Science began with, and ends with, measuring … the measuring to verify the possible truth of ontological speculations.
True Science = “I’ll believe it when I see it personally and can’t calculate any way to doubt it”.
Hey, that’s the way I think. Maybe I’m kind of a scientist after all - except for the "believe’ thingy. When I see it, I’ll know it.
Hi James 
James
When you see it you will think that you know it-- and that’s your belief.
OK, you supposedly know what relates to your position better than I do. So, if I put words in your mouth, that’s my bad. Therefore, I could have been “erring” as you say.
Not to that I am looking for a cheap excuse, but I guess that my lack of understanding can be also partially explained by the fact that what you meant was not thoroughly clear to me.And it remains so.
First of all, what is a ‘value’ and what is ‘valuing’?
“Value” is ubiquitously flected in your lines and yet it is not really clear what it means.
Sometimes you explain yourself:
But then things get tricky:
So there would be a coincidence between ‘subconscious valuing’ and the organism. The words “organism” and “fibers” suggest that there is a physical support that has a primal - and probably only - activity: ‘valuing’ (yet it is not clear what the organism’s fibers are valuing - and how they do it)…
The belonging of ‘valuing’ to the physical realm is somehow corroborated, i.e. demonstrated (“in term of quantities”):
Frankly, the passage above is quite obscure to me (and it’s not the only one), I do not know what physics of “the necessary reciprocity between context and power” you refer to - here and elsewhere some reference would be helpful. (Anyway, it seems quite acceptable that if there is a powerstruggle there have to be parties involved and/or that the powerstruggle itelf may be viewed as a sort of ‘entity’ - even if that would be more pertaining to political science than to physics).
The relationship between ‘subconscious valuing’ and ‘self-valuing’ is not really clear, one would presume that ‘subconscious valuing’ is wholly endogenous and self-valuing is the ‘standard’ against which everything is valued. However it is not clear if ‘self-valuing’ is an a priori or not - probably not, or it could be a hybrid where values (wherever are they from) are placed into to some structure. Regardless it seems sufficiently clear that all types of ‘-valuing’ (‘subconscious valuing’, ‘self-valuing’, and possibly others) precede, in all senses, every other ‘faculty’ or component in men (perception too?), such as will and, definitely, consciousness. On this you’re adamant:
But… well… maybe not:
This ‘requirement’ seems at odds with the way you have presented ‘-valuing’ so far, it’s indeed perplexing coupled with “consciousness relies wholly on valuing”. Maybe, as this is ‘self-valuing’ and not ‘valuing’, there is something (which I do not know) that can readily explain that. However, as ‘self-valuing’ is “the self-sustaining standard”, which implies from my point of view that it should require nothing but itself, some perplexity remains. And it’s not clear why this “first type of self-valuing” would require consciousness… And it’s not clear how that is supposed to work… But I’ll get at it later.
Anyway, at least in this case, we have ‘-valuing’ where consciousness is required, ‘-valuing’ that can’t be without consciousness.
Then, but this is more a kind of curiosity, ‘first’ with respect to what?
The scientific method can be traced back to Galileo (or maybe Archimedes) and, given that it is “the first type of self-valuing that properly requires consciousness”, one wonders if consciousness has ever been required for other types of ‘self-valuing’ during the several millennia that preceded Galileo (or Archimedes). Maybe there was no ‘self-valuing’ and yet ‘self-valuing’, “where the forces converge and for an impression, which is the ‘self’”, seems to have always been there.
Or maybe ‘first’ does not mean ‘first in time’, but, then, how is it ‘first’?
However, the question about ‘first’ is accessory, what appears more relevant is a proper understanding of what you mean by ‘value’ (‘valuing’, ‘self-valuing’, etc.).
