Scaling Time

Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist

https://www.wittgensteinproject.org/w/index.php/Logisch-philosophische_Abhandlung#1

When I turn on the radio, I usually expect to be entertained more than I expect to be informed — and my expectations seem to be confirmed time after time. This morning was no exception. This morning I heard that something had happened in Vancouver (Canada) and the word “Filipino” was a part of it (is “Filipino” a word? I think it refers to the Philippines — which is not only spelled differently but is sort of on another part of the world altogether). This also seems closely related to words like “Germany”, which just a few centuries ago may not have referred to anything at all. I think even “USA” has been around longer than that. But I digress.

The thing I actually want to talk about is that there are (broadly speaking) two diametrically opposed divergent theories when it comes to explaining human behavior. At one extreme, we have an “evolutionary” theory which ascribes the motivations driving much (or even most) of human behavior to evolution, biology, nature and stuff like that. At the other extreme, weighing in as rather lightweight (compared to the heavyweight in the previous corner), is the quasi-scientific community of so-called scientific management … of “business“, no less … with a rather short-standing tradition of just about one century, kicked off by an American named Taylor, and so this philosophy is often referred to as Taylorism.

Taylorism is very fundamental to the way very much (if not most) of the so-called “industrial” world works. Whenever I brought up this topic with my father, his eyes would gleam and he would refer to the “time and motion studies” as if they were sacrosanct.

“Vancouver”, “Filipino” and so on exist somewhere in between these diametrically opposed time scales. As is so often the case, I think Wittgenstein was pretty much exactly spot on. I guess I believe it more than I know it. When we use language, we need to be aware of the fact that it is simply a useful instrument for us to interact with each other in the context of our worlds. There is no more one world than there might be one language. And if we were all to go on strike and SHUT UP then so-called “artificial intelligence” would immediately SHUT DOWN and close up shop.