[split from Gathering the good forum posts, here]
Well, some books do take a few years for authors to put together. I guess we just found out why :p
@gotlucky: And I'm not even a published author... As soon as I get a chance to breathe (work has been just insane!), I'm planning to make another installment on astro-liberalism. Most of the ideas about liberalism and social order that I will present in the video come from the book I was putting together (which, in turn, comes in large part from the posts I've made to the forums).
I still sense challenges in selling the idea to the kind of libertarians who might frequent mises.org, who tend to have a distinctly rationalistic bent. After you and others raised objections in the Church of Mises thread, I sat down and re-thought it and I think my point still stands that the mystical is, indeed, the "root foundation" of any epistemology. I think Heidegger held this view, though I'm pretty nervous about agreeing with him. I can't say exactly why.
"Astrology" per se might be a sub-optimal association due in part to its lackluster reputation nowadays and in part to the fact that it is not a be-all-end-all as far as mystical grounding goes. I will touch on this and explain that what I have in mind is religious originalism or any kind of "return to mystical roots" and why I think it is so important to have some kind of mystical foundation/starting-point.
Basically, almost all religion is corrupted by its incestuous relationship with the State, yet religion-qua-religion* is an indispensable aspect of the social order. A society without religion is no less dysfunctional than a society without division-of-labor. So-called rationalists who refuse to participate in religion are as handicapped by that as the "self-reliant" hermit who refuses to participate in the division-of-labor. I think there is a middle ground on the issue of religious participation that is not unlike that which libertarians propose for participating in the division-of-labor (the economy).
In the case of economic activity, it is not that participation "spread the guilt" to all who particpate in "the System" - else all 7 billion people on the planet would be equally guilty which defeats the whole purpose of specifying a person as morally guilty or innocent. Rather, it is one's root enthusiasm or zeal in participation that is the problem. The Patriot is the problem. The corporate ladder-climber is the problem. The answer is not to withdraw all participation in the economic order, it's to renounce one's zealous allegiance to the dysfunction within the system, that is, the State and to view it frankly for what it is even if you take no particular action to oppose it.
In the case of religion, it is the Believer that is the problem. And the solution is the same. Rather than withdrawing all participation in religion (in particular, religious practice but religious belief as it concerns the ineradicable mystical foundations of one's organized knowledge of the world), the correct answer is to withdraw one's zealous belief in things instructed over things known. The same goes for obedience to religious moral dogmas over one's conscience.
The importance of the mystical is what the secularists overlook; this is why the State has monopolized religion before any other line of production. It is the root foundation of mind-control. If you want to control what people think, it won't do to settle for appealing to their reason with arguments which must necessarily be fallacious. Rather, you must get underneath their rationality and get right to the mystical core that precedes their ability to even think rationally. And this is what religion does. But the fact is that this element in human thought is ineradicable, even for the practiced rationalist, so there is no possibility of 'doing away with religion.' The only possible answer is to substitute better religion for worse.
Clayton -
*By "religion" I don't mean going to church. The word is much too broad for that. I mean the entire complex of activities and ideas that surround the creation, organization and maintenance of one's mystical stance.
Alright Clayton, I'll bite
Why is it that society or individuals need a "mystical stance" or any sort of religion? Indeed what do you consider to be a "mystical stance"?
Clayton: I still sense challenges in selling the idea to the kind of libertarians who might frequent mises.org, who tend to have a distinctly rationalistic bent. After you and others raised objections in the Church of Mises thread, I sat down and re-thought it and I think my point still stands that the mystical is, indeed, the "root foundation" of any epistemology. I think Heidegger held this view, though I'm pretty nervous about agreeing with him. I can't say exactly why.
I know you didn't really like the word intuition for what you mean, but for me, it's the closest I can get to supporting an idea of mysticism, at least so far as I'm understanding you. Consider how many religions and moral philosophers have taught the golden rule. I can see how this could be a foundation for a "mystical" approach to liberalism. People get that concept. And what's more, the healthier societies in the world are the ones that respect the golden rule more than not. And the reverse is true for the societies that don't respect it. And again, that's the only version of karma that I can get behind.
But I cannot for the life of me understand the benefit of looking to the stars. I can see how it may be a starting point in some way, but I think that astrology (in terms of stars and planets) does not really have a place in the modern world. I can understand why Rothbard was attracted to natural law (and Ayn Rand too), but I think they are grossly mistaken, mainly because of the is-ought problem. But there is a huge problem with religion in general, even if there are some people that use it for good, there are many that have just corrupted any good that can be had from religion. And for people who do not believe in the supernatural, where do we get our morality? This brings me back to Rothbard and Rand, and they felt they had to reason their way to the golden rule (NAP, and Rand did state a version of it even if she rejected libertarianism).
This is where I think some general philosophy (if you prefer to call it religion that is fine) of libertarianism/liberalism is helpful. Not only is natural law bunk, but not everyone wants to sit down and reason out all the implications of the golden rule/NAP. If you can connect astrology/mysticism to the golden rule, I would be very impressed.
Vive made a good point in another thread:
vive la insurrection: seriously though I think I tend to look Stirner the same way I look at libertarianism, Mises or good economics: dethreading obfuscating nonsense that has come through the backdoors and is trying to infiltrate where it can't.
seriously though I think I tend to look Stirner the same way I look at libertarianism, Mises or good economics: dethreading obfuscating nonsense that has come through the backdoors and is trying to infiltrate where it can't.
I can see astro-liberalism being useful in that sense - it's not like every libertarian who values Austrian Economics has to have an expert understanding of the subject. Just being familiar with some of the basic ideas goes a long way, and look at how people like Bastiat and Hazlitt can explain concepts so simply. But they explain social cooperation and it's consequences in an economic sphere. Explaining social cooperation in terms of morality is necessary, and it is lacking in the libertarian world. Rothbard did a great job with For a New Liberty and The Ethics of Liberty, but it is just not the right track for most people. I know that you do not like some of Block's work regarding Defending the Undefendable, and while he may have gone about it the wrong way (which is debatable), I think he's on the right track (I enjoy his work on the subject). Many people and activities that are considered socially ill behavior do have their place in society. Many people prefer to break the golden rule regarding prostitution/drugs/rich not giving enough to charity. But what these people miss is that their response of aggression to these behaviors is also socially ill behavior.
To bring it back to what vive said, what is needed for the classical liberal/libertarian cause is for there to be an easy way to cut through the socially ill bullshit. It does not have to be some sort of in depth rationalist philosophy, and it really should not be. We already have plenty of rationalist libertarian work. But I don't know if mysticism is the way to do it.
