KZ: One of Hume’s rivals, not well disposed to favor Hume noted that despite the uncertainty of life Hume wrote and talked about, Mr. Hume found his way each day from his office to the local pub and then to his own front door. Routine and muscle memory as solutions for uncertainty. The simple things are often quite useful in explaining human actions and ideas.

Me: “The simple things are often quite useful in explaining human actions and ideas.”

Indeed, and in the actual operations that accomplish paradigm changes which are also BOTH human reality AND temporal universe changes in certainty by the way.

Like the change from unconsciousness to self awareness, from nomadic existence to homesteading and urbanization, and from ego centric and earth centric cosmology to naturalism and helio-centrism.

KZ: My point is both more mundane and at the same time infinitely expansive. All certainties and uncertainties are contextual. Some belief or action or experience is certain or uncertain only in relation to some setting. So, neither certainty nor uncertainty are absolute. This allows us to view Hume’s deep uncertainty (skepticism) in the context of such events and beliefs as Enlightenment UK, industrializing UK, decline of religion’s importance UK, capitalism in the UK, perpetual wars with France, etc. But Hume was not skeptical about the local pub or the house where he lived. Under certain conditions these may be skeptical for some people. In short, Hume was skeptical because he was socialized by a skeptical culture surrounded by cultures that taught certainty (Catholicism, French monarchy, Russian monarchy). Hume is like all of us an actor network. So what he may appear to an outside observer should never be taken at face value. Do more digging. Social scientists do excavations. That most economists do not excavate indicates to me they are not social scientists. What are they then?

Me: “My point is both more mundane and at the same time infinitely expansive.”

An excellent duality….to integrate wisely…with the integratively inclusive mental discipline AKA Wisdom….and the various relevant aspects of the pinnacle natural, philosophical and unitary concept of grace….the reality of which is cosmic.

“In short, Hume was skeptical because he was socialized by a skeptical culture surrounded by cultures that taught certainty (Catholicism, French monarchy, Russian monarchy). Hume is like all of us an actor network. So what he may appear to an outside observer should never be taken at face value. Do more digging.”

Another duality. The answer is both “digging” AND integration of the particles of truths in apparently opposing realities in order to discover and perceive the resulting thirdness greater oneness that is the signature of both wisdom and paradigm change.

Also, one needs to realize that rational/logical analysis for all of its virtues has its limitations, particularly when both sides of the hypothesis has long degenerated into regurgitative orthodoxy and obsessive contentiousness…and so be willing to take the creative leap outside of that dualistic mess.

“That most economists do not excavate indicates to me they are not social scientists. What are they then?”

Believers….and defenders of the “faith”.

Ironically the human mind is both the easiest and most difficult thing in the cosmos to change. It just depends upon the direction of the will, a willingness to actually look and a basic honesty.

Steve Hummel 12/12/2020

Macro-economics went wrong when it failed to see that the most important and potentially beneficial thing about money is that it is basically accounting and hence must obey the conventions of same. Hence it has devolved since Keynes (and actually more so from Douglas who DID recognize this fact) into Hayek, Friedman, neo-classicalism and the near triumph of Finance Capitalism.

Equal reciprocal debits and credits of money at the point of retail sale resolves all of the deepest problems of the current monetary and financial paradigm and changes everything about economic theory. Just look at it.

KZ: I chose to omit this part of Bhaskar’s statements because it is in my view a good example of why philosophers should not get involved in social science until they are ready to be a social scientist. Not a philosopher dilettante screwing up the work of social science.

Me: Ken,

Yes, philosophers who only philosophize ARE dilettantes. That’s why becoming aware of and self actualizing Wisdom/paradigm perception and the paradigmatic level of analysis is so important because Wisdom is only wisdom if it involves BOTH mentality AND consideration of mentality’s best and most pragmatic temporal universe application and implementation.

As I have posted here many times a new paradigm is the penultimate integrative phenomenon because it is a single concept that transforms an entire complexity/temporal pattern. And a mega-paradigm change is one that immediately and continuously changes numerous patterns in beneficial ways.

For-profit finance is a parasite. You certainly do not feed a parasite. Reforms while okay, leave us still unconsciously believing that the parasite is a part of our organism.

The only rational and ethical thing to do is excise the parasite and vaccinate-regulate away any of its lingering effects.

No other business model adds costs post retail sale because (currently) retail sale is the terminal ending point of the entire legitimate economic/productive process where production becomes consumption.

A publicly administered non-profit banking and financial system guided and regulated by the relevant aspects of the natural philosophical concept of grace applied to the economy (like monetary gifting in the forms of a universal dividend and a 50% discount/rebate policy at the point of retail sale) will FINALLY get for-profit finance’s money creation off the neck of everyone and every other business model and free the individual and profit making economic systems mostly from themselves. Non-money creating financial services are legitimate and could be easily integrated (and regulated) into the new paradigm and its structures.

If you want the revolt of the bourgeoisie get on the bandwagon of the new monetary and financial paradigm.

The science versus philosophy-social science controversy is just one more dualism that is resolved by the most underlying and significant concept-experience known to Man, and yes that concept-experience is grace.

God-the experience of grace IS NATURAL. It’s also the philosopher’s stone, a mere but mind blowing and yes ecstatic integration of normal internalized egoistic consciousness with the spatial-electro-magnetic flux that is the dynamic, interactive, integrative flow of the present moment. That’s ALL and THAT’S ENOUGH to be the gloriously enlightening experience the world’s various wisdom traditions have long described and prescribed…..and the experience that the vast majority of us have ignored, decried and avoided most of our lives in the less than contemplative cultures we are embedded in and because the paradigm of inquiry is presently Science Only. That’s Only as in monopolistic. INTEGRATE!

