Agreeable Instantia

Initial Prompt:

The volumes that follow are meant to be an inspired
application of the theory that positivity is the best possibility.

[Agreeable Instantiations Volume 0]

Throughout history, over the course of any campaign, one can learn to recognize the occurrence of the inevitable discrimination of constituent characteristics. In the policies of campaigns, bias is a damning sentence to utility, equity and equality. It is true that data scientists (or any and all data-interested individuals) are and must be social justice advocates, but let’s be clear: no one and nothing are free from the clutches of bias.

In my own explorations of philosophy, motivated by a desire to develop an ethical consideration of the universe, I find that morality is interestingly difficult because universal maxims (strict, unbending policies) are difficult to endorse in good faith as totally fair and unbiased. If we can’t generalize cases to find a uniform policy, and if we can’t discriminate between cases to find a fairly ordered policy, then what are the ethical theories we can investigate? 

I wanted to return to the prompt of this volume, which is an excerpt of writing from the introductory post for Agreeable Instantiations, in order to consider the proposition’s contextual significance.

Revised Prompt:

The volumes that follow are meant to be an inspired scientific application of the non-scientific theory that positivity is the best possibility.**

I return to the prompt and include the edited version above in an attempt to be honest about the logical interpretations and implications of, one, considering a theory that positivity is the best possibility, but two, also qualifying this consideration with the admission that the theory is non-scientific. 

I believe the consideration of the scientific context of positivity in the prompt should also be importantly informed by the implications of Philosophical Positivism.

Notably, the original prompt, taken as a direct excerpt from Volume 0, cannot be interpreted as a positive statement as defined by Philosophical Positivism. I am of the belief that the prompt has normative aspirations. Still, I hope it can be understood as striving to communicate an agreeable attitude toward the logical sensibility of statements of positive reasoning about value(s), while also hoping to introduce a normative motivation of how and why to record information in the proper condition as a valuation process requiring conscious choice. With their normative negation of positivism, it is hopefully fitting that this volume is meant to be an inquiry into ethics and bias.

Thus, I am willing to concede that the theory is non-scientific. In my daily life, recently, I have often made time to remind myself that positivity is the best possibility and I am inspired to use this as motivation to serve the justice that love demands, free of bias. But, honestly, expecting a scored enumeration of the logical interpretations and implications of this theory in first order logic seems a bit excessive. Although, one may look the way of the recent success of LLMs (Large Language Models) for a Computer AI generated response to this proposition. 

Alas, I am not quite yet ready to answer if the universe is a simulation—but as an aside, if we were to possess perfect recall of the future, what distinguishes this future from the past?

Anyhow, it is true that much of the lives of denizens of the universe can be understood as elements of and in relation to games, and language is a keystone of this process as a platform by which information is communicated and recorded in its novel condition.

We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as one of those games by means of which children learn their native language. I … will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language-game. [Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations]

At the very least I suppose it seems that evolutions of languages, games, mathematics and coalitions thereof are heavily influenced by the composition of meta-hypotheses, inviting agents and agencies to order and re-order meta-learning policies at the turn of every conceivable epoch. 

As an example, a responsible party may establish as a primary objective to improve the quality of its very own objectives, but what are the rules of this game, and what are the metrics of success? Such a party is certainly sustainably future minded, and may serve as a reminder that principles naively claiming guiltlessness carry a steep penalty at the compounding cost of high bias.

Perhaps an understanding of the self directed outside-in, inside-out literary perspective as a lens into the self directed development of philosophy may be valuable. 

“Literature is a point outside of our hodiernal circle, through which a new one may be described. The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it” [Emerson, Circles]

I believe the organizational ontology of information encourages a responsible process of self correction. Much of the subject of philosophy is concerned with defining the subject of philosophy, an engine running on the steam of a meta-hypothesis. A final stop on the train might be hard to visualize, but I like to imagine that the terrain is our bias, and all our potential to navigate this terrain by much needed self correction is the meta-hypothesis.

“Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity.” [Whitehead, Process and Reality Speculative Philosophy Section IV] 

The theory that positivity is the best possibility is not a subject defining proposition, but it is an important directional key to the task of correction and regulation. If people are to be marginalized in order to justify discrimination and stereotyping, then we should more carefully consider our affinity for stereotyping and discrimination at the cost of all people as one. A question I pose to myself is:

This space certainly exists. Understanding the boundaries may encourage us to better occupy this space.

The ethical consideration of bias doesn’t have to be scary, although it often for good reason is. You might even want to test your powers of self correction amidst the clutches of bias.

Ask yourself:

What are my values? What are the values of the groups I hold membership?

Hopefully you feel some type of way about where you stand: yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Notification 1: Remember, our thoughts and even our opinions are powerful.

Notification 2: Fears aren’t facts! 

Bias is only a reminder that sometimes, oftentimes, even, we need insurance, and we have good reason to take seriously our responsibility to uphold and expect a high standard when relying on the self correcting assistance of the insurance we employ. With and in inquiry and consciousness, I hope the positivity in the possibility of responsibility needed to identify and correct bias may be found. 

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in this world” [Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed]