I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian

[Mulloch94]

"It became quite clear to me that the Natural Law mystique, in Catholic, libertarian or neo-pagan forms, remains basically a set of rhetorical strategies to hypnotize others into the state which Bernard Shaw called "barbarism" and defined as 'the belief that the laws of one's own tribe are the laws of the universe'." - Robert Anton Wilson

[Kvirion]

@Mulloch94 said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

"It became quite clear to me that the Natural Law mystique, in Catholic, libertarian or neo-pagan forms, remains basically a set of rhetorical strategies to hypnotize others into the state which Bernard Shaw called "barbarism" and defined as 'the belief that the laws of one's own tribe are the laws of the universe'." - Robert Anton Wilson

Nice one. Thanks!

[Creuset]

@Kvirion said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

Thank you for the comprehensive explanation.

Hey, I appreciate that you decided to change your tone and to be polite, respectful and reply with arguments and not with ad hominem.

Since it appears that we can have an intelligent discussion, I will take time to reply to each of your points in detail.

Still, this concept of the Natural Law sounds "logical" and coherent, but is still wrong/unrealistic in many parts.

It is logical and coherent, and I have never seen a good refutation of its current form, mostly misunderstandings and categorical and methodological confusion, but let's analyze your counterarguments one by one, maybe you will have me think about things I've never considered before and eventually have me change my mind.

Current (well-researched and supported by evidence) science says, that for example:

Okay, so here is your first mistake: Law is not a science (just like maths are not a science), and Natural Law has nothing to do with empirical statistical methods, utilitarianism or the hypothetico-deductive method. Natural Law is derived from an a priori synthetic judgement, just like mathematical theorems are.

Natural Law is ontologically wrong because it assumes a stable, knowable, and universal world. We are living in a context-dependent, uncertain, and constantly evolving/adapting complex ecosystem.

Again, your mistake is a categorical one. You believe that law should be derived from empirical methods without ever proving why, and I will actually show you why it is not possible to derive a coherent system with these methods.

For law to be fair, objective and coherent, you need it to apply to every human, to have isonomy of rights, for the rights to respect the law of noncontradiction, and for them to be non-prescriptive (Hume's Guillotine). Otherwise, your system of law is just a derivative of the "law of the strongest" which is subjective.

So tell me of any system of law derived from empirical methods or from utilitarianism that respect these conditions?
Spoiler alert: this doesn't exist, and if you accept such systems of law as legitimate, you're just accepting that an arbitrary authority can at any time tell you that "you won't own anything and you will be happy and you will eat bugs" or if there is a consensus that killing millions of innocent people is fine, that's enough to justify it, you just need a little bit of social engineering, majority of population that agrees, and "voilà".
All of that while being told that you are in "democracy" and that you have a "right to property" (noncontradiction law is completely obliterated and nobody even understand something as simple as that). Georges Orwell warned us a long time ago, but most people still accept doublethink and double binds. If you try to defend such systems as legitimate, you are just coping in a state of Stockholm syndrome.

It's epistemologically wrong because it assumes that all info can be deduced and assumes that it cannot be falsified because "it's true and natural"

I've never said that all info can be deduced, please don't put words into my mouth, this is not an honest debatting technique (I actually think that there is ample room for empiricism, the scientific method and induction in other domains), and I've never made any claim of truth or "naturality" (it is just confusing because the Natural Law theorists were postulating a human nature during religious Middle Age, but Natural Law in 2024 doesn't have anything to do with that anymore, don't conflate the two). I only claimed that Anarcho-capitalism is not based on beliefs, just like maths are not based on beliefs, and that Natural Law is the only coherent legal system that we know of.

So I just defined what law is, and I then demonstrated that only Natural Law satisfies the criterias of a coherent system of law (which is why it is an a priori synthetic judgement). All other systems don't satisfy these criterias because the "rights" of Positive law or utilitarianism contradict themselves and create double binds (such as when you're told you have right of property but cannot remove squatters from your property). They violate Hume's Guillotine, and because there is no isonomy (a group of people should have more rights than others). This is the perfect recipe for Machivellians to continue to divide and conquer populations.

I'm pretty sure that you don't have any problem to admit that the Pythagorean theorem is valid even though you cannot falsify it. The problem is that you're trying to apply the Popperian method to law, which doesn't work, as it would not work with maths and other formal systems such as logic. According to Popper, maths are not a science as well because they cannot be falsified, and it still works perfectly well within the confines of its own domain.

It's phenomenologically wrong because it assumes objectivism and rationalism. In reality, our understanding of the world is limited, biased, and subjective.

It is called "objective" because it doesn't depend on a human subject, like any a priori synthetic judgement. That is actually its strenght and why it allows for anarchy and decentralization, because you don't need any 3rd party to define it for it to still exist and make sense, which wouldn't be the case if it was a posteriori/empirical like what you're suggesting.

By the way, you did not prove why it should be wrong, you just claim things here but there is no demonstration.

"Rationalism" is just a set of deductive methods, just like "Empiricism" is another set of inductive methods (and you have another category of methods which is called abduction in other contexts). I've demonstrated earlier how this is done, but I think you did not really understand, it seems that you believe that empiricism is the only valid method in every domain of human knowledge and every context, which is very limited and lacks nuance and context.

Moreover, humans are mostly social beings, individualism is just an exceptional special case.

Yes we are, however methodological individualism works to create a coherent system of law. I am not denying that humans are social beings, the system I am talking about just doesn't sacrifice individuality, while still allowing for individuals to form human groups and function in societies. The opposite is not true, collectivism usually sacrifice individuals.

