TED Community » phoenix goodman

About Me

Location:
United States, Tarzana, CA
Gender:
Male


More About Me

An idea worth spreading

Meritocracy as a government system. Replace party politics with experts in specific fields. Replace right to vote at a certain age with right to vote by proof of merit. Those running for office then appeal to experts, not the masses. Law is constitutional, which itself explicitly outlaws cronyism and nepotism, as well as using "REASON" as the basis for all policy (thereby rendering teaching of "creationism" unconstitutional). The government specifically is bound towards the "General Will" and all decisions are made to proactively increase human capital and self-actualization. Gov is run by scientists, philosophers, and psychologists, etc. High inheritance tax recycles dynastic wealth, those funds are used on a revolutionary education system that focuses on the strengths of each child. Every single public school is higher quality than the top elite schools of today. All citizens are given equal opportunity and maximum resources for success, with unequal outcome based on merit.

Comments

  • TEDCred score: +1.30 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

  • +4

    A reply on Conversation: Does the scientific establishment unwittingly suffer from paradigm bias? Does it assume incorrect axioms of existence?

    Mar 27 2013: Look at the difference between "valid" and "sound" syllogisms. "All dogs are unicorns. John is a dog, therefore John is a unicorn." That is a VALID statement, but not SOUND.
    So, "incorrect axioms" are essentially syllogisms that begin with objectively false statements assumed as true premises- the difference is that instead of a thought exercise, this process is actually done in the name of discerning the true nature of reality.
    Imagine an establishment scientist in the era of Copernicus. He has a high IQ, extremely well read, etc. From his schooling, he has learned the "axiom" that the earth is the center of the universe. In the course of "if-then" statements, the "if" has been defined. He then might have come up with elaborate cosmological explanations whose conclusions flow from that premise, and whose conclusions might have been reached to a valid point because he is intelligent. However, it was the HERETIC Copernicus who had the insight to question the PREMISE- Geocentrism. This hypothetical, smart establishment scientist would then have heard Copernicus' Heliocentric model and scoffed. So, if we know that smart establishment oriented scientists can fall for this psychological process, is it not ABSURD to think that isn't going on right now?
    There you go, PHILOSOPHY for you, to give the process of science and history MEANING.
    I am the opposite of a creationist, which is purely based on faith and not rationality, and yet you make a hearty attempt at attacking that straw man. The almost comical fallacious irony is that your attitude regarding materialism and anti-philosophy is literally the closest a scientifically-minded individual can get to religious dogma, while all I am trying to do is merely make sense of the process of science itself and infuse it with direction and meaning. By understanding this, we can creatively imagine 'out of the box' possibilities that the establishment automatically dismisses- such as matter emerging from mind.
  • +3

    A reply on Conversation: Does the scientific establishment unwittingly suffer from paradigm bias? Does it assume incorrect axioms of existence?

    Mar 26 2013: This response embodies the quintessence of the very psychological constructs and premise-assuming dogma I addressed. I didn't want to reply but this simply nauseated me.

    I specifically said something about Rationalism Vs. Empiricism. However, the debate between "non-philosophy" and philosophy is a false dichotomy. There is NO debate. The universe, and the human condition, is not a mechanistic algorithm void of free will and values. Psychology, history and yes, SCIENCE, without philosophy (the strict exercise of human reason) is devoid of meaning. No one said anything about whether or not philosophy has validity. The fact, not opinion, is that it does.

    The question, to reiterate, is Rationalism vs. Empricism, a classic debate going back centuries, embodied by the Newton-Leibniz rivalry. The question is not if one is valid or non valid in a mutually exclusive sense, but what the strengths and weaknesses of each are, and if one is a subset of the other.

    The empiricist model is always provisional, and mired in sensory input (which themselves are deluded by the many illusions of physicality and our finite senses. Rationalism asserts that certain deeper truths... the "big questions" are knowable through pure reason, or 'hyperrationality".

    Empiricist materialist science has strengths and practical applications. Rationalism can conclude factors that empiricism can't touch by definition, as instead of being mired in sensory input, it is mired in pure thought. The exercise of a thought experiment, or even (non-instrumentalist) mathematics is a form of rationalism.

    Pythagoras' outlook that all things are numbers in a statement of complete ontological mathematics is an example of something concluded rationally without experiments (although maybe corroborated by them).

    Does infinity exist? Does 'zero'? What about "i"?

    IF they exist mathematically, they are "code" of the universe. If you put "i" axes on a cartesian grid, you have scope for zero distance. Rationalism.
  • +1

    A comment on Conversation: Is God energy?

    Jan 4 2013: Define "God"

    There is no possibility for any rational debate that the Abrahamic god Yahweh is an absurd entity, an abject manifestation of tyranny and ego, utilized as an attack on the psyche to cultivate obedient people to the service of the ruling classes.

    That said, there are many more rational ways to define god that are reconcilable with mathematics, science and (sound) philosophy. Spinoza defined a type of pantheism similar to mystical eastern conceptions of the transcendent. Hegel defined God as a teleological evolutionary culmination of consciousness.

    Ultimately though, your intuitive grasp of energy is essentially on the right track. One must ask, what *IS* energy? What properties is IT dependent on? Well, nothing other than mathematics. The one subject that is utterly non-debatable and immutable is math. 1+1 will eternally equal 2, and from that initial axiom all of complete ontological mathematics flows.

    The way we PERCEIVE energy is quite different from the objective thing in itself. Color is just your brain's subjective interpretation of a photon's frequency. The way you percieve a sound is too a subjective interpretation of waves (energy). So, without a subjective brain to interpret the waves, the universe doesn't look, sound, or feel like ANYTHING, those are all "Matrix" like mental constructions based on subjective interpretations of objective energy. And ALL ENERGY IS are mathematical functions. Therefore, the entire universe from its inception to the evolutionary culmination of intelligence, and then hyperintelligence, is one big mathematical equation solving itself.

    So, when you say "energy" you are saying ontological mathematics. Leibniz's "monadology" provides a hyperrationalist account of the ontological value of zero and infinity to the nature of the universe.

    "All that is real is rational. All that is rational is real" - Hegel

Favorite talks

This member doesn't have any favorite talks yet.