What is the Will to Power?

by **Zoot Allures** Tue Feb 27, 2018 8:06 pm

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Post n°76

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Tue Feb 27, 2018 8:06 pm

Andy wrote:Does that mean that intelligence in general is meaningless? Since that's what intelligence is about. It is about making predictions based on what happened in the past; predictions that are never absolutely certain in the sense that it is never impossible for them to turn out to be wrong.

i'm gonna have to give you a crazy hypothetical situation then, or you're not gonna understand what i'm trying to explain.

so you will agree that the laws of physics are only relatively stable, because you are aware that during the initial moments of the big bang, the laws of physics were quite different. this means at some point, many things didn't behave like they do now... i mean like gravity and particles and shit. okay, so it isn't impossible in a future for something like that to happen again. and don't forget physicists are also saying that shit gets really weird in a black hole.

now that being the case, it is conceivable that something... say, an electron, could significantly change, and change in such a way that it's change would effect the way the atom worked which it orbited, and also the molecule that the atom was a part of.

now we have a hypothetical molecule that isn't like the molecule we used to know, and, neither does it do what it used to do. so if we were to say 'this substance has the potential to do X', and, in fact, it wasn't able to do X, we would be wrong poct-hoc. we would be making a false assertion when we said 'this thing has the potential to do X.'

now as unlikely as this hypothetical is- obviously the laws have been pretty stable and consistent for something like 13 billion years- the fact still remains that to say 'X has a potential to do Y' assumes that the laws will remain as they are.

what if we woke up tommorow and all the batteries in the house stopped working? for whatever reason... say some strange shit went down over in the corner of the galaxy and fucked everything up somehow. if you said 'a battery has the potential to produce power' today, you would be wrong tommorow.

we don't want to be wrong, andy, so we need to rethink this.

as long as it's possible for the laws of nature to change, we might be wrong when we speak of a thing's 'potential' to do something specific.

by Magnus Anderson Tue Feb 27, 2018 11:03 pm

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Post n°77

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Magnus Anderson Tue Feb 27, 2018 11:03 pm

Zoot Allures wrote:what if we woke up tommorow and all the batteries in the house stopped working? for whatever reason... say some strange shit went down over in the corner of the galaxy and fucked everything up somehow. if you said 'a battery has the potential to produce power' today, you would be wrong tommorow.

we don't want to be wrong, andy, so we need to rethink this.

as long as it's possible for the laws of nature to change, we might be wrong when we speak of a thing's 'potential' to do something specific.

You are basically saying that the method of induction, which is the basis of intelligence, is faulty and thus in need of correction. I don't accept that position. Yes, we might be wrong that some object X has some potential P but that does not mean that our method of reasoning is faulty. And it certainly does not mean that it is meaningless to speak of objects having potentials. What that means is that we can never be absolutely certain that some object X has some potential P. That would be Charles S. Peirce's position of fallibilism.

Another thing to consider is that a single exception does not refute the rule. Popper's idea that a rule can be falsified by a single exception is quite simply wrong. If a trillion swans that are white suggest that "all swans are white" a single black swan does not do much damage to that conclusion. It's an insignificant number of black swans. Even a hundred black swans would be negligible.

We cannot even be absolutely certain that our memories adequately represent our past observations.

by **Zoot Allures** Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:00 am

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Post n°78

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:00 am

i'm only saying that our specific use of induction for our specific purposes- to talk with certainty about a things 'potential'- is something to be noted. that's all. when we talk like this we are doing so out of habit... and what we believe from habit is not always (entirely) reasonable.

and a single exception does refute the rule if a scientific theory is refuted. if there is one black swan, the assertion 'all swans are white' is absolutely and completely false.

i like peirce, too. he was a no bullshit kinda guy,and i think his fallibilism was a kind of 'principle of charity' (google it), which he granted to analytical philosophy. being the pragmatist, he's less concerned with what is true or false, but rather the effects of belief... whether beliefs are useful. james, also a pragmatist, would argue that whether or not god existed wasn't important (or even knowable), but whether or not such belief was useful. if you feel good believing in god, good for you. go with what works. it's a pretty liberal position in philosophy, but is perfectly understandable. two thousand years later and we still don't know what the fuck is true. so fuck it, forget about it, and believe what you want.

by **Zoot Allures** Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:04 am

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Post n°79

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:04 am

what popper is saying is that no amount of positive evidence can prove certain kinds of scientific theory... while only one case of negative evidence is enough to refute it. if you said 'all swans are white', you'd never prove that, because you couldn't travel the entire universe looking for swans. such a theory is nonfalsifiable. on the other hand, if you found only one black swan somewhere, you'd disproved the theory.

by Magnus Anderson Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:21 pm

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Post n°80

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Magnus Anderson Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:21 pm

I am arguing against your position that talking about objects having potentials is meaningless.

