The massive oil spill from an exploded offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico below the Mississippi River is an example of why offshore oil exploration and drilling in the Alaskan Arctic is such a bad idea. President Obama signed off on that development of course, in an ethical compromise with Republicans in order to gain support for his energy plan. It was Barry Goldwater I believe who said ‘extremism in pursuit of virtue is no vice’ (I believe). When President Obama signs off on ethical compromises in pursuit of political objectives he may indeed reflect former President Richard M. Nixon’s political style, yet without President Nixon’s depth of political understanding all that is produced for the nation is an avalanche of mediocrity. While it is true that the sludge of Obamanism is less deleterious than that of former President George W. Bush who was most skilled at spending political and public capital, it is an ecologically unsustainable course. The environment is uncompromising in its turning a cold shoulder of death to those organisms that repeatedly and decisively violate its ‘partnership with life’ to their own advantage.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36800673/ns/us_news-environment/?GT1=43001
If such a disastrous oil spill eventually occurs under the winter arctic ice it would be very difficult to access before the spring-summer melt to stanch. Just one seafloor wellhead corruption could decisively kill vast region of the Arctic marine habitat, and potentially radically alter the Earth’s northern albedo index through a cascade of alteration of environmental characteristics impacting sea ice formation.
A network of Atlantic Coast and Appalachian wind farms tied through superconductors to Rocky Mountain wind farms may be able to supply much energy for the energy-inefficient U.S. electrical consumerist sink—that course should be encouraged while marine ecosystem and marine chemistry integrity destroying offshore oil developments ought to be halted and Executive Operating Officers of Major Oil Corporations given fair jury trials and jailed for crimes against the environment when such spills occur.
Such permisiveness in environmental assault is a consequence of the too big to fail or be held accountable dispensationalism given to global oil corporations that have addicted the United States to oil consumerist slavery. It is theoretically possible to liberate the public reliance upon global oil for energy, with the incredible scale of damage to the environment and alternative economic and ecological opportunities lost to the polluting, trade deficit, liberty sapping oil industry as it has been the last century. The Coast Guard has a 10,000 dollar fine for just throwing a candy wrapper out the window of a ship in San Pedro--such oil spills and transmogrification of the ocean composition just once should place BP out of business in the United States for good.
4/26/10
Alaska and Other States Litigate Against Obama 'Health' Care in Defense of Liberty
Alaska Governor Sean Parnell decided to join several other states in challenging the Obama Health Care plan to require individuals to purchase health insurance from private insurers. That plan was a composite amalgam of bureaucratic compromise designed especially with the interests of the middle class in mind. In my opinion the poor were tossed in as a negotiating tool, and a Roman 'turtle' to hide behind morally as the bill was advanced toward the bastions of the opposition of the rich ultra-rightists, greed speaking.
Disingenuity and disinterest were basic reasons why neither the Democrats nor Republicans sought to construct a practical, free, public health service for the poor in the United States. Such a program would have created the most efficient and lowest cost structure for the provisioning of medical care.
Republicans would oppose that as socialism, and democrats would be afraid of being considered socialists after December 1989, and would do little to defend liberty and common sense. The cost of a failure to legislate rationally and responsively to forced existential options can work to bring down a democratic viability when it is a persisting characteristic of a government. The failure to comprehend the Adam Smith material orientation of capitalism instead of the current financial capital advantage, with a dysfunctioning monetary philosophy, is another ongoing failure to legislate a rational public sector response to the economic and environmental challenges of the age.
It is difficult to disagree with the Parnell administration and most Alaska Republicans on the fundamentally corrupting nature of the offensive element of the Obama Health Plan. It blows up the constitutional liberty of Americans from requirements that they buy anything from anyone just for existing. The Obama Administration and Democratic Congress have in effect overthrown the revolutionary spirit of the Boston Tea Party and the revolt against the Stamp Act.
Albeit excuses would be made that something had to be done. Both sides of the political coin of today-Republican and Democrat, are fettered in the hobbles of global corporatism. Most all Americans are ensnared in the financial services networks that have leveraged mere material trade, home owning and such to liquid assets. Financial traders have made abstract money able to create profit itself out of rational relational scaler--an enormity--regarding its intended function as a tool to permit easier trade. A sober economic theoretical college of philosophers would advocate that money be issued with a two year expiration date in order to restore primacy to material goods as real wealth.
In ones heart you know free health care for the poor is right. Those Alaskan Republicans that defend American liberty from a global corporate insurer aristocracy that would receive legally forced payments from the poor, or taxpayer substitutes, also do not give a rat's ass about the financial and physical injury done to the poor who cannot afford ordinary medical services. Those opponents are generally comfortable, fully insured and have no experience as adults with poverty. In America the poor are real people too. Thus on both sides of the political coin a deceptive and inadequate reasoning is inscribed; in corrupt mammon and global we trust might be better than the 'in God we trust' idea of former generations when government and corporatism together had not created a Leviathan of greed and globalism to repress American freedom.
Scott Simon of NPR said that the majority of Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are Jews and Catholics today. The Chief Justice is heavily invested on Wall Street--a corporatist. The founding philosophy of protestants in the U.S.A. and England have moved into the edge of the mists of time. Adam Smith-the author of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ published in 1776, was a friend and student of David Hume. We cannot be assured that today’s court still values the freedom that the founders fought to liberate the new nation from global aristocracy, from the restrictions on free trade, and from requirements that Americans purchase anything from anyone anywhere through aristocratic decretal. Perhaps the Democrats in Congress believe the court will be as fast to jetison liberty and join the gentle chains of global corporatism.
If the U.S. Supreme Court does revolt against the poison pill smuggled in plain sight into the Obama Health Plan, morality should require that a better plan--one that first creates a comprehensive public health service for the poor--and only the poor, is made law within a year. Then those fortunate enough to be able to afford health insurance can be given the attention they deserve within some kind of collective bargaining paradigm if they prefer.
Perhaps I shall need to write about the basics of taxation, and that a sales tax is a tax on sales, not a tax on spending or purchasing. If a tax on spending is made, that would comprise a back loaded double income tax in states that have income taxes. Internet taxation is fair enough on businesses established in the state doing the taxing, otherwise it becomes completely irrational, corrupt and simply a state claim upon one’s money within a format of a universal spending tax.
Disingenuity and disinterest were basic reasons why neither the Democrats nor Republicans sought to construct a practical, free, public health service for the poor in the United States. Such a program would have created the most efficient and lowest cost structure for the provisioning of medical care.
Republicans would oppose that as socialism, and democrats would be afraid of being considered socialists after December 1989, and would do little to defend liberty and common sense. The cost of a failure to legislate rationally and responsively to forced existential options can work to bring down a democratic viability when it is a persisting characteristic of a government. The failure to comprehend the Adam Smith material orientation of capitalism instead of the current financial capital advantage, with a dysfunctioning monetary philosophy, is another ongoing failure to legislate a rational public sector response to the economic and environmental challenges of the age.
