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Jan 24 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
🆕🔭 How the foundational crises in math and physics a century ago undermined confidence in social institutions, leading—via the anti-rational New Age and Evangelical movements—to our current chaotic dysfunctions. meaningness.com/collapse-of-ra… Image
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

Lacking a convincing theory for why science and rationality work, those who understand complex issues best may be the least likely to assert their knowledge and act decisively. Image
🗞 Current issue of my (free) newsletter explains The Making Of this post. I had been working on it for forty years, ever since my math professors started acting weird... tinyletter.com/Meaningness/le… Image
You can trick some kids with “a mathematical proof is itself a formal object, defined by the axioms of first-order predicate calculus,” and it worked on me when I was 19. I’m kinda stupid, but I’m going to use the excuse that I was distracted by mostly thinking about AI and sex.
(In case you are 19 and/or distracted by mostly thinking about AI and sex, but still care enough to be curious, take a look at a few mathematical proofs and see whether they are formal objects defined by the axioms of first-order predicate calculus.)
Looking for a React/Vue developer? Matt Arnold is smart, friendly, experienced, productive, and available.

[Also from the newsletter. Matt produces the audio version of Meaningness, @FluidityAudio] linkedin.com/in/matt-arnold… Image

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More from @Meaningness

David Chapman Profile picture
Jan 14
“A science of science” seems like it would be enormously valuable, but so far attempts have been disappointing. Michael’s analysis leads me to think we’re skipping a step. We need “the natural history of science” first.

Scientists often denigrate natural history as unscientific and uninteresting and amateurish and antiquated, but each specific science couldn’t have gotten off the ground without the extensive and careful natural history work on the same topic that preceded it.
We actually have nearly no idea what scientists do. We know what they say they do, but those of us who have done it and watched many other people do it, who have also wondered “what are we doing,” realize the concrete work is dissimilar to theory and mostly unnoticed.
Read 7 tweets
David Chapman Profile picture
Jan 11
Where most of the resistance to public health pronouncements comes from, I think. The administrative classes keep inventing more pointless bullshit to force everyone to do, and it's past time for a revolt against that.
I used to run a tech company. Much of my time was spent dealing with accountants, lawyers, bankers, and all that. Now I find it hard to cope with the same sort of work just on behalf of my family. Taxes, retirement plans, health insurance snafus, wills and trusts....
My barely-able-to-cope may be incipient dementia, but I think it's largely revulsion. Everyone hates this stuff and it's a complete waste of time and it's forced on us by people who invent it for their own benefit and have the power to demand compliance-or-else.
Read 4 tweets
David Chapman Profile picture
Dec 20, 2021
The rump of philosophy, the part that didn’t become science or something, is still mainly rehashing Aristotle (and Plato). This has been recognized as a terrible mistake for centuries, but they just won’t give it up and move on.
People in distress turn to Philosophy as an alternative to religion. Philosophy tells them the main thing is to figure out what it means to have “a good life.” The standard citation for this is Aristotle’s Nichomachaean Ethics.

This is a disastrous idea that makes you miserable.
You’d think after 2500 years of not figuring out what “a good life” is, philosophers might question Aristotle’s offhand idea that this is a meaningful problem.

“A life” is a malign metaphysical abstraction. It isn’t a thing. You don’t have one. You do stuff and things happen.
Read 5 tweets
David Chapman Profile picture
Dec 15, 2021
_The Rebel Sell_, a critical analysis of counterculturalism and subculturalism, reviewed by @cshalizi . Much insight in the book; I drew on it when writing _How Meaning Fell Apart_.
@cshalizi Here’s the retrospective on _The Rebel Sell_ that @cshalizi linked. How have cultural politics changed since 2004, they ask? Subculturalism imploded (“authenticity” is no longer a thing). Social media sent us into the culturally-atomized era… induecourse.ca/the-rebel-sell…
@cshalizi I wrote about the atomization of meaning five years ago… I meant write much more… now perhaps everything I would have said is too obvious to bother with. meaningness.com/atomized-mode
Read 4 tweets
David Chapman Profile picture
Nov 15, 2021
Aesthetics, like other dimensions of meaning, is neither objective nor subjective, because it is an interaction. @paulg nails that here: Image
@paulg My introduction to this topic is here… I promised more explanation, which is now on my short list. “Meaning isn’t objective, so it’s not real, just made up” is a common nihilist complaint, and it needs a serious reply.

meaningness.com/objective-subj…
@paulg “Objective meaning” is hard work to untangle, because everyone assumes, without thinking about it, that they know what “objective” means, but it’s a completely incoherent idea.

As usual, the _SEP_ demonstrates that no one has a clue: plato.stanford.edu/entries/scient… Image
Read 4 tweets
David Chapman Profile picture
Nov 14, 2021
Further PSA: even if your state is not openly defying corrupt authority on the basis that high quality evidence shows boosters are incredibly effective and safe, if you just show up and get in the booster line, you’ll probably get one without questions.
I would never do such a thing, of course, but I have, uh, high quality evidence that this has happened recently in my vicinity.
Kinda weird… either you can defy the corrupt authorities by not believing them when they say the vaccine is safe and effective, or you can defy THE SAME ONES by illegally getting the same safe, effective vaccine they won’t allow you to have.

Rebels rejoice!
Read 4 tweets

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