Clayton: "Astrology" per se might be a sub-optimal association due in part to its lackluster reputation nowadays and in part to the fact that it is not a be-all-end-all as far as mystical grounding goes. I will touch on this and explain that what I have in mind is religious originalism or any kind of "return to mystical roots" and why I think it is so important to have some kind of mystical foundation/starting-point. Basically, almost all religion is corrupted by its incestuous relationship with the State, yet religion-qua-religion* is an indispensable aspect of the social order. A society without religion is no less dysfunctional than a society without division-of-labor. So-called rationalists who refuse to participate in religion are as handicapped by that as the "self-reliant" hermit who refuses to participate in the division-of-labor. I think there is a middle ground on the issue of religious participation that is not unlike that which libertarians propose for participating in the division-of-labor (the economy).
I think that you are going to find the words "religion" and "astrology" and "mysticism" to probably have too much baggage associated with them. I think you will find that words such as "creed" and "philosophy" and "intuition" will be much easier. Perhaps they are not what you are trying to explain, but I think they fit the goal quite well. And it is honorable that you are trying to wrest astrology from the hacks out there, but you are facing a similar problem that Rothbard faced when he wrote about calling himself anti-statist instead of anarchist. In the end he was able to take back the word and call himself an anarchist, but he didn't have libertarians fighting him on it. Your task is far more difficult as most libertarians will probably cringe at the words religion, astrology, and mysticism, regardless of what you mean.
Indeed what do you consider to be a "mystical stance"?
I'm using this by analogy to Dennett's "intentional stance" - the tendency of animals (including human beings) to interpret phenomena as the result of the action of a purposive agent. This is an evolutionary response; it's safest to presume that the snapped twig in the forest was broken by someone rather than something; if it turns out it was a thing, there is no loss except a little sweat but if it turns out that your paranoia/superstition was justified, you may end up saving your life. Assuming that there is an acting, purposive being with wants lurking behind any phenomena is a safe strategy because it might turn out to be the case and you might be the thing that it wants. This is the intensional stance.
I'm using the term "mystical stance" to refer to one's orientation to the ineradicable component of human ignorance. When I say "ineradicable" I do not merely mean that part which might be the result of economic limitations or ignorance that results from its lack of utility. This ignorance can be eradicated at least in principle even if it will never be practical to do so.
However, because human beings do not have omniscience and do not possess and exhaustive knowledge of all knowable truths, our knowledge is necessarily contingent and less than certain. Hence, it is always possible that - no matter how advanced our knowledge of mathematics, physics or even human physiology - our systematized knowledge can harbor undetected errors or even contradictions.
This fact is, I believe, something that most people intuitively grasp even while most scientists and philosophers train themselves to ignore it or pretend it is not true. The mystical stance is a response to this fact that is related with the intentional stance in that superstition is the safest response to phenomena that is not understood. Religious superstition concerning gods and demons is an intensional stance regarding ineradicable ignorance; it is a mystical stance.
Religious superstitions do no solely concern gods and demons. In the case of Buddhism it concerns no gods, though there are multiple conscious lifetimes. In certain occult traditions, it concerns demons but not gods or - in the case of Scientology and perhaps others - extraterrestrial beings (mystical beings with physical bodies and who act exclusively by means of physical causality). In Deism and atheistic Unitarianism, it concerns no conscious being at all, a kind of disembodied mysticism towards Nature itself.
Why is it that society or individuals need a "mystical stance" or any sort of religion?
For individuals, we have it because of ineradicable ignorance. This ineradicable ignorance is not just the "corner cases" like ironing out the last details of the Higgs boson. In fact, the corner cases of science arise primarily from the increasing economic hurdles and decreasing utility of answering a certain line of scientific inquiry. These questions are all answerable in principle, anyway.
But the questions we'd most like to answer - does my theory of the world contain hidden contradictions? what will happen in the future? how did the Universe begin or has it a necessary existence? how does conscious experience arise and why does it feel like something to be aware? and so on - are the very questions which reside in the "ineradicable ignorance" category. We simply cannot know the answers to these questions.
How you feel about these questions matters and affects the way you think about everything else. We recognize this in the case of geocentrism versus heliocentrism. In the geocentric Universe, man is naturally the center of everything - he's the crowning achievement of God's creative act. But in the heliocentric Universe, man is not the center of anything. He's on a random planet orbiting a random star in a random arm of a random galaxy. He is small and insignificant. I've written about this at length here.
To see this in action, let's look at what happened to the geocentrism and anthropocentrism of the ancients. In its stead, we have the so-called Copernican Principle. The idea is that man is "just a speck of dust" somewhere out on a random planet orbiting a random star in a random arm of a random galaxy. This is all supposed to be very humbling. We are tiny little cogs in an incomprehensibly large - and essentially random - clockwork. This is supposedly a much more "serious" and dispassionate way of looking at ourselves. But there is a striking similarity between the Copernican cog-in-the-machine and the slave. Neither really acts. Neither is really aware of anything. Awareness - if it exists at all - is just an illusion or magic trick. The new cosmology isn't science. It, too, is a myth or narrative whose purpose is to teach us our place in the order of things, just like the astrological myths and narratives of the ancients. The difference is that the ancient myths and narratives were illuminating. They taught man about his innate nature and purpose and made him aware of the cosmic importance of his consciousness. The old justification for slavery was the aggrandization of the mystical, that is, the claim of Divine Right to rule. The King rules his subjects just like God rules all of humanity and the King is appointed by God for this purpose. With the breakdown of the lies on which the Establishment's religions are built, they had to shift to a new justification for ruling people. The new justification is the exact opposite of the old justification. You are not a spiritual being at all, you are a machine. You are a tiny cog in a random universe. You cannot hope to make sense of the machine in which you are embedded... a machine which was not created for you or your happiness. So, there's no point trying to understand it and there's no point trying to be happy. There's no point acting purposefully because you have no purpose. Do not try to listen to your consciousness because you do not even have a consciousness... you are just so many whirling gears and levers.
But there is a striking similarity between the Copernican cog-in-the-machine and the slave. Neither really acts. Neither is really aware of anything. Awareness - if it exists at all - is just an illusion or magic trick. The new cosmology isn't science. It, too, is a myth or narrative whose purpose is to teach us our place in the order of things, just like the astrological myths and narratives of the ancients. The difference is that the ancient myths and narratives were illuminating. They taught man about his innate nature and purpose and made him aware of the cosmic importance of his consciousness.
The old justification for slavery was the aggrandization of the mystical, that is, the claim of Divine Right to rule. The King rules his subjects just like God rules all of humanity and the King is appointed by God for this purpose. With the breakdown of the lies on which the Establishment's religions are built, they had to shift to a new justification for ruling people. The new justification is the exact opposite of the old justification. You are not a spiritual being at all, you are a machine. You are a tiny cog in a random universe. You cannot hope to make sense of the machine in which you are embedded... a machine which was not created for you or your happiness. So, there's no point trying to understand it and there's no point trying to be happy. There's no point acting purposefully because you have no purpose. Do not try to listen to your consciousness because you do not even have a consciousness... you are just so many whirling gears and levers.
At all times, in all we do, we are always human. Science is not the work of a bunch of emotionless robots like Data from Star Trek. This matters because the character of the lessons that precipitate from scientific knowledge into the wider culture very much depend on the character of that knowledge itself. But the character of scientific knowledge can as easily be hostile to the human condition as it can be conducive to it. Hence, we require a "mystical stance" or pre-rational context in which to situation the facts of science.
