Philosophy exercise: call for critiques

[grysar]

So, regyt once told me that philosphy was a meta area of study, that it explored and discovered caves/topics like politics, biology, economics, and moved on while those less meta subjects explored their own cave in depth. I'm not doing full justice to the eloquence of the metaphor, but I think that gets the point across.

In that case I believe this is an exercise in philosophy. I propose, against all comers, an analytic system for understanding effective human action. Specifically for describing codes, honor, moral systems, political systems, economic systems, religions, and the like. I do not seek to describe the actions of animals, unthinking objects, computers, or any other entity that doesn't meet my human-centric definition of self-consciousness.

Namely:
All these systems humans follow hold two opposing but also reinforces forces: power and principles.

Power is both creative and destructive. It gives us drive and is tested in the forge that is reality. Thus it changes as the world changes, for the power of a cave man is not the power of a modern human. It can be internal: sharpness of mind, force of will or strength of body. It can be external: weapons, money, technology, God or gods. It can even be a fundamental rejection of the world and a realization of some truer plane.

Principles are rules, conscious or unconscious. They are restrictions on the means we can employ. They are not goals in and of themselves, except that some goals deny us certain means or demand we use others. They are law, the golden rule, cultural mandates, and the like.

Both of these aspects are necessary. Moreover in an effective system they both must be balanced. Power needs the channel of principle or it will become corrupted: see absolute power or hedonism. Principles alone will lack the ability to achieve their goals or they will stagnate without the renewal of power.

As you get into complex economic or political systems the model can be applied, but complex systems will often have multiple sub-systems that need to check and mutually reinforce one another.

So here are my contentions:

1. This model is quite helpful in understanding what makes an effective system.
   
2. This model can be applied to any of the systems I've described above.
   
3. This model can not be simplified to contain only a single force and it need not be expanded to contain three or more.
   
4. This model is a better window for understanding these systems than other dichotomies: individual/society; order/chaos; good/evil; good/bad; rationality/emotion.
   
5. Any effective system must have both of these aspects and they both must be strong forces in and of themselves.
   

So, I need a quick nap and I'm also smug, so I'll skip the examples for now. I invite anyone to challenge any of my contentions or any other contentions they think are implied. And if you provide me a system, I'll give my breakdown.

Addendum due to Ard's threat of violence. (Note, there's lots of variety, I'll just go with a common one I think of.)

System	Power	Principles
Christianity (old school)	God	Strict code of sacrifice and golden rule.
Buddhism	Enlightenment/Seeing through illusion of reality	Rejecting atachment.
Capitalism	Self-interest; hard work; competition; entrepeneurship	Basic market rules: no violence, no monopolies, etc.
Theoretical communism	Hard work; power in the hand of the workers; collective effort	Work all you can; don't take more than you need.
Totalitarianism	Centralized power without restrictions; government can guide colleective energy of entire society; shaping of individuals to best serve countries need	Unquestioning devotion to leader; leader servers interest of people
Democracy	Power is in people's hand	Must accept results of elections; follow election rules; majority must try to serve interests of all
Utilitarianism	All means are available when appropriate	Means/ends together must server greater good
Natural law	Core desires and needs of humanity	Don't infringe on other's core needs in most cases
Kantian	Moral strength; positive example influences others	Don't do anything that you aren't willing to have someone else do
Nihilism	Rejection of no-win world	Don't give a shit.

Comments

[ardweden.livejournal.com]

EXAMPLE ME OR I PUNCH YOU.

ALSO, RUN SAB.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Examples given. I'll get to SAB soon enough.

[(Anonymous)]

You have declared that every system is about the balance of two things. You have defined those two things. You have given the vaguest of statements about how they interact. You have made a few random contentions, which all boil down to "this model rocks" rather than explaining or justifying the model itself.

I'd say that until and unless you explain a good deal further, you can't claim to have come up with much of anything.

At best, this system as presented provides little more than a self-evident truth that is not useful for any further analysis. "Behaviours follow principles. Actions require some form of power."

I can take this, look at, for example, military actions of the Soviet Union, and say, "Well, uh, yes, there was power. And, okay, there seem to have probably been some principles at work." And then what? Well, I can't look at types of power or types of principles, since you insist that your model requires no further subdivision. I suppose the only thing it allows is for me to hazard that the ratio of power to principles is off, or possibly that they aren't interacting properly, but I'd question whether either of these statements is useful or even correct, if we continue to deal only at the general level of "power" and "principles" and not, say, good/evil, moral/ethical, individual/society, rational/emotional, or any of the other dichotomies you dismiss as inferior to yours.

