Archives for category: Bounded rationality
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Semantics

October 2, 2023 //
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It ends almost like it had started.
Make good use of the interval!

Life and death are two strange words. Very different yet they describe the very same thing.
If you think of it, death and life are like the faces of a coin.
After all, the exclusive qualification for being able to die is to have been born… And it’s only us, languaging rational beings, who make the difference between living and dying. At the conceptual level, of course.
OK, many others are capable of making the functional distinction between a corpse and a living body. We are impressed by the mourning behavior displayed by the elephants, for example. And even more so by the chimpanzee mothers who continue to carry the bodies of their deceased babies…
But since we are the only species – known to us, humans – who uses language to relate to each-other, to think about the world and to plan ahead, I’m going to discuss here only the languaging/reasoning aspects of us making the difference between life and death.
By making this difference we actually separate the inseparable. With momentous consequences. For us – individual human beings, for the species as a whole, for the rest of the species and for the rest of the world. The world as we know it…
The origin of this difference is our conscience. Which is sophisticated enough to be able to make it and to talk/think about it. The elephants are also conscient enough to act upon the difference between a living body and a corpse. To recognize the skeleton of a deceased relative. To remember it. But, at least apparently, they are not able to speak about the whole thing. Nor to transmit over generations that those particular bones belonged to a particular individual who had been related to … As soon as all individuals who had directly known the deceased individual, all information about the identity of the corpse/skeleton are lost. For a while, the survivors remember only the fact that their ‘mothers’ used to ‘mourn’ over this particular set of bones but nothing more. Again, this is what we know, now, about the manner in which the elephants treat their dead.
Which is very different from how we treat ours. And from how we relate to matters pertaining to life and death.
We cherish life and we dread death.
We cherish our lives and we dread our death. Ours and that of our (cherished) relatives and friends.
And we are somewhat indifferent to the lives of others… To the tune of being able to dispatch animals, and plants, for food. And to kill other human beings. In war but not exclusively.

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game

Predatory instinct?!?

August 28, 2023 //
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Man has a natural tendency to prey on other people.
This being the reason why humans must be educated
and for which we need a lot of coercive measures.

I strongly disagree.
The first sentence is utterly wrong and the second is brazenly manipulative.

Something which can be educated isn’t ‘natural’. Not in the sense implied above!
People can be educated to eat in a certain manner. As in having ‘table manners’.
People can be educated about what to eat. And what to avoid eating. To avoid eating things which are both delicious and nourishing.
People can be educated even about how much to eat!
But you cannot educate anybody to stop eating!

What is truly natural about ‘Man’ – about all people, actually – is that they need to interact with other people. In order to become full fledged human beings, people need to live among other people.

What can be educated is behavior. How to interact with other people.

People can be educated to cooperate.
Or people can be educated to gang up. And prey on those outside the gang.

Please note that those who gang up in order to prey on others do cooperate among themselves!
Even if that cooperative behavior has a strong hierarchical nature.

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crises, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, Rule of Law, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

To each their own

August 15, 2023 //
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“Mother Earth is a source of life,
not a resource.“
Chief Arvol Looking Horse

Mother Earth being the source of life – the, not “a” – is a truism. Regardless.
On the other hand, being a mere resource isn’t bad either… For the simple reason that all reasonable people treat resources is a responsible manner.

Right?
Specially when speaking about resources which are ireplaceable!
And since there is only one Earth… Huge, indeed, but finite nevertheless…

Which brings us back to ‘to each their own’.

Basically, there are two kinds of people currently living on Earth.
Some continue to treat it as a Mother – take from her only what they need and refrain from littering her bossom.
And the ‘cherry-pickers’. Who go by “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” Who believe they had been given a free hand by their God. A free hand regarding the ‘dirt’ they have been made from…
The only problem with the ‘cherry pickers’ – exclusivelly with the ‘cherry pickers’ – being the fact that they don’t read enough. Enough of their (own) Book.

“And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.“

King James’ version is rather hard to ‘read’? OK…

“Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.“

“Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made mankind.“

‘Don’t eat any animal which has not been bled out first and don’t spill human blood?’
I’m afraid you’re still not getting it.

