On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:
[straight lines, metaphysics...]
That's all very interesting, and I have nothing to disagree on. But as it pertains to Hoppe's speech, I've already said he was merely using simple examples to illustrate the absurdity of using empiricism in the study of man, as he sees it. If Hoppe were shown that they're bad examples to use, he would care no more than I do, apologize, and just use another agreeable analogy. It interferes in nothing with the main premises of praxeology...
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:
On to "If A is a part of B and B is a part of C then A is a part of C also". This is true if you accept that group theory is the only way to look at entities. Since i am no math's major, i cannot give a counter example from the top of my head (at least non relating to the real world). Might try to find one until the end of the week though.
Are you looking to criticize group theory? That's cool.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2010 06:06 Yurebis wrote:On June 30 2010 02:10 jacen wrote:/edit2: another time reference to the videobecause saying some statement (or negating a statement) is ridiculous sure gives an huge amount of credibility. this type of reasoning led to fascism in germany. communist dictatorship in north korea. the war in irak (remember the wmd's?). What type of reasoning? A-priorism? Introspectionism? Both really. How do you think someone will believe in a-priorism and introspectionism if you cannot reproduce your findings. What value do these findings have other than saying "it was so back then, but noone can say how it will be for you or how it will be for me once i repeat it.". This leads to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introspection_illusion
That's certainly a problem. I'm not one to accept praxeology as the final theory of human action, but I consider most social sciences to be ridiculously flawed for now. When and if they're developed enough to not be so segregated, I'll accept them. Praxeology is pretty awesome for now.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:
As for A-Priorism, i use it every day ... well maybe not every day, but quite often since mathematics is based on it. Nonetheless i cannot state that, because i devise a mathematical model for a system that works under specific input parameters, that this model will work with all ranges of possible parameters.
For instance Newton's law of gravitation. It's fairly easy mathematically, but once you try to calculate anything out of a situation where you have 3 masses or more, you cannot deduce a definitive answer. This does niether falsify the law of gravitation (since it obviously works when we test it in controlled environments) nor the deduction that led to it. But it limit's it's ability to express everyday phenomena. No different than praxeology in that sense.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:
This is true for most laws encountered in physics. This is why we need experiments to verify that models are applicable even if they can't be analytically calculated (think about this sentence). And to the matters of man, why can't you experiment with yourself?
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2010 06:06 Yurebis wrote:
Austrians are very openly opposed to democracy. Democracy means x number of people can legally violate <x people's private property and self-ownership. That violation is no different than a monarchy or totalitarian state in type, even if it may come about more softly in its abuses due to the power diffusion. ".. even if it may come about more softly in its abuses due to the power diffusion." You are absolutly right. And i think (i'm technician not a social science guy hence take this with a grain of salt) that the more you diffuse power, the better off everyone will be. But also you limit progress. Since i cannot mathematically model this, i cannot propose wether progress will continue, halt or revert once power is distributed equally. Feel free to believe it does one of these 3 things, but please do not claim "it is so" before you can propose a mode that someone can replicate.
I shouldn't have used the word power. It's an ambiguous word. Power as I meant it doesn't signify "means". Money could be power, knowledge could be power in that sense. But I meant those means of physical power only, or coercive power, the ability to threaten people of physical aggression in order to shift their otherwise unhindered evaluations into doing what you want.
Progress isn't an objective term. People have different notions of progress. Killing all polar bears in the world could constitute progress to me. And even if you mean the popular notion of progress, like, building things, peace, blabla, the exact measures of what constitutes progress will still be off. Is painting your house white progress? Or is it baby blue? Buiding a new movie theater in your town, or somewhere else? Is buying a bag of doritos a day progress?
The diffusion of power in a direct democracy only means that citizens now have slightly bigger coercive power each, against everyone else, instead of it being only a king or despot. It's still bad for the individual who's being forced into doing that which he wouldn't do. You can call that progress if it serves your ends, but it sure doesn't serve mine, and I think people are just fooled into thinking it does, because it's "necessary"... "for our own good".
And most democracies in the world aren't direct of course... you only vote by proxy, which reduces the power diffusion anyway, back into a monopolistic, coercive organization.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2010 06:06 Yurebis wrote:On June 30 2010 02:10 jacen wrote:
if you hypothesize A -> B and you observe A -> C you did falsify A -> B.
but of course this does not mean A -> B can never occur. also does this not mean that A -> C will always be true. you just found out that A -> B is not always the case.# What Hoppe's saying is that in order for you to conclude that an occurance of A->C (but no B) can only falsify A->B if you also assume that A hasn't changed through time. Well then he did word it pretty bad. And even this is what he wanted to say, it's not true since influences of time are ... well, everywher to be found in physical models. One of the more diffucult topics are indeed systems where relations depend on the time and where the relation takes place. This is why general relativity is a fucking bitch to grasp and even harder to calculate/use. :/ But rest assured, it is possible to incorporate the changes over time once you modeled them. I agree that this is no easy task for the human central nervous system, but projects like the brain simulator in switzerland (is it in bern? i forgot) or jeff hawkins htm project linked earlier in this thread are ever so slowly getting there.
I linked it.
