[FRIAM] the Skeptical Meme

[Steven A Smith]

> Well, just because all rule sets are faulty doesn't mean some rule sets aren't better than others.  (Need I repeat it?  Surely not.  ... All models ... yadda yadda.)  And so your intuition is right, all rule sets are faulty, including the rule set of all rule sets.  The lesson isn't to throw away rule sets or adopt the One Rule Set to Rule Them All and fuzzify it.  The lesson is that something other than rules is needed to complement rule sets.  And we already have that in our US justice system.
>
> The rule of law is fantastic, but it has to be tempered with context-satisficing things like democracy and trial by jury, institutionalized, bureaucratic methodology for periodically falsifying the rules against the highly contingent reality.
>
> Your "like to imagine that we can transcend all rules" is just more rule-following.  There is no Ultimate Reality.  There is no destination.  There is only journey.  But some journeys are more clearly self-defeating than others.
Got it!  (he says as he grinds dumbly and trudgingly around in a circle 
tracking his own footprints, not realizing that he's slowly turning to 
butter)