[FRIAM] IS: "...useful". WAS:: whackadoodles go mainstream!

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Sure, I'll bite, since I'm waiting for criticism of a recent status report.

My naïve first attempt is to say that which is useful is that which *I* can use to make things do what I want them to do. E.g. program a computer to output data with a particular quality. In comparing 1) the attribution of qualities of the world to a mysterious god to 2) picking apart the features of the world and identifying ways to manipulate them, then it seems clear to me the latter helps me manipulate the world more than the former.

Even *if* I were trying to be a cult leader, I think I'd find more success being a Dr. Oz (or Gwyneth Paltrow or Wim Hoff) than a Reverend Moon. Manipulating the world through the *mediation* of a huge swath of morons seems difficult *if* your targets are particular outcomes. Blanket, vague "burn it down" or "trend toward True" manipulation is *not* what I would deem useful. Making a metal duck that shits is the type of thing I'm after. Things that help me construct metal, shitting ducks are useful.


On 4/20/20 11:51 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> If ever you wanted to explore what you meant by "useful" in your message below, I am your man.  
> 
> Such a discussion would get at the soul of pragmatism,  the war between Peirce and his benefactor William James, and my war with Eric Charles concerning whether we should talk not about the practical consequences of our conceptions but about their "practicial" consequence, i.e., their consequences for practices of discovery.  

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☣ uǝlƃ