nirgrahamUK: well, if it is perfectly servicable and tractable to forgo such conveniences when searching for truth... surely now is a good time as any to prove it, since he is searching for truth. (he is not searching for truth. that would be to ascribe an intentional stance to him. )
well, if it is perfectly servicable and tractable to forgo such conveniences when searching for truth... surely now is a good time as any to prove it, since he is searching for truth.
(he is not searching for truth. that would be to ascribe an intentional stance to him. )
Heh, well, maybe he thinks that we could do praxeology and get results, but that we could do "empirical" economics and get better results. But then I wouldn't know what the point of the debate that he is having with Lilburne would be. I don't think that he has even tried to show anything that "empirical" economics has figured out about the world.
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
in other words I challenge him (ooh intentional!) to abandon meaningless terms which are mere folk psychology and unscientific to demonstrate by example that he can possibly act like the eliminative materialist that he calls himself.
The issue is precisely this, he cannot be an eliminative materialist if he thinks that he is arguing with Grayson.
maybe another way to say it is that to be an eliminative materialist one must deny that one believes in the truth of eliminative materialism.
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
It is both. They are "logically connected", not "temporally" connected, if you know what I mean. One doesn't precede the other; they are just two levels of description of the same thing.
Thanks, I. Ryan.
I was trying to get at implication. I understand that logical arguments such as these "exist out of time" or have no temporal dimension to them. What I was wondering is this:
A implies B doesn't necessarily mean B implies A.
Action implies preference. Does preference imply action? From what I understand, the action axiom is the self-evident starting point of the deduction. Am I missing something here?
I don't think it's the notion that we have beliefs or discomforts that help build a case for action. I think it's that the idea of action itself, builds the case for beliefs and discomforts and value, etc...
I'm going to go out drinking, so I won't be able to debate or comment for a while. This is the most compelling set of discussions I've been in for a long time. Great fun, everyone discussing is really smart, pretty patient, and understands the need to define terms. Only thing is I feel like an addict, clicking "Show Unread Posts" compulsively with bloodshot eyes.
Agreed 100%! Have fun!
preference must be combined with other things like the expectation that the act you may prefer to engage in is feasible etc. When such things are combined they convene to necessitate the package concept of 'human action' or else absurdity would follow.
'Human Action' it has been said can be unpacked....if you told someone everything you knew from 'unpacking' then they would know 'Human Action'. so from my understanding. The packed concept is logically equivalent to the unpacked.
Neoclassical: Suppose you had the choice of receiving a free $10 Amazon gift certificate or the opportunity to pay seven dollars for a $20 Amazon gift certificate. Most people instinctively chose the free $10 Amazon gift certificate, even though purchasing the $20 gift certificate brings you more profit – $10 vs $13 ($20-$7) – and thus is the better choice. Could Austrian economists have made this prediction?
Do they have $7 on them right now? Do they want to make such a tiny purchase on their credit/debit card right now? Do they want to spend the time to make such a tiny purchase? Do they care about digging out their wallet right now? Are they in a hurry to leave from the place where they are faced with the choice to purchase the $20 card? What are their expectations of the ease of the transaction to buy the $20 card? Are they concerned they might have to fill out some survey along with paying $7 to get the card? There are countless variables of various significance influencing their decision. This is not a decision made in a vacuum.
"Instinctively chose" is a bit presumptuous. Has Neoclassical proven this specific choice is instinctual and not at all a deliberate conscious choice? "And thus the better choice" is revealing of Neoclassical's disregard for economics as a value-free science, at least in this example. Everyone's value scales are different and ever-changing, and not the same as Neoclassical's or anyone else's, as each individual is unique in their ever-changing physical composition and experience.
Oh! Now I get it. Thank you.
Good to know.
I can only speak for myself, but so far after reading through the debate I think Neoclassical is defending his claims very well. He is making a lot of good points in my opinion. Aside from the Amazon comment, there is not much I could really disagree with. Overall this has been a fantastic debate though. Idk what happened but this forum has been getting exponentially better over the past few months.
Idk what happened but this forum has been getting exponentially better over the past few months.
Are you graphing the quality of forum discourse? Cardinal values ON THIS FORUM???
*head explodes*
Neoclassical: In what sense does a "choice" control a human's behavior?
In what sense does a "choice" control a human's behavior?
