Comments by "harvey young" (@harveyyoung3423) on "How to Identify & Resist Manipulation Techniques of Behavioural Scientists, Governments & Big Tech" video.

  1. Part 1: Up to 11:00 mins. I've started a project to look at behavioural psychology and then to its shape in relation to conservatism. There is a way in to this though Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In the Paralogism's sections particularly the 3 rd Paralogism: "Critique of the Third Paralogism of Transcendental Psychology”. The explicit issue is the role and nature of: "The "I think" must accompany all my representations ("presentations" in Pluhar's translation)"#. This is both Critical of Descartes "I think" as an absolute ground of existence, but at the same time # he calls "the transcendental unity of apperception" is also a condition of the possibility of experience. Now on the other side of the argument to Descartes unconditioned, and so sue generic "I think" isolation and solipsism: a state Descartes categorises: first negatively as a "non material" "non-extended" it would also be "non relational", and then positively as a substance soul. The reason for the soul as independent of nature is to escape it from his mechanistic causal view of matter e.g. Hobbes. Now Kant claims that their cannot be such a radical separation in this way e.g. definition by negation of matter, and then places the soul the "I think" into a quasi substance as the logical disjunctive complement to material substance. His move is to first contrast the first person "inner view" of my states of consciousness with a third person "external view" of someone looking at me and acting toward me (CPR A362-3). He then says the identity i have of my self as persisting over time, is not the same identity that an observer can have of me over time. The objectivity of my determinations with the named "I think" as condition of those determinations, is a different objectivity to those determinations by another in observing me. That is these are different synthetic time determinations. Now then my inner determining of my states then is not related to Descartes "I think" as a ground from which to be derived, the "i think" is merely a formal and derivative expression. rather what is in play here is a task of maintaining ones "personality" over time, a synthetic connecting in inner sense of my past and present (and later future possible) states. Its about ownership and responsibility and freedom). We can think of this as like: a contract; a promise; a duty; over and between times. Here i am drawing on Sellars in making these temporal relations in normative say in the human terms. This is an obligation we have not just to ourselves but, without it as an act, we are not a self a personality at all. We collapse into the contingent world of being less even than a subject in the face of ever changing causes. e.g. yesterday "I do a", for reason ra, but today "I will do b" for reason rb. But if my acts a and b are not connected by a coherent reason ra/rb but rather ra and rb might even be contradictory, then I cannot talk of any single act a or b as connected and so there really is no I doing anything, rather its being done to them (external manifold causes heteronomy without a subject an "I") and they have no identity to be found in just following time sensitive self interest and ever changing tactical shifts as a disconnected moments responses to ever changing manifold of events. This contrast with the tasks for an observer of me, who must organise me and a stable object objectivity, in and over the time of their subjective inner states. That is Kant has already claimed that there is a task with them (and us ) and within their (and our) experience to organise their (ours) "external world" of objects under notions of permeance of substance and causal relational law as rule over time. The contrast between the two view points then is a contrast of different types of tasks, self determination of personality over time, being person at all, is a normative connection, while determining an external object as objective is a task of architectural permeance of external objects. Kant's point is that i can raise my arm in affirmation and consistent agreement with a vote i did yesterday. This kind of inner commitment and contract over time by me, is inaccessible to a third person, they can neither experience my commitment or my inner personality, only my body "arm reflexing twitching up twice in two days. For them the task is to architecturally organise a body in permanence and subject to causal law over time.
