HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Theory?
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 22:49:36 GMT

In article <1992Nov8.022007.14425@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes:
>In article <1992Nov7.195153.23385@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>>With Wittgenstein, I would argue that it's wrong to say that "I like
>>cauliflower" is just an abbreviated way of saying "I believe I like
>>cauliflower."  For one, as you note, this easily leads to an infinite
>>regress.
>
>Isn't this analogous to the identification with x and x+0?  That this
>leads to the infinite regress x = x+0 = (x+0)+0 = ... doesn't seem to
>have stopped people from making this identification.

Hmm, only a little bit.  It would be more like DEFINING x to be x+0,
which would be a bad idea.  (Or saying that x is just an abbreviation
for x+0, and that one REALLY means x+0 when one says x.)

I.e., even if "I like cauliflower" meant the same thing as "I believe I
like cauliflower." it would be unfortunate to have a theory of natural
language, or logic, in which the former was explicated in terms of the
latter.  But I really don't think they do mean the same thing.

>>I would not ever say  "I believe I like cauliflower" if what I really
>>meant was just that I liked cauliflower.  I would only use it if either
>>had some doubt as to whether I really liked it, or if someone was asking
>>me to list my beliefs concerning cauliflower.  
>
>Or if you didn't like it before but had just now tasted it prepared in
>a delightful way.

Yup.  The use of "believe" is rather interesting in this context.

>Natural logic is fun to speculate on but hard to study.  

Yup, that's why I usually work with unnatural logic.
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 10:40:34 CST
From: Myself!!! <U57567@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: What happens when the Trade War starts?

   I have been keeping an ear on the talk about the "Trade War" that is
brewing with France, and probably the rest of the E.C.  They are talking
about 200% tariffs on French wine, I think prompted by their refusal to go
along with us on some sort of seed oil talks.  The implications SOUND huge:
The complete collapse of the GAT talks, which have been in trouble for a
while; all sorts of very hostile trade barriers and tarrifs going up all
over the place; the USA, the E.C., and possibly Japan, involved in the
economic equivelent of the military war.  Instead of Superpowers involved
in Global Thermonuclear War, we will/could have Supereconomies involved in
Global "Themotarrific" War.

My questions are:

1.  Is it a real danger?  Can it happen?

2.  How bad could it be?  Will we all be hording imported goods because
    of the price increases?  Will it be impossible to get imported goods?

3.  The world economies are much more tightly linked - could this cause a
    new Depression/government collapse/really bad things/etc?

4.  Could it escalate into millitary conflicts anywhere?  If you have severe
    economic hardships, I could see someone using it as an excuse to beat up
    someone.  If for no other reason than to divert attention from your
    inability to "do something".

These all seem like good seeds for a discussion.  I hope to prompt some.  I am
NOT an expert in these areas, but look forward to hearing from some people
that ARE (or think they are! :^)  :^) )



Al  - "inquiring minds want to know!"

P.S.  Please excuse spelling errors, I can't spell worth a damn, and this
      system doesn't have a spell checker (that I know about).
Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:4912 alt.politics.libertarian:1865
From: jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: The Two Faces of Ayn Rand
Date: 14 Nov 92 22:01:21 GMT
Organization: Indiana University

It looks like I just sent an empty reply.  I apologize.

--Jimbo
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.society.anarchy,alt.cyberpunk,alt.industrial,alt.postmodern
From: mike@highlite.uucp (Mike Wiik)
Subject: Re: Singularity (was Re: Industrial Culture (or, Why...))
Organization: Gotham Communications Research
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 02:45:07 GMT

lizi@soda.berkeley.edu (Cosma Shalizi) writes:

>In article <1992Nov3.223715.18618@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>>mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mitchell Porter)
>>While Mitchell's suggestion would be an amusing imaginative
>>exercise, I can't help thinking that its productions would
>>be very much like those visions of the future from the early
>>part of this century that are now so profoundly dated.

