New philosophy articles are at Critical Fallibilism. Since 2021, Curiosity is my personal site for informal or off-topic articles. I don't endorse all old articles here.
rather than learn to pass tests, school children also have the option to learn to deal with the consequences of failing tests. some do this. e.g. they learn how to minimize and live with parental and school punishments for being a "poor student".
----
the reason rote learning appears to work, in some cases, is the child also does some non rote learning (it can be in his head while doing the rote learning, or at a different time). the rote part is sometimes useful – in which case it could be done voluntarily – and often a waste of time and distraction.
rote learning appearing to work is like induction appearing to work.
a person doing "induction" only learns because he also did something that was not induction, and that something else is where/how all the learning happened.
in the past when children were physically assaulted for failing tests, some children *still* learned to deal with the consequences of failing instead of learning the material. e.g. some children injured themselves at home, instead of studying, in order to be better prepared to tolerate being injured publicly by their teacher without crying in front of people.
1. Definitions aren't just arbitrary -- definitions are summaries of *concepts*, which each have their own logic, consequences, problems, etc. [*]
So, if you tried switching to a different linguistic convention arbitrarily, it would cause problems: you'd be throwing away a concept that was doing something, explaining something, solving a problem, and replacing it with an arbitrary concept and expecting it to carry the same load.
It's the same as if you were to switch to flat earth theory. Suddenly, a bunch of existing explanations (about how planets move, and how seasons work, and so on) would stop working, and you'd have new problems to deal with (how come no one has fallen off the edge of the world, etc).
Popper challenges the classical philosophical definition of knowledge (saying it's not 'justified true belief'), and his conception of knowledge is something a bit closer to the layman commonsense view (which is admittedly mixed up with the classical definition, but it's something more like 'useful truth').
2. Why? What basis does he choose that "horn"? Criticism of the other horn.
JTB has various problems with it -- infinite regress, doesn't account for non-human carries of knowledge like books, leads to authoritarianism, etc. Popper's conception of knowledge solves many of those problems.
So the criterion is 'solves problems better'.
3. If you use the classical definition, that raises more problems. From logical like infinite regress, to substantial like authoritarianism. "Ideas have consequences" -- which definition you pick has an impact.
[*] At least in philosophy. This is more controversial if talking about mathematical statements.
So yes, in regard to (i), the traditional theory of knowledge must be dropped. The classical theory of knowledge is indeed not consistent with conjectural knowledge. (Which is okay, because it's false.)
I think what underlies this is a substantial question and not just playing with words.
Is biological evolution problem-solving? But isn't it automatic?
When something is automated, that means it's following some program that instructs the automation. When an automation appears to overcome a new problem, what's actually happening is that the solution already existed in the program. (I.e., the knowledge was already there in the program, which then instructed the behaviour to 'solve' the problem.)
The reason biological evolution isn't 'automatic problem-solving' is:
1. That would require the knowledge to get *from the problem* (something in the evolutionary environment), back into the thing evolving (genome).
This is the misconception that Popper called "instruction from without".
To take an exaggerated, Lamarckian example: it's the difference between a giraffe neck evolving by selection pressure of genes ('within'), and it evolving by the tree being too tall and thus causing the giraffe to develop a stretched neck (tree height and giraffe behaviour = 'without').
2. There is no guarantee that evolution will solve any given problem. It's random.
"Automatic problem-solving" only makes sense in a limited way (e.g. when speaking loosely -- for instance, if you were speaking of an email organiser as automatically solving your email problems). New knowledge can't come from without, so either the solution is already there in the automation program, or it's creative instead of automatic.
As for 'blind' evolution:
In our minds, we may not be aware of our creativity consciously. Something started the problem-solving process. Being unaware of it consciously doesn't mean it's automatic -- it can still be 'directed'; it just means that this direction is happening at a different level / we may not be aware of it.
Biological evolution is a little different, because it's not 'directed', it's random. So, calling it "problem solving" may be misleading.
Our knowledge, including our moral knowledge, has to grow over time or we'll have chronic unsolved problems. So then whatever moral ideas we adopt have to take the growth of knowledge into account. The growth of knowledge requires noticing problems with existing knowledge, proposing ways to improve that knowledge and criticising the proposals. (1) So our educational institutions should be good at conveying existing knowledge, including existing moral knowledge. (2) They should also be good at encouraging people to propose and criticise ideas.
