The Problem of the Bureaucrat

  This essay is not about what is normally and frequently called the bureaucrat; a paper-pushing, buck-passer, but rather about a certain personality type. I call this personality bureaucratic because it's essence consists in the desire to please others and follow their orders.
  Now everyone would desire to have someone to be their retainer, follower, order-taker, etc.For the order-taker, Libido Domiandi  fires their breasts unto service and Vindicius is their muse. I suppose such a character is not so curious when you realize that it can be easily inculcated in anyone who is consistently concerned about the fate of their fellows. The busy-body is essentially the teacher's pet, the obedient son, the mothering girl, etc. This personality trait however, in accord with our theme of analyzing intersubjective ironies, can be extremely counterproductive.
  One would think that the servant and benefactor of a man would be his perfect instrument and vice versa however this is frequently not so. Imagine this, a boy/girl is told to always behave and observe proper respect for authority. However, sooner or later, that authority tries to carry out a command like "go get a wooden plank". However, since the bureaucrat follows orders to the letter, he doesn't know whether to get a wooden plank quickly or slowly or at medium speed. So he/she leisurely searches it out much to the chagrin of the commander, who has an immediate need for it.  The bureaucratic person, responding to his concern for people and to other's love for servants, tries to be as nice as possible and ends up being as injurious as possible. The saying "respect your elders" soon becomes "if you want something done well, then do it yourself".
  The disturbing implication of this is that, if you wanted something done correctly, then the virtue of obedience must be seemingly exorcised or at least your concern for people must be eliminated. Was your selflessness vicious or was your virtue impractical? These are the two equally probable and haunting demons which ,alternately, taking his turn scourging our bureaucrat's poor soul.
  Are there people who exhibit the bureaucratic personality most, and what does this imply, if anything, for society? These questions will be answered later.

The Tragi-Comedy of Human Life

  This marks the beginning of a series of posts about the way intersubjectivity can affect our relationships, ideas, and world.
  For instance, take our love lives; if a person says that he/she will love anyone, then it is possible for that person to be approached by an unattractive person. If that person is rejected, and since experience is necessary for finding relationships, then that rejected person would become even less likeable in the future.
  This is similar in the realm of politics; if one person criticizes another then that other (out of self-love) tries to become more and more unlike the critic and so, even more unlikeable by the other person.
   Likewise, a group of loners (those who enjoy being alone) are enjoy their loneliness even more with other loners who can appreciate the same thing. So it was by the love of loneliness that friendship blossomed.
  The kingdom of fortune and chance is a very rich one, and deserves greater philosophical inspection later.
 

The Logic of Mathematics

Mathematics, has never seemed too logical to me and this is due to (1) pedagogy, and (2) the use of the "equals" sign. 

   Now for pedagogy, most math teachers or at least their students, seem to conceive that math is about real objects -marbles, pyramids, train tracks, etc. and that math is about countable things. However most mathematicians and aristotle would state that math is just symbols made up by the mind and arranged logically with only an incidental application to reality. This response obviates some of the obstacles to learning math that the "realist" view builds up; for instance, that negative or imaginary numbers don't exist and yet math deals with them. Additionally it also makes the theory of equations much more sensible since equations are not like see-saws where, by the operation of weight, each side of the saw tends to balance w/the other side but are rather logical relations of equality such that if one side changes, then the other side must, logically, change. A non-realist view also has the advantage of circumventing the biggest problem in realist math: simultaneous determination; for in mathematics the parts of an equation do not cause the other parts of the equation or expression. 1+1 does not cause 2 in the sense that a man throwing a ball causes it to fly, for math is not physics. So mathematical objects have at best, only a mental causal relationship, and the inputs and outputs of expressions are always stationary since every way one manipulates an expression makes it either equal to itself or it completely changes the definition of the expression so that no matter the expression or the changes done to it, that expression is always itself. This law of identity is always and everywhere the same as the law of simultaneous determination.

   The second reason is that when one solves an equation one uses the fact that it is equal to something in order to prove that it is equal to some other thing. However, because of the use of the equal sign, everything is explicitly stated to be equal prior to the proof that everything is. And so, to solve an equation is basically the same thing as to reason circularly. But circular reasoning is illogical so that raises a question, "is it possible to base mathematical proof (equation solving) on a logical foundation?" The answer to this is yes for several reasons but let me just sketch out my preliminary conclusions first.

1,2,3, etc. are defined like this: 1=--1, 2=--2,3=--3 or each number is the complement of its complement.

3-1 is just the difference b/t the complement of 3’s complement and the complement of 1’s complement. And this is just the complement of the set “3&1” in the set of 3 things. And this is 2.

Clearly I intend to use set algebra to deduce normal algebra. But set algebra is basically logic, so normal algebra will be established logically.