Too many glosses on the word “truth”. Any of them is game, but with so many in
play, and registers constantly being shifted, tracking a sentence becomes
fraught most of the time. And statements that are central to the concept for
one register would be not only inapt, but false or non-sequitur in another.
All that is fine if the goal is entertainment, competition, blasts of
indignation, or whatever-else. But if the goal is to get clearer on something
about which one was not clear, the overloading is an impediment (recalling
Johnson’s literal stone). (That is never a setback for anyone who never lacked
clarity on anything and thus doesn’t need anything; that cup is already full.)
I think there are good takes on Peirce from a modern perspective, that were
suspected or suggested by him, but probably not available with late
19th-century experience, and probably not to someone with as mechanical a turn
of mind as Peirce’s.
One can ask what it means to say that a word is to index some concept, and that
some concept is different from another in what we want from it.
In that spirit, I think that in logic and in description of life, there are two
concepts that are not the same in kind, one of which I would tag with “states
of factual knowledge”, and the other with “truth”, as I would want to develop
the term in a modern re-try of pragmatism as Peirce was headed toward it.
There are lots of little technical details along the way, where one has to
state what one wants to inherit from some historical figure, and what not, or
what one wants to assert, irrespective of whether somebody else did before or
not.
It strikes me that the things pragmaticism (I will use Peirce’s word to make
explicit that his, at this time, is the one I am after) got right are that we
need 1) a theory of meaning, and 2) a theory of truth, which one has to have
some theory of meaning and probably other schemata to articulate. The
pragmatic maxim, as a theory of meaning, is fine as a historical placeholder,
and I’m not putting a lot of time into that now, so won’t worry about whether
or how it might need modern updates. All the work on embodiment, and maybe
some of what goes under the heading “enactivism” is probably a useful source of
examples and ideas.
I would argue that what we should want from a modern pragmatism in regard to
truth can be expressed through the following metaphor: the concept behind
“states of factual knowledge” stands in relation to the concept behind “truth”
something like the concept behind “sample estimator” stands in relation to
“underlying generative value” in the practice of statistical inference over
stochastic processes. Even in cases where the two are quantified and
represented in the same kinds of units, they are two very different concepts.
There is a lot more that needs to be said to triangulate what role that
“truth”-tagged concept is playing, in cognition and language, including the
depths that we don’t have good concept systems to articulate; here I want to
acknowledge the need for it but not dump more words in that direction.
My goal in the second-preceding paragraph is to go in the direction of the
_meaning_ I want from the concept tagged by “truth” (in this register).
Stipulating what one wants from the meaning of something does not entail that
you have a route to obtain a value for it. So if Peirce thought (a rather
Panglossian caricature) that states of knowledge converge in some reliable way
toward asymptotically enduring fixed points, I would certainly not want to
inherit that belief (or really, any belief). But I would know, as a Modern,
that we have all sorts of experience with statistics that meander and do or do
not converge, the rates of convergence if they do, the difficulty of search and
the likelihood of success in search problems by one or another algorithm, the
difficulty of selection or of preservation of something even if one happens
upon it, and so on. And not particularly wanting to have beliefs, I very much
want to be able to frame those kinds of questions and try to extract answers.
Everything we have learned in one or another narrow, technical and in that
sense artificial domain, strikes me as something we should expect to have a
place in trying to understand the dynamics of states of factual knowledge.
Again, I would expect the applications to look something like the application
of Bayesian Model Selection to the real-world acts of adopting or rejecting
various partial and conflicted phenomenological theories. In rare cases, the
problem is so constrained that one can use the formal model somewhat literally
or even quantitatively; in many others, it is a sort of metaphor or an even
weaker cartoon, but still suggests a kind of structure to look for in the
dynamic realized in the real world.
Any of the above, however, only follows if the people involved share certain
goals in the exchange of language, and that is not at all assured since people
can and do have many quite distinct and even non-overlapping goals.
There are communities that regard self-negating speech as not only inescapable,
but privileged. I found myself wondering yesterday whether post-modernism
should be seen as along the path to enlightenment (NOT the European kind!). I
don’t think any of what I said above can be regarded as even meaningful, and
certainly not worth engaging in, from a prioritization of self-negating speech.