It is difficult to disagree with the Parnell administration and most Alaska Republicans on the fundamentally corrupting nature of the offensive element of the Obama Health Plan. It blows up the constitutional liberty of Americans from requirements that they buy anything from anyone just for existing. The Obama Administration and Democratic Congress have in effect overthrown the revolutionary spirit of the Boston Tea Party and the revolt against the Stamp Act.
Albeit excuses would be made that something had to be done. Both sides of the political coin of today-Republican and Democrat, are fettered in the hobbles of global corporatism. Most all Americans are ensnared in the financial services networks that have leveraged mere material trade, home owning and such to liquid assets. Financial traders have made abstract money able to create profit itself out of rational relational scaler--an enormity--regarding its intended function as a tool to permit easier trade. A sober economic theoretical college of philosophers would advocate that money be issued with a two year expiration date in order to restore primacy to material goods as real wealth.
In ones heart you know free health care for the poor is right. Those Alaskan Republicans that defend American liberty from a global corporate insurer aristocracy that would receive legally forced payments from the poor, or taxpayer substitutes, also do not give a rat's ass about the financial and physical injury done to the poor who cannot afford ordinary medical services. Those opponents are generally comfortable, fully insured and have no experience as adults with poverty. In America the poor are real people too. Thus on both sides of the political coin a deceptive and inadequate reasoning is inscribed; in corrupt mammon and global we trust might be better than the 'in God we trust' idea of former generations when government and corporatism together had not created a Leviathan of greed and globalism to repress American freedom.
Scott Simon of NPR said that the majority of Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are Jews and Catholics today. The Chief Justice is heavily invested on Wall Street--a corporatist. The founding philosophy of protestants in the U.S.A. and England have moved into the edge of the mists of time. Adam Smith-the author of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ published in 1776, was a friend and student of David Hume. We cannot be assured that today’s court still values the freedom that the founders fought to liberate the new nation from global aristocracy, from the restrictions on free trade, and from requirements that Americans purchase anything from anyone anywhere through aristocratic decretal. Perhaps the Democrats in Congress believe the court will be as fast to jetison liberty and join the gentle chains of global corporatism.
If the U.S. Supreme Court does revolt against the poison pill smuggled in plain sight into the Obama Health Plan, morality should require that a better plan--one that first creates a comprehensive public health service for the poor--and only the poor, is made law within a year. Then those fortunate enough to be able to afford health insurance can be given the attention they deserve within some kind of collective bargaining paradigm if they prefer.
Perhaps I shall need to write about the basics of taxation, and that a sales tax is a tax on sales, not a tax on spending or purchasing. If a tax on spending is made, that would comprise a back loaded double income tax in states that have income taxes. Internet taxation is fair enough on businesses established in the state doing the taxing, otherwise it becomes completely irrational, corrupt and simply a state claim upon one’s money within a format of a universal spending tax.
4/13/10
Obama Energy Plan a Corporate Globalist Sychophancy?
No right thinking environmentalist would support the proliferation of hundreds or thousands of nuclear power plant or offshore oil drilling--each are dangerous insults to the global environment. Yet the Obama energy plan provides support for both.
During the campaign, President Obama talked about 'clean coal'. He referred to the idea of sequestering global warming greenhouse gases in coal underground, and seemed unconcerned about other deleterious impacts of coal mining such as mountain to removal, leaching of toxic chemical into waterways or underground mining disasters.
Rational environmentalists realize that the ocean is becoming a toxic chemical soup by degrees, and that the ocean ecosystem is being depleted of large fish with significant evolutionary changes ensuing that cannot be reversed. Global warming may cause the ice sheets to melt, stop the Gulf Stream from circulating and bring about a requirement that Arctic polar bears receive refugee status and relocation to Antarctica with the loss of polar ice. Significantly, nuclear plant waste cannot be disposed of on Earth properly. In recent years international mafias have dumped radiological waste offshore in ships--perhaps there is a Chicago Plan to dump nuclear waste from the blooming of hundreds of petite 45 megawatt plants into Lake Michigan for 'long term storage'?
The only real solution to the energy problem would require a government Department of Ecological Economics to direct criteria that would support national economic renewability within ecologically efficient criteria. There are three present governing factors that negate U.S. efforts to create a viable economy with full employment and renewability. They are
1) As the economy heats up fuel imports and costs rise causing exports of U.S. cash unavailable for domestic investment or saving
2) As the economy heats up cheap Mexican labor drives down wages, accelerates a building boom and corrupts rational development planning within ecologically healthful parameters. When recession follows from an inflated development rate many illegal migrants leave to enjoy there profit in Mexico until the U.S. economy recovers. A non-migratory workforce is required for any semblance of a balanced, renewable economy with wage and price stability.
3) The globalization of business corrupts domestic politics, cherry picks jobs to outsource and prevents a national, democratic ecological economic preference for citizen prosperity and a completely effective social safety net.
Nuclear power and offshore oil drilling may be favorably considered by certain amoral, unconscionable Republican politicians lacking a national patriotic fervor to conserve vestigial wild America, keep offshore waters pure for good fishing and fisheries health, prevent the construction of radiological waste producing easy targets for terrorist blow up with conventional military explosives--yet they have an ally in the President who has decided that compromise with evil is a virtue, and calculating that the Democratic conservationists are in his pocket bound and gagged so he can cut a deal with Republican of the evil global empire persuasion. The President has made a mistake in that regard, and his energy plan as it is presently is probably bound to fail.
The health bill was a quagmire beneficial for corporate political power rather than for the relief of the poor and suffering. I know that my personal hernia surgery repair costs about 3500 dollars and hour for four hours--since I have earned just about 4000 annually the past several years, that is nearly four years wages for repair of a couple self-employed on the job injuries. The Presidential perspective on health care was that of the effete rich, of Harvard (can we ever elect a non-Harvard-Yale-Oxford President again?) and Lawrence Summers, of non-renewable, expensive, impractical greed-economics. The energy plan is just as bad or worse.
The nation could construct super-conducting power lines in liquid hydrogen cooled below the freeway pipelines for electric car recharging and for a faster energy grid. Transcontinental 1000m.p.h. electric rail-gun trains could move freight to local terminals for electric-truck local shipping. There are lots of solar, wind and fuel cell electric vehicle and home-power generating possibilities for national development that could be constructed if a Department of Ecological Economics or an intelligent President existed to drive such a direction forward toward the finish line of the elimination of public debt and ecological decay.