>   And now, to tie this in with the topic somehow - ah. Who will benefit
>from the coming singularity? The proles? Perhaps. They might get to 
>experiment and _be_ a Women Who Dresses As A Zucchini or a Man Who Loves
>One, or some such. Much more likely, they will be left out of the loop
>entirely, and the small fraction of the population who are not Terminally
>Unplugged (i.e., an elite) will reap the rewards.

There may well be people left behind. When it gets close, stay pugged
in, don't even take a bathroom break or let your eyes wander - you
might miss it.

>Will there even be a
>singularity? Perhaps not, if America can manage to make enough of the rest
>of the world share in its problems.

I'd substitute "share in" with "suffer for"...

But to try to answer your question:

I remember years ago on the Cosmos series Carl Sagan postulating an
algorithm for the number of civilizations that become capable of
intersteller communication (via radio, of course, considering his
electromagnetic chauvanism). The last variable was the percentage
that would survive their "atomic age". This was before the end of
the cold war, and doom'n'gloom was rife in the land...he didn't
expect that many would survive... maybe we're lucky that we've
survived this far...but we seem to have passed a hurdle.

But one could substitute "achieved singularity" for "atomic
annihilation" in Sagan's formula. Such races might be as "lost"
to potential contact as Sagan's proposed destroyed ones...

To paraphrase B Fuller, humankind has to try all the wrong and
stupid ways of doing something before it does the right thing...


>	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
>	In Real Life: lizi@soda.berkeley.edu
>	larval physicist

-- 
   | o==== . : ... :  :  .     |Mail Me Neat Stuff->POB 3703 Arlington VA 22203
 --@-- . o o o ... O -O- o o : |No disclaimers needed: I actually pay for this.
   |           ... :  :        |-----------------------------------------------
mEssAGE fRoM sPAcE ARt stUdiOs |Man:TheMissingLinkBetweenApes&HigherIntelligence
Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:4772 talk.philosophy.misc:2304 rec.arts.books:19651
From: jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Enduring Rand (was: Re: Theory?)
Date: 13 Nov 92 16:57:53 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.theory
Organization: Boston University Physics Department

In article <BxKnAC.8Bq@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:

>Depending on how you define these, you are right.  Objectivism DOES fail
>when analyzed from a logical positivist point of view.  If it didn't
>it would just be a special application of LPism.  On what basis do you
>conclude that these criteria are correct?  A simple example of where 
>falsifiability fails is in the area of the objectivist axioms.  The 
>fact that you are conscious is certainly not falsifiable (since nothing
>could constitute evidence to the contrary) yet you are unjustified
>in claiming that such a presupposition is false since consciousness is
>a precondition of that denial.


The proposition that a given person is conscious certainly _is_
falsifiable, though the proposition that no-one is conscious isn't.



>  You want to test out Rand's ethics?
>Look at people you have known.  Who lives better lives?  Thieves?  Slaves?
>Murderers?  Liars?  Dictators?  Or honest free independent men?

Well in many places in the world murderers, liars, dictators 
and thieves _do_ have the best lives. Look at Somalia for example.

>  When you
>look at social systems, which promote the lives of the citizens?  Fascism?
>Monarchy?  Socialism?  Military dictatorship?  or Capitalist Republics?

An individual need not have any concern about the wellbeing of the
populace as a whole. Monarchs usually live better than the average
American citizen.


Gregg

-- 
Gregg Jaeger (jaeger@buphy)  Dept. of Physics (and Philosophy), Boston Univ.
"You see, the quantum mechanical description is in terms of knowledge" -Peierls
"One can _not_ put the psi-function... in place of the... thing" -Schroedinger
                "You may _not_ touch my monkey" -Dieter
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
From: rjk@world.std.com (robert j kolker)
Subject: More on the Enduring Rand
Summary: Ought and Is
Keywords: Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Moral Principles
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 16:01:58 GMT

I parted company with Objectivism over the following question. How do we
get from Is to Ought or from Ought to Is. Put another way, how can one
derive moral principles in the same way one can make general statements
about the world in terms of attributes and entities?

