Concerning Truth

Something about truth. There are a lot of truth theories in the field of philosophy. They tend to apply to language and words denoting an accurate relationship about a proposition. Correspondence and disquotation theories are examples, with a proposition or statement about the existence or non-existence of something being accurate.

Classic syllogistic logic with premises adding up to a conclusion has forms, the forms of syllogism predetermine the possibility of their premises being true. Of 256 possible forms of syllogism just 24 or valid. With a proposition such as "that ball dropped from the roof will bounce" can be verified with observation. Verification theory of truth is another truth theory based on words about observations. Christians tend to say that Jesus Christ is truth, in-itself because God is the source of all things. If one misses the mark of a right relationship with God one is said to have sinned (that means missing the mark in archery). 

There are other beliefs about truth that are interesting including use-truth that Jean Paul Sartre described. A colonial majority may have words and ideas describing others that are not of the insider group in a particular pejorative way, and for them those descriptions are true, though for other, perhaps false. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

Self-Identity and Memory

Memories continue as does the experience of self throughout life. Investment in mind content continues for life without injury to the brain, too much dope, brainwashing etc.. People that are old remember youth and the books they read in many cases- they are the same people as they were with new ideas added. Biologically speaking the body is said to replace itself every seven years. That is life. One may replace much thought content with new information- it is necessary to set aside previous thought in order to make space for new thought in consciousness, yet the subconscious keeps most of it. If one needs some knowledge that was learned yet is isn't immediately present to thought, the mind summons the knowledge as if it were a file clerk and eventually delivers the knowledge to self-awareness.

Scientists have discovered that some brain cells continue to grow. I will see if I can find an article on that. Nothing lasts forever though (in the mortal coil). https://www.verywellmind.com/adult-neurogenesis-can-we-grow-new-brain-cells-2794885

If most of the cells remain the same that would tend to support the self-identity continuity premise more than not. In that article the part of the brain with continuing cell renewal was an area that has memory. Humans were not made to live forever in the material world except as a species perhaps...the entire species is a biological form morphing forward.

I of course believe that God can set evolution as the active thermodynamic principle of apparent Universe (1) in which humanity exists, and that the book of Genesis can be interpreted in a way that is consistent with that. Adam and Eve for example, lived in Eden without space-time thermodynamics and were reduced to one with birth, death and work as a containment measure to prevent them from eating of the tree of life in addition to the tree of knowledge.

Whale brains are far larger than human brains. The size of the axons and neurons are larger and farther apart with thicker connections so they work somewhat slower. I would guess the complexity of making a planet like Earth would be more complex than a human being. It requires a Universe, gravitational fields, mass energy, much time, formation of galaxies from particles and so forth. Modeling the weather is complex and is accurately reliable just 10 days or so. Actually constructing an Earth wouldn't be easy, and humans are part of the Earth system. It was reported recently that long-term living in space has caused some astronauts to have blood clots and for some arterial blood to flow backwards. Without Earth-specific gravity so much of a human body becomes physically disoriented. Eating food high and dropping processed food low simply follows the gravity vector. In space itself maybe a blob shape would be best with blood flowing in circles. It is complex to speculate about that accurately. The Unified field and the steady state of decohered mass from it and the way humans exist in it is a very complex system except maybe for God who knows everything a priori.

George Washington was Against Political Parties and Factions

 There is a reasonably good explanation of Washington's advice about factions and political parties being divisive and repressive at wiki. Washington worked for union rather than division so he was of course against 'alternate despotism' of parties that lead to permanent despotism. He said governments have tried to repress parties and felt it was a good idea. Factions also were bad in his opinion as the nation needed to stand together then against foreign enemies. Washington was right on most political ideas being a realist.

Apparently two parties had arisen in his day; one supported France and the other wanted to align with Britain during the French revolution. Royals all over Europe worried about the French example. Factions allied with external cohorts were dangerous. One sees Democrats aligning today with foreign interests in Ukraine and Latin America regarding war and illegal immigration of an external proletariat with quite a divide of opinion about building a border security wall. Republicans tend to have an opposite opinion regarding a Mexican and beyond external proletariat that might work a creeping annexation if they weren’t stopped. The two parties are also factions.

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Benjamin Franklin

Washington also thought parties and factions tended to alienate themselves from the people. He was concerned about some strong individual or even dictator or monarch arising and the nation had spent a lot on revolting against that. Washington himself voluntarily limited any movement that would make a king of himself. Some elites tend to support rule by elites or even just one and Washington was the nation’s defender fighting and advising in support of republican populism.

