My paper How We Come To Own Ourselves, Mises Daily (Sep. 7, 2006; Mises.org blog discussion) has been nicely narrated, with helpful but unobtrusive slides, by Graham Wright.
From Mises Blog 2006; archived version comments below. See also Rothbard on Libertarian “Space Cadets”.
Don’t worry–you don’t exist: Or, why long-range planning is really impossible
November 6, 2006 by Stephan Kinsella
I previously blogged about one of the papers by attorney Peter Jenkins. Now, from the “uhhhhh…. HO-kay” files comes his latest, in the Journal of Futures Studies, Historical Simulations – Motivational, Ethical and Legal Issues. Abstract:
A future society will very likely have the technological ability and the motivation to create large numbers of completely realistic historical simulations and be able to overcome any ethical and legal obstacles to doing so. It is thus highly probable that we are a form of artificial intelligence inhabiting one of these simulations. To avoid stacking (i.e. simulations within simulations), the termination of these simulations is likely to be the point in history when the technology to create them first became widely available, (estimated to be 2050). Long range planning beyond this date would therefore be futile.
Shades of Douglas Adams! Forget “in the long run we are all dead”–we are just a simulation. So, no need to worry.
Update: The Universe as a Hologram: Does Objective Reality Exist, or is the Universe a Phantasm?
Update 2: Our world may be a giant hologram
Update 3: Our Universe May Be a Giant Hologram.
Updates:
- Barry Smith on Artificial Intelligence— the book “Demolishes the idea that we might already be living in a simulation”
- Sabine Hossenfelder, “No, we probably don’t live in a computer simulation“
- Ron Garret, The Quantum Conspiracy: What Popularizers of QM Don’t Want You to Know–claiming the universe is a high-quality simulation–the “zero-universe” hypothesis, which he “prefers” to the multiple-universe hypothesis; one of these is true but the “single-universe” notion is definitely wrong. Yeah.
- These types of people are subject to good criticism from:
-
- David Harriman, The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics, esp. ch. 7, “The Role of Mathematics and Philosophy”
- David Kelley, Foundations of Knowledge lecture series, esp. #4, Skepticism
- see also C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” and Misesian Dualism and Engineers’ Syndrome
-
- Tony Ho Tran, “HARVARD SCIENTIST SUGGESTS THAT OUR UNIVERSE WAS CREATED IN A LABORATORY,” Futurism.com (10/16/21)
- Physicist: The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network
- Our Universe Is A Gigantic And Wonderfully Detailed Holographic Illussion
- More absurdity: Reality is a computer projection: physicists: What we call reality might actually be the output of a program running on a cosmos-sized quantum computer
- Are We Living Inside a Computer Simulation? Ray Villard, Discovery NewsDate: 17 December 2012 Time: 10:48 AM ET
- And: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time.
- Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram.
- We All Might Be Living in an Infinite Hologram.
- There Is Growing Evidence that Our Universe Is a Giant Hologram
- You are a Simulation & Physics Can Prove It: George Smoot at TEDxSalford
- Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It’s ‘Very Likely’ The Universe Is A Simulation
- Odds are we’re living in a simulation, says Elon Musk: But that’s better than being dead, By Rich McCormick,
- Philip K. Dick Theorizes The Matrix in 1977, Declares That We Live in “A Computer-Programmed Reality”
- See also Michael Huemer, Reincarnation: “This follows up on my earlier posts about time and eternal recurrence: If time is 2-way infinite and there is eternal recurrence, then I think persons are reincarnated. Each person has lived before and will live again, infinitely many times. Here is a paper I wrote explaining this: https://philpapers.org/rec/HUEEIE …
- Premise: There is a nonzero initial probability that persons are repeatable (can have multiple lives).
- Also, the probability that you would be alive now given that persons are repeatable is nonzero.
- Evidence: You are alive now.”
This seems ridiculous to me, so ridiculous I can’t get past the first few sentences to be sure.
Comments (21)
The Capital Free Press has compiled a list of the top ranked “libertarian websites based on the number of unique visitors in the most recent month according to the data compiled by Compete.” The post is pasted below. Not surprisingly, LewRockwell.com is the most visited libertarian site. Four of my own sites made the list: StephanKinsella.com (#84), Libertarian Papers (#100), The Libertarian Standard (#75), and Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF, #78).
The Most Visited Libertarian Websites
Automating everything means that adding a new website is as simple as plugging a new url into my list, so you have any suggestions for a website to add, please email me at [email protected].
Due to the restrictions on the free use of the Compete API, there is a chance that I could run out of API calls in a 24 hour period (resets at midnight EST). The way that I compile this list and the terms and conditions on the use of their API prevent me from displaying the number of unique visitors for each website in the chart, though that information and more can be accessed via the link I have provided. [continue reading…]
An old LRC post about a great Stephen Cox review.