It appears the a moral principle is in one of two forms:

	1. OughtStatement. A statement that requires or forbids something
	2. World_Statement implies OughtStatement, where World_Statement is
	   an assertion about the world, possibly quantified and containing
	   no ought-type modalities.

Question: Is there a moral principle or prescription, the denial of which
produces a contradiction?

I could not come up with such a principle (perhaps someone else can), and
come to the conclusion that moral principles are assertions derived from a
subjective notion of how things "ought" to be. The only principled grounds
I could find for rejecting a moral principle was that it a) required the
impossible or b) forbade the necessary.

I would like some opinions on these issues I have raised. Are they
legitimate questions, or have I perhaps fallen into a categorical error.

Thank you for your input.

Conan the Libertarian "There is no social contract, only No Spitting signs"


Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Theory?
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 17:00:49 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <JTURNER.92Nov4103438@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu> jturner@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Jeffrey Turner) writes:
>   In article <Bx426q.M5@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>   >  In electronics (or physics) I=E/R is not true by definition,
>   >  it's true because it can be SHOWN to be true.   If I defined "I=R/E"
>   >  the only fact in that sentence would be that I wrote it down, not 
>   >  that it was actually true.
>                                                          
>	Actually, I believe R is defined such that this holdstrue.
>It IS defined to be true.  Even if R has some other defining quality
>the best that can be said is that I is proportional to E/R.  I=E/R
>must be true by definition NOT as an immutable law.

  I think only the units (e.g., ohms) are chosen so that this works,
  not the relationship.   Resistance is a physical property of the
  material; in principle you could predict it without having to 
  actually pass a current through it.  Voltage is a unit of EMF,
  and current measures the quantity of electron flow, so in that
  sense they are all independent physical properties.   Certainly
  there are any number of kooks who appear regularly for whom I=E/R
  is not a mere definition -- they offer things like "self-charging
  batteries" and other variations on perpetual motion machines. 

  In any case the original poster was making the point that subjective
  knowledge, if it was believed strongly enough, was "valid" and thus
  went from knowledge to Knowledge (his terms -- I don't know what the
  capital letter was supposed to mean).  But if you prefer, we can
  talk about acceleration due to gravity, the relationship of force,
  mass and acceleration, the half-life of some unstable isotope, or
  whatever.   The bottom line is that there are objectively measurable
  physical constants and relationships.   There is an objective reality
  that transcends private belief systems -- the native who believes
  smallpox is caused by evil spirits will be just as immunized by
  a smallpox vaccination as the student who believes it's caused
  by a virus.


--peter


Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:4862 alt.politics.libertarian:1815
From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: The Two Faces of Ayn Rand
Date: 10 Nov 92 21:09:22 GMT

There's been a lot of pro- and anti-Randian argument in t.p.t recently.  Most
of it implicitly assumes that one has to take Randian thought as a whole or
leave it.

This assumption, though it's beloved of Randites and convenient for anti-
Randites, is both logically dubious and historically unfounded.

Rand began her career in the 1920s as an ethical philosopher and moral critic,
and spent her best years exclusively in that role.  It was only in her last
decade, after 1964, that "Objectivist epistemology" became a central concern
of her writing.  By that time, she was already surrounded by a cult-like
claque and her powers of analysis were visibly fading.

I think Peter Nelson is entirely correct in rejecting Objectivist epistemology
as junk; his arguments are cogent, correct, and (to anyone with a technical
knowledge of epistemology) quite devastating.

However, this does *not* invalidate Rand as a moral philosopher.  This point
needs stressing, because Objectivists (the doctrinal children of Rand's
last decade) are perversely fond of arguing that Randian ethics requires
Randian epistemology as a foundation.  In doing so, they cede the whole game
to the anti-Randians, allowing them to escape the challenge to refute Randian
ethics with valid consequentialist arguments, and encouraging all of us to throw
out the baby with the bathwater.

