Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Paradoxers and Non-Paradoxers of Feelings, Thoughts and Logics…

The modern world of fraudulent emotions, thoughts and logics has come upon us all, so fast, most have not even yet noticed it. Everyone sees the national political debates going nowhere, on tv and most the same all around the world, and knows there’s something really wrong__but can’t quite put their finger on the real trouble. Let me tell you right up front__This is no more than the fraudulent ‘emotional and intellectual paradoxers’, that have always existed throughout different periods in history, and finally accumulate in large enough numbers to support political and social correctness laws__that really no more than over-respect the most evil emotions, thoughts, logics and wrong actions of societies__at these differing times of cultural evolutions__And, we are once again dead center in the middle of one of these same such periods. It’s no more complex than realizing certain of our most insecure personalities have learned how to emotionally and intellectually manipulate the best of social society to the worst of social society’s undesired actions. Over some centuries ago, people had a most legitimate name for these social functionaries__They were referred to as ‘good paradoxers’ and ‘bad paradoxers’ by such later notables as Augustus De Morgan__when he spoke of the centuries gone by, where the word ‘paradoxer’ had an entirely different meaning__until those who thought they knew better, who did not know better, changed the linguistic and social meaning of this older word and concept…

Here’s the best explanation of what paradoxers really were/are…

In the introduction to the Budget of Paradoxes De Morgan explains what he means by the word.

"A great many individuals, ever since the rise of the mathematical method, have, each for himself, attacked its direct and indirect consequences. I shall call each of these persons a paradoxer, and his system a paradox. I use the word in the old sense: a paradox is something which is apart from general opinion, either in subject matter, method, or conclusion. Many of the things brought forward would now be called crotchets, which is the nearest word we have to old paradox. But there is this difference, that by calling a thing a crotchet we mean to speak lightly of it; which was not the necessary sense of paradox. Thus in the 16th century many spoke of the earth's motion as the paradox of Copernicus and held the ingenuity of that theory in very high esteem, and some I think who even inclined towards it. In the seventeenth century the deprivation of meaning took place, in England at least."


How can the sound paradoxer be distinguished from the false paradoxer? De Morgan supplies the following test:

"The manner in which a paradoxer will show himself, as to sense or nonsense, will not depend upon what he maintains, but upon whether he has or has not made a sufficient knowledge of what has been done by others, especially as to the mode of doing it, a preliminary to inventing knowledge for himself... New knowledge, when to any purpose, must come by contemplation of old knowledge, in every matter which concerns thought; mechanical contrivance sometimes, not very often, escapes this rule. All the men who are now called discoverers, in every matter ruled by thought, have been men versed in the minds of their predecessors and learned in what had been before them. There is not one exception."


"I remember that just before the American Association met at Indianapolis in 1860, the local newspapers heralded a great discovery which was to be laid before the assembled savants -- a young man living somewhere in the country had squared the circle. While the meeting was in progress I observed a young man going about with a roll of paper in his hand. He spoke to me and complained that the paper containing his discovery had not been received. I asked him whether his object in presenting the paper was not to get it read, printed and published so that everyone might inform himself of the result; to all of which he assented readily. But, said I, many men have worked at this question, and their results have been tested fully, and they are printed for the benefit of anyone who can read; have you informed yourself of their results? To this there was no assent, but the sickly smile of the false paradoxer"


The Budget consists of a review of a large collection of paradoxical books which De Morgan had accumulated in his own library, partly by purchase at bookstands, partly from books sent to him for review, partly from books sent to him by the authors. He gives the following classification: squarers of the circle, trisectors of the angle, duplicators of the cube, constructors of perpetual motion, subverters of gravitation, stagnators of the earth, builders of the universe. You will still find specimens of all these classes in the New World and in the new century. De Morgan gives his personal knowledge of paradoxers.

"I suspect that I know more of the English class than any man in Britain. I never kept any reckoning: but I know that one year with another? -- and less of late years than in earlier time? -- I have talked to more than five in each year, giving more than a hundred and fifty specimens. Of this I am sure, that it is my own fault if they have not been a thousand. Nobody knows how they swarm, except those to whom they naturally resort. They are in all ranks and occupations, of all ages and characters. They are very earnest people, and their purpose is bona fide, the dissemination of their paradoxes. A great many -- the mass, indeed -- are illiterate, and a great many waste their means, and are in or approaching penury. These discoverers despise one another."


Now, back to my reason for entering De Morgan’s ideas about true and false paradoxers, as relates to my first paragraph… Not only do these people exist in the mathematical, logical and physical sciences, of which De Morgan was so familiar, but in the soft-sciences of sociology, political science, cultural studies and psychology, etc.__as well… I think at this point I should enter a para that shows where my thinking is mainly drawn from, and who drew the above, quoted from De Morgan:

"In Logic, I am the exponent of a particular tendency, that of physical sciences. I make the pretension to being the most thorough going and fundamental representative of that element who has yet appeared. I believe that my system of logic (which is a philosophical method to which mathematical algebra only affords aid in a particular part of it) must stand, or else the whole spirit of the physical sciences must be revolutionized. If this is to happen, it cannot be brought about in any way so quickly as by the philosophical formularization of it and the carrying of it to its furthest logical consequences. If on the other hand it is to abide, its general statement will be of consequence for mankind. I have measured my powers against those of other men; I know what they are. It is my part to announce with modest confidence what I can do. My system has been sketched out but not so that its bearings can be appreciated. If the world thinks it worth developing, they have only to give me the means of doing it. But if not, I shall follow another path, with perfect contentment." C.S. Peirce