Integrate the integrative discipline of Wisdom and Wisdom’s pinnacle concept, i.e. grace as in love in action within yourself and grace’s relevant aspect(s) into whatever body of knowledge-area of human endeavor is under discussion…and flow!

Me: Money, which is one of humanity’s greatest inventions is not the root of the problem, and neither is it capitalism or socialism per se. It’s THE PARADIGM OF FINANCE and the unwillingness and/or inability to think integratively and combine only the particles of truths in apparent opposites.

If the non-comprehenders and/or non-lookers on this blog would read my book they would see that it ends the idiotic and fruitless contention between capitalism and socialism by pitting the self interests of the individual and of enterprise against THE REAL PROBLEM which is finance and its monopolistic monetary and financial paradigm….while simultaneously accomplishing the best aspects of both of those ideologies. Hence it is politically integrative of traditionally opposed constituencies and so much more likely to bear fruit politically, economically and ecologically than obsessively battling viewpoints that are both passe’.

DT: I have seen and answered this argument so often it has become boring. It is not so much I disagree with it as that it misses the point that ‘money’ (while indeed a great invention) is a word whose meaning as changed, and the paradigm of finance with it. The word has become paradoxical: it means opposite things dependent on which meaning you take it to have. To integrate these apparent opposites one has to make the one include the other, and as reality includes words, one needs to stop financiers telling lies by governments making the declared meaning conform to the reality. Money by now is just a number in a computer, not a compact store of value which can be rented out at a profit.

As this blog is about moral philosophy, let us phrase this argument in the language of the Mosaic ten commandments: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”.

The Christian position is that all these ten commandments are included in the Christian ethic: if you love God and your neighbour you will not want to break them. But the reason for loving God (gratitude) was already implied in the preface to the first commandment: “I am the Lord your God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage”. We are all inclined to forget that now, but it is hardly insignificant.

Me: Sorry Dave, YOU’RE the one missing the point which is that we need to align money creation and its distribution with the relevant economic aspect of the philosophical concept of grace, that is Gifting, and to integrate it into the Pharasitical/Mosaic/ “Ye shall earn thy bread ONLY by the sweat of thy brow” present paradigm and so create a thirdness greater oneness. Such a present time continuous reminder of grace implemented at the point of retail sale and at note signing will do more to self actualize gratitude and so love in action in the temporal universe than all of the preachments ever uttered.

AR: DT sounds like a religious fanatic to me. Is there any other kind? I rejected the notions of sky fairies when I was about 8 years old. And of course, he is illustrating my points about cognition and what we are learning about how humans think and form their multiple bad beliefs.

Religion and belief in god have justified a lot of child abuse throughout history. Not to mention woman abuse. Read some George Lakoff to understand the difference between the strict, authoritarian, punitive, parent who believes discipline (ie often punishment) as the road to success (Republicans but some Dems too) vs the nurturing, kind, understanding parent who teaches rather than punishes.

Me: Inveighing against religion is more a tilting at wind mills kind of habit than doing so against neo-classical economics or the monetary paradigm.

There is such a thing as genuine religious experience and it is nothing more and certainly nothing less than our/your internalized consciousness letting loose of its habitual pre-occupations long enough to directly experience the present moment in all of its infinitesimal, electro-magnetic and spatial glory. It’s utterly natural, rarely experienced in an obsessive figure-figure-figure non-contemplative world and nothing about its naturalness detracts from its wonderfulness.

“Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Virtually everything people think and feel can be resolved rationally and truthfully if the opposites that come into their minds are couched with the words both & and.

Steve Hummel 12/06/2020

Yes, Science Only IS a monopolistic paradigm for inquiry. Anyone who blatantly contradicts, ignores or distorts science is understandably open to critique, however orthodoxy is one of Man’s worst tendencies and adheres to both sides of any dualism. Science requires the integrative mindset of the dialectic/the thirdness greater oneness of Wisdom….and money, finance and the economy particularly require it.

Thank you all for confirming this fact.

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Economics, needs an integrative and thus evolutionary mindset, a commitment to an ongoing dialectic that seeks thirdness greater oneness of truths, workabilities and the highest ethical considerations in apparent opposites. In other words the multi-disciplinary mindset of Wisdom.

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The parable (Man searching for his keys only in the light of a street lamp) is actually most apt regarding the mindset and utilization of analysis itself. If one will only look with the reductionist mindset of science while neglecting or ignoring philosophy, which by the way also includes the set of science, they will be prone to at best palliatives and at worst missing the pattern solution altogether.

The word philosophy means the love of ideas/concepts, and paradigms are single and singularly defining pattern concepts like terra-centrism, nomadism and Debt Only.

New paradigms are the ultimate integrative mental and temporal phenomena that replace the old/present ones…. like for instance helio-centrism, agriculture/homesteading/urbanization and Monetary Gifting.

Let us be aware of and not be afraid to use all of the tools of analysis, lest we stumble around in the light in the corner of a room and never consider that solutions may exist in the unexplored darkness of its entirety.

Direct fiat monetary distribution is an excellent consciousness raising/learning opportunity regarding the need for that new paradigm in the monetary and financial systems.