Nicholas Dykes is an Objectivist (Ayn Rand’s philosophy) who wrote material misrepresenting and attacking Karl Popper and his Critical Rationalism. He wrote A Tangled Web of Guesses: A Critical Assessment of the Philosophy of Karl Popper and Debunking Popper: A Critique of Karl Popper’s Critical Rationalism.

Dykes contacted me because of my writing about Objectivism (Charles Tew is an Objectivist, here’s the open letter referred to) combined with me disagreeing with Dykes about Popper. Below I’ve shared our discussion.

Hello,

My name is Nicholas Dykes, I live in Herefordshire, England.

A friend forwarded me your ‘open letter’ to Charles Tew, and its etceteras. In it, you seemed to state that critics of Karl Popper had relied on secondary sources and had failed to make a case against him. (Pardon me of I got that wrong, it was very hard to follow the sequence of the material.)

Having studied all Popper’s books, and written an extensive critique of his work based entirely on my reading of them, I would be very interested to learn if my criticisms were ill-founded.

You seem to believe that ‘intellectuals’ dislike criticism. I do not. It is just very hard to find critics who are not also partisans and hence not very, or not at all, objective. One leading British Popperian almost exploded into vituperation upon reading my essay “A tangled web of guesses: a critical examination of the philosophy of Karl Popper.”

My own work is readily available on Amazon at modest prices or, vis-a-vis Popper, can be downloaded free from my website: nicholasdykes.com

I would happily engage in a discussion – I have waited since 1996 for one – but privately, via email. I do not like discussing ideas on public forums, though I might have done in Athens c. 300 BC!

Best wishes,

Nicholas Dykes [March 2019]

Hi. Thanks for the interest. But my colleague already wrote criticism of your work on Popper. Rather than discuss, you said to him, "I do not consider it worthy of a reply.”

Then, rather than address the subject matter, you wrote a bunch of insults about his tone, style and quality (like "laughably, adopts a snooty, sneering, holier-than-thou tone”) without quoting the parts you found objectionable or giving substantive details about exactly what text was flawed in what way. Link:

https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2013/07/27/a-refutation-of-nicholas-dykes-on-karl-popper/

Since your approach to discussion seems to be to make comments like:

and

I have little hope for a productive discussion with you. But if you say that you’ve changed and want a serious, respectful, substantive discussion, you’re welcome to try again.

I think a good place to begin would be if you could write a short summary (maybe 3 paragraphs) of Popper’s solution to the problem of induction which I, as a Popperian, would agree with. That would impress me if you could do that successfully and could lead to productive discussion of your criticisms. And it would provide something to discuss, and shed light on our differences, if I do not agree with your summary. In the alternative, asking questions you have about CR would be fine. Or, in the alternative, you could change your mind and decide that Alan’s material, linked above, is worthy of a reply (just a reply to the first major error would be fine). Otherwise you could tell me what’s wrong with those approaches and suggest a specific way to begin discussion.

BTW you may be interested in my writing on how intellectuals are not really open to criticism or discussion, and how to do better. See this article as well as many more linked at the end:

https://rationalessays.com/using-intellectual-processes-to-combat-bias

---

How's this for starters? There is no 'problem of induction'. Hume, followed by Popper, missed the point. As H.W.B. Joseph pointed out in 1916, Hume's argument 'is in flat contradiction with the Law of Identity.' If Joseph was wrong, please tell me why. This point was elaborated in my 'Tangled Web' essay. Have you read it? Cordially, ND [March 2019]

I read one of your Popper papers years ago and had a similar reaction to Alan’s reaction.

Note that Ayn Rand believed there was at least one major problem with induction (and that she didn’t know the solution). ITOE:

But the problems with induction are harder than this. One is: what distinguishes “confirming evidence for X” from “evidence which doesn’t contradict X”?

Anyway, the CR view is that no one has ever learned a single thing by induction. You believe otherwise. Can you give a real life example of something learned by induction? This will also require specifying what you mean by induction more specifically than "By opening our eyes, ridding ourselves of preconceptions, and engaging in a process of elimination, we can discover the identities of the entities we observe.” I’m especially interested in what the process of elimination entails and how it differs from Popper’s error elimination by critical discussion and empirical falsification.

