Summary of Libertarian Versus Anarcho-Capitalist Theory and Predictions

I probably seem more certain than I am. I've probably forgotten something important.



In short, if you understand standard economics, you are a libertarian. Comparative advantage, immigration as bonus human capital, the inefficiency of government intervention in all spheres of life, particularly drugs and charity. Libertarians believe that what is economically best is best simpliciter.



An anarcho-capitalist is a radical  economist, usually Austrian, who also holds the moral position that coercion is always bad. You can often see this phrased as 'the NAP,' the non-aggression principle.



(I will mainly be avoiding the cultural aspects. For example, most libertarians like gun ownership to the point they're suspicious of non-gun owners. (I don't own a gun, just a bow.) It seems that standard economics broadly supports freedom, and therefore libertarianism attracts the freedom-loving. Most libertarians think freedom is the highest virtue. None of these position are necessary or entailed. Occasionally the positions makes them ignore their own theory.

Anarcho-capitalists are frequently extremely cantankerous toward authority, and while this improves free thought, it causes disagreements for the sake of rejecting any particular ancap as an authority on ancap. I will be shamelessly promoting my own version. For example, I believe this cantankerousness allows ancaps to see the many flaws in standard economics, not only in being not-Austrian but also in its many bits and pieces of state-worship. Get paid by the state, be unduly sympathetic to the state.)


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The libertarian believes that the state - defined here as the monopoly on legitimate coercion - is either unavoidable or that a certain amount of strictly limited coercion is necessary for a healthy economy.  Libertarians vary between hard minarchism to moderate minarchism. Between the night-watchman state and that plus rules against driving without a license and burning soft coal for heat. (See comments by the author.) Libertarians believe that the law is inherently coercive, inherently necessary, but that this coercion can be safely bottled up with objective rules, at least as long as the populace is moderately vigilant. For example, as long as there's a free press which seeks out abuses of power and reports them to their subscribers.

Libertarians, living in democratic times, believe that which laws the night-watchman state should enforce should be decided by popular vote.



Libertarians justify identifying the economy with human flourishing. Free humans work towards their own personal gain, which they are capable of achieving. However, other humans are roughly as competent, which means direct competition is costly; instead, humans naturally cooperate, resulting in exchange of value for value, making everyone richer. When value is exchanged, it is proof that humans are successfully working towards fulfilling their own values, and this can be measured, if crudely, by things like GDP.

For a different way of seeing this, a strong economy absent government favouritism makes everyone richer; richer people are more capable and powerful, and thus able to satisfy their values.

Free is defined as not interfered with by the state. Religion is a distant second, but in some times and places, religion can harness coercion much like the state and thus interfere with the exchange of value for value.

Standard economics proves that you cannot tax capital, or equivalently that progressive taxes are highly distorting, which means wasteful and counter-productive. The state should be funded by a flat income tax. In any case, taxes are way, way too high.

Some libertarian predictions:

Free trade is always to the benefit of both parties, or otherwise they would stop trading.
Immigration provides more labour, which means more wealth. It is best seen as free trade in labour - someone at home has to be willing to hire the guy to make it worth the move.
Arming and training average Joes would decrease crime, decrease the need for police, and even decrease death by guns.
Taking drugs may be a poor choice for some people, but it is their mistake to make. The state attempting to stop them is horrendously violent and destructive, and mostly futile in any case. Legalizing drug use has been documented at least once to reduce drug use. Despite price decreases. Revoking the USDA food pyramid and generally getting out of food-nanny Dodge would similarly increase public health.

Libertarians predict that the economy would rocket if economics was taken seriously.  Here's (same as coal-link above) a moderately complete list of policies that should be rolled back. (Ctrl-f "ordinary Europeans" to skip the preamble.)
Lack of government intervention includes fiat money. Libertarians usually favour gold, but bitcoin works, indeed any currency that doesn't inherently depend on coercion.


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Anarcho-capitalists reject even the night-watchman state on several grounds.



While libertarians are sympathetic to public-choice theory, ancaps aggressively embrace and extend it. Public choice theory indicts all forms of government. It makes the tyranny of the majority seem like a mild pathology, barely a hiccup. There is no market failure so horrible that it won't inevitably be made worse by government intervention.