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  2. Part 2: So for example we might claim from the outside view of people all voting is done out of self interest, and what this consists of is ever changing in response to complex moving events. So now I look at the conservative win in the bi election and ask what is the self interest here. The claim is that they were against the Labour Mayer's extension of pollution reduction into greater London. A first person task then is to judge in complex manifold situation what to do by synthesis of that manifold into a shape for action and reason. A third person reason looking on has the task to architect the world such that there can be constructed permanent objects over time. The first person can be aware understand and be self conscious of the empirical task of the other on them, because it is the same as their first person talks on their objects of, events in, experience. The third person also knows that their object person under study and control has this inner practice of personality. A behaviourist fundamentalist has the problem that in the real world of action a person is within manifold event situations ever changing demands. They make judgements underdetermined by the external world or the self alone. That is realising the first person point of view is one of synthesis of manifold situational events. Possibilities are open. This changing situational reality for a subject is in methodological conflict with behaviourism, it make it impossible to organise a human body as cause and substance with the knowledge that they cognise manifold situations as unique in possibility. This means the tasks of the behaviourist then is to frame and narrow and simplify events and situations. Two basic ways of doing this are architecturally, e.g. everybody lives in a house and they are pretty similar and people tend to go from A to B on road and footpaths. But that is not enough they also need to organise and our cognitive sensitivity like a Gestalt so we only see what they want us to see in an event situation, and to organise our space and content of reasons into an order so our reasons fall under a list of cardinality even ordinality. This can be descried as social engineering by the right or manufacturing consent by the left. Its really that for behavioural science to work in judgement in complex manifold unique events, they need to organise decisions and decisions possibly to close it down to place a voting station and possibility eg policies as reason and in a lexographical order. What then is the task of the third person subject to this political psychological and architectural process? For them as within situations to see possibility they try to Gestalt away from our view and to open up reason and policy to possibility. It is not a task of escape from the architecture in the first instance anyway! There is though with Kant in addition an awareness, covertly that if such architecture and organised reason and space and time is required for behavioural control and even as such a sense of self in relation to others, then a practice of continually changing the architecture and the space of reasons, will make behaviourism impossible and unworkable. It will in addition de-subjectivise the scientist in relation to the object as there is no object now and so no behavioural scientist. The risk is thought that such chaos will also make it impossible for the subject to maintain a personality. To much re arranging of the planks on the ship at sea will sink the ship the captain but also the mutineer. So this can’t be the space of freedom as such radical freedom from the architecture of necessity and determination there is no recognisable person only twitches to ever changing perceptions of situations. Indeed the multi levelled attacks on the conservatives government by labour have the look of this kind of praxis, create chaos and disenchantment and the government look like they are depersonalised and not in control of actions, like in a civil war, only twitches and reactions to unpredictability and no continuity. So did people really vote for the Conservatives in the bi election in greater London because of the anti-pollution measure by the labour Mayer? And now his move to stop solid fuel fire places in houses. My view is the Tories have proposed to remove inheritance tax which would be attractive to many middle class labour voters in London with large Capital in domestic houses. But they realise that to just switch to vote conservative on this reason makes it look like their policy whatever the message on the tin is really disguised organised self interest. But the left to maintain identity need to hang this on something else less it all looks like the underlying private is self interest in each changing. The left labour “save the planet” ban the car policy can allow labour voters to move to tory to “save” their inheritance, while making it look like they are acting out of some principle like the high and disproportionate marginal cost of such save the plant to poor people as opposed to the rich that advocate it. This is cognitive behaviourism that recognises not just in terms of feelings and dispositions, seeing a situation and organising it with reasons from the available space. This is just one trace of theme in this part of Kant though and a bit of mixing of Theoretical and Practiccal reason he has. Note: The third person self can becomes a tool of sue for the third person behaviourist who now says you must be consistent and uses external notions as tools to manipulate internal notions. Now Kant's inner preservation of personality is used by proxy as outside charts and diary (heuristic image of space and time) of maintenance. Usually in terms of risk avoidance priority and the actualisation of independence as personality eg negation again independence as not dependent its ironic. On a positive note i read that Skinners students back in the day decided plotted that one side of the audience each week would smile and look interested when the other side would not. by the end of the course Skinner only talked and looked at the smilers. Remember Dolphins in California have taught people to give them fish when they jump though hoops.
