DECIDABILITY

Precision, Completeness, and Decidability

“Well, my take is that the brain evolved for graceful improvement and graceful failure of decidability.”

[N]ow that we understand our journey, we can begin with the methodology. There are three parts to it:

• Decidability via Disambiguation, Deflation, Operationalization, Serialization, and Competition. (Terms)
• Strict Construction of Transactions, in a Contract for Meaning (Statements) and;
• Due Diligence Against Ignorance, Error, Bias, and Deceit ( where due diligence requires tests of correspondence, consistency, possibility, rationality, reciprocity, completeness and coherence).

These chapters will contain lots of definitions. You won’t have to retain them the first time. We’ll repeat them over and over again. And we will summarize them at the end of each chapter. And then repeat summaries at the end of chapters until you see how everything fits together neatly. So think of our work together as building familiarity with terms, series, checklists, and processes, until we produce a complete outline of the methodology, that you can refer back to until you have internalized it.

In this chapter we will cover Decidability, Disambiguation, Deflation, Operational-ization, Serialization and Competition. The rest of the methodology will follow in subsequent chapters.

Decidability (action)

The Satisfaction of Demand For Infallibility

A question (or statement) is Decidable (true or false: consistent, correspondent, possible; good or bad, and sufficient) if (a) an algorithm (argument, or set of operations) exists within the limits of the system (domain: set of axioms, rules, theories) that one can use to produce a decision and (b) if sufficient information for the decision is present within the system such that, (c) one need not appeal to either information outside of the system, or DISCRETION (INTUITION, VALUES) to supply information necessary to DECIDE.

Ergo, if DISCRETION (choice) is unnecessary, a proposition is DECIDABLE. If Discretion is necessary then the question may be DISCRETIONARY (subjective choice) but it is not DECIDABLE (objective).

Or for the most reductive version: the subjective requires appeal to intuition (judgment) and the objective requires only appeal to present information.

|Choice| Decidable > Discretionary(opinion) > Choice(preference, presumed good) > Random Selection (undecidable) > In-actionable

The purpose of our method is to produce decidability as a means of circumventing the dependence on discretion and choice. By our diligent production of decidability we produce a value independent universal language of testimony in all subjects; but particularly in the subjects most vulnerable to discretionary impulse: cooperation, ethics, morality, and politics.

Note: This emphasis on decidability explains the difference between rule of law (decidable) and rule by discretion (undecidable, and therefore subjective discretion or choice are required). If discretion is required, then it is rule by discretion (choice) if not, then rule of law.

Demand For Increasingly Infallible Decidability

In an effort to avoid the mistake of relying upon an Ideal Type, we will describe a spectrum, or ordered hierarchy of Demand for DECIDABILITY. That way we do not ask the universe to fit our definition, but that we provide a definition that corresponds to decidability in all cases we can perceive in the universe.

Spectrum of Decidability:

1. Intelligible: Decidable enough to imagine a conceptual relationship
2. Reasonable: Decidable enough for me to feel confident about my decision (that it will satisfy my needs, and is not a waste of time, energy, resource )
3. Actionable: Decidable enough for me to take actions that produce positive results.
4. Moral: Decidable enough for me to not cause others to react negatively to me, if they have knowledge of my actions.
5. Normative: Decidable enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion among my fellow people with similar values.
6. Judicial: Decidable enough to resolve a conflict without subjective opinion across different peoples with different values.
7. Scientific: Decidable regardless of all opinions or perspectives (‘True’)
8. Logical: Decidable out of physical or logical necessity
9. Tautological: Decidably identical in properties (referents) if not references (terms).

So to borrow the one of many terms from Economics, we can see in this series (list) a market demand for increasingly infallible decidability.

The Methods of Decidability

We can also separate the actions of intuiting (intuition), from reasoning (all processes of the mind), from rationalism (justification), from calculation (in the wider sense – transformation of inputs into outputs) from computation (algorithm).

|DECIDABLE| Unintelligible(Incomprehensible) > Intelligible(Comprehensible) > Possible (actionable) > Preferable > Good (Normative, Moral) > Decidable(Judicial) > True (scientific) > Analytically True (logical) > Tautologically True (Tautological)

and    

|COGNITION| Comprehensible > Imaginable > Reasonable > Rational > Calculable > Computational > Identical

and

|METHOD| Experiential(emotional) > Rational (law : Social or Contractual) Theoretic (science: existential) > Axiomatic(logic: mental) >

Each of these methods of reasoning depends upon a different degree of demand for the infallibility of decidability.