Regarding Joseph’s argument, there’s no dispute (from me at least, I don’t care about Hume) that objects have an identify in fact, in truth, in reality. The issue is how people learn about objects. In particular, observing that object X behaves in Y manner in context Z, whether it’s observed once or a million times, does not logically imply that object X always behaves in Y manner in context Z. Further, if you observe “X happened then Y happened in context Z” (once or a million times) it doesn’t tell you whether X causes Y in context Z. A defense of induction needs to address problems like this in detail. How do you get from observations to knowing identities or causes?

Also in Tangled Web you seem to confuse fallibilism and falsifiability (see the section titled "Fallibilism as a Criterion of Demarcation”, but Popper’s criterion was empirical falsifiability and you immediately quote someone mentioning falsifiability not fallibilism). (Empirical) falsifiability means that something could be contradicted by a basic observation. Ayn Rand was a fallibilist, which means: omniscience is not the standard of knowledge, humans can make mistakes and there is nothing anyone can do to get a 100% guarantee against having made a mistake.

---

Thank you. That was much more the sort of response I was hoping for.

I should perhaps have contacted you a bit later on. [Personal remarks about being old and busy.]

We 'never learned anything from induction'. Oh. What about human reproduction? I'm not a biologist or any other type of scientist, but I think anybody would be correct in saying that a human male sperm cell and a human female ovum, when conjoined, result in a human foetus. I assume this was discovered by observation, after the invention of microscopes. I therefore take the above to be a fact, learned inductively. Do you dispute this? [March 2019]

I will still be interested in these topics next month or next year. You can respond whenever you want, to fit your schedule, and it won’t affect what I have to say.

I agree that we have knowledge about sperm and egg cells and reproduction. I agree we learned that knowledge somehow. I agree it’s real, genuine, legitimate knowledge (it’s also fallible). I agree observation was involved in the learning process in some way.

How could we tell if induction was used? One option would be to figure out how specific individuals learned about this topic (study the history of science) and see what they did and compare it to a detailed statement of the inductive method. Another productive option would be to argue, on principle, using logic, about what methods of learning can possibly work or not, which would tell us about what the scientists could or could not have done in order to succeed.

CR says observation doesn’t guide us (we guide ourselves), but observations are valuable. We can use observations in a critical role to help eliminate errors (if something contradicts observation, reject it as an error). CR also allows observations to be used in an informal inspirational role – conjectures can be formed by any means people want to try – dream analysis, following their unquestioned intuitions about which patterns in observation data are important, or anything else. This is OK because the rigor in the CR process, which gets knowledge instead of arbitrary junk, is in the “refutations” part, not in the “conjectures” (brainstorming) part. This process is literally an instance of evolution (replication with variation and selection) and works for the same reasons that genetic evolution works. Note that in genetic evolution the mutations (brainstorming) are random (not intelligently chosen, and the majority of new mutations are errors), and the process works anyway. The selection (error elimination) part is what differentiates between good or bad mutations/ideas.

So far I don’t see anything in this example about human reproduction which contradicts CR. I also don’t see anything in the example which contradicts induction. I don’t find the example revealing. Having more detail about what the scientists did might contradict an epistemology, but CR doesn’t focus on that. CR’s case against induction is more focused on logical arguments and on asking for exacting detail about how induction works (like some of the questions I raised in my previous email, plus then many followup questions).

---

Hi Elliot, nearly finished [personal stuff he was busy with].

You say Rand was a fallibilist. Can you substantiate that, or at least elaborate a bit? Saying she was not omniscient, nor considered herself to be, does not say very much. A rational person would not hold such a view of themselves, and her astute perception that concepts are open-ended proves that she didn't.

The open-ended conception also answers the query 'where is the cut off point in observation?' There may never be one. So what?! That new discoveries may alter previous knowledge does not ~invalidate~ previous knowledge. It merely expands it.