What a bizarre question from our point of view! Choice doesn't "control a human's behavior", it just is "a human's behavior". I think that this might be the crux of his misunderstanding. Pure praxeology, which is what Mises was talking about before he got to adding "empirical" things like the manifoldness of nature, the disutility of labor, and so on, doesn't talk about what "causes" human behavior, it just is a bunch of definitions allowing us to talk about human behavior. Choice, preference, or whatever don't cause human behavior, they are just different aspects of human behavior.
I think that the following quotation might help:
Human Action by Ludwig von Mises: It is customary to say that acting man has a scale of wants or values in his mind when he arranges his actions. On the basis of such a scale he satisfies what is of higher value, i.e., his more urgent wants, and leaves unsatisfied what is of lower value, i.e., what is a less urgent want. There is no objection to such a presentation of the state of affairs. However, one must not forget that the scale of values or wants manifests itself only in the reality of action. These scales have no independent existence apart from the actual behavior of individuals. The only source from which our knowledge concerning these scales is derived is the observation of a man’s actions. Every action is always in perfect agreement with the scale of values or wants because these scales are nothing but an instrument for the interpretation of a man's acting.
It is customary to say that acting man has a scale of wants or values in his mind when he arranges his actions. On the basis of such a scale he satisfies what is of higher value, i.e., his more urgent wants, and leaves unsatisfied what is of lower value, i.e., what is a less urgent want. There is no objection to such a presentation of the state of affairs. However, one must not forget that the scale of values or wants manifests itself only in the reality of action. These scales have no independent existence apart from the actual behavior of individuals. The only source from which our knowledge concerning these scales is derived is the observation of a man’s actions. Every action is always in perfect agreement with the scale of values or wants because these scales are nothing but an instrument for the interpretation of a man's acting.
The scale of value of someone doesn't exist independent to the action of that person. It is an aspect of the action of that person. It isn't something that causes them to act. It is just how we talk about what someone is doing when they are acting.
Giant_Joe: I may have been unfair above. What Neoclassical seems to have done instead is imagine that Mises's theory posits or necessitates anything like "motivational umph". This kind of misunderstanding of Mises's ideas seems almost universal. At some point Mises complained that similar notions had "not been understood at all." What Mises is getting at is indeed very, very subtle. Very hard to explain in words without seeming to imply other things not intended. Disclaimer: I'm far from being an expert on epistemology or even philosophy in general. Please be gentle. :p Aren't we just going circles around the idea of "demonstrated preference" at this point? It seems to me some people might be thinking "Since people value things, they act." But really, isn't it the other way around? "Since people act, they demonstrate that they have a preference". In this sense, something like trying is impled by action.
I may have been unfair above. What Neoclassical seems to have done instead is imagine that Mises's theory posits or necessitates anything like "motivational umph". This kind of misunderstanding of Mises's ideas seems almost universal. At some point Mises complained that similar notions had "not been understood at all." What Mises is getting at is indeed very, very subtle. Very hard to explain in words without seeming to imply other things not intended.
Disclaimer: I'm far from being an expert on epistemology or even philosophy in general. Please be gentle. :p
Aren't we just going circles around the idea of "demonstrated preference" at this point?
It seems to me some people might be thinking "Since people value things, they act." But really, isn't it the other way around? "Since people act, they demonstrate that they have a preference". In this sense, something like trying is impled by action.
That's much closer to my thinking.
"I'm not a fan of Murray Rothbard." -- David D. Friedman
AJ:Nevermind, I wasn't unfair above. Neoclassical seems firmly in the "thoughts are based on propositions" camp. He says he agrees with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propositional_attitude
That's terribly inaccurate.
Sorry, Grayson!
Delete any posts you find inappropriate. I've been trying to skirt around issues; I wasn't sure if that was prohibited. I wasn't trying to engage in a debate outright.
I. Ryan:
Thank you for this.
In my opinion, this passage contains a slip or mistake by Mises:
"It is customary to say that acting man has a scale of wants or values in his mind when he arranges his actions. On the basis of such a scale he satisfies what is of higher value, i.e., his more urgent wants, and leaves unsatisfied what is of lower value, i.e., what is a less urgent want. There is no objection to such a presentation of the state of affairs. However, one must not forget that the scale of values or wants manifests itself only in the reality of action. These scales have no independent existence apart from the actual behavior of individuals. The only source from which our knowledge concerning these scales is derived is the observation of a man’s actions. Every action is always in perfect agreement with the scale of values or wants because these scales are nothing but an instrument for the interpretation of a man’s acting." (bold added)
Mises writes here that the only source from which we derive knowledge of the scale of values is the observation of a man's actions.