According to the book we’re talking about, God has made the entire world. Sparated the stars from the Earth, the water from the dry land, made all the plants and the animals… and Man.
Which man needs the Earth to live upon. An Earth as close to how it currently is as possible, in order for man to live comfortably!
But since “in the image of God has God made mankind”, then God himself needs the Earth.
For whatever reason.

Which means we’d better take good care of His Creation.
Of His entire Creation!

Keep it Virgin.
In Spirit!

Before wrapping up, I must remind you the Covenant between God and Noah’s children. Us.
“Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Corelate this with “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed” and “for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” and the whole thing suddenly has a new meaning.

‘OK, no more floods. But you’re still going to feel the consequences of your own follies. You, your children and all those wallowing in the wicked way’.

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, The kind of world we are building for our children

‘Decât’

August 10, 2023 //
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Ce înțelegeți prin
Libertatea mea e libertatea ta?

Când libertatea mea/ta de a ne flutura pumnii prin aer se oprește acolo unde începe nasul tău/meu, nici unul dintre noi nu este cu adevărat liber. În situația asta, libertatea noastră este libertatea de a ne lupta între noi pentru cât mai multă libertate individuală.

Concepția asta tratează libertatea ca și cum am avea de a face cu o cantitate limitată. De libertate.
Cantitate pe care ar trebui să o împărțim, într-un fel sau altul, între noi.

Limitele libertății sunt de natură calitativă, nu cantitativă.

Vom fi cu adevărat liberi, cu toții, doar atunci când vom fi liberi împreună.
Decât atunci…

Atunci când vom înțelege că libertatea începe în fiecare dintre noi – în sufletele și în mințile fiecăruia dintre noi, și că libertatea noastră, a tuturor, poate fi pusă în practică – adică poate fi crescută, micșorată sau chiar anulată pentru o perioadă, doar împreună!

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Categories 1989, alegerile pe care le facem, awareness, Bounded rationality, comunicare efectiva, constiinta de sine, Cu pielea la bataie, Democratie, Drepturile Omului, evolutie, identitate colectiva, In limba Romana, Libertate, Omul ca masura a tuturor lucrurilor, psihologie, religie, respect reciproc

Tick as many boxes as you like

August 7, 2023 //
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The Universe doesn’t care because:
It isn’t aware. Of anything.
It isn’t aware of us.
It’s a jerk.

Or the Universe does care but it’s us who are not aware…

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, teleology, Trust

AI

August 7, 2023 //
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If medieval advances in the plough didn’t lift Europe’s peasants out of poverty,
it was largely because their rulers
took the wealth generated by the new gains in output
and used it to build cathedrals instead.

And this has happened many more times across the world/along human history.

The fact that Stonehenge exists is ample proof that those people had been able to generate enough ‘wealth’ to build it.
We’ve been able to find out that the boulders had been sourced from two places. The 20 tons hard-sandstone sarsenes ‘traveled’ about 20 miles while the 2 tons blue-stones had been schlepped for about 220 miles. According to Mark Pitts, writing for the British Museum. And we think we have a fair idea about how the whole thing had been put together. Read the paper.
But we know close to nothing about the people who did it.

The stone ring is all that’s left of them.
Isn’t it strange? For such a technologically sophisticated people – and rich enough to afford such a herculean endeavor – to disappear in the mist of history?

And here’s a selection of other abrupt endings/’hibernations’:

Mohenjo-Daro and Harrapa in Pakistan.
Angkor Wat.
The Great Chinese Wall
The Egyptian pyramids
The Athenian Parthenon
The Roman Coliseum and the roads cris-crossing more than half of Europe
Kuldhara, the ghost-city
Machu Picchu
And, last but not least, the cathedrals mentioned by Reuter’s Mark John.
Europe did take a break after finishing building those cathedrals….

What am I trying to ‘suggest’?

That we, as a cultured species, have a tendency to evolve in fits and starts.
We tend to reach pinnacles only to descend – sometimes temporarily – in abject ‘marasmus’.

