The Midnight Hour

I wish that the 700B would make it down to the people that need it most. It seems it will only go to wallstreet and banks.

This is amazing, thank you for posting this!

You say, you “denounce the bill on principle”, and I ask where does this principle come from? Is it inscribed in the tablets of the Libertarian Covenant, come down from God on the cliffs of Mount Sinai?

It seems, knowingly or not, your systematic method of knowledge, is to take whatever you believe you know, and except it as truth. The Great Depression, the Japan banking crisis of the 1990s, all of history and the empirical lessons learned be damned, all are slain at the feet of principles.

Jason,
I believe that there is truth that exists beyond our desires and emotions. I believe humans can discern some of this truth through reasoning. I base my principles on what I consider truth that I have discerned through reasoning. The principle of which I speak is contained in what I consider the truths espoused in some of the following literature:

U.S. Constitution
Federalist Papers
U.S. Declaration of Independence
Records of the U.S. Constitutional Convention
Letters of Benjamin Franklin
Speeches of Ronald Wilson Reagan
Non-fiction of Adam Smith
Non-fiction of Alan Greenspan
Fiction of Ayn Rand

…just to name a few. Sorry if it aggravates you that I think I know something, because I do. Feel free to disagree with what I consider truth, but to go all the way back to question the premise that I can know truth is a tactic I haven’t seen since Hank Rearden’s apprentice in Atlas Shrugged.

Treasury Secretary Paulson hinted today at more gov control of interest rates to get them down to 4.5%. The big three are begging the gov to support their insane labor costs. Everyone with a hand has it stuck out in hopes of a government loan. At this point in the bailout gravy train everyone can see we are taking grand steps toward a planned economy. History and empirical lessons…?

Free markets are proven to work. However, free markets create winners and losers because they reward risk. The American electorate scarcely tolerates allowing people to lose.

There is no truth or principles. We may call them by those names, but there just arbitrary conventions, they make us feel good and give us security in a complex world.

You may consider truth to be able to be discerned through reasoning, yet, truth is not just some rationally reasoned out property. It has to be unchanging and can never be lost. The reasons and justifications you have discerned for truth, on the other hand, can changed and can be lost. Truth here is nothing more than perspective, some perspectives maybe better than others, but they can’t claim to be truth.

The ironic thing here is, in failing to recognize truth as just perspective, the casualty itself is any pursuit of it. By its nature a debate governed in supposed truths and principles, the arguments given always presuppose the validity of the claims. It is not argument about substance or over empirical data, it is instead about ideology, where an idea is derived, and meaningless quiddities.

In other words, the debate over the bailout is concentrated on: what is capitalism, what is socialism, is the bailout socialist or capitalist, capitalism creates winners and losers, free markets are proven, and so forth and so on. A debate framed in this way, like I said, is concerned with where an idea derived, ideologies, and quiddities, instead of empirically looking forward at fruits, results, and consequences of actions.

“There is no truth or principles. We may call them by those names, but there just arbitrary conventions, they make us feel good and give us security in a complex world.”

By claiming to know that truth does not exist you are claiming to know a truth. Your statement condemns absolutes, but is itself an absolute statement. In order to deny truth exists you must deny the very way you came to that conclusion.

If, in the end, we are all just arguing perspective, then how are we to judge the better argument? The only way to judge an argument is by an objective measuring stick: truth. Else then you cannot claim your arguments any superior to mine nor mine sueprior to yours because they are all based on perspective and equally valid from different perspectives.

Did Hitler just have a different perspective that could be valid under different circumstances, or were his actions evil and wrong under any circumstances? There are a myriad of examples like this that force one to either accept that either absolute truths exist and heinous acts are wrong, or Charlie Manson just has a different perspective and we can’t really know whether his deeds were right or wrong.

Humanity has independently concluded many scientific truths throughout the ages (Pi, for one). Are these exceptions to the “lack of truth” as well?

I didn’t notice you replied.

“By claiming to know that truth does not exist you are claiming to know a truth.”

