextual processing is a phenomenal thing, so we can say, ''Aristotle is a man is true," even though he has been dead for a couple of millennia.  You may like to see my treatment of names in my blog on cause and effect as it shows that in nearly all statements there is a mass of implicit assumptions about open sets and names; even the word 'this' usually refers to more than one thing.  Now we have made clear that most natural language is a complex mess over-simplified, what does a truth value mean in a formal language?

In computer code a truth value, often called a Boolean, is a flag (so is either up or down).  You give it a name and a value, then you can use the value in the logic to control an output, for example there is probably a Boolean used to determine whether you are a current Prime Customer when calculating your postage if you buy from Amazon's online shop.  The flag is a binary bit flagging between 1 for true, and 0 for false.  This is very pragmatic and useful as you may name the Boolean after any statement you wish; however you are also responsible for providing the value or mechanism for calculating the value.  I suggest there are only two necessary things we can take away from this; firstly, to use the Boolean it needs a role (so meaning); secondly, it needs to have a definable mechanism for positing or changing its value.  A third consideration for it to be useful is it needs to be capable of being processed and stored in memory, but within the context of a human or a computer that is quite implicit.  At no point does the truth need to be verifiable to make meaningful statements, quite the reverse as the meaning comes first, for example I can happily flag false (or true) that "Aristotle will be a Prime Customer in the year 3000 with grue-3000 skin," even though with present colour pigment technology grue is causally impossible.  In fact I could even write a function to correct the value, if the user realises time travel based replication and grue body paint is available in the year 3000.

So to conclude on formal languages: They suggest that meaning precedes a truth value, and a truth value precedes any verification by algorithm step.  In fact it is not language, truth, and logic, but first a logical framework running in a machine; second, language, names, and meaning; third truth value initialisation; and an optional fourth for truth value manipulation and even perhaps very occasionally verification.  This also is intuitive as you need a topic (meaning), and a position on that topic, before you can decide whether you want to check you are holding a true belief.

This concludes my description of the truth I am using in this blog.  Throughout history there have been many shifts in what truth is being discussed.  With the change in topic and meaning there has been a change in what is important, what is true, and what truth means.  If we take Ancient Greek thought we can see at the beginning there was a considerable religious emphasis (for example Dionysian), then empirical elements, then reasoning, and then by the time of Pythagoras mathematical truths are venerated.  The older truth types do not go away.  They are not invalidated. They are still used on an everyday basis and have regular revivals.  And of course, whatever philosophers say, being useful triumphs over dogma.

More recently there is a deflationist reductionist school of philosophy which says truth, being true, is redundant and adds nothing to a statement.  I have some sympathy for this view some of the time in logic where 'P' and 'P is true' have the same logical truth value.  Looking at the truth values can be useful when analysing the real meaning of statements.  However, the discussion of truth shows that there is a need to evaluate statements in heated argument as true and false.  For example, some of my statements could be true in my version of truth, but false in yours, and many theists ask who can make Descartes's truth sensible (true) today.  Also, the context and algorithmic steps processing the statements are different, which may have further consequences, especially in people.  Anyway there is significant analysis of the use of truth language, but while this may be interesting, their findings do not overrule the defined and objectified version of my truth that I have created based on distorted Hindu hearsay, even if they try to say that truth does not exist.  Your truth exists if you have created it.

This completes the discussion of truth and there is only a short conclusion:  You should see what is your meaning, cultural discussion, solution to a problem, then you will see what your truth is.  Whether something is true is the topic of all my other blogs and much else in philosophy and life.  My truth is absolute as it is defined, and it is therefore an objective criterion, but relative insofar as you can redefine it for yourself.

[loststargrazer-blog]

There have been people who asked: "Can we overthrow Capitalism?" And others who asked: "What can we do to make Capitalism work?"

