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

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.