So when we say we can decide a question, we mean it satisfies the demand for the infallibility of decidability.

Note: This technique, where we test the satisfaction of demand for infallibility, will frame most of our thinking, and it is the principle difference between logical, philosophical, scientific, and legal thought. That is because it is the most complete of logical, philosophical, scientific, and legal thought.

Producing Decidability

The Deflationary Method

Deflation And Disambiguation
The technique we will use is Deflation and Disambiguation, where we use the term deflation as in conflation, and “de-conflation”, and where we use disambiguation as in ambiguous and unambiguous. These terms function as an evolution of the terms ‘analytic’ or ‘analytical’; meaning “to break into constituent parts”.

However, instead of breaking into constituent parts, we break terms into Series, Spectra, Tables, Hierarchies, or Graphs of one or more Constant Relations through a process of (a) competition and (b) reduction to commensurable measurements (terms) we call operational language (or grammar).

The purpose of deflation is to both limit the constant relations in our definitions to those that are decidable, and eliminate constant relations that are unnecessary for decidability. As a consequence of deflation we will produce multiple opportunities for comparison and decidability. And as such we will increase our chances of both confirmation and falsification.   Although, as we will discover later, it is falsification, not confirmation that provide us with greater decidability.

  

How We Deflate Language

Dimensions, Dimensions, and Dimensions

|DEFLATING| Constant Relations > Operational Terms > Competition in Series > Competition between Series

The Problem of Continuous Recursive Disambiguation

We seek to satisfy the Demand for the infallibility of decidability. For historical reasons we tend to think in terms of creating meaning, but the process we use when speaking is the use of symbols to produce continuously recursive disambiguation. This ‘success by the negative’ or ‘via-negativa’ will be another of the central themes of our work.

So to produce a stream of language AND to understand a stream of language we accumulate names of some set of constant relations(words) and helpers (words) that assist in the relations between those words, and by the accumulation of names and relations we reduce by speaking and restore by listening, a model (network of constant relations) that satisfies the demand for infallibility of decidability.

|Understanding| Free Association -> Hypothesis -> (repeat) -> (Demand for Infallibility Satisfied. OR Not Satisfied)

Continuous Recursive Disambiguation At Scale

We make use of this same process at scale, in what we call ‘epistemology’ or ‘the continuous recursive falsification and therefore survival of demand for infallibility of decidability.

The Process of Satisfying Demand for Infallibility of a Statement (Knowledge):

• Free Association -> Test of Survivability of Inquiry (way-finding).
• Hypothesis -> Test of survivability of Fitness, in personal falsification.
• Theory -> Test survivability of Possibility in Applied
• Law -> Test of Survivability of Application in the Market
• Convention -> Test of Survivability of Habituation in the Market
• Metaphysical Value Judgment -> Test of Survivability of Integration in the Market for application

So whether as individual thinking through a problem in our minds, or as speaker and audience, as groups, as markets, as societies, as mankind, we test our ideas by a process of continuous competition for infallibility in the market for ideas that survive increasing scope of application.

The Problem of Suggestion: Substitution, Conflation, and Ambiguity

Every word (symbol) we speak in every stream of words, produces free association in the audience. We ‘suggest’ meaning with our expressions, sounds, words, phrases, sentences, narratives, and arguments. Then we continuously strive to disambiguate these suggestions until the other party demonstrates we have satisfied (at present) the demand for infallibility sufficiently to convey meaning (a contract for meaning. An agreement on experiences.) When someone says ‘I understand’ they convey acceptance of your offer (contract) for meaning within the limits of the demand for infallibility, in the given context.

Unfortunately, in our optimism, we fail to perform due diligence with one another, and often let the conversation evolve until we confirm (justify) or disconfirm (falsify) our network of meaning and break the prior contract for meaning.

More, unfortunately, even without our optimism, we may simply lack the vocabulary, grammars, and paradigms, to convey what we imagine we understand despite our inability to articulate it.

And most unfortunately, it is quite easy to use the process of suggestion to force the audience to substitute a falsehood, conflate one circumstance with another, or inflate the scope, intensity, or values. In other words – it’s very easy to lie. And the only way of circumventing the problem of suggestion is due diligence: trying to falsify what we’ve understood.