Nicolas

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Damn it, lost what I was going to write.

Short version:
When i have ideas I like, I tend to try to draw attacks to clarify my thinking. Off your attack, I'm realizing that I really need to define the problem I'm trying to answer.

Maybe I'm getting at the nature of power and why it corrupts, or how power interacts with moral systems. I'm also objecting to systems that reject power or that hold that principles are just ways the weak control the strong or vice versa. I'll post when I've got more.

[millenia.livejournal.com]

Quote:

"The only rules that matter are these: what a man can do, and what a man will do."

It's a rather structuralist coding approach, isn't it? Maybe it's because I've had to do so much textual analysis and all that, I just like post-structuralism better.

Shallow commentary. I'm not really intelligent enough to give you more than that.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

I think one key distinction is that structuralism (if my quick review of the term is correct) deals in opposite concepts. I'm trying instead to deal with opposing but mutually necessary concepts. Similarly I'm not trying to be strictly heirarchical. I do think some are better than others certainly, but aside from system stability (e.g. having both forces in balance), this particular analytical framework doesn't rank. It's meant instead to expose driving forces which then can be evaluated in a manner the observor sees fit.

But yeah, I don't tend to follow schools with the prefix post.

[millenia.livejournal.com]

I'm working from the concept that structuralist approaches look for underlying commonalities among differences ("what is the common thread that ties these disparate cultures together?") versus post-structuralism, which suggests that differing sense-making practices present a number of alternative and equal viewpoints. I'm working off the (admittedly limited) definitions presented by McKee in Textual Analysis.

Considering the examples, I'm inclined to partially agree with unreason. I think the two force model is too reductionist for me. My problem is with the contention that these two are all you need. What you call "power", perhaps because of semantics, feels mislabeled to me. Those are certainly philosophical ideals attached to systems of belief. As unreason says: motivations. But how these motivations are executed is equally important. You can have, for example, Group A and Group B, both of which believe "the rule of law is paramount". But Group A might go about it in a diplomatic fashion while Group B establishes a vicious autocracy. Realistically speaking I suppose you could call those methodologies secondary characteristics to "power", but I think doing so is broadly coding for the sake of simplicity. If you want to consider the tension between "ideals that motivate" and "principles that limit", the bridge is "how do people express their motivations within the limitations of their principles?".

I think a third category of expressions/methods represents that necessary bridge category. It gives insight into people's actual actions -- what they're doing -- rather than simply coding systems of belief into a dichotomy that overgeneralizes their properties.

Coincidentally, I am amused by the pseudo paradox presented by applying principles to Nihilism.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

By principles I'm actually trying more to express methodology then motivation. Looks like I'm going to have to relabel my terms. Sadly this will likely involve abandoning alliteration, but if that's the price I must pay...

As with Unreason, I'm going to have to finish developing my question. Or perhaps I should try a tri-pole system with power/methodology/motivation.

And yeah, nihilism is definately there for a reason. Codes that abandon the idea of wanting stuff need to be covered for my idea to be universal.

Also, I find that formulation of post-structuralism far more pleasing than the wikipedia version. I'd reject the term "equal" though. But there is a good chance that even once I have my question properly defined, I will have to drop the contention that it is consistently the best system. I'll perhaps recast it with a listing of the advantages of this system over most alternatives.

In response to the new examples

[(Anonymous)]

So, the point here is to look at elements of any theory/position and label the elements as either power or principle?

Even putting aside that I think you've miscategorized many things, seemingly because you are including in power a number principles because in your view they are effective (self-interest is a principle of behaviour, all means are available is likewise a principle of behaviour, etc.), this says nothing I can see as analytically useful.

Put simply: you cannot create further analyses in the abstract using this model (that is, based simply on the general ideas of power and principles) and then meaningfully apply them to all these systems. Even moreso, you cannot create an analysis for one of these systems in terms of its particular power/principle and then transport that analysis to another system and apply it there. Any analysis you create of nihilism using a "rejection of no-win world/don't give a shit" will not apply to totalitarianism and its "centralized power etc".

Nicolas

Re: In response to the new examples

[grysar.livejournal.com]

And gonna run off to a party, so I won't be responding to anything for a bit. And thus probably you're getting a more first read response than you really deserve.

I'm not really agreeing with your "even putting" point at all, but I think it shows (as your first also mentions) I'll need to define my terms better.