Popper and his followers have always seemed to me to be creating a great big fuss over the obvious, yet in so doing lending support to scepticism. To which position the equally obvious answer is: can a girl be a little bit pregnant? A is A, not 'perhaps'.

Hwyl fawr! ND [April 2019]

ItOE:

Galt’s speech:

These quotes are in agreement with CR and also directly say “Man is [not] infallible” and "your mind is fallible”.

---

The open-ended conception also answers the query 'where is the cut off point in observation?' There may never be one. So what?! That new discoveries may alter previous knowledge does not ~invalidate~ previous knowledge. It merely expands it.

I agree with that general sentiment. But that doesn’t address the problem of a cut off point for when to reach a conclusion, make a decision, or take an action (rather than consider the issue more, right now). We should keep learning more in general. We also need to judge new ideas and differentiate when they should be used or are not yet ready for use. That’s the problem Rand was talking about in the quote about induction.

Popper and his followers have always seemed to me to be creating a great big fuss over the obvious, yet in so doing lending support to scepticism. To which position the equally obvious answer is: can a girl be a little bit pregnant? A is A, not 'perhaps’.

That induction is a myth (doesn’t work at all), and the alternative of an evolutionary epistemology, are denied by virtually everyone. So those merit a fuss. I’m happy to debate the technical details of this matter but have had difficulty finding inductivists who wish to.

The fallibilist and CR view that there is a third way which is neither skepticism nor a 100% guarantee against error is shared by Objectivism, but caused a fuss because many philosophers oppose it. The “justified, true belief” conception of knowledge is infallibilist (due to the requirement that an idea be “true” to qualify as knowledge) and created a false alternative between infallibilism and skepticism.

CR and Objectivism may be in agreement about the progressive and contextual nature of man’s knowledge, but most other philosophers don’t understand that, which leads to fuss.

CR, like Objectivism, has also been attacked for providing a third way between the false dichotomy of empiricism and rationalism. So again the bad ideas of other philosophers created a fuss.

BTW I wrote some summary of Objectivist epistemology, CR and their overlap. Each point could be elaborated with quotes if needed. http://curi.us/1579-objectivist-and-popperian-epistemology

---

Hello Elliot,

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you, many other matters intervened.

When we last corresponded you said Rand was a fallibilist, although I forget how you worded it precisely.

I would be grateful if you could outline your reasons for that judgment.

Thanks in advance.

Nicholas [Dec 2019]

[As a response, I forwarded him my previous email.]

---

Many thanks. I’ll get back to you. Hopefully without such a long delay. BTW, the ‘other matter’ was [personal stuff]. Best, N [Dec 2019]

[I didn’t respond.]

---

Hello Elliot,

I was just about to let you know that [busy with personal stuff]. Then I thought I'd first review where we were. In the course of so doing, I came across this August 18 post from you on a Popper website:

“Dykes emailed me privately around 5 months ago about CR. He didn’t want to have a public discussion, but he claimed to really want a private discussion. Shortly after praising one of my emails for being the sort of response he was hoping for, he stopped responding to the discussion that he had initiated. He sent a total of 4 emails. None of them contained substantive writing about epistemology (I did write substantive comments and also provided Rand quotes that he requested because, apparently, he was inadequately familiar with Rand to know her material offhand). And he was unwilling or unable to write a ~3 paragraph statement of Popper’s solution to the problem of induction that a Popperian would agree with (he didn’t try and ignored the request). All of this is typical, not atypical, of “intellectuals”.

I was disappointed, but your post did reveal some things about you. I noticed immediately of course that you did not inform your readers of my message to you on March 21: “I should perhaps have contacted you a bit later on. [Personal remarks about being old and busy.]” Neither did you tell them of your reply to me the same day: “I will still be interested in these topics next month or next year. You can respond whenever you want, to fit your schedule.”