Many of the people who are most zealous to destroy the institution of freedom of speech are people with a lot of education in schools and universities that are widely held to be the finest examples of their kind. So by the first standard schools are a wretched and dismal failure. By the same token, they are also a complete failure by the second standard. You should take a long hard look at whether you think institutions that have produced such terrible people are worthy of your support.
Note also that while you deny that there are moral codes that hold for long periods, you are advocating putting almost all children into the control of an institution that is not set up to be good at considering new ideas and responding to criticism. Schools can and do respond to criticism with force and threats.
Per capita spending on lotteries in Chicago's poorest neighborhoods is about ~$600 per year, of which the state of Illinois pays back about ~$100 to advertising agencies to continue to immiserate its own poor people, because if they don't constantly market the games sales go down.
FF, are you the guy posting racist stuff on my ask.fm? like:
> wtf!! You don't care if blackies, brownies and tiny eyes rule the world? We need to stop that. Colored people have low IQ. No offence intended, No Racism intended.
Rand's not like that at all. she argues that capitalism has raised the standard of living for everyone, and that exceptions to capitalism hurt people. for example, you bring up monopolies. Rand, economist Ludwig von Mises, and others point out that it's the government which creates monopolies by using force to suppress competition. that's where the cable monopoly, the post office monopoly, and others come from. recently in the US, the government prosecuted Apple for selling ebooks when Amazon has by far the most sales, so the government was suppressing competition and helping Amazon get closer to a monopoly. so the bad reputation of monpolies is unfairly blamed on capitalism when it's actually due to lack of capitalism (due to government actions).
capitalism is what you get when you apply freedom to economics. if you have a criticism of freedom, or an explanation of how capitalism diverges from freedom, that would be an example of a way to argue with Rand and argue with others like Mises or myself.
freedom is connected to reason, because you need to be free to use your own mind to judge ideas and then act according to your own judgement. if you take freedom away from people, you're not letting them do their best to use rational thinking to run their lives. authorities controlling people's actions is an infallibilist approach, so it's incompatible with Popper's epistemology. Popper says (similarly to Rand) that we all may be mistaken so we shouldn't impose our ideas on others (it's OK to persuade them on a voluntary basis, but not to use violence which is the opposite of reason).
yeah Peterson didn't understand Rand's books. not even close. and he slanders the quality of her philosophy from a position of ignorance. he's missing out. so sad.
Peterson's comments, applied to FH, are so stupid.
Keating, Wynand and Dominique Francon are all **mixed** characters.
Roark and Toohey are the purest characters. They're both super interesting because *no characters like them exist in other books*. They're not generic heroes and villains, they're *unique* characters you've never seen before anywhere else.
Or look at the people who Roark doesn't do business with after he builds Heller's house. There's the one who hadn't even seen a photo of Roark's work, she just likes Tudor and wanted the same architect that Heller had. There's the one who wants the Georgia house from his youth, with electric lights designed to look like candles. There's the one who Roark persuades, but then he can't persuade the board of his company. And there's the major bank job that Roark turns down b/c they wanted to modify his plans. They're all different. Yet Peterson makes it sound like Rand only has 2 types of characters between all her books...
As to Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart spends most of the novel being in the wrong. And Hank Rearden has bad ideas about sanction, family and sex. And the bad guys are totally realistic – they aren't just like "I wanna be evil", they're just flawed people who do bad things as a result of having pretty normal flaws. And Robert Stadler is an interesting, mixed character too.
> yeah Peterson didn't understand Rand's books. not even close. and he slanders the quality of her philosophy from a position of ignorance. he's missing out. so sad.
A Pro working class socialist woman gave him those Rand Novels mixed with George Orwell and other books. Maybe if an Objectivist like you introduced those books to him he wouldn't have dismissed them like he did.
> Roark and Toohey are the purest characters. They're both super interesting because *no characters like them exist in other books*. They're not generic heroes and villains, they're *unique* characters you've never seen before anywhere else.
Yes, I have never seen anyone like Roark in Fiction.