On the third paragraph, there is certainly a limit on how detailed this model can go. What I do think is that I can draw some general conclusions about how the two interplay that will be helpful for analysis. But it certainly can't be a heirarchical system. So, if I'm understanding you correctly, I concede that there are great limits to how much different systems can be compared or used to produce other models. I disagree that there is no ability to cross-compare.

Re: In response to the new examples

[(Anonymous)]

I've realized, upon rereading your examples, that you are apparently defining power and principles as follows:

"Power" includes all benefits, advantages, and goals.
"Principles" includes anything that holds you back from achieving your goals.

This is not how I would define either of those words. I would define "principles" as the elements in the methodology through which a determination of course of action is made, and "power" as the resources that enable actions to be successfully implemented once a course is decided upon.

I continue to argue that, regardless, while "drawin[ing] some helpful conclusions about how the two interplay [would] be helpful to analysis", you have so far not done that in any way whatesoever, and moreover, I am expressing doubt that you (or anyone; I use "you" in the generic) *can* come up with "helpful" conclusions at all using a strict application of this model without the further levels of sophistication in the model which you explicitly reject.

Nicolas

Re: In response to the new examples

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Power isn't met to include goals. The example of utilitarianism works only if we're talking about individual utilitarianism with restrictions placed on also working for the greatest good. Straight utilitarianism is all power no principles.

Your definition of principles is fair close, but as several comments show, I'm not adequately emphasizing reinforcing in my definition. Perhaps the formulation I need is "anything that potentially holds you back from achieving your goals." Principles will not always conflict. Principles may often show the best course of action. But the case I'm concerned about is when there's a shortcut that involves abandoning your code. A principle that can always eb followed without sacrifice is not really a principle as I'm thinking of it.

And, I'll just concede at this point that power and principles aren't necessarily the best words. Well, actually powers I really want to keep, principles I can give up with. I'll work on getting a better term, but for now, if you'd be so kind, just consider the point conceded and go with the definition I'm using until I find a better word to use.

::sigh:: I don't think it will be a p-word though.

Re: In response to the new examples

[(Anonymous)]

Well, if you don't include "goals" per se in your definition of "power", you need to yank a number of things off your list. Also, I should note that you clearly include "methods designed to achieve goals" as a "power", which I had neglected to mention in my attempt to deduce your definition.

I also did attempt to work within your definitions, such as I could deduce them. I still don't see how this is anything more than a superficial classification system from which no useful general or transportable observations or analyses can emerge because the terms are flexible to the point where you can't analogize the "power" and "principles" of one system to any other.

All you seem to have demonstrated is that in any system you can find something which you can *call* "power" and something which you can *call* "principles" (or, at this point, something which you can call a hypothetical-term-to-replace-principles). You can't even say these are opposing forces, because sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't.

The "powers" and "principles" you list do not have the same characteristics or roles in each system, and do not interact in remotely the same way in various systems.

Greg, draw me some useful "helpful conclusions" on how this model can either accurately predict or accurately explain behaviour across *all* systems (Without the statements being redesigned for each! The statements must be generalized in terms of Power and Principles/whatever and yet applicable to each set of examples!), and I'll be a bit more impressed with it as a useful explanation of all human systems, which you claim it is.

Nicolas

Re: In response to the new examples

[grysar.livejournal.com]

I'm going to stand by what I said on goals, feel free to cite examples and we'll argue them. As a note of clarification, I'm attempting to classify the powers of a system in way an advocate of the system would describe it. The goal of Busshism is often to escape suffering, your level of enlightenment and the degree to which you see through this world help you along that path or help you towards other girls. In both communism and democracy, the power given the people, to advocates, is something that will make the government/society more effective and better able to reach their collective goals.

As for overall, I'm trying to understand a relationship that includes both reinforcing and limiting elements. Some of the conclusions I'm reaching I've already mentioned, that these mechanisms need to be of near equal effectiveness for the systems to have stability. It could be useful for studying why systems fail due to excessive strength of either force or because two forces are mismatched. I'm not sure of the exact mechanisms for that, but that's the sort of thing I'd like to study.

Re: In response to the new examples

[(Anonymous)]

The goal of Buddhism is to get girls?

Nicolas

Re: In response to the new examples

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Yikes, some bad typos / random words in that. I could make a bad pun off my bizarre misspelling of Buddhism, but instead I think I'll go with saying:

The goal of some buddhists is to get girls. Although I'm not sure being a playboy counts as avoiding attachments.