Let me quote you:

it is impossible to know what an object is capable of doing. the object may have acted a certain way, performed a certain way, many times, or even all times, in the past... and yet that doesn't guarantee it will do it again in the future. therefore, to speak of something's 'potential' is meaningless.

It appears to me that you are saying that because we can't know with certainty what potentials objects have that it is meaningless to speak of objects having potentials. We must stop talking about objects having potentials. That's your conclusion.

The problem is that nothing can be known with certainty. Not even that I wrote this post myself. Memories aren't infallible. Everything I think about myself and my life might be wrong. And yet, you have no problem with me saying that I wrote this post.

Here's a different question. How do you know that people are not flat three-dimensional objects i.e. without depth? Sure, you can look at them from different angles but you can never look at them from different angles at the same time. You can only infer. Does that mean that talking about people having physical depth makes no sense?

by Magnus Anderson Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:30 pm

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Post n°81

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Magnus Anderson Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:30 pm

and a single exception does refute the rule if a scientific theory is refuted. if there is one black swan, the assertion 'all swans are white' is absolutely and completely false.

In practice, we tend to ignore exceptions until they become significant. So, it takes more than just a single exception to refute the rule.

what popper is saying is that no amount of positive evidence can prove certain kinds of scientific theory... while only one case of negative evidence is enough to refute it. if you said 'all swans are white', you'd never prove that, because you couldn't travel the entire universe looking for swans. such a theory is nonfalsifiable. on the other hand, if you found only one black swan somewhere, you'd disproved the theory.

Positive evidence cannot prove a theory but it can strengthen it. Interestingly, negative evidence suffers from the same problem more or less. It cannot disprove a theory, it can only weaken it. What does it matter that a single swan is black if a centillion of other swans are white?

by witchdoctor Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:07 am

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Post n°82

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by witchdoctor Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:07 am

Zoot Allures wrote:

we don't want to be wrong, andy, so we need to rethink this.

as long as it's possible for the laws of nature to change, we might be wrong when we speak of a thing's 'potential' to do something specific.

There is always the possibility that nature may change in an instant, just as there is a possibility for anything thinkable, for the very fact that is thinkable.
However, I don't think that the uncertainty that comes with the inability to prove a false negative is what is giving you caution.

If uncertainty of things we have never measured was a limitation to practice science, there would be no science.

Considering the possibility that your chair might suddenly disappear from underneath you does not prevent you from yielding yourself to it and raising your legs to rest.
Listen, Zoots. Potential is as physically real as your chair.

by witchdoctor Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:20 am

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Post n°83

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by witchdoctor Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:20 am

Magnus Anderson wrote:

and a single exception does refute the rule if a scientific theory is refuted. if there is one black swan, the assertion 'all swans are white' is absolutely and completely false.

In practice, we tend to ignore exceptions until they become significant. So, it takes more than just a single exception to refute the rule.

what popper is saying is that no amount of positive evidence can prove certain kinds of scientific theory... while only one case of negative evidence is enough to refute it. if you said 'all swans are white', you'd never prove that, because you couldn't travel the entire universe looking for swans. such a theory is nonfalsifiable. on the other hand, if you found only one black swan somewhere, you'd disproved the theory.

Positive evidence cannot prove a theory but it can strengthen it. Interestingly, negative evidence suffers from the same problem more or less. It cannot disprove a theory, it can only weaken it. What does it matter that a single swan is black if a centillion of other swans are white?

Though I agree with your main point, I disagree with you on exceptions. Indeed, the existence of a black swan among a trillion white swans disproves the assertion that all swans are white.
A scientist is more likely to go and find a reason to say, "well, that black thing is not a swan".

