From: Chen Yixiong, Eric (cyixiong@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Sep 30 2001 - 23:57:21 MDT
Notes: New Sociologisticial Theorems at the middle part of this posting.
First, I must thank you for your patience, given the circumstances and your opinion. To reciprocate your patience I will also provide my own.
I must clarify that I do not intend to extinguish all irrationality, but manage it so that a more efficient society can form. Apparently, people often mistaken my intentions.
> >For instance, one of the basic requirements of rationality lies with the
> >concept of Intellicracy, where only the usefulness of the idea, not the
> >person proposing the idea, counts. How difficult would we find ourselves
> >to implement this?
>
> Actually here in the States we see quite a lot of this. Either political
> party may propose something and it has a chance of passing based on its
> support, not on who said it. The politician probably got the idea from a
> book, not out of his own head. So we have "think tanks" that produce
> papers and books proposing various ideas of varying rationality. Beyond
> that, anyone who publishes a book may be able to create a wave of
> popularity for his ideas, and see them come to pass. It's happened many
> times. It's up to the merit of the idea, not who said it.
I don't think so from what I read.
If America really ran in an Intellicratic fashion then I would not hear so much complains from people about bureaucracy and other abuses of Government power. In fact, the election system would most likely go away, replaced by the simpler and more effective Intellicratic process. We had not even talked about how people run businesses.
If people can call me naive to believe in a rational society, then I would find it more naive to believe our societies' political system exercises rationality.
> Game theory describes what has always existed. It is not a new
> thing. It is a new set of words to describe something old. In fact, before game
> theory, there were card sharks (cheaters). Human beings have mastered
> these things before they could measure them.
Not necessarily. Now that we know something explicitly, we can change our situation. For instance, after knowing mechanics you can design a machine even though you already roughly know the laws of physics (such as gravity). The same goes for the formulation of theories to explain something, from which you can predict behavior and design solutions.
> Eric, the problem is that there are data you are overlooking.
> Some people, like myself, can explain this without being angry or mean. Some
> can't. Some can see it clearly, some only feel it. I'm sure you've had
> the most trouble with those who get angry or merely feel it.
> However, they are right if what they say adds up to what I am saying in a rational
> manner: people are a certain way.
Yes, and I think they had overlooked data themselves, especially by not even reading my theory. Given a new set of assumptions, we can have a very different theory from what we once had. If they want to prove the theory wrong, I must see proof against the theory assumptions, not about their beliefs.
How can they say that without reading about my paper that it will not work, especially the assumptions section? I had considered the beliefs in widespread prevalence, and found that they had not considered the assumptions I made for my theory (or else I would not bother to implement this project to discover the principles of a rational society).
How do we judge competing theories who omit information? Perhaps we can only judge when one implements the proposals under question, but I definitely don't have the luxury for that (for if so I won't need to prove the theory so that I can acquire resources to build the society any more).
I do know that, if a theory does not work, then we ought to junk it. Furthermore, I also know that we cannot assume that majority opinion, or historical opinion, holds. I hereby challenge the skeptical to convince me to junk my theory, and those interested to defend it.
> Some things that sound okay in words would actually be like trying to
> reverse the direction of the flow of water. It sounds good, but it can't
> be done. There are forces (invisible) that would be against such an
> attempt. My claim is that human nature EVEN FOR AUTISTICS has
> such forces, and that it sounds like you are trying to ignore or minimize them.
However, water can flow uphill in certain circumstances. To one who does not have sufficient knowledge and technology, water can only flow downhill. Building pumps, pipes or even buckets, can make water "flow" uphill. If you have sufficient technology you might have the ability to use, say, acoustics to deliver energy to make some water actually flow uphill.
People once said that humans can't fly, because they don't have strong enough muscles to flap wings. However, humans did fly, but not in the way the ancients thought.
In addition, I happen to think that I follow the flow of water downstream while the rest attempts to ignore obvious truths, such as the problems of our society today, to continue with the social system today (though in different forms and variations).
<< I'll believe in a new system if I can see it produced logically in a few words. All truth is able to be expressed in brief terms (my assertion). >>
Due to your request, I will attempt with the following concerning the known, core ideas of Sociologistics, but not guarantee that I can word it adequately.
In a sentence: We can design a society to support self-actualization if it contains only rational people, and systems to support rational behavior.
Definition:
1) What can we call a society?
a. A collection of people living together to maximize their chances of achieving their own or collective goals
2) What can we call a rational society?
a. one that allows self-actualization via acquiring knowledge about the universe
b. one that operates efficiently to facilitate self-actualization
Assumptions:
1) One can form a rational society.
a. While humans and their current societies apparently behave randomly, even chaos has order. If one manages the level of chaos to one low enough, society would undergo a "phase shift" (like water freezing) and behaves in a stable and more predictable manner.
b. The difficulties in keeping rationality below the threshold limits may seem immense, but we can solve them partially by:
1) Accepting only rational people, thus functioning like an air-conditioner that removes excess heat.