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  3. part 3: yes Face mask as outer objective type for a display of inner faith. I am sure that once we allow Sellars's move to the necessary and constitutive role of concepts/categories of normativity like promise contract and so on, in to the "given" of reasons, that referred or was proxy or equivocate for a transcendental content or idea and object, as absolute independent from reason or a ground to reason (Sellers as is commonly neglected by commentators held that ideas like rule and justice are treated, in logic language and reason as epidemic "given" as well as the common uptake as a Critique only of empiricism), that we open the door onto much more and richer notions like faith. Indeed i think this was what C Jung did coming out as he said, of Kant he filed up the psyche with cosmology and myths as archetypes. Other people such as H.S. Chambline on the Schematism and archetype also focused on this aspect of Kant not to deflate architypes, but he saw the need for a Fuhrer as such and architype in the 1920's in politics. So we have tom be carful. Sellars really only mentions this in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind". The real argument is in his 1969 lectures and the discussion of The Myth of Jones as a Critique of Ryle's behaviourism. This is free online, but is also influenced by Wittgenstein on Private Language etc. But again we must be carful for Kant sis taking about representation of phenomena and seeking the numina to this structure. Wittgenstein does not have this distinction so some say Kant is too late others though say Wittgenstein is too late, in really being able to tackle this problem. Husserl talked about intentionality and the internal role of attitudes depositions ect in our directed to the world. there is always a mood a modality of being towards an objects he privileges the scientific attitude but Heidegger de privileged this for many other modes or comportments some of which are practical and are more fundamental than the science comportment. The risk here is a collapse into pragmatism of objects for use, but Heidegger addresses this in his later work as truth maybe and "letting be" . a big influence on the environmental movement. Surly though it is Human Nature that is under threat. There is also and commented that Husserl is similar to J.L. Austin in there being many different ways we use language not just as factual statements.
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  4. Part 4: at 20:00mins. Yes the manufacture and transmition of norms principle etc as givens of "objectivity" do not demand us absolutely even if some think there must be an empirical content (like no harm or risk) or rule of justice (equality) that is trumps, and for some of these have been made compatible even co-dependent and conditioning givens. That their use behaviourally is instrumentalised upon us, is not surprising the clue is in the title "Politics Scicne" Behaviourism is a kind of a priori rule or a meta cosmological concept of politics. they say you can't Criticise science else you will agreeing with burning Witches and so on. But you can't Critique behaviourism as such critique is not refection but mearly an expression of self interest and predicable by behaviourists. Thus behaviourism in part as an individualist opponent of totalitarianism becomes a totalitarianism with no exist itself (Popper on refutation and falsification) . in reality unlike in logic and reason's representations, we have possible and multiple choices of which many more float around as irrelevant to us. Some people think there are absolutes most people triangulate and negotiate policy take some up, these have objective criteria but as a whole policy set (not given in logic and reason as such are not decidable consistent together. it can shift the question to policy coherence and production enter Ken Arrow. Non of this can be captured by behaviourism while still people being able to have space of error and possibility at least available to them.
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  5. Part 5: 22:00 mins conformity in politics and business is a prior and guarantees success but only in its own narrow metric domain. if everybody buys some shares of a failed company then its share price will rise a priori. This simple observation, i was inspired from Sidgwick, means its success is not really an ordinary inferential relation of time ie as subject to contingencies. There are always possible catastrophes but there is some sense of success being immediate to the choice, not as mear chance. the problem of the relation to the future is deal with by numbers in the present. c.f with the bank bailout being know in advance with numbers as non voluntary payers of losses being covertly a priori in banking regulations. An old maxim in politics i heard is always get on board with the policies that are going to happen anyway. Of course that makes it so.