To begin with, for the record, I did not 'claim to really want', that is simply not true. Nor does saying 'more what I had hoped for' constitute praise. Further, I do not understand why you think the two quotes from Rand you sent – which I did not request – provide evidence that she was a 'fallibilist' as you claim, a term loaded with other connotations. They merely show that she was a rational thinker who accepted that our knowledge is continually expanding hence we can never be omniscient. Nor do I understand why – when I had been at pains to present Popper's ideas fairly in my essays, using his own words – you should imagine that I, pressed for time as I was, would want to provide you with a synopsis.

I'm glad you like Rand and give her credit, I've been doing so since 1963. Also, I agree that there are indeed a few loose parallels between her thought and Popper's. However, lumping her together with an avowed Kantian like Popper, to the extent that you have, seems odd to say the least. It would almost be comical, except for the fact that Kant's thinking led eventually to the slaughter of some 100 million people. Although I think her comment was unfair – Kant's successors were equally at fault – it is easy enough to see why she wrote: “Kant is the most evil man in mankind's history.” (The Objectivist, September, 1971, quoted in Binswanger's Lexicon).

If you were feeling impatient on August 18 – I can hardly blame you if you were – why did you not contact me, instead of breaking what I thought was our agreement to have a private discussion? Instead, you indulged in an unbecoming and untruthful bout of public sneering, hardly the way to persuade me or anybody else. Though it was comical, Molière would have loved it.

What did your August 18 post reveal? That you lack good manners. It also made me wonder about your trustworthiness, as well as some other traits of yours, and thus whether you were the sort of person I want to correspond with. I don't. So, goodbye, Elliot.

Nicholas [Dec 2019]

[I didn’t respond.]

---

So Dykes complained that I didn’t give him credit for arguments he planned to make in the future … in the same email where he announced he’s never going to make them. I continue to await arguments from Dykes or anyone else.

I never said a word agreeing to keep Dykes’ emails private. I can’t have broken an agreement I never made. I don’t know why he sent personal info to a stranger on the internet who disagrees with him and wrote an adversarial initial reply, but I’ve omitted those parts because they’re irrelevant. I think it’s actually his comments about philosophy he wants private, but I disagree, especially considering he’s a public figure who wrote articles trashing Popper.

Popper isn’t an avowed Kantian.

Dykes did request info re Rand on fallibilism, as you can see above. It’s odd that he’s lying about that. Seems like he doesn’t want to count the quotes as relevant despite Rand making statements like “Man is [not] infallible” and "your mind is fallible”.

Thread for posting quotes of me that you like!

Deflation: When Austrians Become Interventionists by Philipp Bagus criticizes George Reisman and five other Austrian economists regarding their views on deflation. This post will respond to the criticism of Reisman. My goal here is just to point out a few errors, not to discuss Bagus' overall view of deflation. All italics in quotes are my emphasis.

Yet, Reisman’s plan of monetary reform is not the direct abolition of government interventions into the monetary system, which would bring about deflation, but it is a new intervention, guaranteeing the results of past interventions. He proposes a new government intervention into the economic system, i.e., according to his own standards, a violation of freedom, in order to bail out the unsound banking system.

In Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics, Reisman explained why the results of past interventions and injustices should be guaranteed and left alone, in general, after a time limit passes. Property rights must be made secure, as quickly as possible, so that people are in a position to work to improve their property and to plan for the future.

If claims about past injustices can result in new redistributions of property, then my property isn’t secure. Whatever I think I own, I can’t count on it.

Reisman explains this regarding land reform and it applies to all types of property:

The issue also comes up in the section From Socialism to Capitalism: How to Privatize Communist Countries:

Let’s move on to a second point by Bagus:

At one point, [Reisman] stresses the practical difficulties of mass bankruptcies during a deflation:

[M]ass bankruptcies, which, given the inability of today's judicial system to keep pace even with its current case load, would probably take a decade or more to get sorted out. That would mean that in the interval the economy would be largely paralyzed, because no one would know just who owned what. (1996, p. 961)

The ability of the present-day judicial system to handle cases of mass bankruptcy is not, of course, a theoretical argument against deflation. For Reisman's argument deals with the practical difficulties a severe deflation might have to face in today's judicial system. Yet there is no theoretical reason why there could not be a judicial system that could settle the lawsuits quickly. But let us deal with this practical argument.

