#certainty
For the aspiring Austro-Libertarian: what to read? #9
I thought I would recommend some of the not so well known but nevertheless mind-blowing journal articles that should be read by everyone in the movement, especially by those outside it. This is the ninth in a series of many.
On Certainty and Uncertainty, Or: How Rational Can Our Expectations Be?by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
So many pure gems, I have avoided as many spoilers as possible.
- I - …It is possible to imagine a world characterized by complete certainty…
- II - …The idea of certain knowledge requires, as its logical counterpart, the idea of uncertainty…
- III - …Nothing about the external, physical world is or can be known with certainty-except for those rather abstract but universal and real things that are already implied in the certain knowledge of acting and action…
- IV - …Our practical certainty concerning future outcomes and events extends even further…
- V - …If pressed sufficiently hard, of course, Lachmann and his followers would probably admit the undeniable and, as if all of this did not matter, quickly move onto another problem…
- VI - …They would agree only on one consequence: that there exists a categorical difference between the logic of the natural sciences and that of the social sciences. Indeed, it follows from the recognition of man as a learning actor that the (still) dominating positivist (or falsificationist) philosophy, which assumes that all (empirical) sciences follow the same method-a uniform logic of science-is self-contradictory…
- VII - …As already indicated in section I1 above, the fundamental logical error involved in Lachmann’s reasoning consists in the fact that it does not follow from the proposition that human actors face an uncertain future that everything regarding our future must be considered uncertain….
- VIII - …Even if the existence of a logic of action-praxeology-is admitted, as it must be, it does not follow that the knowledge provided by it can render our future certain. Praxeology allows us to predict with certainty some future events and aspects of the world of human actions, but its range of applicability is strictly limited. There are many events and aspects, and indeed far more of far greater practical significance, about which praxeology has nothing to say…..
Remember:certainty is a tool of motivation. If you always let your certainty yield to chances that you might be wrong or have something to learn, that is an exploitable cognetic opening.
Demons in the History of Science
Part one of two: Laplace’s Demon
Some might say that the modern day physicists have it easy; they can appeal to the public with their stories of eleven-dimensional universes, time travel, and stories of a quantum world that is stranger than fiction. But the basis of such appeal remains the same as the appeal for pursuing science always was and will be: a greater understanding of the environment, ourselves, and knowledge itself.
Just like Schrödinger’s cat, a popular thought experiment by famous physicist Erwin Schrödinger, Laplace’s Demon and Maxwell’s Demon are two other thought-experiments in scientific thinking which are important for what they reveal about our understanding of the universe. It may only interest you to learn of these thought-experiments for the sake of reinforcing the philosophical relevance and beauty that science has always sought to provide.
Jim-Al Khalili, author of Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed, affirms that fate as a scientific idea was disproved three-quarters of a century ago, referring to the discoveries of quantum mechanics as proof, of course. But what does he mean when he says this? Prior to such discoveries, it may have been okay to argue for a deterministic universe, meaning that scientists could still consider the idea of a world in which one specific input must result in one specific output and thus the sum all these actions and their consequences could help “determine” the overall outcome, or fate, of such a world.
Pierre-Simon Laplace, born on March 23, 1794, was a French mathematician and astronomer whose work largely founded the statistical interpretation of probability known as Bayesian Probability. He lived in a world before Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Chaos Theory and thus he was allowed to imagine such a deterministic universe:
We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.
Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities
Laplace thought about what it would be like if it were possible to know the positions, masses, and velocities of all the atoms in existence and hypothesized a being, later known as Laplace’s Demon, which would be able to know such information and such calculate all future events.
With our knowledge of physics, The Heisenberg Uncertainty PrincipleandChaos Theory, such a being could not exist because such information about atoms cannot be observed with enough precision to calculate and predict future events. (By the way, “enough” precision means infinite precision!) This might be good news for those who believe in free will as its concept would not be permitted in a deterministic universe governed by Laplace’s demon.
Interestingly enough, The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and Chaos Theory are not the only restrictive challenges that scientists have faced in trying to understand the properties and bounds of our universe. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is also of concern to scientists and philosophers alike, as we will learn with the birth of another mind-boggling demon.
Post link
Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, Once Upon A Time) and I. He wasn’t as scary to meet the second time around. I was able to pull off a more relaxed face. Ha
Post link
Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) and I!!! I absolutely love him on Breaking Bad and Once Upon a Time. I was both excited and scared to be meeting Gus Fring, as my face clearly shows.
Post link
