Dandy flow chart to remind people of their logic

Economics Political Theory
21

I don’t think you read what I wrote, BP:

The conclusion is that the “will” of society is anyway tempered by the biased, favoritist, and non-universal opinion of the person you’re talking to.

So regardless of whether or not society has will, my opponent is not arguing for the will of society but for his own will. Hence, the question of societal will is irrelevant.

We’re arguing semantics, but to go over the term again:

“Will of society” - since society is not a coherent organism, it has no “one will” as my opponent had proposed that all of it adopts.

What I mean when I say “society does X” is a spontaneous aggregate decision. As in people discuss things and most of them agree, and these most people decide to pursue some action, hence making it appear as if “society” is acting in a certain unified way (while it is in fact spontaneous voluntary order).

And once again, aggression is not a neutral term.

I’m on home turf here, so I assume aggression is violation of property.

22

There is not societal will. Remember what society means: organization, above and beyond individuals. However, organization itself in not anything “alive.” To say it is is mysticism and anthropomorphism in any way shape or form you parse that statement.

The “more” in “whole” above “parts” is organization. Whole is not merely aggregate of parts. However, only parts can be living individuals. Organization is simply congifuration of things, whatever they may be. Socialists confuse fact that whole is more than sum of parts with myth that “more” in whole above and beyond parts is itself something more important than parts, and that if parts are alive, then organization independent of parts must be animate somehow.

“Socal feelings” or “social will” raises eyebrows of physiologists, who deny that neural networks not connected physically are any kind of single neural network. If they are not connected physically, they are not connected at all, and so, organization of people is not itself living mind indepenedent of minds that comprise.

[edit: In initial post, I attached long excerp from an essay of mine on topic. Actually, you know what, I’ll post whole paper I circulated on this question, written for some businessmen, in sometime today or tommorrow on arxiv. I’ll put link here.]

23

Wheylous, considering that, what if someone you’re arguing with is using the term societial will in the same manner you are? You seem to be fine with majority rule as long as it supports your position.

24

Studying neural networks currently, I slightly disagree with your statement, though I generally agree with your conclusion, with some small tweaks:

“Socal feelings” or “social will” raises eyebrows of physiologists, who deny that neural networks not connected physically are any kind of single neural network. If they are not connected physically, they are not connected at all, and so, organization of people is not itself living mind indepenedent of minds that comprise.

Any individual units which make their decisions and in some way communicate with others, affecting the others’ decisions, is a neural network. Physical connections are not necessary for it to be a neural network (for what are physical connections but electrical signals, which are not far from light signals we see when others communicate with us). So this far I disagree with you.

However, neural networks typically have a set decision process established in them. For example, in artificial intelligence we minimize the square error, which essentially optimizes a function.

The problem with this as it relates to society is that society has no set function to maximize that is a “natural law” like the decisions in neural networks are. Since there is no “natural order” in society which dictates what function must be optimized, the neural network of society is unlike most conventional neural networks. So here, I agree with you, as a mind must have a way of coming to a consensus through a natural law or order of things, which society doesn’t have.

Ultimately, “societal will” as something whole assumes a natural function to optimize, which doesn’t actually exist. Hence, societal will in the sense of individual will doesn’t exist.

“Societal action”, however, for convenience, is a general equilibrium of opinion that a group of interacting individuals reach and then implement individually (perhaps with communal purposes).

You seem to be fine with majority rule as long as it supports your position.

That is what I accuse my opponent of doing. Their system is non-universal, as it ultimately relies on their own will, not
“society’s will” (whatever that might be). The forceful implementation of a perceived “societal will” disregards the fact that society is not an organism, and that when “society acts” in a free society, it’s not society acting as a big blob, but actually the convenient description of individuals acting on their own will.

25

And how does your proposed system escape the same criticism? How does any society escape the same criticism?

26

Can you be more specific? I find that your answers are a bit nebulous and do not quote specific parts of what I said, making me have to guess at what you mean.

27

"That is what I accuse my opponent of doing. Their system is non-universal, as it ultimately relies on their own will, not
“society’s will” (whatever that might be). The forceful implementation of a perceived “societal will” disregards the fact that society is not an organism, and that when “society acts” in a free society, it’s not society acting as a big blob, but actually the convenient description of individuals acting on their own will."

How is it that you’re not doing the same thing when you use the term ‘society’? How does anyone for that matter?

28

I would like to point several physiological perspectives, however.

It’s not merely electrical connections which make neural net, its also patchy holography, periodically estabilished and collapsing. That is, all part of single wave-function.

See Karl Pribram’s papers, which he has finally put all online for free (www.karlhpribram.org). He’s probably most influential physiologist in US over last 60 years in terms of people citing his data work. Or see Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s work (or many other Japanese researchers who collaborated with the above named.)

Coherence is thermodynamically interrupted.

People’s preferences cannot be made into one neural network ("social preferences), because physically not possible for seperated neural networks of different people to be connected in way that actually generates “mind.”

Warren McCulluch’s claim in 1956 that mind and preferences is merely Turing machine with maximum two negative feedback loops has been falsified to many times to count.

McCulluch in Rashevsky’s Bulletin of Mathemical Biology tried to tackle preferences as circuits, but argues that all economics is wrong because valuation is not hierarchy (he claimed economics is falsified because A can be preferred to B, B to C, and C to A, without any issues).

Mises responded to this issue back in 1912, however, that any such preferences can actualyl be represented hierarchically by talking about concrete quantites being ranked, so that X of A can be preferred to Y of C, but Z of C preferred to L of A.

What I mean is, classical neural network people, e.g., Lettvin, Pitts, Neumann, McCulluch, Turing are not the best people to be taking economic advice from. (Neumann still thought with Morgenstern that preferences are cardinal!) Lettvin and Pitts thoughts Wiener had disproved subjectivist economics with his behaviorism (“dog which looks alive = alive, because brain is black box.”)

29

fixed that for you

30

@Wheylous

All I’m getting at is that when anyone (including you) says something about “society” they’re either projecting a personal view that they feel is popular or reflecting on how they view society.

31

Since this is Mises, best to make sure everyonbe is on the same page here when it comes to society, here’s the chapter and “home field” definiton and outlook one ought start from:

http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=b416306b-1dba-4c7e-9104-a9d624ade319

32

Translation: The economy is unplannable, but it can be planned.

Tell me exactly how that makes sense.