I’ll be back on deck soon after a busy weekend in Christchurch (great to see you all), so if you’d like to get anything off your chest then here’s your chance to talk amongst yourselves for while. It’d be especially great to hear from folk who normally read but don’t comment. Let’s hear what’s on your mind.
105 comments:
I wouldnt mind getting some feedback around the effects of concentration of wealth under a liberarian system. I am not trying to troll so please a logical response would be appreciated.
Basicly my belief is that concentration of wealth at the top of ANY system no matter what the original basis of that system, leads to tyranny as well as collapse of society.
An example from ancient history would be when the mongols captured Babylon, the Khan found lots of hoarded gold. He demanded to know why the Calif didnt use this gold to build a better army of defenses. Then he melted the gold and poured it down the Califs throat. The point being that wealth is worthless if it doesnt circulate. Setting up a system that creates circulation of wealth is very important for any working system.
Given this when a sector starts to suck down all wealth, moves must be made to redirect this wealth lest it lead to inequality that is so great, it destroys the entire system even at the top (via revolutions, wars and economic collapse).
Perhaps you could kick off the discussion with a description of:
a) what you mean by the term 'wealth'
and
b) precisely how you believe it currently concentrates to a single place.
I think one of the attractive features of a libertarian system is that it doesn't really matter how much wealth your neighbour has. It shouldn't impact on you, as long as you are able to work as you see fit to produce something that someone else wants to buy, without interference from others. With a suitable system of laws in place to prevent the initiation of force against others, a sector could only "suck down all the wealth" with the consent of those who are having wealth sucked from them.
Something I posted over at KB in a thread about the US deficit:
http://mises.org/story/3615
Mises website sums it up brilliantly, as always.
Do any of our politicians realise that when central banks keep interest rates artificially low, in encourages more of the loose credit policies that got us into recession? I would have thought (in a free market anyway) that in times of economic downturn interest rates would in fact need to rise to encourage saving and investment again, and build back the pool of savings that had been used up in the boom cycle.
It seems to be that by letting central banks manipulate interest rates under the guise of controlling inflation (i.e. price rises, which is not the correct meaning of inflation) the government itself is the one to blame for the recessions. Ironic when you hear the blame placed at the feet of capitalism, that it is in reality the government the creates the boom-bust cycle.
Gekko my definition of wealth is an abundance of valuable resources or material possessions and history has numerous examples of concentration of wealth one of which I documented. TWR what if you can’t work due to illness, disease, mental retardation etc? What if you can’t work as you see fit due to the competitive nature of capitalism i.e. your competition has the scale and reach to undercut you, engage in anti-competitive measures? What happens when your laws/rules are subverted i.e. the US constitution ?
Even in a non-libertarian society, companies provide health and income protection insurance, so it's unreasonable to expect that these products would not be available in your hypothetical scenario.
If the laws/rules are changed to favour one group over the other, then it's no longer a libertarian society, so it falls outside the scope of this discussion.
If one company/individual becomes so good at providing something, it certainly does not make sense to forcibly prevent people purchasing that good or service in order to protect those who aren't as good at providing it. If articifical barriers to entry are removed, then it's a:much easier for lower cost players to enter a market with a better proposition, and b:much easier for those who are forced out of the market to set up doing something else instead.
There's probably economic literature that could answer these questions much more effectively than I could. Have a look at PCs recommended reading list.
Wealth that is the result of producing goods and services benefits everyone. The wealthy can either spend the money or invest it. If they spend it they directly produce employment, if they invest it they produce an increasing range of goods and services which benefits everyone as well as produce employment.
It is wealth that is obtained by theft, taxation or looting that is damaging. An example is the many African kleptocracies, the leaders of these countries have billions stashed away in various banks yet their people starve.
Generally wealthy people don't just stash their money under the mattress or build a swimming pool and fill it with cash like scrooge McDuck. Those that arrive at wealth by dumb luck often don't hold on to it, others are good at what they do, they use their wealth to create more i.e. they re-invest their wealth and they do so more wisely than others.
So if the reason wealth needs a system of re-distribution because it is not circulating enough, there is no reason.
Phled
TWR thats true but what if you cant get insurance? What if the insurance company comes up with an excuse not to payout and you cant afford to fight it in the courts? What if you don't have the mental/physical capacity to make a living? Who steps in then? Does the state step in to help in a libertarian society?
Mark thats what I am getting at. Can the state step in and use force under the circumstances you describe? What happens when the state has been corrupted like in the US?
Phled that's not strictly true. There are plenty of rich/smart conmen but I guess properly enforced laws would deal with them.
Sorry to intrude on this discussion with a different topic. Thought some people may be interested:
I often watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as I enjoy his humour. On Thursday he interviewed Jennifer Burns because she has just launched her book ‘Goddess of the Market – Ayn Rand and the American Right’. I thought you might be interested and have linked to the video below. It’s approximately 6 minutes long.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-october-15-2009/jennifer-burns
I've sent this to Peter as well, but thought I'd share with everyone once I saw this topic.
Here's a scenario:
An individual acquires large areas of land through none coercive means - by trading for it. The people living and working on that land agree to pay the land owner rent, but retain the rights to the business and homes on that land.
A few generations pass, and the people living on the land, and paying rent, are no longer the same that negotiated the original deal. Nor is the land owner the same person who acquired the land. The land owner wishes to raise the rent, and does so by an unreasonable amount. What recourse do his tenants have? Is their only option to go elsewhere, however impractical that may be? Or are they bound by whatever deal was struck prior to any of them being born?
The only real differences I see between this scenario and reality is that the government was originally founded through coercive means, but I would argue that the ownership of resources has always been founded on force. Someone sticks a flag in the ground and says, "This is mine, try and take it from me". In a great many cases, someone does.
Also, the government, instead of being owned by a businessman, a monarch, or feudal lord, is now collectively owned by the people. Collective ownership is not against libertarian ideals, people are allowed to own things together if they wish. The fact that we are given rights when we are born, and then given more rights as we come of age doesn't really deminish this.
The biggest mistake right wing libertarians make is to draw an arbitrary line between what constitutes a business, what constitutes a government, what constitutes rent, and what constitutes tax, what is "Interventionism" and what is just natural market forces.
And just in case you think I'm arguing in favour of the status quo, I'm not. I'm just saying that without governments being the grand overlord, multinational corperations would simply step up to the plate and become the next potential tyranny.
I've got one to kick around a little bit. Have been mulling this over for a while, and very interested to hear the Objectivist line on the problem.
Two parts: Firstly, do you believe that world has the resources to sustain it's entire population in the style of a comfortable western-style middle class life?
Secondly, assuming you answered no, is there thus a moral duty to ensure that a level playing field is achieved, or is the resulting 'pyramidal' wealth structure the most desirable outcome?
NB: Appeals to the infinite consumability of the world's resources and the boundless ingenuity of Man to solve the wealth/resource scarcity problem don't cut it I reckon - concrete answers only!
Interested in serious answers!
DenMT
David S.: "I'm just saying that without governments being the grand overlord, multinational corporations would simply step up to the plate and become the next potential tyranny"
Limited government would make it very difficult for multi-national corporations to be as large as they currently are. No lobbying to keep new players out of the market; plenty of new market entrants would increase competition for 'multi-nationals' taking away their market share.
David S
In a Libertarian society there would be an agreement in force between each of the tenants and the landlord. The terms of that agreement would determine who could do what and how disagreements/disputes would be handled. Every party would be aware of the terms since each of them would have voluntarily negotiated and executed an agreement PRIOR to occupation of land. In the scenario you provided there was no mention of this critical point. Again, each tenant would have decided to enter into and and execute an agreement with the landlord.
In a Libertarian society agreements are important.
If the rent is raised by the landord and it turns out that the contractual agreement between tenants and landlord allows for this, then the options available to the tenants are:
1/. Negotiate with the landlord and try to alter his decision
2/. Give notice and vacate the land
3/. Other action as provided for within the terms of the agreement (third party arbitration etc.)
4/. Stay on the land and pay the revised rental
Now let's assume the magnitude of rent rise is "unreasonable" (as you stated). In other words rental costs have been set far higher than those prevailing elsewhere. They are higher than any of the tenants can afford. The result necessarily must be that tenants depart, seeking better conditions.
The result for the unreasonable landlord will be immediate. His income will collapse. Meanwhile his expenses and outgoings continue. Those expenses and outgoings are likely to increase significantly (as various services typically provided at no cost by tenants will now fall directly upon him, e.g. property maintenance, security, safety, insurance etc.). The result of this mean the dissipation of the landlord's wealth. He faces choices:
1/. Attract some tenants as quickly as possible. To do that he'll need to offer ternms and conditions that are very attractive to them. As his reputation (from previous action) preceedes him it is likely that the terms he is going to have to accept are going to be much more favourable than previously. His new tenants are going to want to insulate themselves against any future unreasonable behaviour on his part. It will be factored into the value of the rent.
2/. Sell assets (such as parcels of his land) in order to obtain sufficient funds to pay his land holding overheads.
3/. Earn sufficient income from another source or activity in order to pay his land holding overheads.
Note that the land is not wealth generating. It costs him. He can only continue to hold the land (now non-productive) so long as he has another source of income- a wealth generating activity. His wealth is diminished and the value of his estate is declined. Not only does he forfeit the income he previously received from the tenants (whose presence makes the land productive- a wealth generator for him), but also he loses the benefit of the income/wealth from other sources that he would previously have been able to accumulate or direct in other activities (such as purchasing more land or saving or making investments etc.). Now that income gets sucked up by the land overheads.