I didn’t and do not claim now that I have found truth.

I’m a skeptical empiricist, a pragmatist; and in the Socratic sense, all I know is that I know nothing.

I’d also cast doubt on your earlier claim that you’ve found truth through reasoning. It is too often “we’ve” claimed our opinion to come from rational, cold, pure dialectic or logic. When we’ve come to our opinions through the inspiration of the heart, the subconscious mind, or what Malcolm Gladwell termed “blink”, and then came to provide the rational arguments after the fact.

“If, in the end, we are all just arguing perspective, then how are we to judge the better argument?”

Empirically.

“The only way to judge an argument is by an objective measuring stick: truth.”

If our measuring stick, our reason, our rationality evolves with every new thought, new technology, and new possibility; than what warrant do we have to declare a statement as true?

“Did Hitler just have a different perspective that could be valid under different circumstances, or were his actions evil and wrong under any circumstances?”

I am not a relativist.

“Humanity has independently concluded many scientific truths throughout the ages (Pi, for one).”

Scientific truths are simply approximations of reality, not reality in itself. Pi is another case of an abstraction, a way of simplifying, a way for us to conceptualize the world around us. The Universe doesn’t consult Pi before I draw a circle. Even modern mathematics, the sort of poster child for truth and logic, its foundation rests on set theory, the axioms of which are based in circular reasoning.

Jason, interesting dialogue. To be fair, I claimed that your denial of absolute truth is in itself an absolute statement. In essence, I think denying absolute truth is also claiming a singular absolute truth. I agree that you never claimed to know truth, but I think your denial of absolute truth claims it ipso facto.

I’ll actually agree that scientific laws are approximations of reality. Laws are just theories that we’ve become tired of testing because they always come out true. However, as an engineer, I’m willing to call a 99.99% approximation of reality as good as reality itself.

I am having a hard time figuring out how you can escape relativism without a source of absolute truth. Is it correct in your estimation to only describe decisions as better/worse and not right/wrong? I am sure that Mugabe would describe his decision to cause hyperinflation in Zimbabwe as “good”–for him! Most of the rest of the world would judge it as bad–for everyone else. How do you judge who takes precedence, Mugabe or Zimbabweans? Sheer numbers?

You can reverse the situation with the forming of the modern Klan in 1930s Stone Mountain, Georgia. A lot of people thought hatred towards non WASP people was a “good” thing. The sheer numbers led to the wrong decision in that instance.

I suppose the crux of what I’m proposing is that your empirical method of measuring a good/worse or right/wrong idea is going to vary wildly by sample. Where have I misunderstood?

“I agree that you never claimed to know truth, but I think your denial of absolute truth claims it ipso facto.”

By claiming truth doesn’t exist, I don’t mean to claim truth is impossible.

“I’ll actually agree that scientific laws are approximations of reality.”

I like to correct myself here. I mistakenly said science is an approximation of reality. Having you pick up on my thought, I realize there is an issue with saying approximately. The problem here I see, is “approximation” implies information or data is just simply incomplete. With just more information or accurate data, science and mathematics could be an exact representation of reality.

“I am having a hard time figuring out how you can escape relativism without a source of absolute truth.”

A true relativist thinks every opinion or perspective is equal or relative to each other. The problem with this definition is no human thinks this way. There are no relativists. So I see relativism largely as a red herring, but maybe I’m wrong. I instead am more interested on how humans truly make moral decisions. From this vantage point I see all humans have different perspectives on morality.

This is not to say I think like a relativist and see Mugabe or Hitler’s perspective as equally right as any other. I think instead, there is no external objective truth to lay judgment on them, but this does not mean we cannot judge them. In others words, I have a sense of fallibilism. The complexity, the evolving nature of reality being what it is, we will never have the last word. We are our own masters, we create our own rules and laws to judge and abide by, and to hide behind “truth” is simply self-delusion.

Thanks for clarifying. I obviously disagree, but I am now much better informed on your position. It is refreshing to see an irreligious rejection of relativism.