The positive solution to this problem is ‘seek to understand’ rather than agree. This is relatively expensive and puts the burden on the audience. The negative is ‘skepticism’ – which is cheaper and requires less knowledge, and puts the burden on the speaker. One way, the other, or both, are often required to produce a contract for meaning. The practical reality is, that this job falls always to the person better informed. The unfortunate problem is that the person most informed may have malincentives. If that is the case then no matter what due diligence we make use of, only warranty sufficient to cover the costs of failing to satisfy the demand for infallibility will provide us with decidability, to agree on a contingent contract for meaning.

Note: As we continue this journey together the use of the language of law, contract, and economics will eliminate most of the weaknesses of moral and philosophical language, and provide you with a much superior model for analysis at the cost of more ‘steps’.

Starting with Terms:

Comparisons are costly. The more complex the comparison the more costly. We have a natural tendency to reduce the cost of composing speech and accumulating understanding. Some cultures use languages with a very large number of terms. Some languages use a very small number of terms. Large numbers of terms limit the need for suggestion. Small numbers of terms increase the need for suggestion. We describe this difference between High Context, Low Precision language of fewer terms and loose grammar, with Low Context, High Precision language with many terms and strict grammar. English is a low context, high precision language with strict grammar. Asian languages are high context, low precision. To westerners they are poetic. To Asians, western languages are burdensome. Same for our writing. Asian languages require more context and interpretation. Germanic languages little context. In effect, high context languages are stories, while low context languages are recipes. Germanic languages are military, engineering, and scientific languages. Whereas east Asian languages are moral, literary, and poetic languages. That said, it only takes about 300 words to satisfy travel demands in nearly any language. And in English around 1000 words are all that is necessary for interpersonal non-technical communication.

However, even in our low context high precision language we tend to seek words with wide general meaning on one hand, or ideal meaning on the other, and rely on suggestion and context to relieve the burden of composing continuously recursive disambiguating prose. That leads us to the problem of general and ideal types. 

The Problem of Ideal Types

Ideal types are constructs or concepts which create a paradigm by which to compare phenomenon and ideas. However, it turns out that a single stereotype, or paradigm encourages us to try to ‘fit’ data to model, and in doing so engage in various forms of conflation and inflation, that introduces error and bias.

The Use of Series for Precision

We will use series (spectra) of related words or phrases to describe a concept consisting of one or more constant relations from beginning to end. A series (spectrum) puts terms in competition with one another and forces us to choose which term refers to which properties. This competition prevents us from the ‘fitting’, conflating, and inflating we use with ideal types.

Note: If you habituate the practice of converting ideals into one or more series (spectra) your reasoning will dramatically improve.

Disambiguation of our Consciousness: Our Faculties

We possess at least these faculties: Our physical senses (perceptions), our intuitionistic and emotional faculties (emotions, intuitions, imagination), and our conscious and cognitive faculties (thought, reason, calculation), and we can put them to use (test them) by producing action (movement) and that subset of actions we call speech (communication).

We have no control over our senses. We have intuitions that are outside our control, though can train our intuitions a bit, but intuition is not open to introspection. We can train our reason and much of our reason is open to introspection. We can act, even if not introspectively decompose how we cause our body to act. We can speak and introspect our use of language, and even think in language. This difference between involuntary sensation,

|Faculties| Perception (physical) > Intuition (emotion, impulse, intuition) > Cognition (thought, imagination, reason) > Action(testing) > Speech (testing – communication(via others)).

Experiences: We will define our Experience as consisting of the combined results of Perception, Intuition, and Cognition as they change or remain constant over time.

1 – Our Perceptions with our Five Senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.
2 – Our Intuitions: Emotion, Intuition (including prediction), Imagination.
3 – Our Cognitions: Free Association (daydreaming), Thought, Reason, Calculation

|Experience| Perception > Intuition > Cognition > Action -> (repeat)

CORRESPONDENCE AND CONSISTENCY

THE TESTS OF CONSISTENCY, INCONSISTENCY, AND CONTRADICTION

The problem of Correspondence, Consistency, and Coherence

Correspondence in language, more complex relations to name.