4/. Borrow money to pay overheads. It is likely that such loans will require security (such as his land- which value will have been reduced in the absence of income generating tenants). In any event the loans will cost him in interest and will need to be repaid one day... All he is doing if he chases this option is to buy a delay.
5/. Become insolvent and eventually go bankrupt. The estate will be reallocated to new owners by a liquidator. The landlord loses control over what was his estate. Resources he once owned and controlled are sold off to satisfy his creditors.
The important point to notice is that the landlord can't use coercive means, force or fraud to continue to hold the land. His unreasonable behaviour has a cost that he pays. He receives a signal that he ignores at the cost of his property, his wealth, his well-being.
Present governments are not restricted or called to account in this way. Hence the objections of Libertarians to present political arrangements.
Understand that the "corporations" that you are rightfully wary of can only act as tyrannies with the support of a government. They require the exercise of force, fraud or coercion.
LGM
DenMT,
Which resources are you talking about? The average person today has access to more resources than extremely rich people living a century ago...air travel, computers, motorways, satnavs, supermarkets... The greatest of all resources we have is knowledge and knowledge is hardly in short supply: we have more brains on the planet than ever before to carry and to create knowledge and unprecedented access to it. The resource of knowledge allows us to become cognizant of new types of resources and to think of things that had previously been thought of as having only nuisance value as a resource.
Knowledge not only grows best in free societies, it grows fabulously well. So it is vital for the future growth of knowledge that we expand and protect our freedoms. This, I think, is one of the most serious problems we face, not global warming or resources that are allegedly dwindling. It impacts you directly for if knowledge does not grow fast enough you will die before the advent of serious life extension technologies.
Rather than worrying about diminishing resources you might consider that you are one of the humans living at the beginning of infinity.
DenMT others have addressed your questions really well, but I'd like to chime in on the resource limitation issue.
I've read many a "hard" scifi novel (that is, ones based on extrapolation of real science, not 'just making shit up') where the question of resource depletion has been tackled. Numerous solutions have been proposed, from asteroid mining through to gravitational engines. I appreciate you might not wish to accept it, but the "boundless ingenuity of Man" really is the answer to that question as I see it.
"Every party would be aware of the terms since each of them would have voluntarily negotiated and executed an agreement PRIOR to occupation of land."
As I stated, in the scenario the deal was negotiated by a prior generation, no-one living agreed to it. The current landowner inherited the land. Additionally, I'm talking about large areas of land, say the size of a state, or even a country. The real point here is that the difference between a government and a corporation is largely academic.
"Understand that the "corporations" that you are rightfully wary of can only act as tyrannies with the support of a government."
I would dispute this. Libertarians think that the government should be responsible for defending the country in times of war, and to uphold the law, but it does not restrict the access to arms. There's nothing to prevent a corporation from acquiring or even exceeding the level of arms required to act as a tyranny.
Brian -
I think you make an excellent point for the most part, but heres a few critiques
"The average person today has access to more resources than extremely rich people living a century ago"
The "average" person in a first world country is better off, the average person globally has nowhere near that level of wealth. I agree that the way to create wealth in these places is to promote freedom and knowledge, but I think it's also important to point out that a lot of the natural resources we use in our society comes from these places. Unlike the potential of human invention, natural resources are not infinite, which I think is DenMT's point
"So it is vital for the future growth of knowledge that we expand and protect our freedoms. This, I think, is one of the most serious problems we face, not global warming or resources that are allegedly dwindling"
I would argue that these points are actually one and the same. Environmentalism often presents itself as an expression of altruism, but it could easily be viewed as the protection of property rights. The right to live free from the pollution others create, and the damage it can cause. The government is expected to protect people from the initiation of force, If global warming is occuring (Hypothetically, in the interests of staying on topic of libertarian ideals as opposed to science), it can be described as a very serious initiation of force. With emissions causing widespread, indiscriminate damage to other people's property.
Hi Diesel & Den (crikey, it's sounding like a Midnight Oil album!).
May I respectfully suggest for your considerations on your two questions these four articles, which might be some sort of further answer to your respective questions:
** Loving Wealth
** Wealth is Not Riches
** Environmentalism Refuted
** Environmentalism vs Creativity
Good point from Greig. In fact, we (human species) will eventually die or extinct at some future time-point, if we don't look somewhere else or use our heads and that's fact. As Brian mentioned above, human knowledge is our only resources/hopes are our only infinite resources. Some have the assumptions that we (humans) are here forever, but that's wrong. The sun is estimated to go extinct in 300 million years. If we haven't moved somewhere else (universe is infinite resources) to resettle & recolonize by then, we would all be vanished.
So, the message is (according to PC's message-link on the top right-hand corner of this page says) , we (as current human generations) Exploit The Earth Or Die. We can enjoy exploiting the vast earth resources, while we're still here, because we could finally end up like what the dinosaurs went thru millions of years ago. I bet that the dinosaurs were telling each others not to over eat the plants back then, just to save some for our current generations of living things, but they're not here today are they? And as Prince 1999 song says, everyday, we should party like its 1999, ... we could all die any day.
"The sun is estimated to go extinct in 300 million years..."
Not sure you're right there FF. From what I've heard we've got another 3-5 billion or so before we need to worry.
Brilliant - thank you all - very educational
David S
You write: "As I stated, in the scenario the deal was negotiated by a prior generation, no-one living agreed to it."
Ahhh, another one of these arbitrary scenarios some like to generate. As is usual, this one comes complete with a collection of arbitrary premise, random assumption, prejudice, bias, built-in error and faulty conclusions. Should have guessed...
What you have created out of your imagination is an anti-Libertarian political system wherein the living are bound by the "deals" of the non-living. According to you, for the living there is no choice. Only the dead had that, once upon a time. What a mess. Libertarianism it sure aint!
OK, the "unreasonable" landlord inherited the property. So what? It is his. He owns it. Understand, in order to keep it he must produce sufficient income. If he fails to so do the property will soon be lost. Now, what does that mean? Think on it.
The tenants always retain the power of making decision to act. They can accept the landlord's "unreasonable" new terms or they can refuse, in which case they can depart. Landlord can't force them to stay, just as they can't take over his property by force.
Note: Libertarianism demands the banishment of the initiation of force, fraud or coercion between individuals. That's key.
You wrote, "Libertarians think that the government should be responsible for defending the country in times of war, and to uphold the law..."
That's wrong. Some Libertarians would agree with that statement. Many would not. It would pay for you to KNOW what you are talking about and what the position actually is prior to making such assertions.
Note: Objectivists would agree with the quote but only within precisely defined context and for specific philosophic reasons. There is a hierarchy of thought it presupposes. You need to consider this prior to jumping to conclusions about what may or may not occur in an Objectivist society, let alone a Libertarian one.
Quoting; "There's nothing to prevent a corporation from acquiring or even exceeding the level of arms required to act as a tyranny."
Yes, many possess enormous wealth and capability. So what of it?
Tyranny requires special privileges and powers bestowed by a government. For an organisation to initiate and exercise force, fraud or coercion against individuals it must obtain such powers from the government or be a government itself. It is the misuse of the entity "government", its powers, responsibilities and functions, that is the problem here. It is that which Libertarians campaign against.
LGM
"What you have created out of your
imagination is an anti-Libertarian political system wherein the living are bound by the "deals" of the non-living."
I never said that the living are bound by the deals of the non-living. That statement was in response to this one of yours -
"Every party would be aware of the terms since each of them would have voluntarily negotiated and executed an agreement PRIOR to occupation of land."
The point, according to you, is that the living have only two choices. Leave, or accept the trade offered. Arrangements made when the land was acquired are irrelevent.
The scenario itself is quite simple, there's nothing anti-capitalist about it, but yes it is anti-libertarian, that's kind of the point. I think that a libertarian society would require more than just the base rule-set promoted by this blog in order to function and be sustainable.
In this scenario:
-The land on which a country is built on is owned by an individual.
-That individual inherited the land is not bound by past deals.
-it is implausible to relocate due to the size of the land this individual owns, and because of the large amount of wealth that has been built on this land.
All of the "rules" required by laissez faire capitalism have been followed. The government has not interfered. Individual property rights have been upheld. But there is a contradiction between the wealth of the people who occupy the land and the land owner. How can the two be separated? Who willthe law side with? The land owner or the people who own the buildings? There are no deals to look over, since none were signed by anyone alive, both parties inherited much of their wealth.
"Yes, many possess enormous wealth and capability. So what of it?
Tyranny requires special privileges and powers bestowed by a government."
No, it doesn't, all it requires is the capability to initiate force without an adequate response from the government. Then it becomes the government. Government is just a word for the biggest, meanest corporation on the block. It's why we use democracy. Not because it gets things right, but because it's the best method we've found for keeping it in check.
Individual liberty and the collective ownership of property are not mutually exclusive, in fact I would argue the opposite in a great many cases.
If the people inherited the land then they are not losing very much if they have to leave it are they?
From what you say, you are using an example of leasehold land, which, with or without a libertarian society, has these inherent potential issues. Whether the person who made the deal is living or dead, when they made the deal they would have done so under the realisation that some time in the future when the current contract expired, something like this could happen, yet they entered the deal anyway. I can't see the problem here. Someone inherited something that someone else had owned and used to their benefit. If the original deal maker was worried about his descendents, then he should have built on his own freehold land.
Thanks for the responses guys.
Firstly Brian: You say the 'average person' has access to wealth far in excess of the very rich a century ago - I heartily concur! But the problem as I see it is that I am not discussing 'the average person,' I am more interested in the idea that the world as it is cannot sustain this level of wealth across the whole of it's current population. Do you agree?