Cox on Holzer on Thomas and Libertarian Centralism
Posted by Stephan Kinsella on April 23, 2007 11:15 AM
Stephen Cox has an excellent review in the latest Liberty of Henry Mark Holzer’s recent book The Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas, 1991–2006: A Conservative’s Perspective. Cox’s review, entitled The Constitution and Its Emanations, does a good job of skewering the dishonest, confused, results-oriented libertarian critiques of Supreme Court jurisprudence; he sounds suspiciously like a decentralist libertarian, as well. Note, e.g., the distinction Cox makes between “result libertarianism” and “process libertarianism”:
My money is with the process libertarians. I believe that the practical losses one may suffer by being on their side are vastly outweighed by the practical gains. State constitutions are strong on certain individual liberties, and the federal Constitution is in most respects a model of libertarian thought. To interpret these documents fairly, giving their words the sense that their authors intended, is good for the cause of liberty, in the short term, usually, and in the long term, almost always. Granted, the First Amendment’s guarantee that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” comes far short of erecting a “wall of separation” between church and state (Thomas Jefferson’s phrase [1802], not in the Constitution). But I’m not much troubled by “In God We Trust” on our coins, or the eye of God on the Great Seal of the United States. If you are, I think you’ve got too much time on your hands.
That last line is hilarious. Also:
It is simply breathtaking, the degree to which presumed supporters of civil liberties have gone in amending the Constitution by judicial interpretation. I am, by profession, a literary historian and critic, and I know I would be laughed out of my profession if, when I interpreted texts, I took the kind of freedoms with fact and logic that judges, lawyers, and professors of law routinely take when they interpret the Constitution. To preserve some minimal reputation for honesty, I try to make my interpretations represent the meanings that are actually present in the texts I study. I realize that good authors often create intentional ambiguities, and bad authors often create unintentional ones, but I make every attempt to avoid replacing even those ambiguities with the meanings that I myself would prefer to see.
If only more con law professors had as much common sense.
An old LRC post:
Holzer, Animal
Posted by Stephan Kinsella on January 19, 2006 10:41 PM
Re Holzer (2, 3)–note that he’s that rare Randian, an animal rights advocate (2). So let’s see, as a Randian we can presume he is pro-abortion, believing it’s not even immoral to abort a mere “piece of protoplasm,” as Rand, the former piece of protoplasm, put it; … so it’s okay to kill fetuses, nuke innocent children, and torture possibly innocent suspects. But animals have rights! Whooppeee!
Update: See Objectivist Hate-Fest; Liberals and Abortion on TV and Films.
I read a comment by Buckley long ago, regarding advice he had gotten from John Braine (author of How to Write a Novel): that in writing a novel, “the reading public expects one coincidence and is cheated if it isn’t given one, but scorns two.” I’ve always thought that was brilliant. And it’s right: I can tolerate one coincidence in a novel; more than that is annoying. It becomes like John Carter in the boring, serial Mars books. Not sure if you have to have one coincidence, but probably so–otherwise, it’s more like a real-life story, which usually have no designed, plot-like arc. (This is probably one reason I have always tended to dislike movies based on real events such as someone’s life–if they are true to real life, then they will usually have no cinematic story-like arc, no “plot”–just a series of events that tell facts that actually happened in reality; if they are interesting, they probably fiddled with the truth to make it more movie-like, which also bugs me. I’d rather see a documentary or read a biography or history book.)
Here’s an excerpt of an interview with Buckley containing this comment:
INTERVIEWER
Did you say once that when you decided to write a novel John Braine sent you a book on how to write one?
BUCKLEY
We were friends. … So he used to write me regularly, and I had lunch with him once or twice in London; he was on my television program, along with Kingsley Amis. … when I sent him a letter saying that I was going to write a novel, he said, Well, I wrote a book on how to write a novel, and here it is. So I read it.
INTERVIEWER
Was it helpful?
BUCKLEY
I remember only one thing—which doesn’t mean that I wasn’t influenced by a hundred things in it—but he said that the reading public expects one coincidence and is cheated if it isn’t given one, but scorns two.
My 8 year old recently brought home a few haikus he wrote at school. (A haiku is a type of Japanese poetry where you have 3 lines, with 5, 7, and 5 “on” (like a syllable); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
My favorite is “Books”:
Books
Books. Books. Their knowledge.
Information flows through me.
The knowledge of books.
Others:
River
Its current flows fast.
The river rushes swiftly.
Its cool, sweet water.
Humans
I am one of them.
Some of them work all day long
You are one of them.
Air
It flies everywhere
It gives humans oxygen
We need it to live
Interesting piece in The Daily Bell: Mr. Goldberg Apologizes for His Mises/Phone Booth Crack?. Apropos this, see my 2001 LRC article about this little punk, On Jonah Goldberg’s Youthful Phase.