Cetaceans of the seas likely are traumatized by 264 decibel offshore seismic survey sono-blasting that goes on interminably in many regions of the ocean. It must be far worse than enduring bad music from neighbors with ultra-tech blasters at full volume, or the worst of car audio hop low rider-cruiser suburban sonic assault vehicles. It may be why some whales choose to beach instead of remaining in the sea to endure no more the incomparably bad broadcasts. P.E.T.A. seems silent on this offshore issue--that compromises the creatures with the largest known brains in the universe. There must be an alternative method of seismic survey testing besides air-blast waves in the ocean--yet who is researching that?
When an administration has a 'let them eat squid' attitude, we can only wonder about the future of human life on Earth in a pervasively polluted ecosystem.
During the campaign, President Obama talked about 'clean coal'. He referred to the idea of sequestering global warming greenhouse gases in coal underground, and seemed unconcerned about other deleterious impacts of coal mining such as mountain to removal, leaching of toxic chemical into waterways or underground mining disasters.
Rational environmentalists realize that the ocean is becoming a toxic chemical soup by degrees, and that the ocean ecosystem is being depleted of large fish with significant evolutionary changes ensuing that cannot be reversed. Global warming may cause the ice sheets to melt, stop the Gulf Stream from circulating and bring about a requirement that Arctic polar bears receive refugee status and relocation to Antarctica with the loss of polar ice. Significantly, nuclear plant waste cannot be disposed of on Earth properly. In recent years international mafias have dumped radiological waste offshore in ships--perhaps there is a Chicago Plan to dump nuclear waste from the blooming of hundreds of petite 45 megawatt plants into Lake Michigan for 'long term storage'?
The only real solution to the energy problem would require a government Department of Ecological Economics to direct criteria that would support national economic renewability within ecologically efficient criteria. There are three present governing factors that negate U.S. efforts to create a viable economy with full employment and renewability. They are
1) As the economy heats up fuel imports and costs rise causing exports of U.S. cash unavailable for domestic investment or saving
2) As the economy heats up cheap Mexican labor drives down wages, accelerates a building boom and corrupts rational development planning within ecologically healthful parameters. When recession follows from an inflated development rate many illegal migrants leave to enjoy there profit in Mexico until the U.S. economy recovers. A non-migratory workforce is required for any semblance of a balanced, renewable economy with wage and price stability.
3) The globalization of business corrupts domestic politics, cherry picks jobs to outsource and prevents a national, democratic ecological economic preference for citizen prosperity and a completely effective social safety net.
Nuclear power and offshore oil drilling may be favorably considered by certain amoral, unconscionable Republican politicians lacking a national patriotic fervor to conserve vestigial wild America, keep offshore waters pure for good fishing and fisheries health, prevent the construction of radiological waste producing easy targets for terrorist blow up with conventional military explosives--yet they have an ally in the President who has decided that compromise with evil is a virtue, and calculating that the Democratic conservationists are in his pocket bound and gagged so he can cut a deal with Republican of the evil global empire persuasion. The President has made a mistake in that regard, and his energy plan as it is presently is probably bound to fail.
The health bill was a quagmire beneficial for corporate political power rather than for the relief of the poor and suffering. I know that my personal hernia surgery repair costs about 3500 dollars and hour for four hours--since I have earned just about 4000 annually the past several years, that is nearly four years wages for repair of a couple self-employed on the job injuries. The Presidential perspective on health care was that of the effete rich, of Harvard (can we ever elect a non-Harvard-Yale-Oxford President again?) and Lawrence Summers, of non-renewable, expensive, impractical greed-economics. The energy plan is just as bad or worse.
The nation could construct super-conducting power lines in liquid hydrogen cooled below the freeway pipelines for electric car recharging and for a faster energy grid. Transcontinental 1000m.p.h. electric rail-gun trains could move freight to local terminals for electric-truck local shipping. There are lots of solar, wind and fuel cell electric vehicle and home-power generating possibilities for national development that could be constructed if a Department of Ecological Economics or an intelligent President existed to drive such a direction forward toward the finish line of the elimination of public debt and ecological decay.
Cetaceans of the seas likely are traumatized by 264 decibel offshore seismic survey sono-blasting that goes on interminably in many regions of the ocean. It must be far worse than enduring bad music from neighbors with ultra-tech blasters at full volume, or the worst of car audio hop low rider-cruiser suburban sonic assault vehicles. It may be why some whales choose to beach instead of remaining in the sea to endure no more the incomparably bad broadcasts. P.E.T.A. seems silent on this offshore issue--that compromises the creatures with the largest known brains in the universe. There must be an alternative method of seismic survey testing besides air-blast waves in the ocean--yet who is researching that?
When an administration has a 'let them eat squid' attitude, we can only wonder about the future of human life on Earth in a pervasively polluted ecosystem.
4/11/10
Two Qualities The Next Supreme Court Justice Should Have
President Obama's second choice should be a strong supporter of clarity and openness in legal contracts with a full disclosure principle as a goal. Fine print may obfuscate and technically nullify the principle that all contracts for legality must have consent of all parties involved. Corporatism has tended to obfuscate truth, hedgemonize the marketplace and throw disequilibrium into free enterprise with advantage to the in-siders.
Without ecological economic principles within a strong national prioritization criteria the future of the United States is less bright than could yet be secured. Corporatism and globalism's advantages in the broadcast media, in business and adverse influence upon government at all levels has controverted significant portions of the premises of the founders in violently overthrowing the globalist government of the day. A decadent court with no military service history heavily invested in foreign or trans-national corporations is hardly one to be much concerned about democracy and equal rights for all citizens free from the inherent encumbrances and control mechanisms of global corporatism.
John Paul Stevens, like John Paul Jones, had a substantial regard for the liberty of the United States and for Americans. The next Justice should exceed his record in defense of U.S. Independence.
Without ecological economic principles within a strong national prioritization criteria the future of the United States is less bright than could yet be secured. Corporatism and globalism's advantages in the broadcast media, in business and adverse influence upon government at all levels has controverted significant portions of the premises of the founders in violently overthrowing the globalist government of the day. A decadent court with no military service history heavily invested in foreign or trans-national corporations is hardly one to be much concerned about democracy and equal rights for all citizens free from the inherent encumbrances and control mechanisms of global corporatism.
John Paul Stevens, like John Paul Jones, had a substantial regard for the liberty of the United States and for Americans. The next Justice should exceed his record in defense of U.S. Independence.
4/9/10
Enlist in the International Guard and Serve Globalism?