This is inconsistent with Mises's own writings for at least two reasons:
1. Observing the actions of others is an empirical undertaking, and Mises's theory is praxeological, and proposes no theory or technique or standard for making empirical observations.
2. If what Mises writes here is correct, this means we derive no knowledge of the concept of value scales from contemplating the nature of our own action. This is in total contradiction to Mises's other writings when he writes for example:
"The only way to a cognition of these theorems is logical analysis of our inherent knowledge of the category of action. We must bethink ourselves and reflect upon the structure of action. Like logic and mathematics, praxeological knowledge is in us; it does not come from without." (HA, 3rd rev. p.64)
Thus, the idea that we learn about scales of value through observations of others is inconsistent with Mises's system of thought.
The source from which our knowledge of these scales is derived is not the observation of another man's action, but rather---as Mises notes in the quote just above---contemplation on the nature and structure of our own action.
*****
We can see this another way by considering this passage from Schutz:
"For it is obvious that an action has only one subjective meaning: that of the actor himself. It is X who gives subjective meaning to his action, and the only subjective meanings being given by F and S in this situation are the subjective meanings they are giving to their own actions, namely, their actions of observing X."
(The Phenomenology of the Social World, p.32)
As observer O observes another entity X, be it a rock or an animal, the only scale of values revealed to O by this activity is his own "scale" of values: i.e., O reveals to himself that he values observing X and not doing something else.
Since Mises's theory is a subjective theory conceived via methodological individualism, there is no way around this. Anything O observes X to do is, by this analysis, an action of O. In this theory, there is no overcoming, by O, of his own subjective experiences, whereby some number of observations O makes regarding X somehow amount to a subjective experience had by X, or even an objective experience had by X.
Any aspect of X observed by O, or imagined by O, is and remains by this analysis an action of O.
Thus, this sentence is foreign to Mises's overall system:
"The only source from which our knowledge concerning these scales is derived is the observation of a man’s actions."
I agree with you:
"The scale of value of someone doesn't exist independent to of the action of that person. It is an aspect of the action of that person."
But Mises slips when he implies or conceives that what person X values is an objective quality that can be observed by O, instead of the alternate conception---consistent with his own system---that the only subjective value evident in this case (again, by methodological individualism) is that O values observing X.
Mises contemplates no series of empirical observations that determine what another person values. In his system, consistently carried out, such speculations or observations about the values of others are actions of the person concerned.
In other words, Mises's system foresees no method of objectively or intersubjectively ascertaining the values held by other actors.
Mises is concerned with the logic of action, not with "finding" or "observing" action in the head or movements of other animals.
Empirical science lies outside the scope of Misesian praxeology.
"It would be preposterous to assert apodictically that science will never succeed in developing a praxeological aprioristic doctrine of political organization..." (Mises, UF, p.98)
Suppose you had the choice of receiving a free $10 Amazon gift certificate or the opportunity to pay seven dollars for a $20 Amazon gift certificate. Most people instinctively chose the free $10 Amazon gift certificate, even though purchasing the $20 gift certificate brings you more profit – $10 vs $13 ($20-$7) – and thus is the better choice. Could Austrian economists have made this prediction?
Suppose you had the choice of receiving a free $10 Amazon gift certificate or the opportunity to pay seven dollars for a $20 Amazon gift certificate.
Most people instinctively chose the free $10 Amazon gift certificate, even though purchasing the $20 gift certificate brings you more profit – $10 vs $13 ($20-$7) – and thus is the better choice.
Could Austrian economists have made this prediction?
This is quite problematic. First, you are measuring value cardinally in monetary units, but value is an ordinal list which is always graded and never measured. Next, choice (b) ($7 for a $20 gift certificate) actually involves many different goods which are independently valued at the margin; (1) the gift certificate and (2) the $7. This individual may have a high demand for cash holdings, and a such, would find choice (b) to be relatively "unprofitable." Furthermore, the individual's time preference must also be considered. There are a myriad of explanations which can adequately explain this scenario, all of which are entirely consistent with Austrian subjectivist value theory.
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
Maybe I read the wrong complexity research, but modern evolutionary biologists assume "free will" (or "purposeful action", "psyche") is something that evolves in nature over time as multicellular organism become more complex.