The quote starts mid paragraph, leaving out a sentence by Reisman which reads:

Bagus agrees with Reisman that that's reprehensible. Omitting that part of Reisman's view was misleading. Bagus presents Reisman as defending inflation using a weak argument (a mere practical point rather than a theoretical argument). But Reisman wasn't trying to defend inflation, he was just bringing up an important practical consideration about not destroying civilization.

Bagus continues:

It must be stressed that an increased demand for judicial services on the free market brings about an increased supply of those services. Yet, Reisman could contend that we face a government monopoly of judicial services. However, politicians would likely come up with emergency measures if deflation caused bankruptcies which overstrained the judicial system.[35] For politicians are eager to search and find problems they can fix. Also the judicial system itself could come up with solutions for this problem.

The basic theme of Bagus’ article is that six Austrian economics aren’t, in his opinion, radical enough, not even Rothbard. Bagus wants full 100% capitalism and freedom no matter what. I read him as such an anti-government libertarian that I think he’s an anarchist. With that context in mind:

Why is Bagus expressing his confidence in the government to come up with some emergency measures to fix a problem? Why does he think this is something politicians can fix effectively? I don’t get it. Here Bagus is objecting from a perspective of trusting government competence much more than Reisman does, contrary to the general themes of Bagus’ other comments.

Bagus provides no arguments about why government would be able to succeed at improving the judicial system. We've seen historically that the importance or urgency of an issue, such as war, education or healthcare, does not automatically make governments wise or competent.

Of course some entrepreneurs can have difficulties in the sense, that other entrepreneurs who anticipated the price drop and held their money back, can bid resources away from them. Entrepreneurs who anticipate price changes can always profit relative to the entrepreneurs who did not anticipate them.

Is the job of the entrepreneur to anticipate market conditions, anticipate government policies that affect market conditions, or both? Bagus seems to find it acceptable that businessmen lose money, including going bankrupt, for not anticipating new government policies that cause deflation.

I think a businessman's job should be focused on his industry, not on understanding politicians, lobbying for policies (being a cause of government policy makes it easier to anticipate), getting friends in high places to give him tips about the balance of power, etc. I want businessmen to be separate from government. See Atlas Shrugged for further discussion of political pull – it was men like James Taggart, not Hank Rearden, who were better able to anticipate new government policies.

This is an answer to Name That Trait which asks what trait differentiates humans from animals. The named trait should justify vegan-objectionable activities such as slaughtering animals for food.

Short answer: the trait is being a universal knowledge creator. This answer relies on lots of non-standard background knowledge such as The Beginning of Infinity.

This post gives a different argument which I think is easier to understand with less background knowledge. It will still require going over some background.

The Problem of Design

An important problem in the history of philosophy is the problem of design, famously argued by William Paley. It says some objects (such as an animal or pocket watch) have the appearance of design which requires explanation. Paley’s explanation was that a pocket watch has an intelligent, human designer, and animals were designed by God.

Plants, animals and pocket watches have the appearance of design. They’re complex. Stones, crystals, dirt and stars don’t. This is a big difference. Stones and stars are worth explaining in terms of fundamental physics like the big bang, but plants merit additional explanation. Plants e.g. have chloroplasts which do photosynthesis, which are nothing like rocks and wouldn’t be created randomly or purposelessly.

The above is widely accepted. What’s not widely known is that “appearance of design” is knowledge. Knowledge is information adapted to a purpose.

The underlying problem is how knowledge can be created starting with non-knowledge. Where can new knowledge come from? How can it originate?

This is a hard problem and not many answers have been proposed. The bad answers include magic, knowledge is just created sometimes out of thin air, and designers. Saying that a designer created the knowledge doesn’t explain how the designer created the knowledge (using intelligence – but how does intelligence work?), nor where that designer’s intelligence came from. If you say knowledge comes from God who already has tons of knowledge, then where did God come from?