> Or look at the people who Roark doesn't do business with after he builds Heller's house. There's the one who hadn't even seen a photo of Roark's work, she just likes Tudor and wanted the same architect that Heller had. There's the one who wants the Georgia house from his youth, with electric lights designed to look like candles. There's the one who Roark persuades, but then he can't persuade the board of his company. And there's the major bank job that Roark turns down b/c they wanted to modify his plans. They're all different. Yet Peterson makes it sound like Rand only has 2 types of characters between all her books...
His comments are similar to the ones on the internet. I have read many reviews with the same "Bad Philosopher" "Uni-dimensional characters" remark. He didn't try to criticize the consensus.
He likes Stefan Moleneux and has appeared many times on his show. Stefan should have explained Rand to him (I know Elliot Understands Rand better).
@Rand's heroic characters, the complaint that they all seem the same is a common one
Note I am not saying the below explains why Peterson would have the misunderstanding he does. I'm thinking more of regular people.
The basic idea is that all Rand's characters share some really distinct traits. And each trait is one which people regard as unusual/unrealistic by itself. And if you combine the traits into one character, it becomes enough to start to seem like a "type."
One trait is that Rand's heroes all take themselves really seriously. They think their life matters and don't self-deprecate at all.
Another trait of Rand's heroes is that they are all very confident in themselves and their abilities in at least some area of life.
Another trait of Rand's heroes is that they think ideas are important and talk about them at length.
There are substantive differences between the characters, but to perceive them requires an engagement with ideas. If "thinks ideas are important" stands out enough as a defining character trait to you -- and is maybe something that you only experience when watching a documentary describing a great thinker -- then you're not gonna be able to make the relevant distinctions.
> One trait is that Rand's heroes all take themselves really seriously. They think their life matters and don't self-deprecate at all.
Roark doesn't get angry. People consider getting pissed off while others don't value his/her work as taking things seriously. Roark seems calm all the time. He just does his thing without caring what opinions others have of him or his work.
#12790 Thank you. I am reading *The Goal* now and have gotten *The Choice* as well.
Since you have read them all, is there any specific book that is the most useful in the early phase as a startup builder, before one has a team of people (just two founders bootstrapping)?
Reading *The Goal* first is good. I particularly recommend the business novels and the order they were written is pretty good. *Critical Chain* deals with project management which is a huge deal in software in general, though less of an issue with two people.
I like *The Choice* but it's more of a philosophy book than a business book.
I have short summaries of Goldratt's best ideas for sale, as well as a bunch of videos:
(Due to multi-year, sustained harassment from David Deutsch and his fans, commenting here requires an account. Accounts are not publicly available. Discussion info.)
Messages (30 of 346) (Show All Comments)
rather than learn to pass tests, school children also have the option to learn to deal with the consequences of failing tests. some do this. e.g. they learn how to minimize and live with parental and school punishments for being a "poor student".
----
the reason rote learning appears to work, in some cases, is the child also does some non rote learning (it can be in his head while doing the rote learning, or at a different time). the rote part is sometimes useful – in which case it could be done voluntarily – and often a waste of time and distraction.
rote learning appearing to work is like induction appearing to work.
a person doing "induction" only learns because he also did something that was not induction, and that something else is where/how all the learning happened.
in the past when children were physically assaulted for failing tests, some children *still* learned to deal with the consequences of failing instead of learning the material. e.g. some children injured themselves at home, instead of studying, in order to be better prepared to tolerate being injured publicly by their teacher without crying in front of people.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/criticalrationalism/permalink/10155623539124904/
1. Definitions aren't just arbitrary -- definitions are summaries of *concepts*, which each have their own logic, consequences, problems, etc. [*]
So, if you tried switching to a different linguistic convention arbitrarily, it would cause problems: you'd be throwing away a concept that was doing something, explaining something, solving a problem, and replacing it with an arbitrary concept and expecting it to carry the same load.
It's the same as if you were to switch to flat earth theory. Suddenly, a bunch of existing explanations (about how planets move, and how seasons work, and so on) would stop working, and you'd have new problems to deal with (how come no one has fallen off the edge of the world, etc).
Popper challenges the classical philosophical definition of knowledge (saying it's not 'justified true belief'), and his conception of knowledge is something a bit closer to the layman commonsense view (which is admittedly mixed up with the classical definition, but it's something more like 'useful truth').
