We can make a distinction between our perceived self-interest and the objective self-interest. The objective self-interest would have to be provable a priori, possibly as a necessary condition of conscious agency. If the individual realisation of our objective self-interest dependents on the same interest being realised by others, or at least afforded to others, then we have an objective common interest that grounds our individual agency, including our capacity to conceive of and err about self-interest. The idea of justice (or of morality/rightness) may then be reduced to the degree of alignment between our perceived self-interest and the objective self-interest: Justice as the consistency of what we imagine to be good for us and what is objectively good for us. This is what I call moral realism.
Homeschooling is Public Education of the Future
The current model of classroom-centred public education is inefficient and ineffective, because it is not scalable to the entire population without the loss of quality. It also requires an immense amount of energy and infrastructure: it is one of the biggest expenses for students and for the State. I anticipate that this model will be superseded by homeschooling, with online access to inexhaustible resources, a vast choice of curriculums and one-on-one machine-simulated tutoring. In-person classes will be limited only to the essential practical workshops of the relevant discipline, which will be few considering the present rate of growth in automation. Homeschooling is already the superior model of public education, and will become even more advantageous as the cost and performance of at-home communication technology improves.
The current model of classroom-centred public education is inefficient and ineffective, because it is not scalable to the entire population without the loss of quality. It also requires an immense amount of energy and infrastructure: it is one of the biggest expenses for students and for the State. I anticipate that this model will be superseded by homeschooling, with online access to inexhaustible resources, a vast choice of curriculums and one-on-one machine-simulated tutoring. In-person classes will be limited only to the essential practical workshops of the relevant discipline, which will be few considering the present rate of growth in automation. Homeschooling is already the superior model of public education, and will become even more advantageous as the cost and performance of at-home communication technology improves.
What is 'negation'? What do we mean by 'denying/negating' something, as opposed to 'affirming/asserting'? What do we mean when we affirm? I understand, provisionally, that we use the acts of negation and affirmation to express that we intend to limit sense making to only some conceivable terms and exclude others, but retain the excluded terms as the limit/outline of the intended conceptual synthesis, with the potential for future inclusion. The negated terms as included in the process of sense making at the meta-level to the conceptual synthesis.
It is not possible to construct a consistent 3-valued logic with a binary switch: yes/not.
Yes or Not is all we have to work with; it is just what thinking/meaning is made of. Positing a ‘maybe’ as a third term is still just a ‘maybe’ or ‘not-maybe’ purporting to evade the binary logic it depends on.
Yes or Not is all we have to work with; it is just what thinking/meaning is made of. Positing a ‘maybe’ as a third term is still just a ‘maybe’ or ‘not-maybe’ purporting to evade the binary logic it depends on.
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3-valued logic is 2-valued logic with inconsistent semantics:
Not-false = true or unknown = not(not-true and known)
Not-true = false or unknown = not(not-false and known)
Known = true or false
Removing the negative on both sides:
false = not-true and known
true = not-false and known
Substituting for known:
false = not-true and (true or false) = not-true and false
true = not-false and (true or false) = not-false and true
Substitution for false and true to infinity:
false = not-true and not-true and not-true…
true = not-false and not-false and not-false…
Infinite regress with a binary limit.
Not-false = true or unknown = not(not-true and known)
Not-true = false or unknown = not(not-false and known)
Known = true or false
Removing the negative on both sides:
false = not-true and known
true = not-false and known
Substituting for known:
false = not-true and (true or false) = not-true and false
true = not-false and (true or false) = not-false and true
Substitution for false and true to infinity:
false = not-true and not-true and not-true…
true = not-false and not-false and not-false…
Infinite regress with a binary limit.
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What it is like… has consequences.