In the cold war era, serving in the National Guard presented a simpler opportunity to believe one was serving national rather than global corporate interests.Today the belief is harder to attain. When one asks 'what would Ronald Reagan do(?)' on a particular national defense policy, one seeks the understanding of America's best pragmatic post-Eisenhower/Nixon President on defense issues. Reagan had a penchant for successfully defending the real interests of the nation. Ronald Reagan was no multi-trillion dollar big spender on foreign overseas missions; as are Iraq and Afghanistan Bush II-Obama policies
Ronald Reagan's defense budget built up a large military for potential rather than actual use. The military was capable of good military action, yet was not largely employed in war as economic and social self-interests tended to prevail. Following 9-11 I believe Ronald Reagan would have taken a far different course than the Bush II policy of protracted foreign engagement with a vast deficit and harm to the U.S. national economy.
Corporate influence over Government has diminished democratic, national self-interest. Half-baked political economics has made of corporatism a kind of crack-pot anointed fail-safe philosophy. The financial sector has swollen in size, too many jobs outsourced without adequate replacement, and nationalism has been attacked in the corporate broadcast media. The financial industry was allowed to become 'too big to fail' and too big to let nationalism and self-interest, low unemployment rate and no public debt be prioritized.
What was needed in Afghanistan following the Taliban's unwillingness to give up Al Qa'eda-which they might not have been capable of anyway, was saturation bombing of select targets. The United States contains Iran and North Korea reasonably well,and could have tolerated the existence of Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban occasionally smoked by B-52 sortees when their terrorist actions against the United States became unbearable.
The same containment of Iraq might have been pursued with a total degradation of Iraq's military capability such that domestic subversion and revolutionary attacks could have increased, or to the extent that Iran might have attacked enabling a U.S. response to the Iranian aggression in Iraq again by air. The Bush II choices to pursue the most expensive possible reconstruction of government of ungoverned people seems more of a choice for internationalism and global corporate profits, military adventurism and increased output for the military industrial complex than a rational Reagan-like military policy of walking softly and carrying a big stick striking only when really needed to eliminate foreign capacity to continue assault missions upon direct U.S. interests.
With the very high cost of sending even private E-1's to Afghanistan or Iraq for extended tours of duty the present U.S.military policy is very un-Reaganesque. It is a policy of globalism and international defense of Chinese copper mines in Afghanistan, and for and increased military size. This is why, in a jobless recovery, with an Obama plan to increase public debt a trillion dollars a year the next decade, the corporatist broadcasts soliciting people to enlist in 'the national guard' ring so false. It seems like 'enlist in the international guard' would be more honest.
Military officers in the revolutionary era were not without genuine political opinion. Perhaps it was easier to avoid the draft in 1775 than today. It was not so simple to avoid the British colonial government though, so those that sought political liberation from the onerous British policy toward the United States had few remedies besides personal military service3 if they wanted things to change.
Today the globalist corporate ubiquitous presence requires silence from its employees at the executive level on many kinds of non-sycophantic political expression. I would think the military leaders of today also must be yes men, sort of remote control corporate yes men, if they wish to serve. If the Gates leadership brings the service to gay integration with heterosexuals in units, it is difficult to imagine that many straight soldiers will resign. Money and career overcomes political opinion far more than it did in the revolutionary era perhaps.
Well, not to pick on gays, it is a clear and present issue that brings the nature of loyalty to hierarchical leadership up, and why the National Guard to evolve into being more of an international guard of global corporatism than a force to defend Pittsburgh, or Fairbanks or Miami. It is plain that the military response to 9-11 was exceedingly incompetent in financial nature regarding the challenge, and did more financial harm to the U.S. economy that the foreign terrorist did. There has been no continuing harvest of large numbers of illegal combatants to fill Gitmo's cells with, and the actual terrorist efforts have been fairly pathetic since then. (9-11 has been used as a license to unlimited deficit spending and disregard of U.S. national economic interests. It is difficult to believe that anything more than a tripling of the size of the C.I.A. and F.B.I., building a salt-water moat along the Mexican border with berms and pipelines, increasing U,.S. Customs and increasing the numbers of stealth fighter-bombers was needed. Such could have cost less than a tenth of what was bought by the Bush II and Obama Administrations with such harm to U.S. national financial interests.
Ronald Reagan's defense budget built up a large military for potential rather than actual use. The military was capable of good military action, yet was not largely employed in war as economic and social self-interests tended to prevail. Following 9-11 I believe Ronald Reagan would have taken a far different course than the Bush II policy of protracted foreign engagement with a vast deficit and harm to the U.S. national economy.
Corporate influence over Government has diminished democratic, national self-interest. Half-baked political economics has made of corporatism a kind of crack-pot anointed fail-safe philosophy. The financial sector has swollen in size, too many jobs outsourced without adequate replacement, and nationalism has been attacked in the corporate broadcast media. The financial industry was allowed to become 'too big to fail' and too big to let nationalism and self-interest, low unemployment rate and no public debt be prioritized.
What was needed in Afghanistan following the Taliban's unwillingness to give up Al Qa'eda-which they might not have been capable of anyway, was saturation bombing of select targets. The United States contains Iran and North Korea reasonably well,and could have tolerated the existence of Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban occasionally smoked by B-52 sortees when their terrorist actions against the United States became unbearable.
The same containment of Iraq might have been pursued with a total degradation of Iraq's military capability such that domestic subversion and revolutionary attacks could have increased, or to the extent that Iran might have attacked enabling a U.S. response to the Iranian aggression in Iraq again by air. The Bush II choices to pursue the most expensive possible reconstruction of government of ungoverned people seems more of a choice for internationalism and global corporate profits, military adventurism and increased output for the military industrial complex than a rational Reagan-like military policy of walking softly and carrying a big stick striking only when really needed to eliminate foreign capacity to continue assault missions upon direct U.S. interests.
With the very high cost of sending even private E-1's to Afghanistan or Iraq for extended tours of duty the present U.S.military policy is very un-Reaganesque. It is a policy of globalism and international defense of Chinese copper mines in Afghanistan, and for and increased military size. This is why, in a jobless recovery, with an Obama plan to increase public debt a trillion dollars a year the next decade, the corporatist broadcasts soliciting people to enlist in 'the national guard' ring so false. It seems like 'enlist in the international guard' would be more honest.
Military officers in the revolutionary era were not without genuine political opinion. Perhaps it was easier to avoid the draft in 1775 than today. It was not so simple to avoid the British colonial government though, so those that sought political liberation from the onerous British policy toward the United States had few remedies besides personal military service3 if they wanted things to change.
Today the globalist corporate ubiquitous presence requires silence from its employees at the executive level on many kinds of non-sycophantic political expression. I would think the military leaders of today also must be yes men, sort of remote control corporate yes men, if they wish to serve. If the Gates leadership brings the service to gay integration with heterosexuals in units, it is difficult to imagine that many straight soldiers will resign. Money and career overcomes political opinion far more than it did in the revolutionary era perhaps.