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  6. Part 6: There is of course another problem for behaviourism the contrary to my Popper problem point earlier. Any science really has to be consistent, complete, decidable. it presents the structured representation, of or in a constructed architecturalised reality. Where in science refers to Copper say i have to include in the law the Coper in my own body. I and my Copper can not be an exception to the science. But the same is true for behaviourism with regards to people. the scientist must place themselves as within the complete scientific whole, as themselves subject to the same laws as objects in the representation. They have to represent themselves in the same way. But now the scientist and the experiment and the world view of behaviourism is not simply a description or representation, ie a passivity or purposelessness towards the world but must be the result of self interest of the scientist, the scientist is subject to laws around their own actions. the more they appeal to the science as a representation, the less convincing and honest the argument sounds by its own principles. Scientist try and create the image of detachment impartiality, duty, station, honesty, but for behaviours these are mere shapes to the bottom line of self interest. in Chicago the behavioural approach to law (Richard Posner) has made this a basic, and so the law makers are viewed as jsut the same as anyone under the law. but if this is all the way up then its more like a machine with self regulation and feed back. This is a paradox of foundations because there is needed a kind of immunity position but there seems non available. Husserl's Crisis of the European Sciences. How this manifests in politics is the left always, describe positions opposed them as manipulations deceptions and subject to behavioural analasys without remainder. Example is the books on popularise and Brexit. There is never the question of right or wrong, that they are wrong is a given, so the question is always how and why did it happen and they appeal to all kinds of behaviourisms to this. its is a method of delegitimising the claims as of genuine normative validity. The normative validity is their own givens and situational attachment to certain values and policy and aims. The idea of law and right and humanism affords them to claim these as transcendent of the nature. this is the ground for the validity of the science and at once their exceptional status and then the silencing and patronising de-legitimising view and approach to all who disagree. they of course act for what is right and so escape the circle of behaviour and self interest for higher humans it values that are as natural law. THE BIZARE CLAIM MUST BE THAT THERE IS A LINK BETWEN CERTAIN MORAL VALUES AND SCIECNE. IE EXPERTESE IN COMPLEXD SCIENCTIFCA METHOID MEANS EXPERTESE IN VALUES. THEY NOT ONLY CLAIM TO BE CLEVER THAN US AND SO RIGHT TO CONTROL BUT ALSO THAT THEYARE BETTER PEOPELTHAN US AND TO DISAGREE IS TO BE A REFLEXING ANIMAL NOT A THINKING HUMAN BEING.
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  7. The "make it so" reference is to Star Trek and the Enterprise Technical manual which claims that Warp Drive works not by moving the ship from A to B but by pulling B towards A by artificial mass or gravity compressing the space time.
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  8. Part 7: Where does the equivocation between morally/ethics and science come from? Behavioural science on the one hand is mechanistic it is about antecedent causal explanation. Although no one can see a first cause, or even if there is one or multiple cases and context, but it is a regulative idea a heuristic for science to explain everything there can be no miracles and no privacy. This is on the one hand the idea of a causal series with a beginning or multiple causal series. Such a presupposition though is not an addition to science but can be seen as a necessity, a necessary presupposition to want to explain everything from a first. But we can also say that this is constitutive of science, in that no science can really rational stop and say well I ignore that anomaly. Science and totality then are internally related as seeking totally and the expulsion of anomaly are the conditions of a possible of a science that grasps nature. This then conflicts with the idea of freedom that an individual human agent can initiate spontaneously an action, be an agent and responsible. Although these are in conflict, they do have an apparent similar shape. For Kant this is because both are really symptoms of the nature of “domestic” and “local” reasoning that seeks higher and higher general terms concepts with more scope and objects under them. This then is a conceptual task with observation. Here it implies an absolute general and total concept e.g. like Being. What the two competing views: causal series determinations and agent cause as freedom, both do is take the conceptual subsumptions and seeking higher general concepts and make it a model for in causation seeking a first spontaneous cause. The two points of view on a person do both these for inner agency and a mechanical realism. But there is more. If we think the agent acting in terms of cause, we are thinking of not just an escape from events in the past catching up with us, but aim or purpose as the teleological cause. This then suggest first cause is not the agent but an agent independent final absolute aim of all things. Like ultimate good. Now the conflict of freedom is between an agents finite aims and a supposed posit of an ultimate purpose. This is how scholastic Aristotelians thought about this. The syllogism of organising purposes locally is made into a seeking and imposing absolute end. Aristotle “All action tends towards some good, The Good is that toward which everything acts” (or ought to act). A hierarchy of goods then organised because of the syllogistic structure of reasoning. Also in the making teleological the idea of a cause first caused series, the notion of justice as an absolute end can be apparently inferred or is even necessary for any domestic and local notion for justice. So we have an aim of justice to come, but now this is a legal notions and has a different semantics and logic to human action. They are opposed in terms of how they understand determination and negation.