Could ‘self-sufficiency’ explain at least some of this?

While the spinning jenny was key to 18th century automation of the textiles industry,
they found it led to longer working hours in harsher conditions.
Mechanical cotton gins facilitated the 19th century expansion of slavery in the American South.

NOTA BENE!

Don’t tell me capitalism is at fault for any of this.
Capitalism is but a way of doing things. A road. Which we followed to where we are now.
How we behaved en-route and what we decide right now was/is our own contribution!

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, arrogance, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, democracy, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, Psychology, skin in the game, time

Litmus test

August 6, 2023 //
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“if I hope to learn from you,
and if I want to learn in the interest of truth,
then I have not only to tolerate you
but also to recognize you as a potential equal;
the potential unity and equality of all men
somehow constitute a prerequisite of our willingness
to discuss matters rationally“
Karl Popper

Learning from who’s experience?
A wise man is supposed to learn from other people’s experiences, right? No need to make your own mistakes, as long as they have already been committed… and the consequences made public!

‘Admitting that I may be wrong’ … easier said than done, for obvious reasons!
Very few people enjoy being proven wrong. Specially when ‘others’ get the upper hand. And even more so when those ‘others’ have nothing special. When those ‘others’ are nothing more but our “potential equals.”

We’re doing it for a noble cause.
In pursuit of the truth!

How about us being led into a wild goose chase?
Not by Karl Popper, mind you!

“the asymmetry between verification and falsation: actually, if we use the hypothetico-deductive method, we know that purely logical reasons make it impossible to verify any statement however numerous the positive reasons in its favor may be, whilst a single contrary case would suffice to show that the statement is false” (Mariano Artigas, 1997)

Modern propaganda, and particularly the kind currently permeating the social-media, is shaped and propagated by very skilled operators. Who are familiar with all the tricks in the psychology book and conversant in most ideological tenets currently whirling in the public space. And each of these propagandists has their agenda… Each of them tries to pull as many of us into their orbit… One of their favorite tools being Popper’s “I may be wrong and you may be right and, by an effort, we may get nearer the truth”.
In fact, these operators use Popper as a lever to break open our skepticism. To soften our disposition and to prepare the soil for the seed they want us to accept. And nurture…
How to resist? Given the fact that we are mere novices while they are masters of their chosen profession? Masters at ‘brain fogging’…

They try to mis-use Popper, we’ll use Popper as an antidote.
Do you feel treated as an equal?
Being invited as an equal member into a truth searching party?
Are you involved in a real debate? Do you get to say anything?

Or you, along with the rest, are simply told what to believe?

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, effective communication, In English, man as a measure for all things, manipulation, Mutual Respect, Psychology, skin in the game, Trust

Discussion frames the truth

August 2, 2023 //
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“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
Have you left no sense of decency?”
Joseph Nye Welch, 9 June 1954,
replying to Senator Joseph McCarthy.

As an European, I’m fascinated with how intense the Americans are.
‘knows nothing (nor cares) about Kommunism’…
As if Joe McCarthy had never existed – btw, he was a fascist – and Kommunism had been a German thing. All other languages use “c” when spelling the word, you know…

As a Romanian – who had spent the first 30 years of his life under the yoke – I can pretend to know a thing or two about the subject. Given the fact that Romania had been subjected to both fascist and communist rule. 1938-1945 and 1945-1989, respectively.

Apparently, and declaratively, those two are at the opposing ends of the political spectrum.
In the day to day practice, both belong to the totalitarian mode of controlling a society/country.

Before going any further, I’m going to mention a few traits shared by both modi operandi.

Communism had been first formulated – by Marx – and only then put in practice.
Fascism, like most other political ideologies, had been first practiced and only later put into words.
As far as I know, for communism to be successfully instated in a country, that country had to have had experienced a bout of fascism. Even if it had not been declared as such. This is a necessary condition but it isn’t sufficient. Fascism had been invented – declaratively – in Italy, but Italy hasn’t – not yet, anyway – become communist.
All communist and fascist regimes had ended in abject failure.
While all communist regimes had been instated in former fascist(oid) countries – to the best of my knowledge – fascistoid regimes may be, and already have been, reinstated in former communist countries.