Well, not to pick on gays, it is a clear and present issue that brings the nature of loyalty to hierarchical leadership up, and why the National Guard to evolve into being more of an international guard of global corporatism than a force to defend Pittsburgh, or Fairbanks or Miami. It is plain that the military response to 9-11 was exceedingly incompetent in financial nature regarding the challenge, and did more financial harm to the U.S. economy that the foreign terrorist did. There has been no continuing harvest of large numbers of illegal combatants to fill Gitmo's cells with, and the actual terrorist efforts have been fairly pathetic since then. (9-11 has been used as a license to unlimited deficit spending and disregard of U.S. national economic interests. It is difficult to believe that anything more than a tripling of the size of the C.I.A. and F.B.I., building a salt-water moat along the Mexican border with berms and pipelines, increasing U,.S. Customs and increasing the numbers of stealth fighter-bombers was needed. Such could have cost less than a tenth of what was bought by the Bush II and Obama Administrations with such harm to U.S. national financial interests.
4/5/10
On The Cost of Surgery for the Self-Employed Working Poor
My experience with the cost of surgery for an on-the-job injury while self-employed may be typical for the working poor who do not live within a theoretical framework.
The injury was in June of 2007, the hernia surgery in January of 2010. The charges for a four hour day surgery came to about 14,000 dollars--a bit steep for laproscopic surgery. I just got a phone call from a 'recovery center' in Anchorage claiming another 900 dollar bill for a physician I hadn't heard of. The surgery was in Juneau.
The medical coverage is good, fast and effective. It is also beyond the range of those poor self-employed Americans without corporate or government scale income.
I got the hernias while self-employed roofing. The government wants taxes paid on the earnings of the self-employed without insurance, even though the medical costs for that year were about triple the earnings. The I.R.S. almost always wants a flat ten percent regardless of expenses--thats the way it is. Wtihout regular deductions for social security, medicare and such they want money in a lump sum. One earns less than the standard deductable, has triple the medical costs, and the government still wants its ten per cent-year after year
Well, I had bought a new remote property in Alaska to build a home on, yet traded that to pay half the surgery cost. Forced to work to get out of Juneau after surgery at something with lifting. I picked up an end of a 30 gallon bin full of water and fish and got a heck of a strain. Workers are rather disposable in America. Another hernia without another home to trade would leave we short. The work in Juneau is mostly just for government workers and some corporate employment in tourist related things. Though the Juneau royal family politician-Dennis Egan-says things are good here, they aren't. The population and economic facts rarely change much because its a city of government workers in isolation.
At least the government takes care of those global corporations and broadcast powers allocating resources to concentrate wealth. Its good to know the government follows the Roman pattern of decadence and probably will collapse eventually with plenty of hell even for the bureaucrats and rich. Then, the barbarians over the border will probably have national health coverage and wear Gucci shoes, the U.S.A. will be invaded by corporate bill collectors and free enterprise absolutely impossible for noncorporate entities.
The tax credits the government has been giving to the middle class with corporate jobs to buy homes does nothing at all for the poor seeking to buy land to put a tent on. If one owns property then at least own might build a fair hut for a low cost instead of paying corporate for a rental (if one hasn't got a hernia or three).
The injury was in June of 2007, the hernia surgery in January of 2010. The charges for a four hour day surgery came to about 14,000 dollars--a bit steep for laproscopic surgery. I just got a phone call from a 'recovery center' in Anchorage claiming another 900 dollar bill for a physician I hadn't heard of. The surgery was in Juneau.
The medical coverage is good, fast and effective. It is also beyond the range of those poor self-employed Americans without corporate or government scale income.
I got the hernias while self-employed roofing. The government wants taxes paid on the earnings of the self-employed without insurance, even though the medical costs for that year were about triple the earnings. The I.R.S. almost always wants a flat ten percent regardless of expenses--thats the way it is. Wtihout regular deductions for social security, medicare and such they want money in a lump sum. One earns less than the standard deductable, has triple the medical costs, and the government still wants its ten per cent-year after year
Well, I had bought a new remote property in Alaska to build a home on, yet traded that to pay half the surgery cost. Forced to work to get out of Juneau after surgery at something with lifting. I picked up an end of a 30 gallon bin full of water and fish and got a heck of a strain. Workers are rather disposable in America. Another hernia without another home to trade would leave we short. The work in Juneau is mostly just for government workers and some corporate employment in tourist related things. Though the Juneau royal family politician-Dennis Egan-says things are good here, they aren't. The population and economic facts rarely change much because its a city of government workers in isolation.
At least the government takes care of those global corporations and broadcast powers allocating resources to concentrate wealth. Its good to know the government follows the Roman pattern of decadence and probably will collapse eventually with plenty of hell even for the bureaucrats and rich. Then, the barbarians over the border will probably have national health coverage and wear Gucci shoes, the U.S.A. will be invaded by corporate bill collectors and free enterprise absolutely impossible for noncorporate entities.
The tax credits the government has been giving to the middle class with corporate jobs to buy homes does nothing at all for the poor seeking to buy land to put a tent on. If one owns property then at least own might build a fair hut for a low cost instead of paying corporate for a rental (if one hasn't got a hernia or three).
4/3/10
After the End of the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction; Part Three
Physicalism is a term Quine used instead of materialism. Quine's ontological terminology allows any term to be a non-realist term--that is unlike Kripke's neo-realism where words seem to have some real meaning associated with them for themselves, Quine seem to lean more toward Russell and others who felt words have meaning given by use. If physical means one thing to people in 1775 and another thing today--each meaning could be true,yet that's more of an historian of language meaning's kind of truth then and now rather than the kind of truth that one might find in some kind of analytic statement construction such as "every triangle has three sides".
Quine might have agreed with your statement above--yet in the Kantian context the analytic and a priori is something more independent of experience of the world of experience.
It was Immanuel Kant who developed the concept of analytic and synthetic judgments in his magnum opus 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. He later presented a condensed version of the Critique in 'A Prologumena to Any Future Metaphysics'. LikeBeing and Nothingness and the Bible, I have had that book around forever.
Kant's work is considered to have commenced modern philosophy as co-equal with Descartes. Descartes examination of the cogito and primordial sentient thought was a foundation for epistemological logic, yet Kant's work was more rigorously technical. I will place a pair of hyperlinks to descriptions of Kant's categories of thought. Analytic judgments are about things in the mind without necessary existence in the 'natural'world. Such statements such as exist in algebra suffice as an example, while statements about rainfall, a Superbowl game, bad federal building design in D.C.--these are examples of synthetic judgments. Quine however transcended the difference between the two realms that empiricists had made an opinion about.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-judgment/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic-synthetic_distinction
I will quote the wikipedia entry on their technical definition of a phrase each of Kant's analytic proposition and his synthetic proposition:
"analytic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept"
"synthetic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept"
With analytic judgments it is easy to make intentional, within thought only tautologies or topics in agreement logically that do not necessarily exist physically. I should same it is in theory possible, yet perhaps only so far as one acknowledges the proposition as finite in nature, phenomenal and subject to the boundaries of the incompleteness theorem of Godel. Geometric forms are implicitly section-samples of some larger wholistic realm of forms perhaps--a conic section is just a conic section of a cone, sphere or some other arbitrary configuration of volume.