From a LRC post in 2006:
Re: Reuben deviationists
Posted by Stephan Kinsella on September 12, 2006 10:18 PM
Okay guys, I have to weigh in here: Sure corned beef sammiches are good (Corned Beef Academy is good, it). But if you are ever in the Philadelphia area (specifically, West Chester, in the western suburbs), the best philly cheesesteak I’ve ever had is at The Pepper Mill. (Also: Murphy’s Deli makes a mean muffaletta.)
But let me tell you, bruthuh: the world’s best ham sandwich can be had at Lea’s Lunchroom in Lecompte, Louisiana. Das good ya cher! (Just found out tonight, googling, Mr. Lea was on the Johnny Carson show one time–this video is priceless!)
Lecompte is pronounced like “luh count” by the way.
I’d had these sandwhiches as a kid and teen on the way past Lecompte on various camping trips, and always missed them. My mom and dad went there recently scouting out some campgrounds outside of Alexandria (“Ellic”), and told me about it. I mentioned I’d like one so my dad made a few calls, to see if they could ship them. He found out that they used to ship them but the FDA made them stop. So he called them back and they gave him the recipe. It is basically this, and I plan to try it soon. I haven’t tried it yet but my dad has and said it’s close to the original and very good.
Lea’s Ham Sandwich Recipe
- use some kind of white bread hamburger buns (they used a particular brand but I forget)
- go get you some ham, you, like maybe honeybaked
- keep some in slices, and grind a bunch, like with a grinder, or onion chopper
- also chop up/finely shred some lettuce
- put miracle whip on the buns (not mayo)
- put the chopped ham on the bottom bun
- put sliced ham on the top bun
- put the shredded lettuce, dill pickle slices, and a slice of tomato in between
- Then you want to compress/toast/smash the whole thing, sort of in a panini grill thing or george foreman type device, till the outside is toasty and it’s kinda smashed and hot
For another great recipe I picked a while back, check out this old LRC post:
Re: Hey, this stuff is great!
Posted by Stephan Kinsella on December 18, 2005 11:44 PM
Jeff, can’t go wrong with jambalaya (my hometown is allegedly the “jambalaya capital of the world”), but this recipe is one of my all-time favorites and unlike anything you’ve tasted: fairly easy, and utterly delicious: Chicken Big Mamou Pasta. Strangely enough, I found it at the Magnolia Cafe in Philly when I lived there. Trust me on this one.
From this post:
Derek: “don’t know, when you define aggression a priori”
I am not sure what this means. I am defining what libertarians are in terms of their view on aggression: they are against it. Aggression itself requires further explanation, definition, and justification. In my various articles I have attempted this. E.g http://mises.org/daily/3660#ref18 .
Aggression is fairly obvious in terms of human bodies. But in terms of other scarce resources, you have to identify the owner first–aggression here is dependent on property rights. Thus what makes libertarianism unique is its property right assignment rule: basically the Lockean rule of appropriation of unowned property.
” you do so in a manner that objectively deems certain actions as non-aggressive and therefore non-problematic when they actually are in some reasonable sense.”
In other words, you are willing in some cases to condone the use of violence against someone who has not committed aggression against the body of, or trespassed against the owned property of, another person. We libertarians call that “criminal” or aggression.
“When recognizing social problems, aggression being one of those many problems (one of the more serious ones), you don’t engage in the tendency of deeming social problems non-problems at all because you understand you’re not aware of certain social contexts.”
We don’t “deem” anything but we are opposed to aggresion. We believe aggression is always unjustified. This does not mean we think there are no other social problems. What you are doing here is exactly what conservaives do when they say they aer against violence but it’s just one of many values, etc. — Check out this post and y’ll see wha I mean http://www.libertarianstandard.com/2012/01/17/the-disingenuous-liberty-isnt-the-only-value-attack-by-liberals-and-conservatives-on-libertarianism/
“The NAP, on the other hand, is about removing all care about context and focusing on one principle, or axiom in some cases, about aggression.”
No. You are wrong. You are squirming and evading, trying to avoid naming the truth: that you are sometimes willing to condone or commit aggression. If you are, go ahead and say it. If not, then you are identical with libertarians.
Let’s take a simpler exapmle. Presumably you oppose the torture and murder of children. Right? For whatever reason. You think that it is unjustified. It is wrong. It should not be engaged in. Saying this is not “simplistic” or “out of context”–it is just what you believe. Likewise libertarians feel the same about aggression: we basically believe that humans ought to live in society, in cooperation, as much as possible; that when there is a possibility of physically, violent conflict, this is always because of the fundmanetal fact of scarcity: their intended use of some scarce resources, whether others’ bodies or other reosurces, conflict. We believe that to avoid the problem of violent conflict people ought to abide by a set of property rules that allocate particular owners of all such contestable resources. And we believe that the owner should be the person himself, in the case of bodies; and in the case of previously unowned resources, it ought to be the first one to start using it, or someone to whom he has contractually transferred it.