G.W. had republican Rome as an example that morphed into an imperial empire with Caesar at the top. Today the rich plutocrats and the Congress are too closely aligned. Many Americans don't feel too well represented in Congress. Washington also warned about the military industrial complex becoming too powerful like Eisenhower had (just the military part though because industry didn't exist in the same way in the late 18th century). Americans pay  too little attention to George Washington's common sense these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewell_Address

Could a Particle Beam or Magnetic Field on the Moon Draw in Spacecraft

Would it be possible to power some kind of a particle beam or magnetic field on the moon to draw in spacecraft to a landing zone? If solar power were stored in superconducting loops at select very low lunar temperature locations the electricity might power some kind of a directed field to draw in appropriately designed spacecraft quicker and more accurately with less on-board fuel.  

Maybe Lagrange Points one and two could have large field generators for relaying energy to attract and repel spacecraft within the Earth-Moon system as well as beam or field generators on Earth and in orbit above the Earth.

Creative Construction and Destruction of Utopia

The creative destruction and reconstruction of Utopias is a work in progress. Dostoyevski's Notes from the Underground is an interesting book yet not at all one where one should find anything Utopian. It is a story about the lowest level Russian government worker, terribly poor, living in the cold of winter St. Petersburg in a basement lodging with the aspiration to have a great coat, a warm one, for the winter. It is a dark and somewhat melancholy novel if I remember it correctly. Nikoli Gogol also wrote a story named The Overcoat. Since it has been quite a well since I read either I may conflate some elements. Maybe it would be Utopian to combine the two stories. 

Moore's Utopia is quite different. Thomas Moore is an interesting historical figure and wrote Utopia where the streets were paved with gold. In Anchorage Alaska a mayor once heated some of the city sidewalks. I wish they would do that with a particular bike path over a freeway in Montana (the d_mn snowploughs throw the car path snow onto the bike path destroying the Utopia of it all).

  Sure its possible to build a human society where no one is physically experiencing privation. The best way to accomplish that is with democracy and free enterprise suitably configured with a balanced budget and no public debt. It is a temporal state of being though. The most difficult part would be to make it last forever, as it will with God in heaven. On Earth it is a problem because everything can always be improved, there are emergent external challenges and change is needed to upgrade. The American dream society aspires toward utopia with comfortable large homes, shag carpets, giant TVs, SUVs and video games that go on forever, pollution doesn't matter and global warming is a hoax. While a non-changing temporal society would probably be stagnant and trend toward dystopianism, it is fun to imagine the middle Earth Camelot that never ends with JFK and Jackie enjoying convertible rides that continue until the rivers run dry and the sun turns into a Cheshire cat, in greater bliss. Alternatively some might regard some economic progress as inherently dystopian because it destroys wilderness and wildlife that are aesthetically beautiful products of God's creative work for-themselves.

About the Stall of Ecological Reform Progress

Ordinary people don't have the time to follow science enough to think for themselves on science matters. They trust in employment and paying for things like 30-year mortgages. Even those in power on Wall Street need to conform their thought toward corporate goals Aristotle noted the problem of the commons being very poorly cared for in The Politics. Democrats are more corrupt than the conservatives in that they exploit environmental causes for other purposes such as socialism, racism etc. Democrats like to force everything their way these days and that may be a result of the influence of the late Senator Ted Kennedy and his brain cancer. 

Large scale ecological economic reform requires a great deal of engineered change to implement and few in politics even have an idea of what that is. Because the Democrat Party does not seek to find a way to get things done politically with the informed consent of the governed, Democrats keep the public debated between choosing socialism and capitalism, Ecospheric policies are given short shrift and hardly discussed in depth in a solid way publicly. If there are 1001 ways to reform capitalism and free enterprise to better serve the people of the United States, Democrats will try to force through just one expensive and likely ineffective plan without concern for the economic side-effects to the workers. They expect to force it on the nation. Remember Speaker Pelosi on Obamacare when asked about what it was;she said; 'Just pass it into law so we can find out what's in it.'

Wall Street Gamers Should Have Anti-Monopoly Laws

Democracy and free enterprise are strong when creative intelligent people develop new ideas and produce more efficient businesses. In the 19th and most of the 20th centuries Wall Street telecommunications largely did not exist with a fration of the computing and networking power of the present. It wasn’t possible for financial players to game the system the way they do presently with concentrated wealth able to trade at the speed of light and network wealth and capital. It wasn’t so practical for the most rich to have a finger in every pie, every business on the exchange. Anti-monopoly legislation was necessary to keep competition alive and not let the most rich own everything as if they were the company store selling product to captive workers.