2. Why? What basis does he choose that "horn"? Criticism of the other horn.
JTB has various problems with it -- infinite regress, doesn't account for non-human carries of knowledge like books, leads to authoritarianism, etc. Popper's conception of knowledge solves many of those problems.
So the criterion is 'solves problems better'.
3. If you use the classical definition, that raises more problems. From logical like infinite regress, to substantial like authoritarianism. "Ideas have consequences" -- which definition you pick has an impact.
[*] At least in philosophy. This is more controversial if talking about mathematical statements.
So yes, in regard to (i), the traditional theory of knowledge must be dropped. The classical theory of knowledge is indeed not consistent with conjectural knowledge. (Which is okay, because it's false.)
I think what underlies this is a substantial question and not just playing with words.
Is biological evolution problem-solving? But isn't it automatic?
When something is automated, that means it's following some program that instructs the automation. When an automation appears to overcome a new problem, what's actually happening is that the solution already existed in the program. (I.e., the knowledge was already there in the program, which then instructed the behaviour to 'solve' the problem.)
The reason biological evolution isn't 'automatic problem-solving' is:
1. That would require the knowledge to get *from the problem* (something in the evolutionary environment), back into the thing evolving (genome).
This is the misconception that Popper called "instruction from without".
To take an exaggerated, Lamarckian example: it's the difference between a giraffe neck evolving by selection pressure of genes ('within'), and it evolving by the tree being too tall and thus causing the giraffe to develop a stretched neck (tree height and giraffe behaviour = 'without').
2. There is no guarantee that evolution will solve any given problem. It's random.
"Automatic problem-solving" only makes sense in a limited way (e.g. when speaking loosely -- for instance, if you were speaking of an email organiser as automatically solving your email problems). New knowledge can't come from without, so either the solution is already there in the automation program, or it's creative instead of automatic.
As for 'blind' evolution:
In our minds, we may not be aware of our creativity consciously. Something started the problem-solving process. Being unaware of it consciously doesn't mean it's automatic -- it can still be 'directed'; it just means that this direction is happening at a different level / we may not be aware of it.
Biological evolution is a little different, because it's not 'directed', it's random. So, calling it "problem solving" may be misleading.
Our knowledge, including our moral knowledge, has to grow over time or we'll have chronic unsolved problems. So then whatever moral ideas we adopt have to take the growth of knowledge into account. The growth of knowledge requires noticing problems with existing knowledge, proposing ways to improve that knowledge and criticising the proposals. (1) So our educational institutions should be good at conveying existing knowledge, including existing moral knowledge. (2) They should also be good at encouraging people to propose and criticise ideas.
Many of the people who are most zealous to destroy the institution of freedom of speech are people with a lot of education in schools and universities that are widely held to be the finest examples of their kind. So by the first standard schools are a wretched and dismal failure. By the same token, they are also a complete failure by the second standard. You should take a long hard look at whether you think institutions that have produced such terrible people are worthy of your support.
Note also that while you deny that there are moral codes that hold for long periods, you are advocating putting almost all children into the control of an institution that is not set up to be good at considering new ideas and responding to criticism. Schools can and do respond to criticism with force and threats.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15085693
Per capita spending on lotteries in Chicago's poorest neighborhoods is about ~$600 per year, of which the state of Illinois pays back about ~$100 to advertising agencies to continue to immiserate its own poor people, because if they don't constantly market the games sales go down.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267735/blacklist-america-and-white-supremacist-black-daniel-greenfield
Whether you can easily make your own examples is a good indication of whether you understand a concept well.
I am waiting for your podcast. When will it come up on Youtube?
FF, are you the guy posting racist stuff on my ask.fm? like:
> wtf!! You don't care if blackies, brownies and tiny eyes rule the world? We need to stop that. Colored people have low IQ. No offence intended, No Racism intended.
Usually the nonsense liberals spout is kind of cute, but in wartime their instinctive idiocy is life-threatening.
xkcd
https://m.xkcd.com/883/
https://m.xkcd.com/904/
https://m.xkcd.com/978/
https://m.xkcd.com/985/
https://m.xkcd.com/1014/
I have downloaded pirated copies of these FI books.. I am going to nibble some of the easy books now.