Using a common acception, ‘valuing’ means that someone makes an assessment on how much ‘value’ something has, and often this amount of value is denoted by ‘good’ (better, best) or ‘bad’ (worse, worst). In ordinary speech ‘valuing’ means attributing a quality to something, the judgement on the degree of some attribute of something - something that must be given, present, already there somehow.
Likewise it’s not thoroughly clear what you mean by ‘method’ and ‘standard’. These concepts usually fall in a semantic area overlapping ‘rule’, ‘procedure’ and criteria (and that was what ‘self-valuing’ looked like when you introduced it). They generally rely on conventions accepted, established, enforced by a community. I do not think anyone would ever require a standard to be objective per se, unless ‘objective’ is taken for ‘shared’, widely recognized, expected under normal circumstances.
Surely you have not to conform to this, but then it would help if you make clear what you actually mean.
Regardless how much science can be characterized exclusively as a method, if ‘self-valuing’ is a standard, then one might understand how come science as a method can be viewed as ‘self-valuing’. Whether by applying the scientific method it is produced what man knows as his consciousness… well, it’s one more thing I wonder where it comes from - by the way, I don’t think it’s been designed for that. Besides, I don’t know if it is figurative speech, but here it is said that the method is what values and neither a standard nor a method are commonly though of as being endowed with agency. ‘Self-valuing’ is represented by means of the image of a ‘lens’ and ‘explained’ as “the place where the forces converge”, not as something active.
If ‘self-valuing’ is not an active principle, who or what applies this standard? Is that why consciousness is required? So that we would have something that may occasionally be an effect of ‘self-valuing’ that then applies ‘self-valuing’? Or is it the organism, ‘subconscious valuing’, that requires consciousness (an effect of ‘self-valuing’) in order to apply ‘self-valuing’?
Checking on your statement closely, one would understand that the scientific method, which is ‘self-valuing’ requiring consciousness, would value man and the world in terms of itself. Which means…? in terms of how much scientific method (‘self-valuing’+ consciousness) it finds in man and the world? Thereby man (as what? as a method? as consciousess?) would “know” his consciousness as a degree of compliance to the scientific method?
This degree of compliance (if that is what it is) would be “the consistency within its being-conscious” (that which I interpret as the “form” of man’s consciousness). And “this is why human consciousness is subservient to science”. But given that human consciousness “relies wholly on valuing”, as science is ‘self-valuing’ (“which only in rare instances is as complex to result in the phenomenon of consciousness”), assuming that the sentence “There is no self beyond the methods one employs to sustain this self” may be related to this, could have that be different? In your view consciousness is necessarily subservient to some ‘-valuing’.
Moreover, it seems compatible with your concept of ‘valuing’ that what is a method is “pure motive” (which to me means ‘nothing but motive’):
So we would have a “pure motive” “that properly requires consciousness” which values man and the world (and the scientist too) in terms of itself, i.e. in terms of pure motive. Well… OK. And a motive for what?
However, problems with understanding your concept of valuing arise also in a larger picture, without trying to make sense out of the quotes.
From your statements above one could infer that there is no knowledge that is not ‘valuing’. But that is not really clear either, and I find almost impossible to carry on an analysis without making unwarranted conjectures.
That’s quite unfortunate indeed, because my “erring” could have been better addressed if the question of knowledge was addressed. For what I have found - or, better, that I believe I found - I think there’s a considerable problem of intelligibility - and I don’t even attempt to get into “standards of events progression”, “cohesion of the competing terms”, “qualitative reciprocities”, “the perspective of measurement as a standard”, and many, many others.
No, not really. Definitely not all of it.
However, actually you were right inasmuch as the “rhetorical phantom” was not targeting you specifically - but that was acknowledged before it was “into being”. Yet, after reading your last post, I do not think at all that you are so exempt from my remarks.
I guess there’s been a misunderstanding between us. I guessed that “perimeter of truth value” hinted to some epistemological subject that may find a partial expression in Popper’s problem of demarcation. Now I think that your ‘-valuing’ has nothing to do with it - and, if it does, I could not detect it.