There is speech as sabotage; what I regard Kellyanne as having discovered as
her path to self-importance; a thing she appeared to want when she was young
but did not see a route to achieving through the conventional channels. And of
course, the advocate for the saboteur will say (invoking the original
saboteurs) that that person is a resistance fighter against whomever we are
aggrieved at.
There is the weird case of Rorty, who for me marks the full decadence of
Peirce’s hope for a theory of truth into its energetic and spiteful negation.
I don’t know how to stack him in this menagerie. He and Kellyanne are clearly
both smart, and Rorty is very smart in many dimensions. My understanding is
that, in personal life, they both are/were also gracious and decent in their
treatment of people. Rorty’s social-justice aims were also, to my eye,
well-chosen and insightful. But Rorty is not on a mere campaign of sabotage,
and his tool isn’t merely random obstruction to derail anybody else’s attempt
to make any point. He has much more structure. Yet to my eye the gambit is
still logically pretty empty. Peirce wanted something from the word “truth”,
and he got however far he could toward articulating what he hoped for. Rorty
simply declares, obiter-dictum, that the same word will be used henceforth as
whatever is an obstacle to social-justice utilitarianism (crucially, as Rorty
analyzes what the utility is and what serves it; aka among other things he is
an intellectual bully), and it has no other or actual meaning. Where Peirce
used Pragmatism as aiming at a theory of meaning and a theory of truth, Rorty
simply re-glosses Pragmatism as a synonym for social-justice utilitarianism.
Obviously, as a social practice, one can do that, and if the tribe that likes
that usage can kill all the members of the tribe that disagrees with it, the
dead ones can’t be said to have “achieved” anything. (The others are inclined
to say they haven’t “won” anything, but I don’t think the dead ones were after
“winning”; rather “achieving”.) But simply refusing to engage somebody else’s
project by reglossing the term and declaring eminent domain over it isn’t
interesting. We already have a term for utilitarianism, from Mill, and the
social-justice version of it is a sub-variant (not even all that sub).
So I don’t know. I think there is stuff to do. But only if one wants to do
that, instead of some other thing.
Eric
On Oct 16, 2024, at 10:26, glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
I think I agree with Jon, here. But I'd word it (very) differently. And although Marcus' response is in
Eric's vein, it only targets "close to the metal"/brute facts, not derived facts (with variation on
both "facts"/primitives and "derivations"/logics).
While I'm an avowed pluralist, my commitment isn't to an infinity of truths or, worse,
the undefinedness of truth. Maybe there are trillions of truths (allowing for each
biological organism to have "their truth", uniquely). But to go so far as to
suggest there are infinite truths or that truth is undefined is a bridge too far. That
would be like arguing there are no such things as parallel lines in any spatial system,
no agreement to be had no matter what the context.
My confidence in a plurality is bounded to a few, I think, N≥3 or so, but maybe something
closer to "N=7±2", reflecting something like the affordance of sensemaking
minds. And to be clear, that small set of N truths can wander in some kind of Peircian
sense, I guess, except without assuming it'll monotonically converge to a
static/permanent set of N fixed member truths.
In this wandering space of paraconsistent logics, we may still follow the
framework Eric sets out. Truth(s) can be something like moments or high order
stabilities that allow us to settle contested claims, even if only temporarily.
But here I see more of a tie between truth and law ... maybe, deep down, my
antipathy toward evolutionary psychology is simply that the discipline is too
young? Social convention comes from somewhere ... somewhere bound to reality,
even if the binding is through a wobbly causal network with randomness at every
node. Can convention be completely unbound to truth? That seems like an extreme
claim to me.
On 10/15/24 12:28, Jon Zingale wrote:
FWIW, I think Eric is correct to highlight the relationship between being
*increasingly promulgated to the semi-divine stature* and the disappearance of
*demos*. However, I am resistant to a characterization that renders demos as
*abstract* rather than *virtual*. I am resistant to the idea that demoi are
implemented rather than immanent. While there may come a day where master-slave
relations become complete and fully actualized and demos (relegated to the
abstract) is solely manifested via deputization, I maintain a level of
wishful-hoping that for as long as we engage one another, demos de facto exists
and immanently so.