Beginning Of Infinity - David Deutsch
The Fabric of Reality
How To Make Girls Chase - Chase Amante
Henry Hazlitt Economics in One Lesson
History of Greece - William Godwin from Elliot
I Will Teach You To Be Rich
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels - Alex Epstein
The Myth of Mental Illness 2nd ed. Thomas Szasz - 1974 -
The Open Society and Its Enemies - Karl Popper
The Poverty of Historicism - Karl Popper
Aubrey de Grey - Ending Aging
Human Action - Treatise on economics
Anthem - Ayn Rand
Art of Fiction_ A Guide for Writers and Readers, The - Ayn Rand
Art of Nonfiction_ A Guide for Writers and Readers, The - Ayn Rand & Robert Mayhew
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand & Leonard Peikoff
Ayn Rand Lexicon_ Objectivism From a to Z, The - Ayn Rand & Harry Binswanger
Ayn Rand Reader - Ayn Rand & Gary Hull & Leonard Peikoff
Capitalism_ The Unknown Ideal - Ayn Rand & Nathaniel Branden & Alan Greenspan & Robert Hessen
Early Ayn Rand_ A Selection From Her Unpublished Fiction, The - Ayn Rand & Leonard Peikoff
For the New Intellectual_ The Philosophy of Ayn Rand - Ayn Rand
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology - Ayn Rand & Harry Binswanger
Journals of Ayn Rand - Ayn Rand & David Harriman & Leonard Peikoff
Philosophy Who Needs It - Ayn Rand & Leonard Peikoff
Return of the Primitive_ The Anti-Industrial Revolution - Ayn Rand & Peter Schwartz
Romantic Manifesto, The - Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead
The Virtue of Selfishness - A New Concept of Egoism, Ayn Rand & Nathaniel Branden
The Voice of Reason - Essays in Objectivist Thought
We the Living - Ayn Rand & Leonard (int) Peikoff
Rand's not like that at all. she argues that capitalism has raised the standard of living for everyone, and that exceptions to capitalism hurt people. for example, you bring up monopolies. Rand, economist Ludwig von Mises, and others point out that it's the government which creates monopolies by using force to suppress competition. that's where the cable monopoly, the post office monopoly, and others come from. recently in the US, the government prosecuted Apple for selling ebooks when Amazon has by far the most sales, so the government was suppressing competition and helping Amazon get closer to a monopoly. so the bad reputation of monpolies is unfairly blamed on capitalism when it's actually due to lack of capitalism (due to government actions).
capitalism is what you get when you apply freedom to economics. if you have a criticism of freedom, or an explanation of how capitalism diverges from freedom, that would be an example of a way to argue with Rand and argue with others like Mises or myself.
freedom is connected to reason, because you need to be free to use your own mind to judge ideas and then act according to your own judgement. if you take freedom away from people, you're not letting them do their best to use rational thinking to run their lives. authorities controlling people's actions is an infallibilist approach, so it's incompatible with Popper's epistemology. Popper says (similarly to Rand) that we all may be mistaken so we shouldn't impose our ideas on others (it's OK to persuade them on a voluntary basis, but not to use violence which is the opposite of reason).
Jordan Peterson's Comments on Ayn Rand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofVqp-RMDpE
yeah Peterson didn't understand Rand's books. not even close. and he slanders the quality of her philosophy from a position of ignorance. he's missing out. so sad.
Peterson's comments, applied to FH, are so stupid.
Keating, Wynand and Dominique Francon are all **mixed** characters.
Roark and Toohey are the purest characters. They're both super interesting because *no characters like them exist in other books*. They're not generic heroes and villains, they're *unique* characters you've never seen before anywhere else.
Or look at the people who Roark doesn't do business with after he builds Heller's house. There's the one who hadn't even seen a photo of Roark's work, she just likes Tudor and wanted the same architect that Heller had. There's the one who wants the Georgia house from his youth, with electric lights designed to look like candles. There's the one who Roark persuades, but then he can't persuade the board of his company. And there's the major bank job that Roark turns down b/c they wanted to modify his plans. They're all different. Yet Peterson makes it sound like Rand only has 2 types of characters between all her books...