So why are neoclassical and grayson having this debate over dualism vs monism?
It is a FACT that complex organisms like humans have self-control over their purpose while simpler organisms do not (dualism if you insist), but ALL types of organisms can be explained with a single systemic-evolutionary theory (monism if you will).
The following philosophical possibilities also don't matter for a discussion of relative validity of AE vs empiricism: Are we just minds in a box, maybe everybody else is a robot, will the world/logic change tomorrow, do we know the world a priori or is a priori actually empirical, is our psychological choice really a choice or predermined in a way we don't understand, is logic culturally or sociologically dependant so we can't know anything, ...
Frankly, either I am too dumb for these epistemological debates or the debate is about stuff that does not influence the validity of praxeology.
Turn to page 72 damnit.
Neoclassical: AJ:Nevermind, I wasn't unfair above. Neoclassical seems firmly in the "thoughts are based on propositions" camp. He says he agrees with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propositional_attitude That's terribly inaccurate.
Is it? If so, feel free to explain why in the other threads. I don't mean to misrepresent you, but you gave the link as if you supported it without qualification, and the writing in that link - although it may not accurately reflect your position or the propositional attitude - suffers from the problem I mentioned.
Why anarchy fails
I said, "I am an eliminative materialist about propositional attitudes." That directly contradicts what you are claiming.
Ooh, you're absolutely right. I misread you, very careless of me. My sincere apologies. I have edited the posts in question.
Nir: the 'intentional stance' is modern terminology for adopting a teleological interpretation vis a subject. teleology comes from the Greek tradition of determining what purpose *things* are aimed at; but for our purposes this is more straightforwardly the presupposition that agents are precisely agents because they have all this stuff called 'believing' 'acting' 'trying' etc. Methodological dualism means nothing more than just relying on the mechanistic method for questions concerning the physical sciences, and adopting the alternative strategy of a teleological method for those questions concerning purposeful agents.
the 'intentional stance' is modern terminology for adopting a teleological interpretation vis a subject.
teleology comes from the Greek tradition of determining what purpose *things* are aimed at; but for our purposes this is more straightforwardly the presupposition that agents are precisely agents because they have all this stuff called 'believing' 'acting' 'trying' etc.
Methodological dualism means nothing more than just relying on the mechanistic method for questions concerning the physical sciences, and adopting the alternative strategy of a teleological method for those questions concerning purposeful agents.
Thanks, that helps. So methodological dualism basically says, "Normal science works for the study of objects or people qua objects, but we must treat humans as purposeful agents if we wish to best account for their unpredictable actions."?
AJ, yeah, the difference between objects and people is that behavior of objects is subject to the laws of physics, while behavior of humans (and animals) is subject to the laws of physics AND whatever (and however) choices coming out of their psyche.
E.g. a snowball vs a human rolling of a mountain side: The snowball will always follow the same path and have same speed etcetera, a human can choose to try to slow down, try to go faster or do nothing at all. His speed and time of arrival is unpredictable.
(Maybe in the future we will be able to predict better or exactly why/when/how humans do what they do i rolling of a mountain, but we can't today.)
So the scientific method fails because of the noise of the psychological factor involved with humans. Praxeology focuses on logically necessary aspects of human action and thus makes abstraction from the contingent psychological factor.
Grayson:Locke said "there is nothing in the understanding which was not previously in the senses", to which Leibniz appended, "except the understanding itself".
Liebniz's appendix seems to present a problem: if the understanding were not in the senses, how would one know one understood it?
I don't believe causality is as clear-cut as you do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality.
Seems like merely linking to a wiki article counts as an argument these days.
AJ: Liebniz's appendix seems to present a problem: if the understanding were not in the senses, how would one know one understood it?
Yeah, I also don't get that. How could the "understanding" and the "senses" be seperate? Wouldn't the "understanding" determine what you experience as your "senses"? Wouldn't what your "understanding" is like affect what your "senses" are like?
(I don't know whether what I am talking about has anything to do with what you are talking about, so can you elaborate on what you think the problem is with that quotation?)