2) Creating systems that support such behavior and discourage irrationality that could hamper its stability.
3) Managing residual irrational behavior that one cannot, or should not extinguish, for instance, creativity. Thus, one should have the freedom to behave irrationality as long as it does not cross the chaos threshold.
2) A society can support self-actualization.
a. To maximize self-actualization, the society must:
1) allow its inhabitants maximum freedom in their pursuits
i) thus, function with *minimum* interference on its inhabitants
2) provide a sanctuary that allows one to focus on self-actualization instead of survival, internal conflicts or other mundane issues
i) This means one does not need to bother about mundane issues, not that one does *not* have the freedom to do so. If some people like the survival and conflict-based system in anacho-capitalism, then they can choose *not* to join the rational society.
3) minimize regret, such that one can proceed via the fastest route to knowledge
i) by maximizing the free flow of knowledge
4) provide adequate training and guidance to those requiring and capable of it, to start the process of self-learning
Notes commenting on political system of other societies:
a. anarchy - a "non-system" of chaotic behavior.
1) Due to the advantages of social living, societies will form from this unstable system.
2) However, they would concern themselves with survival issues, not self-actualization.
b. capicracy - capitalism applied to decision making (a concept defined in the Sociologistics theory)
1) This system provides a simple, distributed way to manage a society
2) However, the system can experience the following abuses:
i) an over-emphasis on personal profit over common good, discouraging self-actualization by promoting an adversarial attitude
ii) large inequities in terms of opportunities provided for self-actualization
iii) inefficiency can result from:
- preventing the free flow of information and sharing of resources to maintain an advantage over others
- focusing on the prevention of competition rather than on winning them
- with incomplete information, prone to "out-of-system" manipulations such as deceit and commercial propaganda
c. dictatorship -
1) This system promotes the goals of the dictator(s), not self-actualization
2) inefficiencies can result from bad management and planning by centralized decision
3) Works best in (forcefully) low information flow societies with good, capable dictators who do care for their people, or otherwise will experience difficulty managing information
d. democracy -
1) Works best with perfect information and rational people
2) With imperfect information and/or irrational subject to "out-of-system" manipulations such as deceit
3) Subject to the restrictions of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem
4) Allows the opinion of the majority to override that of the minority, causing conflicts of interest that can affect efficiency
e. intellicracy -
1) Works for people, but variety of decisions one can decide limited by Godel's Theorem
2) Actual implementation may require a combination with democracy and/or other systems
3) Supports self-actualization by encouraging learning and minimizing regret
4) Does not bother about other's opinions, but the actual merits of ideas, minimizing conflicts of interests and irrational behavior
Some Theorems:
1) If a society does to aim to achieve any purpose in particular, then the society will not function for any purpose, except perhaps those to further biological desires such as the desire to dominate others.
This, applied to real world society, means that a society without true purpose would tend to further the goals of those who happen to control it. A society which aims to provide for the benefit of all will fail too, because we have conflicting goals.
2) Humans have the ability to circumvent any system that uses any system of rules, since Godel's Theorem forbids any complete and yet consistent system, and humans can think outside Godel's Theorem.
This means that one cannot rely on any system, to function by itself, to enforce its sets of rules upon humans. Capicracy, anacho-capitalism, socialism (both classical and applied) and democracy, as well as many others, will fail too.
3) Any open system, such as that of a human society, operates according to rules that arise due to its structures. The rules it operate on arise naturally, and while humans can attempt to minimize these rules, they must still exist even if in a different form. They will not necessarily resemble the human-constructed rules such as laws of a legal system.
This means that one can make a good design for a society, but one cannot assume that only the rules one set will hold.
4) A good design for a society must consider these rules and ensure that people cannot easily exploit these rules for their own benefit. An excellent design, meanwhile, would ensure that people will not even bother to exploit these rules. For efficient and effective functioning, one must design as much of the system rules into the system operation itself, instead of invoking another sub-system to solve the problem.
For instance, if one has to divide a piece of cake evenly among two squabbling siblings, the good method would suggest locating an impartial judge to divide the cake. Meanwhile, the excellent method would instruct one of the siblings, selected at random (such as by a dice toss) would cut the cake in half and the other free to choose one of the two pieces.
5) People who play according to Game Theory in maximizing their own benefit even at the great expense of welfare to others do not play rationally, under the definition of Sociologistics. When a large percentage of people do so, this actually decreases one's welfare.
