James S Saint

[Magnus Anderson]

As far as I know he was still in the process of writing the book. So no, I dont think it is published.

Later on when I get enough time I am going to write a book on RM:AO - a guide for the rest of us, so to speak.

I found his ideas hard going and in need of a reference point so as to understand where he was coming from.

What happened to Neosophi? It says "This account has been suspended" when I visit the link.

[encode_decode]

What happened to Neosophi? It says "This account has been suspended" when I visit the link.

I will be paying the site fees over the next couple of weeks that is why the account is suspended. I have big plans for that forum and site and will be upgrading to a much faster server. I will post on ILP when it is back up and running.

Kind regards.

[encode_decode]

My own [and of late only] interest in philiosophy revolves almost entirely around the extent to which its tools are applicable when confronting the question, "how ought one to live?"

And, in particular, in what I construe to be an essentially absurd and meaningless world. A No God world that culminates in oblivion for each of us one by one.

A single philosopher is no longer able to change the world in my opinion but the world needs to change. The world needs to change because there is very little anyone of us can do about the direction that technology is taking and the social impact that these technologies are taking. But in numbers the world is at least able to brace itself for future events and steer the direction in which future directions on top of this future direction will go. An oblivion can be avoided.

Either abstract arguments -- or its cousin, "general descriptions" -- will go there or they will not.

James would never take RM/AO and/or the Real God there. Or, rather, not in a manner that we could both agree on.

I will personally take abstract arguments and its cousin general descriptions there. You are correct about James never taking RM:AO there - but even he says that the rules must change to fit the situation.

It's basically the difference between describing human interactions as they do in fact unfold from day to day, and assessing whether they ought to have unfolded in some other way instead. In order to be in sync with what is deemed to be rational or virtuous behavior.

It's the difference between Donald Trump shutting down the Mueller investigation [he either does or he does not] and arguing that, if it is shut down, it was the right thing to do.

I really don't grasp how others fail to see this rather clear distinction. One can be demonstrated to be true for all of us [sans sim worlds, solipsism, cartesean demons etc.] and the other is tangled in sets of political prejudices rooted in what I construe to be an existential interaction of human identity, value judgments and political power: out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially.

Either RM/AO and the Real God are applicable here or they are not.

This is something that I can relate to - by how you have put it here and I think it is a good way. Starting with current events and near future events is a great way to test philosophical theories in near real-time and making analysis of near past events(ie what was the better way) is at least useful for the time being(potentially the next 20 - 50 years).

RM:AO would require some work to fit such a scheme.

[Anomaly654]

What happened to Neosophi? It says "This account has been suspended" when I visit the link.

I will be paying the site fees over the next couple of weeks that is why the account is suspended. I have big plans for that forum and site and will be upgrading to a much faster server. I will post on ILP when it is back up and running.

Kind regards.

You might consider adding a PayPal option to accept contributions to offset operating expenses.

[encode_decode]

You might consider adding a PayPal option to accept contributions to offset operating expenses.

I think that is a wonderful idea and when I move the site to a faster host I think I will do such as you have suggested.

We have to start somewhere.

[iambiguous]

A single philosopher is no longer able to change the world in my opinion but the world needs to change. The world needs to change because there is very little anyone of us can do about the direction that technology is taking and the social impact that these technologies are taking. But in numbers the world is at least able to brace itself for future events and steer the direction in which future directions on top of this future direction will go. An oblivion can be avoided.

In no substantive way am I able to connect the dots here between what I construe to be one more general description of human interaction and a particular change imagined in the future involving conflicting goods we are all likely to be familiar with.

It's just one more scholastic contraption re RM/AO, VO, or prismatics "progressive behaviors" narrative.

And how on earth in the absense of God's immortality and salvation is the obliteration of each and every individual "I" accomplished?

For me, with respect to each moral/political issue in which there are conflicting valuations, it comes down to this:

It's basically the difference between describing human interactions as they do in fact unfold from day to day, and assessing whether they ought to have unfolded in some other way instead. In order to be in sync with what is deemed to be rational or virtuous behavior.

It's the difference between Donald Trump shutting down the Mueller investigation [he either does or he does not] and arguing that, if it is shut down, it was the right thing to do.

I really don't grasp how others fail to see this rather clear distinction. One can be demonstrated to be true for all of us [sans sim worlds, solipsism, cartesean demons etc.] and the other is tangled in sets of political prejudices rooted in what I construe to be an existential interaction of human identity, value judgments and political power: out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially.

Either RM/AO and the Real God are applicable here or they are not.

This is something that I can relate to - by how you have put it here and I think it is a good way. Starting with current events and near future events is a great way to test philosophical theories in near real-time and making analysis of near past events(ie what was the better way) is at least useful for the time being(potentially the next 20 - 50 years).

RM:AO would require some work to fit such a scheme.

I agree. And now apparently James is either no longer around to pursue that work or he has come to understand that it cannot actually be accomplished.

Still, there are plenty of other moral and political objectivists around who continue to make the claims.

[A Shieldmaiden]

Pretty much like you do. Well, with the help of the stars.

