The New Man
Epistemology
In order to build a new society, we have to have
educated and reasonable people who are on the same page epistemologically.
Not a buncha religions and people pushing their stupid convictions on
others. We have put up with it too
long. It’s time for people to grow up
and stop sucking their thumb with these stupid belief systems. It’s
causing too much harm.
The first principle of our epistemology is
skepticism. Therefore, we use this epistemology because we are testing it
and experimenting to see if it will work better than previous systems. We
reserve the right to fall back on older systems. Skepticism means that you never have the
whole picture, you never think you are absolutely right, or that anyone else
is. You judge information according to usefulness, truth value, and other
values, but never as absolutely right.
Even physics equations are just provisional info that we will use, until
we have better info. At no point do we believe it. We use strategies to deal with uncertainty, rather
than attempting or claiming absolute certainty.
Information resolution
We look at information as a hierachy of low
resolution to high resolution systems and then the info in those systems have
high and low resolution. The higher the resolution, the higher the truth
value. Therefore, when someone claims
for example that the Bible is the absolute truth, that is rather silly because
human language has pretty low resolution. That’s like a child saying, “my
brother is absolutely a doo doohead”.
Doodoo head is too low resolution a concept to be called true and
certainly not absolutely true. The
hierachy of info goes something like this. It needs to be understood also
that our perspective cannot be divorced from the concepts we make about these
system, so even the putting together of the system itself if tainted by our
perspective. We can never see the thing
in itself because if you can’t see, you can’t understand anything.
High resolution
Physics
High resolution
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Human language, humanities
Low resolution
Theory of Everything? Algorithm, heuristic
Web of Everything
We have a goal of integrating these systems,
creating a computerized algorithmic theory of everything that is not a theory
really, but a web of loose connections. For example, “love” is low
resolution, we connect it with oxytocin, oxytocin is connected with
carbon. Therefore carbon is connected to
love. And the computer program will then
be able to find connections we never could and produce novel solutions.
Then you have the epistemology and senses you
use to understand these systems. E=MC2 is piece of language, a
concept. So is ‘doodoo head’. Which has the higher truth value?
Neither is the absolute truth but they refer to things. If her brother is behaving badly, is she
speaking the absolute truth by calling him a doodoo head. Come on people,
this is basic.
The second principle is anti-logocentrism.
Language does not perfectly describe the universe. Nor do
numbers. They are just tools that we use
to get work done. See Wittgenstein, Jerome Bruner. For example, to many people a choice is a
very real thing, but in essence, it’s just a word that describes a group of
very different experiences. Choosing what to eat cuz you’re hungry is not
very similar to choosing a wife in a dream state. Different drives, different
circumstances. They just have something
quite small in common so we use a word like choice and now we think we’ve got
magical powers called free will. WE do an analysis of the language people
use to see what concepts, algorithms, heuristics, assumptions are beneath their
use of language.
For an example, If someone says in a philosophy
group, “How many years does it take to reach enlightenment?”
What are the assumptions behind that?
Language literalism - He thinks enlightenment is
something very real and defined, when it’s not.
Personhood literalism - He thinks a person is a
special thing to the universe. In fact a person is a piece of the earth’s
upper crust that comes and goes. That we
give it a name doesn’t change the fact. When a person is dead, they are
literally no body, it’s somewhat delusional that we even speak of a dead
person. That’s over for good.
There’s no heaven, no resurrection, most likely, because a piece of earth
crust isn’t important enough for any powerful being to recreate. All they
did was eat and poop the first time around, no need to bring them back. Plus there’s a billion just like them still
eating and pooping.
So, we look at the basic, underlying
assumptions, if we have to engage such a person but we generally avoid talking
to those who are ignorant and not interested in learning.
WE do not believe in free will, we do not
disbelieve in freewill. Like doodoo head, its too childish a concept to
do what people want it to do. But we still use intentional language
(choice, belief, desire, free will) just for communication. Most likely
all we experience, all that happens is determined, and if not, then
indeterminate, or something else. It is most likely not caused by our
beliefs and desires or will power. It is
surprising that people take these things so literally. Literalism is
stupidity. With any concept, we should
ask, what does that concept do? How did
the concept come about?
Our epistemology assumes that what we experience
is not the ‘real world’, or the ‘thing-in-itself’. As we interact with
things, what we are and what the object is determines how we experience
it. It’s possible also that all matter,
all physical properties are the same as experience and that when many particles
work together, such as in a human body, they can produce unitary properties,
therefore unitary experiences. An example is a magnet. When metal has domains which are not in
alignment, it is just a piece of metal.
Put those domains in alignment, it becomes a magnet. The whole metal now reacts to an opposing
force. A human is similar, our cells
work together to make us a singular being.