The existence of a single exception raises an enormous red flag. In practice, the exception becomes the object of an obsessive scrutiny. If reproduceable, it may cause changes to the original assertion or an addition of another assertion to explain the exception. If not reproduceable, and all readings which could be gathered from that event don't indeed show that "that black thing is not a swan", not different from the others in any way except by its black feathers, then all that can be done is to monitor and wait for it to happen again.

by **Zoot Allures** Fri Mar 02, 2018 7:26 am

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Post n°84

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Fri Mar 02, 2018 7:26 am

andy wrote:It appears to me that you are saying that because we can't know with certainty what potentials objects have that it is meaningless to speak of objects having potentials. We must stop talking about objects having potentials. That's your conclusion.

did i say that? if i did, i blame you people, you 'philosophers'... you did this to me. i used to be normal and say things like 'that team's got a lot of potential' and 'we have a potential problem' and stuff like that. now i can't even be sure the chair i'm sitting on will maintain the potential to support me. so, i threw it out on the curb. i'm standing now, and frankly, i don't trust the floor either.

and the swan thing. it DOES refute the rule if the rule is supported by the indicative statement with the existential quantifier 'ALL'; 'ALL swans are white.' now you could say some swans or many swans or a few swans, but not all swans. come on, andy. this is basic logic.

and sure, scientists might find a gazillion white swans and therefore believe they are proving a theory... but they aren't. it is logically possible a green swan exists somewhere else in the universe. popper's point is that that isn't a true, scientific theory because it can't be falsified.

by Magnus Anderson Fri Mar 02, 2018 7:47 am

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Post n°85

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Magnus Anderson Fri Mar 02, 2018 7:47 am

Zoot wrote:did i say that?

Yes, you did.

and the swan thing. it DOES refute the rule if the rule is supported by the indicative statement with the existential quantifier 'ALL'; 'ALL swans are white.' now you could say some swans or many swans or a few swans, but not all swans. come on, andy. this is basic logic.

Yes, it is. I am not arguing against that. What I am saying is that in practice there is such a thing as "error tolerance". We can be aware of the evidence that refutes our theory and nonetheless choose not to adapt our theory to it. The error must be significant in order for us to conmence the expensive process of adaptation. Popper was a weird guy. He had this stupid antipathy towards verification and an unrealistic understanding of how we update our theories in practice.

and sure, scientists might find a gazillion white swans and therefore believe they are proving a theory... but they aren't. it is logically possible a green swan exists somewhere else in the universe. popper's point is that that isn't a true, scientific theory because it can't be falsified.

Positives corroborate a theory. They make it more likely to be true. They cannot make it absolutely true. And yes, the strength of a theory can be weakened through negatives. There is no need to put so much emphasis on negatives. Every test is either a positive (strengthening the theory) or a negative (weakening the theory.)

by **Zoot Allures** Fri Mar 02, 2018 8:40 am

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Post n°86

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Fri Mar 02, 2018 8:40 am

sure, 'error tolerance', but it depends on what kind of a theory is being created and what the consequences are if it isn't correct. i had read years ago about the different kinds of conjecture and how popper's criteria applied to them. can't remember them and i'm not about to go looking for them now. there is an allowable margin of error in some theory, but not in all.

take for instance a theory in physics that calculates the speed and trajectory of a space craft. if you get that wrong, your astronauts are going to be in some serious shit. 'andy... we have a problem'.

now this kind of theory is descriptive, not explanatory. meaning, physicists aren't certain why forces work like they do to regulate these factors of speed and inertia and momentum, etc., but they don't need to know this stuff to get the astronauts back safely. if they were to postulate a causal theory for why this stuff happens, they'd be subject to the problem of induction. still that's okay... because they don't need to know why... only how. a margin of error is okay in causal theory, not okay in descriptive theory.

but a statement of fact like 'all swans are white' does not allow that margin. it is a statement that belongs to the natural sciences, and it is either true or false. here, there are no consequences to being wrong, other than being wrong. no astronauts are in danger if the statement is false. but allowing the margin of error isn't applicable here because it would matter if the statement were false insofar as it purports to be a real description of facts. if one were to generate further theory from that initial, false premise, it would all be wrong.

if a scientist were to assert that 'x will do y' because all swans are white, he'd be wrong again. if it can't be known that all swans are white, it shirley can't be known that x will do y, because of it. and again, even if all swans were white, we still couldn't know for sure if x did y because of that fact.