If your value systems make you lean more towards leftist moral values where social groups are extremely important, please know that Kropotkin that Ray was talking about, respects Natural Law, since everything in his philosophy is based on voluntary action. Like I said, Natural Law allows for panarchy and so many different systems to coexist (even systems that use Positive Law if the individuals of this society want it, but a Positive Law that would be voluntary chosen by every individual in a contractual way, and not imposed to people), not just Anarcho-capitalism (which also requires applying principles of the Austrian school of economics, that's another discussion and debate).

And there are many more counter-arguments based on natural sciences, etc...

Well you don't share any argument here and just claim without details, but if your counter-arguments are on the same level as what you previously shared, I'm afraid you will need to do much better.

Therefore, "Natural Law" can only be used as a thought experiment (limited/simplified model), to reason/argue about changes in the law.

Wrong, it can be used to make a functional decentralized society that doesn't sacrifice individuals, and even Ray was a Kropotkinian anarchist, who actually respect Natural Law. Even people from the 16th century such as La Boetie in his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude talk about Natural Law. Most anarchists were aware of Natural Law, but it is very rare in contemporary people that talk about political science, because most people don't understand basic epistemology or logic. Most people think that "anarchy is anomie", they don't even know or understand what jusnaturalism is.

And in terms of psychological developmental stages, only a few people can currently truly understand anti-authoritarianism, because everybody is brainwashed with social engineering since birth, so obviously it will be hard to create societies based on Natural Law as long as people don't free themselves from that, which of course doesn't refute that Natural Law is a coherent system, it is only because Natural Law is not imposed to individuals just like mathematical theorems are not imposed to individuals (and humans existed for thousands of years without knowing such theorems which doesn't invalidate them), you actually need to be intelligent enough to understand them.
You just have to see how Charlie acts on the Ray Peat Forum, and other members in this community, most people don't reach very high psychological development stages during their life, even though they try to "boost their metabolism". That's sad, but that's how it is, humanity currently doesn't have the means as a whole to live in a non-authoritarian way, which people like Peat or Ecstatic Hamster try to rectify here.

...all models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. However, the approximate nature of the model must always be borne in mind.... ~George Box

I know these kind of claims, and I have done a lot of research on the limits of human knowledge, epistemological skepticism and the likes. And I don't necessarily disagree with it. This by the way applies to every model and system, not just Natural Law. However, some models and systems are still more robust than others, we still use maths or logic to act in the world, because even if "the map is not the territory", some maps are better drawn and more precise than others, which helps to navigate inside the territory much better. That's the case with Natural Law.

The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist an imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one. ~Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I really appreciate NNT and have read most of what he has written, and this is pretty obvious that you're quoting him out of context. NNT criticizes rationalism in the field of statistics and finances, with midwits that stupidly believe that statistics and probabilities can perfectly predict the future and find the causes of every effects because they are based on laws such as the Normal law/bell curve. And I completely agree with him in this context, but being the intellectual that he is and a mathematician, I am pretty sure that NNT understands a priori synthetic judgements and mathematical theorems, and that he doesn't criticize rationalist methods in every fields of knowledge. Again, context and nuance my friend.

So, you did not change my mind as you did not refute anything so far, you showed your subjective preference that every field of human knowledge should be subjected to empiricism, and you didn't provide any demonstration or explanation of why this should be the case. Hope I brought a bit more clarity here and helped you understand one or two things.

[Creuset]

@Mulloch94 said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

"It became quite clear to me that the Natural Law mystique, in Catholic, libertarian or neo-pagan forms, remains basically a set of rhetorical strategies to hypnotize others into the state which Bernard Shaw called "barbarism" and defined as 'the belief that the laws of one's own tribe are the laws of the universe'." - Robert Anton Wilson

Nice words salad. Let's replace a few words in your quote:

It became quite clear to me that the Ray Peat mystique, in online communities, remains basically a set of rhetorical strategies to hypnotize others into the state which Bernard Shaw called "barbarism" and defined as 'nutrition alone can cure all diseases'.

You see? no arguments, just empty affirmations and strawmen. Can you do better than that?

[Regina]

I just so happened to be listening to this:

Matt Ehret on Why You Can't Be A Libertarian And A Nationalist.

https://soundcloud.com/mattehret/why-you-cant-be-a-libertarian-and-a-nationalist-a-cp-short?si=9f7a863931214922b20a3d78368c04c4&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

[Sugar]

I agree with a lot of what you said here. People are trying to hit you with gotcha questions because they disagree with libertarian politics.

[Kvirion]

@Creuset said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

Still, this concept of the Natural Law sounds "logical" and coherent, but is still wrong/unrealistic in many parts.

It is logical and coherent, and I have never seen a good refutation of its current form,

For example, Star Trek universe stories are also coherent and mostly logical, but this does not make them real or true.

You seem to assume that Plato's Ideas and Forms exist. I'm not, they have been (indirectly) refuted by natural sciences, especially by Complexity Science (nonlinear causality, entanglements, emergence, interrelatedness, interdependence, constant change/evolution, etc.).

"Beyond Pythagoras: No Laws Entail Evolution"

BTW Ray was against the ideas of Descartes and Plato...

Natural Law is ontologically wrong because it assumes a stable, knowable, and universal world. We are living in a context-dependent, uncertain, and constantly evolving/adapting complex ecosystem.

Again, your mistake is a categorical one. You believe that law should be derived from empirical methods without ever proving why, and I will actually show you why it is not possible to derive a coherent system with these methods.

It's not a mistake, it's practical scientific wisdom
It has been shown many times that most things that are some kind of "god/universe given" are usually a power grab or utopian illusion...

For law to be fair, objective and coherent, you need it to apply to every human, to have isonomy of rights, for the rights to respect the law of noncontradiction, and for them to be non-prescriptive (Hume's Guillotine). Otherwise, your system of law is just a derivative of the "law of the strongest" which is subjective.