The phenomenological dictum ‘what it is like to be … a something’ presupposes comparison with other instances of that something, or an idea of something, which itself has to be based on something that the idea is ‘like’. Likeness is relational, and presuposes multiplicity, therefore being a something (a conscious agent, a bat, a unicorn) is a commitment to (an ontological dependence on) a multiplicity of beings of the same kind. ‘What it is like…’ is essential to being yourself, and it has inescapable moral and existential consequences.
https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWODO
The phenomenological dictum ‘what it is like to be … a something’ presupposes comparison with other instances of that something, or an idea of something, which itself has to be based on something that the idea is ‘like’. Likeness is relational, and presuposes multiplicity, therefore being a something (a conscious agent, a bat, a unicorn) is a commitment to (an ontological dependence on) a multiplicity of beings of the same kind. ‘What it is like…’ is essential to being yourself, and it has inescapable moral and existential consequences.
https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWODO
philpapers.org
Michael Kowalik, Ontological-Transcendental Defence of Metanormative Realism - PhilPapers
If there is something (P) that every possible agent is committed to value, and certain actions or attitudes either enhance or diminish P, then normative claims about a range of intentional ...
What is culture for?
Literally no one in the multiculturalism/diversity debate bothers or cares to ask what is the common interest that provides overriding reasons to ‘understand’ others and tolerate their customs, tastes and habits. In other words, what is culture (and therefore “multiculturalism”) even about? These questions are not asked because no culture (and therefore also multiculturalism) stands up to rational scrutiny. If culture made sense, if it were rational, it would be just the right thing to do for everyone, and therefore in no need of compelled inclusion, respect or tolerance, or else, just a personal preference, in no position to demand special respect or inclusion from anyone who dislikes it. Perhaps multiculturalism is systemically mandated precisely to reveal the irrationality of ‘cultural’ identity.
Literally no one in the multiculturalism/diversity debate bothers or cares to ask what is the common interest that provides overriding reasons to ‘understand’ others and tolerate their customs, tastes and habits. In other words, what is culture (and therefore “multiculturalism”) even about? These questions are not asked because no culture (and therefore also multiculturalism) stands up to rational scrutiny. If culture made sense, if it were rational, it would be just the right thing to do for everyone, and therefore in no need of compelled inclusion, respect or tolerance, or else, just a personal preference, in no position to demand special respect or inclusion from anyone who dislikes it. Perhaps multiculturalism is systemically mandated precisely to reveal the irrationality of ‘cultural’ identity.
We can only recognise/perceive that which is already within us, that which is already a part of us, a product of consciousness that is only contextualised as something external or Other. Consciousness has no outside, but because it is essentially a multiplicity it can designate otherness for parts of the multiple it designates as Self. The Other and Self are tentative and unstable, but always depend on one another, define one another, and this structural relationship has the sense of moral law.
The idea of God you worship is a confession of your moral character, but all worship is idolatry, because that which is perfect is inconceivable to that which is imperfect. Good faith demands the rejection of worship in order to remain open to being persuaded by perfection without misrepresenting it.
Let ‘meaning’ be defined as any conscious distinction between a definite something and everything else. As such, if there is meaning then there is consciousness, and if there is no consciousness then there is no meaning, therefore no identity, no thing, no being, by definition: being/identity is coextensive with consciousness, by definition. There may be logically necessary aspects of consciousness, the structural or essential properties presupposed by the possibility of meaning (law of sense, reflexive multiplicity of points of view), and these essential properties can be differentiated from contingent properties (this is a tree, i went for a walk today, etc). It is common to reduce consciousness to something essential and externalise the meaning, but to present this limited view of consciousness as something meaningful implies contradiction, therefore consciousness must be taken to include meaning, therefore all meaningful ‘being’.
All we can ever think of as reality is by definition an idea, an instance of meaning, a thought. Observable reality is a system of logically related ideas. The premise of reality being independent of thought/consciousness is therefore incoherent: it implies contradiction, an idea that is not an idea, a thought that is not a thought. That reality is a property of consciousness does not mean that an individual mind can autonomously determine/invent reality; ‘objective reality’ is sustained by all minds collectively, and so it seems independent of individual consciousness, but this is not quite the case. Even an individual mind can marginally augment reality, but only insofar as it can affect other minds that sustain that reality.