As to Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart spends most of the novel being in the wrong. And Hank Rearden has bad ideas about sanction, family and sex. And the bad guys are totally realistic – they aren't just like "I wanna be evil", they're just flawed people who do bad things as a result of having pretty normal flaws. And Robert Stadler is an interesting, mixed character too.
> yeah Peterson didn't understand Rand's books. not even close. and he slanders the quality of her philosophy from a position of ignorance. he's missing out. so sad.
A Pro working class socialist woman gave him those Rand Novels mixed with George Orwell and other books. Maybe if an Objectivist like you introduced those books to him he wouldn't have dismissed them like he did.
> Roark and Toohey are the purest characters. They're both super interesting because *no characters like them exist in other books*. They're not generic heroes and villains, they're *unique* characters you've never seen before anywhere else.
Yes, I have never seen anyone like Roark in Fiction.
> Or look at the people who Roark doesn't do business with after he builds Heller's house. There's the one who hadn't even seen a photo of Roark's work, she just likes Tudor and wanted the same architect that Heller had. There's the one who wants the Georgia house from his youth, with electric lights designed to look like candles. There's the one who Roark persuades, but then he can't persuade the board of his company. And there's the major bank job that Roark turns down b/c they wanted to modify his plans. They're all different. Yet Peterson makes it sound like Rand only has 2 types of characters between all her books...
His comments are similar to the ones on the internet. I have read many reviews with the same "Bad Philosopher" "Uni-dimensional characters" remark. He didn't try to criticize the consensus.
He likes Stefan Moleneux and has appeared many times on his show. Stefan should have explained Rand to him (I know Elliot Understands Rand better).
@Rand's heroic characters, the complaint that they all seem the same is a common one
Note I am not saying the below explains why Peterson would have the misunderstanding he does. I'm thinking more of regular people.
The basic idea is that all Rand's characters share some really distinct traits. And each trait is one which people regard as unusual/unrealistic by itself. And if you combine the traits into one character, it becomes enough to start to seem like a "type."
One trait is that Rand's heroes all take themselves really seriously. They think their life matters and don't self-deprecate at all.
Another trait of Rand's heroes is that they are all very confident in themselves and their abilities in at least some area of life.
Another trait of Rand's heroes is that they think ideas are important and talk about them at length.
There are substantive differences between the characters, but to perceive them requires an engagement with ideas. If "thinks ideas are important" stands out enough as a defining character trait to you -- and is maybe something that you only experience when watching a documentary describing a great thinker -- then you're not gonna be able to make the relevant distinctions.
> One trait is that Rand's heroes all take themselves really seriously. They think their life matters and don't self-deprecate at all.
Is self-deprecation bad? Leftists promote that a lot.
> One trait is that Rand's heroes all take themselves really seriously. They think their life matters and don't self-deprecate at all.
Roark doesn't get angry. People consider getting pissed off while others don't value his/her work as taking things seriously. Roark seems calm all the time. He just does his thing without caring what opinions others have of him or his work.
I just downloaded a pirated copy of Dictator's Handbook.
http://fallibleideas.com design updated
What are some good ideas regarding building a business from the ground and up i.e. startup ideas? Primarily in the tech field.
#12788 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliyahu_M._Goldratt#Bibliography
#12790 Thank you. I am reading *The Goal* now and have gotten *The Choice* as well.
Since you have read them all, is there any specific book that is the most useful in the early phase as a startup builder, before one has a team of people (just two founders bootstrapping)?
Reading *The Goal* first is good. I particularly recommend the business novels and the order they were written is pretty good. *Critical Chain* deals with project management which is a huge deal in software in general, though less of an issue with two people.
I like *The Choice* but it's more of a philosophy book than a business book.
I have short summaries of Goldratt's best ideas for sale, as well as a bunch of videos:
https://gumroad.com/l/TpyYV
Reading the summary material first would give an overview and would let you then look for examples and details of each idea as you read the books.
There's also this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business/dp/0988262592
Upsides: focused more on tech startups, has some of goldratt's ideas
Downsides: has non-goldratt ideas too, some of which are mediocre or even bad.
Also, follow patio11 on twitter.
#12829 Thank you, Elliot.