This blog follows on from my last blog on Reductionism when investigating and thinking about things (including science and AI); however, as is often the case in Philosophy, a change in one seemingly unrelated area has consequences in another.  Now I want to consider Capitalism; this PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) topic can be considered in an investigative way to give an informative take on a central question in our socio-economic lives.  You may find the approach simpler to understand if you have read my last blog.  First I would like to point out that I am not an expert on Politics and I am not advocating any particular position in this blog.  This blog covers quite a wide ground, so with a little impetus, we can make our Philosophical points without alienating too many people of varying political convictions.  In the world, there is a heavy distinction between Capitalism, Socialism, and Economics.  As a Philosophical blog, what do we note about this debate?

The first thing I am going to engage with is the terms.  There is often a divergent opposition held between Capitalist and Socialist, but further the economics of these models is evaluated by an economic discipline, by which I mean the investigations of truths about the models.  I will talk more about establishing truths in my next blog, but based on my last blog I would like to suggest the definitions and divergence are flawed in all the respects I have just mentioned.

First, can you really separate the term Capitalist from Economics, or the terms Socialist, or even Anarchist, from Capitalist Economics?  Economics, particularly micro-economics is based on looking at the different transactions that occur.  For example, I grow apples, people want to eat apples.  I consume, give, or exchange apples.  The nature of my benefit from the apples, such that I expand or contract the supply and consumption of apples is capitalist as well as economic, for if I make a loss or gain - and this can be variously described - I am ruled by profit and loss, even if this gain is some form of duty or happiness utility rather than cash.  You can have state players, even making losses and being subsidised, but the nature of the loss or profit is capitalist; i.e. it can be calculated by an accountant after amortisation and seen as the impact on net asset capital held by the enterprise.  So rather than stick to these associative (by which I mean vague) definitions of Capitalism, Socialism, & Economics, I am going to redefine my debate according to metaphysical layers in a similar way to my last blog.  The bottom layer is the transaction economics: This is intrinsically capitalist, so we can drop the terms Capitalist and Economics as they are meaningless and can be replaced at this level with nothing or natural, by which I mean the transaction occurs without specific interference, rather like the movement of pool balls in my last blog - so without cheating.

The layers above the transaction can be split into two constructs, 1) costs/remuneration, and 2) the enterprise impact of multiple transactions.  The cost can be split into knowledge, capital, labour, raw materials, and taxes (whether this is a state enterprise, anarchist syndicate, corporation, or private enterprise); these costs offset the remuneration to leave the impact on capital - again whoever you are.  There are plenty of layers above the transaction to consider like the weekly local target sales, quarterly corporate target, the sector profit, the economic turnover of a region, the performance of the wider economy, the tax take of the government, global trade, etc.

Layering activity tells us that you may have state or collective players in a capitalist system, but you cannot overthrow capitalism at a basic level even if you exclude private enterprise due to the asymmetry of layers impacting each other.  This strongly suggests to me that there is no reasonable reason for having a dictatorship of the proletariat (as suggested by Marx) to overthrow Capitalism as this would make as much sense as having a rebellion of engineers against Physics.  So why does the economy sometimes work for people and sometimes not?  Profit is not because we are suddenly making transactions work; transactions always follow their own logic.  Profitable increase occurs because we are changing the environment at a higher level, and by replacing one set of transactions with a different non-identical set of transactions, and so changing the higher emergent effects.  If you freeze your solution, you will get a different reaction effect from if you boil it, but whatever you do it is still Chemistry.  So transactions are all about capital, and we need to increase capital to make profit and a sustainable economy.

We shall take a step back and consider the types of issues that people want to address when they want economic change, and see which layers of emergence they belong to as they don't seem to belong to capitalist transaction economics. Even a Philosophy blog is impacted by considerations of contemporary problems.  There are some definite types of problem. A) One type of divisive problem is the consequences of someone else's solution.  The losers not only have to suffer a loss, but they also have to see someone else winning.  Combining other peoples' solutions with increased inequality and a lack of opportunity or social and economic support can leave people with devastated lives as well as very disappointed and angry.  Related to new solutions are B) new problems due to changes.  Technology has a habit of changing at the moment, whether this is products, production, logistics, or just market prices.  Changes may clearly impact or disrupt the types of transactions that occur, so newer higher level behaviours may be needed to navigate differently.  A third type of problem C) is the realisation of risky events, for example an external natural disaster.  A fourth type D) is an instability at a higher level in the economy like the bursting of a price, credit, or investment bubble.