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Honest Translation: Inflation is not accidental, not a force of nature, but a policy of continuous theft directly from your wallet. The banking cartel, which ‘owns’ the Government and RBA, stole the money, raided you savings and income, and won’t be giving it back, so suck it up as they shed crocodile tears for the “poor” and “vulnerable”.
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Something I am reading now. Might be of interest to you: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125518/1414_LeBon.pdf
Any purpose-driven groups or organisations are not rational beings; only individuals are. For the most part, belonging to an organisation consists in relinquishing individual rationality for the sake of unconscious behaviour. The larger the organisation the more it depends on unconscious behaviour, which the group diligently enforces on the individual.
Popular sporting events are a conditioning mechanism for individuals to submit to the unconscious behaviour of the group centred on and controlled by the spectacle. This politically neutral form of submission aims to dissolve any inhibitions and rational doubts that individuals may have about joining the unconscious group. It is only of the primary modes of conditioning for political submission and unconscious mobilisation towards political and policy goals.
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Forwarded from Normal (Michael Kowalik)
Fashion appeals to vanity and self-esteem to inculcate compliance with capricious directives of some faceless power (of fashion experts), a celebrity, or a group you would like to belong to. It makes you feel special and privileged to be able to diligently follow their commands. It coats blind obedience with the veneer of your own vanity. It gives you social proof: ‘you are onto it, you get it, I seeee you’. And it tastes sexy. Yum. Just like the luscious stars who seduce everyone with… whatever role they were paid to play.
A narcissistic delusion
One of the most narcissistic delusions is that the public experts whose advice you depend on, the musicians, sport stars and actors whom you idolise, the politicians you vote for, the doctors and lawyers you respect, regard YOU, an average person, as something valuable, as a cause worthy of fighting for. No; to the elect you are only useful insofar as you are productive and can be easily exploited, and when your productive period ends you are just a liability, a source of bad taste and pollution, an undeserving consumer of scarce resources and space. In short, to the experts you are an aberration: naive, talentless, tasteless, undisciplined, common animal. By worshiping (or hating) the stars and trusting your doctor you prove to them that you are a lesser being. They despise you for it. They despise you for having a human face.
One of the most narcissistic delusions is that the public experts whose advice you depend on, the musicians, sport stars and actors whom you idolise, the politicians you vote for, the doctors and lawyers you respect, regard YOU, an average person, as something valuable, as a cause worthy of fighting for. No; to the elect you are only useful insofar as you are productive and can be easily exploited, and when your productive period ends you are just a liability, a source of bad taste and pollution, an undeserving consumer of scarce resources and space. In short, to the experts you are an aberration: naive, talentless, tasteless, undisciplined, common animal. By worshiping (or hating) the stars and trusting your doctor you prove to them that you are a lesser being. They despise you for it. They despise you for having a human face.
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I am not fussy about typos, because it helps the reader pay attention. Similarly in structure, but strategically opposite, are contradictions in the essentially ‘false’ official narratives. These also command attention, but attention on falsity can be weaponised as inattention to what is essential.
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Metaphysical Capitalism
The idea that there is a structural limit to growth is misguided; a political strawman rather than a logical conclusion. We accumulate time indefinitely, we accumulate history, we accumulate experience, and in that time we create new ideas, we change the meaning of the world, building on the accumulated past, and we call this irreversible change “growth”. There is no structural limit to time, therefore no structural limit to becoming; the only relevant question here is what kind of becoming is more valuable to conscious agents.
The idea that there is a structural limit to growth is misguided; a political strawman rather than a logical conclusion. We accumulate time indefinitely, we accumulate history, we accumulate experience, and in that time we create new ideas, we change the meaning of the world, building on the accumulated past, and we call this irreversible change “growth”. There is no structural limit to time, therefore no structural limit to becoming; the only relevant question here is what kind of becoming is more valuable to conscious agents.
Materialistic limitations are not equivalent to economic limitations, even if most people cannot conceive of economy in non-materialistic terms. The commitment to materialism/physicalism is economically limiting because it is logically inconsistent. The substance of economy is meaning, ideas, and their utility in fulfilling the ultimate value (conscious agency). The only objective limits are the laws of sense.
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