Adam Knott: I. Ryan: Thank you for this. In my opinion, this passage contains a slip or mistake by Mises: "It is customary to say that acting man has a scale of wants or values in his mind when he arranges his actions. On the basis of such a scale he satisfies what is of higher value, i.e., his more urgent wants, and leaves unsatisfied what is of lower value, i.e., what is a less urgent want. There is no objection to such a presentation of the state of affairs. However, one must not forget that the scale of values or wants manifests itself only in the reality of action. These scales have no independent existence apart from the actual behavior of individuals. The only source from which our knowledge concerning these scales is derived is the observation of a man’s actions. Every action is always in perfect agreement with the scale of values or wants because these scales are nothing but an instrument for the interpretation of a man’s acting." (bold added) Mises writes here that the only source from which we derive knowledge of the scale of values is the observation of a man's actions. This is inconsistent with Mises's own writings for at least two reasons: 1. Observing the actions of others is an empirical undertaking, and Mises's theory is praxeological, and proposes no theory or technique or standard for making empirical observations. 2. If what Mises writes here is correct, this means we derive no knowledge of the concept of value scales from contemplating the nature of our own action. This is in total contradiction to Mises's other writings when he writes for example: "The only way to a cognition of these theorems is logical analysis of our inherent knowledge of the category of action. We must bethink ourselves and reflect upon the structure of action. Like logic and mathematics, praxeological knowledge is in us; it does not come from without." (HA, 3rd rev. p.64) Thus, the idea that we learn about scales of value through observations of others is inconsistent with Mises's system of thought. The source from which our knowledge of these scales is derived is not the observation of another man's action, but rather---as Mises notes in the quote just above---contemplation on the nature and structure of our own action. ***** We can see this another way by considering this passage from Schutz: "For it is obvious that an action has only one subjective meaning: that of the actor himself. It is X who gives subjective meaning to his action, and the only subjective meanings being given by F and S in this situation are the subjective meanings they are giving to their own actions, namely, their actions of observing X." (The Phenomenology of the Social World, p.32) As observer O observes another entity X, be it a rock or an animal, the only scale of values revealed to O by this activity is his own "scale" of values: i.e., O reveals to himself that he values observing X and not doing something else. Since Mises's theory is a subjective theory conceived via methodological individualism, there is no way around this. Anything O observes X to do is, by this analysis, an action of O. In this theory, there is no overcoming, by O, of his own subjective experiences, whereby some number of observations O makes regarding X somehow amount to a subjective experience had by X, or even an objective experience had by X. Any aspect of X observed by O, or imagined by O, is and remains by this analysis an action of O. Thus, this sentence is foreign to Mises's overall system: "The only source from which our knowledge concerning these scales is derived is the observation of a man’s actions." I agree with you: "The scale of value of someone doesn't exist independent to of the action of that person. It is an aspect of the action of that person." But Mises slips when he implies or conceives that what person X values is an objective quality that can be observed by O, instead of the alternate conception---consistent with his own system---that the only subjective value evident in this case (again, by methodological individualism) is that O values observing X. Mises contemplates no series of empirical observations that determine what another person values. In his system, consistently carried out, such speculations or observations about the values of others are actions of the person concerned. In other words, Mises's system foresees no method of objectively or intersubjectively ascertaining the values held by other actors. Mises is concerned with the logic of action, not with "finding" or "observing" action in the head or movements of other animals. Empirical science lies outside the scope of Misesian praxeology.
I have a lot more to say about that, but I first want to ask you two questions.
What do you think about the section in Human Action called "The Alter Ego"? Doesn't the phrase "the alter ego" mean "the other actor", and isn't he talking in that section about other people and why we should think of them as actors? Do you think that section is "foreign" to his system? Or do you think that it is possible to define other people as actors by referring to your own action or something like that?
And what do you think about the fact that Mises incorporates certain "empirical" things like the fact that the productive abilities among people aren't equal, the fact that labor is disutilitious to most people, and so on? Or are you only talking about what I call "pure praxeology" when you say that "[e]mpirical science lies outside the scope of Misesian praxeology"?
Neoclassical: Would you call colors a priori?
That's a very interesting question, but I don't know in the exact sense he intends it. And generally "a priori" seems to refer to notions that are truth-apt, so wouldn't it have to be something like [the notions corresponding to the propositions] "This object is red" or "This sensation is red"?
"Colors" themselves seem to be meaningless unless they either refer to certain wavelengths of light, certain patterns of neural receptors firing, or certain private subjective sensations.