For example, the conversion of a democracy to a permanent bureaucracy is inevitable. Facing either term limits or an uncertain election in the future, the elected politician works toward legislation to create a sinecure for their buddies, who will then hire them after their term. This is hardly difficult, as their fellow elects feel the same way. Similarly, since state agents are selfish, they will try to arrogate all benefits to themselves. Since by definition of 'state' they have the power to do so, they will succeed. There is literally no point in having a government except to enrich government. Almost every case looks like the government creating the healthcare crisis it now wants to pretend to solve. Even if legislation manages to ban soft coal, coal was already going out of style. Legislation is a trailing indicator of good behaviour, and a leading indicator of only harmful behaviour.



I'll also mention the various historical records of social order achieved through voluntary, bottom-up processes, showing that the state is unnecessary. I can point to Iceland, Somalia (outside Mogadishu), a place in upland southeast Asia called Zomia, and I've forgotten one or two others.

However, strictly speaking, anarcho-capitalism is the ur-government, under which almost any social order can be constructed...presuming you can convince the subjects to sign on the dotted line.

There's currently one now, the Amish, who are 100% full-test anarchs by my theory.

"The ordnung is only accepted by, and binding on, members of the congregation when, as adults, they are baptized. [...] Prior to the ceremony, ministers offer the young adult the opportunity to back out, telling him that “it is better not to make a vow than to make a vow and later break it . . . .” [...] A bishop whose interpretation of his congregation’s ordnungen is at odds with what the members want is not subject to impeachment or a recall election, but he is at risk of finding himself with no membership."

It is taken as axiomatic that all coercion - defined here as one human imposing their values on another - is bad. As can be seen by the definition, for coercion to occur, one human must smother another's values, inherently reducing the total value of the world. I will note, but defer the proof, that this definition also justifies self-defence, such that self-defence against an attempted value imposition is not itself coercion. (Basically, defeating evil can't be evil.)

The anarchists' rejection of coercion has some surprising consequences. Did you know free trade, including free trade in labour, is illegitimate? It is the government deciding for you whether you want immigration or not. When two trade, either I'm one of them and it it's none of your business, or I'm not one of them and it's none of mine. Using the Amish model, it is none of my business what another congregation's Bishop says about immigration or trade.

Similarly, 'freeing' the slaves. The slaves were not given the choice to stay on the plantation. Perhaps none would have wanted to, but the abolitionists did not ask, they simply imposed their values on another thede.

Part of ancap's rejection of personal authority includes rejection of standard economics. When it says comparative advantage, ancaps say, so what? The market knows better than you. Better than any of us. If what you say is true, then the market will agree with you. If not, then the market will kick your ass. If the Bishop says immigration is bad, and it is, then the market will reward the congregation that bans it. Part of how you know coercion is bad is because it is unnecessary.

Naturally, ancaps are very suspicious whenever standard economics shows the state did anything good. (I've yet to find a case where the suspicion was not justified.) So-called 'public' goods are either mismanaged regardless or only seem public through sophistry and ignorance.




Due to the inherent moral position against coercion, anarcho-capitalists believe the police and army should be privatized. (Please note, not abolished.) There is disagreement about what, exactly, this would look like, and I'll be selfishly talking up my own position. Essentially, law needs to be opt-in, with the option of attempting to provide your own security. This allows individual variation on laws, which allows noise, which means experimentation and natural selection.



Anarchy is hands-off in defining human flourishing. If a truly free society does not want to grow economically, it does not have to. (The Amish grow in population but are decidedly slow in buying power.) Though, it is considered likely. Humans want to empower themselves, and when this comes through techniques and technology, it means economic growth. If nobody is being coerced, then by definition values are getting maximized.

An anarchist individual may hold any religion they want, but are subject to self-defence if it wants to impose itself on anyone else. Beliefs are property too.



Taxes, defined as coercive payments, are illegitimate. If you can't sell your service, then you don't deserve to be paid for it.



Anarchist predictions:

Violent revolutions are bad. Historical revolutions never stop their violence at self-defence. Second, while top-down order is bad, that doesn't mean disorder is good. {I like to say chaos = delta(power)} The market can only respond so fast to changes. When governments fall, they change too fast, and people die even if nobody is being beheaded on camera.

Voting, as inherently coercive, can never result in a free society.

As long as immigrants and the sponsors of immigrants are held accountable and responsible for the effects, the market will reach a healthy, pro-social level of immigration.