• Numbers are very simple, despite the ‘magic’ (technically ‘idealism’) mathematicians attribute to them. Numbers refer to names of positions. When we create numbers of any size we are using ‘positional naming’. That’s it. Number means name for a position. That’s all. If you have ten children in your family, all born in some order, and all having different names, if you memorize that order then you can use the children’s names as positions in order, and build your decimal numbering system with those positional names instead of the ones we use. (Yes, people do such things).
• When we ‘count’ we use the names of positions to refer to that count. Three refers to the third position. One hundred to the one hundredth position. We us the term Ordinal when we refer to positions. We use the term Cardinal when we refer to
• We can count anything we choose to, that can be counted. Some things are countable and some are not. For example, trees are countable, but we resort to stand, grove and forest when counting is impractical. It’s possible to count grains of wheat, but impractical. It’s not possible to count water other than perhaps drops. Instead we use weight or volume to count that which is impractical or impossible to count.
• When we count something countable, we say the positional name refers to some set of that something. And that relationship between number(name) and referent(what we’re counting) is correspondence. The beauty of numbers is that because they are so simple (meaning nothing but position) we can use them to correspond to almost anything we can imagine that is countable or countable by some measure.
• Now the problem is, what if we say ‘men? Well, that’s a very broadly correspondent. It’s all humans that are not female or children. If we say “this apple”, “my older brother Thomas”, or “The Moon” those are very precise names that are narrowly correspondent with some set of constant relations.
• When we say “a horse” we refer to a category of relations that we have learned to association with the term ‘horse’ from experience, testimony and fiction. When we say “unicorn” we refer to a set of constant relations we have learned partly from experience (horse, wings, horn, flying), or testimony, but when combined from only from fiction. In this case a horse is meaningful and correspondent with reality. And a unicorn is internally consistent with a fiction, but not externally correspondent with reality. This is the difference between internal consistency of ideas and words (such that no contradiction or falsehood exists), and words and ideas externally correspondent with existence (such that no non-correspondence exists). This distinction assists us in clarifying the relationship between consistent (internally: between words and imagination that can imagined) and correspondent (between words and reality that can be perceived.).

|Speech| Incoherent (no contract for meaning possible) > Coherent (contract for meaning possible) > Verbally Consistent (words or symbols and their constant relations are non contradictory) > Perceivably Correspondent (words and symbols correspond with the constant relations

| Coherent | … sufficient for meaning
| Internally Consistent | … sufficient for demand
| Externally Correspondent | … sufficient for demand

So the problem with correspondence is satisfaction of the demand for infallibility in the given context, in the current contract for meaning (coherence, consistency, correspondence). When we use a name (referrer) does it satisfy the demand for disambiguity we imply infallible by the term ‘identity’? Or does it leave open the possibility of suggestion, conflation, or inflation? If we cannot satisfy the demand for infallibility of decidability, we can only perform by due diligence (present) or demand warranty (future).

COMMENSURABILITY

PRODUCING CONSISTENCY, CORRESPONDENCE, AND COHERENCE

The Problem of Commensurability

Then we have the problem of the differences between apples and oranges. Both our countable, but they are not identical.

Two things are commensurable when they are measurable using the same standard of measurement.

1) Numbers render countable objects commensurable
2) Units of Measure render weights and volumes commensurable.
3) Measurements render spatial commensurable
4) Physics renders physical actions commensurable.
5) Money and prices render goods and services commensurable
6) Property renders cooperation (ethics, morals, politics) commensurable
7) Names render categories of properties commensurable.
8) Categories render sets of properties commensurable.
9) Properties render sets of constant relations commensurable.

The

The Commensurability of Observability

The Commensurability of Actions

The Commensurability of Sensations

The Incommensurability of Values

Commensurability of terms vs referents

No longer measure a third

Calculable (Calculability)

(once commensurable then calculable)

Man As The Measure Of All Things To Man …

Faculties Produce Measurements

( …. )

 

Actions Create Commensurability…..

Everything can be described by the actions required to describe it. (stories, recipes).

If a thing can be described by the senses, intuitions, or reason, it can be explained in terms of senses.

If a thing cannot be described by the senses intuitions or reason, it can be explained by the means of reducing it to an analogy to experience: measurements.

Language Consists of Measurements

All language consists of a series of measurements the purpose of which is to produce continuously recursive disambiguation in the audience, sufficient to satisfy the demand for infallibility given the context of the promise made.

Man is the measure of all things to man, and language consists of parsimonious (true), accurate (sufficient), poetic(analogical but sufficient), inaccurate (insufficient) or deceitful measurements, that produce a stream of experiences of continuous recursive disambiguation (precision) in the audience such that their demand for infallibility of correspondence in the context is met – or not.