You might say "ah, that's metaphysics" but it's not. Metaphysics is still limited to the rational. It does not encompass the whole being. For that, you require an all-encompassing structure of living, acting, thinking, emoting. We might as well call such a thing "religion" irrespective of whether it involves deities and superstitions or not.
But there is a huge problem with religion in general, even if there are some people that use it for good, there are many that have just corrupted any good that can be had from religion. And for people who do not believe in the supernatural, where do we get our morality?
I can't respond to everything right now but thought I'd make a quick reply to this.
First - I'm not trying to "use religion for good"; religion as it is has been thoroughly corrupted by its relationship with the State. It is a system of coercion by other means. It's the velvet glove covering the State's iron fist.
Second, what I mean by "religion" "mystical" etc. has nothing to do with supernatural - if it's causal, it's natural, and if it's having an effect, it's causal. In other words, anything we can become sensible of must be, by definition, natural. (Hume)
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Also, I keep forgetting to make my point; the reason we need a mystical stance is because ideas are not neutral. Many people spread ideas in order to render the holders of those ideas exploitable. In fact, the vast majority of people engaged in this process are not even aware that this is what they are doing (memes). The mystical stance is partly motivated by the need to secure oneself against systems of exploitation, systems which are far older and far more sophisticated than the individual who is born into this moving historical context of evolving, exploitative ideas. This is the negative side. And it is partly motivated by the advantages of inter-generational knowledge sharing of unsystematic knowledge, that is, knowledge which can't be simply compressed into a scientific theory but which is still useful in the attainment of happiness all the same. This is the positive side.
Clayton, let me see if I understand your stance here.
Could your post be summed up into this statement:
Humans are inevitably partially ignorant of their world, while at the same time they crave a greater understanding of their world. Therefore they have to find something to "fill in the gaps" and they therefore arrive at something, anything, which cannot actually be known factually, therefore making this belief "beyond reason" and instead a matter of intuition?
Please correct me if I have misinterpreted your post, or state any major points that I might have missed.
they have to find something to "fill in the gaps"
Not quite - what we fill the gaps with (think, historically) is non-random; there is a reason why these rather than those myths survived. Even if we cannot trace how they have been useful to us, the fact is, they have been. This doesn't convert them into eternal, unalterable dogma but it does mean you don't just throw it aside without a second thought. There have been around 100 billion human beings that have lived out their lives before you. Based in part on their own life experiences, they felt that certain stories and certain ideas were worth repeating and others were not. That's an immense corpus of knowledge regarding human nature which cannot be duplicated by any scientific experiment or easily compressed into any metaphysical theory. I can't see how I can think up something better to fill the gaps with on my own.
But people do reject traditional "theories", if you will, and replace them with things of their own? Just as with all ideas isn't it dependent upon the individual in question? For although the overwhelming majority are incapable of original thought, and many who are reject it or underutilize it, there will always be that "special few". Would you agree with this?
I also don't see how many conceptions of the universe are relevant when we know them to be outright false or which can be traced directly to psychological emotions. The idea of divine justice might help and useful to any number of people, but this doesn't make it true.
Do you consider it relevant that our base conception of the universe in this age of science is radically different than those alive even two centuries ago?
There are people who still believe that shadows are real, so to speak.
But people do reject traditional "theories", if you will, and replace them with things of their own?
From a memetic point-of-view, I would consider this "randomization". People try things. Many - perhaps most - of these trials result in failure (as measured with respect to the individual's achievement of his own ends). Others result in new discoveries that are then transmitted to others and down through generations. Note that the process is not "clean"... many bad ideas manage to get massively propagated and some good ideas have to be independently discovered multiple times before they "catch on".
Just as with all ideas isn't it dependent upon the individual in question?
Absolutely. But even this is part of the world of ideas; the whole idea of "personality types" is itself a "mystical" aspect of knowledge. There is very little we can say about personality types in a structured, scientific way.
For although the overwhelming majority are incapable of original thought, and many who are reject it or underutilize it, there will always be that "special few". Would you agree with this?
Absolutely. But I don't think the special few are necessarily any more gifted than the others. They just happen to be the ones that stumbled on the right idea, perhaps more as a result of the work of others than any original contribution of their own.
I also don't see how many conceptions of the universe are relevant when we know them to be outright false
Anything that is provably false is actually part of our structured knowledge (we can show it is false through proofs or evidence), not our unstructured knowledge, which is always true but unaccounted for.
or which can be traced directly to psychological emotions. The idea of divine justice might help and useful to any number of people, but this doesn't make it true.
Ah, I see where you're going. No, I explicitly reject the "greater good" conception that falsehoods can or should be used because they can "scare people straight", e.g. hell. However, I do think there are "useful fictions", metaphors and mystical beliefs that are neutral with respect to the facts of structured knowledge. Adoption of these beliefs is a matter of individual judgment and not collective judgment. However, nobody is original enough to invent his own belief system from scratch, and the ideas that float around society and fill these "gaps" as you called them are maintained collectively. So there is a give-and-take between individuals and the collective in the use and maintenance of these ideas.
Yes and no. I think that my understanding of the Universe is less primary than my understanding of the self. All science is a form of self-understanding. The Universe only exists as an extension or part of the self. Hence, changes in our understanding of the Universe are less momentous to human knowledge than changes in our understanding of the self. One way to get the idea across: new developments in brain science are more important than new developments in astrophysics. But it's more than just that. Studying the landscape of your own consciousness through meditation, for example, is more central to the process of self-development than the study of remote, esoteric things like black holes or topological set theory.
You can see this is the case once you place scientific knowledge in a means-ends framework. What purpose does this serve? So we smashed some bosons together at near-light-speed and discovered a "shadow" at 125MeV or whatever. So what? What the hell use is that information? It doesn't have any use at all. But learning to meditate and master your own emotional balance and maintain a "smooth calm" throughout your day that keeps you happy and alive and "plugged in" to life and the Universe is useful. So, in a sane world, which science would be accorded the higher place in social discourse, particle physics or the study of meditation and emotional self-mastery?
1. In the framework from which we are discussing I don't understand how you can suggest that a good idea will necessarily take place over a bad idea. Ideas are pieces of information which give us our understanding of the world, they can either serve some purpose which the individual deems necessary and important, be an end in and of themselves (insofar as anything which is not contentment can be an end) or it can merely be neutral. Therefore there's a lot of room here for what constitutes a "good" idea. An idea to spread and stick must have the abilty to spread and stick, it must be a powerful idea and even then it depends both on the "carrier" and the way which he is attempting to spread the idea and the intended/possible host of the idea.