Being the ur-government, anarchy can accomodate fiat money. It's between you, your bank, and your trading partners; none of my business. However, fiat money probably can't survive without coercive backing, because its whole reason for existence is inflation. If businesses can refuse paper, they usually will, and we would likely return to a historical bank note situation, with added cryptographic assurances.

How you use drugs is none of my business. It is between you and your security provider.

Whether you should be allowed a gun is between you and your security provider. Will they have to pay more damages to you if you have no gun, or to others you use the gun on incorrectly? They would know a lot more about that than I ever will. Similarly, if a bar requires you to disarm before entering, they take responsibility for your safety.

The market is made of people. Any solution government can think up, the market can also think up, except it isn't allowed to force you to pay for it.
One way for private law to work is by trying crimes to acts on individuals. If you leave someone alone, they cannot charge you with anything. However, if you interact with them, you must implicitly or explicitly agree not to interact in certain ways they would rather you didn't, on pain of dealing with their security provider. In return, they agree to not do certain things to you.
Many anarchists want criminal penalties to stop at shaming. I think it should be formal and contractual. Then, the penalties are definitively not coercive - you have agreed to them, and applying them is simply holding you to your word.
As for sudden violent assault, then you never agreed not to defend yourself. Equivalently, almost everyone values seeing the sudden assailant defeated.
In practice, we would have laws and courts almost exactly as we have now, perhaps even professional police, but the laws others would be held to when dealing with you would be decided by you, not by the court. The market would reward courts that defended their clients well, not those with 40 000 laws on the books. If for no other reason than it would be too expensive to try to trade with them.

It may turn out that the honour and reputation system for contracts is superior to violent tort enforcement. Someone will try it, and we'll find out.

Juxtaposition VIII: Wholeheartedness

Touching the Raw Amygdala, Part II:

"I assume this is because the Narcissist desperately wants to be able to assert the inferiority of another, and the superiority of themselves by comparison. [...]  The word contempt carries a subconscious air of their K-type adversary’s superiority, and the Liberal’s inferiority. Although minor, such aspects of language have profound effect upon Narcissists and Liberals. Always denigrate the Liberal’s importance and power within the social environment, and never imply they are important enough to warrant a real emotion."

Anatomy of a Hater:

"That’s the archetypal hater: a lifelong fuckup. A thirtysomething lawyergrrl with the personality of a sea slug and a burning case of baby rabies. A castrated cubicle worker in thrall to his Michelin Man-sized wife. A sick woman who gets a double mastectomy because she thinks she’s a man trapped in a woman’s body. A 300-pound momma’s boy playing video games in his parents’ basement."

Brené Brown on connection, (via) somewhat paraphrased:

"I want to separate courage and bravery for you. [...] It's from the latin word cor, meaning heart...the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. [...] They fully embraced vulnerability. They don't talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor excruciating." (Paraphrased because exact words would take me several times longer.)

Don't forget juxtaposition V: reality vs. presentation. Who is the main character? The nominal subject, or the author?

Perpetual Motion by Means of Black Holes and Dark Energy

I can tell that physicists don't understand black holes or spatial expansion because the current models can straightforwardly make perpetual motion machines.




First, get some unobtainium. A string with a tensile strength a few million times any known material should be sufficient. Wind the unobtainium around a spool, gear the spool onto a turbine, and lower one end into a black hole. From our perspective, the string has infinite space to fall into before it hits the event horizon, so the string can be fed into the hole indefinitely. The only difficulty is manufacturing the string for less than the turbine creates in power, but the force, and therefore the turbine output, is inversely proportional to the size of the black hole in question. The Schwarzschild radius decreases linearly with mass, but force increases as the square. A half mass size black hole pulls half as hard at a given distance, but is also half radius, which means it pulls twice as strongly at the event horizon.

Two bits of luck at this point. First, it is unobtainium, so I can make it as thin or as strong as necessary. Second, a suitably small black hole may evaporate quickly, but the string would, according to convention, replenish the black hole. (Even though we never see it reach the black hole.) Simply increase the force (and tensile strength) and lower the feeding speed until the turbine makes more energy than you're putting in.

There's also a reaction force to take into account, so these need to be built in pairs. Solid rings aren't orbitally stable, so I need slightly bigger turbines to power the stabilizing thrusters.

(For lulz, search up black hole perpetual motion and be amazed at how complicated they try to make it.)




The second method may need much stronger string, and costs much more to set up, but I don't have to worry about feeding the string slower than the black hole evaporates.