holy shit... that's like a double induction fallacy dude. did you see that?

so there are different ways of 'being wrong', different 'dangers', and different 'criteria' for the different kinds of scientific theory. you cannot universally apply 'tolerance' to all possible scientific theory.

this is all coming from vague memory i have of the brief study i did of popper's falsifiability principle. there's much more that i can't remember. and i might believe popper was, ironically, reducing or trying to discredit science by his strict emphasis on the verification principle. like feyerabend and kuhn, he was campaigning against science in a way... only differently.

p.s. note to philosophers and wise men: i'll put this stuff in another thread later so not to continue digression from the WTP topic.

by **Zoot Allures** Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:47 pm

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Post n°87

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:47 pm

fuck it. i'm not moving this stuff to another thread. too much work.

carry on.

by Magnus Anderson Sat Mar 03, 2018 6:24 am

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Post n°88

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Magnus Anderson Sat Mar 03, 2018 6:24 am

Zoot wrote:take for instance a theory in physics that calculates the speed and trajectory of a space craft. if you get that wrong, your astronauts are going to be in some serious shit. 'andy... we have a problem'.

Yes, sometimes we want to be precise which means we want to keep the margin of error to a level below what is usual. How do we reduce the margin of error? By increasing our sample size. And in order to do that, we don't have to take every piece of evidence into consideration. We just have to collect enough data. So selectivity isn't such a bad thing. Thinking isn't merely bottom-up.

but a statement of fact like 'all swans are white' does not allow that margin.

That's not true.

it is a statement that belongs to the natural sciences, and it is either true or false.

Unless you don't care about exactness. Maybe you don't care about a theory being exactly true but only about it being true enough. You can measure the veracity of a theory using its success rate i.e. the number of events it successfully predicted over the total number of events it attempted to predict. If the success rate is high enough you may want to keep it even if it is strictly incorrect. So "all swans are white" can survive even if there are swans that are not white.

here, there are no consequences to being wrong, other than being wrong.

Not necessarily.

by **Zoot Allures** Sat Mar 03, 2018 8:44 am

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Post n°89

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Sat Mar 03, 2018 8:44 am

stop stalking me, andy. i see you there. you won. uncle. i said it. i surrender.

by **Zoot Allures** Sat Mar 03, 2018 8:47 am

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Post n°90

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Sat Mar 03, 2018 8:47 am

wait! no, you're still wrong about the swans dude. there is no third alternative to the truth value of the statement 'all swans are white'. the fucking statement is either true or false. if you find just ONE green swan, that statement is false. you can disprove the theory with a single piece of negative evidence. but again, you'd never prove the theory is true, because you could never search the entire universe to MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO GREEN SWANS.

christ, man!

by Satyr Sat Mar 03, 2018 12:43 pm

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Post n°91

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Satyr Sat Mar 03, 2018 12:43 pm

Will is the lucid loving love.
I will power, is I love power.
I love powerfully, love lovingly.

Power is a ersatz love loving love...
This is what I wrote in a moment of lucid genius....

Great Goat wrote:
I tell you, verily, this world is a shit-hole and people are garbage who cannot appreciate my go(l)dness, who cannot partake of my bountiful boundlessness.
They would sooner crucify me, like a common thief, than bask in the light I bring them.
As they treated by lesser predecessor, the prophet of my coming Jesus, and misunderstood my second prophet, labelling him a anti-Semite Nazi, when he, Nietzsche, was the prophet of my third, newest, and final Testament, they shall misjudge and misunderstand, and throw slander and living stones at me.
They will turn away from my brilliance the light hurting their eyes, used to the dark caverns of their cave existence.

I light the way out of their twilight, but they will not come, afraid of what they may see, afraid of my power, afraid of freedom, fear-fearing-fear.
'There is nothing to fear, but fear itself', said the other prophet echoing my coming.
I am the bringer of fearless loving, power.
I am the truth truism truthfulness.
He who hates hating, and loves loving.
Hallelujah...