For a law to be fair it needs to be context-dependent - understand the unique circumstances. Nietzsche explained this pretty well.

Moreover, our actions are usually just a consequence of a myriad of cause-and-effect relationships, not a free choice. I would recommend listening to Prof. Robert Sapolsky, e.g. this.

BTW being "fair, objective" is impossible "by design". Humans haven't evolved this way.
I would recommend watching this.

So tell me of any system of law derived from empirical methods or from utilitarianism that respect these conditions?

We are talking about the illegitimacy of Natural Law, do not broaden the scope, please.

Spoiler alert: this doesn't exist, and if you accept such systems of law as legitimate, you're just accepting that an arbitrary authority can at any time tell you that "you won't own anything and you will be happy and you will eat bugs" or if there is a consensus that killing millions of innocent people is fine, that's enough to justify it, you just need a little bit of social engineering, majority of population that agrees, and "voilà".

It is simply a practical approach by trial and error and also shows that imperfect hierarchies and imperfect maladaptive systems are real - and it's all that we have. Occam's razor...

All of that while being told that you are in "democracy" and that you have a "right to property" (noncontradiction law is completely obliterated and nobody even understand something as simple as that). Georges Orwell warned us a long time ago, but most people still accept doublethink and double binds. If you try to defend such systems as legitimate, you are just coping in a state of Stockholm syndrome.

I thought initially that we were talking about reality not dreams or illusions... Most people are unable to think in a way as described above...We are mostly driven by simple/simplistic ("Mode 1") thinking

Can't you accept the human's (systemic) imperfections?

It's epistemologically wrong because it assumes that all info can be deduced and assumes that it cannot be falsified because "it's true and natural"

I've never said that all info can be deduced, please don't put words into my mouth, this is not an honest debatting technique (I actually think that there is ample room for empiricism, the scientific method and induction in other domains),

You contradict yourself, because earlier you wrote:

Okay, so here is your first mistake: Law is not a science (just like maths are not a science), and Natural Law has nothing to do with empirical statistical methods, utilitarianism or the hypothetico-deductive method. Natural Law is derived from an a priori synthetic judgement, just like mathematical theorems are.

BTW I don't belive in a priori... Aristole was wrong about this...

By the way, I assume that utilitarism is also wrong, because we usually never know if the final consequences will be good or bad...

and I've never made any claim of truth or "naturality" (it is just confusing because the Natural Law theorists were postulating a human nature during religious Middle Age, but Natural Law in 2024 doesn't have anything to do with that anymore, don't conflate the two).

This NL doctrine seem to contradicte itself even more often...

I only claimed that Anarcho-capitalism is not based on beliefs, just like maths are not based on beliefs, and that Natural Law is the only coherent legal system that we know of.

Math is based on axioms, which can be disqualified...

So I just defined what law is, and I then demonstrated that only Natural Law satisfies the criterias of a coherent system of law (which is why it is an a priori synthetic judgement). All other systems don't satisfy these criterias because the "rights" of Positive law or utilitarianism contradict themselves and create double binds (such as when you're told you have right of property but cannot remove squatters from your property).

It's your point of view, not mine. I'm not convinced at all. There is no "natural law" in the real world. There are only (changing) constraints and (strange, evolving) attractors...

I'm pretty sure that you don't have any problem to admit that the Pythagorean theorem is valid even though you cannot falsify it.

I can touch or see a triangle and measure it with my palms

It's phenomenologically wrong because it assumes objectivism and rationalism. In reality, our understanding of the world is limited, biased, and subjective.

It is called "objective" because it doesn't depend on a human subject, like any a priori synthetic judgement. That is actually its strenght and why it allows for anarchy and decentralization, because you don't need any 3rd party to define it for it to still exist and make sense, which wouldn't be the case if it was a posteriori/empirical like what you're suggesting.

Again an internal contradiction of NL...

"Rationalism" is just a set of deductive methods, just like "Empiricism" is another set of inductive methods (and you have another category of methods which is called abduction in other contexts).

I know that as a sense-maker, please don't be condescending... Or be - it amuses me...

I've demonstrated earlier how this is done, but I think you did not really understand, it seems that you believe that empiricism is the only valid method in every domain of human knowledge and every context, which is very limited and lacks nuance and context.

LOL, and who is using ad hominem now?

Yes we are, however methodological individualism works to create a coherent system of law. I am not denying that humans are social beings, the system I am talking about just doesn't sacrifice individuality, while still allowing for individuals to form human groups and function in societies. The opposite is not true, collectivism usually sacrifice individuals.

No, people are heterogeneous - can be seen as a Normal Distribution (Bell Curve), not dichotomous...

Well you don't share any argument here and just claim without details, but if your counter-arguments are on the same level as what you previously shared, I'm afraid you will need to do much better.

All I wrote is the current stance of the science, you claim otherwise, so the burden of proof is on you. Simple as that.

Therefore, "Natural Law" can only be used as a thought experiment (limited/simplified model), to reason/argue about changes in the law.

Wrong, it can be used to make a functional decentralized society that doesn't sacrifice individuals, and even Ray was a Kropotkinian anarchist, who actually respect Natural Law. Even people from the 16th century such as La Boetie in his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude talk about Natural Law. Most anarchists were aware of Natural Law, but it is very rare in contemporary people that talk about political science, because most people don't understand basic epistemology or logic. Most people think that "anarchy is anomie", they don't even know or understand what jusnaturalism is.

There is no "Natural Law". Humans simply have some similar dispositions (proclivities, tendencies) but in specific cases they act in context-depended (i.e not universal) ways.

You rely too much on illusionary philosophy... Or you still seem to be standing on a utopian ground - rejecting the natural traits of people and realistic characteristics of their complex systems...

And in terms of psychological developmental stages, only a few people can currently truly

"developmental stages" is a falsifed/refuted pseudoscience.