The velocity of other galaxies is not a normal kind of velocity. We see Doppler-shifted light because the space the wave is in expands while it is travelling through it; it just happens to work out to be exactly how much it would be redshifted by real velocity. Acceleration is absolute, because it usually requires transfers of energy and thus interactions and mass flows. Other galaxies are accelerating but not gaining kinetic energy, because otherwise we would be gaining kinetic energy. (Or I could say their velocity is changing without acceleration.) Nevertheless...

Tie the unobtainium around a couple rocks a few million light years away in opposite directions. They will accelerate away indefinitely, powering the spool turbines. Indeed, the output will increase the longer the machine is run. Though the friction losses alone will be immense, and the tension at the rock's end will grow faster, so it needs especially pure unobtainium.




Perpetual motion machines are singularities. If nothing else, potential energy has mass too, and so they should have infinite mass and subsequently destroy the universe.

You can try to argue that since these need unobtainium, they aren't naked singularities. In any realistic situation, limits of electromagnetic bonding and so on, the strings on the expansion machine will snap before they break even. Galaxies accelerate away from each other, and so won't ever turn this phantom kinetic energy into a collision. The black hole small enough to create more energy than it consumes in mass will evaporate so hot it burns the string to plasma.

However, the second law of thermodynamics is supposed to be true even in highly idealized mechanisms. A frictionless Carnot engine with zero switching costs between its infinite hot reservoir and infinite cold reservoir still cannot break even. All I need is a very strong kind of string. I could also use a ridiculously sized bit of piezoelectric.

To be precise, a Carnot engine feeding into absolute zero can be 100% efficient. However, my unobtainium spools can produce infinite energy for zero cost by turning an infinitely large turbine infinitely slowly with an infinitesimal string. This means if you back off from those infinities, you can get any amount of energy you might need.

Put another way, it is not feasible to make these machines profitable for humans, but if I did this with regular twine, while it break almost immediately, for that fraction of a second more energy would be coming out of the system than went into it, even though I wouldn't be able to capture most of it. If I can do it, nature is doing it, it is merely a question of when and where.

If something seems to be violating conservation of energy, it isn't, you've overlooked something. These models have overlooked something apparently infinite.




I find that physicists often, usually, forget that they don't understand black holes. Or space in general, it would seem - "shut up and compute" has laid low most of the field. To be charitable, do I assume they talk about it at physicist cocktail parties, just never in public? Not even during lectures?

Other Minds and Colour Qualia

Yes, there are other minds, and they see the same colours as yours.





There's a trick from physics. If an electron can't apparently know where itself is, but every other particle knows where it is, then the electron must know where it is, even if we can't figure out how. It works because the next position of the electron must be consistent with the observations of all observers, and to reach there, the electron had to have been in the observed location.

By yourself, the other-minds problem is apparently insoluble. However, the problem would only occur in the first place to a conscious entity, as there is no observable explanandum for unconscious observers. (Go on, start listing things that you haven't thought to explain because they don't exist.)

As per my last post, objective entities cannot properly pretend to be conscious. An unconscious entity can only parrot the words of the other-minds problem. (Wikipedia isn't conscious, but you can read it there.) Which means when you observe a statement of the other-minds problem, you can be certain there's a mind in the statement's past light cone. Combined with your certainty you have a mind, you can be certain there are other minds.

Relative to that other mind, you might be parroting, like Wikipedia. However, literally all other conscious observers can be certain there are other minds. When a fact is knowable from all perspectives but one, it is knowable from all perspectives. Even if you can't work out how.

If nothing else, I can back off slightly from pure idealism and note that it must have been independently stated as a problem by at least one other person.





I'm pretty sure but can't quite prove that conscious entities are absolute. If red is unmistakable, then when you think you see red, there's only one possible entity you can be seeing, red itself. (Plato was almost right.) Similarly, for the brain to talk to consciousness, it would either have to tune the signals after each birth (and tune it to a standard according to what? How would the standard know to be different?) or the signals are themselves absolute, so they evolve once and stay good.

Regardless, there's an entirely separate line of evidence that they're absolute, at least inside each mind. Conscious entities can be similar or different from each other, just like objective entities. Blue is similar to cold, and red is similar to warm. (Sharp sounds are similar to sharp surfaces, and smooth sounds are similar to smooth surfaces.)