Post by "Jack" from http://lesswrong.com/lw/1bs/how_to_think_like_a_quantum_monadologist/16ta
Or, the troublesome color-word will be buried in a larger phrase, and so all those neural firings are identified with "seeing blue" or "the experience of seeing blue". This is a linguistic fact, not a phenomenological one. Our language happens to distinguish verbs by referring to their objects, subjects and using adverbial modifiers. But the language could have just as easily had a one-word verb phrase than means "experience blueness". Say this word was "bluep". If this were the case we wouldn't be asking where the object of blueping was. Rather, we'd see blueping as fundamental and would easily identify blueping with a particular configuration of neural firings. Since blueness is a phenomenological quality I can't imagine finding it anywhere except as an object modifier of experience. I don't see how a monadic interpretation of entanglement changes that fact-- you're just associating the configurations (or whatever) of monads with the subjective experience of blueness. Blueness itself is meaningless.
Or, the troublesome color-word will be buried in a larger phrase, and so all those neural firings are identified with "seeing blue" or "the experience of seeing blue".
This is a linguistic fact, not a phenomenological one. Our language happens to distinguish verbs by referring to their objects, subjects and using adverbial modifiers. But the language could have just as easily had a one-word verb phrase than means "experience blueness". Say this word was "bluep". If this were the case we wouldn't be asking where the object of blueping was. Rather, we'd see blueping as fundamental and would easily identify blueping with a particular configuration of neural firings.
Since blueness is a phenomenological quality I can't imagine finding it anywhere except as an object modifier of experience. I don't see how a monadic interpretation of entanglement changes that fact-- you're just associating the configurations (or whatever) of monads with the subjective experience of blueness. Blueness itself is meaningless.
In this context I believe "understanding" means "intellect", "reasoning faculty", or what Mises refers to as "the logical structure of the human mind". In fact, that word in that quote is sometimes translated as "intellect" instead of "understanding".
Grayson's clarification above may change matters as far as Mises's conception, although I can't fathom what the quote means in its entirety if both instances of the word "understanding" are replaced with "intellect" or "logical structure of the human mind." Anyway here is a fleshing out of my claim that all understanding (meaning comprehension, logical deduction, etc.) is sensations, or at least is only available to one's subjective consciousness via sensations.
I. Ryan: AJ: Liebniz's appendix seems to present a problem: if the understanding were not in the senses, how would one know one understood it? Yeah, I also don't get that. How could the "understanding" and the "senses" be seperate? Wouldn't the "understanding" determine what you experience as your "senses"? Wouldn't what your "understanding" is like affect what your "senses" are like? (I don't know whether what I am talking about has anything to do with what you are talking about, so can you elaborate on what you think the problem is with that quotation?)
Here's my line of reasoning. Please stop me where you disagree or don't know what I might be getting at:
Conscious knowledge of X means current awareness of X
Current awareness of X means current sensory perception of X ---because, in what sense can one be aware of something if one does not sense it? (NB: private sensation, not public - "it" may not exist in the real world "out there")
In essence, to posit that someone can "know something" outside of their senses is to posit extrasensory perception (which would of course just be a sixth sense). So I say all conscious knowledge is (private) sensation.
Hence if I claim to "know I understand," I am first of all claiming to feel some (private) sensation that signifies to me that I understand. For example, a physical feeling of "setness" in ones temples or chest. I am of course also claiming that I feel some (private) sensations that are that conscious understanding: for example, a diagram-like pattern on my visual cortex showing logical relations between some things, represented by imagined visual objects that signify certain things to me (akin to a "mentalese," although I find problems with the term as Pinker uses it).
Here's just one possible example of what internal private sensations (in this case all visual sensations, for illustration purposes) for a given person might look like. In this rough diagram I've given English labels to "dispute" and "final arbiter" out of convenience, but the person might instead use little pictures, animations, sounds, etc. to represent these elements. Or they might represent the idea entirely in smells - who knows? And they may well not use arrows or red outlines but something entirely different. But one way or the other they have to experience some private sensations in order to experience "conscious" understanding. (Or else what can we possibly mean by the word conscious?)
More explanation below...
Background: A common objection to AnCap, polycentric law, competing courts, etc., is that there has to be a final arbiter for all disputes (i.e., the State).
When people raise this objection, it seems to me they are being fooled by words. They are apparently letting the ambiguity of the English language close their mind to an equally compatible possibility that should have been apparent. I suggest that they may be conceptualizing the situation in their mind ("understanding" it) in some way similar to the diagram on the left.