Testimony (Speech) consisting of Measurements can be Tested.

( … )

Producing Terms

Producing Terms That Are Measurements

Production of Unambiguous Terms and Operational Definitions that are Testable

Deflation (Deconflation and Disambiguation)

We deflate into the identical, comparable (differential), measurable, and commensurable, and separate the observable and testifiable (Senses), from the arguable and testable (Cognitions), from the arbitrary, preferential, and opined (Intuitions).

Differentiation (Identity)

Producing Comparability, Measurability, Commensurability, and Identity.

Comparability

Measurability

Commensurability

Identity

Which is a verbose way of asking “Which one of these things is not like the others” about the Sensory, Intuitionistic, and Cognitive differences, until no conflation remains.

Something vs. Nothing: We can perceive the change between Something and Nothing.

Something, Nothing, Everything

( … )

|Existence| (Nothing = Everything) > Something (subset)

Time (change in time: story): To Perceive either State or Change in State we perceive the passage of Time.

Without Time, we cannot speak of constant relations, because we cannot perceive either constant relations or changes in state that would falsify those freely associated relations.

Change in Time

( … )

State (A story of Continuity): We can Perceive and generate an experience only over changes in time.

Constant relations in time when those relations might differ.

State depends upon time, time depends upon some utility.

Change in State

( … )

Change (A Story of Change): We perceive Change (differences) our senses and intuitions. We exert some degree of guidance of our cognitions.

Change

( … ) difference in perception.

Constant, Inconstant, and Contingent Relations: We perceive constant relations and changes in constant relations over time.

Constant Relations

1 : properties constant within a referent
2 : properties shared between two or more referents.
3 : properties remaining constant between two or more states.

Inconstant Relations

1 : properties not constant within a referent
2 : properties not shared between two or more referents.
3 : properties not constant between two or more states.

Contingent Relations

1 : properties contingent within a referent
2 : properties contingently shared between two or more referents.
3 : properties contingently between two or more states.

 

 

Continuous Accumulation: We accumulate the indistinquishable (emotions, intuitions) that are not open to introspection,

Continuous Recursion (Comparison and Competition): we recursively

Competition for Excitement: (of neurons)

 

Limits

Limits to Comprehension

accumulation of association vs falsification of associations

Computational efficiency.

State Persistence vs breadth search, vs depth search

Continuous Recursive Disambiguation vs Scale of Set of Constant Relations(density)

Names

Properties, Categories, and their Names

Properties (A Story of Constant Relations)

( … ) analogy to experience – A construction of a combination of experiences. (sense(physical), intuition, and mind (reason, will)

Categories (a Story of Properties, Relations, and Values)

( … )

|Collections| Senses collect in > Experiences (sets) collect in> Properties (names of sets) collect in > Categories (names of sets)

 

Name, Noun, Referrer vs. Referent

(social, contract, index, efficiency)

Identity (uniqueness)

Identity consists of some set of marginally indifferent properties in constant relations that persists over some period of time.

Property

Category (Types)

Marginal differences in state of collection (set or subset) of constant relations in Time sufficient to satisfy the demand for disambiguation in the context at hand.

Name

Noun

Referrer

Referent

Names refer to categories, identities, or properties consisting either of what we operationally define them to mean, or what we negotiate them to mean, or what the market for terms has determined that they mean.

Time

Time is our only Resource

Our first resource is time. Our evolution of action, sentience, intelligence, cooperation, division of labor, and development writing, narrative, numbers, money, accounting, reason, law and science serve to produce increasing returns on time.

When we increase our numbers in physical space we decrease opportunity costs (time).

When we increase incremental suppression of parasitism and free riding, we decrease transaction costs (time). trades, money, savings, store time – time to trade with others.

1 — Time is limited and the only infinite scarcity

2 — Man is a costly form of life in an unpredictable universe.

“We are not wealthier than cavemen, we have merely made everything infinitely cheaper.”

Defeating Time

( … )

 

Subtraction of the Time Dimension

For example, numbers consist of names of positions, which by virtue or order maintain constant relations. We then manipulate accounts (balances, expressions, variables) by maintaining ratios (constant relations) and call that process ‘mathematics’. We generally perform this set of ratio-transformations in a particular sequence, always trying to simplify or rearrange. But what we rarely consider is that unless we specifically account for it most mathematics ignores time – which is its principle benefit to us outside of commensurability: time.