We know from other complex phenomena that simply inverting them cannot preserve all symmetries. The opposite of red isn't blue, it's cyan. Cyan is similar to energetic and blue is similar to calm - they are similar to each other in some ways but different in others, which means even if you also inverted calm and active, the colour characteristics would no longer hold. The red-warm-energetic relationship converts to cyan-warm-energetic - that fire still looks as warm and frenetic as it feels - but cyan was originally energetic, it should register as calm on the inverted scale. If you don't invert that scale, blue-cold-calm can't convert to yellow-cold-calm, because yellow isn't calm - someone who saw this way wouldn't find ocean waves soothing, because of the colour.

Meanwhile, warm and cold are direct opposites, but the sensations indicating such are not. Especially hot, which is qualitatively different from warm, as reflected by the fact that hot results from the warm and cold detecting nerves being excited simultaneously. You cannot change the relationships to make red similar to cold without changing the relationship between cold and warm and hot, thus changing the second-order relationship between the red-blue relationship and the cold-warm relationship.

A person with an inverted or rearranged colour scale would have different relations of similarities between their sensations, no matter how cleverly rearranged. Since we do not observe different relations or relations-between-relations, we can safely conclude humans see the same colours the same way.

Picking at the Mind

I found a hole in my last post, so I'm going to pick at it to see if I can destroy my own logic. If you would rather skip the preamble, it's contained in 1.x. The conclusion is 2.3.1.




I wonder if I can reasonably summarize. Consciousness, the unexplained phenomenon, is inherently epistemically subjective - the explanandum is epistemic subjectivity. Epistemology implies ontology, which means it is also ontologically subjective. As physics is ontologically objective, consciousness cannot be physical.




I'm concerned that if your mind is objective relative to me, I might be able to transform the viewpoint so that it is objective relative to you, without losing features from the description.
(To avoid the flinch away from being wrong, I note that even if I disprove myself this way, I've still solved the problem.)




1.1 Time to double check. Is that really the explanandum?
     I think I learn that by attempting the proposed transformation and, if it works, then it must not be the explanandum. If I'm truly begging the question, then I should run into a contradiction when I try to enter the logic complex by the other doorway.

For now, there's four entities. The red lamp, the photons the lamp emits and that excite my eye, my perception of the red lamp, and my interpretation of the perception.

If I am dreaming, there may not be a red lamp at all.
In a photon vacuum, the lamp only emits infra-red, which I cannot see.
When I close my eyes, it shuts off the perception of the red lamp even in a lit room.
If I do not pay attention to the sensation of a red shape, I am unable to conclude, "I have a red lamp."

(Technically I can break it down further, but not into independent bits. For example, I can tease apart the photon-eye-visual cortex causal chain, but, as a sufficiently healthy human, I cannot shut off the visual cortex except by shutting off the eye.)

Consciousness is the third entity.
I can be dreaming, I can fail to see the lamp, I can screw up the logic and fail to conclude I have a red lamp. However, if I am dreaming or seeing a red lamp shape, I cannot also be failing to see a red lamp shape - this is epistemic subjectivity, by definition: if I conclude I see a red lamp shape, I cannot be wrong.



1.2.1.1 What is a 'you'? What constitutes a perspective?
    Already answered. A you is a set of epistemically subjective entities.
1.2.1.2 Can subjects partially overlap?
    The homunculus fallacy is indeed a fallacy. Perceiver and perception don't have independent existences, consciousness is fully constituted by the subjective sensations. As a result, there would be a synchronization issue if consciousnesses tried to overlap. If the non-overlapping parts had any causal influence, then the overlapping parts, having no way to know what the non-overlapping bits were doing, would diverge instantly, contradicting the presumption of unity.

It's of a piece to assume subjective entities get entangled (red + lamp shape) or to assume a single consciousness is a single subjective experience. (Red-lamp-shape.)

1.2.2 Is that what is really bothering me about the idea of perspective?
    That plus 1.1, I think so. (I had to try a few times to get it right.) I need to know what I'm going to try to transform, especially as I'm pivoting across a second perspective.
If I'm wrong about 1.1, then 1.2 will topple like a domino. This is good - it means that I don't feel like my supposedly dependent clauses will survive the death of their superiors. If I so felt, it would indicate that I was lying to myself about my justification.