The Rand who wrote the powerful, passionate arguments against altruism and
for individual liberty that we see in _Anthem_, _Atlas_Shrugged_, and _The_
Fountainhead_ had, on the evidence, not yet formulated her philosophy as the
"total system" which Objectivism was to become.  Her moral arguments stand
on their own; she appeals not to a not-yet-invented "epistemology" but to
the reader's understanding of how human beings think, feel and behave in
response to different ethical choices and social surrounds.  Her arguments
are consequentialist and empirical, not hollowly a-prioristic.

The historian Robert Conquest has cynically observed that the behavior of most
organizations can be reliably predicted by the hypothesis that, eventually,
they become controlled by a secret cabal of their enemies.  Rand's life and
work fairly begs for such a model.  Perhaps collectivists started drugging
her cigarettes around 1960...but, sadly, no such elaborate hypothesis is
required.  Advancing age and the uncritical adulation of early Randroids were
doubtless enough to do her in as a serious thinker.

Even if Rand the epistemologist was but a senile self-parody of Rand the moral
critic, we owe it to ourselves to remember the earlier Rand, the woman who
formulated the Non-Aggression Principle and mercilessly dissected the sham of
altruism.  When the first truly free society dawns, *that* Rand will be
remembered as a saint.
-- 
					Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: the simplicities of freedom
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:27:26 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

In <1992Nov12.010102.24330@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:

>	I can be affected by other's actions without even knowing
>		about it. 
>		
>	 	1a) This could either be due to others intent (Advertising) or
>		1b) because the timescale or geographic density of the effect
>                         escapes my senses (air pollution, species extinction,
>                             myriad other environmental issues)

Another important respect in which we are affected by others' actions
is that what other people do creates the social setting within which
we make choices.  For example, if there are no serious legal or social
impediments to the dissolution of marriages then it becomes impossible
to enter into an indissoluble (or even a hard-to-dissolve) marriage.

-- 
Jim Kalb 		"Not drunk is he who from the floor
(jk@panix.com)		 can rise alone and still drink more.
			 But drunk is he who prostrate lies
			 Without the power to drink or rise." (Clough)
From: dagobert@infopls.chi.il.us (Amul Kumar)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Absolute Rights (was no on 9)
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 92 22:29:54 CST
Organization: INFOPLUS support, Wheeling, IL

nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
> >=Might does NOT make right.
> 
>    Prove it.   Are you denying that "the culture which survives or
>    dominates gets to impose its rules (including ethics) on those
>    which do not"?    Or are you just saying that you, personally,
>    don't like it?
> 
> >=Thou shalt not kill (as per initiation of coercion). Thou shalt not steal.
> >=Thous shalt not rape.
> >=
> >=I consider these absolute statements.
> 
>    But notice the qualifier "I consider . . . ".  So even *you* seem to
>    admit that this is subjective.   Look, if I push a priest, a minister,
>    a rabbi, and a maharishi off a cliff they will all fall at a rate
>    that is predicted by the physics of falling bodies, aerodynamics, 
>    etc.   Their personal beliefs in this matter make no difference.
>    THAT is absolute and can be readily demonstrated.  When the astronauts
>    on the moon dropped a hammer and feather on TV they performed this 
>    exercise with complete confidence.
> 
>    As a practical matter people DO kill, rape, plunder, etc, and no 
>    hole opens up and swallows them, nor do great rocks fall from
>    the sky and crush them.   They MAY be punished *by society*.
>    Morality is a social reality.
> 
> >=You have no morals, no moral code. You just go with the flow, eh man?
> 
>   I have morals but I don't claim that my morals are absolute.  But
>   note that this cuts both ways:  Just as the NAZIs had no qualms 
>   about imposing their morals on the Jews and other victims of their
>   tyranny, likewise I have no qualms about imposing my values on
>   the NAZIs.

Just wanted to say that I agree with what you're saying a lot.  Morality 
is an idea created, upheld, and yet disapproved of by society.

Don't you love hypocrisy?