Incidentally, I think salvation through Jesus Christ may concur with Plotinian paradigmata of The One in this regard; Jesus may be the only sinless,perfect form permissible to God for integration into the eternal realm of forms, heaven,or eternal, scalable purposes of God. Humanity pervasively has local, non-eternal broken form in acceptable for scalable eternal being. The sacrificial work of The Lord who donates His grace unto the faithful provides human beings with The Perfect Form required of The One whom issued this temporal Universe with numerous broken forms within it. Even junk r.n.a. has a purpose though--so the unwilling to be saved through Jesus Christ may serve a useful temporal role unknown to many of us.
The wikipedia entry for Kant also reminded me of another important Kantian distinction regarding statements; the a priori and the a posteriori. I will quote a phrase each from the wiki entry on those:
"a priori proposition: a proposition whose justification does not rely upon experience"
"a posteriori proposition: a proposition whose justification does rely upon experience"
Taken together with the analytic-synthetic distinction it is easy to understand how empiricists could classify synthetic a posteriori favorably and a priori statements rather with bias. Darwinians would favor the synthetic a posteriori for physical evidence. Quine found the Kantian methods rather unwieldy. Obviously a lot of analytic and even a priori judgments go into theorizing about evolution that is added to the physical evidence, and such also occurs in anticipating the future truth values of present federal budget deficit and national debt predictions which have a discount rate greater than that of many too big to fail banks. Some governments feel they are too big to fail I think.
Empiricists believed that only synthetic judgments could present real information about the world--especially useful to scientists. Following is a link to a defense of Kant vs Quine. I agree with Quine however, and believe that Kant's noumenonal-phenomenal distinction is more important.
http://nzphilosophy.blogspot.com/2005/08/kants-analyticsynthetic-distinction.html
The analytic synthetic distinction is of practical value in classifying various kinds of language and what it refers to, and is of value for philosophy in distilling ideas and language for logical consideration of meanings of terms and their validity in particular contexts. Kant's analytic-synthetic distinction was transcended in the same way the Einstein's relativity transcended Newton's theory of gravity. Kant's analytic-synthetic distinction is still valid locally for categorizing phrases and referents, yet not absolute--that is analytic judgments occur in a physical context too although in the mind, and propositions they can be about such as quantum mechanics, or string theory, may actually apply to the 'real world' such as might analytic statements such as 'the color of the apple is red'. From understanding of optics we know why the color of an apple may appear red to a sighted individual who isn't color blind. Newton developed a theory of optics.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08603a.htm
"____________________________"
That's an interesting inference. Plotinus pointed out that questions, language and communication in a sense exist only for imperfect beings lacking omniscience. If The One knows everything then there is no reason to ask anything. For Plotinus the existence of anything therefor was a mystery; if The One is absolute perfection and power,why create the temporal?
The phenomenal has the unknown too. Perhaps with analytic or even a priori researches one might attain more knowledge. That is possibly a history of math and algebra with Lie and Killing groups useful for string theorists who still develop an analytic framework without decent yet into conformal symmetry with the 'objective realm'of experience that is this Universe.
I think that sort of unknown area of research can only reveal the phenomenal however. A valid string theory could only be phenomenal, as I think can any a priori or analytic, synthetic or a posteriori judgment be only revelatory of the phenomenal. The noumenal is unknowable. I erred above I think in postulating to forms of the noumenal-such perhaps as you refer to for the discovery of which is a purpose of language. I think type A of the noumenal should just be the unknown phenomenal. The noumenal would be that vast realm forever unknowable to human knowledge.
Quine might have agreed with your statement above--yet in the Kantian context the analytic and a priori is something more independent of experience of the world of experience.
It was Immanuel Kant who developed the concept of analytic and synthetic judgments in his magnum opus 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. He later presented a condensed version of the Critique in 'A Prologumena to Any Future Metaphysics'. LikeBeing and Nothingness and the Bible, I have had that book around forever.
Kant's work is considered to have commenced modern philosophy as co-equal with Descartes. Descartes examination of the cogito and primordial sentient thought was a foundation for epistemological logic, yet Kant's work was more rigorously technical. I will place a pair of hyperlinks to descriptions of Kant's categories of thought. Analytic judgments are about things in the mind without necessary existence in the 'natural'world. Such statements such as exist in algebra suffice as an example, while statements about rainfall, a Superbowl game, bad federal building design in D.C.--these are examples of synthetic judgments. Quine however transcended the difference between the two realms that empiricists had made an opinion about.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-judgment/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic-synthetic_distinction
I will quote the wikipedia entry on their technical definition of a phrase each of Kant's analytic proposition and his synthetic proposition:
"analytic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept"
"synthetic proposition: a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept"
With analytic judgments it is easy to make intentional, within thought only tautologies or topics in agreement logically that do not necessarily exist physically. I should same it is in theory possible, yet perhaps only so far as one acknowledges the proposition as finite in nature, phenomenal and subject to the boundaries of the incompleteness theorem of Godel. Geometric forms are implicitly section-samples of some larger wholistic realm of forms perhaps--a conic section is just a conic section of a cone, sphere or some other arbitrary configuration of volume.
Incidentally, I think salvation through Jesus Christ may concur with Plotinian paradigmata of The One in this regard; Jesus may be the only sinless,perfect form permissible to God for integration into the eternal realm of forms, heaven,or eternal, scalable purposes of God. Humanity pervasively has local, non-eternal broken form in acceptable for scalable eternal being. The sacrificial work of The Lord who donates His grace unto the faithful provides human beings with The Perfect Form required of The One whom issued this temporal Universe with numerous broken forms within it. Even junk r.n.a. has a purpose though--so the unwilling to be saved through Jesus Christ may serve a useful temporal role unknown to many of us.
The wikipedia entry for Kant also reminded me of another important Kantian distinction regarding statements; the a priori and the a posteriori. I will quote a phrase each from the wiki entry on those:
"a priori proposition: a proposition whose justification does not rely upon experience"
"a posteriori proposition: a proposition whose justification does rely upon experience"
Taken together with the analytic-synthetic distinction it is easy to understand how empiricists could classify synthetic a posteriori favorably and a priori statements rather with bias. Darwinians would favor the synthetic a posteriori for physical evidence. Quine found the Kantian methods rather unwieldy. Obviously a lot of analytic and even a priori judgments go into theorizing about evolution that is added to the physical evidence, and such also occurs in anticipating the future truth values of present federal budget deficit and national debt predictions which have a discount rate greater than that of many too big to fail banks. Some governments feel they are too big to fail I think.