This subtlety, for me, parallels on the one hand, the ontological status of
infinitesimals in founding the differential calculus, and on the other,
discussions I am having with Nick around the nature of *facts*. To my mind,
disinformation isn't simply the overturning of truth values intension with a
concept. Rather, disinformation campaigns (like other forms of fascism) aim to
atomize networks of relations. Atomization can happen at various levels,
sometimes at the level of the ideas and at other times at the level of
repositories. Demos, like concept, is inherently non-discrete even if only
nilpotent. In the end, I suppose both that the denial of demos is expensive and
that collective perceptions can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent.
On 10/15/24 12:14, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Jump out of your car when driving on the freeway or inject bleach to kill the
COVID, and enjoy Your Truth.
On 10/15/24 11:02, Prof David West wrote:
Eric,
Going all postmodern on you — there is no such thing as *Truth*, only
*Somebody's Truth*.
This is painfully evident at the moment in the fallacy of "fact checking," all the assertions of
"misinformation," and "follow the science."
I do not see totalitarians of any stripe engaged in 'destroying' the truth;
only in demanding that *Their Truth* is the one and only *Truth*.
And, totalitarians are not the only ones engaged in this endeavor—everyone who
has or wants to have power of whatever degree does the exact same thing.
davew
On Tue, Oct 15, 2024, at 12:39 PM, Santafe wrote:
You know, I don’t mind the phrase “above the law”. It may not be
tailored to lower-level mechanistic arguing about one or another case,
but it acknowledges a system context in which a society will operate
under some kind of hierarchy of prerogatives.
I don’t normally think about law in such hierarchies, and do more often
about truth. But I think similar arguments are appropriate for both,
with certain modulations.
What (re. power) do we want from truth in a society? We want truth to
stand as a referee over all contesting claims. This is why
authoritarians, but even more totalitarians, have as a first-line
priority the killing of truth. Not just evading it or disregarding it,
but publicly setting it on fire, to make the point that there will be
_no_ referee over the exercise of power by whoever happens to be
holding it. Arendt has some wonderful passages on the way the Nazi
movement was, from before its takeover through its ending, a project of
substituting fictitious worlds for the real world in the lives of their
followers. This (now coming from me, not Arendt) is why the hopeful
totalitarian doesn’t tell borderline lies or ambiguous lies; he tells
extravagant, absurd lies, to make the point that any holdout hope for
truth will be ground up and blown away in the movements movement.
The fragility of a role for truth in a society is that a commitment to
it has to be a kind of escrow. The society has to grant truth
legitimacy and authority, and then the various members have to be
confined within that commitment when their own interests would motivate
them to escape it. Ulysses at the mast, or something like that.
Rawls’s veil of ignorance.
The question of what law is, and who it is answerable to, is different
because it is entirely conventional, unlike truth which has a very
individually-judgeable aspect. But will the society’s legitimated
notion of “law” be a tool for use by a king? By specifically the
God-Emporer (Mao or, increasingly, Xi) or Louix IV or Napoleon? Will
it be a tool for use by the holder of an office (Putin? Trump “if
you’re the president they (SCOTUS) let you do it”)? Or is
law-the-system claimed or intended to have prerogatives above those of
specific persons, or of offices w.r.t. their occupants, and if so, in
what is that prerogative vested? The charateristically vague notion of
a “democracy” supposes that there should be some abstract entity — the
“demos” — in which the prerogative of law is vested. But since
abstract entities don’t operate in the material world, what we have is
some edifice of institutions etc. that is meant to suitably instantiate
a “demos”. We can complain about all the ways an actual, realized
system fails to instantiate a demos well, or is aimed at a wrong
concept of one. But that complaint is different from the distinction
that, as the Maoist government promulgated him as increasingly
semi-divine, there was no concept of a “demos” at all that had
prerogatives above him.
