Political Theory

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Autolykos — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:38:45 GMT

Consumariat:
You can't get there. One just ends up trying to plan and impose what one thinks and hopes nature would do if left to its own devices, without having any idea. As you say, no individual can possibly know how the entire system is actually working, so no individuals can plan for how the system should work.

I agree. No overall 'plan' can be put into action as the economy in unplannable - on this point I agree with Austrian Econ 100%. I do believe however, that it is possible for stability to be induced via the control of certain variables. Bassically a mixed-economy.

Translation: The economy is unplannable, but it can be planned.

Tell me exactly how that makes sense.

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

vive la insurrection — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:22:14 GMT

Since this is Mises, best to make sure everyonbe is on the same page here when it comes to society, here's the chapter and "home field" definiton and outlook one ought start from:

http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=b416306b-1dba-4c7e-9104-a9d624ade319

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Birthday Pony — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:04:20 GMT

@Wheylous

All I'm getting at is that when anyone (including you) says something about "society" they're either projecting a personal view that they feel is popular or reflecting on how they view society.

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

John James — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:25:49 GMT

Porco Rosso:
Birthday Pony, the resident ~~sophist~~ socialist.

fixed that for you

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

thelion — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:29:03 GMT

I would like to point several physiological perspectives, however.

It's not merely electrical connections which make neural net, its also patchy holography, periodically estabilished and collapsing. That is, all part of single wave-function.

See Karl Pribram's papers, which he has finally put all online for free (www.karlhpribram.org). He's probably most influential physiologist in US over last 60 years in terms of people citing his data work. Or see Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff's work (or many other Japanese researchers who collaborated with the above named.)

Coherence is thermodynamically interrupted.

People's preferences cannot be made into one neural network ("social preferences), because physically not possible for seperated neural networks of different people to be connected in way that actually generates "mind."

Warren McCulluch's claim in 1956 that mind and preferences is merely Turing machine with maximum two negative feedback loops has been falsified to many times to count.

McCulluch in Rashevsky's Bulletin of Mathemical Biology tried to tackle preferences as circuits, but argues that all economics is wrong because valuation is not hierarchy (he claimed economics is falsified because A can be preferred to B, B to C, and C to A, without any issues).

Mises responded to this issue back in 1912, however, that any such preferences can actualyl be represented hierarchically by talking about concrete quantites being ranked, so that X of A can be preferred to Y of C, but Z of C preferred to L of A.

What I mean is, classical neural network people, e.g., Lettvin, Pitts, Neumann, McCulluch, Turing are not the best people to be taking economic advice from. (Neumann still thought with Morgenstern that preferences are cardinal!) Lettvin and Pitts thoughts Wiener had disproved subjectivist economics with his behaviorism ("dog which looks alive = alive, because brain is black box.")

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Birthday Pony — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:56:24 GMT

"That is what I accuse my opponent of doing. Their system is non-universal, as it ultimately relies on their own will, not
"society's will" (whatever that might be). The forceful implementation of a perceived "societal will" disregards the fact that society is not an organism, and that when "society acts" in a free society, it's not society acting as a big blob, but actually the convenient description of individuals acting on their own will."

How is it that you're not doing the same thing when you use the term 'society'? How does anyone for that matter?

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Wheylous — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:41:28 GMT

Can you be more specific? I find that your answers are a bit nebulous and do not quote specific parts of what I said, making me have to guess at what you mean.

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Birthday Pony — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:36:51 GMT

And how does your proposed system escape the same criticism? How does any society escape the same criticism?

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Wheylous — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:28:59 GMT

Studying neural networks currently, I slightly disagree with your statement, though I generally agree with your conclusion, with some small tweaks:

"Socal feelings" or "social will" raises eyebrows of physiologists, who deny that neural networks not connected physically are any kind of single neural network. If they are not connected physically, they are not connected at all, and so, organization of people is not itself living mind indepenedent of minds that comprise.

Any individual units which make their decisions and in some way communicate with others, affecting the others' decisions, is a neural network. Physical connections are not necessary for it to be a neural network (for what are physical connections but electrical signals, which are not far from light signals we see when others communicate with us). So this far I disagree with you.

However, neural networks typically have a set decision process established in them. For example, in artificial intelligence we minimize the square error, which essentially optimizes a function.

The problem with this as it relates to society is that society has no set function to maximize that is a "natural law" like the decisions in neural networks are. Since there is no "natural order" in society which dictates what function must be optimized, the neural network of society is unlike most conventional neural networks. So here, I agree with you, as a mind must have a way of coming to a consensus through a natural law or order of things, which society doesn't have.

Ultimately, "societal will" as something whole assumes a natural function to optimize, which doesn't actually exist. Hence, societal will in the sense of individual will doesn't exist.

"Societal action", however, for convenience, is a general equilibrium of opinion that a group of interacting individuals reach and then implement individually (perhaps with communal purposes).

You seem to be fine with majority rule as long as it supports your position.

That is what I accuse my opponent of doing. Their system is non-universal, as it ultimately relies on their own will, not
"society's will" (whatever that might be). The forceful implementation of a perceived "societal will" disregards the fact that society is not an organism, and that when "society acts" in a free society, it's not society acting as a big blob, but actually the convenient description of individuals acting on their own will.