The way we can split up problems so glibly suggests that there are different types of solutions: So the idea that there is a single fix is just wrong.  What all the problems share is that an unfortunate policy was implemented, but which policy and when is widely different.  For example, between the credit bubble leading up to the Great Recession in the US, to the 40 year economic stagnation in the Soviet Union, there are completely different problems and remedies.

I suggest fairly arbitrarily that the following areas of solution to economic problems are important, and there may be others: First, regulation, too much regulation stifles free enterprise whereas whereas too little might allow abusive, fraudulent, short-sighted, or stupid behaviour.  Second, inappropriate social protection, too much might be too expensive and create inefficiency or poverty traps, while too little might create social problems and a lack of social cohesion. Third, the cost-remuneration environment is crucial, abusive monopolies and oligopolies are bad, but so are a lack of protection for profits and assets like some intellectual property. Taxation and subsidies like infrastructure and the education and health of workers are important to get right.  Also, 3b), is the private remuneration, motivation, and reward of workers, owners, banks, and other stakeholders.  Fourth, an ability to plan and invest for the longer term is often useful, as is a favourable trading environment.  Finally, fifth, is the availability of resources to build an enterprise, so raw materials, labour, capital, and technology.

This ends my brief assessment of the types of problems and solutions emerging from transaction systems.  Based on what was found, it seems that most problems are not based on glib worldview issues concerning just capital ownership, but rather on mundane matters.  For example, in an over regulated, or over taxed, or over state controlled environment, how do you get investment in risky enterprises?  In a global credit bubble, how do you persuade banks to maintain sensible credit buffers when their management bonuses are based on an annual performance?

In my first blog I made comments about areas in which Neo-Libralism, Socialism, and Paternalism were inappropriately applied.  My assessment of the term Capitalist suggests that the term 'Capitalism' is a subject of significant Sphere Confusion.  The problems of society and economy are ones where the policy details are unfortunate.  This is due to a poor use of concepts in the popular mind, and the implementation of much policy that seems to be justified heavily by Sphere Confusion and a lack of foresight.  I see different forms of economic success or failure, with different levels of social impact, in different areas of the world, and many suffer their own sphere confusions.

I would now like to consider a problem solving approach using the assessment criterion I gave a high level overview of.  Let us consider something that may be undergoing a revolution, private transport.  Electric cars, ride sharing, taxi apps, car rental, self driving technology, vehicle tracking, these all threaten change: So how can we analyse the problem and inform policy?

First we have to determine what is actually happening.  There seems to be a predominantly 'B' type change with technology that is at the moment disrupting an industry.  The different technologies involved seem to be at different levels of advancement and have very different impacts.  Let us focus on one component as this is just a blog: Taxi apps seem to have a core business established, and this technology is being integrated with Apps like Google Maps to compare time and price of different transport options from walking, cycling/scooter, bus/public transport, car, and various taxi offers.  The increase in price transparency and competition, whether financial or time or health is replacing old travel transactions with ones whose costs of travel are lower.  If we take a standard strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats approach to each of our solution areas, we can see that changes in policy may be required.  The first area is regulation: Strengths are that taxis are already regulated; weaknesses are that the regulation may need updating to a newer model - for example licencing and data submission rules may need updating and licencing rules may need to be altered.  Opportunities are available, for example it may be possible to exclude unlicensed minicabs from apps, and it may be easier to audit and control the data of fewer bigger organisations.  Weaknesses: Companies may become more powerful and less local, so harder to control.  IT systems may need new rules to avoid monopolistic behaviour.  The replacement of driver skills with GPS navigation may improve the quality and price of the service, but it may require significant changes to how drivers are licensed.  There are questions like, do you want to control the number of drivers, as had been the case historically in some markets.