However, the diagram on the right shows the objection to be confused. One could imagine someone having in their mind some understanding akin to the diagram on the right, then translating those mental sensations into the words, "There must be a final arbiter for all disputes!" They make this translation in order to communicate with others and/or to create an easy internal memory aid for the idea in their own mind (they can just remember the words without having to recall the whole picture every time; it's convenient).
For both purposes - communication to others and as an internal memory aid - the words are useful. However, they contain a hidden danger because of their ambiguity. The danger is that people have a habit of replacing the conceptual content of their understanding (in this case visual content) with the words that represent it. Then they become vulnerable to the trap. They recall the words, which are designated in their mind as "something that I believe," and then, fatally, they interpret those words as referring to the set of sensations on the left. They effectively decide they believe the visual representation on the left! (or its equivalent in their internal representational system)
To summarize the process in terms of the example, the person in question at first realized, and decided to believe, something we'd write more clearly in English as, "For any given dispute there must be a final arbiter for that dispute!" They then converted that set of mental sensations (visual sensations in this case) into an ambiguous English sentence, "There must be a final arbiter for all disputes!" Later when referencing that belief, they pulled up the words instead of the original visual representation, re-interpreted it in the sense of the diagram on the left, and ended up deciding they believe something very different. In this everyday process of storing and recalling a belief, they effectively overwrote the original, more detailed, unambiguous conception with a set of less detailed ambiguous words. I suspect most people do this almost every time they think about anything.
This is one reason I'm harping on the difference between words and thoughts, and about how all conscious thought must itself be (private, imagined) sensations - probably for most people visual, auditory, tactile, etc.
Here is Albert Einstein (bold mine):
"The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought.
. . .
My final point was simply this: "causality" is not some neat, self-evident prepackaged idea we all understand instantaneously and apply unproblematically. The Wikipedia article was there simply to address that point, with its multiple understandings of what "causality" actually is. Additionally, there are now realms of empiric science that do not even rely upon the notion (e.g., quantum indeterminancy).
For more on the above theme by a better writer than me, see http://lesswrong.com/lw/o9/words_as_mental_paintbrush_handles/
For much more, see http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/A_Human's_Guide_to_Words
However, the LessWrong writers are still missing the grand sweep of the problem. For a more complete understanding, I tentatively recommend this. This LvMI thread also discusses these issues in some detail.
I Ryan:
Before addressing your question, I would like to address the OP directly.
For those who have an interest in praxeology, I would like to point out that the argument for methodological dualism (treating the sciences of nature and of human action as methodologically separate) assumes that one has chosen not to conceive the natural sciences as branches of the science of human action.
We're conducting our discussion on the assumption that there are two options:
1. To treat all phenomena as phenomena of natural science.
2. To treat some phenomena as the subject matter of the natural sciences, and other phenomena as the subject matter of the human sciences.
But what about the third option of treating all phenomena as phenomena of human action ?
It is fairly easy to see how this would be conceived. If we think of natural science as being concerned with the time and location of a given event's occurrence, we can think of the sciences of human action as being concerned with whether any given event's occurrence is satisfactory or dissatisfactory from the point of view of human action. For any event posited or supposed, that event is treated not with respect to it's time or location in relation to other, similar events, but rather with respect to whether the individual concerned is satisfied or disappointed with the occurrence of said event.
In this view, we can understand natural science as concerned with regularities, not as an "end in itself" (which can be implied by the notion of 'objective science'), but rather as a means to avoid the dissatisfaction that happens when the event an individual expects to occur doesn't occur, or as a means for the individual to attain satisfaction by arranging for a wanted event to occur as hoped or expected.
That is, the natural sciences study regularities in their respective phenomena because human actors, by nature, are satisfied when an event occurs as or when expected, and are dissatisfied when an event occurs not as or when expected. Thus, the natural sciences are, or can be conceived of as, part of the larger science of human action. All these sciences are concerned with improving human well-being by substituting satisfactory experiences with dissatisfactory experiences. They do this by studying and obtaining knowledge about regularities, so that in any given realm of phenomena, individuals know what to expect, and thus how to avoid disappointment, and/or how to arrange things so that the events that occur are satisfactory to them.
Thus, we can argue for at least three different conceptions regarding methodological dualism versus methodological monism. We can argue for a conception of methodological monism that conceives the natural sciences as branches of the science of human action.