Re: In response to the new examples

[(Anonymous)]

It occurred to me that when you say "principles", you might mean something pretty close to whichever of the three parts of the mind in the Freudian model (id, ego, superego) is the internalized sense of rules and conscience, etc. I can't remember which one's which offhand.

Nicolas

Re: In response to the new examples

[ardweden.livejournal.com]

Freud was a crazy man!

Id = Pleasure Principle (I want this 'cause it feels good, so gimmie!)
Ego = Reality Principle (I might hurt someone by doing this; it'll be good short term, but bad in the long run, so maybe I shouldn't.)
Superego = Rules and Conscience (This would be good for me in the short and long term, but it's just *wrong*, so I won't.)

I think you're looking for Supermanego, Nic. Also, Greg! Change your terms, *please*. I nearly died when you mentioned hedonism as a "power" when it's a principle all the way. It confused me, so I threatened you with violence.

I still threaten you with violence! Change it!

Re: In response to the new examples

[(Anonymous)]

"Some of the conclusions I'm reaching I've already mentioned, that these mechanisms need to be of near equal effectiveness for the systems to have stability. It could be useful for studying why systems fail due to excessive strength of either force or because two forces are mismatched."

So, what you're saying is, without the controlling principle of rejecting attachment, the raw unchecked power of enlightenment and seeing through the material world will lead to an unstable Buddhist system? Or, conversely, that without sufficient rejection of a no win world to provide power, the principle of not giving a shit alone will cause nihilism to become stagnant and fail?

Nicolas

Re: In response to the new examples

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is what I'm saying. Nihilist who just sit around not caring without *somehow* getting strength from their rejection of the world will stagnate and fail.

Similarly, what do you think all those crazy evil monks in kung fu movies are all about? Enlightenment/seeing through the veil of the world unfocused by the code.

Regardless, note that if the system is simply weak, neither the power or the principles/whatever will really be of consequence. So it's a non-issue.

Re: In response to the new examples

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, Nihilism and Buddhism are *your* examples. I was applying what little you've given me as *your* analysis. Whose fault is it that combining the two gives goofy results?

Nicolas

Re: In response to the new examples

[grysar.livejournal.com]

I was standing by the results. The non-issue thing is also consitent with the principle.

Re: In response to the new examples

[(Anonymous)]

Oh. You were standing by the results?

Wait, then you have a completely separate dimension, strength/weakness of the system, which is external to your allegedly all-inclusive theory.

Nicolas

Re: In response to the new examples

[grysar.livejournal.com]

No, the strength/weakness of the system is a function of my forces. Both weak, system weak.

[unreason.livejournal.com]

I think I disagree with you slightly about the nature of principles. Your view of them seems primarily limiting, e.g. Don't beat up that guy with the noisy lawnmower, don't mug that elderly lady for your rent money, and so forth. This is not necessarily the case. If principles were merely limitations on power, then what of this principle: If you see someone being mugged, you should call the police. Your power is not being limited in this case; calling the police is not limiting anything. In this case, your principles are motivating the use of power, rather than limiting it. So it's important to view principles as both a limiting and an initiating factor. I would describe human endeavor with two slightly different factors: Power, and Motivation. Power goes unused without a motivating factor. Similarly, a use of power being driven by motivation can be arrested by a stronger motivation: e.g. A person's desire for money might lead one to utilize power to steal, but if personal morality is stronger it will cancel out the motivating factor, and thus theft will not occur. So, to use a physics metaphor, power supplies the ability to move, but motivation supplies direction to said power.

We can understand using this physics metaphor why power corrupts:
Let us say we have a bank teller. He has the opportunity to steal from his bank, but does not. Why? Let's make a cheesy pseudo-physics equation:

Banker's action=(Power to act)*(Positive factors-Negative factors)
where
Positive factors include: Desire for money, knowledge of potential power to act
Negative factors: Fear of going to jail, knowledge that current power is insufficient to succeed, moral system

Now, let's make a change. Let's say that there's a mix up in the bank's records, and it makes it possible to steal without the bank noticing. Note that the teller needs to know about this change; power is of little effect without the knowledge of power.

What happens to our equation? Well, the positive factors certainly go up, since our teller now has full confidence that he can succeed in his theft. By the same token, the negative factors of fear of jail and knowledge of the possibility of failure are eliminated. This makes morality the only negative factor. Therefore, it is possible that although the teller's morality was sufficient to retard the motion of theft when combined with the other factors, it is now outweighed in the new equation, causing the teller to steal. I would say that all human society and endeavor fall into this category, with actions being determined by Power and Motivation.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

It is true that principles can both limit action and demand action.