It is also connected through electromagnetism, in fact we might just be
a giant, complex magnet, or electromagnetic phenomenon. A computer is of
course the same thing. Your computer
just might already have quite a complex type of experience.
A magnet is probably having a very basic
experience, and experience could be based on electromagnetism since that speed
might be what creates a human type of experience.
We do not use the algorithm of belief
We don’t believe in gods or any kinds of myths.
We have no need also to deny them.
We only use the term belief because we inherited it. But it is
unreasonable to claim to know something for sure when you don’t know it for
sure and that’s what belief is. We’ve no use for it, except to
communicate with others who believe in it or use it.
We do not believe in IQ or any similar
constructs. It’s just a tool of discrimination.
Our goal is to create a new man who is peaceful,
powerful, and intelligent to fight the degeneration which we see happening.
But we want to do this only among ourselves, not the society at
large. We have to insulate ourselves
from the idiocy of society.
With this as a goal, we may try many things
which may helps such as eugenic breeding among ourselves for traits like happy
demeanor and intelligence. We want to do this only by normal means rather
than genetic engineering until gene engineering is made safe.
We do not believe such things as marriage are
anything but a convenience. We try to keep options open and we champion
freedom and options in all things. We only let those in who understand
and accept our epistemology and goals of freedom, beauty, intelligence.
Concepts
Concepts are algorithms, heuristics, little
computer programs in the brain. They are not something ultimately real in
the universe. For example, ‘love’ is not
a thing. It is a word that refers us to some feelings we have had, there
are a limited number of humans and a limited number of people who have or will
feel that way. It’s not something that’s all over the universe. Other animals may have no such experience
they would describe that way or even we may have not experienced things that
way in the past or will in the future.
Perceptual Psychology, Phenomenology
We try to deduce from a person’s behavior, what
they are experiencing. For example, if a child runs away from grandma, we
understand that she saw a scary face, even though we only see grandma.
Moral stance
We only use a moral judgement to change
behavior, we don’t believe it is something real. Blame, responsibility,
these things do not well describe what we know physically or even what we
experience. They are just algorithms which have been successful. Therefore, we don’t believe people are in
full control of themselves and are worthy of absolute blame. We blame
only to identify the source of the problem, then we need to calm down to find a
way to fix the problem. We don’t get
stuck in morality loops.
Once a person has the right epistemology, we
need then a general education and then a specialty education.
The general education should cover extensively
fields which increase personal happiness, health, and success. There’s
isn’t time to waste on trifles, we want info the person can use. We focus then on information literacy,
technology, health, and happiness. We want every single person to be able
to learn expert:
Philosophy
Computers
Mechanics
Biology
Health - Biohacking
Physics
Programming
Must be expert at reading comprehension and
quickly accessing and using information with computers, calculators.
Stuff like Beowulf, learn that in your own time if you want, it’s not for
basic school. There is a hierarchy. A person who doesn’t know how to stay healthy
doesn’t need to be learning Beowulf yet, there are more important things for
them.
It is our goal to start a school that teaches
only applied ways of using all of these. We learn nothing in school which
cannot be used by a single person to complete an important task.
Nassim taleb has a good list of heurstics in his
work. We want to collect algorithms, heuristics. Also computerize some of them, see what AI
can do with them. Also, we learn to deconstruct the algorithms and
heuristics that others are using. It
provides predictive value. It mostly predicts what they will say however,
not what they will do because they don’t do what they say.
Here we can start a list:
- Nothing goes as planned. All intelligent people
know this, but most people don’t. They make plans and
deadlines. They say things like “I
always keep my promises.” That’s a delusional person.
Some associated theorists to our viewpoint
include:
Nassim Taleb
Jerome Bruner - Show you how language, stories
work
Immanuel Kant - epistemology, thing in itself is
not knowable
Paul Feyerbrand
Mathematics without numbers: Geofrey hellman -
this helps break the spell of those who think numbers compose the universe
Wittgenstein - shows us how language games work,
language doesn’t describe experience or reality, they just do a job
Game Theory
Goals:
- Start a school with does real education for every
single member of US. Kids and adults will learn all of these
things. Few people have received an
effective education, even those with a Phd. Nor have I. We are starting over. I’ve learned just enough to start over
and learn the right things.
- Start businesses for US.
- Start a group of like minded persons. Allow
access to those interested. Let no
one in who does not understand or follow the epistemology. Not even
our own children. If they don’t
understand it, they are not useful to this movement. They can be on the outskirts, perhaps
have a lower status, but they can live a full life without using our
epistemology. There is no negative view of people who disagree, we
just don’t need them on the inside of the movement.