Therefore when you say "good" and "bad" idea, this depends entirely upon what end it is implicitly or subconciously meant to serve as well as the self-examining nature of the individual in question. If he is not interested in himself and his belief then there can be no change in the individual's beliefs whether or not this is a "good" idea, for in order for something to become the subject of action it must be something which is subject to consideration and to which there are percieved alternatives. Most people don't understand that they more or less have a choice over what they believe, what they believe is what they believe. They do not realize that it is subject to their choices.
With this in mind exactly what "good" the wisdom and myths of the ages give us, as well as exactly how the "goodness" of an idea is at all likely to cause an idea to be propagated when what matters much more is the propagation or "memeability" of the idea? Like any good reader of Nietzsche I believe that the value and belief systems of the old Greeks was better than that of the Christians, but we know which one won out.
2. Can you define "self" here? Because we seem to have different understandings of the term. I would consider that a direct understanding of the self is very limited, but that an understanding of one's universe inevitably relates back to the self, but at the same time you could make the argument that the individual's conception of the self relates backwards to all things.
I think that most people's understanding of "the self" is also actually extremely limited, partly because the self is such an ambiguous concept. Yes, we know that there is a body carrying around a brain which has done X Y and Z, but is that really what "you" are?
3. I disagree that an understanding of oneself is essential to happiness, but rather that acceptance of oneself, however accurate this image of the self might be. While an understanding of the self may well be essential to properly managing one's actions and wants, I do not see it as inherently being a means unto itself.
4. If this is a different matter then do not address it, but is the above part of your view on "Astro-libertarianism"? I watched most of your 4 videos and I ultimately failed to really grasp the connection you're attempting to make between the two. What is the connection exactly?
Clayton, I'm going to suggest giving The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade a look. A lot of what you have been posting lately around this area seems to sort of be in sync with a lot of the "traditionalist/pereniallist" authors and to an extent people like Jung and Campbell. I think religion is a natural framework produced by the unconscious or psyche, and it's a human's way of understanding. Personifications of things in nature and projecting is how we work, we're able to understand things through culture, which is beyond that of a mere machine which can only read systematically, something limited to "reason," but cannot grasp concepts beyond that. Even if someone does not like or completely detests religion they cannot deny it has a natural occurence, and even to the non-religious there are some signs of ritual and idolatry in their life and thinking.
Metaphysics is still limited to the rational. It does not encompass the whole being. For that, you require an all-encompassing structure of living, acting, thinking, emoting. We might as well call such a thing "religion" irrespective of whether it involves deities and superstitions or not.
A piece of what I posted from Guenon the other day, "As we have said before, we are dealing with the supra-individual and consequently with the supra-rational order, which does not in any way mean the irrational: metaphysics cannot contradict reason, but it stands above reason, which has no bearing here except as a secondary means for the formulation and external expression of truths that lie beyond it’s province and outside it’s scope." I don't think religion has to encompass deities and superstitions, but you have a general framework or thought that you are actively engaged in.
Thank you to whoever re-named this thread.
Just had a thought about what my precise difficulty is with libertarianism per se. Imagine a race of human beings that had evolved over many, many generations to adapt to conditions of ruling/servitude. In this society, certain people are born predisposed to servility (the servile class) and others with a predisposition to rulership (ruling class). Let's say this is not a random function but it is, in fact, strongly hereditary.
The servile humans will feel uncomfortable with "too much" freedom and the rulers feel uncomfortable without a sufficient amount of "status" as measured by the number of people they rule over. There is nothing, in principle, impossible about this sci-fi scenario, we observe similar behavior in other animals.
The trouble arises with the potential for a disconnect between individual satisfaction and liberty - libertarianism simply assumes that both are directly positively correlated. This may be the case but it is not obvious that it is, in fact, the case. Hence, libertarianism needs to either make this case or acknowledge that there could be a disconnect between liberty and individual satisfaction.
I want to note that I am not trying to say "the burden of proof is on the person who wants more liberty" - far from it! By very virtue of arguing for greater freedom, the libertarian has already demonstrated that his satisfaction is positively correlated with liberty. What I'm trying to point out is the logical dependency: liberty is important only insofar as it brings about individual satisfaction. It is satisfaction that is primary. Liberty is merely a logical condition for bringing about satisfaction.
Clayton: I can't respond to everything right now but thought I'd make a quick reply to this.
Shameless bump.
I know you didn't really like the word intuition for what you mean, but for me, it's the closest I can get to supporting an idea of mysticism, at least so far as I'm understanding you.
But I cannot for the life of me understand the benefit of looking to the stars.
astrology (in terms of stars and planets) does not really have a place in the modern world.
Clayton: Allow me to make an analogy. One way of thinking of science is as a "compression utility"... it permits a wide spectrum of phenomena to be "compressed" down to simpler principles or math equations from which can be "deduced" real behavior under specific conditions. So, think of a file you want to compress with WinZip or some other utility. There are three pieces in the analogy: The uncompressed file, the compression utility and the compressed file. The uncompressed file is "unfiltered knowledge", it is just raw phenomena; conscious experience or awareness. The compression utility represents "scientific/structured knowledge", it is that body of knowledge that is universally (*universal over human experience) true. The compressed file represents explained real phenomena, kind of like revisionist history. It is the application of scientific principles (compression utility) to specific phenomena (uncompressed file) to derive a more compact and concise account of the specific phenomena (a historical "theory"). What I'm trying to say is that the foundation of both the compression utility and the compressed file is the uncompressed file itself! Without some kind of "plain text" to begin from, you can never build a compression utility (scientific theory) because there's nothing to build the utility to compress (or theorize about)! But the uncompressed file - in this analogy - represents raw phenomena, that is, facts not "comprehended" or "understood" through any systematic study. Unless we can build a Theory of Everything (perfect compression utility), we will never be able to completely eliminate the uncompressed file, that is, there will always be unexplained things within our conscious experience. Since they are unexplained, they are mysteries, yet they are true (since they are part of our experience)... this makes that portion of our knowledge mystical knowledge. This is a really good analogy. I think my problem (and maybe others) has been with the word mystical. I always have associated mystical with magic and the supernatural, and I know you have been clear that's not what you were getting at with it, but I was still reading what you wrote with that concept in mind. But this analogy makes it really clear. I think you are using mystical with a sense similar to mysterious, not magical. So I'm going to try to take a stab at it and see if I am clear with what you are saying. These unexplained, raw phenomena are mystical in the sense that we don't understand them. For example, I can watch an apple fall from a tree, and Newton's theory of gravity explains what I am experiencing. But without that theory (or even another theory), I don't have a structured understanding of what I'm seeing. I might be able to predict some things about what I'm seeing, but it would be unstructured knowledge. This is where I get a little confused about intuition versus unstructured knowledge. I might be able to reach conclusions about the apple falling from induction, but at what point do you consider it structured and not unstructured? Also, out of curiosity, remember the Asimov essay about the Relativity of Wrong? Would you consider the flat earth theory to be structured or unstructured knowledge? I imagine you would consider the spherical and subsequent theories to be structured. I'm just trying to get a better feel here, but I think I'm getting more of what you are saying. Clayton: The stars (and other basic natural phenomena) are facts of conscious experience that are the opposite of a 1,000 page contract. They are facts that are sufficiently enmeshed with the fabric of reality that they are in some sense "deep" or non-trivial, yet not so deep and non-trivial (e.g. a Higgs boson) as to defy the moderately competent individual from grasping their essential motions and properties at a fundamental level. Well, I liked what you were saying in the preceding paragraphs, but I just don't see what you are getting at with the stars. I just don't see what conclusions can be drawn from them. I understand that we cannot be experts in all fields, but I don't see what the stars have to do with this. What do the alignments of the stars tell us about anything? At best, I can only see what they might represent metaphorically, but I don't see what knowledge about the physical world can be gained through astrology. I think at this point it would be best if you could use some examples, because I'm not getting it from your general explanations. LibertyHQ and its awesome forum. | Post Points: 35
Clayton: The stars (and other basic natural phenomena) are facts of conscious experience that are the opposite of a 1,000 page contract. They are facts that are sufficiently enmeshed with the fabric of reality that they are in some sense "deep" or non-trivial, yet not so deep and non-trivial (e.g. a Higgs boson) as to defy the moderately competent individual from grasping their essential motions and properties at a fundamental level.