Now the only way you can disagree with this is to think someone other than A ought to own his body–i.e. slavery. Or that someone other than the original homesteader of a resource should have it–that is, A homesteads property X and later on, some latecomer B gets to take X from A, to become its new owner. We call this theft.
Why would you be in favor of slavery or theft?
“Considering that libertarianism is all about people freeing themselves and taking *self-responsibility*, conveying an ethic that creates some philosophical and practical dependency of this type is a dangerous way of thinking in my opinion.”
It’s not “about” this. It’s not “about” anything–it’s not a novel with a plot. LIbertarianism is a political philosophy with a particular view of how property rights should be allocated. Every political philosophy has some view of property rights. It’s just that all the non-libertarian ones believe in some form of slavery or theft.
“I think this stems from the Austrians means of deriving ethics from a system of rights, “natural” rights usually, rather than derive a system of rights from their larger theory of ethics.”
Has nothing to do with it.
I suggest you read my What It Means to be an Anarcho-Capitalist. stephankinsella.com/publications
Back in 2008 I pointed out some problems with resorting to the courts of the central state to vindicate our rights, in the context of the Heller gun rights case. I argued that the Bill of Rights limits the power of the federal government. It was certainly not meant not empower the federal government via the courts or Congress to strike down state laws. For example at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified (1791), several states had an established religion. (See my post State and Religion.) Obviously the prohibitions on state involvement in religion in the First Amendment were limits on federal not state power.
The same is true for the Second Amendment. I have never believed the prefatory clause about militias was a limit on this limitation on federal power. In my view a federal court should refuse to enforce a federal law restricting gun rights, since there is no enumerated power granted to Congress to enact such a general, national law. And as a backstop, the Second Amendment further prohibits such federal legislation. But does it limit the states? No.
I had problems with some aspects of the Heller case, in which the Supreme Court struck down a Washington D.C. gun law based on the Second Amendment. (See To Hell with Heller; Heller gives local governments “space within which to limit gun ownership”; The Great Gun Decision: Dissent; Gun Haters Happy with Heller; and other posts.) Not that I was that upset with it. I would have probably voted to strike it down too, on libertarian grounds (see my post Higher Law). And thus I praised Heller plaintiff Tom Palmer for fighting against unlibertarian laws (Tom Palmer’s Fight for the Right to Bear Arms).
Scholar Kevin Gutzman had another interesting critique of Heller: he argued that not only does the Bill of Rights not apply to the States, but it did not even apply to Washington, D.C. itself, as a sort of “pseudo-state”–a special jurisdiction under federal control that operates somewhat like a state. I noted this intriguing argument in one of my posts criticizing Heller, The Great Gun Decision: Dissent, where I wrote:
Second, as Kevin Gutzman notes, the Bill of Rights provides limits on the power of the federal government–not states, and not DC. So, as with the majority in the Kelo case, the dissent would have had the right result for the wrong reasons. In Heller, the majority is correct in how they construe the meaning of the Second Amendment; the liberals are blatantly, dishonestly wrong. But both sides incorrectly believe that the Bill of Rights applies to DC. 1
Heller plaintiff Tom Palmer roundly condemned Gutzman’s argument as “just plain dumb.” And libertarian centralist and Lincoln idolator Tim Sandefur attacked both me and Gutzman, in a post entitled “Stephan Kinsella’s idiocy reaches new lows.”
What is interesting is esteemed libertarian and Cato scholar Richard Epstein has recently opined that the Second Amendment does not apply to Washington, D.C. In The Libertarian Gun Fallacy, Professor Epstein writes “the Second Amendment imposes no limitations on the states … Washington D.C. [is] the one place where the amendment has no application whatsoever.” (See also Damon Root on Libertarians, Guns, and Federalism.)
Hmm.
- See also my post The Unique American Federal Government.[↩]
Jeremy
I showed this abstract to a friend and he pointed out that it is incredibly similar to the plot of the movie The Thirteenth Floor. Has anyone else noticed this?
Published: November 6, 2006 12:15 PM
Yancey Ward
I always thought that Star Trek: The Next Generation did the most clever fictional adaptation of this sort of idea in it’s “Ship in a Bottle” episode from, I think, 1993.
Published: November 6, 2006 12:47 PM
George Gaskell
It’s pointless to debate the particulars of crazy-talk, but what’s the problem with “stacking”? Why would a simulation within a simulation be a deal-breaker?
Could it be that the people who are running the simulation that is our lives are just too afraid to contemplate the idea that THEY might be nothing more than a simulation being run by someone else??? Hmmmmmmmm???
Riddle me that, Mr. Jenkins.
Published: November 6, 2006 2:49 PM
James Redford
Stephan Kinsella, I have to ask you: what do you think it means to exist? The reason for my asking is because your notion of existence as expressed in this post by you is not veridical.