        -Dagobert


--
dagobert@infopls.chi.il.us (Amul Kumar)
Infoplus BBS, +1 708 537 0247, v32bis. Home of Infoplus.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Who knows how economics works?
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 23:59:45 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA
 


jfh@beach.cis.ufl.edu (James F. Hranicky):
> There are some who do know how the economy works. They are
> the members of the Austrian School of Economics.

  A basic test for any theoretical model is the ability
  to make predictions.   If you can document that the Austrian
  school has demonstrated this, I'm sure we'd all be interested.
  N.B., I'm referring to quantitative predictions, not Hayeck's
  prediction that socialism would fail: that was obvious to
  anyone with half a brain -- the wonder is that it lasted as
  long as it did. 

  If the Austrian School of Economics "know how the economy works"
  perhaps you could be so kind as to publish their predictions for
  GDP, unemployment, and other macro- stats for the EC, or Europe
  or whomever.   Another interesting metric might be to demonstrate
  that economists of that economic school are richer than economists
  of others (presumably knowing how the economy works should produce
  practical benefits to those who do).

  Nobody knows how the economy works because ultimately eco-
  nomics comes down to individual choices: decisions about
  purchasing, saving, investing, borrowing, labor, etc.
  Knowing how these work require a practical science of human 
  psychology, something we are a long way from developing.

  You can make trivial predictions such as saying that if
  we tax savings we'll decrease the marginal propensity to
  save, but we can't predict by how much, or what savings
  instruments will be chosen by those who still prefer to
  save, or what people will do with their money instead.  


---peter

   


Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,rec.arts.books
From: ecopaulz@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Paul Zarembka)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Research in POLITICAL ECONOMY, Volume 13, published (Contents)
Keywords: economics, politics
Date: 7 Nov 92 16:21:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

JUST PUBLISHED--PLEASE CHECK YOUR LIBRARY FOR ORDERS:



                         RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY                        

                             Paul Zarembka, editor                            
                                 JAI Press Inc.                               

                                   Volume 13                                  
                                                                       Page

1. "Free Trade" Unions and the State: Trade Liberalization's             1
Endorsement by the AFL-CIO, 1943-1962 
     by Peter Donohue, University of California at Berkeley 

2. Economics of Shortage or Specificity of Capital Accumulation:         75
The Soviet Case--A Marxian Perspective 
     by Paresh Chattopadhyay, University of Quebec at Montreal 

3. The Development of State Capitalism in the Soviet System             123
     by Paul Zarembka, State University of New York at Buffalo 

4. Deng Xiaoping's Reform and the Chinese Workers' Participation        163
in the Protest Movement of 1989 
     by Shaoguang Wang, Yale University 

5. The State and Social Appropriation: The Case of Nicaragua,           199
1979-1989 
     by Janet M. Tanski, New Mexico State University 

6. Late Industrialization and Class Formation in East Asia              245
     by Val Burris, University of Oregon 

                              -----------------                              

LIBRARY and INDIVIDUAL ORDERS (professional discount at 40%):
  JAI Press Inc., 55 Old Post Road--#2, P.O. 1678, Greenwich, CT 06836-1678
  Phone (203)-661-7602; FAX (203)-661-0792 (credit cards by phone accepted)

Paul Zarembka (ECOPAULZ@UBVMS.BITNET)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.logic
From: jturner@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Jeffrey Turner)
Subject: Re: Theory?
Organization: College of Engineering, Northeastern University
	<JTURNER.92Nov4145031@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu>
	<1992Nov4.211811.11331@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>
	<1992Nov5.160125.2792@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 20:55:57 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.160125.2792@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

> The *liking* is subjective. The *truth* of the sentence is objective.
> Use and mention....

	The truth of the sentence IS NOT TESTABLE.  I *could* be
lying.  I might not have ever seen a cauliflower.  If I said, and
believed, that "I am a Martian" would it be true?  I believe it.
How about "I like Martians", is *that* objectively true?  I do
solemnly swear that I like Martians.

   -- 
> Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
> Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
  ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^
> University of Toronto
> Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1

	No Comment.
					--Jeff Turner
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory