OK, time to fess up. I did not originally have the above in mind.
My definition of centralized allowed for one person calling the shots when it comes to strategy [=defining and planning for the ultimate goal], with every individual given freedom as to tactics [=the local details].
Decentralized would then mean no one person in charge of strategy either.
Thus the scenario I described would be centralized, with one person totally in charge of strategy, but would look decentralized, because strategy is usually invisible.
For example, if a central bank has a strategy to cause price inflation, and it then prints money and lends it to the govt. The bank takes no further action. Price inflation happens as a result of this strategy, with every other actor totally free to do as he chooses. And when the price inflation happens, no one can identify its source except by brilliant insight, an insight disputed to this day. That’s what I mean by strategy being invisible.
But that’s precisely it - I can conceive of non-monkeys, and I can conceive of monkeys being something other than they are but I don’t think I can actually conceive of “non-existence” or “the Universe as something other than it is.” This is not even because there is something metaphysically necessary about the Universe but, rather, because unlike monkeys or baseballs, the Universe is the only thing I am aware of that is what it is. To my knowledge, there is nothing like the Universe except the Universe. There is no external reference, no population of similar-yet-different peers against which to compare and contrast the attributes of this Universe. That is, the cosmological argument assumes that the pronoun “this” can be meaningfully applied to the word “Universe.” There is no reason to believe this isn’t just a trick of language.
But a framework is only useful if it adds something that wasn’t already there. I don’t think the CA adds anything. It’s just a trick of language.
Yes, I think this is the ultimate conclusion of the universals versus particulars debate. Without particulars, universals are disembodied, meaningless forms. Without universals, particulars are jumbled, unrelated, pointless “facts”.
*shrug - 10 years ago, I was actually a Schaefferian, believe it or not. I’ve since moved on from all Calvinistic tendencies and am now frankly humanistic. Man is the pinnacle of beauty. As Protagoras said it: Man is the measure of all things.
Well, I think there are some preliminary steps that are necessary today that weren’t necessary, say, 200 years go. First, you have to profess whether you are pursuing the truth or not. If not, then you can have your postmodernism or nihilism or whatever. If you are interested in pursuing the truth, then you need to set an end or goal. Why do you want to pursue the truth? I think we can give a systematic answer to this (the ultimate end of all human action being satisfaction) and, from this answer, we can derive some preliminary principles of aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics and even natural science. From here, we can go further and fill in the details of human nature through empirical study.
I think that individual satisfaction is the closest thing to an “ultimate principle” that there can be. No greater reason can be offered for anything than “it satisfies me… this is what I want.” So, it is from this principle - the principle of the individual’s own satisfaction - from which all other principles, even principles of truth and beauty, flow. The pursuit of truth only matters because it serves my ends. Of course, this doesn’t mean I can make the truth what I would like it to be any more than I can make the Universe what I would like it to be. I am no postmodernist. But it does mean that the act of pursuing truth is only meaningful or weighty because I place meaning and weight upon it.
I think we are going to have to agree to disagree here despite hating that phrase. I again fail to see how analgous reasoning is unjustified in this context especially when it is an innate human question about the external world.
This is essentially saying we begin with the action axiom. It is indeed intuitive but I don’t think human nature is as introspective as that which is why statements about the external world carry more moral and aesthetic weight e.g the world is a glorious ruin.
That said what you state about ends is quite true but it does not follow that we must reduce the reason to solely individual satisfaction especially if we accept Long’s constuitive means: those actions which are part of the end e.g playing notes is part of playing the Moonlight Sonata. This then allows for a web of actions or character traits which are required to flourish which can be distinguished from each other thereby avoiding a crude rational egoism. So for example it could be the case that to attain individual satisfaction you need to glorify God since satisifaction is brought out, or co-existent, with the glorification- as such there are shared non-arbitrary ends for all of man.
I can’t see how this can mesh. How can individual satisfaction be the ultimate principle and then truth be “independently” ascertainable?
It’s somewhat irrelevant to the thread but I’d be interested in how you became a humanist from a sort of Calvinist.
Well, imagine for a moment that the Universe, at root, is every logically possible form. We only observe an infinitesimally small part of this Universe and we only observe it at a level where it appears to us that the Universe consists of a definite subset of all logically possible forms. We falsely imagine that our observable nook of the Universe is characteristic of the whole Universe.
If this is the case, then it is a mistake to speak of “this” Universe because there is no other conceivable Universe… the Universe already contains all logically possible forms and any counter-factual Universe you attempt to conceive is already a subset of the real Universe.
I am not asserting that this is the case, merely that it could be the case and, therefore, that it is possible that “this Universe” is actually a trick of language. It’s not obvious that we can meaningfully speak of “this” as opposed to “that” Universe.
On the Calvinist to humanist thing, it’s basically a result of realizing that it’s deeply mistaken to think of the human being as “fundamentally flawed” except in a very specific sense relating to the rapid changes that have occurred in the human environment since the Agricultural Revolution. The story of the Fall misattributes the cause of the Fall to a wrong choice made by man (to taste the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that is, to become a moral agent). That is, the Biblical story of the Fall says that man himself is to blame (Original Sin) and his suffering is primarily the consequence of this one bad choice.
The fact is that no one is to blame for the suffering that has arisen as a result of man’s displacement from Paradise (tribal, pre-Agricultural life), especially not the collective of all humanity (the Bible is big on collective punishment). His suffering is merely the result of the fact that he has been displaced from Paradise and his displacement from Paradise is no one’s fault. In the words of KoRn: “It’s evolution, just evolution.” The means for our salvation (alleviation of suffering) are in our own hands (reason, action) and merely require the will to operate them.
This is a picture that is diametrically opposed to the Calvinist view of things (as well as the Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican or any other orthodox or semi-orthodox Christian doctrine I am aware of). In the Christian view, you are to blame for your present state as a result of Adam’s lapse and God’s collective punishment of humanity for that. And not only are you to blame but you can’t do anything to save yourself from your punishment and suffering, whether on this Earth or in the world to come. The only remedy available to you is God’s grace, that is, to throw yourself upon the mercy of the King, Jesus Christ. This is a message of paralysis of the will and psychological disengagement from cause-and-effect in the real world. If I were a more cynical man (try to imagine that!), I would say that Christian doctrine is the most carefully devised meme designed to persuade as many people as possible to voluntarily enslave themselves, thus alleviating the powers-that-be of the need to apply coercive force to enslave that segment of the population.