The following is René Descartes’s proof of the existential reality of one’s own existence: I think, therefore I am. (“Je pense, donc je suis,” as contained in Discourse on Method by Descartes [1637].) This is a true claim.
I read the abstract of the article you link to, but I haven’t as yet been able to download the article. But one claim from the abstract which I’m certain is a non sequitur that the article will not be able to demonstrate is the following:
“”
To avoid stacking (i.e. simulations within simulations), the termination of these simulations is likely to be the point in history when the technology to create them first became widely available, (estimated to be 2050). Long range planning beyond this date would therefore be futile.
“”
I’d like to read the entire article so as to pinpoint the exact flaw in their reasoning, but from this statement alone it seems that they are making a negative value judgement on what they call stacking (i.e., nested levels of implementation). Yet even within this abstract a contradiction is made, for previously it said “It is thus highly probable that we are a form of artificial intelligence inhabiting one of these simulations.” (Which is an exceedingly true claim. Statistically speaking, the likelihood of this particular claim being false is infinitely improbable.) But this itself would be an example of what they call stacking.
In short, there is no problem with “stacking.” For one thing, unless the entirety of the multiverse is emulated exactly, then the physical simulation that one is running is quite unlikely to exactly be one’s universe’s previous history. Furthermore, even if one is exactly emulating the entirety of the multiverse, that emulation (in its entirety) will be *new* for the society running it.
The fact of the matter is that we exist on a level of implementation with infinite levels of implementation above us. Collectively, this is known as the Mind of God, or simply God, or simply *existence*.
And the fact that we are an emulation being run on a computer hardly implies that we are not real. We are as real as real can be. But everything that is real can be perfectly rendered by a sufficiently advanced society. The reason is because all matter and energy (which per E=mc^2, are simply different permutations of the same thing) are simply nothing more than *information*. There is an upper bound on the amount of bits that are required to *perfectly* render any given finite quantity of matter, of which is called the Bekenstein Bound (after Dr. Jacob Bekenstein).
By the way, Stephan Kinsella, I’m glad that some of my teachings have had an effect on you. Ergo, your somewhat recent statement of “an ought from an ought.” (Your September 8, 2006 11:19 AM reply under “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” http://blog.mises.org/archives/005577.asp .)
Published: November 6, 2006 5:35 PM
Artisan
It really makes me think more of “the Matrix” than of “The Thirteenth Floor”…
Published: November 7, 2006 7:46 AM
Ian Parker
There is one very interesting point that I don’t think anyone has raised and it is that it is possible to have a siimulation of a simulation.#
To run a simulation you do not in fact have to run a simulation on every atom. All you have (in effect) to do is to simulate the content of out minds. Thus if we look at something the object is only real when we are actually looking at it.
There is a model of the Universe and if you look at an astronomical object you will get the simulation for that object.
Now if we run a simulation within a simulation, gueess what, all our computer does is to extract a little bit of power from the main simulation. This may be a little hard to grasp, but what we have is, in essense, a steady state.
Also if you put 2050 as being a date it means that interstellar travel is effectively impossible. This has in fact in fact been put forward as a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox.
Published: November 7, 2006 9:32 AM
James Redford
— Stephan Kinsella wrote:
> It may be news to you that if I post something it
> does not mean I agree with
> it. Of course I don’t agree w/ this article. It’s
> utterly stupid. Duhhh.
>
> Thanks for figuring out the is-ought dichotomy for
> me. And Hume.
>
>
> Stephan
>
> N. Stephan Kinsella
Hi, Stephan Kinsella. Apparently you semi-consciously read my reply to you. I already knew that you didn’t agree with the article that you referenced in your post. That ought to be apparent by my response, if you were to actually fully consciously read it.
As I said in my response to you, I haven’t read the article as I haven’t been able to download it. I have only read the abstract of it (which is what my comments pertaining to the article were limited to), which is what you posted. So when you say that the article is utterly stupid, does that mean that you have actually read the entire article? If so, can you please send it to me?
Moreover, in my reply I was disagreeing with your comments on the abstract of the article. In the title of your post you expressed the notion that we don’t actually exist if we are emulations/simulations being run on a computer. I took issue with that notions of yours, and showed how that is not true.
Lastly, your comment “Thanks for figuring out the is-ought dichotomy for me. And Hume.” mistates my comment to you on this matter, and indeed rises to the level of dishonesty, unless you are particularly forgetful.