Secondly Greig: (and this also applies to Brian above) - I don't feel comfortable deferring to future inventions and discoveries as viable solutions to what I see as a current issue. With all due respect, it is a bit intellectually lazy to say (grossly paraphrasing, excuse me) "We as a species are so fantastically innovative that we will no doubt find a way to produce resources that allow everyone the possibility to achieve the goals of individual prosperity".
As I see it now, it is simply impossible for everyone in the world to compete on a level playing field - ie achieve comparable standards of 'wealth' - without radically defining wealth, ...or rapidly coming up with some effective asteroid mining techniques.
DenMt,
As I see it now, it is simply impossible for...
History is littered with statements of this kind that turned out to be profoundly wrong. The reason for the wrongness is that we live in a world of "black swans". Black swans are events that have low predictability and large impact.
Black swans mean that the future is never just business as usual. They come from the things we don't know and they make nonsense of our predictions about the future. Anybody who tells you what the world will be like in 20 years time is either a fool or charlatan or is somebody who hasn't heard of black swans.
How many people the world can support depends on the knowledge we have in our heads. I happen to think the knowledge we do have now enables us to support our current population. I have no idea how many people our knowledge will be capable of supporting in 20 years simply because I can't predict black swans.
@Brian: "The reason for the wrongness is that we live in a world of "black swans.""
What nonsense. The primary reason for the four horsemen of the non-apocalypse is generally something like a false extrapolation or phony predictions, but the pseudo-science or the phony predictions are generally just a figleaf for misanthropy.
Just take a look at the big-four-of-modern-wrongness. At root, the primary reason for their wrongness is always misanthropy.
In fact, you only need to look at Jim Salinger in the post a couple of posts above this one to see that the problem is not "black swans." It's frequently people who say less than they know, and who just make up the rest -- not because of "black swans" but because of misanthropy.
PC,
What nonsense.
If you want intelligent debate in these threads then I suggest you not be so rude as to quickly dismiss other people's views as nonsense without first trying to better understand what their point is. The unpredictability of the future has nothing to do with misanthropy.
I understand your point perfectly, Brian.
As we've argued here aplenty, at root your point is epistemologically flawed - and in any case it's falsified in the instances under question here.
Jim Salinger, James Hansen, Al Gore, Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, Stephen Schneider and their ilk aren't wrong because they have a "black swan" problem. They're wrong because they're lying.
And why are they lying?
Because as one man-hating environmentalist put it, "because human welfare and human fecundity is less important to me than a wild and healthy planet."
So even if your "black swan problem" was in fact a real problem (which it's not) the primary problem here is not one of epistemology; it's one of ethics.
Communication is difficult PC. I note you haven't asked me any questions nor have you attempted to explain my point back to me. So I rather doubt you understand my point, let alone understand it perfectly. Yes, James Hansen and co are lying and that is the reason they are wrong but my point is to do with prediction in general. Basically humans are crap at predicting their own future and this is not, at heart, a problem of ethics but one of epistemology.
"I don't feel comfortable deferring to future inventions and discoveries as viable solutions to what I see as a current issue."
That's an odd thing to say, Den. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention.
@DenMT: I don't feel comfortable deferring to future inventions and discoveries as viable solutions to what I see as a current issue.
That's why I linked to two examples of fairly well developed ideas. These aren't merely possible, they are highly probable, and simply await someone to decide they are viable enough investments to take the risk. I suggest that will happen about the time existing natural resources run scarce, to the point where it's financially sound to do so.
I'm not easily offended, so feel free to call spades digging implements, but I was a little put out by the intellectual lazyness suggestion. If I just waved my hands and said "oh, you know, we'll come up with SOMETHING", fine, I'd see your point. I didn't though. I gave two examples (and if you google a bit, you'll see those are just two among many) of fully fledged (or close to it) technologies which are capable of solving the resource problem, and are only not used now because it's not economically or politically viable to do so.
@Brian: Your "black swan" problem is a straw man focussed on a fallacy.
The so-called "problem" targets the fallacy of 'induction by simple enumeration.' But since knowledge is not just simple enumeration, it has nothing to say on the subjects ofhow real knowledge is gathered, or how induction is actually performed.
In short, it's childish nonsense, as I've said when we've had this argument before.
If we followed your recipe for radical uncertainty, it wouldn't just be the future that's uncertain, it would also be the past, the present and what's right in front of your eyes.
PC, I thought that the following paper should be a good reading for you. Just avoid/skip/ignore the math bits in the document, which it can still be readable.
The Problem of Induction and Machine Learning
My understanding of induction came from computing while yours came from epistemology, however they should be the same. Computing adopts the same induction concept from epistemology and apply it to the real-world (such as ALVIN, a car that drove on the public highway on its own in the presence of other vehicles, that I posted here some weeks ago), while philosophy talks about induction ONLY in theory. I would rather take seriously an example from a real-world application (where we can see with our eyes in order to understand/confirm/demonstrate an abstract idea/concept) than hearing theorists telling me that the concept should be this or that.
“The current landowner inherited the land.”
Diesel, all the points in your scenario are dealt with on a daily basis by property lawyers. You should ask your employer for a copy of their lease, there you will find the answers to all your questions. They are rather clever documents that have evolved over time.
“Additionally, I'm talking about large areas of land, say the size of a state, or even a country.” You mean, like in NZ where all land rests in the crown (the state) and where fee simple may have been granted? Fee simple being merely a temporary title that is extinguished when the landlord dies intestate without heirs?
And did you know: most (I’d say all, but you have to allow for poorly drawn or unwritten leases) leases set out the circumstances of how the rent is calculated, including increase, and how disagreements are settled?
PC,
OK, then, give us a prediction, using induction, of what the world will be like in 20 years time? Maybe you can tell us about which products Apple will (or will not) have on the shelves. Or maybe you think Apple will loose its edge and that some other company that is now barely a gleam in someone's eye will rise up with a radical new computing technology. So name that company and tell us about the technology.
Don't just make the prediction, show us how you induced it. Give FF the concrete steps he would like to see.
Oh, one other thing - I see the "nonsense" has gone from just mere "nonsense" to "childish nonsense"? Why the need to denigrate children? Do children have some special claim to be nonsense generators?
I wait you prediction...
ahem - I await your prediction [in hurry to go to work]
Here's what the Royal Society misanthropists have to say about Climate Change
royalsociety.org
PC,
I think knowledge is created via trial and error as one attempts to solve a problem.
It is always the problem that comes first. The conjectures that we advance to solve the problem are a product of our imagination and nothing else. Conjectures are whittled down by criticism until one is left standing. That conjecture is taken to be a tentative solution to the problem.
The role of observation is to help criticize our conjectures. You have the role of observation backwards: you think knowledge starts with observation. No, it starts with a problem and the role of observation is to help test (criticize) our solutions. Knowledge is uncertain because you cannot say that someone won't propose a better solution to your problem. Or even come up with a black swan that completely alters your entire conception of the problem. I maintain that this is a highly optimistic view of the world.
That in a nutshell is my view of how knowledge is created. If you don't care to give an inductive prediction of things to come in 20 years time (and we both know that it is a fools game to try), please just give us a nutshell explanation of the process of induction. What is induction? What do you do when you induce something, how does this enable us to form an explanatory theory, and how do we know in advance what to observe?
FF - I hope PC gives you something to go on for your machine learning program! If you are interested in learning more about why induction is just wrong-headed I recommend Karl Popper, David Deutsch, and Richard Feynman. Keep track of Elliot Temple also!
Brian, Knowledge comes from observations, first and foremost. When you do encounter a black swan, then you simultaneously do encounter a problem. In that case, you will try to find a solution to it, ie, updating the current knowledge if succeeded. Problems don't just drop from the sky. You must have prior knowledge acquired via induction (or others) in the first place in order for you to infer/compare that such event is a black swan. Knowledge, problems & black swan are not disconnected.
It looks like that both you & PC are arguing from 2 different sides of the same coin without understanding it.
Lecturer
PC is correct on this matter (as are you, with the exception of your last sentence). BS and PC are not arging from two sides of the same coin however. They are arguing in direct opposition- two differing coins (a gold coin versus a fibre washer). the difference is critical.
LGM
LGM
@Brian: "OK, then, give us a prediction, using induction, of what the world will be like in 20 years time?"
Your challenge indicates your problem.
You raised a straw man to object to a fallacy -- a straw man (your "black swan" problem) without relevance to the problem you want me to solve -- and you insist now that I use the fallacy (induction by enumeration) to explain the problem.
I think all that Karl Popper is doing something to your head, Brian.
And speaking of fallacies, your use of the "fallacy of the stolen concept" in this comment is superb, when you say I "have the role of observation backwards." Knowledge doesn't start with observation, you say, "it starts with a problem."
You're right that I shouldn't call such statements childish, since even a child can see this is wrong.
You appear to think we can answer "problems" out there in the world without first even observing the world. That we just dream up things (problems, solutions, conjectures) without first even having any material on which to identify these problems, investigate solutions, or make conjectures.
This amounts to saying that when driving a car (to use just one example out of several I could use) we should turn first and make our observations about where to turn later.
In short, you agree with the patently ridiculous statements of the likes of Immanuel Kant that knowledge consists of making the world outside our heads fit whatever's inside them -- or in his words, to gain real knowledge we should "make trial" to see if "objects conform to our knowledge" rather than the reverse.
And it's no surprise you do agree with Mr Kant, the All-Pulveriser, since that's where your Mr Popper et al got their foolish ideas from.
So clearly, then, there is a real problem here, and my observation -- if I may make trial -- it that it's mostly with the thinking of the gentlemen you cite as recommended reading.