There are also a few notable differences.
Communism pretends all property belongs to the entire people while fascism allows individuals to retain the ownership of their ‘belongings’. But only theoretically and subject to various limitations.
Under communist rule, the ‘democratic process’ is used exclusively to rubber-stamp whatever decisions had already been made by the current dictator while some fascist regimes use the electoral process to gouge the ‘social temperature’ of the ‘political organism’.
While the communist regimes tend to crumble under their own weight, the fascists usually grow too big (cocky) for their own good.

Before ending, I must mention the fact that both China and Russia have become fascist countries, despite China’s leaders pretending their country, literally their country, continues to be communist and despite Putin pretending Russia is a democracy. A democracy which attempts to denazify Ukraine…

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Categories 1989, arrogance, authoritarianism, awareness, Bounded rationality, collective identity, corruption, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, In English, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, skin in the game, teleology

Reconciling water with fire

August 1, 2023 //
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“that which is divinely natural,
but must be learned humanly; a phenomenon of Science.“
Mary Baker Eddy

Well, we are indeed in the presence of a miracle.
In the presence of a wonderful miracle!
In spite of the entrenched obstinacy of some ‘infallible’ and very powerful agents – who had Giordano Bruno burned in a public square for maintaining exactly the same thing – we have finally accepted this as a fact.

Some of us, at least…

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Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, man as a measure for all things, man induced fragility, manipulation, Psychology, skin in the game, teleology, Trust

Reverse engineering

July 10, 2023 //
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‘Exploring the consequences of our limited consciences‘

A truth is, first and foremost, an expression.
A message, formulated by an observer, describing a portion of what the person expressing themselves considers to be a ‘portion’ of ‘reality’. Being a message, any truth is formulated by means of a language.

Does anybody know everything about any subject? About anything, actually?
No, nobody knows everything about anything. Hence there is no such thing as a complete truth.

Furthermore, being expressed by means of a language, a truth – any expression, actually – will never be able to convey to the person receiving the message everything the transmitter intended to say. The transmitter is never able to cram ‘everything’ inside an inherently limited message, no language is absolutely ‘precise’ and no receiver will ever interpret any message the way the transmitter intended it to mean. Hence even if anybody will ever learn everything about anything, that person will never be able to convey that knowledge to anybody else. Let alone to everybody else…

What next?
‘Never ever believe anything? Anymore?!?’

Is it possible for us, humans living in concert, to cooperate in this manner?
Knowing that nothing which is being said, one way or another, is ‘true’? Completely true?

Well, we did get this far, didn’t we?
We’ve been expressing ourselves, in the imperfect manner I described above, since we’ve learned to use language. Since we’ve learned to speak…

70 000 years ago, give or take a few millennia, is when some scientists believe we’ve started to communicate more or less like we do now. The people living then had the same genes we have now and the bones they have left us to dig up and stare at are similar to ours. Hence the only thing which differentiates us from our ancestors is our culture. A treasure of knowledge which has been noticed – bit by bit, formulated using language – message by message, and remembered, one way or another. Hence the only difference between us and our ancestors is a collection of incomplete – and imperfectly interpreted – pieces of truth.

Then again, is it possible for us – humans living in concert – to cooperate by means of incomplete and ‘misinterpreted’ pieces of truth?
Well, we came this far going (up?) this way, didn’t we?
It seems that as long as we do it ‘in good faith’ things will, eventually, ‘mesh up’ just fine!

Which leads us to ‘the truth’. ‘The’ as different from ‘A’ truth.

While a truth is a message, the truth is a state of mind.
The understanding of the fact that what we call ‘reality’ can be learned only ‘in concert’.
Only as long as we help each-other along the process. Only as long as each time we formulate ‘a message’ we do our best to ‘speak the truth’.

https://www.ontology.co/heidegger-aletheia.htm

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, religion, skin in the game, teleology
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