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  9. Part 8: Such a project of justice seeks to constrain more and more, leave no legal gaps in action for injustice. This itself makes it a process of closing down possibility and imagination for action. As restorative justice it imagines the anomaly of a first case as antecedent is to be brought to justice in terms of being taken up and resolved in the present or future acts and tasks. The ethical and moral then take up local and domestic terms for good and just and by the model of the syllogism they posit absolutes for these GDP and equality. The ethics and morals are modelled after the syllogism of enquiry and its presupposition to totality. In a way it’s a groups of bad analogies or metaphor. Good poetry, but bad philosophy. It is particularly problematic when we find that not only is law being approached behaviouristically, but it is being approached in terms of AI doing the judgements. This a project that at least goes back to the 1990’s. This might be because the regulative idea is taken up as the synthetic unity of all multiplicity of laws, in a judgement, that would appear to require a machine to cope with. The organisation and use of an entire legal system to bear on a case. From the human poiunt of view of an agent this regulative idea is quite different in that the virtues and morals are already with us, not some added or set over against us but in a very different way to the unity of the laws of science. So the former like “Just stop Oil” absolute end, or a “stop poverty” as an absolute end for the external view means uniting these principles which then usually means a lexographical order of policy. People can argue over the order and priorities here this while agreeing with the basic model and shape of the project as they look down on the whole world. But for the agent it is different the ethical and moral is already with us, it is already immediate not synthetic, but already integrated. It is I think called a modesty position. We don’t prove an ethics from facts rather we show that the idea of an ethical/moral free fact is an illusion and error of false abstraction. Such an error makes people think there is a post facto problem of unity and ordinality of different external ethics and morals in judgement required. This mirrors then the idea of the subjects as bare factual abstractions bereft of ethics and morality or only very local concerns not the whole, that means a task for the experts to do this for us in ordinal arguments and agreements over policy and then we vote for a system that thinks we are abstraction void of moral and ethical dispositions in relation to the whole they alone can see. Clearly then these two standpoints of a subject acting and the political institutions with policy, have two very different structured projects and task. The subject negotiates and judges in their domestic local context, which is to see how these area already with us organically, while the politic seeks to assume we are self interested and then to organise a lexicon a audit of orders and priories that are to determine and measure all our actions. The problem of free will and determineism then is really a problem of whether we think ethics is always with us or if it is external to us, and then two different activities one agent triangulated judgement in an action in a context, on the one hand, and a government body organising the priorities for us. The conflict between behaviourism and freedom then is really quite different from how the tradition has understood it. Kant’s pretty explicit on what the problem is. It is that syllogisms work by subsuming objects under concepts and seeking higher more general COCNEPTS. THESE CONCEPTS FEATURE IN JUDGEMENTS THAT CONTAIN CAUSE AND SUBSTANCE SUBJECT AND INTERNAL RULES WITHIN THEM,. WHAT THE ERROR IS, IS THAT THE NOTION OF CAUSE IS TAKEN FORM ITS FUNCTION IN PROPOSITIONAL UNITY AND MADE AN OBJECT. IN A WAY MAKING CAUSE AS IF ITS AN OBJECT AND THEN PLACING IT IN A CAUSAL FUCNTION PROPOSITION. For Augustine perhaps there is a big difference between me setting aims and following them and me telling someone those same aims, and them trying to reconstitute them as prohibitions of their negations e.g. like laws or even worse the putting together of inner virtue like this as expressed and then ordinanced as a law against there negation. . Here then Hegel’s speculative idealism confuses inner private determination as already integrated with us, with external negation and determination by public law reason and an anonymous committee lexicon so understood. Two notions of source then: disposition of agent in and through virtue and morality and disposition of a government that thinks it needs to impose virtue and morality onto an alien sub human bereft of inner determination. I have drawn on Kant’s Antinomies section of the CPR Dialectic here.
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