He who hates the victim gives him what he covets, reinforcing his victimhood...hoody in the hood.
The chosen to suffer rejoice in their choseness and suffering.
If they were not hated what value would their self-loving love of suffering, as chosen, have?
Those who were outcasts have found pride in their shame...as being chosen by the God all other tribes rejected.
Gypsies of the spirit, they mark themselves as dark, rather than colourful bards living on the periphery as scavengers, as parasites. they clothes themselves in occult darkness to mix with the host.
Change their names, mix with their blood, but they keep the meme that identifies them as distinct.
Blood is superficial, what matters is the idea....that which separates mind from mind; that which differentiates the enlightened, the chosen, those who know the secret.
Those who know the word, have been given the deciphering algorithm of mystifying codes.

Humanity = world.
Psychology = philosophy.
Logos = Truth

We great manipulators of human nature, which we then refuse to all others who refused us.
We who accept what we sell as denying.

What does it say in Scripture? as metaphorical code to be interpreted on three levels:

John 1:1 wrote:In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Goethe, no goet-er... retorts that first was the act...not the word. Blasphemy!!!
In all there is word - logos...any positive word will do.
Love, Value, Will, Eros...Power...Humanity....Whole...Unity...ONE.
[+]....1
Any symbol....let us reinvent God, as reborn.....as rewritten symbol, code.
In all there is love....who will reject this positive offering?
Let us remake Judaism, by mixing it with Nietzsche, rather than Paganism as Saul did to make Christianity, and or with Persian Zoroastrianism and local Arabian tribal superstitions to make Islam.
Let's remake Christianity by integrating Nietzsche....by redefining him jewdicially.
A new religion...a new viral Christianity 3.0.
The ingredients are there....all we need is some creative word juggling.

In all there is God....let's say 'love'.
God is the word, and the word can be anything...but it must be positive, seductive.....appealing to the masses.
Word = god
God = Love
Word = ?
Any positive symbol, word.
Let's say Nietzsche's 'power', or Spinoza's 'deus', substance.
Then market it with savvy....deus is immanence, said Spinoza...and he was a genius of linguistic creativity.
The creativity is in the marketing = packaging, seductive angle, icon that sells, triggering name - brand name.
Something sexy and inspiring....depends what your target market is.
Is it high end, or low end. Is it edumucated, or illiterate.
Is it cool, and upwardly mobile, or comfortably wealthy.
What's your motive....mass appeal, or niche nouveau riche.

If they reject you, and your product, or you via your product,....call them names....say they do not get the product, that they never did....that they cannot fully appreciate it.
Who rejects power and love?
Passive aggressive, reverse psychology.

by Magnus Anderson Sun Mar 04, 2018 1:29 am

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Post n°92

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Magnus Anderson Sun Mar 04, 2018 1:29 am

Zoot wrote:wait! no, you're still wrong about the swans dude. there is no third alternative to the truth value of the statement 'all swans are white'. the fucking statement is either true or false. if you find just ONE green swan, that statement is false. you can disprove the theory with a single piece of negative evidence. but again, you'd never prove the theory is true, because you could never search the entire universe to MAKE SURE THERE ARE NO GREEN SWANS.

christ, man!

That's correct. A single exception does refute the rule. But in a different sense, it's not correct.

First, we can only say that a single exception absolutely refutes the rule if we accept that the evidence that we have is absolutely infallible. But if we subscribe to Peircean fallibilism, we have to accept that all evidence is fallible and thus that no refutation is absolutely certain; the rule might still be true.

Second, the exact truth might not be of interest to us. Instead, we may only be interested in what is true enough. Thus, an incorrect statement can survive and even be of higher value than the correct statement.

Finally, your dyad of true and false is less expressive than Peircean triad of true, false and true-and-false. In plain terms, measuring the veracity of a theory in terms of its success rate is more expressive than measuring it in terms of true and false. Your "true" is my "100% true" and your "false" is my "0% true". I have everything you have but you don't have everything I have. You don't have the values in between, the various states of superposition, such as "50% true" and "75% true" and "25% true" and so on.

by Satyr Sun Mar 04, 2018 12:40 pm

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Post n°93

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Satyr Sun Mar 04, 2018 12:40 pm

Will = word denoting the focus or an organism's aggregate energies upon an object/objective.

by **Zoot Allures** Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:33 am

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Post n°94

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:33 am

andy wrote:First, we can only say that a single exception absolutely refutes the rule if we accept that the evidence that we have is absolutely infallible. But if we subscribe to Peircean fallibilism, we have to accept that all evidence is fallible and thus that no refutation is absolutely certain; the rule might still be true.

well wait a minute. if the observation of a single green swan isn't infallible, then the assertion that 'all swans are white' must also be fallible, because that too is an observation.

so now what do you do? that's a bit of a fix, andy.

according to you and pierce, all swans might be orange, even, but you couldn't trust that observation either.

so fallibilism stands not only for refutations, but also the theories the refutations attempt to refute.

by Satyr Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:53 am

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Post n°95

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Satyr Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:53 am

No absolute certainty can ever be established unless one becomes an emasculated zealot addicted to the absolute.
A theory is validated by the exceptions.