You just have to see how Charlie acts on the Ray Peat Forum, and other members in this community, most people don't reach very high psychological development stages during their life, even though they try to "boost their metabolism". That's sad, but that's how it is, humanity currently doesn't have the means as a whole to live in a non-authoritarian way,

Yep. Reality...

...all models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. However, the approximate nature of the model must always be borne in mind.... ~George Box

I know these kind of claims, and I have done a lot of research on the limits of human knowledge, epistemological skepticism and the likes. And I don't necessarily disagree with it. This by the way applies to every model and system, not just Natural Law.

You seem to like to sound smart...

However, some models and systems are still more robust than others, we still use maths or logic to act in the world, because even if "the map is not the territory", some maps are better drawn and more precise than others, which helps to navigate inside the territory much better.

It's obvious dear Watson

That's the case with Natural Law.

No, it isn't.

The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist an imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one. ~Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I really appreciate NNT and have read most of what he has written, and this is pretty obvious that you're quoting him out of context. NNT criticizes rationalism in the field of statistics and finances, with midwits that stupidly believe that statistics and probabilities can perfectly predict the future and find the causes of every effects because they are based on laws such as the Normal law/bell curve. And I completely agree with him in this context, but being the intellectual that he is and a mathematician, I am pretty sure that NNT understands a priori synthetic judgements and mathematical theorems, and that he doesn't criticize rationalist methods in every fields of knowledge. Again, context and nuance my friend.

Your knowledge of non-ergodic systems seems to be pretty decent, but you still have a such Platonic/Aristotelian bias...

So, you did not change my mind as you did not refute anything so far, you showed your subjective preference that every field of human knowledge should be subjected to empiricism, and you didn't provide any demonstration or explanation of why this should be the case. Hope I brought a bit more clarity here and helped you understand one or two things.

I'm simply a realist... You rather not... Thank you for helping me understand this.

The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist an imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one. ~Nassim Nicholas Taleb QED

[Creuset]

@Kvirion said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

@Creuset said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

Still, this concept of the Natural Law sounds "logical" and coherent, but is still wrong/unrealistic in many parts.

It is logical and coherent, and I have never seen a good refutation of its current form,

For example, Star Trek stories are also coherent and mostly logical, but this does not make them real or true.

You seem to assume that Plato's Ideas and Forms exist. I'm not, it has been (indirectly) refuted by natural sciences, especially by Complexity Science (nonlinear causality, entanglements, emergence, interrelatedness, interdependence, constant change/evolution, etc.).

Strawman fallacy. Maths or logic are not stories, they are formal systems. Natural Law is the same.

I also never talked about "true" or "real" as well, which are not properties that we care about in law, they are properties that we care about in science. In law, we care about properties such as fairness and impartiality which require different methodologies. This shows that you probably did not understand what I am talking about.

The fact that you conflate what I am saying with Platonicism clearly shows your limits in epistemology, a priori synthetic judgements have nothing to do with Platonicism.

"Beyond Pythagoras: No Laws Entail Evolution"

BTW Ray was against the ideas of Descartes and Plato...

What I am talking about has nothing to do with the "ideas of Descartes and Plato".

Natural Law is ontologically wrong because it assumes a stable, knowable, and universal world. We are living in a context-dependent, uncertain, and constantly evolving/adapting complex ecosystem.

Again, your mistake is a categorical one. You believe that law should be derived from empirical methods without ever proving why, and I will actually show you why it is not possible to derive a coherent system with these methods.

It's not a mistake, it's practical scientific wisdom
It has been shown many times that most things that are some kind of "god/universe given" are usually a power grab or utopian illusion...

Strawman of my arguments again, and I will repeat myself: law is not a science.

For law to be fair, objective and coherent, you need it to apply to every human, to have isonomy of rights, for the rights to respect the law of noncontradiction, and for them to be non-prescriptive (Hume's Guillotine). Otherwise, your system of law is just a derivative of the "law of the strongest" which is subjective.

For a law to be fair it needs to be context-dependent - understand the unique circumstances. Nietzsche explained this pretty well.

Legal principles cannot be context-dependent, otherwise they are subjective and there is no isonomy in rights, or the rights contradict themselves. I'm pretty sure that you like it when your government tells you in some contexts that you have right to your property (including your body), and then in other contexts forces you to inject foreign substances in it "to protect you and old people from a dangerous virus" lol.

If that's what you like though, continue living and defending this kind of system man, I just feel sorry for you that you would accept and defend arbitrary legal systems.

Moreover, our actions are usually just a consequence of a myriad of cause-and-effect relationships, not a free choice. I would recommend listening to Prof. Robert Sapolsky, e.g. this.

Are you sure about that? I thought you claimed that "...all models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong", but you seem pretty sure of yourself all of a sudden. Are you even able to stay coherent?

BTW being "fair, objective" is impossible "by design". Humans don't evolve this way.

Which is why I am not talking about humans, but about a legal formal system to judge and organize their actions. Again, you don't seem to understand.

Natural Law is objective because it can be found by reasoning by individuals of any period or culture, just like mathematical theorems. It is fair because it respects isonomy of rights, is non-prescriptive and is impartial. Its application by humans might not always be fair, just like students can make mistakes when they try to use a mathematical theorem, this still doesn't invalidate the theorem.

Spoiler alert: this doesn't exist, and if you accept such systems of law as legitimate, you're just accepting that an arbitrary authority can at any time tell you that "you won't own anything and you will be happy and you will eat bugs" or if there is a consensus that killing millions of innocent people is fine, that's enough to justify it, you just need a little bit of social engineering, majority of population that agrees, and "voilà".

It is simply a practical approach by trial and error and also shows that imperfect hierarchies and imperfect maladaptive systems are real - and it's all that we have.