Empiricists believed that only synthetic judgments could present real information about the world--especially useful to scientists. Following is a link to a defense of Kant vs Quine. I agree with Quine however, and believe that Kant's noumenonal-phenomenal distinction is more important.
http://nzphilosophy.blogspot.com/2005/08/kants-analyticsynthetic-distinction.html
The analytic synthetic distinction is of practical value in classifying various kinds of language and what it refers to, and is of value for philosophy in distilling ideas and language for logical consideration of meanings of terms and their validity in particular contexts. Kant's analytic-synthetic distinction was transcended in the same way the Einstein's relativity transcended Newton's theory of gravity. Kant's analytic-synthetic distinction is still valid locally for categorizing phrases and referents, yet not absolute--that is analytic judgments occur in a physical context too although in the mind, and propositions they can be about such as quantum mechanics, or string theory, may actually apply to the 'real world' such as might analytic statements such as 'the color of the apple is red'. From understanding of optics we know why the color of an apple may appear red to a sighted individual who isn't color blind. Newton developed a theory of optics.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08603a.htm
"____________________________"
That's an interesting inference. Plotinus pointed out that questions, language and communication in a sense exist only for imperfect beings lacking omniscience. If The One knows everything then there is no reason to ask anything. For Plotinus the existence of anything therefor was a mystery; if The One is absolute perfection and power,why create the temporal?
The phenomenal has the unknown too. Perhaps with analytic or even a priori researches one might attain more knowledge. That is possibly a history of math and algebra with Lie and Killing groups useful for string theorists who still develop an analytic framework without decent yet into conformal symmetry with the 'objective realm'of experience that is this Universe.
I think that sort of unknown area of research can only reveal the phenomenal however. A valid string theory could only be phenomenal, as I think can any a priori or analytic, synthetic or a posteriori judgment be only revelatory of the phenomenal. The noumenal is unknowable. I erred above I think in postulating to forms of the noumenal-such perhaps as you refer to for the discovery of which is a purpose of language. I think type A of the noumenal should just be the unknown phenomenal. The noumenal would be that vast realm forever unknowable to human knowledge.
Small Nuclear Plants and Containment of Terror Challenges Prolifrerate
If these petite nukes go in all over the world to increase electrical output then the requirement for security defend these little 8000 home power nuggets will increase along with nuclear waste. Letting ten thousand nuclear plants bloom may bring a hidden, down side of lethality.
Amory Lovins and John Price wrote a book in 1975 titled "Non-Nuclear Futures--The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy". Many of the arguments against the larger nuclear plants are valid against the small as well. Politicians are perhaps the least creative segment of society continuously dredging up old energy ideas and presenting them as new answers. They invest in upgrading old technologies instead of supporting new because of the wealthy political contributors that have investments in the old industries that paint America into a corner financially. They do not support either national financial or energy independence.
The new, small nuclear power plants that could be in a neighborhood near you soon. Ranging from 10 to 45 megawatts, these mini-tower nukes make local politicians and real estate developers drool with happy anticipation of new sumptuously profitable growth with private power plants. Microsoft and Exxon could buy these babies to power their corporate growth interests,and of course Google should need several to surge electrons for terra-flopping on wireless gaming of more virtual reality The city of Galena Alaska along the Yukon River is reported to be negotiating with a foreign supplier. Ninja-Spetnatz suicide bombers ofthe future may scuba under the ice at high speed to emerge a dark winter nght with a sonic laser ice cutter to blow up the shaft and kill the artificial salmon runs restored toreplace the lost native salmon population.
The effects of all of these temporal, deleterious, phenomena, concatenate environmental wastage and social danger--the environment gets bad. What is needed is rational long-range selection of modest, conservative infrastructures that will produce super-conducting electron storage and transmission channels of green input photons and wind energy.
Iran could use these smaller plants instead of large one--yet thousands could be built to power everyone's neighborhood--is that really a good idea? Larger plants are better for making clandestine nuclear materials for refining upward for nuclear weapons materials--and thats what the real power is about for some.
Amory Lovins and John Price wrote a book in 1975 titled "Non-Nuclear Futures--The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy". Many of the arguments against the larger nuclear plants are valid against the small as well. Politicians are perhaps the least creative segment of society continuously dredging up old energy ideas and presenting them as new answers. They invest in upgrading old technologies instead of supporting new because of the wealthy political contributors that have investments in the old industries that paint America into a corner financially. They do not support either national financial or energy independence.
The new, small nuclear power plants that could be in a neighborhood near you soon. Ranging from 10 to 45 megawatts, these mini-tower nukes make local politicians and real estate developers drool with happy anticipation of new sumptuously profitable growth with private power plants. Microsoft and Exxon could buy these babies to power their corporate growth interests,and of course Google should need several to surge electrons for terra-flopping on wireless gaming of more virtual reality The city of Galena Alaska along the Yukon River is reported to be negotiating with a foreign supplier. Ninja-Spetnatz suicide bombers ofthe future may scuba under the ice at high speed to emerge a dark winter nght with a sonic laser ice cutter to blow up the shaft and kill the artificial salmon runs restored toreplace the lost native salmon population.
The effects of all of these temporal, deleterious, phenomena, concatenate environmental wastage and social danger--the environment gets bad. What is needed is rational long-range selection of modest, conservative infrastructures that will produce super-conducting electron storage and transmission channels of green input photons and wind energy.
Iran could use these smaller plants instead of large one--yet thousands could be built to power everyone's neighborhood--is that really a good idea? Larger plants are better for making clandestine nuclear materials for refining upward for nuclear weapons materials--and thats what the real power is about for some.
4/2/10
After the End of the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction; Part Two
I believe that Quine in renormalizing the Kantian dichotomy from the analytic-synthetic distinction left a default criterion for philosophical epistemology rather adrift without a rudder. Plainly it was fairly difficult to maintain that naive realism presents the comprehensively true facts regarding theory of knowledge.
The implication of ending the separation between intellectual constructions and statements about 'real' objects and the 'real world' so useful to scientists of a certain persuasion brought more credence to the Dewian kind of linguistic relativism preferable in the Midwest and possibly amongst certain Bostonian academics. Pervasive skepticism about meaning in language regarding its ability to make statements about what true knowledge is also slipped a fog of Brahmanist-like temporal relativism over the ultimate value of science. I care about that because I enjoy cosmology.
So given that knowledge expressed in language may be a subjective ontological selection of terms and concepts such as W.V.O. Quine described in 'Ontological Relativity', ideas are not limited simply to selecting from ideas and concepts already made--they are synthesized for use in new emergent temporal circumstances as required to provide meaning. Meaning is found in the use of words to accomplish functions as desired in communication.