I'm in agreement with gotlucky's above post. What does the stars have to do with it?
This is where I get a little confused about intuition versus unstructured knowledge. I might be able to reach conclusions about the apple falling from induction, but at what point do you consider it structured and not unstructured?
Well, I think we are born with/naturally acquire (from the environment) a certain body of knowledge about a lot of things - society, physics, biology and so on. This body of knowledge - to the extent it is actually true - can be thought of as pre-packaged structure... it is already-structured knowledge that you don't have to work (exert significant, extended mental effort) to structure. You "just know" a lot of facts about the nature of the physical world... two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time, mass is additive (two piles of things together weigh as much as the sum of each taken individually) and so on.
However, how we came about this pre-structured knowledge is itself not something that we get for free. That is, the result of evolution (the human brain) does not contain within it any history/record/memory of the evolutionary process itself (a theory of evolution). Hence, it is not obvious how we came to have this pre-structured knowledge and I think that this makes the distinction between structured and unstructured knowledge more difficult to draw because the pre-structured knowledge we have seems to be in some kind of limbo between being structured (meaningful, non-trivial facts) and un-structured (acquired with no exertion of mental effort).
Also, out of curiosity, remember the Asimov essay about the Relativity of Wrong? Would you consider the flat earth theory to be structured or unstructured knowledge? I imagine you would consider the spherical and subsequent theories to be structured. I'm just trying to get a better feel here, but I think I'm getting more of what you are saying.
I don't think flat-earth was ever a theory. As an intuitive model of the world, it is pre-structured knowledge... it's a "sense" about the world that your brain comes pre-packaged with and is only unlearned once someone teaches you that the Earth is a sphere, not just a flat landmass of indefinite extent.
I think at this point it would be best if you could use some examples, because I'm not getting it from your general explanations.
Well, I think the astrological concept of day and night, male and female, good and evil is the simplest example. The assignment of day to a higher rank than night is an expression of a far-reaching aspect of human nature, illustrated by the simple fact of the day/night cycle. Humans divide every aspect of experience into more and less preferable. This is the yin and yang, day and night, male and female. Give two siblings close in age the exact same toy - one of the toys will become the preferred toy! My children do it all the time (drives me insane).
But when you think about it, there is nothing objectively better about day than night, that is, there is nothing about human valuation that is intrinsic to the structure of the Universe. Hence, it is man that creates the division of day and night in the sense of a ranking or preference and this is a fact of the Universe.
In itself, this insight is relatively unremarkable and quite obvious on even cursory reflection. However, understanding human nature in its widest possible sense is, I think, the most difficult problem that human beings face. The problem is so difficult that there is no known method to solve it and we can be sure there never will be. The sum of human culture is a body of knowledge that, however indirectly, contains the lessons learned by the 100 billion anatomically modern humans that have lived before us. You and I have only one life to live and every choice we make is irreversible. How lucky we are to be able to cheat off the complete, fully-lived lives of not millions but billions of human beings.
The modernist bias is that the most difficult problems facing man concern the external environment and abstract ideas (physics & math). But we must realize that these problems are only a part of the larger problem of human happiness (all science is a means to human ends). The lessons which have been associated with myth, the stars, and the natural environment (e.g. morality fables based on attributes of animals, rivers, mountains, etc.) all contain scattered bits and pieces of this corpus of knowledge derived from human experience. Not all of it is true and not all of human experience is present within this corpus but what is there is of immense value to the individual because it is his only real chance to avoid making irreversible mistakes regarding non-trivial choices in his own life.
Steven Pinker notes in one of his many online lectures (sorry, can't remember which one) that one of the reasons human beings are so fascinated by fictional stories is that they are a powerful means of reasoning out the social consequences of decisions that one might make. Look at soap operas, for example. Once you look past the cheesy acting and low-budget production, the plots are mostly constructed from well-known archetypes and long-recycled gossip stories that had their origin in whole or in part in real scandals at some time in the past, distant or recent. By watching these stories, your brain is "working out" the social consequences of non-trivial decisions made in complex social circumstances. Little, if any, of this can be meaningfully reduced to a "theory". In social relationships, it all depends.
Myths are just one kind of story genre within the wider scope of human story-telling. What makes myth particularly interesting is that - I think - it appeals to some kind of "social abstraction" module within the brain that is capable of compressing large amounts of social knowledge into smaller nuggets. Some stories convey a lot more information about human nature than other stories, not even in the sense of "teaching lessons" so much as stimulating useful contemplation of social problems and providing widely useful "mnemonics" for quick reference during high-pressure, time-critical social situations (e.g conflict, emergency) that can arise without notice. Emotionally traumatic situations can put the individual in shock; stories about traumatic situations may play some role in "prepping" the individual by helping him rehearse how to handle the overwhelmingly powerful thoughts and feelings he will encounter in such situations.
Astrology, paganism, myth, etc. ... these act as "metaphorical mnemonics" or "switching stations of human knowledge" that allow us to tie together wide swathes of the corpus of knowledge regarding human nature that resides in human culture in a way that filters and extracts the most useful and general aspects of this knowledge while providing a razor to apply in cutting out the useless, deceptive and manipulative ideas that seek to take hold of us. I think it's difficult to overstate how important that is to individual happiness.
That post clears up most of my questions. Just so I'm on the same page, do you consider astrology, or at least astro-liberalism, as an umbrella term for astrology, paganism, myth, or your "metaphorical mnemonics"?
I have never seen the word mystical to mean or be anything worth caring about. And that includes on this thread.