This is not all that we have, anarchist societies have existed and still exist, although they are a threat for governments who try their best to destroy them as they are afraid that their citizens see alternative models that work. If you want to continue living in the same old ways, fine for me, I am not trying to force you. It's just funny how much you're trying to convince yourself that something else doesn't exist though while claiming to be a "realist", I also see that you don't agree with Ray and Kropotkin for that.

All of that while being told that you are in "democracy" and that you have a "right to property" (noncontradiction law is completely obliterated and nobody even understand something as simple as that). Georges Orwell warned us a long time ago, but most people still accept doublethink and double binds. If you try to defend such systems as legitimate, you are just coping in a state of Stockholm syndrome.

I thought that we were talking about reality not dreams or illusions.

Exactly, which is why I am explaining that political and legal systems create doublethink and double binds which lead to delusion, and that these systems need to use constant hypnosis, propaganda and social engineering on the population for its people to continue endorsing it.

Can't you accept the human's (systemic) imperfections?

Humans will always break the law, I am fine with that. I am just talking about a legal system that humans can use to organize their societies, which is an important thing in any political system. By the way, perfection (or imperfection) is a subjective value judgement.

It's epistemologically wrong because it assumes that all info can be deduced and assumes that it cannot be falsified because "it's true and natural"

I've never said that all info can be deduced, please don't put words into my mouth, this is not an honest debatting technique (I actually think that there is ample room for empiricism, the scientific method and induction in other domains),

you contradict yourself, because earlier you wrote:

Okay, so here is your first mistake: Law is not a science (just like maths are not a science), and Natural Law has nothing to do with empirical statistical methods, utilitarianism or the hypothetico-deductive method. Natural Law is derived from an a priori synthetic judgement, just like mathematical theorems are.

So where is the contradiction?

I said that Natural Law has nothing to do with empirical statistical methods but is derived from an a priori synthetic judgement. I've never said that all info can be deduced, and I did not say that I am against empirical methods. They just don't work in the context of law, or mathematical theorems.

Just like medicine or private detectives need to use abduction which is more effective for the purpose of their own discipline.

But you're claiming that empiricism should be the only method used in all disciplines. I just pointed out your lack of nuance here, no contradiction on my hand.

A don't belive in a priori... Aristole was wrong...

Plato, Aristotle, Descartes... Again you're wrong, a priori synthetic judgements don't come from them.

By the way, I think that utilitarism is also wrong, because we usually never know if the final consequences will be good or bad...

We agree on something then, although probably not for the same reason.

So you basically consider yourself as a consequentialist?

and I've never made any claim of truth or "naturality" (it is just confusing because the Natural Law theorists were postulating a human nature during religious Middle Age, but Natural Law in 2024 doesn't have anything to do with that anymore, don't conflate the two).

This doctrine seem to contradicte itself more often...

Again you make an empty statement. Where is your demonstration of a contradiction? If someone prior to Pythagoras made a mistake in his discovery of the theorem and that Pythagoras later on corrected it, does it mean the theorem is wrong?

I only claimed that Anarcho-capitalism is not based on beliefs, just like maths are not based on beliefs, and that Natural Law is the only coherent legal system that we know of.

Math is based on axiom, which can be disqualified...

Then disqualify the Pythagorean theorem, I'm waiting. The keyword here is "can", which doesn't necessarily mean "will".

So I just defined what law is, and I then demonstrated that only Natural Law satisfies the criterias of a coherent system of law (which is why it is an a priori synthetic judgement). All other systems don't satisfy these criterias because the "rights" of Positive law or utilitarianism contradict themselves and create double binds (such as when you're told you have right of property but cannot remove squatters from your property).

It your point of view, not mine. I'm not convinced. There is no "natural law" there are only (changing) constraints and (strange, evolving) atracttors...

Again, I thought that you said "...all models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong". Yet you use attractors for your reasoning.

Did you know that attractors are mathematical objects and depend on mathematical theorems such as the ones in number theory or set theory to be used (for example to measure time), which are... you guessed it, a priori synthetic judgements. So you're basically using such formal tools whenever it suits you to guide your thinking, but reject them whenever you don't like them.

I'm pretty sure that you don't have any problem to admit that the Pythagorean theorem is valid even though you cannot falsify it.

I can touch or see a triangle and measure it with my palms

And I can shoot people in the ass with my gun if they attack me in order to defend my legitimate rights to not be aggressed. What's your point?

It's phenomenologically wrong because it assumes objectivism and rationalism. In reality, our understanding of the world is limited, biased, and subjective.

It is called "objective" because it doesn't depend on a human subject, like any a priori synthetic judgement. That is actually its strenght and why it allows for anarchy and decentralization, because you don't need any 3rd party to define it for it to still exist and make sense, which wouldn't be the case if it was a posteriori/empirical like what you're suggesting.

agina an internal contradiction of NL...

Where, why? Explain where there is a contradiction.

"Rationalism" is just a set of deductive methods, just like "Empiricism" is another set of inductive methods (and you have another category of methods which is called abduction in other contexts).

I know that as a sense-maker, please don't be condescending...

Well I am sorry if you think I am condescending (although I would remind you that you said earlier I lacked nuance and did not understand epistemology or ontology). You've shown that you don't understand a priori synthetic judgements, and were making categorical and methodical mistakes by claiming that NL is unscientific. I am just trying to help you to understand where you are wrong by taking some of my precious time and energy, nothing condescending as you can correct your mistakes, although I am starting to loose patience.

By the way, I understand that you've listened to Daniel Schmachtenberger, pretty obvious when you talk about complex systems, attractors, and now sense-making. Pretty surprised that you would subscribe to this line of thinking after all of the claims you've made in this thread.