Time and Production Cycles from the Trivial to the Grand.

( … )

“Harmonies or disharmonies” between short, medium, and long

We cannot know the intelligence of distant ancestors.

Planning a series of steps in sequence must emerge – which requires recursion.

Consciousness must emerge, meaning, the ability to compare states.

Cooperation must emerge, meaning, the ability to empathize with intent.

At some point we must develop sufficient computational ability to manipulate our bodies in some way that allows for unambiguous communication, or a means of continuous disambiguation, that is fast enough for one another to make use of in real time, and easy enough for one another to retain.

And at some point, given sufficient computational ability, memory, and state persistence independent of recursion, language must emerge.

At some point the value of such communication much be such that the cost of it is offset by the rewards of it.

And we should see a cliff in history where there is a dramatic change when we did develop those abilities. And we do see it – rather recently.

But language requires a system of measurement. The system of measurement is limited by our senses. And as such meaning refers to a set of measurements, eventually reducible to analogies to human experience.

So while semantic content (measurements) must vary from species to species, grammar (continuous recursive disambiguation) should be universal in the sense that it varies predictably with computational abilities.

We can understand a child, a person with 60IQ, 70IQ and so on, up to 200+ IQ. But as far as I can tell the set of measurements (basis of semantics) remain the same, and all that changes is the scope of the state persisted, the depth of recursion, and the density and distance of relations, and the ability to model (forecast). In other words, simple people are in fact simply ‘more simple’ in the density of content of their semantics, use of grammar, and models (Stories) that they can construct with them.

So universal grammar as a set of computational minimums and efficiencies, should always exist, and human universal grammar as universal grammar limited to human measurements (semantics), does exist. And any organism with sufficient computational (neural) capacity, should develop some means of communication using some variation of universal grammar, and some sense-perception – action dependent semantics. 

The Problem of Constant Relations

All human thought consists of the physical production of constant yet contingent relations in neurons. That is all neurons can store: constant yet contingent relations. Relations between stimuli. Those relations begin with stimuli and through sequential layers, accumulate in increasingly combinatory relations, and through iterations, in real time, create a ‘persistence of vision’ (a model or models) that we experience as the culmination of continuous stimulation of our senses, and the admixture of those senses with upward associations, and downward models.

When we refer to consciousness, we refer our ability to judge continuous differences between changes in state produced by the iterations of stimuli, memory, and synthesis into models.

Neurons can fire two hundred times a second. It takes about one hundred milliseconds to cause your body to physically act (depending upon the distance). It takes about a half a second to react to a scare. It takes approximately one half to three seconds of continuous stimulation to construct a new model (waking up, experiencing a surprise, or walking into a new room). And the persistence of vision effect (on memory) has a half life of something on the order of half a second. Although variation in short term memory is one of the abilities that vastly differentiates us.

When someone uses the term logical they mean (whether they understand it or not), that the network of constant relations between the universe, the perception of stimuli, their neural memory (relations), memory (categories) and models (networks of categories), remains consistent (internally), correspondent (externally), and coherent (free of conflict or contradiction).

Identity Consists of a set of Constant Relations (Properties) – all the way up and all the way down from the senses to our ideas.

Identity is discovered by free association, followed by elimination of non-constant relations. (falsification)

Commensurability can be produced by use of a third reference that renders more than one referent measurable by another. (money, length, space, volume, current).

Numbers consist of nothing more than names of positions and as such can refer to any constant positional relation, and as such we achieve scale independence. And as such numbers allow us to produce commensurability of most if not all phenomenon.

All complex phenomenon consists of multiple, and often very dense causal relations and produce semi-constant intermediary relations. And we put our primary effort into determining which of those relations both direct and intermediary contribute to the production of changes in state and which of them do not.

Constant Perceptions, Constant Actions, Constant Incentives, and Inconstant Values

Humans possess marginally indifferent senses, emotions, and physical capabilities – at least in the sense that we differ in amplitude rather than existence. And for this reason we can imitate (act), sympathize (think), and empathize (feel) one another’s actions, thoughts, and emotions sufficiently to cooperate on means and ends.

But it rarely occurs to us that while we cannot equate our valuations and therefore emotions that reflect those valuations, and we cannot equate our understanding unless reduced to a series of simple decidable propositions, we CAN equate actions, the five senses, and simple logical vs. illogical relations. And as such, we CAN equate any statements represented as a series of actions that change state.