1.3.1.1 For my purposes, the key apparent feature of the subjective ontology is control of the properties of the entities. Is this really key or even relevant?
    I think it's key because it makes the ontology clear. If you can change the perception by will - stop thinking about red lamps and move onto blue mugs - then to prove the epistemic premise, the experiment is simply to switch back and forth a couple times. External opinions go from true to false and back, while internal opinion remains true.
1.3.1.2 The control may be determinism from the environment.
    Ultimately this is irrelevant, because if the subject is indeed inherently subjective, it will remain inherently ontologically subjective. Therefore, 3.1.1 must also be irrelevant, however handy as a thought experiment.



2.1.1.1 Given that I can't find a problem with the foundation, can I pivot the subjective into the objective
    First, I should figure out what that would mean. New hypothesis: consciousness is objective.
2.1.1.2 Could consciousness be cloaked, like the black hole's singularity?
    Not if it is causally linked, as we could measure its downstream effects, if so. The cloak hypothesis reduces to non-physical consciousness.



2.2.1.1 Consciousness is objective.
    I can confirm the contents of your consciousness, in principle, by measuring your effects on your brain. The contents, decided by will or determinism, nonetheless are knowable and mistakable by me. Therefore, they are similarly related to you. My observation that my own thoughts are epistemically subjective must be mistaken.
2.2.1.2 I can state that the brain and mind are different, but that is begging the question.
    It is begging the question to say that I can't know what is in your consciousness without comparing it to mine, and matching your brain measurements against mine. By assumption, consciousness is objectively knowable.

2.2.2 This means when you're thinking of a red lamp, there is only one way the red lamp can causally influence your brain.

    Since I don't require a conscious comparison, a unconscious observer can (and therefore I can) work out that you're thinking of a red lamp because a brain with certain correlates can be thinking about a red lamp and only a red lamp; the red lamp is the only possible explanation.



2.3.1 Unfortunately, to clearly state the case is to disprove it. While begging the question in this context, 2.1.2 is true - I can only investigate your consciousness because I have a consciousness.

2.3.2.1 Encoding is arbitrary.
    For a brain, like any computer, to enact the action of reaching out and turning on the lamp, the only requirement is that the input code causes that action. As a basic fact about wiring, any code can be converted to any other code, and arbitrary input codes can lead to arbitrary output codes.
So, for example, imagine a 'real' red-lamp code that, when fed into the motor cortex, causes lamp-turning-on. Imagine it must be first converted to a different, arbitrary code, to interface property with the motor cortex. Now imagine the visual cortex simply produces that different code in the first place. (Standardization across computers is hard. Standardization across brains is much harder.)
2.3.2.2 Put another way, can thought-codes be absolute? Can I wire up a red-lamp circuit and have it continually think of a red-lamp based on a constant input?
    Ockham's razor. Objective consciousness can be removed from the description without loss of information. You conclude the chunk of silicon is thinking of a red lamp. I reply by simply describing it at the electronic level. You say, "But that is a red lamp!" I reply, "No it isn't." However, my electronic description fully describes and predicts the circuit - the postulate of consciousness is in fact meaningless in this case.  

2.3.3 The conscious sections of human brains would have to be wired identically.
    Were someone's brain wired differently, I would have to conclude they are unconscious, or perhaps insane - even if they acted identically due to having properly-adjusted unconscious sections. To assume that the mind is the same as the brain is indeed to assume away the explanandum.

2.4.1 To check: is it indeed impossible to mistakenly observe epistemic subjectivity?
    The assumed facts: I perceive epistemic subjectivity, and I am wrong.
2.4.2 Am I perceiving that I perceive epistemic subjectivity? Can I be wrong about that?
    I think I'm perceiving that I perceive subjectivity, but I'm in fact perceiving that I perceive objectivity.
Am I in fact thinking that I perceive that I perceive subjectivity, or am I wrong? Etc...
In other words, it is indeed a contradiction. The chain either terminates at the epistemic subjective level, or runs off into an infinity of mistakenness, meaning nobody is in fact thinking the supposed thought.

The Mind

0.

What evidence or argument would convince you that consciousness is epistemically or ontologically subjective?

We can be sure that consciousness is ontologically subjective because it is epistemically subjective, or vice-versa. Or, can I indeed safely say that any theory of objective cause and effect can have consciousness elided from its elements without loss of predictive power?

Sections:

1. Objectivity and subjectivity
2. Existence of subjectivity
3. Objectivity of physics
4. Immediate conclusions
5. The consciousness device
6. Speculation

1.

Imagine a beautiful mountain.