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Further, I would argue that the import and meaning of Heisenberg's quantum epistemology was the demonstration that natural science cannot be separated from human choice on a fundamental level, and also that the fundamental subjective categories of human action cannot be removed from natural science to fulfill the goal of classical physics which sought a completely objective science. The meaning of quantum indeterminancy vis-a-vis the science of human action (the idea that there are unobservables whose unobservability is a matter of epistemological principle) is that some "dissatisfactory" category (a category that represents something contrary to our desires) must remain in a consistent scientific-rational scheme. The category cannot be eliminated from a consistent schematic rendering because the observation of the phenomena is inseparable from the "mental categories" "used" in observing the phenomena. The primary categories of human action are the binary pair satisfaction/dissatisfaction.
The mental categories "through" which observations are made, are precisely the categories that Misesian praxeology is concerned with constructing a rational scheme with regard to. Quantum indeterminancy can be understood as the acknowledgement of an irreducible or ineradicable categorical feature of the act of making observations. I would argue that there are two primary categories of action: the category of presence (those things perceptually present to an actor [the actor's "state of affairs"]), and the category of desire (trying, attempting, striving, etc.), which is a category of the fundamentally non-present (i.e., ends). This means that the category of desire cannot be "sensed" or "perceived," as anything sensed or perceived is "present" and thus no longer "desired." (that thing which is present is no longer an "end")
The main points are that quantum epistemology does not contradict praxeology and that the category of indeterminancy (fundamental nonperceptibility) is also a category of praxeology.
The difference is that praxeology is explicit in being a science of human action and is focussed on human "acts," whether they be acts of interpersonal exchange or acts of observing physical objects.
Praxeology thus has no tension between subjectivism and objectivism, since acts of choice and the category of that which is fundamentally unobtainable (i.e., ends) are already part of its conceptual scheme.
To answer your question about Mises, and his referring to things such as the alter ego (other minds) and 'cooperation' (interpersonal action), we have to keep in mind that Mises is writing when there is still as of yet no inkling of how to treat various forms of human action such as "mental action" (thinking, reasoning, deliberating, etc.) and "political action" or "ethical action" (direct personal interaction) praxeologically. He is referring to these phenomena, but at a time when these realms of phenomena are not comprehended by praxeology in a developed and systematic way. As we know, Mises stressed again and again that only economics was a developed branch of praxeology. He knew that other realms of action were not yet developed.
Thus, we can't make the mistake of believing that when Mises makes reference to other minds and to acts such as coercion ("alter ego," "cooperation," etc.), he is doing so in a scientific way that meets his own standards of formal praxeological knowledge. He refers to these things as a praxeologist, but does not refer to them as praxeologically known. I.e., he is not saying that there are any known praxeological laws of action in these realms.
"Or do you think that it is possible to define other people as actors by referring to your own action or something like that?"
Definitely. The question for praxeology isn't whether other minds or other consciousnesses "exist" in an ontological sense. The question is how other minds or consciousnesses appear from the point of view of the individual actor. This problem, as all problems of praxeology, is approached by adherence to strict methodological individualism. We do not inquire as to the "existence" of a given thing, we inquire as to how this thing appears in individual action. We do not inquire as to how a given thing relates to other given things. We inquire as to how this thing relates to the individual's intentions (wants, desires, aims, etc...).
"And what do you think about the fact that Mises incorporates certain "empirical" things like the fact that the productive abilities among people aren't equal, the fact that labor is disutilitious to most people, and so on? Or are you only talking about what I call "pure praxeology" when you say that "[e]mpirical science lies outside the scope of Misesian praxeology"?"
I'm talking about praxeology as conceived by Mises:
"Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual circumstances of the concrete acts. Its cognition is purely formal and general without reference to the material content and the particular features of the actual case. It aims at knowledge valid for all instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in its assumptions and inferences. Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts. They are both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts. They are a necessary requirement of any intellectual grasp of historical events." (HA, 3rd Rev. p.32)
"Praxeology is not concerned with the changing content of acting, but with its pure form and its categorial structure. (HA, 3rd rev. p.47)
Adam Knott:In this view, we can understand natural science as concerned with regularities, not as an "end in itself" (which can be implied by the notion of 'objective science'), but rather as a means to avoid the dissatisfaction that happens when the event an individual expects to occur doesn't occur, or as a means for the individual to attain satisfaction by arranging for a wanted event to occur as hoped or expected.
Great observation. If I revise this to the first-person, i.e., as applying to only this actor (me), I can absolutely agree with this.