The second area is Social Protection.  Strengths are existing protections, even perhaps employee representation protections.  Weaknesses, the employees may be moving from a system of virtual self-employment to being heavily controlled by a few large organisations, so the employees may require new insurances and protections in conditions, safety, rights, etc.  There is also the transition from old taxi systems to the new ones.  For example, many small taxi firms may no longer be able to compete, likewise, regulated taxis charging a premium price may lose the bulk of their business which may significantly impact driver incomes.

The third area is the financial impacts of the new transactions, ie. taxes, incentives, and subsidies.  You could suggest that incremental charging for efficient activity is better than people buying expensive polluting vehicles and then using them excessively, but whatever your views on personal transport as a distance covering utility or a personal statement and pleasure, it seems highly unlikely that the existing financial boundaries are ideal for the new economy.  So the financial parameters would need to be entirely reviewed. This may require a careful consideration of supply and demand, externalities (both positive & negative), questions of utility in serving the public, and finally whether it helps prepare for the future.

The fourth area is whether you can control the trading environment so that it is stable and profitable without being monopolistic.  This should help investment in your economy. Finally fifth, ensuring there are sufficient resources for the transition is helpful: For example, good mobile internet coverage, or priority charging points for electric taxis, etc.

In all, when we look at the policy details, we can see that there are many issues relating to just taxi apps.  Exactly who owns the taxi app may have some impact, like encouraging fast global expansion, but its main beneficiaries are probably the customers benefiting from a more efficient and competitive taxi service.  The main losers are probably the last generation invested and involved in the taxi business, especially in regulated regions with controlled prices.  Undoubtedly there will be side effects on areas like the automotive industry, public transport, and public mobility, but it does not seem like there is any need to "Threaten Capitalism!" in order to take advantage of opportunities and mitigate threats.  This just requires sound public policy.

In conclusion, I do not think qualitative Philosophy can replace quantitative Economics and Accounting; but I think Philosophy can look at the Mental Spheres that guide many misguided questions that are thrown about the public sphere about political economy.  Also, poor policy should be called out and changed by public spirited economists educating themselves, politicians, the public, and of course philosophers, based on pragmatic empirical research.

[loststargrazer-blog]

Is AI & Science stuck in an unhelpful reductionist paradigm and we just don't know it?

One thing that can be said about AI is that there have been a lot of claims about how close we are to its discovery, also how many people are working on it.  So University Departments, Individuals, and commercial organisations are working on AI, and they represent a significant percentage of all human investigative and intellectual bandwidth in the last 50 years - and to what end?  We have seen some significant improvements in AI, like playing chess, but on the whole the results were not as expected.  Why is this?  I suggest that one of the reasons for this is that Computing is in a heavily reductionist paradigm.  What does this mean?

When Computing is taught, there are a few areas of focus, some theory like different logics and Set Theory, programming of algorithms, design features like Unified Modelling Language & Requirements Engineering, a break down of hardware components functions, and the specifics of technologies like web, database, & data visualisation.  However, pretty much all of this involves breaking a system down into manageable pieces that do what you want.  An example of this is the Bubble Sort.  This is an algorithm and a fairly simple piece of code that is rather inefficient, but is generally taught as the first example in an introduction to implementing algorithms in computer code.  The way Bubble Sort works is that it sorts a list (or array) alphanumerically into alphabetic order by starting at the beginning of the list and checking whether the first two items are in order and swapping them if they are not.  It continues along the list repeatedly until there is nothing left to swap.  This is interesting because it suggests the following mechanism: You want the list sorted, so break the list into the smallest arrangement and then sort that, then repeat across the list.  The underlying reason why this is interesting is that I don't think high level conscious intelligence can necessarily be reduced to smaller pieces of conscious intelligence because it is an emergent property; so while reductionist analysis will help you get a computer to carry out many tasks, it may be blocking progress on building emergent, chaotic, or complex properties like intelligent thought.  I think it is consistent and sensible to assume that conscious thought is both on a scale and emergent (see my previous blogs for why).