The “central assumption” “that values are a property of consciousness” has never been made. It was all about knowledge. Frankly there was no focus on values. However, yes, values may have a non-conscious influence, even a preponderant non-conscious influence, values can represent a non-conscious motive for an action instead of another, they can actually be disguised as ‘free will’ (yet that is not the same as claiming that any will is a function of values). I have no problem with that. I can also live with positing ‘subconscious’ value assessments. That said I have not a definite position about that, for various reasons, mostly that I do not think that consciousness is a discrete state, so that one either is wholly conscious or is ‘subconscious’. In that respect there might be even contact points with your view, but that would be a most tricky assessment for me. Anyway, I surely do not see ‘values’ as having an exclusively endogenous origin (actually I would rather say the opposite, but it should be first made clear what is exactly we are referring to by ‘values’).
My point was that the subject doesn’t own his thoughts, hence not even knowledge. To support this view I can easily refer, among possible others, to BGE, I, 16-17 (please bear with me, I have this annoying habit of providing references). It seems to me that you don’t come from this point of view. There’s this scenario with these “organisms” busy with ‘valuing’ and nothing else… It seems that everything (hence I infer knowledge too) comes from this valuing entity, while I see the presumed subject as continously transpierced by ‘influences’ that can’t be traced back to its organism (or anything internal), being it the master of none of them, being it no agent at all - even if one’s consciousness testifies differently.
Moreover, all questions about inter-subjectivity seem to be simply ignored in your view (maybe ‘Napoleon representing a perspective’ was meant to touch on that, but, whatever that means, I could not see any relevance in it), to the point that one may wonder how could you ascertain that the scientific method is the same for everyone (which in fact cannot be ascertained when looking at it as quid facti, instead of quid juris - reference here is Popper’s Logic of Scientific Discovery, Part I).
Then I argued that your criticism of science is ideological, and I surely maintain that. Actually, I’ll take the opportunity for a tad of refinement: it is ‘pure’ ideology.
Your portrait of the scientist ‘valuing’ “himself in terms of this motive, this is his happiness, his consciousness, his humanity” shows quite well why I think so. It’s not only what you say - which does not go any further than preaching to the converted, because it’s too much paroxysmal to be considered seriously by anyone else - it’s the way it’s brought forward, without the slightest support of observations, analysis, references… in contempt of semantics and logical consistency. Really, it’s hard to have any doubt about that, it’s pretty evident.
Responding in name of my alter ego Jakob.
Oh, too bad.
Something like “air”
Something like “breathing” or “integrated, working set of lungs”
Or “a being”.
In case of an organism, a rather large one, yes.
Oh that would be the fact that if I have a man with a wooden hammer and a set of eggs, the power is differently defined than when I have the same man and wooden hammer next to an array of concrete pillars.
Perhaps it would seem to do that to a political scientist, but not to a physicist.
People without a physics education usually think of objects as hermetically self-enclosed ‘balls of stuff’ or whatever. They’re actually aggregates of forces, and for a large part they will be forces that contradict.
Their contradiction is what makes them stick together. Weird right? But look at the combination of man and woman and you will get the idea.
You are indeed a bit confused.
You may want to reread the words “first type” and try to fit them into the sentence where you found them.
Consciousness is predicated on self valuing, of which values are both reflection and substance.
Ponder…
But as being is always self valuing, even conscious being can be a condition on which further being is grounded!
I had very clearly qualified this as a type of self valuing. Not as the general term self valuing.
Did you really miss that? Perhaps I did overestimate you - I came into this with a solid respect for you. Perhaps too much.
That seems pretty much evident in the case of scientific method, does it not?
On the other hand, in the case of breathing, it is different, is it not?
Understanding scientific method is not about naming some of its pioneers. Please stick to what the method actually is, and you will see why it requires consciousness. You may also see why it is distinctly different from other types of measuring methods, and why it fully requires consciousness in order to be effective, whereas a valuing method like, say, to smell to find out if something attracts, does not.