I've demonstrated earlier how this is done, but I think you did not really understand, it seems that you believe that empiricism is the only valid method in every domain of human knowledge and every context, which is very limited and lacks nuance and context.

LOL, and who is using ad hominem now?

I was correct in my assessments that you believe empiricism is the only valid method (you even criticize my "Platonicist bias" later), so this was no ad hominem. But if you think I am wrong, then explain how.

Yes we are, however methodological individualism works to create a coherent system of law. I am not denying that humans are social beings, the system I am talking about just doesn't sacrifice individuality, while still allowing for individuals to form human groups and function in societies. The opposite is not true, collectivism usually sacrifice individuals.

No, people are heterogeneous - can be seen as a Normal Distribution (Bell Curve), not dichotomous...

I am not talking about people, I am talking about systems of laws, individualism and collectivism.

Well you don't share any argument here and just claim without details, but if your counter-arguments are on the same level as what you previously shared, I'm afraid you will need to do much better.

All I wrote is the current stance of the science, you claim otherwise, so the burden of proof is on you. Simple as that.

You actually claim to make a counter-argument, and I already told you that law is not a science. So I already did my part in regards of the "burden of proof" and am waiting for yours.

Therefore, "Natural Law" can only be used as a thought experiment (limited/simplified model), to reason/argue about changes in the law.

Wrong, it can be used to make a functional decentralized society that doesn't sacrifice individuals, and even Ray was a Kropotkinian anarchist, who actually respect Natural Law. Even people from the 16th century such as La Boetie in his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude talk about Natural Law. Most anarchists were aware of Natural Law, but it is very rare in contemporary people that talk about political science, because most people don't understand basic epistemology or logic. Most people think that "anarchy is anomie", they don't even know or understand what jusnaturalism is.

There is no "Natural Law".

Of course there is a Natural Law, I just described it to you. You can deny it if you want, as you could say that there is no Pythagoras theorem, it doesn't erase their existence, it just serves to remove your cognitive dissonance.

Humans simply have some similar dispositions (proclivities, tendencies) but in specific cases they act in context-depended (i.e not universal) ways.

Which is why I recommended you to read Jonathan Haidt's books and that I said that this isn't a good idea to base your legal or political system on subjective human value systems like done currently.

Yoy rely too much on ilusionary philosophy... Or you still seem to be standing on a utopian ground - rejecting the natural traits of people and characteristic of their complex systems...

You've shown for 5 minutes straight that you don't even understand what I am saying, so I will simply ignore this ad hominem.

"developmental stages" is a falsifed/refuted pseudoscience.

You seem quite sure of yourself again. Are EVERY developmental psychological theories and stages been refuted or some of them? I'm curious by the way, what's not refuted/falsified in social science or psychology according to you?

You just have to see how Charlie acts on the Ray Peat Forum, and other members in this community, most people don't reach very high psychological development stages during their life, even though they try to "boost their metabolism". That's sad, but that's how it is, humanity currently doesn't have the means as a whole to live in a non-authoritarian way,

Yep. Reality...

So?

...all models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. However, the approximate nature of the model must always be borne in mind.... ~George Box

I know these kind of claims, and I have done a lot of research on the limits of human knowledge, epistemological skepticism and the likes. And I don't necessarily disagree with it. This by the way applies to every model and system, not just Natural Law.

You seem to like to sound smart...

You seem to assume that I seem to like to sound smart. I just like to be precise and I don't drop concepts or names if they are not necessary to the discussion, I only use names whenever necessary to make a point and be sure that the person I am talking to understands.

However, some models and systems are still more robust than others, we still use maths or logic to act in the world, because even if "the map is not the territory", some maps are better drawn and more precise than others, which helps to navigate inside the territory much better.

It's obvious dear Watson

Glad that you agree with me there, you might not be a lost cause after all.

That's the case with Natural Law.

No, it isn't.

You can claim that a mathematical theorem isn't valid if you don't like it and it hurts your feelings, it wouldn't prevent others from using it.

The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist an imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one. ~Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I really appreciate NNT and have read most of what he has written, and this is pretty obvious that you're quoting him out of context. NNT criticizes rationalism in the field of statistics and finances, with midwits that stupidly believe that statistics and probabilities can perfectly predict the future and find the causes of every effects because they are based on laws such as the Normal law/bell curve. And I completely agree with him in this context, but being the intellectual that he is and a mathematician, I am pretty sure that NNT understands a priori synthetic judgements and mathematical theorems, and that he doesn't criticize rationalist methods in every fields of knowledge. Again, context and nuance my friend.

You knowledge on non-ergodic system seem to be pretty good, but you still have such a platonic bias...

I don't have any platonic bias. I use empirical or rational methods whenever they are appropriate, in context.

I do think and observe that humans seem to have some innate "categories of understanding" such as logic and causality, which helps us to perform a priori reasoning (and there are other types of reasoning), such as what we do with mathematical theorems for example.

You still don't understand that rationalism can be useful in some contexts, and still believe that law should be "real" or "true" while the purpose of law have nothing to do with that as this is not a science.

So, you did not change my mind as you did not refute anything so far, you showed your subjective preference that every field of human knowledge should be subjected to empiricism, and you didn't provide any demonstration or explanation of why this should be the case. Hope I brought a bit more clarity here and helped you understand one or two things.

I'm simply a realist... You rather not... Thank you for helping me understand this.

Again, you are making a subjective value judgement. If you want to feel superior, make value judgements and ad hominems go ahead, but since this is a waste of my time I will just ignore it from now on.

[Kvirion]

@Creuset said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

Strawman fallacy. Maths or logic are not stories, they are formal systems. Natural Law is the same.

LOL! Poor defense. Formal systems above are closed complicated (reversible, linear) systems. Human Complex Adaptive Systems aren't. As I said before you are making an ontological mistake conflating different realities...
It is a fundamental error on your side, which you don't want to admit, making further discussion impossible.