But it's still too young. And that's not the type of study Hoppe was fiercely against. It's psychology, sociology, mainstream economics, etc. that Austrians in general criticize.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2010 06:06 Yurebis wrote:On June 30 2010 02:10 jacen wrote:
funny thing is that after the example he de-couples the timeline entirely. the problem now is that you can't make predictions of you say things change over time without a way to incorporate this into a hypothetical model. and if you cannot make predictions ... i ask myself what is he doing all day long if someone can say that all his predictions are not going to become true. It's not that you can't make predictions, you can of course, even if you want to treat man like a rock, but he's saying that the predictions are never going to be 100% true when it comes to man, because the constant premise isn't ever true. Well the scientific method does not say models are "true". So it is also incorporating this uncertainty factor of our limited observation, intelligence, time and ressources. Like i said in the previous paragraph: neurology guys are currently developing models for our brain. These will not be 100% accurate, but if the model also describes it's scope, they will be fairly accurate in some time. You may be saying that conservatively, but the government coupled with Keynesians don't skip a heartbeat to implement their models as if they're proven.
Is the regulated economy a running experiment then? Would you say that in public if you were a Keynesian or Chicago School economist? 
Nope, they always say they're 100% right.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:
Btw: "... the predictions are never going to be 100% true ..." How is something only 80% true? Or did you mean something is true 80% of the time. Because according to my view of the world, this is not the same. Observed 80% of the time to be true.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2010 06:22 Yurebis wrote:On June 30 2010 06:18 Dance.jhu wrote:
How would you explain the action's of someone who gives his life to save a complete stranger? The stranger's life is more valuable than his own. Thats 100%. Due to what goals, I don't know, could be many. He wants to be known as a hero after death? He wants the stranger to be happy? He wants to die like the actor he saw on a movie? Thats what I can think of. I can't see what information you got from that other than: "Sometimes someone gives his own life for someone else. But sometimes they don't. I can't really predict when each of both will happen." As Hopper said ... his view does not take goals into account, so it's silly to speculate on them. It's not silly. And if you think it is, then don't do it, hehe.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2010 06:46 Yurebis wrote:On June 30 2010 06:30 Dance.jhu wrote:
Could you even really consider those as possibilities? I feel like in that situation, the man (or woman) wouldn't have time to consider the "pros" and "cons" of his actions. I mean, I might think that I would save someone but that doesn't mean anything.
I guess my point is that there are an infinite number of possibilities, and one of them could be he just reacted without considering his own goals... So he acted without thinking? I think he had enough time to act. But in the case the didn't, then that particular action doesn't fall on the "rational action" realm. Like a knee-jerk reaction. But most knee-jerk reactions are defensive; you fall back, you protect your face and body. To reach out and risk your life to save someone does require enough evaluation I think. See, you start to divide actions in "rational actions" and "irrational actions" when both are done by a determined system (the brain that is acting). Can you also elaborate on why they both (rational and irrational actions) are not interacting within the system? I assume you mean "rational actions" as actions you can explain in your model and "irrational actions" as ones that you cannot deduce in your model. Correct me if i am wrong.
The brain can be acting on it but not to its full scope. It's something that's hard-coded, in programming terms, that is independent to human rationality. However, there are very very few times when such things happen and nothing can be done about it. People are able to expect such events and prepare in advance, hard-coding responses to be executed then (like martial-arts training or something, lol); they may be able to avoid the event entirely; they may not care enough to prepare yet know about the event, and just take full responsibility for any damaging irrational action. There's many ways to have a rational course of action even when the situation itself doesn't allow it to be realized at the moment.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:
I have a hunch that "irrational actions" are kinda like the "hidden variables" that plagued quantum science for some time.
Not that much of a plague. More like a single fly, that comes and goes. But people can manage.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:
Btw: knee-jerk reactions are not always defensive. I somewhere read that there are 3 general categories of people confronted with a threat:
-) people that are aggressive and take the thread head on
-) people that freeze and try to duck & hide
-) people that try to flee
Well I think man is pretty hardcoded to duck or flee. You only don't have time to think when there's an imminent threat- a predator, and since only through rational action did it succeed in killing predators, then I would say the only time man is aggressive is when he has rationally decided to be like that.
On June 30 2010 14:50 jacen wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2010 11:31 Motiva wrote:On June 30 2010 02:10 jacen wrote:
His book "Democracy. The god that isn't." is a critique of democracy and of democratic states/nations. Niether in family, church, science or economics there is democracy. Hoppe himself is advocating "freedom instead of democracy".
of course, his english wikipedia page this quote and view is somewhat ... missing.
his german wikipedia site holds even more inhuman statements.
will translate if hoppe keeps on advocating people exploiting others.
kinda funny though that i am an austrian and beeing here appalled by "the austrian method".
I don't understand, What's appalling? I am appalled that he can advocate economic tyranny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny) when every other advocation of tyranny (well in fact every other advocation of anti-democracy) is punishable here in austria and i believe in germany too. Note that i use tyrant as such: Show nested quote +In common usage, the word "tyrant" carries connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who places his or her own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population, which the tyrant governs or controls.
One cannot coerce or force others with money alone. A rich neighbor, with all the money in the world could not force you to give up your guns, give up your property to build a highway, give up your life to fight in a war he believes in. Now, a neighbor in a democratic society can vote for you to do all that. I'd say it's the democratic type of government that enables tyranny to happen, not the economy. The economy is the individuals and their private property. There can't be an institutionalized tyranny when everyone respects each other's property.
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EPT