Anytime I come across it all I can see is:
a) a concern to subsidize certain narratives
b) a Platonization / codification of ones own mind or aesthetic practices
c) an attempt to obfuscate anything concrete stated (nihilism / skepticism)
d) long winded BS about "personhood" to backdoor an ethical system in somewhere
If you care more about "traditional" (whatever that means) narratives than Reaity TV orwhatever, so be it - package the product up and call it "mysticism"; but it is just that, a temporal product based off of consumption and my desires...just like a Whopper, and it will always be categorized as such. It holds nothing outside of "consumer product" or "esoteric language" to perserve power and social status.
It's only necessary and a product if it sells, and even than only to the satisfaction of a consumers' needs - just like a Whopper. So McMysticism is fine, I suppose - frankly I think arguments can be had that these are reactionary views by shepards and hill people which arebound to be bred out by the progressive and inherenty "demystifying" market process and the imperatives it implies, but that'sa different story.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Also:
materialism is a fact
While I do agree with this, it does not seem that Clayton is using the word mystical in the standard meaning of magical. It seems like he is talking about it in the sense of mysterious, or unknown. Clayton's goal is to come up with an alternative method of demystifying (I totally used that word on purpose!) the political and economic realms. There are a lot of libertarians who are obsessed with rationalism, and to large degree that's a good thing. The thing is, most people don't really care to study the implications of one worldview over another. For most people, it is a waste of time to engage them on hyper-rationalist (is there even such a thing?) grounds. But it's not any better to engage them on a pure emotional level either.
So, I think what Clayton is getting at is that it while structured knowledge is incredibly useful, not everyone cares to be or even can be an expert in everything. People must rely on the word of other experts. And while we do rely on the words of experts, we should not just ditch previous knowledge just because it is traditional.
Maybe it might make sense if we look at etiquette. The etiquette in Burger King is entirely different from the etiquette at the Ritz. Maybe the kind of etiquette at the Ritz is not right for the kind of place BK is. But what we shouldn't do is also do away with all etiquette just because it's done at the Ritz. People shouldn't shove others at BK. Maybe it's okay to swear or not put your napkin on your lap at BK, but there is a reason etiquette exists, and we shouldn't just throw it away because it's traditional.
Maybe etiquette is a bad example. I don't know. But I don't think Clayton is trying to come up traditional or magical ideas for the sake of tradition or magic.
do you consider astrology, or at least astro-liberalism, as an umbrella term for astrology, paganism, myth, or your "metaphorical mnemonics"?
I agree with the point that it's a market phenomenon and, hence, just a product like any other. But some products are better than others, even at the same price (e.g. a BMW versus a Cadillac). I'm not espousing any "meta-narrative" here, just an idea for a "new product" on the "religious services" market, if you will.
@Clayton
What I think liberalism is missing is the wider view of human nature, the part that includes singing and dancing, friends and family, childbirth and death. It is a highly left-brain (rationalistic) view of the world. And what the touchy-feely, religious side is missing is the insights of liberal philosophy - that human society really is inherently harmonious (this isn't just wishful thinking), that voluntary exchange is positive-sum, that variation and specialization are a boon to everyone, that voluntary trade is to the benefit of everyone, that ownership and private-property are the basis of material prosperity and the escape from the brutal clutches of Nature which this has enabled, and so on.
That sounds remarkably like the prevailing attitude of the 19th century.
Perhaps we should look at what destroyed it?
Conventional wisdom says the war was responsible, that the war opened up a chink in the armor of 19th century civilization through which the evil collectivist barbarisms of the 20th century were permitted to enter.
How can what the war did be undone?
What exactly did it do?
the war was responsible
Which war?
So to be clear,are you competing with the narratives, histories, and terms used in the same context as this mystic
http://www.atbshop.co.uk/kitesurfing-accessories/mystic-brand-fresh-blue-board-shorts
If so, I would still point out that this example uses the word "mystic", cares about history, etc in terms that are more applicable to reality and people than any other definition I've seen. But that's just an opinion at this point, as I don't feel like elaborating.
If all you are doing is writing a story, gathering something to sell because you think there is some entrpreuria need for it and brand it as"mystic" -so be it...there is really nothing to argue.
If you are trying to make any philiosophical, theological, historical, scientific, customary or any other categorical claim - I think you may be in error.
As for some products being better than others (such asBMW and cadilliac), nothing can be said of such things except in extremely narrrow conditions.
The first world war
Maybe it might make sense if we look at etiquette.
We can't control etiquette, we can only affirm it. Nor can we say "ought" to it in much of a theoretical sense.
I am smelling a kind of Kantian attitude towards ethics - which may be kind of a codified liberal politeness. I don't think it will fly. People are going to, and have rejected, radically so, because it doesn't mean in the long run, and it is in a category where people expect it to. If something is built on nothing, it will collapse.
Clayton is saying that Austians are "logical" and not "sentimental" or whatever - I don't think that makes much sense - or overal differenc in life for that matter. Either way, to try to write an historical narrative,,rationalize and put into reasonable and inteligible perspective mysticism and mythology like this may very well be just as "logical" and against the category of the "mystic" he is trying to affirm.
As far as a concern about "lack of knowledge":
This is taking pragmatic looks at epistemology and empiricism too far. "Lack of knowledge" only makes sense in very very limited cases, I would say any attempt to use the "totality" of the mystic and logical as one of them is a categorical error.
To quote the Bazarov character from Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons:
“I don't see why it's impossible to express everything that's on one's mind.”
And a word on these "historical narratives":
All the postmoderns who are so concerned with narratives deconstruction and revisionism, etc are kind of correct in their own imbecilic way. There is a reason why I had to read a feminists, marxist, sexual,freudian etc critique and narrative interpretations of Shakespear, Homer, the Bible etc in lit class - because everyone knows any of this stuff that is subject to such literary interpretation doesn't really matter anyway.
History literature ,etc are jokes. The only reason why they exist is academic subsidy and peope taking intellectualism and"tradition" way to seriously. The market eradicates this problem. There is no reason to come up with a new narrative to surplant and subvert the old ones in the dead categories that re used, that never willl work - why not just deny the category, and show how action and custom will eliminate them via the market process. There is no need for a mystic backdoor.
@vive: I enjoy your posts but in this case, to be honest, I have no clue what you're on about. You seem to be taking too seriously the "church" metaphor I drew in the First Church of Mises thread (which this thread seems to be a continuation of). It's just a metaphor. But I do think we've been "conquered" by the State in some sense, that is, that individuals have been dissociated from one another as a result of policies and laws whose purpose - directly or indirectly - is to force the individual to go through official, well-documented economic channels for any good or service he may require, thus ensuring that everything is counted and taxed (see the VAT in Europe, for example... that is the future of governance, worldwide).
"The market" doesn't magically solve anything. It is nothing more than the sum of individual ingenuities. The problem I think that I see a market demand for solving here is providing services akin to what religions have provided for their constituents. I think it is modernist tripe that religion never did anybody any good. Of course it did, else why did it evolve? Discernment to separate the good from the bad is what is required and this is part of the service that I think people are demanding. They want good ideas about how to live life, there just aren't any producers, or very few (LRC and affiliates, LvMI, ???).