In addition, I think you're getting to, but not exactly at the question I'm trying to address. I think the question you've got is "How do people choose to act." And I think you may have a better answer for that question than my system provides. So, I need to better figure the more specific question I'm trying to answer.

The reason I shied away from motivation is that I'm trying to look at codes multiple individuals could use. For example, the samaurai code: samaurai theoretically they operated under the same restrictions/demands. Moreover the code taught them to pursue their power as a warrior in the same way: facing death, practice, gaining loyal subordinates, that sort of thing.

The problem I'm running into in formualating the question is properly seperating motivations from your powers and your principles. Let's tenatively go with "How do you best pursue your motivation" rather than "How do you act" as a question. This is only tenative, because obviously some codes are more suited to some motivations than others.

Actually no, that's not going to be good enough. I may have to sleep on this one. But when I get my question, I'll take on whether your quite sound system better answers it than mine. Thanks! Also, I'm back in MD, how are you doing? Still around? Wast to get together some time?

[unreason.livejournal.com]

Doing fine, hope you are too. I live in DC now, not MD, but I'm still in the area. Are you still in Silver Spring?

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm back in Silver Spring from now until the start of January. I'll also be taking classes in DC (Around Woodley Park Metro) in the Fall.

[kagami.livejournal.com]

LJ sucks. I've lost my argument twice now >.<

Ok, I don't feel like typing all that stuff out a third time, so I'm just going to put down a quick summary of my thoughts:

Power and principles aren't necessarily opposed. Principles can provide a motivation for using power:

i.e. Princple: Americans should vote. Why? Americans have the power TO vote, and therefore are obligated to use it.

Power can provide motivation for acting on principles, too:

i.e. Liu Bei is a man of virtue. He does not agree with Cao Cao, who wants to conquer China. Liu Bei is the king Shu and a legitimate heir to the Imperial throne. Therefore, Liu Bei acts on his principles and fights against Cao Cao because he is in a position to do so.

I had more than that, but I'm not typing it all out again :P

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Let's see, I think this is the easiest to answer so I'll start here.

To take your vote example, yes, American's should vote. The government would presumably work best if all citizens worked together to make an informed decision. However, many Americans do not vote. Why is that allowed? Why do we not choose, as some countries do, to use various sticks and carrots to guarantee a much higher turnout? It's because another freedom in our state is to choose not to participate, to remain ignorant. to invest one's time elsewhere. The power of freedom as we interpret it as an associated principle to not use our government to get the maximum utility from the power of citizen's democratic participation. There's perhaps more to be studied in terms of the way one principle is associated with a competing power.

I do not disagree with the idea that power can provide motivation for acting on principles. As I stated above, they can be both opposing forces and reinforcing forces. This is why I said principles can channel power. They limit the range of options, but within that range the power has greater purpose and force.

[kagami.livejournal.com]

LJ didn't wanna let me respond. Meh.

Well, um, I think I may have misunderstood what you meant by "two opposing but also reinforces forces". I took this to mean simultaneously, and thus was trying to prove that this wasn't always the case (though it's not impossible, but that's a different discussion).

Anyway, since you're not disagreeing with what I'm saying, there's not much of an argument ^^

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the controlling and reinforcing both take place, but they don't take place in every single case. Thanks to your comment I'm are of the need to clarify that.

Starting Over, Part One.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm trying to take a step back here and figure out why we're on such different pages here, and I think the problem is this:

I tend to think that a good classification system should be one (or both) of two things: elegant in its ability to classify or useful for analysis. Otherwise, I just don't see the point.

I think part of the problem has come from the fact that I've been arguing that- at present- this system has neither, but without properly separating the lines of argument.

Is your system elegant in its ability to classify? You'll have to pardon some deliberate vagueness in what I mean by "elegant", but the idea I am getting at is that items clearly belong in one category (or more) and conversely that they clearly do NOT belong in the other categories, and furthermore that the common elements that result in being placed in each category are a readily apparent sign of common group membership among the items in the category.

An example of an elegant classification system in this sense is, say, the list of BESM characters by eye colour type. Putting aside a few oddities, it is generally possible to determine which group a character belongs and which ones it does not, and moreover all items in the group clearly show common group membership.

An elegant classification system may or may not be useful for further analysis. The eye colour lists are pretty much dead ends, analytically, aside from some observations on role players' preference for exotic eye colours.