Well, you know what they say about Kant. Apparently, he was a real pissant. I also hear he was very rarely stable.
;)
"If we followed your recipe for radical uncertainty, it wouldn't just be the future that's uncertain, it would also be the past, the present and what's right in front of your eyes."
Correct. The amount of uncertainty isn't uniform, but it certainly exists.
I thought it was "If you Kant beat them, join them" ?
"Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." - Immanuel Kant.
"The Critique of Pure Reason" was his attempt to reconcile the differences between rationalism and empiricism. One can only confirm the validity of one, by using the other.
PC,
Before driving a car PC, one should have a theory about how to drive.
You haven't answered my questions about induction. What is it? How do you do it? How does one know what to observe? (after all, there is an infinity of possible observations you could make).
You appear to think we can answer "problems" out there in the world without first even observing the world.
You don't just have a problem then go do some observations. Before you can observe, you need a theory to solve your problem, then you go do the observations to test your theory.
Problems themselves come from our existing knowledge. So let's not be saying I think we just make problems up. Note that existing knowledge is not just a body of observations. Far from it. Some problems stem from observations that are not compatible with knowledge we have but other problems do not.
that we just dream up things (problems, solutions, conjectures) without first even having any material on which to identify these problems, investigate solutions, or make conjectures.
I said that conjectures come out of our imagination, not problems (though it can require imagination to see a problem). You seem to think we can do observation ex-nihilo.
In short, you agree with the patently ridiculous statements of the likes of Immanuel Kant that...
No I do not agree with Kant. Neither does Karl Popper (who I guess you have never read first hand).
One other question PC: Why the hostility? Can't we just debate without having to remark on the intelligence of the other person? Your comments indicate you do not understand my position. And because you misunderstand it you think I'm spouting nonsense. I'll willing to concede I may not understand induction, that's why I want you to answer my questions.
LGM,
I agree that PC and myself are not arguing from different sides of the same coin. I don't welcome the cheap insult, however.
You guys clearly see through the God myth, the global warming myth and so forth, but what staggers me is that you don't see through the induction myth. Rather you maintain that induction is how we come to have knowledge of the world!
I asked PC to explain induction. I also ask you to do the same. How do you get an explanatory theory from induction on a set of observations? Please be careful to say how you know in advance what to observe.
For reference: You might like to read "The Fabric of Reality" by David Deutsch. I think our Mr B Darnton here has read it and could put in a second opinion as to its worth.
Rambling with Bertrand Russell:
"I so wish Mathematicians had but a tiny bit of passion for truth that animates the Philosophers.
But! At least Mathematicians try not to contradict one another.
Not so philosophers. They are all 'great' ... and all in total disagreement.
"Studying Philosophy' really means gorging yourself on a stew of every idea imaginable.
A Platonist thinks appearance is but a bad copy of real reality ... while an Aristotelian puts all his faith in its observation.
Are mental concepts innate or acquired?
"Innate!" says the great Kant.
"Acquired!" says the great Hume.
Is there an opposition between mind and matter?
"Yes!" says Descartes.
"No!" says Spinoza.
And what about the material world around me?
"Why, it's all in the mind" Berkeley says.
Euclid had taught me to abhor contradiction. I'd turned to philosophy looking for truth, but also guidance of practical value for life.
If only philosophy had a Euclid! Someone to give it strong foundations and a logically precise language.
Ah! That's exactly what Leibniz did ... with his Calculus Ratiocinator.
Ratiocinator?
Yes!
A way to make thinking as clear as geometry.
So clear that when a disagreement arises, we just have to say "Calculemus!" ... Let us calculate!
Shari,
I like your philosophical-self-dialog comment. Excellent.
Your last statement in your comment where you said, So clear that when a disagreement arises, we just have to say "Calculemus!" ... Let us calculate!, is absolutely a position that I would take.
Actually, Richard Feynman understood it perfectly, because of the huge disagreement/contradiction between philosophical concepts and the theoretical foundation of Quantum Mechanics (QM). QM proposed unphilosophical theories, although the real observations hasn't managed to contradict the QM theoretical predictions yet.
Feynman's quote which appeared here : just shut up and calculate
There has been other theories which have been proposed in order not to fix the predictive power of QM but to solely fix the philosophical contradictions. Those new theories and QM predict the same observations, however those other theories are either physically untestable (multiple universe, etc) or the experimental apparatuses haven't been designed yet (since the technology to do so isn't hasn't arrived) in order to test them.
Ok, lets test our inductive reasoning capability.
I want an honest attempt here ONLY from readers who haven't seen the following object (see link below). For those who have seen the object (or read/hear about it) before, please don't give hints to those who haven't and would like to attempt to identify what kind of object is it. Please don't spoil the party.
This test (may be some more to follow up) is to see how good induction is for those who haven't seen/read/hear about such object before.
For those, who would attempt, please don't cheat by doing some Google search or going directly to the link of where the image came from, etc, just try to identify the object prior to posting your answer. Just give it an honest attempt please, and then we will discuss induction, ie, why inductive generalization isn't really generalization at all.
Have a go, tell us what the following object is (ie, what abstraction it belongs to or what it's use for, etc...).
Mystery Object
BS
Open your eyes!
LGM
David S
I missed your earlier response. I just read it and have had an opportunity to quickly write some coments.
The scenario is an example of a degenerate argument. It is designed from inception to force a conclusion regardless of logic, the conclusion being that Capitalism is anti-Libertarian.
You write, "Arrangements made when the land was acquired are irrelevent", yet about one of the parties, "That individual inherited the land is not bound by past deals."
You can't have it both ways. Either an agreement between the parties exists or it does not. Now if you carefully reread what I've already posted you'll see that the terms of the agreement that determine the rights and obligations of the parties. It appears that in your scenario there WAS an agreement between the original owner of the land and the original tenants. Somehow that agreement vanished. Simultaneously every party's claims to property is to remain recognised, unviolated and whole.
According to the scenario, the present land owner is not bound by an agreement with the present tenants (note; in that case, nor would they be bound by an agreement with him). Supposedly he can do anything. On the other hand, somehow the tenants lost their ability to act. It somehow became "implausible" to move, impossible to negotiate, rational to accept the "unreasonable". Riiiight. Unfortunately the scenario is chock full of fictitious contradictions, caveats, special conditions and rules- arbitrary restrictions intended to force a conclusion. Trouble is, that strategy doesn't lend support for the your assertion.
In a Capitlist, Libertarian society property the tenants own remains theirs (I assume no debts or securitisation or other arrangements with the landlord or other parties). Should tenants choose to depart, they can take their property with them should they want, or they can abandon it (leaving it in situ). They can negotiate a deal with the landlord (or third party) and sell it. This is simple, obvious stuff. It just isn't a problem. As TWR discloses, there are remedies available and they do not revolve around the destruction of anyone's Individual Rights.
In the scenario you generated, the landlord is "unreasonable" and it is "implausible" for the tenants to relocate. What prevents a move? The implication must be that the landlord has it within his authority to initiate force, fraud or coercion to prevent movement. Failing that he has the ear of an organisation or institution that exerts that restrictive power for him. Clearly this sort of behaviour is where the scenario is directed, as the landlord supposedly owns the entire country! This is a despotic regime- a tyranny. The landlord is really an entity better recognised as a soverign government. You have to admit it is silliness to create a scenario which is non-Libertarian and anti-Capitalist right from outset and then complain that Capitalism and Libertarianism don't operate within it!
Understand that Capitalism is the economic system where individuals voluntarily trade rights and property in absence of initiation of force, fraud and coercion. There is no contradiction with Libertarianism. In conclusion, it is to be strongly recommended you do some research into what Capitalism is and what it is not. For a concise, accurate description of what Capitalism actually is read Prof G Reisman's book, "Capitalism." It is not a dense tome of technical jargon but instead a clear, accessible explanation of what the capitalist economic system.
Finally, democracy is not really a suitable means to keep tyranny at bay. It certainly isn't the best method to achieve that aim, let alone any good at approaching it.
LGM
LGM.. you're going round in circles. You're the one trying to have it both ways.
"What you have created out of your imagination is an anti-Libertarian political system wherein the living are bound by the "deals" of the non-living. According to you, for the living there is no choice. Only the dead had that, once upon a time. What a mess. Libertarianism it sure aint!"
"You write, "Arrangements made when the land was acquired are irrelevent", yet about one of the parties, "That individual inherited the land is not bound by past deals."
You can't have it both ways. Either an agreement between the parties exists or it does not."
"Somehow that agreement vanished. Simultaneously every party's claims to property is to remain recognised, unviolated and whole."
These statements show how you've contradicted yourself.
If the deal was made by a past generation, and the assets have been inherited, then either:
A. The living are bound by the deals of those who are dead.
B. There is no deal and the ownership of capital provides the basis for what's allowed.
"The implication must be that the landlord has it within his authority to initiate force, fraud or coercion to prevent movement."
Ridiculous. It takes resources to relocate, and you need some place to go. A lack of other options can prevent people from having the choice. Monopolies on land ownership may be unlikely in the society that the libz promote (at least initially), but monopolies on utilities and resources certainly are. These monopolies would eventually undermine the system itself.
David
Bullshit!
Your rhetoric and conclusions just do not hold water.
The "problem" is about who has which rights and is readily addressed without violation of Libertarian and Capitalist philosophy.
If there is an agreement between the parties, then that agreement determines who can do what and when they are allowed to do it (under what circumstances). In the absence of any formal agreement between the parties, then the situation is readily dealt with by consideration of the property rights of each party. Who owns what. TWR has already pointed that out to you.