Scientific method requires that one places oneself out of the equation for the moment. That requires self-awareness, awareness of what one is.
A first order of a certain contextual complexity that is sufficient to have this requirement.
I thought you were something of an expert on Nietzsche.
A man can not escape his values, which means that he basically is his values, or rather he is a “holding-values” or a “valuing”.
Consciousness is a flimsy layer on top of vast machinery/polis of valuing, which implicitly, as it holds itself together, is a self-valuing.
So no, valuing is not the utilitarian, consumer-society kind of deal you seem to want to make it out to be. It runs a bit deeper.
I do not conform to any of this, no.
I will try to keep it very simple, as I do not subscribe to your philosophical pantheon of famous terms and heroes.
A standard is a form of being.
A metod is a way of acting.
Indeed. This is the first juncture at which you seem to understand me.
What you are used to “commonly thinking” is of no concern to me. You are speaking gibberish. Stick to the hard logic you were in touch with for a second there.
It is not?
What is “action” if not “being”?
Or do you believe in a prime mover?
What “god”, you mean?
Like “what came before the Big Bang”?
What is it really that you are inquiring after?
Here you are totally lost. It has nothing to do anymore with what I have written.
I said that scientific method requires consciousness. Indeed this method is a form of self valuing, as it values all that it encounters in terms of its own standard, and thereby secures its own continued existence.
Not at all. It means that it registers certain data, values, and disregards others.
This is certainly the case. A true scientist will know himself foremost in terms of his science, much like a true musician knows himself foremost interns of music. And yet music does not require what science requires. But yes, man is largely a property of the type of powers he is endowed with, thus the kind of values he can attain and predicate. The kind of being to which he is a standard, etc.
Of course.
Control through understanding.
(total integration into ones ‘syntax of power’ - but disregard that if it is too cryptic for you)
No Popper did not figure into my thinking at all. In fact I downright disagree with him.
His approach to science was downright anti-logical.
Science is not a haphazard heap of assertions that we experimentally compare. It’s based on contemplation of the subject/object relation, i.e. on rudimentary formal logic.
May ?
Do you breathe when asleep?
Is oxygen of value to you?
Where did you suddenly come up with free will?
Will free of what? If being is will to power – should the will be free from its being?
Either/or? How would that work?
There is no consciousness without a subconsciousness.
Origin? What is the origin of will to power? What are you asking?
What matters is that these are in fact in-fluences.
That is: that they flow-into ‘something’, a perspective.
A selfvaluing is a perspective. A perspective has to self-value in order to ‘refer reality to itself’, i.e. to be a perspective.
This made me laugh out loud. Follow this though and you are on the verge of understanding why the scientific method requires consciousness.
In other words, you didn’t understand. It is a bit disgraceful of you to blame that on me. A more dignified response would have been preceded by some reflection and perhaps some research.
Well, maybe ‘cryptic’ is not exactly the word I would use, but… anyway… motion is passed.
My field of truth sets its boundary at knowledge and excludes all belief, and speculation, which exist at the periphery of the field awaiting verification, so the the fence posts can be moved out. There are some areas where the fences have been let down to examine if the area of speculation is worthy of inclusion.
Knowledge is constructed under strict rules of observation, and inference. Within the field of knowledge there exist small enclaves of fuzzy knowledge that are bounded by internal fences. These are treated with skepticism, but can be allowed, at times, to be offered as tentative suggestions where they support more concrete areas of knowledge.
Faith plays no part in my system of enclosure, except in the more mundane sense of ‘trust’. Those seen as sharing my system of truth can be speculatively trusted to offer accurate knowledge and evidence, subject to verification, and scrutiny. This includes observational material that seems true , but which I can have no direct experience of. For example, I have never seen Peru. The evidence of Peru is great, and there is no one trying to tell me Peru is a fiction. I have no problem ‘trusting’ this information.