The fact under consideration is that you find the mountain beautiful. This is not a property of the mountain, it is a property of your perception of the mountain - though we might wish that is it a function of the properties of the mountain. We commonly call this perception subjective. Is it truly subjective? Is that actually different from being objective?

Yes. Moreover, ontology impinges on epistemology and vice-versa. 

The perception has the property of total certainty. You cannot be mistaken about finding the mountain beautiful, as that would mean you saw something you find beautiful, and found it ugly, a straight-up contradiction. This is ontological subjectivity. The facts of the matter are determined by how they are perceived - the ontology is determined by epistemology. If you change your mind about the mountain being beautiful, it makes the mountain not-beautiful. If you forget the mountain, it becomes neither beautiful nor ugly, as no one is perceiving it.

This is fundamentally the opposite of ontological and epistemic objectivity. Objective epistemology is determined by ontology. When the observer of an objective fact makes a mistake, they're simply wrong.

When the observer stops observing an objective fact, the fact remains true, as can be verified by later observers noting its history of ongoing effects on the world. 

Objective facts are observable by multiple observers. It is impossible for two subjects to perceive a single subjective fact, as to be unmistakeable both subjects would have to have full control over the fact, which means one mind changing automatically changes the other - there is no distinction of mind, at least on this point. Telepathy is impossible, though I can't rule out hive-mind with this alone.

What would it mean to objectively observe an ontologically subjective fact? It would mean combining the property of being mistakable with that of being determined by observer, another direct contradiction.

What would it mean to subjectively observe an objective fact? This would be clairvoyance, the combination of unmistakableness and observable by others. How would the fact know to be unmistakable to you but not everyone else? By definition, objective facts are observer-independent - it would have to be unmistakable to everyone, another direct contradiction.

(These combined have the curious consequence that your subjective facts are, relative to me, objective facts.)


2.

Can subjectivity not exist? Perhaps I'm mistaken about that. Let's assume I am.

Can I be mistaken about my mistake? Can I think that I think subjectivity exists, but be wrong? If I'm not actually thinking subjectivity exists, then nothing is thinking it. Which would mean I'm not writing this article, which means nobody is, which means it isn't being written, which means you're not reading this.

Even if I assume away all supposed subjective entities, some must immediately re-appear. 


3.

The entire field of physics is objective.

A supposed physical object which others cannot observe is said to not exist.
First, no experiment on such an object would be replicable, and so it would be entirely non-predictive, and no devices could depend upon it. Going the other direction, no theory would fail an experimental test for not taking it into account.

A supposed objective entity which cannot be observed by someone, even in principle, cannot be observed by anyone. 


4.

Subjectivity exists.
Subjectivity does not physically exist.

Therefore, physicalism, secularism, and/or materialism are false.

Naturalism is more or less okay, as they've reduced the meaning of 'natural' to simply 'existent.' Any naturalist who is fine with expanding the set of concrete natural things can remain a naturalist.

Whether dualism is true depends on how you feel like defining 'substance.' I've found that using the idea of substance misleads me, at this level.


5.

For consciousness to meaningfully coexist with physics, they must somehow interact. If I have my logic right, this is also certain. The only alternative is epiphenomenalism, which means physics affects consciousness but not vice-versa, which means physics would be breaking Newton's third.

Therefore, there must be some entity which is both subjective and objective. Objectively, it will look like an open causal network. There will be some object which cannot determine its own state, but does so anyway. If we had a systematic description of consciousness, we could find a complementary loophole to this loophole in physics. Concretely we should be able to construct a consciousness device, and locate functional equivalents in human brains.

The device will have absolute, not relative, data signals. The device converts physical events into conscious events, and without 1 to 1 correspondance, it would violate causality. The signal that indicates a mountain must be identical, in some sense, across all such devices, or the consciousness would not know, or have any way to learn, what the signals were supposed to mean.

Having identified the devices, it will be possible to decode the signals by watching one function, and then feeding a signal into your own brain and seeing what it is. It will then be possible to objectively determine not only that a life-form is conscious, but what they are conscious of.


6.

One application of the theory: colours are the same for everyone. If you think you're seeing green, you can't be mistaken. Imagine two people seeing a green ball. They are both seeing green, they are both not mistaken. To say they're perceiving different things is to say they're exactly identical in every respect except the fundamental existence in question.
This should be separated from calling a thing green - it is easy to get disagreement on whether a ball should be called green or blue, but that's a connection between two facts, not a direct perception. Similarly, eyes vary somewhat, which means similar photons get decoded into slightly different experiences.