In the 21^st century the nature of business has changed at a basic level with the financial sector and concentrated wealth able to buy and control elements of everything, and that made especially easy with chain stores and outlets across the nation. It is possible for the most rich to effectively build a monopoly through Wall Street shared with fewer than 1% of Americans. Every financial exchange trickles up to them. Wall Street trading should itself have some anti-monopoly laws that would limit the number of corporations any individual or corporation could invest in to some reasonable number such as three or four.

Free enterprise should encourage people to invent and establish new and improved businesses for-themselves rather than to create a manipulative class of financial players skimming the profits from everyone’s corporations. Those corporations are themselves brought to dominate the market, while new rival start up businesses would tend to be established only as far as they reinforce or support the existing businesses.

Because the system isn’t yet 100% complete in a plutocratic-corporatist structure it is challenging for some citizens to notice or understand the malevolution. They still believe that it is all free enterprise and therefore good, and the sole problem is socialism. Socialism is mainly a problem in diverting political thought from the question of how to make democracy best serve the citizens of the United States to a choice between socialism and undifferentiated free enterprise. Democracy and free enterprise have much more nuanced than that, and keeping free enterprise free from plutocratic, networked monopoly is one. Wealth should be encouraged to create new businesses and ideas rather than to buy up everything that already exists. Anti-financial monopoly laws can help with that.

Should the Army use Small Drone Gliders for Paratroopers?

The Army might benefit tactically from developing planeloads of small drone skydiving gliders for paratroopers to launch into the wild blue yonder on targets from a distance. The glider could carry the gear and the soldier still wear a parachute. If the drone had g.p.s. program glide controls to take the package to the right landing spot some time and distance in reaching a target safely and at night might be accomplished.

Tax the Richest 500 Americans to Pay off Public Debt?

Would a 60% income tax on the richest 5000 Americans dedicated to pay off public debt help roll back encroaching networked plutocracy and eliminate the nearly trillion dollar a year interest payment on public debt that goes to the rich holding the debt?

Aristotle commented 2500 years ago that democracies evolve into tyranny because of the general publlic neglect of common areas (including politics). Socrates and Plato were supporters of oligarchy and against democracy. The philosophy of government is a perennial philosophical issue. For example, some actually conflate socialism with tax rates in democracy, and that should be disambiguated. There are numerous other problems of a philosophical nature regarding government and political economy that should be clarified for citizens.

Democracy requires defense against oligarchy and plutocracy as well as communism and fascism. Aristotle in The Politics noted that democracies transition, because of public neglect of public affairs, into tyranny. Nothing has really changed in the past 2500 years. The rich of course always have a surfeit of unphilosophical lap-dog suck-ups hoping for promotion. If the Democrats are butt-kissers enough they may run Mayor Buttigeige, the Oxford creature, for President in 2020 to petify the populace.

There are several books written on corporatism including The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul (a Canadian philosopher). The revolutionaries in France in 1789 had no trouble recognizing the concentration of wealth.

https://www.amazon.com/Unconscious.../dp/0684871084

Would the rich take their money and run? That is an interesting technical issue. making the United States more nationalistic rather than economically global might make it more difficult to relocate capital to Communist China and other countries where the rich invest. yet they are welcome to go and take their booty with them. South America has perhaps 30 of the top 50 cities in homicide rate so in some respects that might not be a desirable relocation sight. Africa might look good to the rich, yet it would probably be Asia and Europe where the Waltons, Gates, Bezos et al would look. If they were gone with there wealth I a confident that the U.S. has a few million entrepreneurs of high intellect that could replace them. The U.S. economy has a lot of social media billionaires that have really superfluous topics. I grew up before pc's existed so I look at the kind of capital that is valuable somewhat differently. Windows or navigator (extinct)- there are always alternative to fill the economic niches in the tangled bank of enterprise.