Computer experts may not like this, but it is clear, even to the tinkerer, that using popular commercial software like Java you can program network models with parallel code objects being created and linked into complex structures and layers.  This should (and does) give program activity that is complex and emergent.  Probably the most famous examples of this are neural nets, as I mentioned in my last blog, however there are other examples like boids which simulate a flying flock of birds.  So there is no compelling reason why Computing should be so heavily reductionist.

The reductionist paradigm is rather universal and also applies to another similarly not entirely successful subject: Neuroscience.  It seems that there is really a lot of data on neurons, nerves, brain anatomy, brain waves, brain areas, and conscious experience; however there is not much of a theory tying it all together.  A 'brain' theory in the present paradigm would reduce conscious experience to neuron firing and compile neuron firing into conscious experience.  While this is still an interesting if rather naive aim, perhaps there is a hole in the mechanics in our present paradigm where emergent properties activate, and activate in a non-reductionist manner?

There is often a big gap between levels or layers of knowledge; so it seems to me that even Quantum Mechanics is possibly an emergent and complex system, and even if it is not then the levels of knowledge above it certainly are like wave patterns on a beach, coastal erosion patterns, with geographical, ecological, and biological impacts being far removed from the spin on an original atom.  Given this, it is likely that Artificial Thinking will need to be analysed at a higher level, the level of a complex model or above.  So to me now, it is unsurprising that so little grasp of the core problems has been made by reductionist approaches in Computing and Neuroscience and beyond.

One area which has been relatively successful is in the Alphabet group of companies: It is the application of 'learning' algorithms.  Unlike traditional Computing problems that are analysed and built, these algorithms are evolved mechanically by change (often random) to layered neural nets, followed by undergoing selection (often by playing other versions in a knockout) within a repeated process.  This had some biological inspiration and was very effective: For example conquering the gaming world of Go.  What these networks know and experience is mysterious, but can be observed in action when they can be significantly better than any human at specific tasks, even after only four hours of learning.  Actually, this approach is so effective that one wonders why they don't employ a driving simulation 'game' at the Waymo subsidiary rather than have a fleet of autonomous vehicles clock up so many road miles; but anyway, this is probably just another example of training neural nets inefficiently (as discussed in my last blog).

One thing we should not forget is why the reductionist approach is so prevalent in our minds and the minds of many scientists.  This is probably because it seems on the surface so rigorous as it has parallels and examples, for example in techniques like Mathematical Induction.  Mathematical Induction is a specific type of logical proof that shows something (say 'P') is true of an infinite series of natural numbers when it is true of the first term, (say 0), and when it is true of x+1 if it is true of x.  For example, you can see that all whole numbers greater than 0 are positive (all the impossible infinity of them).  Of course much of Science (and beyond) is regularly guilty of treating phenomena as a mathematical construct with equations applying like some supposed virtues of the general universe.  It really seems to be true that many scientists want to prove the next calculus of their subject area by a reductionist mathematical proof like Sir Isaac Newton.  However, we still need to support vigour in Science; so the matter of scale needs to be attached to the formula - and not just as a small print appendix footnote that the described behaviour broke down below x ys under observation.  Also, you might like to include the scale when described behaviours sink into the background environmental noise, but this is less important.  Again, there is no good reason to exclusively promote a reductionist approach in Science beyond its historical success during the Scientific Revolution.

This is a Philosophical blog, so what implications can we imply generally and for Artificial Thought by moving away from a reductionist paradigm?  It would be nice if there was a neat theory of emergent properties that could be applied, but I guess the limits of this would be a Physics of Systems remit.  As far as I am aware, Physics is still suffering from 'Unified Theory Syndrome', again looking for universal virtues in the universe rather than focusing on its divergent expressions at different scales.  I suspect this to be a hangover of early 20th Century monotheistic thinking, and it is evident from the teaching of Newton's 'Laws' to teens to the rather abysmal discussions of Pansychism in the Common Room bar.  As with my other blogs, I specifically blame Descartes for this.