There is an unknown element to human knowledge, and that was what I mentioned above-rather than being convoluted it is expressly simple and plain. My opinion is that the unknown comes in two flavors; the first can be known and the second cannot.
Kant used the word 'noumenon' to describe the unknowable realm of things-in-themselves that cannot be known. What can be known is the phenomenal. Both analytic and synthetic statements are valid as far as the phenomenal goes, yet not for the noumenal. Perhaps some analytic statements cannot be used in the phenomenal either, because they are false, yet Quine believed that all analytic statements of mind occur in the wholistic Universe. My opinion is that the wholistic universe presents, for human beings, a noumenal-phenomenal distinction.--that is , I agree with Kant. The unknown within phenomenal parameters has the potential to become known, the unknown within noumenal parameters does not.
Since I am on this topic of linguistic relativism, I should like to mention an opinion that Shannon entropy conserves information not only of mass, but of 'the spirit'. The spirit in this present context means the sentient mind,its experience and personality. Because Darwinian insights about material causality referring to biological life processes may seem to differ from 1930's era common opinions, naive interpretations of, and additions to the Bible; it became popular and even dogmatic to assert that spirit does not exist, and could not outlast physical death.
A license authorized by meaninglessness regarding moral accountability logically followed a theory of non-spiritual existence.It became dogmatism amidst select unenlightened minstrels to a certain extent without conveyance of intellectual merit upon the point of view. It is a somewhat anachronistic ontology before modern science brought many more insights into the nature of language from both the analytic and synthetic sides, along with mathematics, genetic research and so forth. Spirit viewed as a sentient gift of a human mind, albeit with a substantial foundation in the wholistic universe, along with all information--is not necessarily destined to disappear through a process of annihilation by death of the body.
Matter is never created or destroyed (generally). The information of where or what everything is inclusive of the spiritual will be equally conserved. Life is not just a meaningless relativism--there are consequences for all things sentient beings choose to do.
Returning then to the nature of language; ontologolgies may be larger meaning-lexicons in through which one may describe world-view elements and relations. Describing a theory of knowledge within a given lexicon may in some way be analogous to the human experience of reality; downloading or collapsing a world-view reduces the potential from an all-possible worldlines of the uncertainty realm of quantum superpositions toward a more specific realm. There is an opportunity cost to collapsing any realm of potential world-views to that of the selection of a particular world-view.
William James wrote about 'forced options' in his pragmatist work. In several respects the selection of a world view is a forced option with the default world-views being less effective generally. That which human beings create or construct in knowledge is not all the knowledge that is, it is not all that could have been, and is limited to a phenomenal nature though it has pragmatic applications. Knowledge is a beans and bacon item. We are luck to such as we have yet might have had halibut cheeks if we were good at fishing and filleting.
The implication of ending the separation between intellectual constructions and statements about 'real' objects and the 'real world' so useful to scientists of a certain persuasion brought more credence to the Dewian kind of linguistic relativism preferable in the Midwest and possibly amongst certain Bostonian academics. Pervasive skepticism about meaning in language regarding its ability to make statements about what true knowledge is also slipped a fog of Brahmanist-like temporal relativism over the ultimate value of science. I care about that because I enjoy cosmology.
So given that knowledge expressed in language may be a subjective ontological selection of terms and concepts such as W.V.O. Quine described in 'Ontological Relativity', ideas are not limited simply to selecting from ideas and concepts already made--they are synthesized for use in new emergent temporal circumstances as required to provide meaning. Meaning is found in the use of words to accomplish functions as desired in communication.
There is an unknown element to human knowledge, and that was what I mentioned above-rather than being convoluted it is expressly simple and plain. My opinion is that the unknown comes in two flavors; the first can be known and the second cannot.
Kant used the word 'noumenon' to describe the unknowable realm of things-in-themselves that cannot be known. What can be known is the phenomenal. Both analytic and synthetic statements are valid as far as the phenomenal goes, yet not for the noumenal. Perhaps some analytic statements cannot be used in the phenomenal either, because they are false, yet Quine believed that all analytic statements of mind occur in the wholistic Universe. My opinion is that the wholistic universe presents, for human beings, a noumenal-phenomenal distinction.--that is , I agree with Kant. The unknown within phenomenal parameters has the potential to become known, the unknown within noumenal parameters does not.
Since I am on this topic of linguistic relativism, I should like to mention an opinion that Shannon entropy conserves information not only of mass, but of 'the spirit'. The spirit in this present context means the sentient mind,its experience and personality. Because Darwinian insights about material causality referring to biological life processes may seem to differ from 1930's era common opinions, naive interpretations of, and additions to the Bible; it became popular and even dogmatic to assert that spirit does not exist, and could not outlast physical death.
A license authorized by meaninglessness regarding moral accountability logically followed a theory of non-spiritual existence.It became dogmatism amidst select unenlightened minstrels to a certain extent without conveyance of intellectual merit upon the point of view. It is a somewhat anachronistic ontology before modern science brought many more insights into the nature of language from both the analytic and synthetic sides, along with mathematics, genetic research and so forth. Spirit viewed as a sentient gift of a human mind, albeit with a substantial foundation in the wholistic universe, along with all information--is not necessarily destined to disappear through a process of annihilation by death of the body.
Matter is never created or destroyed (generally). The information of where or what everything is inclusive of the spiritual will be equally conserved. Life is not just a meaningless relativism--there are consequences for all things sentient beings choose to do.
Returning then to the nature of language; ontologolgies may be larger meaning-lexicons in through which one may describe world-view elements and relations. Describing a theory of knowledge within a given lexicon may in some way be analogous to the human experience of reality; downloading or collapsing a world-view reduces the potential from an all-possible worldlines of the uncertainty realm of quantum superpositions toward a more specific realm. There is an opportunity cost to collapsing any realm of potential world-views to that of the selection of a particular world-view.
William James wrote about 'forced options' in his pragmatist work. In several respects the selection of a world view is a forced option with the default world-views being less effective generally. That which human beings create or construct in knowledge is not all the knowledge that is, it is not all that could have been, and is limited to a phenomenal nature though it has pragmatic applications. Knowledge is a beans and bacon item. We are luck to such as we have yet might have had halibut cheeks if we were good at fishing and filleting.
3/31/10
Video--Alaska State Capitol April 1st, 2010
A minute view of Alaskans gathering at the Alaska State Capitoltoday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Here and there pointillist continua build rowing the skiff clambering over the road staying in shadows until spring insouciant compact snow ...
-
Alaskan officials have cut down or banned King Salmon fishing in much of Alaska because so few of the large fish are returning. The Ancho...
-
Why do F-22 pilots lose consciousness and let their planes crash and burn? The air superiority fighters are designed to survive oppositio...
