Shaving with Occam's Razor
Here's a rarely used category.
Couple of days ago I told cnulan in the comments he was looking at something on the quantum mechanics level when ballistics would be the right level. He responded
Alrighty then, break it down for me in plain and simple terms that I can understand.
Never has such a simple and fair sounding question thrown me into such turmoil.
I've mentioned before (in a post at The Niggerati Network that got blown away when I screwed up the site in December; I'll repost it here when I'm done with this thing) I use a physics metaphor for society. Well, I use that metaphor for sociology, psychology, politics, you name it. When reasoning I use my (totally qualitative) understanding of physics the same way an evangelical uses his (adjective of your choice) understanding of his Bible...to suggest paths to useful information, patterns by which solutions can be found and against which suggestions can be measured.
That's the symbolism in which my reasoning is encoded. And I've been like, how do you lay that out clearly?I told cnulan it would take a minute...
Today it struck me...ballistics, not quantum mechanics.
My daughter said my view would be called utilitarianism. Close...understandable that she would think so. But functionalism is much closer. You see, I'm quite selfish. I'm looking for the maximum good for myself, not the greatest number as utilitarianism would have it. I think it foolish to take that to the point of damaging the collectives I am a part of, though...proof functionalism is my primary principle.
Then there's that word "good." By that I pretty much always mean "the option that leaves me in the strongest condition at the end of the period of time under consideration."
That's the basics of how I judge things on a personal level. I sort of scale it up for social/collective issues.
It will take a minute. I didn't lie about that.