BTW "Natural Law" proponents wanna force people to accept their imaginative "Law" - poorly justified by philosophical gibberish arguments. And if someone doesn't fall into their trap they start to offend them, LOL! It seems like a sect to me...

In conclusion, an insightful quote by NNT (from Principia Politica) again

[Creuset]

@Kvirion said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

@Creuset said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

Strawman fallacy. Maths or logic are not stories, they are formal systems. Natural Law is the same.

LOL! Poor defense. Formal systems are closed complicated (reversible) systems. Human Complex Adaptive Systems aren't. As I said you are making an ontological mistake conflating different realities...
It is a fundamental error on your side, which you don't want to admit, making further discussion impossible.

Formal systems aren't closed, they are discovered through reasoning. We keep discovering new mathematical theorems every year, and I am pretty sure that we will continue discovering new things in the field of Natural Law, praxeology and other similar disciplines.

Your rejection of this line of thought just shows your limits, and I just showed that most of your claims were wrong. You're out of arguments and then claim that this is a fundamental error on my side, without being able to demonstrate it.

BTW "Natural Law" proponents wanna force people to accept their imaginative "Law" - poorly justified by philosophical gibberish arguments. And if someone doesn't fall into their trap they start to offend them, LOL! It seems like a sect to me...

I just said previously I don't care if you decided to not subscribe to NL, as I don't care if you would not subscribe to Pythagoras theorem. That's just sad for you, but if that's what you want, feel free to continue subscribing to Daniel Schmachtenberger that basically endorses exactly the same things as the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab.

In conclusion, an insightful quote by NNT (from Principia Politica) again

Again, you quote NNT out of context. NNT is talking about Kant's moral theories which are different from his theories in epistemology. I agree with NNT that Kant is stupid about his moral theories, however his work in epistemology is very good although he is far from correct about everything (just like Popper which is NNT's hero was wrong about some things, and he was inspired by Kant by the way). Again: nuance, context...

[Creuset]

@Kvirion

[Mulloch94]

@Sugar said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

I agree with a lot of what you said here. People are trying to hit you with gotcha questions because they disagree with libertarian politics.

I agree with libertarian economic theory and civil libertarianism. I just think the ethical framework libertarians use to wrap everything up in is a bunch of hogwash. Natural Law is essentially "god" without the mysticism. It's just another faith based system. And utilitarians would literally murder your wife and kids if it benefited everyone else. Max Stirner (and Nietzsche) expose that bullshit for what it really is. Might makes right, that's the only ethical framework that really matters. We do things that better us because it suits us, no need to dribble useless world salad on it.

[Mulloch94]

I would also add a lot of people call themselves libertarians but I don't think they've actually read extensive amounts of libertarian theory. For example, most people in the MAGA movement see themselves as libertarians, or at least libertarian adjacent. Not even close, lol. They like co-opting the title libertarian because it makes them seem like they support liberty. But when you get into the weeds of the theory, they share nothing in common with the most rudimentary libertarian policies on stuff like defense spending, tariffs, drug war, immigration, etc.

[Kvirion]

@Creuset said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

Formal systems aren't closed

Wrong, you're mistaken about what a complicated closed system is.
I will try to simplify - it's like a box - you can change things in a box, you can add new thongs into it, but can't go outside a box or change a box. Relationships in a box can be tracked down...
In CAS they can't...I recommend watching the lecture titled No laws entail evolution.

Your rejection of this line of thought just shows your limits, and I just showed that most of your claims were wrong.

subscribing to Daniel Schmachtenberger that basically endorses exactly the same things as the World Economic Forum

LOL, you need to show alleged superiority to tickle your little ego, do you? BTW Your assessments are wrong anyway

Do you have an obsession with Popper? Have you ever heard about Kuhn or Lakatos or (more modern) ones?

BTW Have you heard about the works of Deleuze, DeLanda, or Bruno Latour? It may help understand that our world is more complex than just formal systems.

[Creuset]

@Kvirion said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

@Creuset said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

Formal systems aren't closed

Wrong, you're mistaken about what a complicated closed system is.
I will try to simplify - it's like a box - you can change things in a box, you can add new thongs into it, but can't go outside a box or change a box. Relationships in a box can be tracked down...

So you subscribe to the line of thought that every models are wrong, yet you have no problem making this kind of absolutist assertion. No coherence.

Instead of claiming things without substantiating them (and metaphors are not a proof), prove that formal systems are closed and I would start taking your assertions seriously. I will just remind you of something that will make this kind of proof difficult for you: Gödel's incompleteness theorem: https://www.academia.edu/38175811/Gödels_Incompleteness_Theorem_and_the_Philosophy_of_Open_Systems

The paper [...] stresses the role of Gödel's incompleteness theorem in showing the inadequacy of the concept of formal system as a closed system, and, on the other hand, points out the interest of the concept of formal system as an open system [...]

In CAS they can't...I recommend watching the lecture titled No laws entail evolution.

A lecture about physics and biology. Very related to the topic at hand, thank you.

Your rejection of this line of thought just shows your limits, and I just showed that most of your claims were wrong.

subscribing to Daniel Schmachtenberger that basically endorses exactly the same things as the World Economic Forum

LOL, you need to show alleged superiority to tickle your little ego, do you? BTW Your assessments are wrong anyway

Well, be a hypocrite and just parot what I just said earlier (that you're trying to be superior). You're clearly out of arguments, and ego has nothing to do in this discussion, if you brought valid arguments to the table, I would just submit myself to them, but since you didn't for now, I don't.