Precedent establishes what is more and what is less probable.
Therefore the colour of a swan's plumage has precedent, including the rule and the exception to it.
The exception can be explained by using the rule itself as a standard.

Precedent can only be held in memory...therefore value judgments are only possible by organisms that can use precedent to juxtapose the perceived with what has been perceived, in an endless cycle of validation.
Problem with memory is that it decreases in clarity through time, and it can be used to fabricate what has not been perceived....like orange swans.
This is a general issue with memory....or the noumenon.

Empiricism uses the continuous juxtaposition of abstraction with perception to avoid this corruption and to constantly reaffirm memory.

by **Zoot Allures** Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:08 am

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Post n°96

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:08 am

GM wrote:No absolute certainty can ever be established unless one becomes an emasculated zealot addicted to the absolute.

are you absolutely certain about everything you said, following that quote? if so, you are an emasculated zealot... if not, we can disregard what you've said.

welcome to the world of logic. i'll be your guide.

by Satyr Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:07 am

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Post n°97

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Satyr Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:07 am

That sounds like...
'There are absolutely no absolutes'. & 'Truth is there are no truths'.

Everything I say is a probability, which I hold as being superior to all others, otherwise I would not consider it so.

this linguistic paradox is based no the nature of language-
words/symbols represent noumena, which cannot be anything but absolutes, because abstractions are generalizations/simplifications of fluid fluctuating reality.

They are representations that if taken literally, can result in paradoxes.

The words 'truth' and 'absolute' have to be understood accurately.
Absolute: indivisible, immutable, whole, one, singularity...
the word refers to nothing outside the mind - it is pure noumenon.

But the word can also be used to accentuate certainty, expressing personal conviction, as a qualifier, expressing higher probability.

Logic is a human discipline imposing upon the mind an external order - or limiting the mind to external order.
Otherwise the mind's ability to synthesize, from memory, any kind of absurdity would lead it into madness.

Logic are the rules reflecting Laws of Nature...and Natural laws are man's perception of patterns in the patterns....called understanding.
Understanding is not knowledge.
Knowledge is data, information. This can be first hand (experience) or second hand (education, books, pop-culture).
Most people are book smart but not street smart...
They know much and understand little.
Parrots.

Don't worry, I'll make it seem like you are leading.
I know your psychology.

by Magnus Anderson Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:40 am

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Post n°98

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Magnus Anderson Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:40 am

Zoot wrote:if the observation of a single green swan isn't infallible

That's correct. The memory that I have observed a green swan at some point in the past is fallible i.e. it is not necessarily true.

then the assertion that 'all swans are white' must also be fallible

That's correct. The assertion that "All swans are white" is also fallible i.e. it is not necessarily true.

Both particular and general statements are fallible. General statements even more so since they are built on top of particular statements.

so now what do you do? that's a bit of a fix, andy.

You're implying there is a problem with the statement that both particular statements and general statements are fallible but I cannot relate. What exactly is the problem?

according to you and pierce, all swans might be orange, even, but you couldn't trust that observation either.

Now you're confusing "trust" with "absolute certainty".

People can trust anything they want and if the environment they live in is permissive enough, and that for a long time, then these people, together with the statements that they trust, can survive even if they are completely wrong.