Mainstream philosphy is quite aware of the is-ought dichotomy. But you derived the notion of deriving an “an ought from an ought” from me (as contained in your September 8, 2006 11:19 AM reply under “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” http://blog.mises.org/archives/005577.asp ). Specifically, from a February 23, 2000 email and a September 11, 2004 email from me, both of which contain the phrase by me. In both cases, you initiated the contact with me, and those dates are my replies to you. I am the first person to use the “ought from an ought” phrase on the internet, as can be demonstrated from Google’s usenet archive ( http://groups.google.com/advanced_search ). The first recording of the phrase on the internet occurs on September 19, 2000 in a post by me under one of my old handles, Tetrachordine Omega. I also used this phrase a number of times on the Anti-State.com forum, at a time when you were also active on the forum.
So I find it scandalous that you are here attempting to pretend that you didn’t derive this phrase and the concept expressed by it from me. This is one of my babies that I’m quite proud of, and for you to here affect that you didn’t get it from me is opprobrious.
I hope your words above are the result of some form of mental lapse. But I here ask you to never again act as if you didn’t get this phrase and the concept expressed by it from me.
Published: November 15, 2006 7:25 AM
Stephan Kinsella
Redford: your comments above show why libertarians are so marginalized–they act like such oddball weirdoes. They do not even know how to act in normal society.
Your contentions are silly and ridiculous; that you seek, Person-like, to “document” them with careful web research only makes it pathetic. First, if I had gotten the idea from you, it would not be “dishonest” to have forgotten this, with the thousands of conversations I’ve had. But what are you implying–? that you own the term “ought from an ought”? You sound like a Randian, thinking you have invented time-old ideas. Or worse, a Galambosian, who wants to own little terms etc. that they “create”. Rand’s very ethic is explicitly hypothetical and recognizes one can only get an ought from an ought. Did she go forward in time to 2000 and get this from you too?
Search the web for “ought from an ought”. Tons of references. Here’s one from 1973. Paraphrasing “the smell of ether pervades”–weirdoes abound in this movement.
Published: November 15, 2006 7:36 AM
James Redford
Stephan Kinsella, you wrote:
“”
Redford: your comments above show why libertarians are so marginalized–they act like such oddball weirdoes. They do not even know how to act in normal society.
Your contentions are silly and ridiculous; that you seek, Person-like, to “document” them with careful web research only makes it pathetic. First, if I had gotten the idea from you, it would not be “dishonest” to have forgotten this, with the thousands of conversations I’ve had. But what are you implying–? that you own the term “ought from an ought”? You sound like a Randian, thinking you have invented time-old ideas. Or worse, a Galambosian, who wants to own little terms etc. that they “create”. Rand’s very ethic is explicitly hypothetical and recognizes one can only get an ought from an ought. Did she go forward in time to 2000 and get this from you too?
“”
So you here tacitly admit that you got the phrase “ought from an ought” and the concept expressed by it from me. That’s at least a start in the right direction by you.
And no, Mr. Kinsella, I don’t own the phrase or the concept expressed by it. So-called “Intellectual Property” is not valid property. My issue with you on this matter is that you pretended as if you didn’t get the phrase and the concept expressed by it from me, hence your remark “Thanks for figuring out the is-ought dichotomy for me. And Hume.” Of which comment by you even mistates this issue here since mainstream philosophy is already quite familiar with the is-ought dichotomy, but the concept of deriving and ought from an ought is virtually unknown.
Go ahead and use the concept and the phrase. That was my intent when I put it out there: that it would become well-known. But don’t pretend that you didn’t get it from me when an innocent remark is made to you concerning where you got it from.
Concerning your comment that my “comments above show why libertarians are so marginalized–they act like such oddball weirdoes. They do not even know how to act in normal society.”: Stop projecting your moral failings on to all libertarians, Stephan Kinsella. Simply because you are a liar and a plagiarizer does not mean that all libertarians are. But you are correct that such behavior on your part is not likely to overjoy people–quite the contrary.
Published: November 15, 2006 8:04 AM
Stephan Kinsella
Redford:
I have no idea what you are jabbering about. These are ravings. The phrase “ought from an ought” is not new to you. I just cited a use of it in 1973. It’s an obvious implication of Hume’s insight. You are not the first to think of it. Get over yourself.
Whether I “got” the phrase from you, I have no idea. You did not introduce the is-ought dichotomy to me, Redford. I suspect I phrased it this way because it is an obvious way to phrase an aspect of this Humean insight. I never claimed I originated it.
Really? Do a google search for it–not on your loser “usenet” groups, but on the web as a whole. A simple search by me found a 1973 reference, and many others.
Wow, thanks for your permission.
What an amazing figure in the history of the philosophy you promise to be!
I have no reason to think I “got it from you”. But then, I’m not bizarrely obsessed with keeping notes from years back tracking the origin of every single thought I’ve developed.
Those reading should realize what this nutjob–formerly “Tetrahedron Omega”, another sign of weirdoness–is claiming: that my statement that you can’t get an ought from an is, but only from another ought–based on the is-ought dichotomy of Hume, and based on the hypothetical ethical reasoning of people like Rand and Hoppe–is “plagiarizing” from this dude since he claims that years ago he used this phrase in message boards I frequented. Uhhh yeahhhhh. Time for the lithium, Omega.