Etiquette is like language. It is spontaneous and no one person in particular controls it. But that doesn't mean that people shouldn't look to understand what the rules are and learn when and how to break them. Most jobs don't require a man to wear a suit anymore, and for many job interviews you still don't need one. There are reasons men wear a suit or at least a blazer for many job interviews. It looks good and it conveys respect for how one dresses and respect for the people you want to work with. There are cultures and societies that don't use the suit but have other type of formal dress.
The specific form of the formal wear is irrelevant. People can discuss what the proper way to dress is, or for what is appropriate for what occassions. And you are right, that etiquette isn't controlled by any one person. But it would be a serious mistake for someone to not understand the proper etiquette for the various situations in life. True, sometimes it's just embarrassing, but it can cost people jobs if they break certain rules even once.
So, someone can go through life without studying the etiquette necessary for whatever spheres of society they will be apart of, but he will find his life needlessly difficult in certain regards. Or he can learn about the proper etiquette that will be relevant to him and his life will be that much easier.
I think this is what Clayton is getting at but with myths and other stories. Sure, you could go through life thinking that the way people act on many reality tv shows is appropriate, and maybe it is for the sphere you are in. But I think it would be a great mistake for a lawyer to think that the behavior on Jersey Shore is appropriate for the courtroom or for even meeting clients.
For the most part, people learn the proper etiquette they need from relevant people when they are new to whatever sphere they are entering. But when they enter other spheres, that is when it would have been nice for them to know what the relevant etiquette is for the other spheres. Sure, maybe you can swear all you want in a bar, but try that in a courtroom or job interview and you will see that it is not appropriate.
It's the same with these myths. You can learn about Aesop's fables as a child so that you know about courteous and generally good behavior. Or you could belong to a society that thinks it's morally bad for a woman to show her face in front of men, work alongside men, or even drive a car. You can study those myths and stories that lead to that sort of belief.
The principles behind the myths and stories are different. All cultures are different, but some have qualities that we like more than others. Certainly there are people who think that the customs and laws of Saudi Arabia are good (I'm looking at you, Saudi Royal Family). But for those of us who do not see those ideas as good, we ought to suggest stories and myths that lead to different conclusions.
And I'm not saying that Islam is evil or whatever. Religion is whatever the people make of it. I'm just saying that some stories, such as Aesop's fables, generally have good and useful principles in them.
And separately, the parable of the broken window could be an example of a useful story. Sure, it's not a myth. But it has all the elements of what make a good myth. Besides the point that breaking windows does not actually make a society richer, there is the great principle that we ought to look not only at that which is seen, but also at that which is not seen. It's a great parable, and I think suggesting it to others is something along the lines of what Clayton is driving at.
Oh whoops,
sorry guys I think I did misread. "Mystic" is a widget right? You're essentially just showing various ways to do an exegesis on things already in practice correct?
I think suggesting it to others is something along the lines of what Clayton is driving at.
I'm all for that but it isn't quite what I'm getting at. Let me quote Rothbard in EoL and compare/contrast my views with his to help illustrate:
2. Natural Law as "Science" It is indeed puzzling that so many modern philosophers should sniff at the very term "nature" as an injection of mysticism and the supernatural. An apple, let fall, will drop to the ground; this we all observe and acknowledge to be in the nature of the apple (as well as the world in general). Two atoms of hydrogen combined with one of oxygen will yield one molecule of water – behavior that is uniquely in the nature of hydrogen, oxygen, and water. There is nothing arcane or mystical about such observations. Why then cavil at the concept of "nature"? The world, in fact, consists of a myriad number of observable things, or entities. This is surely an observable fact. Since the world does not consist of one homogenous thing or entity alone, it follows that each one of these different things possesses differing attributes; otherwise they would all be the same thing. But if A, B, C, etc., have different attributes, it follows immediately that they have different natures.[18][19] It also follows that when these various things meet and interact, a specifically delimitable and definable result will occur. In short, specific, delimitable causes will have specific delimitable effects.[20] The observable behavior of each of these entities is the law of their natures, and this law includes what happens as a result of the interactions. The complex that we may build up of these laws may be termed the structure of natural law. What is "mystical" about that?[21] In the field of purely physical laws, this concept will usually differ from modern positivistic terminology only on high philosophical levels; applied to man, however, the concept is far more controversial. And yet, if apples and stones and roses each have their specific natures, is man the only entity, the only being, that cannot have one? And if man does have a nature, why cannot it too be open to rational observation and reflection? If all things have natures, then surely man's nature is open to inspection; the current brusque rejection of the concept of the nature of man is therefore arbitrary and a priori. One common, flip criticism by opponents of natural law is: who is to establish the alleged truths about man? The answer is not who but what: man's reason. Man's reason is objective, i.e., it can be employed by all men to yield truths about the world. To ask what is man's nature is to invite the answer. Go thou and study and find out! It is as if one man were to assert that the nature of copper were open to rational investigation and a critic were to challenge him to "prove" this immediately by setting forth on the spot all the laws that have been discovered about copper. Another common charge is that natural-law theorists differ among themselves, and that therefore all natural-law theories must be discarded. This charge comes with peculiar ill grace when it comes, as it often does, from utilitarian economists. For economics has been a notoriously contentious science – and yet few people advocate tossing all economics therefore into the discard. Furthermore, difference of opinion is no excuse for discarding all sides to a dispute; the responsible person is the one who uses his reason to examine the various contentions and make up his own mind.[22] He does not simply say a priori, "a plague on all your houses!" The fact of man's reason does not mean that error is impossible. Even such "hard" sciences as physics and chemistry have had their errors and their fervent disputes.[23] No man is omniscient or infallible – a law, by the way, of man's nature.
It is indeed puzzling that so many modern philosophers should sniff at the very term "nature" as an injection of mysticism and the supernatural. An apple, let fall, will drop to the ground; this we all observe and acknowledge to be in the nature of the apple (as well as the world in general). Two atoms of hydrogen combined with one of oxygen will yield one molecule of water – behavior that is uniquely in the nature of hydrogen, oxygen, and water. There is nothing arcane or mystical about such observations. Why then cavil at the concept of "nature"? The world, in fact, consists of a myriad number of observable things, or entities. This is surely an observable fact. Since the world does not consist of one homogenous thing or entity alone, it follows that each one of these different things possesses differing attributes; otherwise they would all be the same thing. But if A, B, C, etc., have different attributes, it follows immediately that they have different natures.[18][19] It also follows that when these various things meet and interact, a specifically delimitable and definable result will occur. In short, specific, delimitable causes will have specific delimitable effects.[20]
The observable behavior of each of these entities is the law of their natures, and this law includes what happens as a result of the interactions. The complex that we may build up of these laws may be termed the structure of natural law. What is "mystical" about that?[21]
In the field of purely physical laws, this concept will usually differ from modern positivistic terminology only on high philosophical levels; applied to man, however, the concept is far more controversial. And yet, if apples and stones and roses each have their specific natures, is man the only entity, the only being, that cannot have one? And if man does have a nature, why cannot it too be open to rational observation and reflection? If all things have natures, then surely man's nature is open to inspection; the current brusque rejection of the concept of the nature of man is therefore arbitrary and a priori.