(Continued.)

Starting Over, Part Two.

[(Anonymous)]

(Continued from part one)

An analytically useful classification system may not be elegant (though obviously can't be totally inelegant, or it will no longer classify) but it can yield results. You can draw a conclusion about an item based on its group membership but not invoking the criteria for membership. Similarly, you can suggest relationships between items based on their respective group memberships.

An example of an analytically useful but not really elegant classification system would be, to parallel the one I gave earlier, the "personality type" list of BESM characters that's also been produced. Whether characters belong in one group or another can be somewhat murky, so it is inelegant. But it is analytically useful, in that one can make conclusions about characters based on their group, or hypothesize relationships between characters based on their respective groups, and so on.

(Continued again)

Starting Over, Part Three

[(Anonymous)]

(Continued from part two.)

At this point, I think you've conceded that your terminology and definitions are in a state of disarray to the point where you cannot claim this system is elegant for classification. This can be improved, of course.

Where I think we disagree a bit more is on whether this has the other form of merit, analytical use. My attitude is: show me. I suggest that you haven't done so. You hint that analytical use is forthcoming, but you seem to not have quite worked it out yourself. You allude to not having quite worked out the question you are trying to answer. Once you've worked out the questions this is meant to answer, and moreover proved that it does, its analytic use will have been demonstrated.

It is worth noting at this juncture that not all analytic uses are equal. Almost all classification systems have some limited analytic use. A truly useful and interesting classification system has either got many such uses or else uses of extreme importance and insight.

With some work, this could either have moderate elegance and/or moderate analytical use. I don't think it will ever be the new all-encompassing explanation for human affairs, which would require it to be both extremely elegant and unequaled in analytic value.

Whew. Okay, done.

Nicolas

Addendum to Starting Over

[(Anonymous)]

I should note a few final things. In order to prove that a categorization system is analystically useful, it must be possible to form an analysis that reduces items to their group membership and/or interchanges them. Otherwise, one is presenting totally separate analyses with common terminology.

Again, this is something that I perceive as a likely problem for you. If each separate power/principles dynamic must be examined in its own context and separate conclusions drawn, the categorization system itself is not helpful to producing useful analyses.

Also, analyses can be considered useful even if they are not 100% correct and/or can be assumed to deal with probabilities rather than certainties.

Nicolas

A small irony

[(Anonymous)]

I realize that, by purposely leaving a bit of ambiguity in what I mean by "elegance"- the intent of which was not to confuse, but merely because I didn't feel I had it clear enough in my own head to explain it without further thought- I have in fact created a less-than-totally-elegant classification system for classification systems.

Nicolas

Re: A small irony

[grysar.livejournal.com]

For the record, I didn't concede my definitions were in disarray, just needing to be clarified. I'll be changing my terminology, but only because you people seem to think that elegance seems more dependent on getting close to common usage then in a nice bit of alliteration. ^_~

Your larger critical system is reasonable, but perhaps a mite premature. I'll repost a second iteration shortly, with intention for more later. At this stage of the process I'm really attempting to flesh out a system that has in my head made several things much clearer. Obviously this doesn't yet do this for other people. I tend to believe that that's because it's not yet to the stage where I've achieved a nuanced rather than instictual understanding of it. You are of course welcome to the belief that even once I do, that won't change matters. I will, of course, fully engage your critique once I have the idea developed enough that I believe it to be elegent.

Regardless I'm thinking of replacing principles with obligations. It gets more to the point, can speak to both limitations and requirements for actions, and has normative connotations. That satisfying?

Re: A small irony

[(Anonymous)]

An obligation implies that it is owed to some party. "Restrictions" works better, I think, though it's not perfect either.

And you'll pardon me for taking your admissions that you needed to clarify your definitions and change the terms you are defining as being in any way a sign that things were in an admitted state of disarray.

I did say that once this system is better developed, it might be more useful and/or more elegant. I just tend to evaluate the system in front of me, rather than the one that may or may not develop out of it.

I do tend to doubt that this will develop, with a few drafts work, into the promised new understanding of humanity that is superior to all previous dichotomies.

Nicolas

Re: A small irony

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Pardon granted. ;)

Eh, normative connotations is key. I'm not wedded to obligations, but restrictions doesn't have a normative feel.

Re: A small irony

[(Anonymous)]

I disagree. I would say restrictions has a greater normative component than obligations.

An obligation is usually personal and designed to achieve individual goals. A restriction is usually common to a group and is often intended to impose a common standard.

Nicolas