A society that wishes to achieve its goals, cannot afford such inefficiency. However, if a society does not have any particular goals except those irrelevant to its operations such as benefiting people who exercise control of it, then such activity can occur and society will tolerate them.
6) All the phenomena that occurs in an open system arises from the rules contained within itself and their interaction with the outputs of other systems. Hence, all the "problems" the system has arises from the rules a system operates on and we can influence them by changing the rules under our control (i.e. the "visible" rules we set for a society).
Even if one cannot understand how society actually works, one can at least take action to let a society achieve certain goals. One cannot blame the fault on specific people, such as "lazy" students who flunk examinations or "immoral" people who do not help the needy. The fault lies with the design of the system which sustained and continues to sustain such behavior.
Of course, this means that the leaders of the society has as much responsibility and share of blame as a doctor who refuses to perform the required surgery to remove cancerous tumors from a patient under his or her care.
7) If we change nothing in a system, and assuming that no inputs from other system change, then a system will continue to operate in the same way as it does before. This means that if one does not confront a problem by taking appropriate action by changing one's current behavior, then the problem will continue to persist.
History will repeat itself if no change occurs. If one keeps doing the same thing, one will always get the same problem.
8) An efficient system will respond to changes as fast as it can so that it can change its behavior to gain advantages or to prevent losses to the changes. This will happen even to the extent of creating an entirely new system structure. However, systems whose goals aim to promote the welfare of the individuals who control it over others will change more slowly or not at all, for these systems wish to retain the old social structure as much as possible.
We can understand why governments around the world refuse to change their policies to benefit their people, and surround themselves with a huge mass of organizations we call bureaucracy. They want to stay in power, and the system allows that.
9) General, self-assertive and ambiguous opinions about society, such as the concept of "rights", have nothing to do with designing societies, and neither does the concept that one cannot design a society. These only show social biases one will inevitably receive when living in irrational societies. Social systems will arise and exist whether we deny their existence or not.
Readers, if you wish to solve our social problems, please refuse permission for your emotions and biases to condemn you to considering limited classes of possible solutions. Like those who debate how many angels can dance on the pin, it takes one to ask if angels does really exist to settle the debate.
10) According to Godel's Theorem, one cannot design a system that has completeness and consistency at the same time.
This means that utopia-type, anacho-capitalist, democratic and other kinds of systems must fail to achieve its goals if it wishes to cater for all people. I set a less ambitious goal to construct a rational society that has only rational people. To do otherwise would mean seeking the impossible. The quest for the solution to design systems that cater to all people has no solutions at all, unless you allow inconsistencies that will *go against* the goals of your society.
Please note that while we can classify Arrow's Impossibility Theorem as a subset of Godel's Theorem, the latter does not represent the former.
> Actually, that's an invitation, because I have not read your main plan,
> only ancillary ones such as transportation. Can you put the
> concept into a few words, and especially into a logical structure of binary
> possibilities as I did?
I find it highly unfortunate that I had *not* completed the theory yet to give you a concise definition, especially in developing a system that allows one to place statements into logic easily. I realize that it could take decades or even a few lifetimes of work to make the whole project work, and thus I hope to have someone to share the load with me.
The theory covers so many fields and topics that it could, in theory, take a few centuries to learn all the knowledge needed to compile it. I hope my attempts do not disappoint those of you who read so far.
<< Rhetoric. I love it too, but it's not an argument. I think you are expressing your own frustration. Tied up in this is your frustration with Singapore and the military draft, and it's no wonder that you are frustrated. This is not a matter of leisure-time discussion for you, it has a more personal importane. >>
Yes, I think this concerns the future of our societies. I understand that every revolution will pose a huge challenge to its originator, especially in both the absolute and relative number of hard-core skeptics, for we don't call such events as "revolutions" for nothing.
Actually I could had just shut up and hide the theory like what Newton did. However, like Plato, I think I have a responsibility to share my work with others, and to ensure that enough of it remains in public knowledge if I suffer any mishap and cannot continue.
Most importantly, this does not merely concern personal feelings. It has implications much wider than that, even if the project originated due to personal feelings.
<< I'm sorry if in any way I increase your frustration. If it is too difficult, I will just bow out of this and decline to respond, because already I don't like the job I am trying to do. >>
I don't know how I should respond to this. Perhaps I should shut up attempting to explain and concentrate on making the theory work first. But then, if some have the true willingness to hear then I have the willingness to explain, because I have a responsibility to transmit this knowledge to others.
I had heard of inventors who founded or helped to found some of the fields of inquiry we study today, went crazy when people persistently refuse to believe in their theories and inventions. I hope I will not suffer the same fate.
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