Now you've been extremely busy setting up foolish notions such inheritance involuntarily binding parties and wiping out Individual Rights, neglecting the means by which updates or amended arrangements can be agreed and executed, pretending that over a significant period of time everyone throughout an entire country fails to ever address the relationship between themselves as occupiers and/or owners of property, arbitrarily deciding that there are no negotiations or revision of the arrangements between the parties- somehow everyone forgot to ever consider a fundamental relationship between them, that no-one trades, that somehow the "unreasonable" behaviour of the landlord will not have any consequences for him (it is somehow without cost) etc. etc. etc. The whole thing is a fucked up pile of shit, intended to lead to an illogical assertion which makes no sense whatsoever. It's a mess.
You write: "It takes resources to relocate, and you need some place to go."
So what? If you are a tenant you do not own the property you are renting. There is no right for a tenant to forcibly occupy land that does not belong to him.
You add: "A lack of other options can prevent people from having the choice."
For there to be a lack of other options means that there is no choice. Think about what that would mean. It would require the landlord own the whole World or that he could forcibly restrain the tenants. That aint Capitalism. It aint Libertarianism either.
Your remaining conclusions are without merit. Your position is faulty and does not stand up to scrutiny.
LGM
"If there is an agreement between the parties, then that agreement determines who can do what and when they are allowed to do it (under what circumstances). In the absence of any formal agreement between the parties, then the situation is readily dealt with by consideration of the property rights of each party. Who owns what. TWR has already pointed that out to you."
Which wasn't required, since the whole scenario is based around it. All I've done is to describe who owns what and what agreements have been made and when.
"For there to be a lack of other options means that there is no choice. Think about what that would mean. It would require the landlord own the whole World or that he could forcibly restrain the tenants. That aint Capitalism. It aint Libertarianism either."
Actually, if you remove the statement, "or that he could forcibly restrain the tenants.", then it is capitalism, but it isn't libertarian. It's unlikely that the scenario would ever actually exist (at least to that extreme), but there's nothing anti-capitalist about a single individual owning everything, with everybody else having no choice but to accept the terms by which they utilise that individual's property.
Hello Falafulu,
Excellent right back at ya! Thanks for link to article on Feynman. I read somewhere he was a kind and generous teacher.
Rambling with Bertrand Russell is sourced from Logicomix.
And! Would it be fair to suggest that QM is kinda like the bridge between science and philosophy?
I think that was the gist of the message behind "Down the Rabbit Hole" - from the "what the bleep do you know" series.
Could be wrong. I don't know. Math and science have always mystified me. :)
Cheers.
Hello Falafulu,
The mystery object - a container of sorts? I'm originally from Malaysia - and it reminds me of a type of thing we use for scooping water/liquid. Can't tell the actual size in the photo - but it looks like it could be about the size of half a coconut shell. The width of the edge looks about right. Still, it's highly polished - so maybe it is used for holding ornaments/herbs - perhaps for ceremonial purposes.
Cheers!
LGM,
You exhort me to "open my eyes". Do you intend that by opening my eyes that I will just see the truth of induction? Or do you think my position is that observations are not important? If the latter, then communication really is much more difficult than I thought!
So let's try this. How about you try to explain back to me what you think my argument is? Save the criticism for later, just give it your best shot to explain my argument. Once I agree that you have gotten it, then feel free to demolish it.
Also, I hope that you - or PC or someone - will answer my questions about induction. Here they are again:
1. What is induction?
2. How do you do it?
3. If induction starts with observation, how do you know, a-priori, what to observe and which features of your observations are salient?
Here is one more:
4. By what process of knowledge generation did you come to know the "truth" of induction?
FF,
While you're waiting for answers, here is an amusing video of James Randi talking about doing brainbusters on Richard Feynman.
@ Brian: I liked Shari's answer to your questions, but I would also be interested in PC or LGM's response.
Re Fisi Mystery Object: Is that a Tongan beer mug?
Shari,
You're not that far off, in your inductive retrieval. You have retrieved from your knowledge an abstraction of some sort of a container and the object is really a container, but not to hold herbs, but to serve/hold liquid, although, there is no stopping anyone from using it to hold non-liquid substance but that's not what the object was made for.
Monsieur, you're right. It is a container , or shall we say the specific, it is a cup for serving kava. So you drink kava from that cup which is made of coconut shell.
Shari, you first looked at the object, you were trying to retrieve the nuggests of stored knowledge in your brain and see, which one is similar , but not exactly the same as the one that you just encounter (the mystery object).
In your brain, it is already stored in there the info/knowledge about the general concept of a container (bath tub, jug, bucket, coffee mug, and hundreds of other examples. Note, you only stored what you HAVE previously SEEN. When you come across something you've never seen before, then all you do is try to match it to what you already stored/know. If you can't, then you've just encountered a black-swan. This is the problem with induction. You have generalized the concept of a cup since the day you were born, of what a cup should appear or what its shape should be. BUT, having seen cups (of various sorts) in all your life, doesn't guarantee that you can identify (or generalize this prior knowledge to) all cups in the world, as demonstrated here with your rough guess about the kava cup, and there is the shortfall of induction.
Thanks, both for trying.
@Brian:
Answers to the first two questions, which gives a long enough reply, and which IMHO answer your last two.
1. What is induction?
What's induction? It's the process of observing and integrating the facts of existence. In other words, it's the starting point of men's knowledge -- which is to say, the process of of observing the facts of reality, and integrating them into concepts in a non-contradictory fashion to extend the range and integration of my knowledge.
Induction and deduction are two sides of the same coin -- which is to say, they describe the process of forming and applying concepts.
2. How do you do it?
Essentially the process is Observation, Generalisation, Integration.
FOr example, I observe lots of four legged things with a flat surface that people use in a particular fashion. I generalise these into a concept, which I mark with a name: "table," and a rough definition identifying the "conceptual common demoninator" allowing me to group them ("four legged things with a flat surface"). I check that this generalisation doesn't contradict any prior knowledge. And I integrate it with stuff that I already know: e.g. the group of big man-made objects made for human use around the house, i.e., household furniture.
There you go. That's how it all starts. All knowledge comes from that very basic yet essential process. It may not happen in exactly that order with precisely that method, but that's what's happening in every inductive conclusion.
IT GETS REALLY INTERESTING once you realise that real knowledge requires integrating onbservations and generalisations with causality (i.e., the law that things act according to their nature). That is, I observe that "this" happens when I do "that," and the reason is X. For example, I observe that when I pull this lever, beer almost always comes out. Eventually, I understand that there is a keg full of beer in the basement attached via some kind of trick pressure system to the lever and its tap, and that when I pull the lever I activate the pressure system -- hence, liquid comes out, but if and only if there's beer in the keg.
Hence, I now understand both why the beer comes out, and why it sometimes doesn't. And even a drunk can understand it. Students of Kant and Karl Popper on the other hand . . .
To be continued in Part Two . . .
Continued from Part One . . .
ANYWAY, AS I SAY, deduction and induction are our two basic means of acquiring knowledge. Ayn Rand neatly explains the difference:
"The process of observing the facts of reality and of integrating them into concepts is, in essence, a process of induction. The process of subsuming new instances under a known concept is, in essence, a process of deduction."
Any induction is a generalisation along the following lines: "I've noticed from a number of observations that such and such is the case; I'm integrating these into a new principle, concept, generalisation or scientific law."
Notice that there are two aspects to a successful induction: observation (which may include scientific testing) and integration.
Integrating our generalisation itself requires testing -- it requires asking questions like this:
* * Do we know the cause(s) of this thing? (Because untill we understand the causality, as Aristotle says we don't have knowledge "down to the root.")
* * Does it fit with the totality of everything we already know? (Does it seem coherent will all currently known facts and principles? Does it explain anything else that we haven't so far completely understood? Where should this new piece of knowledge be correctly filed in our hierarchy?)
* * Are there any presently known facts that contradict our observations and generalisations? (In which case, a red flag shopud go up and we urgently need to identify what to keep, and what to investigate for error.)
After all that, then we're justified in saying that within the context of our present knowledge, this is a fact.
And there you go again.
Induction, in essence, is a non-contradictory "shuttling" between observation and integration -- testing by means of observation, and integrating by means of causality.
And since there's much more top be said, and I don't intend saying it here, here are some related articles and lectures if you're serious about the subject:
* * Induction and Experimental Method, by David Harriman, described here.
* * Errors in Inductive Reasoning, also by David Harriman.
* * Bo Dragsdahl, "Karl Popper's Assault on Science"
* * Roderick Fitts' Inductive Quest blog - a blog from an Aristotelian perspective "about what induction is, what others in the past have said about it, and what [he, the author, thinks] it is." And what he thinks is generally* very good.
* * * *
* See what I did there? :-)
PC, I understand of what you've just post, but it still eludes you the problem of the black-swan (the unseen that the inductive generalization failed to categorize). I agree with your description above, however you see no problem with the limitations of induction. My argument is about the limitations of induction, not its validity and I guess, my reasoning is different from that of Brian .
My question is. Can you see a problem with limitations of induction or we should just ignore it? What computer scientists are saying is that there is definitely a limitation and I guess objectivists just say, well there is no problem at all because that is how we human learn? We can all say that with very high confident since our disagreement is linguistic only and not about reality. But reality just shows that Shari couldn't identify the specific of the cup (made of coconut shell) above? If the objectivist just view it as linguistic, then I suggest that you must also remove the word generalization from describing induction because it is false and black-swan demonstrated it's (induction's) falsity.
So, do you think that there is shortfall in induction or not?