I think we lose that relevant notion of hierarchy of prerogatives if we
abandon the “above” in “above the law”.
Lot of hair-splitting for no substance; I know…
Eric
On Oct 15, 2024, at 12:22, glen <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com
<mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
I agree. We're dancing around the meaning of "above the law" and it's a
terrible phrase. But people use it. So you have to have some way to parse it (again,
based on the *rest* of whatever it is someone says). Hardline positions like what Jochen
and Dave are taking can help develop such parsing strats, at least they help me.
On a similar note, this article was very interesting to me because of both my long-term interest in
"mindreading" (which I'll now call "mentalizing", I guess) and my more recent
interest in replacing things like ontologies with LLMs:
Defining key concepts for mental state attribution
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00077-6
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00077-6>
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00077-6
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00077-6>>
On 10/15/24 09:11, steve smith wrote:
I hope I'm not (just) muddying the water here, but I think "buffered from the remedies of
law" might be better than "above the law"? I think it applies not to just the
wealthy and powerful but to other ideosyncratic reasons like obscurity, anonymity,
unpredictable-behaviour, etc...
On 10/15/24 9:00 AM, glen wrote:
Well, OK. I agree with the gist. But rather than target Congress, the Admin, and
bureaucrats, I'd target wealthy people, whatever their day job might be. There are people
mostly above the law. Musk is one of them. But more importantly, there's a couple of
handfuls of companies that own the world: Blackstone, KKR, Carlyle, Bain, etc. To boot,
those companies "are people", are effectively immortal, and can't seriously be
punished for any crime they might commit.
And this point is definitely a systemic one. Even if every single member of the
entire government were biased against those who wield this power, the system
has too many weak points to hold them accountable. When faced with a super
villain like Musk, it takes a champion (at least one, but more often a team) to
counter-game the system (e.g. Whitehouse, Warren, Wyden, etc.). And the
champions usually eventually succumb to biology or corruption.
On 10/14/24 15:52, Prof David West wrote:
True, citing exceptions to specific laws does not indict the */system/*: /"We mean
the entire legislative, executive, and judicial enterprise."/
However, the way the phrase,/"no one is above the law,"/ is popularly used,
especially now and in the political context, it is not a systemic assertion, but a
personal one: hold X accountable because no one is above the specific law that X
ostensibly violated. _I will accept chastisement for being equally sloppy in usage_.
Also, I would argue that the system has been corrupted to such a point that a
whole class of people in particular roles are above the law systemically:
- Congress abdicated its responsibility to enact laws, ceding it to bureaucrats.
- Those same bureaucrats usurp the role of the judiciary by indicting and
trying those who violate their laws (and they are laws, including criminal
felony laws), crafting their own rules of evidence and procedure, and
determining guilt or innocence with no recourse to the 'Systems' judiciary.
- If you include the explosion in use of 'executive decree'; you might argue
that a substantial part of the executive branch of government in the U.S. is
'above the law'.
davew
On Mon, Oct 14, 2024, at 12:15 PM, glen wrote:
I think that was Jochen that said it, not Russ. But your refutation is
either a fallacy of ambiguity or composition. By "the rule of law", we
don't mean the rule of any particular law ... like a city statute
against walking your alligator down the street or whatever. We mean the
entire legislative, executive, and judicial enterprise. Of course,
particular slices of the population are exempt from some particular
law. E.g. London cabbies used to be allowed to urinate wherever without
regard to the typical laws governing such. That doesn't imply that
London cabbies are "above the law". I suppose you could say they're
above that particular set of laws. But "exempt" isn't synonymous with
"above", anyway.
I don't think the SCOTUS ruling on immunity claims the President is
above the law, contrary to the implications of the left's rhetoric,
only that they're exempt from some/most/all laws when executing the
role of their office. It's bad. But it's not bad in the way the
rhetoric implies.
On 10/14/24 09:27, Prof David West wrote:
Sorry Russ, but /"Nobody should be above the law if the rule of law has any meaning
in a democratic society,"/ is an absurd idea.