Most likely, only information can cross the objective/subjective barrier, as otherwise we have an energy conservation problem. 

If folk wisdom has indeed been mainly vindicated, it means consciousness is qualitative, in opposition to physics, which is quantitative.

The self is simply the set of all subjective entities. Other is straightforwardly all objective entities.

Subjectivity must run on different rules than physics, which means the set of cheap computations are different, which has direct adaptive benefits. There's no grandmother neurons - no single point which can distinguish between grandmother and grandfather, which means the brain as a whole can only distinguish these implicitly, which means it can't properly understand either. It isn't necessary, because the mind can distinguish them easily and then tell the brain. 

Salt vs. Consciousness

You've heard that variation within populations is larger than variation between populations. One consequence is that the right amount of salt for you in particular is say 80% likely to be far from the average. If your sodium regulation system cannot tell the voluntary muscle system how much salt to eat, then you cannot eat the right amount of salt, because nobody else knows how much it is. This also goes for how your internal signals manifest.

It seemed odd to me that some signals are labelled and some aren't until I went to write this sentence. For all the signals to be labelled, the genes would have to recognize everything in the environment, and would be helpless against chemical novelties. 




 Blarg. (Via.)

"I experienced no cravings even when my sodium intake was too low. I can’t just “listen to my body”."

As per standard evo/paleo principles, what would a hunter on the savanna have to guide them toward eating the right things? Moreover, absent puritanical, secular anti-consciousness, or authoritarian self-abnegation campaigns, they would have been listening to and thus learning about their internal signals since infancy.

It turns out that if you don't do something your entire life, and then suddenly try it once, you do it wrong. You might do this because you feel the need to disprove others, who are also doing it wrong but the other way around. (Hence scare quotes.) However, it is not then safe to conclude it is impossible.




I probably mis-estimate how difficult this question is, because I already know the answer. I don't get salt cravings until months into salt restriction, whereupon I start thinking fondly of Pringles, which I learned not on purpose and self-consciously, but by accident. For me, the salt signal is the taste of salt. If I'm low it is delicious, even straight. This reverses within about half a teaspoon, becoming bitter and terrible. You might think this is a palate interaction, but the amount I can have before it's gross doesn't reset the next day, or even that week.

I'm also like this with water. My thirst seems a little miscalibrated, I don't feel anything for low to moderate thirst until I pick up a glass and start drinking.

"Likewise, while the salt loading phase was difficult for the first two or three days, my taste rapidly adjusted to the added salt."

First he ate less salt than tasted good, then more. What would have happened if he had tried just right? It is hard for me to see this as accidental. How does it fail to occur to someone that the primary conscious impression of a thing is relevant to how you should behave toward it?

One of the things I learned through years of practicing it is that the signals are complex and sometimes the subtle notes are more important. The ache of a bruise is different from the ache of a used muscle is it not? Calling both 'pain' is hopelessly crude. Likewise, saying cookies taste 'good' to me is hopelessly crude. They have a characteristic burning sensation, and they sit poorly. There is 'good,' but it is shallow and reminds me of plastic for some reason. The burning sensation means I don't have to ask if restaurant meals have added sugar, because it shows up there too.

By contrast, for me, the right amount of salt is a symphony of good. I've also experienced adaptation to too much salt, but it acquires bad notes. Once I can stop I prefer no salt for some weeks. The thing to watch for here is psychosomatic influences, but psychosomatics have trouble surprising the mind in question.

"I would not necessarily call these “discoveries” but they are important observations that should be reported."

I can guarantee that he did not report the majority of his observations. If I were to go by his account, he either has almost no consciousness, or it did not react to these events. It did not apparently feel like much to eat different amounts of salt.

That said, this account corroborates my own experiences.




For comparison, I also get vegetable cravings, but only, again, after months of no vegetables at all. Ever looked at a raw broccoli and starting thinking impure thoughts?

I'm told unused neural connections are pruned in early adulthood. I wonder what happens to biofeedback circuits if they're being ignored.

"1. Salt restriction caused impaired thermoregulation."

Sea salt has iodine, and modern mined salt is iodized. Thermoregulation is partly the thyroid's job, and thyroid impairment is a symptom of iodine deficiency. I should stop forgetting to test this with some seaweed. I think I'll go fix this right now.