"Do we know the cause(s) of this thing? (Because untill we understand the causality, as Aristotle says we don't have knowledge "down to the root.")"
Can you give me an example of something you know "down to the root" as Aristotle would say?
@ Peter
Roderick Fitts has confused inductive reasoning with deductive syllogism, attributing it to Aristotle. Fitt's doesn't understand that what he terms as "enumerative induction" is induction. (He should study Bacon)
Harriman argues that the "problem of induction" is a problem of "context". If this was true, then science would be purely subjective. (He should read Hume)
I'll explain more of what I understand about induction,which may be different from what objectivists view it.
In the field of machine learning (ML) and pattern recognition, inductive learning is the main methods/algorithms in its use. The learner (or student and in this case it is a machine) is shown (ie, being taught as is used in the language of ML) some instances of some objects to learn (ie, concept formations about the those objects). Let's say that the concept is called container, which is generic and which it can be wide range from a laptop bag to a coffee mug, ie, they're both containers. Since all the instances of the object type/s being shown to the learner are not the entire set of such object in the world, the only hope the learner is, that the few instances that it is being shown to it (machine) or him/her (human) to learn, represents the entire objects in the world that belong to that specific concept. When the learner learns about the object/s (ie, all its identifiable characteristics) being shown to it/her/him (in ML language it is called training), he/she/it hopes to generalize the concept/s, since it/he/she wasn't given the entire collection of such objects in the world to learn from but was only given a subset of the entire set that exists in the world.
After the learning, the learner (machine or human) is supposed to have grasp what it/she/he has learnt. The learner then go out there into the real world, and then encounter some object by chance that aroused it/him/her and wondered what the mystery object is. He/she/it iterates in its/his/her memory to find if anything is similar to what is in front of him/her/it-self. If the object's characteristics aren't near enough to something it/he/she has seen before, the learner will declare to it/him/her-self : I have no fucking clue about what this thing is. It/he/she may be right, that such object is completely new, not even (closely)fits the properties of generic concepts it/he/she has stored in memory such as a container, for example. If it is new, then the learner will learn it as a new concept/subject/object and then add/index it into its memory via adaptive learning algorithm as it is called in the language of ML and actually, this is how human learns (adaptive or incremental learning, ie, you learn on the go as you encounter new concepts/instances).
In the kava cup, Shari reached a conclusion of some types of container (and she was correct there), because most (or all) containers must contain some form of concave-up geometric surface (as a property), and that can be deduced from the image of the kava cup that it is an object with some concave-up geometric surface.
Shari didn't do well, in telling the specific of the container that it is a cup. But she hasn't seen such cup before, even though she has seen perhaps thousands of different other cups, but NOT that specific kava cup from above. She failed to be specific on saying that the container is a cup and not a bath tub container (cup of what? - is irrelevant). Shari thought it was a container for herbs but not it is to hold liquid and this shortfall can be traced back to induction. She has seen cups before (all sorts) but not the entire sets of cups in the world.
Continue on...
In the field of machine learning (ML) and pattern recognition, inductive learning is the main methods/algorithms in its use. The learner (or student and in this case it is a machine) is shown (ie, being taught as is used in the language of ML) some instances of some objects to learn (ie, concept formations about the those objects). Let's say that the concept is called container, which is generic and which it can be wide range from a laptop bag to a coffee mug, ie, they're both containers. Since all the instances of the object type/s being shown to the learner are not the entire set of such object in the world, the only hope the learner is, that the few instances that it is being shown to it (machine) or him/her (human) to learn, represents the entire objects in the world that belong to that specific concept. When the learner learns about the object/s (ie, all its identifiable characteristics) being shown to it/her/him (in ML language it is called training), he/she/it hopes to generalize the concept/s, since it/he/she wasn't given the entire collection of such objects in the world to learn from but was only given a subset of the entire set that exists in the world.
After the learning, the learner (machine or human) is supposed to have grasp what it/she/he has learnt. The learner then go out there into the real world, and then encounter some object by chance that aroused it/him/her and wondered what the mystery object is. He/she/it iterates in its/his/her memory to find if anything is similar to what is in front of him/her/it-self. If the object's characteristics aren't near enough to something it/he/she has seen before, the learner will declare to it/him/her-self : I have no fucking clue about what this thing is. It/he/she may be right, that such object is completely new, not even (closely)fits the properties of generic concepts it/he/she has stored in memory such as a container, for example. If it is new, then the learner will learn it as a new concept/subject/object and then add/index it into its memory via adaptive learning algorithm as it is called in the language of ML and actually, this is how human learns (adaptive or incremental learning, ie, you learn on the go as you encounter new concepts/instances).
In the kava cup, Shari reached a conclusion of some types of container (and she was correct there), because most (or all) containers must contain some form of concave-up geometric surface (as a property), and that can be deduced from the image of the kava cup that it is an object with some concave-up geometric surface.
Shari didn't do well, in telling the specific of the container that it is a cup. But she hasn't seen such cup before, even though she has seen perhaps thousands of different other cups, but NOT that specific kava cup from above. She failed to be specific on saying that the container is a cup and not a bath tub container (cup of what? - is irrelevant). Shari thought it was a container for herbs but not it is to hold liquid and this shortfall can be traced back to induction. She has seen cups before (all sorts) but not the entire sets of cups in the world.
PC, please delete the last message of mine because I simply posted it twice, without realizing it.
Continue on...
Ok, what I have described above is the best that I can approximate the definition of induction (form viewpoint of mathematics & computing), however those who are strong in philosophy, may disagree with my understanding of it.
The research in machine learning (ML) and its application of inductions is growing very fast because of commercial interests and potential huge profits to be made from it, then one should look no further then Google (multibillion dollar company). In fact the Google search algorithm is an inductive learning algorithm (and almost its entire software applications). It tries its best to generalize one's query (search) and then match it as close as possible to what it has seen before (ie, the data that it has indexed). Google search is not a word search problem, but a concept search one.
To finalize my explanation of induction, here is one from a machine that learns to categorize container objects (wine-glasses, mugs , bowls) from a table (using computer vision technology). The interesting bits from the paper's abstract is its accuracy. Skip to section-7 (Experimental Results) and start on paragraph 2 of that section, which is the interesting bits of the paper. Ignore the other sections because the paper was written/targeted for programmers & software engineers and not for the general reader.
Abstract: (part)
================
...To show the validity of our approach, we analyze the proposed system for the problem of recognizing the object class of 20
objects in 500 table settings scenarios. Our algorithm identifies
the planar surfaces, decomposes the scene and objects into geometric primitives with 98.27% accuracy and uses the geometric primitives to identify the object’s class with an accuracy of 96.69%.
Detecting and Segmenting Objects for Mobile Manipulation
I am tempted to send the authors of that paper above the link to the kava cup image or send them a real kava cup and request them to use their software program to classify it and see which of the 4 categories used in their paper that the kava cup will be categorized as:
i) simple glasses (white);
ii) glasses with stems (green);
iii) mugs with handles (blue); and
iv) large bowls (red).
I bet that the program will fail to categorize the kava cup,since the training examples were limited (ie, the subset of cups being shown to the software was not large enough but only 4, and this means that its inductive retrieval capability will be limited in unseen instatnces such as a kava cup). Shari has only seen a subset of the concept of a cup (as a container), but not seen the whole set available in the world, therefore, she was/is susceptible to making wrong inductive inferences simply because the training examples she know (ie, all the cups she has seen all her life) weren't large enough to be representative of the concept being leaned (ie, cup concept with a concave-up surface).
The machine doesn't have the integration capability that humans have, but in a few centuries or milleniums from today, I bet that machines will have the capability to integrate knowledge. We won't be here in that day in the future, but I believe that humans will be experimenting with what we see in scifi movies of today , ie, morphing humans and machines and that will be scary for future human generations.
@Monsieur Fisi: You nailed induction.
Except it doesn't explain the creation of knowledge.
Computers are a long way off from extrapolating things like abduction, intuition or analogy. Logic will never understand desire.
PC,
You wrote: 2. How do you do it [induction]?
Essentially the process is Observation, Generalisation, Integration.
For example, I observe lots of four legged things with a flat surface that people use in a particular fashion. I generalise these into a concept, which I mark with a name: "table," and a rough definition identifying the "conceptual common demoninator" allowing me to group them ("four legged things with a flat surface"). I check that this generalisation doesn't contradict any prior knowledge. And I integrate it with stuff that I already know: e.g. the group of big man-made objects made for human use around the house, i.e., household furniture.
*Why* are you observing four legged objects with a flat surface? Maybe there is an unknown object sitting in your living room. So the problem is: what is it? (This problem has begun with an anomalous observation, but I hope you agree that many problems do not). Right there and then, I'd wager you will start forming conjectures. You won't wait until you've observed a lot of similar objects. You might decide to call the mystery object a table but that is only to label it and does not add to our knowledge. What you really want to do is to *explain* the table. The concept or definition, then, will be subsidiary to the explanation, as it should be. So how are you going to explain this object in your living room?
To do so requires imagination: you make a conjecture, you guess. Seeing lots of these objects in isolation is not going to help much for to explain a table you need to know things about people. (And to really explain a table, you're going to have to delve into the deepest physics). Using your prior knowledge, your first conjecture upon seeing the object might be that it is some kind of furniture. To test this conjecture you will look for evidence that humans interact with the object. That might involve going out to look for more objects like it. And so you keep forming conjectures and testing them. I maintain that no induction is going. It is problem, followed by inspired guesses (conjectures), followed by tests of those guesses. What you are aiming for is an *explanatory theory* not a generalisation or a concept or a definition.