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Birthday Pony — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:12:00 GMT

Wheylous, considering that, what if someone you're arguing with is using the term societial will in the same manner you are? You seem to be fine with majority rule as long as it supports your position.

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

thelion — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:15:28 GMT

There is not societal will. Remember what society means: organization, above and beyond individuals. However, organization itself in not anything "alive." To say it is is mysticism and anthropomorphism in any way shape or form you parse that statement.

The "more" in "whole" above "parts" is organization. Whole is not merely aggregate of parts. However, only parts can be living individuals. Organization is simply congifuration of things, whatever they may be. Socialists confuse fact that whole is more than sum of parts with myth that "more" in whole above and beyond parts is itself something more important than parts, and that if parts are alive, then organization independent of parts must be animate somehow.

"Socal feelings" or "social will" raises eyebrows of physiologists, who deny that neural networks not connected physically are any kind of single neural network. If they are not connected physically, they are not connected at all, and so, organization of people is not itself living mind indepenedent of minds that comprise.

[edit: In initial post, I attached long excerp from an essay of mine on topic. Actually, you know what, I'll post whole paper I circulated on this question, written for some businessmen, in sometime today or tommorrow on arxiv. I'll put link here.]

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Wheylous — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:48:22 GMT

I don't think you read what I wrote, BP:

The conclusion is that the "will" of society is anyway tempered by the biased, favoritist, and non-universal opinion of the person you're talking to.

So regardless of whether or not society has will, my opponent is not arguing for the will of society but for his own will. Hence, the question of societal will is irrelevant.

We're arguing semantics, but to go over the term again:

"Will of society" - since society is not a coherent organism, it has no "one will" as my opponent had proposed that all of it adopts.

What I mean when I say "society does X" is a spontaneous aggregate decision. As in people discuss things and most of them agree, and these most people decide to pursue some action, hence making it appear as if "society" is acting in a certain unified way (while it is in fact spontaneous voluntary order).

And once again, aggression is not a neutral term.

I'm on home turf here, so I assume aggression is violation of property.

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

vive la insurrection — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:40:48 GMT

Saying society has no will is a pretty broad statement, especially when you go on to talk about society as if it does. And once again, aggression is not a neutral term.

Right. If by society one means something like - the customs/ culture you are in that most people get the "gist" of the expectations (AKA: laws/justice, institutions, and expectations exist in some form or another) - there is sense to what you bring up. I think Foucault (perhaps one of the few sane French philosophers) would look at it in a way akin to this?

The fact that you are able to trade, buy, sell, vote, not expect to get murdered on the street or whatever is because people generally accept the institutions in place - and form at least somewhat of an expectation that we can speak of to various structures that exist.

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Birthday Pony — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 06:52:14 GMT

Wheylous, you're dodging the question. And to say that this doesn't effect the conclusion you reached is, for one, not how flow charts work. If there's an inconsistency at the beginning the entire thing falls apart.

You have yet to effectively differentiate institutionalized violence that occurs by "society's will" in the market and institutionalized violence that occurs by "society's will" in the contex of society meaning a majority. Moreover, in this thread, and outside of the flowchart, you've equated the society that you disdain (the majoritarian one, that supposedly has no will outside of the will of the majority) and the one you like (the market, which you've said could be just the same majoritarian rule).

Saying society has no will is a pretty broad statement, especially when you go on to talk about society as if it does. And once again, aggression is not a neutral term.

Re: Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Wheylous — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 05:07:27 GMT

Manipulate variables

So force people to do what's "good" for them even if they don't want it?

Also, again, in a voluntary society you can have these uber economists say "if we do not do X we will see a dip in the economy 2.37 years from now" and society (or, if BP will, an informed general spontaneous agreement) can decide (as individuals seeing that experts might know better than them) to follow the advice of the economist.

The difference with government is that you must follow the ideas.

I don't want doctors operating on me if I disapprove of what they're doing even if they claim it's beneficial.

"It's for your own good *Chain saw sounds in the background* "

Again, we come to the idea of aggression. If you accept institutionalized aggression, you reject self-ownership outright. Without self-ownership, you live the life of someone else, the (baldy-)optimized function out of someone's idea of what society should be like.

There is no "natural order" where people have natural entitlements to the lives of other people.

Now, @ BP:

The inconsistency I'm referring to is your assertion that society has no will and then you're saying that society can do things like decide, speak, etc

Society's will can be defined as you like, so if you define it as majority will, then fine, it is majority will. There is a societal will. This point doesn't affect the conclusion reached from it, though. The conclusion is that the "will" of society is anyway tempered by the biased, favoritist, and non-universal opinion of the person you're talking to.

Now, could "society decide" to take down Perry in a free society? Yes. But as I said, the difference is in the institutionalization of violence. That is why anarchy has to come about as a general education of the public in violence.

No government is a law of physics. The best we can do is affect people's psychologies and hope they will see that non-aggression is best and fundamental.

Or we could reject self-ownership and live out our megalomaniacal dreams at the expense of everyone else (which would still require psychology, mind you). As much as I'd like that, I believe in self-ownership, so an aggressive takeover of the world is out of the question (though I could possibly get people hooked on some really delicious donuts, what do you think?)