Published: November 15, 2006 9:00 AM
James Redford
Stephan Kinsella, you wrote:
“”
I have no idea what you are jabbering about. These are ravings. The phrase “ought from an ought” is not new to you. I just cited a use of it in 1973. It’s an obvious implication of Hume’s insight. You are not the first to think of it. Get over yourself.
“”
You know exactly what I’m talking about because I made myself quite clear. This is more of your disingenuousness.
Nor did I say that I was the first to think of the phrase. Rather, what I said originally was,
“”
By the way, Stephan Kinsella, I’m glad that some of my teachings have had an effect on you. Ergo, your somewhat recent statement of “an ought from an ought.” (Your September 8, 2006 11:19 AM reply under “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” http://blog.mises.org/archives/005577.asp .)
“”
To which you pretended ignorance by replying “Thanks for figuring out the is-ought dichotomy for me. And Hume.” Of which comment by you even mistates this issue here since the field of philosophy is already quite familiar with the is-ought dichotomy, but the concept of deriving an ought from an ought is virtually unknown.
So my comments all along here have pertained to the fact that you incorporated some of my teachings, i.e., the fact that you got the concept and phrase of “an ought from an ought” from me–not that I originally invented the concept and the phrase (although I did independently come up with it, in the sense that I thought of it on my own, and didn’t get it from anyone else). But you didn’t want to publicly admit that I have taught you things which you find of value, since after all you here call me a “loser” and a “nutjob,” which are more of your disingenuousness.
And you didn’t get the concept and phrase “ought from an ought” from a 1973 article (which you simply found by doing a recent Google search after my last reply, as you further below admit), you got it from our email correspondence that you initiated from having read my public postings. As you here also acknowledge that you didn’t get it from a 1973 article:
“”
Whether I “got” the phrase from you, I have no idea. You did not introduce the is-ought dichotomy to me, Redford. I suspect I phrased it this way because it is an obvious way to phrase an aspect of this Humean insight. I never claimed I originated it.
“”
Here again you are being disingenuous by going out of your way to misconstrue the issue, as the field of philosophy is already quite familiar with the is-ought dichotomy, but the concept of deriving and ought from an ought is virtually unknown.
Continuing, you wrote:
“”
“”
mainstream philosophy is already quite familiar with the is-ought dichotomy, but the concept of deriving and ought from an ought is virtually unknown.
“”
Really? Do a google search for it–not on your loser “usenet” groups, but on the web as a whole. A simple search by me found a 1973 reference, and many others
“”
Great, so you here admit that you merely found a reference to a 1973 article which contains the phrase, not that that article is where you got the phrase from. As far as “many others,” I would hardly call 13 Google results as demonstrating that the field of philosophy is that familiar with the concept of deriving an ought from an ought. Indeed, it demonstrates that the concept of deriving an ought from an ought is virtually unknown. Whereas *all* of the usenet examples of the phrase are from me, starting in September 19, 2000.
Concerning your remark on “[my] loser ‘usenet’ groups,” you are the one who originally initiated email contact with me from your having read my usenet postings. So this remark by you is more of your disingenuousness.
Nor have I ever made any issue about who invented the phrase and concept. I didn’t say that I was the first to think of the phrase (although I did independantly originate the concept and the phrase, as I didn’t get it from anyone else). Rather, what I said originally was,
“”
By the way, Stephan Kinsella, I’m glad that some of my teachings have had an effect on you. Ergo, your somewhat recent statement of “an ought from an ought.” (Your September 8, 2006 11:19 AM reply under “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” http://blog.mises.org/archives/005577.asp .)
“”
That is, I was simply commenting on the fact that you were incorporating my teachings to you on this matter. I was happy to see that you were doing so, and hence I stated that I was glad to see that some of my teachings had an effect on you. But you had to be disingenuous in your response to me rather than admit that you found some of my teachings to be of value, since after all you here call me a “loser” and a “nutjob,” which are more of your disingenuousness.
A simple remark by you to the effect of “Yeah, thanks for that phrase, James” would have sufficed, but you couldn’t bring yourself to publicly admit that you got something of value from me. Indeed, simply saying nothing would have been far better than your current dissembling replies to me.
For Heaven’s sake, I already originally told you that I was glad that you were using it! You didn’t have to go out of your way to pretend like I had two heads for my having said that to you originally.
I almost couldn’t care less who uses my writings and teachings for whatever purpose (so long as its nonaggressive), or even whether they cite me or not. I’ve seen my writings cut-up and pasted into other people’s works without citing me, and I don’t really care. But when you affect as if I’ve got a second head growing out of my neck when I simply make an innocent and friendly remark to you stating that I’m glad to see you using some of what I taught you, then that certainly is behavior that I find to be opprobrious.