Regarding the articles you linked to: Both Rand and Popper (good people both) get bad press: do not trust secondary sources, read the originals.
Monsieur,
You are write about Harriman. Here's a quote from the article PC linked to:
For example, Karl Popper claimed that all the laws of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton have been “falsified”...
This is what happens when you think science is not about finding explanatory theories but about making predictions and finding generalisations. Newton and Einstein gave us completely different explanations about the nature of reality. It is not the case that one explanation is true in some context and the other explanation is true in another context. Einstein's explanation is, as far as we know, true everywhere and Newton's explanation is true nowhere. Einstein really did falsify Newton.
And note PC and LGM: the only way to falsify Einstein is to find problems with his theory. New knowledge will begin with that problem.
@ Brian: Yes I wrote about Harriman,
and I was trying to be very kind in my criticism when I said "If this was true, then science would be purely subjective".
I've tracked down the ontological problem of objectivists.
Check out "The Problem with 'The Problem'" on page 10 of another of PC's recommended texts: A Tangled Web Of Guesses: A Critical Assessment Of The Philosophy Of Karl Popper (1996) by Nicholas Dykes.
Objectivists seem to have no distinction between Intrinsic and Extrinsic properties of an object.
"Logic will never understand desire."
I assume this was just a figure of speech :P. Of course logic can't "understand" desire, logic isn't a percieving entity.
However, we may be able to use logic to help explain desire, though perhaps justifying it on a moral basis would require more.
"Einstein really did falsify Newton."
He falsified the objective metaphysical implications of Newton, but I'd argue many of the logical arguements Newton made haven't been falsified but rather encompassed by modern science.
A table is not a table because it is a table.
If I have a packing case, and turn it upside down,
and use it as a table, it becomes a table.
It's "tableness" is not intrinsic to the object.
It is an extrinsic (relational) property that I create.
Hello Falafulu,
Okay. Cool. Any more mystery objects?
Cheers!
Hello Falafulu,
Some further thoughts.
Following your reason, my knowledge on the concept of a container is acquired and not innate. Did I follow your reasoning correctly?
If so, perhaps another mystery object might bring forth knowledge within me that is innate.
Is there such an object? Is this possible?
I don't know. Yet.
@ Shari: Maybe this video will help
Fractals in Science, Engineering and Finance (Roughness and Beauty) by Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Bonjour Monsieur!
Thank you for the link. I am more confused than before which is fine because it is a reflection on how much I do not know or understand. I simply cannot get my head around Fractuals, Brownian Clusters, math equations, critical percolation clusters, etc.
But! An avenue worth pursuing nonetheless. 'Tis a mathematical monster for others more mathematically and scientifically inclined.
How do I know what I know? How much is acquired and how much is innate?
I do not understand what Benoit Mandelbrot is talking about which can only mean I am either lazy minded or am possessed of lesser intelligence or that I am not innately built to acquire such knowledge.
Or it could be a combination of all three.
I thank you.
@ Shari: re Benoit Mandelbrot
I recommended that video because, although it is about an obscure aspect of knowledge, it highlights someones thinking process. Mandelbrot has a gift. Whether that gift is innate and he was born with that special neurological ability, or maybe it's because of his prodigious love for geometry as a child, or maybe a combination of the two.
Do fractals actually exist, or are they just the result of Mandelbrot's way of looking at things. In the video he admits that he doesn't know the answer to that question.
Was Mandelbrot a tabula rasa who discovered that relationship between forms, from observation, or is he preprogrammed (a priori) in order to process information like that.
I think the answer is both.
@ Fisi
What did you make of that video? Mandelbrot was instrumental in shaping Nassim Taleb's Black Swan theory.
Monsieur,
I agree that Dykes does not distinguish intrinsic properties from extrinsic properties. There is so much wrong with the Dykes' article that I hardly know where to begin. He claims to have read Popper, but the understanding is lacking. For example, Dykes wonders on page 8 how scientific conjectures are selected for testing. He writes:
Fallibilism provides no means for evaluating this all-important choice. The only thing we could be referred to would be an earlier fallibilistic exercise, and then to an earlier one, and so on, ad infinitum.
What's the problem here? Take your conjectures and test them! Why the need to restrict yourself to testing one conjecture? Popper never said you should do that.
In a case where an (arbitrary) conjecture has successfully survived all tests, it could merely have happened that a ‘virtuous straw man’ (the conjecture) has one by one fended off an army of
lesser straw men (the tests) which have been sent against it. But nothing would be proven by all this.
Did Popper say that anything would or could be? No! Confirmation, whether of arbitrary conjectures or not, proves nothing. Passing a test doesn't make a false conjecture true or a true conjecture truer. Also, we don't select "arbitrary" conjectures for testing, we select conjectures that have been advanced to solve a problem. And we don't just test conjectures, we criticize their explanatory power. That in itself is enough to rule out most conjectures.
Dykes not only does not understand Popper he belittles him constantly. For example:
"Popper certainly deserves some sort of prize for philosophical tenacity: he clung to his theory through thick and thin for over seventy years. I think he was able to do this precisely because the theory had so little relevance. "
Is this supposed to be a serious article? That he takes to insulting Popper is a sign that Dykes' argument is weak.
Why are people with great ideas, like Popper and Rand, so often mocked?
"For all his belittlement of knowledge
and certainty,
@ Brian:
Re Dyke: I think it is revealing when Dyke remarks in the footnotes that he wrote that section on Robbie Burns' Bicentennial (hic!).
Objectivists have this thing called "Law of Identity". It is sacrosanct, and nothing is permitted which could violate it. Scepticism (even the scientific sort) is not allowed because it might undermine their certainty of "The law of Identity".
It is a moralistic fallacy.
FelaFula Fisi posted an example of a container. A Hawaian kava cup, which is part of a museum collection.
The only characteristic that constitutes its identity is that it is half a coconut shell.
That it is a bowl could be assumed, but not 100%. It has been polished, but maybe it was for a bra cup.
That it was used for kava might be deduced from analysing any residues, but maybe it was a brand new kava cup and never used.
That it is now a museum exhibit is provable.
If it was just half a coconut shell, it would not be in a museum (except perhaps in the botany section).
That is to say that the identity of that object as a kava bowl is extrinsic (semantic) metadata about the object. The museum curators have researched and documented it as this.
Monsieur, I only watched the first 15 minutes of Mandelbrot's video (no time to watch the whole, perhaps at the weekend).
The bits that I watched, he mentioned scaling laws which is invariant (ie, Scale Invariance). Scaling laws is well established in physics, but it also been found out by researchers that scaling laws also shows up in human socio-phenomena, as economics, eg:
#1) A Statistical Physics View of Financial Fluctuations: Evidence for Scaling and Universality, by H. Stanley, et al, Physica A 387, 3967-3981 (2008).
#2) Tests of Scaling and Universality of the Distributions of Trade Size and Share Volume: Evidence from Three Distinct Markets , by H. Stanley, et al, Physics. Review. E 79, 068102 (2009).
The authors have made an inductive generalization, that scaling works for ALL markets from any countries , regardless. Note that they only used data from 3 (large) markets, but not exhaustive of all markets (from all countries, etc...). Now, if someone comes up with another study at some point in the future that found a black-swan (meaning that some markets - perhaps he/she discovered that Tonga's coconut or banana market doesn't exhibit scaling-law), then it shows how insufficient induction is. So far, the authors findings still stands as of today. Some economists, tried to refute those econophysicists findings (paper- #1), but the econophysicists replied back (paper-#2) and showed that their findings has very solid ground according to the datasets used from those 3 large markets.
There is more publications on economic scaling laws from econo-physicists at Boston Center for Polymer Studies. This group also studies scaling laws in polymer molecules formations.
Phenomena or system that exhibits properties of scaling laws are said to be Self-Organized and Self-Emergence.
Some philosophers, mathematicians, physicists, computer-scientists have linked emergence to consciousness. I have come across some citing of this link between the two, but I find the following short article very simple & informative.
The Emergent Mind
I have seen an experimental robot that its designers suspect that it somehow shows a limited form of emergence-learning (or limited consciousness), because of the way it moves around the room that they performed the experiment in, I'll try and find the link to that video.
@ FF: That scale invarince stuff is interesting. It seems to work well in analysing data, but I wonder how predictive it actually is. The analysis seems to prove that normalised Gaussian random variable models will always fail, but who is going to trust invariant ones?
Re emergence:
In that Mandelbrot video, he attributes a lot to Norbert Wiener, the signal-processing cybernetician and "systems-thinker".
But Monsieur! I must protest. How is it possible for a man of science, which I am assuming you are, to admit so easily to a priori?
If my assumption is wrong, I withdraw.
But! To accept the idea of a priori which surely is borne from innateness, is to be open to the idea of 'faith'.
Is faith the component that makes for the whole being greater than the sum of its parts?
@ Shari: I don't admit so easily to a priori.
But I don't see how you could explain a phenomenon like "language" without it.
We are homo-sapiens, with an innate ability to learn language.
How that mechanism works, we are still trying to figure out.
How language evolved, we can only speculate.
Maybe we have a neurological hardware, and a linguistic operating system,
which we use to run the programs we wish to create or download.
Something that interests me in computer science is heuristics,
which are methods to solve problems that one hopes are optimal.
We use heuristics every day in our own thinking, and call it "common-sense".
We use them because they are shortcuts, so we don't have to do to much thinking,
and so we can just get on with solving the problem.
We like to think we are rational creatures, but most of the time we aren't.
While writing about this I came across this review of THE EMOTION MACHINE,
a book by Marvin Minsky (another pioneer of Artificial Intelligence).