A single good answer has been developed. It’s the only known answer that makes much sense. It’s the theory of evolution. Replication with variation and selection is able to adapt information to a purpose and thereby create new knowledge. The appearance of design, in plants and animals, was created by evolution.

Where did eyes come from? Evolution. Why does a rabbit run away from danger? It evolved to do that. Why are trees structured in an organized way with the leaves on top where they can better receive light? Because that structure has better survival and replication value for trees (survival and replication value is the short answer for what biological evolution selects for). Etc. This is widely accepted.

With this background in mind:

Intelligence

How does intelligence work and create new knowledge? I believe intelligence works by evolution, literally, not as an analogy. (Seriously I find that 90% of people assume I mean an analogy even though I just told them I didn’t.) This is not a mainstream view. It’s been developed by Critical Rationalist philosophers, especially David Deutsch.

Biological evolution does replication with variation and selection of genes. Intellectual evolution does replication with variation and selection of ideas. Genes and ideas are both things which it’s possible to make copies of – replicators – so evolution applies to them.

FYI, the view that evolution applies to replicators is a fairly standard view in the field even though most of the public is ignorant of it. It’s held by e.g. Richard Dawkins and is why he developed the idea of a “meme” (which means an idea that replicates). A meme plays the role in the evolution of ideas that a gene plays in the evolution of plants and animals.

Name That Trait

Lots of animal behavior has the appearance of design (or the appearance of intelligence or purposefulness). This indicates knowledge is involved. I think that knowledge comes from the animal’s genes and was created by biological evolution. I think it’s this appearance of intelligent behavior that is the primary reason people (correctly) differentiate animals from rocks.

Human behavior also has the appearance of design, so what’s the difference? Humans create new knowledge that isn’t in their genes. Instead of relying only on biological evolution for knowledge, humans do intelligent evolution of ideas within their minds. This is a capacity that no animal has and explains why only humans were able to invent philosophy and science.

When an animal does intelligent-appearing behavior, the designer was biological evolution. When a human does intelligent-appearing behavior, the designer is usually a human being who created ideas using mental evolution of ideas.

Animals have one source of knowlege: genetic evolution. Humans have two sources of knowledge: genetic and memetic evolution.

People commonly assume that the appearance of design in animal behavior is an indicator of intelligence, while the appearance of design in an animal’s eyes and claws is not. The primary mechanism by which genes control animal behavior is through creating the animal’s brain according to a design detailed in the animal’s genes. The animal brain is a computer which the genes build and configure with behavioral algorithms. Humans work differently because they’re capable of doing evolution within their minds to create new algorithms, new behaviors, new ideas. etc.

Getting from these claims to a full case against animal welfare or rights requires additional arguments. I won’t detail them here but see this post for some explanation. The basic issue is that animals aren’t differentiated from rocks in a relevant way because genes (which are where the knowledge is) are not conscious and can’t suffer (like rocks), and animals behave according to algorithms in conceptually the same way as a robot like a self-driving car.

For more info, see e.g. Evolution and Knowledge, Evolution, and the books of David Deutsch and Richard Dawkins.

curi: The trait that differentiates humans from non-human animals, in a veganism-relevant way, is (general, universal) intelligence, which is the ability to learn (aka create knowledge), which is the ability to do evolution of ideas within one's mind.

This is a binary trait, not a matter of degree.

This is not a complete explanation, e.g. it doesn't say how that trait relates to other issues vegans may bring up like consciousness or suffering.

Vegans: What about mentally handicapped people. If they have less intellectual capacity than a cow, is it OK to kill them?

curi: Yes, in principle. They're (by premise) on the wrong side of the intelligence/non-intelligence asymmetry.

However, we should begin our discussion with cases which are easier to understand and potentially agree about, not hard cases or edge cases. If you understand and agree with my way of differentiating most humans from cows, then it'd make sense to discuss edge cases in detail.

Vegans: How do you tell if a normal person or cow is intelligent?

curi: Primarily behavior: people have intelligent conversations, write blog posts demonstrating that they understand TV show plots, act according to learned jobs skills, develop new science, etc. That is best explained by knowledge the person created in his mind rather than by genetic knowledge. Animals behave in simplistic, algorithmic ways which are best explained by the knowledge in their genes.