You also wrote:
“”
“”
“”
I have no reason to think I “got it from you”. But then, I’m not bizarrely obsessed with keeping notes from years back tracking the origin of every single thought I’ve developed.
“”
Simply because you are a liar and a plagiarizer does not mean that all libertarians are. But you are correct that such behavior on your part is not likely to overjoy people–quite the contrary.
“”
Those reading should realize what this nutjob–formerly “Tetrahedron Omega”, another sign of weirdoness–is claiming: that my statement that you can’t get an ought from an is, but only from another ought–based on the is-ought dichotomy of Hume, and based on the hypothetical ethical reasoning of people like Rand and Hoppe–is “plagiarizing” from this dude since he claims that years ago he used this phrase in message boards I frequented. Uhhh yeahhhhh. Time for the lithium, Omega.
“”
Yet again you are being disingenuous by acting as if it is not a very common practice on the internet to use fanciful handles.
Moreover, you here are again being disingenuous by going out of your way to mistate the nature of our contacts and also to mistate my claims. As I said above, I state the phrase “an ought from an ought” and the concept of it in a February 23, 2000 email and a September 11, 2004 email from me to you. In both cases, you initiated the contact with me from your having read my public postings.
Hence, your present attempt to pretend as if my public postings didn’t catch your attention further demonstrates how disingenuous you are being, as this correspondence which you initiated on both occations (in 2000 and 2004) shows that you most certainly did take notice of my public writings on this matter, and were moved enough by my public postings to initiate contact with me on two separate occations.
Not only are you a flagrant liar, Stephan Kinsella, but you’re also an incompetent liar. I’ve got you dead to rights on this. Below is contained the text of our relevant email correspondence (which you initiated each time from your having read my public postings), wherein I use this phrase and its concept on two separate occations (in 2000 and 2004) to you:
http://www.geocities.com/vonchloride/n-stephan-kinsella-emails.txt
Published: November 15, 2006 6:22 PM
Stephan Kinsella
I posted a reply to Redford on Daily Apology; all subsequent comments that originally appeared here have been moved there as inappropriate to this forum. Any further comments should be made there, not here.
Published: November 17, 2006 4:38 PM
James Redford
Comments been moved offlist to this post on Daily Apology.
Published: November 18, 2006 6:01 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Ccomments been moved offlist to this post on Daily Apology.
Published: November 20, 2006 10:09 AM
James Redford
Comments been moved offlist to this post on Daily Apology.
Published: November 20, 2006 3:04 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Comments been moved offlist to this post on Daily Apology.
Published: November 20, 2006 3:55 PM
greg
Doesn’t the is-ought problem all depend on what the meaning of the word is is? Ooops, did I just plagerize someone? Well I won’t admit it if I did. {laughs}
This was really entertaining. I hope Redford posts some more. I’ll be in Austin in January. Maybe Redford and I can do acid together. But only if I can pick up an old Rush album from Fedako for a ripoff $10. Acid and Rush. Wow. Vinyl sounds better.
Published: November 21, 2006 9:23 PM
James Redford
Stephan Kinsella wrote on November 20, 2006 3:55 PM:
“”
Oh, I do think it is likely, now that you refreshed my memory on our correspondence. If so, it’s quite useful. Thanks. Let’s say, there’s a 65% chance. That’s my best guess and final offer. Do we have a deal?
“”
Great. Then it’s settled. And you’re welcome, Mr. Kinsella.
Published: December 7, 2006 4:48 PM
James Redford
Stephan Kinsella wrote on November 20, 2006 3:55 PM:
“”
“”
So why is it that you have such an impossible time admitting that you quite probably got the phrase and its concept from me?
“”
Oh, I do think it is likely, now that you refreshed my memory on our correspondence. If so, it’s quite useful. Thanks. Let’s say, there’s a 65% chance. That’s my best guess and final offer. Do we have a deal?
“”
Great. Then it’s settled. And you’re welcome, Mr. Kinsella.
Published: December 7, 2006 4:51 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Redford, I splained already to you. It’s not hard for me to admit it’s likely that I got that phrase from you. I think it’s a very minor thing–just a way of explaining my own idea. But okay, fine. But it’s not certain; it’s just a possibility. What I objected to was your statement that it was “certain” that this is “where I got it from,” that I was “lying,” that it was “plagiarism,” your false charges that it would be “hard for me to admit” I might have gotten a phrasing from you, and so forth. I see now that you have implicitly dropped all these charges by accepting my offer to settle on the simple proposition that it is possible I got the idea of wording my own ideas this way from you a long time ago, even though it’s fairly obvious and others have independently used this wording. So, thanks for implicitly withdrawing your over the top charges.
Published: December 7, 2006 5:09 PM
M E Hoffer
Redford & Kinsella,
Why don’t you two get a /chat/ room?
Published: December 7, 2006 8:59 PM