Maybe it outlines things more clearly.
Implicit in a heuristic approach, is a notion of "belief".
I don't mean in a god, but a faith that using a particular strategy,
will result in a favourable outcome.
Y'all might be interested in this talk by David Deutsch:
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation.html
Hello Monsieur,
Yes, we are homo-sapiens who happen to communicate through language. I do not think language stems from an innate ability to learn. Language is an acquired skill. We have the brains to speculate how language evolved - from caveman grunts to thousands of words. New words are still being created to adapt.
I appreciate you posting various links on subject matters which broaden my thinking.
And yes, heuristics is one method of making sense of the world around us. Essentially, there are 2 forms which require observation and experimentation. The subject and the object.
The heuristic approach, you say, requires 'belief' and 'faith'.
Can I have belief without faith? Yes.
Can I have faith without belief? No.
Belief is acquired, faith is innate.
Belief falls in the objective realm and faith in the subjective.
You say a heuristic approach requires faith that using a particular strategy
will result in a favourable outcome. Meaning you desire your premise to be proved correct. Which is quite homo-sapien in nature.
Would it be fair to say that the faith you express in this context is faith in yourself, and perhaps in people around you?
Which, again, is homo-sapien in nature.
Faith in yourself and in others is a positive thing. However, it opens up the subject of vulnerability, does it not?
Introducing the idea of faith tells me you acknowledge innateness in beings and in be-ing.
By acknowledging it, you are open to accepting it.
Is there room then, to be open to the idea that there is an unknown, a form, a subject, that lie beyond the understanding of homo-sapiens?
default) and he will not be in receipt of rental income. His overheads will continue to accrue and, likely, will increase. The costs to hold now un-productive property he must pay 100%. He can't rely on offsetting that overhead against income or contribution from the now departed tenants. Given that situation his options are, in essence, to delay payment (borrow against the future), or to attract new tenants, or to make payment from savings, or to make payment from an income stream generated by some other productive enterprise.
There is another consequence and that is reputational. The landlord will need to contend with the public odium his unreasonably behaviour generates. He'll have to accept the disadvantage of other people refusing to do business with him on terms that he may prefer. Some may refuse to trade with him at all. Another significant problem he is going to have to face is that of new lower cost providers setting up and competing with him. They are going to attract his tenants (starting with the best ones) and income streams away from him with increasing effect. Unless he amends his behaviour to compete he'll be suffering significant consequences. What this all results in is an immediate decline in his wealth. Unless he alters his behaviour right throughout his estates immediately, he is soon going to find that he is in serious financial trouble. Indeed he'll realise he's headed for ruination. He is going to have to sell assets, such as parcels of property, to pay his creditors (or face the prospect of them appointing a liquidator to do the job). The liquidator's role will be to reallocate resources/assets to other parties in order to satisfy creditor claims. So much for a monopoly!
Understand that in the absence of initiations of force a monoply can't exist. Since such are excluded from the Capitalist economic system, it is impossible for a monoply to exist within it.
That's Capitalism.
Here is an important point for you to grasp. Capitalism is the economic system wherein individuals volunarily trade property and rights between themselves. The landlord isn't going to be able to own the entire World if a Capitalist economic system is in place and functioning. A landlord isn't going to be able to acquire sufficient resources by voluntary trade to further voluntarily trade for all the land there is. Nor would he be able to persuade every single landowner in the entire World to sell, let alone to ALL sell ALL their land to him exclusively. Those who want to sell will sell to the buyer they prefer and that isn't guaranteed to be the person of the singular uber-landlord your scenario revolves around. The ONLY way for him to own the whole World is when you set up your scenario with the special starting condition that the landlord owns all the land in the whole World, right from the outset. Regarding how such a fantasy situation comes to pass, you are, of course, going to remain ever silent. Another important omission...
Again, you have been busy setting up an anti-Capitalist, anti-Libertarian fantasy scenario and then complaining that Capitalism and Libertarianism "fail" within it. That's self-delusional.
In conclusion your approach to this is weak minded. Your assertions all fail. They are arbitrary and unsupported.
LGM
David S
Let's not forget yours is an artificial, fictitious scenario with arbitrary restriction, premise and structure. Your purpose, the attempted claim that Captialism allows totalitarianism, hence it is not consistent with Libertarianism- an unrealistic and illogical proposition.
You started by stating that an agreement was negotiated and executed between the original landlord and the original tenants. The land belongs to the landlord. You remain silent on what the terms of the tenancy agreement actually are, or if there are any other agreements between the parties. Yet those agreements, their terms and conditions are fundamental to the rights and obligations of the parties- what they agreed at outset.
Next step is to state that many generations have passed and the present landlord inherited the estate from his predecessors. Similarly the tenants inherited their estates from their predecessors. You are silent on the terms and conditions of the inheritance (what was contained in the deed of inheritance or the decased's will, what limitations were in place due to tenancy and other agreements). You also remain silent regarding the condition of the estates (whether landlord or tenant). This is also vitally important.
At this point you need to consider that when an estate is willed to a beneficiary, that person is not obligated to accept against their will. As with any other gift, they may decline acceptence in all or in part (depending on the terms of the will, deed of gift, etc.). Even should a person accept an inheritance, they may choose what to do with the item/s received. They may alter it, dispose of it, sell it, consume it, abandon it, trade it, use it to defray other costs or debts or overhead, improve it, securitise it, rent it out, or even destroy it. They have the choice.
You also need to consider that the executor of a deceased estate provides the interested/involved parties with an accurate description of the assets, liabilities and present disposal of said deceased estate. What this means is that in each case the present tenants would have been aware, at time of inheritance, that they do not own the landlord's property and further they would have been aware of the existence of a tenancy agreement including its terms and conditions. They would have known about this PRIOR to their occupation and they would have assumed it in order to become a tenant occupier. The fact that the land was not theirs would be clear at time of inheritance of the deceased estate. The decision about what to do at that stage is theirs to determine.
As previously pointed out to you, they could decline to accept the estate, they could accept it and sell it (in all or in part), they could rent it to another party, they could negotiate a revised agreement with the landlord, they could set up some other arrangement with various other parties and so on. Again, your scenario omits consideration of any of this.
Regarding the landlord, we come to some of the more egregious ommissions and restrictions. The actions of the "unreasonable" landlord are treated as if they are costless. That isn't possible in a Capitalist economic system. As previously pointed out to you, if the landlord's behaviour is "unreasonable", then there will be consequences which he must bear. For a start his income will collapse. Tenants will vacate (or
Something went wrong.
The essay I just posted was meant to be in three portions. Part 1 didn't appear until last. So, the order is:
post 3,
post 1,
post 2.
LGM
BS
You've been hammered on this and your other favourite subject (the nature of children and how to treat them) on several previous occasions. Yet here you are, once again, coming up with exactly the same silliness, making the same arbitrary assertions and position statements while ignoring salient points whenever they are disclosed to you.
It appears you are a person who fails to consider what other people tell you when it suits your purpose (that's an example of induction right there). Another long debate raking over the same ground yet again is not going to achieve much unfortunately (that's a deduction). It is in your nature to ignore what you don't agree with, especially when it blows your position completely out of the water (I've done this to you on a previous occasion, PC has done it on numerous previous occasions, other contributors here and elsewhere have done it as well).
Something you need to understand is that as you are the one making the assertion (that knowledge of reality is presupposed by problems and that knowledge of reality is nothing more than tentative conjectures arrived at through a random process of trial and error problem solving etc. etc. etc. etc.), it is up to you to prove it (which, by the way, your own system of epistemology prohibits you from ever doing). It is not up to anyone else to explain your position back to you (as you are demanding I do). Nor is it up to anyone else to disprove your position or even to explain to you exactly where your ideas fail (although that has already been done several times previously). The burden of proof necessarily falls on you. No rhetorical tricks are going to get you out of that burden.
Now what I'm advising you is to "open your eyes".
Seriously.
Do that.
While you're at it take a look at what PC and others have explained to you (not solely on this one thread). Consider it carefully this time around. Think on it.
LGM
LGM,
Sheesh - what's with the meta? There is no burden on anybody here, other than to find the truth. If you don't want to debate, don't comment.
I can offer you explanations (which I have), but I can't prove my position. What exactly are you looking for? Some mathematical derivation of a philosophical argument?
Again you entreat me to open my eyes. I linked to David Deutsch's 2009 TED talk above. Note what he says about the seen and unseen.
Hello Brian,
Thank you for the superb link. I like his way of thinking; quote:
"Good explanation = hard to vary."
"Search of hard to vary explanations is the way to progress."
"That truth consists of hard to vary assertions about reality is the most important fact about the physical world. It's a fact that is itself unseen, yet, impossible to vary."
I thank you.
@ Brian: I'm not a fan of Popper.
Have you read any Thomas Kuhn, or Michael Polanyi.
They both have a sociological approach to epitemology.
Shari,
I'm glad you liked the link. David Deutsch's second book is coming out before too long. It's called "The Beginning of Infinity". Watch out for it.
Monsieur,
I haven't read Kuhn or Polanyi as no-one has convinced me they are worth reading. Is there any value to a sociological theory of epistemology? What don't you like about Popper's epistemology?
@ Brian: I read Deutsch's "Fabric of Reality" a long time ago. I felt his Multi-universe theory was explanatory, but lacked utility. The quantum world is a mathematical model and no other description is required.
Re Popper:
If scientific knowledge is an evolutionary process then it occurs within a scientific community.
Have a brief look at An Outline of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (especially around Chapter 7). What do you disagree with.
Hello Brian,
Thanks for the heads up.
Cheers!
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