People that haven't much understanding of political theory associate every sort of responsible management suggestion for democracy as leftist.. I actually was an Army reservist during the cold war era when it ended, and find the smear quite offensive. I also spent the better part of my life from adulthood reading philosophy and history. Far too many Americans, especially youth, are post-cold war era babies without any historical awareness of government before communism and the century of leftist upsurge. That blindness renders them entirely incompetent about being responsible for the maintenance of a healthy democratic society, including taxation. They quit thinking at a point most suitable for doing nothing to defend democracy and help concentrate wealth and networked power as if plutocracy was healthy. I remember visiting Berlin in 1987 and throwing a handful of glittering coins along the a street at night watching them glitter under the streetlights. The next year the International Monetary Fund met there, and a couple of years later the Soviet forces withdrew from East Germany. As an older student and reservist I found the entire situation of a divided Germany and war with the Soviets somewhat unnecessary. As glad as I was when the Cold War ended, I have been disappointed by the irrational exuberance that has led to 21 trillion dollars of public debt created by republicans and Democrats, and the concentration of wealth that is like a black hole drawing in all capital into itself. When the U.S. Government issues those zero interest loans to banks and the banks with the free federal dollars can electronically mint 5x more dollars for each dollar loaned by the Federal Government that creates free money out of nothing; real dollars are repaid on loans the bank makes with its free money. The U.S. Government has been giving free trillions of dollars to Wall Street since 2008, and even when the interest rate is nominal it is still a vast sum of free money to the already rich. That is a corrupt plutocratic insider, wicked situation that should change. It is not any sort of economic justice or equality, and definitely not democracy.

Democrats Have Reversed Watergate Impeachment Order for Pres Trump

In the Watergate impeachment proceedings the Democrats and others followed up a tangible crime (burglary) and followed the leads to the White House and President Nixon. The prime perpetrator's identity was unknown and that what was eventually discovered. democrats have reversed that order in the 2019 impeachment machination.

For President Trump there was no crime to start the proceedings. Instead there was an anonymous to Republicans informer who contacted whistle-blowing investigators in the Justice department about a fairly public phone call between the U.S. and Ukrainian Presidents. The anonymous informant believed the phone call contained an unethical request from the President (to have the Ukraine investigate potential financial crimes by the son of former Vice-President Biden in Ukraine). The effort for Republicans and the President is to discover who the anonymous informant is and learn about his relationship with the lead Congressional impeachment quarterback for the Democrat Party. The challenge for the Democrats is to show that the phone request was so unethical that the President deserves to be impeached. 

Why should the Bidens get a free pass to interfere in Ukraine, get employment for family members and the President an impeachment hearing for merely asking about that?

Many people feel a President has a right to ask for items he feels useful from foreign powers he is giving free money or weapons to. That is even if there was a quid pro quo, there is nothing wrong with that. Instead people might wonder what right a President has to give free taxpayer financed items away to foreign powers, including military aid. In business generally people expect something in return for payments. 

For example, maybe they buy a cheap spy camera from China in order to photograph deer on the trail; they expect it to work in exchange for the money and if it doesn't they are unhappy. Since Democrats were so rude and aggressive trying to have a Special Investigator find crimes and Russian collusion between the President and Moscow/Von Putin, it was quite reasonable for the President to reciprocate in a small way after the end of the failed Special Investigation with a request to the President that they investigate Hunter Biden's relationship as a highly paid board member of some odd Ukrainian business in a field that Hunter Biden had no experience in; that appeared to be some kind of well-paid quid pro quo for possible favors from the Obama administration of support for various Ukrainian people and policies.

Democrats have tried to game the impeachment proceedings withholding the identity of informers and of their relationship to the impeachment leader, not allowing Republicans to question witnesses, and keeping everything secret except for Democrat approved leaks. Recently the impeachment proceedings have gone public yet the system is still gamed heavily in favor of democrat, pejorative hate of the President.

democrats have sought to force politics since the Obama administration to their own goals without any Republican cooperation. That led to the present impeachment proceedings that try to force the President from office before the 2020 election. If it is possible for force anything Democrats now seek to do so. That methodology will not be able to reform the economy to ecological economics. 

Another problem with force politics is that the items that are forced through are the worst that might be designed...no one forces car designs through automakers with designs made in secret by one guy without input or criticism from others in the company. That method produces hybrid edsel-zils with square wheels.

For example it might be a good idea to tax the rich and provide capital to Americans without any. If 50 million Americans with no capital had some annually there probably would be some that are brilliant and would invent new things. They might buy math and science books etc. Fifty million people might have more geniuses and brilliant people denied for economic reasons that the 1000 wealthy people that are already sated, stuffed and simply network to have everything on Wall Street their way. If Democrats could actually tax and redistribute to the poor it is certain they would find some spoilt and inefficient way of spending the money. If there are 1000 ways to redistribute capital the Democrats would find one of the worst ones and keep it secret until it became law and people could find out what was in the legislation.