Given the lack of theory on the topic of non-reductive properties, I suggest we have a go at envisaging what a theory would entail. I suspect that one thing that would be useful is a definition for non-reductive or emergent properties - so in my language, being complicated to a level of not being obvious, is not enough to be emergent.  For example, hitting a group of pool balls is too complicated for me personally to predict accurately, especially given my level of accuracy of direction and force, but mostly this is a reducible set of behaviours.  However, if fairly random smacking of groups of balls had certain outcomes, like a consistent percentage chance of potting the black, then this, for me, would be an emergent property not directly based on the rules programming the system and not ascertainable without either running a complex model of the system or observing the system in reality itself.

With our definition of emergence in place, we can also suggest that non-reductive properties have an asymmetry.  The number of times I prematurely pot the black contributes to the likelihood of the game ending in a quick loss, and therefore reduces my chances of winning any tournament, but it does not impact on the Physics of the ball collisions below it.  Suppose I improved my game somehow, this would have an asymmetric impact, no impact on the physics of collision, but a significant impact on how often I lost quickly.  This is noticeably different from the Bubble Sort program and could explain why computing and even Science often has an other worldlyness about it as they have reduced out the important details rather than investigating them and missed the key point of many systems, ie. what it can do and contribute to at a macro level, rather than just what it can be reduced to.

Obviously a Philosophy blog can make definitions, but can it really predict how many non-reductive layers there are, or when a single new layer will occur?  The answer to this is probably a definite no as the answer may depend heavily on what you are looking at and how you define and measure it.  Does this sound familiar to you?  It sounds familiar to me as it is very much the kind of thing Quantum Physicists have been saying about Quantum Phenomena.  The excruciatingly painstaking experiments with single waves and particles have probably pointed out something quite obvious in the normal world that we have mostly missed as we had the worldview of a devout medieval Catholic mathematician like Descartes.  This is that to describe the world you need to talk about the interaction of non-reductive properties.  It may help to reduce the reducible, but actually the level most things (without massive self-censorship) can be reduced to is significantly complex and large scale.

It is true there are differences between say history and geology, or economics and ecology, but there are also similarities, and these similarities are the search for properties beyond the atomic.  So a scientifically rigorous approach can apply to most subjects, but really only if it is not purely reductive.  What makes Science is observation, experimentation, modelling, and the search for non-reducible truths.  Yes, non-reducible truths are the backbone of good and interesting Science, not the opposite.  Yes if you want to know what sorting is, you only need to consider the relation of a pair and extrapolate, however almost all scientific and technological endeavour is based around finding out real questions about real complex systems.  You may be able to reduce a phenomena to a sub-system, but eventually due to the asymmetry you would have to stop, map out the property, and see how it fits into the multiple layers above it where most of the meaning is.

I have discussed the nature of identifying universal statements in a couple of previous blogs, and these universals, combined with a systematic scope, give a usable definition of scientific statements in terms of emerging properties, whether the language is mathematical, philosophical, or every day.  In terms of artificial thought, I expect you would need to process thought-like content to have higher artificial thought; and, making the combination and manipulation of those thought contents would be necessary for building AI.  This is rather different to calculating probabilities, or counting links, as you might find in a present piece of 'high' technology IT like a search engine.

I feel I should have a brief conclusion now, and that is that an exclusively reductionist approach is generally a bad idea, but you can still do a non-reductive mathematically described Science of irreducible properties, and this should still lead to good progress and good approaches.  Also in Science, in Computing, in artificial thought, we should not be afraid of building up our layers of understanding, technology, and even Philosophy.  I also declare the division of investigation between Physics and stamp collecting to be dead; long live Science (& Philosophy)!