Imo, only by looking at the very fundamentals of our feelings, thoughts and logics will we ever get to the bottom of modern societies’ troubles__and since all troubles start in our feelings about our world, of other thoughts and logics, all other thoughts and logics must be dealt with from this most fundamental foundationalism of such levels. Imo, nowhere can we jump from base feelings to informal and or formal logics, without first considering our most fundamental pre-suppositional feelings__and nowhere can we consider other thoughts and feelings, without also considering the full story our higher thoughts and logics have to tell our base feelings__When we do, we simply do nothing but cheat ourselves of true knowledge__and feed the procrustean and pugilistic paradoxers, and the very subtle cousins of the other paradoxer’s excess-empathy-pushers, etc. We have been making this humongous mistake of feelings’, thoughts’ and logics’ separations__for, oh I don’t know when or how long__forever, I guess…

Since I can see I’m going to make no sense here, as it’s really clearly outside my expertise, let me simply enter an e-mail to a friend, I recently wrote on the same subject:

Hi, and no I have never read anything of MacIntyre's, as this is far from what I'm more interested in, by way of logical and mathematical foundations of all ideas. I simply thought by reading the author's review, which seemed to offer some historical points, it may be valuable. You see to me, morality, ethics, emotions and values are as I described to you with that liberty graph(the golden mean), where people and societies act within a middle band-width of actions acceptable to the majority, as per the habits of social laws passed by chance experience collisions over the years, of these societies' evolutions__just as Peirce described it. To me, law is all societies' social codex of morality, yet all societies' have different chance experiences, which created each society's moral codex of laws. And yes, societies have always had people always wanting to exceed the band-width of accepted normalacy on both ends of the legal and social spectrum__serial killers on the upper end, and extreme empathy pushers and such, on the other end. Both are wrong, but only guided by our societies' moral law codes passed by habitual evolutions of such chance experience collisions, turned into the moral laws we do have__but none have the complete laws to guide human actions(nor can they) and keep the extremist manipulators and destroyers from taking advantage of the incommensurables that are impossible of creating law for__Just think how ridiculous it'd be to pass empathy laws of; "You must do and act as I say."__Yet that is what some of your students are trying to force on you__No...?

Imo, when the experiential self fails to cope__the social law codex must be invoked... It's that simple, as personal experiential emotions is a dead end in the ego, of errors and false beliefs(realize, knowledge also lives inside that same ego-space, in so many words, except is drawn from external facts, and internal ideation of). The social law codex is drawn from the intellect of historical experience of passing a far too strict a moral law code; religions etc., and a far too loose a moral law code; Attila The Hun and Genghis Khan marching over the top of every society, and bludgeoning all in their paths, etc. So, you see again, both Aristotle and Peirce were correct on the point of 'Habits'__as it's only our interpretation of evolutionary experiences, we have the actual moral law codexes we do. Though they ain't perfect__It's the best a chaotic-minded human species can achieve__until we can evolve our intellects to understanding the new and superior economic and social systems being talked about and offered by a few, all around the world__at present(but, it's anyone's guess when we'll awake, or at least as to the critical number of actioners/actuators). The times, they are a changing, and these new systems will be being talked about__when society finally realizes__'All existing systems have extremely false and fraudulent foundations, and fundamentals of much naive thought...’

I've been working on an article about all this, for about a week now, or after you spoke to me__as I realized it was also so in the center of my problems of reaching the audiences I'm attempting to__but, it's turning out to be more difficult to write than I first thought it may be, as I've really only got the first paragraph, then about 6 paras from Augustus De Morgan, about the paradoxers and non-paradoxers__or truth destroyers, and truth-makers... Here's the title__The Paradoxers of Feelings, Thoughts and Logics…

I'll send it to you when I'm done, but it may be a while, as I'm re-researching much of Peirce's ideas as relates to De Morgan's and many, many others. Imo, Peirce is the foundational logic and experiential mechanics of all modern societies__yet the world ain't yet figured this out. I can't find anyone highly intelligent of late__that doesn't directly or indirectly run back into Peirce's oh so modern thinking__as I've been tracing this foundationalism out through hundreds of other modern thinkers in all fields of study__all over the world. Imo, if they know anything, they've studied Peirce, or someone else who has__He's that important...

A wee bit o' advise__Try to sort the non-created ideas of feelings’ experiences, from the created ideas of intellectual experience... Created ideas are those ideas we improve upon__at least conceptually or model-wise, of our base experiential feelings. We improve upon our base experiences by understanding the necessary priorities of intellectually realized moral codex law, over our personally assumed egoic false beliefs about the same...(this is a long hard lesson to learn, and must be intricately traveled, over time) Remember, when we draw from our beliefs, we are drawing from our ego at the all too often dead-end of that personal experience’s aporia-tunnel, and quite often creating unintended errors... When we draw from our experiential intellects, we are drawing from everybody's trials and errors, into the best fit possible(if possible)__as per the West's moral codexes of laws, and this seems to be far better, and more mature than Sharia law__No...?(aporia above meaning 'incommensurabilities of the hazy indiscernibles')

Hope that helps, as when the emotions fail, one should find the proper experiential and intellectual 'habits' of the centuries... These are the general universal 'habits' of our greater humanity__Our natural morality, which is no more than a fair balance of acceptable opposites__among differing parties, or that oh so respectable moral liberty, to the best fit possible...

There exists only personal experiential comfort...
There exists only intellectual experiential knowledge...
These two are drawn from two distinct sources__belief and facts...
The scientific method, is the only method of facts__the laws of...


P.s.
I can explain all this much better to you, in person__as it really takes too many words without personal eye and body language presence... And I have realized much more about it, since we last spoke... Btw, it sounds to me like you probably forgot what I mentioned to you about the liberty graph's importance in understanding the 'mean(golden) limits of personal experience', that can only be sorted and handled by social law... It's the best-fit humanity's got... When the personal fails, the law must come to the rescue... Just a reminder...