Regarding Daniel Schmachtenberger, he basically is in favor of a "new world order" (because this would be a natural "emergence" that creates more negentropy according to him), vegetarianism, and thinks we need to do something about "global warming" (and by that I mean soft totalitarianism), and he even talks about fighting "disinformation". Did you know that he even has people working in the WEF in his team? My ego has nothing to do with that again, I'm just stating facts.

You seem to not be confortable with me exposing him for what he is, but he is basically promoting the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab ideas while trying to use scientific lingo like you, that is to say talk about complex system, attractors, thermodynamics and the likes to justify his position. Like I said, it shows a lot that you would subscribe to this line of thought.

Do you have an obsession with Popper? Have you ever heard about Kuhn or Lakatos or (more modern) ones?

I was just replying to your obsession with Nassim Taleb, whose hero, as he claims it, is Karl Popper, who was heavily influenced by Kant. Since you're intellectually dishonest and can't reply to my arguments (and I just showed that NNT is not an Empiricism absolutist moron like you were trying to paint him as, and that you were quoting him out of context), you only have this kind of thing left.

By the way, it's not Lakatos but Feyerabend who wrote Against Method (Lakatos was merely interviewing him), and you obviously did not read me or did not understand, because I said that Popper was not correct about everything and I was precisely thinking about Kuhn and Feyerabend.

BTW Have you heard about the works of Deleuze, DeLanda, or Bruno Latour? It may help understand that our world is more complex than just formal systems.

I know Bruno Latour's work pretty well as I've read his book "We Have Never Been Modern" back in 2022, it was a good read. What's interesting is that he wrote "An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence" that is basically a book about psychological and social developmental stages, which I thought you said previously were falsified.

If you're really interested by the topic of Complexity, I would suggest Edgar Morin or Basarab Nicolescu, they are much more appropriate reads on the topic than Deleuze or Latour, especially Deleuze who has more to do with deconstruction and post-modernism and was wrong about a lot of things: https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/dusek.html even though I don't throw the baby with the bathwater in his case, he was still a brilliant philosopher. I've never read DeLanda so cannot comment on him.

[Kvirion]

@Creuset said in I will show you why I am an anarcho capitalist libertarian:

So you subscribe to the line of thought that every models are wrong, yet you have no problem making this kind of absolutist assertion. No coherence.

LOL! But you know, world/models have shades... i.e. usefulness of models is context-dependent. I do not subscribe to naive universalism.
Please try to provide more substantive arguments and less malicious/inferior rhetoric/eristics.

Our understanding of the world is about making sense of it. It's often beyond formal systems (no laws entail evolution).
Deduction and formality can only describe known knowns and some known unknowns. Formality is helpless in the face of a complex world that consists mostly of known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Or in other words in the world of Computational Irreducibility.

A lecture about physics and biology. Very related to the topic at hand, thank you.
It would help you understand that there is a real-world beyond formal systems...

Regarding Daniel Schmachtenberger

LOL! Main message of Daniel is to teach about complexity, but maybe it's beyond your perception... BTW I don't agree with many of his recipes/solutions.

Nevertheless, you have something in common with WEF - both of you don't get the human complex system and modern phenomenology. I.e., can't get beyond the limits of naive deductive "rationalism". And both of you want to force their utopian/unrealistic agenda.

For clarity: Complex human systems are far more complex beyond thermodynamics. You proved you have no idea about them.

BTW NNT supports Common Law, not NL https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/962374894544719872?lang=en

By the way, it's not Lakatos but Feyerabend who wrote Against Method

It seems that you have a problem with an in-depth understanding of how the world works, you simply mostly memorize facts and theories without really comprehending them. A cherry-picking pseudo-erudite (IYI)...

The key life-work of Bruno Latour is about ANT, not stages. BTW I don't need to agree with everything that an author claims, to appreciate some of his ideas. Again: context is king!

Edgar Morin's works are good but there are more pronounced players in the field of Complexity Science (not Daniel Sch.) that you seem to be not aware of.

Good that you appreciate Deleuze, but you do not seem that you learned enough from his works...

BTW Val Dusek's article indicates the same limited mind that can't get beyond naive rationality/formality...

[peatyourmeat]

why do people care about philosophy/politics its so gay the upside is that you can talk to people about it but u can watch UFC or something instead that isn't gay

[dan.dominic]

@peatyourmeat "Yet another advantage is made apparent by the words of the Philosopher [Aristotle]. For when a certain Simonides maintained that man should neglect the knowledge of God and apply his mind to human affairs, and declared that a man ought to relish human things, and a mortal, mortal things, the Philosopher contradicted him, saying that a man ought to devote himself to immortal and divine things as much as he can (10 Ethics 7, 8). Hence he says (in 11 On the Parts of Animals 1, 5) that though we perceive but little of higher substances, yet that little is more loved and desired than all the knowledge we have of lower substances. He also says (in 2 On the Heavens and the Earth 12, 1) that when questions about the heavenly bodies can be answered by a short and probable solution, the hearer rejoices greatly. All this shows that however imperfect the knowledge of the highest things may be, it bestows very great perfection on the soul.
And consequently, although human reason is unable to fully grasp things above reason, it nevertheless acquires much perfection if at least it hold things, in any way whatever, by faith.
Thus it is written, matters too great for human understanding have been shown you (Sir 3:25), and: the things that are of God no man knows, but the Spirit of God: but to us God hath revealed them by his Spirit (1 Cor 2:10)."

-Summa Contra Gentiles 1, Saint Thomas Aquinas.

[peatyourmeat]

@dan-saintdominic making walls of text debating anarcho capitalist libertarian are not higher or divine substances

thomas aquinas discovered that infinite angels can fit on the head of a pin and that a demon impregnating a witch requires a succubus to gather seminal fluid from a wizard

[dan.dominic]

@peatyourmeat Does saying that make you feel better about the life you live?