In other words, just as prices consist of money and numbers, and those prices create commensurability between goods, so can our perceptions and actions produce statements that provide commensurability regardless of our knowledge, understanding, and ability.

The Problem of (permanent) Contingency of Relations

Differences: Competition vs. Comparison, vs. Commensurability

1. a) Competition: Without competition (comparison, differences) we have no means of distinction and without distinction we cannot make a choice.

Forms of competition:

1. b) Constant Relations: Referrers, Properties, relations, and values are determined by marginally indifferent, comparable, or commensurable Constant Relations vs Inconstant Relations between states.

|Comparable|: Identical > Indifferent(in context/limits) > Marginally Indifferent > comparable > commensurable(via intermediary measure) > incommensurable (different)

The problem of selection (withholding)

The problem of suggestion

The Problem of Inflation,

The Problem of Conflation

The Utility of Deflation

The Problem of Ambiguity and Utility of Disambiguation

Disambiguation by Context

Disambiguation by Association

Disambiguation by Disassociation

SERIALIZATION OF TERMS

 

Organizing into Series, Spectra, Tables, Trees.

 

Get Many Synonyms of shared relations.

Starting and Ending with Limits

(…)

 

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

(constant relations)(subjectively testable)(changes in state in time)(sequentially testable)

Example:

Given the series:

|Impositions| Criminal > Ethical > Moral > Evil

 

Competition

(d) Equilibrating forces between series.

(e) The evolutionary result of competition between sets of equilibrating forces.

The Market Competition for Meaning (Positiva) (epistemic process)

|Meaning| Utterances > Construction > Falsification > Agreement > Warranty.

DEFINITION OF MEANING

MEANING (dimensional definition)

(a) normative content (relations) (market)

(b) habitual content (relations) (personal)

(c) intentional content (relations)

(d) extended (externalities) content (relations)

(e) important (value) content (relations)

A network of relations(associations) reducible to a network of analogies to experience. Where experience can refer to any combination of physical, emotional, and mental experiences.

ETYMOLOGY: “INTEND”

“intend, have in mind,” Old English mænan “to mean, intend, signify; tell, say; complain, lament,” from West Germanic *mainijan (source also of Old Frisian mena “to signify,” Old Saxon menian “to intend, signify, make known,” Dutch menen, German meinen “think, suppose, be of the opinion”), from PIE *meino- “opinion, intent” (source also of Old Church Slavonic meniti “to think, have an opinion,” Old Irish mian “wish, desire,” Welsh mwyn “enjoyment”), perhaps from root *men- (1) “to think.” Conversational question you know what I mean? attested by 1834.

( …. ) consisting of relations.

Stimulation by the Physical, Emotional, Intellectual

(Christmas Tree Lights) (variances by agency) (agency as ‘distance’)

Competition between via-Positiva and via-Negativa

Market Competition Provides Survival 

Market Competition Between Hemispheres

The Two Faces of Suggestion

(necessary for meaning)(vulnerability to deceit)

Triangulation (estimation)

Iterative Triangulation (estimation)

 

“Market Competition”

 

 

Dimensions

 

(THESE SERIES SERVE AS DIMENSIONS)

Dimension: a series of terms (states) consisting of constant relations, organized in a scale – preferably from lower to upper limit. In computer science a Dimension Table refers to a range of possible values, usually in some order, sharing constant relations: a table of values.

(Between sets of constant relations)

Paradigm (Network, Frame)(Networks of commensurability)

( internally consistent networks of commensurability) (may not be consistent with other paradigms) (correspondent or non-correspondent)

Convergence:

Language of Testimony, the language of Science: Operationalism

Truth: The Most Parsimonious Paradigm

(…)

Story: Continuous Recursive Disambiguation

( … )

Generative Grammar, Universal Grammar

( … )

In the 1950s Chomsky used |computability| Babbage > Boole > Turing > Chomsky to produce ‘generative’ or algorithmic grammar. Note that it is irrelevant in generative grammar whether or not a grammar is closed. Note that in what we will do here in Testimonialism is not rely on self-closure as in logic , but on transactional sentences as in programming, accounting, and if we are lucky, one day soon – law.

Neural Economy / Computational Efficiency

( … )

Story as Transaction (exchange) (all the way up and down)

A Grammar:

A grammar is….