I think careful analysis of animal behavior, and trying to differentiate it from the capabilities of stuff like video game enemies and self-driving cars, is one of the more productive ways to continue this discussion. People have strong intuitions that animals are somewhat intelligent and are clearly different, in terms of intelligence, than current robots and "AI" software algorithms. Relatedly, people believe intelligence is a matter of degree. Looking at rigorous information of animal behavior, from scientists, and carefully considering the simplest ways it could be achieved, can be informative.

This post assumes familiarity with David Deutsch's (DD) original idea of static and rational memes in The Beginning of Infinity (BoI). (Summary.)

DD's theory says there are two types of memes with two different replication strategies. Static memes replicate by suppressing criticism of themselves (and sometimes also of other ideas). Rational memes replicate by being useful.

I propose instead that there are three types of memes.

• Rational, useful memes.
• Static memes that suppress criticism and creativity.
• Static companion memes that do not suppress creativity or criticism themselves but are adapted to replicate in an environment where they are suppressed.

The additional category is a companion meme which requires criticism suppression but relies on other (static) memes doing it.

I think static companion memes have a variety of replication strategies rather than being defined by one. One possibility is being highly adapted to appear useful to people who aren't critically thinking.

In a fully static society, not all memes have to follow the replication strategy of suppressing criticism of themselves. The reason is the reach of knowledge (another concept explained in BoI). Some static memes do (partially or fully) general purpose criticism suppression rather than only suppressing criticism of themselves.

I think there is basically a core of some powerful static memes which are very effective at suppressing criticism in general. Once those exist, other memes don't need to suppress criticism of themselves because criticism isn't happening anyway. So they can evolve to compete for replication bandwidth in other ways.

A further complication, which blurs the categorization of memes into two or three types, is that ideas can be like code libraries from programming which provide callable APIs. In order to suppress criticism of itself, idea B can call a library function provided by idea A. However, if the host has idea B without having idea A, then that function call doesn't work and B fails to suppress criticism of itself. In this case, much of the knowledge of criticism suppression is outsourced, however idea B is able to actively suppress criticism of itself in the right environment.

Another complication is that there need not be a black and white dividing line between static memes and static companion memes. A meme can do some of each: it can be adapted partly to suppress criticism and partly adapted to do something else (such as appearing useful or good to non-critical thinkers). I'd guess that many memes are mixed because the core of criticism suppressing memes remove some but not all of the selection pressure on other memes to optimize for criticism suppression. That allows them to adapt for other purposes too, and some may entirely lose their criticism suppression. This other adaptation would be to better compete with other memes for replication bandwidth in a static society environment. Once criticism is largely suppressed, the amount the typical meme replicates won't have much to do with how well that memes suppresses criticism.

---

Update:

Memes replicate in two different ways. Within a mind and between minds.

Memes must replicate between minds to last over time.

Critical Rationalism says we learn by doing evolution of ideas within our mind.

Do static memes replicate within a mind? That sounds potentially bad because they'd make progress and change, not stay static. But it depends on what selection pressure they're being exposed to. If a static meme could control the selection then it could use within-mind replication to get more optimized. This would be different than suppressing criticism (DD's idea of static memes). It'd be changing the nature of the criticism instead.

If static memes simply suppress criticism, they can't get more adapted by within-mind evolution. But if they could instead control the types of criticism, then they can benefit from within-mind evolution.

So I'm thinking static memes do within-mind evolution in some cases while keeping control over the selection (criticism). I think that's a significant way static meme theory is incorrect.

This is a discussion topic for Freeze. Other people are welcome to make comments. Freeze has agreed not to post under other names in this topic.

This is a critical response to Alexander Tabarrok regarding his debate with George Reisman regarding the merits of Reisman’s book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. As context: it’s an internal debate between Austrian economists from 1997-8, and Reisman is an Objectivist as well.