Perhaps Fixed can consult the stars and let us know where James S is. i.e. Below or Above.

[MagsJ]

I know James was writing a book. Is that book published? Does anyone know?

...has he become famous, and cut his ties with us/moved on to better things?

[encode_decode]

What happened to Neosophi? It says "This account has been suspended" when I visit the link.

Neosophi is back up and running. Links should be accessible now.

[Ben JS]

Hope you're doing OK, James.

[encode_decode]

Six months have passed . . .

“Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names.”
-Proverb

You are remembered James - may you rest in peace

[Arcturus Descending]

Six months have passed . . .

“Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names.”
-Proverb

You are remembered James - may you rest in peace

I would suggest ( ) that this may be a bit premature unless you know for a fact that James has died. Do you?

It is possible of course but it is also possible that he is living La Vida Loca somewhere else and I do not mean the hereafter.

This is where Rilke's quote comes to mind.


Do not rest in peace, James ~~ give them HELL!

[Mithus]

During the last four years I was translating James' work into German. I went through thousands of his posts on ILP, Humanarchy and other forums, trying to summarize it all, including RM:AO Physics and the analogies to Psychology and Sociology, in order to arrange a book out of it. James patiently answered all my questions, we had a permanent PM-contact. Last autumn the first draft of the book was finished and James agreed to reread the English version. Being very critical with his wording, he said it would take some time for him to correct it all, and it would be the best if he withdraws for a while. I still hope that this is the reason why he is not around, but half a year is a long time and our contact abruptly stopped in January.
I decided to wait until July, and then bring this project forward by myself. I suppose this is what I have to do now. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of the year. My plan is to get it published first in German, then in English as well. I'll let you know.

[Peter Kropotkin]

During the last four years I was translating James' work into German. I went through thousands of his posts on ILP, Humanarchy and other forums, trying to summarize it all, including RM:AO Physics and the analogies to Psychology and Sociology, in order to arrange a book out of it. James patiently answered all my questions, we had a permanent PM-contact. Last autumn the first draft of the book was finished and James agreed to reread the English version. Being very critical with his wording, he said it would take some time for him to correct it all, and it would be the best if he withdraws for a while. I still hope that this is the reason why he is not around, but half a year is a long time and our contact abruptly stopped in January.
I decided to wait until July, and then bring this project forward by myself. I suppose this is what I have to do now. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of the year. My plan is to get it published first in German, then in English as well. I'll let you know.

K: well, good luck...….I hope you get it done......

Kropotkin

[Fixed Cross]

You were on Humanarchy? Cool.
I still have the forum file for that, with all the posts.
Went through some trouble putting it on a new site but couldn't get it to work.

[Serendipper]

At least 80,000 people died of flu last winter in U.S., CDC says
The government says it's the highest death toll since the winter of 1976-1977.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... -s-n913486

[Mithus]

Now available in German!

James S. Saint: Rational Metaphysics:Affectance Ontology … and its analogies in Psychology and Sociology

The English version will follow, hopefully soon.

[promethean75]

Nice! It's democritus again... the 2.0 version.

So the old boy is doing okay, then? There was a little stir a while back and everybody was wondering if and how he was.

[Mithus]

Nice! It's democritus again... the 2.0 version.

So the old boy is doing okay, then? There was a little stir a while back and everybody was wondering if and how he was.

There was no contact between me and James since January 2018. Using the material that was available to me, partially rewritten by James, I compiled and published the book myself.

[promethean75]

So St. James is still MIA? Shirley there's a way to find him. Can we contact any collaborators, friends, pinochle partners, or tai chi instructors he might have had? What about philosophy fora. Where was he last seen affecting his ontology?

[Mithus]

The German version of James S. Saints RM:AO is now also available as E-book, e.g. here.
I hope that I can publish the English version in a few months.

[Mithus]

And now the English edition of James S. Saints "Rational Metaphysics: Affectance Ontology … and its Analogies in Psychology and Sociology" is available as bound book and e-book.

[encode_decode]

And now the English edition of James S. Saints "Rational Metaphysics: Affectance Ontology … and its Analogies in Psychology and Sociology" is available as bound book and e-book.

Great work Mithus - I knew you would do it. I am looking forward to reading it.

[obsrvr524]

I have questions for James but it seems that I got back to reading him a little too late.