When I say that nothing is absolutely certain what I mean is that every proposition can turn out to be wrong. Not that I, or anyone else, can't trust any proposition.

by **Zoot Allures** Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:07 pm

Zoot Allures

Zoot Allures: Posts : 525
Join date : 2018-02-07
Age : 506

Post n°99

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:07 pm

GM wrote:That sounds like...
'There are absolutely no absolutes'. & 'Truth is there are no truths'.

it might sound like that to you, but that's not what it means, because neither of those statements there can be true, either. if they're true, then they're not true.

now don't mistake me for saying there can't be any absolutes, because there certainly can. i am merely pointing out that you are undermining yourself by claiming there are no absolutes, and then basing that conclusion on premises you must assume are absolutely true to make that argument.

deductive truths are always absolutely true, and inductive truths are sometimes absolutely true. the difference between the two is that the former is absolutely true by definition alone, i.e., a bachelor is an unmarried man. the latter, i.e., all frogs are amphibians, is absolutely true if we agree to classify the animal as an amphibian. notice though that while all unmarried men are bachelors, not all amphibians are frogs. this prevents the latter assertion from being a tautology.

now it makes no difference whether or not we have real knowledge of what the world is like, in order for these absolutes to exist, because they reflect only linguistic categories and rules that may or may not accurately represent reality. but it isn't reality we are agreeing with when we talk sensibly about such things as bachelors and frogs. we are agreeing with each other, and our conclusions are absolutely true if we share the same rules (and we do).

a consequence of this fact is that when asserting there are no absolutes, the conclusion is either true or false, absolutely. you can't get around that, so you avoid asserting that there are no absolutes, and you'll be fine.

you should be able to accept this as long as you realize that statements about other statements can be absolutely true or false, as in deductive truths, and sometimes absolutely true or false, as in inductive statements. like it is absolutely true that i just said that. that's an inductive truth, because you just experienced me saying that. you confirmed that it is true, absolutely, because you read it (and trust that i typed it).

GM wrote:words/symbols represent noumena, which cannot be anything but absolutes, because abstractions are generalizations/simplifications of fluid fluctuating reality.

now that's something. first, how do you know the noumena (thing-in-itself) is absolute if you cannot experience it? you could never establish that that statement- 'noumena cannot be anything but absolute'- is inductively true. however, you can determine that it is deductively true by simply applying aristotle's law of excluded middle; whatever the thing-in-itself is, it must be what it is, and not what it is not, even though we know not what it is.

also, playing the 'everything changes' card does not detract from the possibility of there being absolutes. all that card does is show that properties change, not necessarily identities. for example, joe and john are both bachelors, and therefore unmarried men... but joe has brown hair and john has blonde. joe and john are not the same, but they are still both bachelors. the properties of the bachelors are different, but the identities are the same insofar as they are both unmarried men.

another example is your buddy heraclitus's river. if part of the definition of the river is 'something that changes', the identity of the river would remain the same regardless of the changes of it's various properties.

GM wrote:(a)Logic are the rules reflecting (b)Laws of Nature...and Natural laws are (c)man's perception of patterns in the patterns....called understanding.

i dunno if i can agree with that assessment. you've said that (a) reflects (c), since if (b) is (c), (a) must reflect (c). i think rather that 'man's perception' reflects logic, not vice-versa.

GM wrote:Don't worry, I'll make it seem like you are leading.

aw shucks. thanks.

GM wrote:I know your psychology.

i'm glad somebody does, because i sure as hell don't.

by **Zoot Allures** Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:28 pm

Zoot Allures

Zoot Allures: Posts : 525
Join date : 2018-02-07
Age : 506

Post n°100

Re: What is the Will to Power?

by Zoot Allures Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:28 pm

andy wrote:You're implying there is a problem with the statement that both particular statements and general statements are fallible but I cannot relate. What exactly is the problem?

somehow (i don't even remember now), we got going on this thing about an exception disproving a rule, and somebody brought up swans. i think it was me. i used popper's falsifiability principle to show how no amount of positive evidence can prove a rule such as 'all swans are white,' while only one instance of negative evidence (a black or green swan) can disprove it.

you then pulled pierce out on me, and claimed that such negative evidence couldn't be trusted because it could be fallible.

my riposte was: but then the theory that all swans are white would also be fallible.

and then... well, i don't even know what happened, dude. we've digressed somehow. my point is not that all observations are infallible, but that if you grant the accurate observation of white swans, and then propose a theory that all swans are white, you'd disprove that theory if you found a black or green swan. and, that you'd never prove that theory is true, no matter how many swans you observed.

now you either tried to trick me, or you accidentally and unwittingly thought that fallibilism changes the consequences of finding a single black or green swan, by saying 'well you can't trust your observation of the black or green swan because it might not be accurate.'

i think you tried to fool me, andy. oh andy . . . andy andy andy...

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