One common, flip criticism by opponents of natural law is: who is to establish the alleged truths about man? The answer is not who but what: man's reason. Man's reason is objective, i.e., it can be employed by all men to yield truths about the world. To ask what is man's nature is to invite the answer. Go thou and study and find out! It is as if one man were to assert that the nature of copper were open to rational investigation and a critic were to challenge him to "prove" this immediately by setting forth on the spot all the laws that have been discovered about copper.
Another common charge is that natural-law theorists differ among themselves, and that therefore all natural-law theories must be discarded. This charge comes with peculiar ill grace when it comes, as it often does, from utilitarian economists. For economics has been a notoriously contentious science – and yet few people advocate tossing all economics therefore into the discard. Furthermore, difference of opinion is no excuse for discarding all sides to a dispute; the responsible person is the one who uses his reason to examine the various contentions and make up his own mind.[22] He does not simply say a priori, "a plague on all your houses!" The fact of man's reason does not mean that error is impossible. Even such "hard" sciences as physics and chemistry have had their errors and their fervent disputes.[23] No man is omniscient or infallible – a law, by the way, of man's nature.
I love that phrase, "Go thou and study and find out!" In terms of astrology/occultism, this would be "Know Thyself."
The distinction between what you're saying, gotlucky, and what I'm trying to describe is in the tenor of Rothbard's discussion of natural law - natural law is something that is discovered; it is not normative. That is, it is not something that it even makes sense to speak of "persuading" people to conform to. The persuasion is something that Nature itself handles (consequences of choices... aka karmic law). The natural law theorist - that is, the student of human nature - merely exposits the facts of human nature, like a paleontologist digging and categorizing fossils.
Where I disagree with Rothbard is on the question of methodology. I don't think an a priori methodology is suitable. Evolutionary psychology is lighting the way forward in terms of intensive scientific study of the objective facts of human nature. The trouble with the intensive approach is that it is not even close to sufficient for daily life. You already know, on the basis of intuition alone, a great deal more about human nature than you will ever learn from reading evolutionary psychology journal articles. A person who knew only the facts of human nature that can be deduced from EP would be a social outcast, an incompetent, a dolt.
If your aim is not merely to understand what Nature has already put into your skull and how it got there (the domain of EP), if your aim is instead to improve upon what Nature has given you in terms of your understanding of yourself (including your setting, that is, your position in time & space), your fellow man and the natural environment, then it is not sufficient to engage in intensive, rational, scientific study. You need more than that, you need some kind of way to organize and amplify your mystical knowledge, that is, the vast body of things you know but can't explain or can learn without knowing how. This body of knowledge is much larger than any body of knowledge you will ever be able to acquire through intensive, rational study in large part because your brain is much better at the former than the latter. Compare the difficulty of reading and comprehending a good fiction book with the difficulty of learning topological set theory.
I will make an analogy - the difference between liberal philosophy and astro-liberalism is like the difference between mainstream Western medicine and holistic medicine. Holistic medicine does not involve denying the science or effectiveness of scientific medical knowledge - of course it's true that antibiotics kill bacteria. But what it does urge is caution in the wholesale adoption of new remedies whose net effect on the well-being of the individual have not been fully understood. This urge is not directed at government policy or "society" or even necessarily to the medical establishment - it is directed to the individual because it is the individual who is most affected by the course of treatments he chooses. In addition, holistic medicine emphasizes the importance of prevention and overall health (including mental health, stress-reduction, not being locked into the rat-race, etc.) instead of just the cut, burn and poison approach of mainstream medicine. But when you need bypass surgery, you're going to need someone who's studied the science of heart surgery. So, both sides are needed to get the best overall result. The point is that blindly going along with things just because they're labeled "scientific" or "objective" doesn't make sense when you put action into the context of means and ends. Objectivity is not an end in itself, it is merely a means to the end of all acting beings: satisfaction.
I think so. I think part of it is identifying what myths have classical liberal themes or really just themes that are useful to people in general, and then to promote those myths and stories for people to read. It's a different approach to convincing people about classical liberal and modern libertarian values, as the current approach seems to be hyper-rationalism, which is a huge turn off for most people.
EDIT: Maybe not entirely. See Clayton's above post.
I took Latin in high school, and one of the useful things we did were read the Roman myths in the original Latin (they were the same as the Greek myths). While they were somewhat simplistic, one common theme was hospitality, and the gods rewarded people who were hospitable, and sometimes even punished those that were not. It's the same with the Jewish myths as well. Those that were hospitable were rewarded, and those that were not may sometimes even be punished (but not always).
Maybe those stories don't have a lot of depth to them, but I don't think they were meant to. The only deficiency I see with them is that these stories don't tend to get into why hospitality might be a virtue. It's just expected to be one, and that's probably enough for the target audience of these stories.
By the way, I don't know how familiar you are with the Parable of the Good Samaritan (I'm sure you have at least heard of it). One of the themes that actually gets lost on most people (well, at least Americans) is that the Samaritan was the one to have helped the traveller. And Samaritans were despised by Jews. A somewhat updated version of the story might take place in the 1950's, and it might have been a southern black who helped the traveller while the whites just passed by. Or an even more updated version could be with a Muslim being the one to stop and help the traveller, while the suburban, middle class white guy doesn't bother to stop.
That is perhaps one problem with some of the older stories, as original themes can get lost because the story itself is dated. Most people just consider someone who helps another to be a "good Samaritan". But they totally miss the point of the story. It's not just that whoever helps the traveller is a good person. It's that the actual person who helped the traveller was also someone who the target audience generally despised. So maybe the audience shouldn't be so quick to condemn a whole group of people.
@gotlucky: Awesome points.
Yes, I was aware of the import of the parable of the Samaritan - when I say I was raised "devoutly religious", I mean it. I was competing in Bible verse and catechism recitations when I was in 4th grade (at a religious school). The Calvinist Protestant sub-culture is little-known but they're kind of like the Spartans of Protestantism.
original themes can get lost because the story itself is dated
True but I guess the stories that get told and re-told like that end up getting face-lifts anyways as authors "translate" them into modern versions of them. So, it's not really about the form of the ancient stories (their original commitment to paper) but the content. I think knowing that a story is ancient (even if it is just a re-telling of an ancient story, like Oh Brother Where Art Thou) still says something about its value in terms of insight into human nature.
I think I am starting to understand Claytons project. Gotluckys discussion was useful on that count.
I was reminded of this video:
(first 13min is just intro)
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
@nir: Wooooooowwww that lecture is a-w-e-s-o-m-e...
I'm still watching but I had to pause and remark on his observation on the visual bias in a lot of cognitive science. So true! There is this huuuuge bias towards visual categorization as if it is definitive of what it means to mean, what it means to categorize and it is as Hofstadter says, "so mistaken."