It is always important to remain skeptical. I can appear anti-science at times, especially at the boundaries of common sense, and with the knowledge that there is much fraudulent science out there. Many scientists rely on faith and belief which forge assumptions that guide them to look at at problem from a deductive pre-decided position; they take on the pressure of the crowd.
Where I might seem anti-science is not an excuse to fill up the empty space with bullshit, as many in the anti-science lobby seem to want to. Empty and speculative spaces must remain empty and not filled up with attractive “alternatives”.
Nonetheless. The area of knowledge bounded by “information” (stuff taken as true for which no direct experience is had) is vast. The truth, of information can factually change, and must be renewed when possible.
Struggle of drives … only if you deny will and mind. How comes that animals dont have this problem?
Yes Attano; that was a euphemism for “demanding”. I had hoped you’d read a challenge in it. That is my greatest error, always been. Overestimating my conversation partners. I am quite seriously hurt that you turn out to be so banal and dumb.
So attanos perimeter of truth value, much like that of so many other humans, is simply “that which I do not understand doesn’t have substance”. To be fair, that does answer the OPs question. Sickeningly cowardly as it is, I’ll make a note of it.
Nietzsche is new to you too, I see. Funny, I took both you and Attano for avid readers of his.
Fair as principle. But practically speaking, what are these rules?
Is it fair it say that despite the fact that you’ve not set foot on Peruvian soil, Peru has played enough of a part in your life to be a manifest reality?
This makes sense to me. Science is a method (involving specifically isolation and quantification), and its practitioners accept only that which can be made evident using this particular method.
And yet all great scientists have been the ones that stepped out of the already existent ‘perimeter’ and established new ‘fields’ in which truth statements can be made. But such scientists are value creators and need to be discerned from the lab-workers who perpetuate the existent truths and truth-values and interpret them into any phenomenon that does not completely resist or negate them. Phenomena which do resist these truths are disregarded as aberrations or illusions.
Bottom line, science is very selective about truth.
Agreed - but I think that would require filling up some of that empty space. Still, that is precisely why these spaces need to be kept pure, and why speculation is, indeed, taboo here.
Perhaps it was not a wrong conclusion, at least about me, but the Interpretation is where you are lacking connection. Nietzsche writes in riddles, he gives the question in one book and the answer in another.
That is why it takes so long for the people to discover him.
But life is simple: if the goal is missing then the means struggle with each other i. e. become goals in itself. Each drive becomes egoistical. Just like an army when it loses it’s commander, the best man or the king, it usually dissolutes.
So is it in every democracy, people lose their minds (organizing power) and their soul dissolutes into “drives”. Can you imagine how it is when a person drives in all directions at once? Then it stays in one place with a bottle of alcohol.
Let me demonstrate Nietzsche’s Riddliciousness:
If this means anything to you, N’s needs to be read and understood properly … till the end. What if he did read Vollgraff before his 18th year? How do you explain so many similar attitudes between N and V?
You think that what the masses repeat on your Haha forum “is Nietzsche”! HaHa!
Thankfully yes. Truth has to fit the evidence, or as they used to say ‘save the appearances’. Where great scientists have stepped outside the perimeter, it has been to test for best fit, new ‘laws’ or truths that dovetail with evidence.
Phenomena that don’t fit are not simply resisted or ignored but new truths are sought to accommodate them.
The danger can be that the recognition of phenomena come replete with theory simply in the way that they are described, any description is a theory, not without a bias, or assumption behind it. This is the danger of the deductive ruling over the inductive.
As for Peru. I would have to consider the gargantuan efforts required for the rest of the world to maintain this as a fiction; against the simple idea that Peru might exist. So I accept it does.
cia.gov/library/publication … os/pe.html
This website alone, would make me wonder how they had managed to create this fiction, and for what benefit?