The debate began with Review of Capitalism: A Complete and Integrated Understanding of the Nature and Value of Human Economic Life. It’s a critical, negative review by Tabarrok (who denies it’s negative because he praised some ideas, but he also claimed e.g. that one of Reisman’s main themes throughout the book is “fundamentally misguided”).

Reisman replied in Reisman on Capitalism. I regard this article as refuting Tabarrok's review. Reisman's concluding paragraph summarizes:

In this response, I have dealt with five instances of misrepresentation in the review: its claim that I ignore the essential theme of support for businessmen and capitalists, its misrepresentation of my use of classical economics' concept of demand and supply, its distortion of my definition of economics, its misrepresentation of my views on time preference as a determinant of the rate of profit and interest, and finally, its denial of my contributions to aggregate economic accounting and "macroeconomics." These five instances are merely a good sample. [...]

Tabarrok replied briefly in Response to Reisman on Capitalism. That concludes the original debate.

I’ll now respond by pointing out major errors in Tabarrok’s response, thereby vindicating Reisman’s response and his Capitalism. Here’s Tabarrok’s first paragraph:

Reisman's Capitalism is longer than either Mises's Human Action or Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State. It thus seems unreasonable to object to my review because it ignores major portions of his work. Reisman's other objections are similarly weak.

Reisman didn’t make that objection. Rather than criticizing Tabarrok for ignoring (omitting) some topics in the original review, Reisman criticized Tabarrok for misrepresentation. Tabarrok didn’t just fail to discuss some parts of the book; he made incorrect claims about the contents of the book.

Tabarrok repeats one of his misrepresentations in his next sentence:

Capitalism has surprisingly little to say on entrepreneurship or other typically Austrian and Objectivist themes.

Tabarrok made that claim in his first review, too. The problems are that it’s incorrect and that Reisman already refuted it in his response. Nevertheless, Tabarrok repeats the point without engaging with Reisman’s arguments.

Tabarrok’s original argument was that “there is no index entry for entrepreneurship”, plus he didn’t find those themes when reading Capitalism. It’s true that Reisman didn’t say much about the word “entrepreneurship”, but that’s because he used synonyms. He used the words “businessmen” and “businessman” a combined 678 times, and he talked extensively about capitalists. Reisman had already informed Tabarrok of this, but somehow Tabarrok didn’t reconsider.

To show Reisman really did cover this theme, I’ll list some of the section titles found in the table of contents of Capitalism. I think they're adequate to make the point, but if you have doubts about which side of this debate is correct, read some of these sections and see for yourself.

---

• The Benefit from Geniuses

• The General Benefit from Reducing Taxes on the “Rich”

• The Pyramid-of-Ability Principle

• Productive Activity and Moneymaking

• The Productive Role Of Businessmen And Capitalists

  • 1. The Productive Functions of Businessmen and Capitalists
    • Creation of Division of Labor
    • Coordination of the Division of Labor
    • Improvements in the Efficiency of the Division of Labor
  • 2. The Productive Role of Financial Markets and Financial Institutions
    • The Specific Productive Role of the Stock Market
  • 3. The Productive Role of Retailing and Wholesaling
  • 4. The Productive Role of Advertising

• Smith’s Failure to See the Productive Role of Businessmen and Capitalists and of the Private Ownership of Land

• A Rebuttal to Smith and Marx Based on Classical Economics: Profits, Not Wages, as the Original and Primary Form of Income

• Further Rebuttal: Profits Attributable to the Labor of Businessmen and Capitalists Despite Their Variation With the Size of the Capital Invested

• The “Macroeconomic” Dependence of the Consumers on Business

---

My conclusions are that Tabarrok is mistaken, that Reisman’s Capitalism is a great book, and that no major criticisms of Capitalism exist.

Reisman may be mistaken, as every author may be, but no one has discovered Reisman’s errors and written down explanations of them. Along with the writings of his teacher, Ludwig von Mises, Reisman’s Capitalism constitutes some of the best existing economics knowledge.

See also my Review of Kirzner Reviewing Reisman and Criticism of Bagus Criticizing Reisman on Deflation.