Assuming the US is a democratic society (in some sense), I would defy you to find any
existing law that does not have exceptions that place someone, in some role or in some
cirsumstance, "above" that law.
davew
On Mon, Oct 14, 2024, at 8:58 AM, John Kennison wrote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>>
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>>>> on behalf of Marcus
Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com
<mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com <mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>>>>
*Sent:* Tuesday, July 16, 2024 3:02 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>> <mailto:friam@redfish.com
<mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>>>; russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>>
<mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>>> <russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com
<mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>> <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>>>>
*Subject:* [EXT] Re: [FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance
I don’t think that’s fair. It depends on the opponent and what they represent
both in terms of ideology and the sociological phenomenon they are a part of.
*From:*Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>>>> *On Behalf Of *Jochen
Fromm
*Sent:* Tuesday, July 16, 2024 11:52 AM
*To:* russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>> <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com
<mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>>>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>> <mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com
<mailto:friam@redfish.com>>>>
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance
A president who murders his opponents would not be better than an evil dictator
in an authoritarian state. Putin's opponents like Navalny, Litvinenko and
Nemtsov were all brutally poisoned and/or murdered.
But you are right, this possibility exists after the recent decision of the
supreme court. It seems to be a result of democratic backsliding. Nobody should
be above the law if the rule of law has any meaning in a democratic society.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Russ Abbott <russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>> <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com
<mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>>> <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com
<mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>> <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com <mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com
<mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com>>>>>
Date: 7/16/24 7:48 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
<mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>> <mailto:friam@redfish.com
<mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>> <mailto:friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com
<mailto:friam@redfish.com>>>>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance
Why has no one pointed out the possibility that if Trump wins, Biden could take
advantage of his newly declared immunity and have him assassinated?
-- Russ
On Tue, Jul 16, 2024, 6:24 AM glen <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>>
<mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>>> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com
<mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com
<mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>>>>> wrote:
Yeah. It's one thing to wish it or want it. It's another to think more in
Marcus' terms and come up with a more complex strategy not involving stupid 20
year olds and no violence at all. I still hold out hope for my own personal
conspiracy theory. Biden becomes the nominee. After the convention fades, the
Admnistration announces Biden has gone to the hospital for bone spur surgery.
Kamala takes over temporarily and campaigns furiously for Biden-Harris. Biden
is re-elected. Biden recovers and gets through the Oath (fingers crossed). Then
he goes back to the hospital with some minor thing like a dizzy spell. Kamala
takes over again. Biden's condition worsens. First Female President. Biden
recovers and becomes America's Grandpa.
Come on Deep State. Make it happen. 8^D
On 7/15/24 17:30, Russ Abbott wrote:
I wonder what Scott's response would have been to those of us who, in response
to the shooting, thought: better luck next time.
On 7/15/24 17:28, Marcus Daniels wrote:
It ignores the option of doing things quietly and indirectly.
On 7/15/24 16:46, glen wrote:
[Scott's] Prayer
https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,irEARj2UuX0io2vsvo5UtQltYddWunshQQtMQfJZHxfHRYf3FJxoInm0IYVm9IwI4psALvtsK1hXymeqyUC5R_tfW5jZF7zWWQQ1odUIr2o6avItdKxsAJw,&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,irEARj2UuX0io2vsvo5UtQltYddWunshQQtMQfJZHxfHRYf3FJxoInm0IYVm9IwI4psALvtsK1hXymeqyUC5R_tfW5jZF7zWWQQ1odUIr2o6avItdKxsAJw,&typo=1> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,irEARj2UuX0io2vsvo5UtQltYddWunshQQtMQfJZHxfHRYf3FJxoInm0IYVm9IwI4psALvtsK1hXymeqyUC5R_tfW5jZF7zWWQQ1odUIr2o6avItdKxsAJw,&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fscottaaronson.blog%2f%3fp%3d8117&c=E,1,irEARj2UuX0io2vsvo5UtQltYddWunshQQtMQfJZHxfHRYf3FJxoInm0IYVm9IwI4psALvtsK1hXymeqyUC5R_tfW5jZF7zWWQQ1odUIr2o6avItdKxsAJw,&typo=1>>