I stopped watching the internet years ago while James was debating relativity with the admin on this board but then last year I ran across the following article using a word that I encountered only once before - "affectance". The article from Cornell University's computer science department discusses the use of affectance as a model for increasing accuracy of measurements involving networked radio telemetry.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.01704
Ad-hoc Affectance-selective Families for Layer Dissemination
Dariusz R. Kowalski, Harshita Kudaravalli, Miguel A. Mosteiro
(Submitted on 6 Mar 2017)

Information dissemination protocols for ad-hoc wireless networks frequently use a minimal subset of the available communication links, defining a rooted "broadcast" tree. In this work, we focus on the core challenge of disseminating from one layer to the next one of such tree. We call this problem Layer Dissemination. We study Layer Dissemination under a generalized model of interference, called affectance. The affectance model subsumes previous models, such as Radio Network and Signal to Inteference-plus-Noise Ratio. We present randomized and deterministic protocols for Layer Dissemination. These protocols are based on a combinatorial object that we call Affectance-selective Families. Our approach combines an engineering solution with theoretical guarantees. That is, we provide a method to characterize the network with a global measure of affectance based on measurements of interference in the specific deployment area. Then, our protocols distributedly produce an ad-hoc transmissions schedule for dissemination. In the randomized protocol only the network characterization is needed, whereas the deterministic protocol requires full knowledge of affectance. Our theoretical analysis provides guarantees on schedule length. We also present simulations of a real network-deployment area contrasting the performance of our randomized protocol, which takes into account affectance, against previous work for interference models that ignore some physical constraints. The striking improvement in performance shown by our simulations show the importance of utilizing a more physically-accurate model of interference that takes into account other effects beyond distance to transmitters.

Years ago when I first heard that word, I tried to look it up with no luck. Fortunately someone asked James about it and he provided what seemed an appropriate definition. More recently seeing this article, I had to wonder if it was the same "affectance". After a good bit of study, although I can't say that I totally understand it all, I realized that it was the same as James' defined affectance - "subtle influences", especially relating to radio transmissions. Shortly after that I had to wonder if perhaps the infamous "James S Saint' was in fact one of those listed engineers in the article; Kowalski, Kudaravall, or Mosterio. But then I found another article from the University of Massachusetts. And today when I do a search I find definitions and all kinds of articles about "affectance". Someone was onto something, something subtle. Something with quite subtle influence. He seemed to be quite a remarkable character.

I had been observing James decades ago after he captured my attention with a topic - "Watching the watchers watching the watchers watch". I immediately knew what he was talking about but it took a couple of days before I realized what he was really saying. It was clear that he was aware that the people employed to observe the public live with a different frame of mind and value standard. Judgements occur that ethically shouldn't. And I first thought that he was commenting on the observer's supervisors watching them watch. But he wasn't. What he was bring to light was that just as the public live in a bubble of skewed belief, unaware of the thoughts and perspectives of those observing them from above, those very observers are also living in a skewed bubble of belief, also never thinking that they too are being not merely observed, but often misjudged and misguided by a third layer of unseen eyes, attitudes, and agendas. I found that thought disturbing. And that was only the beginning of many unsettling revelations James seemed compelled to bring to light.

The next topic he raised that rocked my boat was about techniques for establishing complete social invisibility - leaving undeniable evidence that one person was actually a different person who was trying to hide his identity - a surprisingly effective trick. He explained the details and how those two topics were directly related (James, if you are still out there - How am I doing? ). In those days it was common for discussion boards to suddenly develop a problem and disappear. In this case, I could easily see why. James had a way of blurting out things that serious people didn't want heard. And that led to just about every organization blasting him with any kind of allegation that might stick, calling him every name in the book. In that regard he reminds me of President Trump and the liberal media. Both he and Mr T just boldly blurt it out and let the chips fall where they may as long as it gets all worked out in the end. And James too seemed to have known too much about the deep state swamp, US socialist agenda, globalism, and how they all play together. He often showed a deep disdain for people manipulating the masses no matter who they were. He was the natural whistlerblower type. I wonder how he would have been as a Fox News host.

James seemed to have a way of causing people to think and with an endless list of wizened sayings. I wish I had had the forethought to record them. On occasion I'll be reminded of yet another one. I had to wonder where he ever came from. What kind of man when discussing religion thinks about things like what the words "god", "Adam", "Man", "spirit", and such really mean before getting into it? How did he ever find out? He was a consummate deconstructionist ensuring that everyone was on the same page. It would have been great to see him and Ben Shapiro debate something but I can't think of anything they would argue about.

After reading up on him more and starting to think like him, I have to wonder. Is affectance a thing and substance? Or is it a philosophy of subtle influence? Seemingly both.

It's great to see there is a book to reference.

[Mithus]

When I was translating this text from James' blog, I asked him about the word “Affectance”, and about “Logical Affectance” in particular, because I couldn't find it in any dictionary or lexicon.

He answered:

The word "affectance" is very common in professional psychology (which you can't access online). In psy, it refers to subtle influences on infants. I use the terms far more generally to refer to any subtle influence on anything, and sometimes not so subtle.

That article is referring to the influences that cause a person to believe or behave in any particular manner. One of the categories of influence is that of cognitive logical thought - "logical affectance". There is also emotional affectance and instinctive affectance (as described). What is being pointed out is that logical affectance must be emotionally accepted to avoid dissonance. Sometimes that means reexamining the logic for correction, but more often it means allowing logic to have more influence over ones PHT (Perception of Hopes and Threats). But one way or another it is recommended to get the story ironed out and accepted.

James defined Affectance as:
) Subtle influence(s) {as used in Infant Psychology},ultra-minuscule, mostly randomized electromagnetic pulses,
) Actualization of potential(s) to affect
) A region of varied and subtle changes
) An amount of subtle affects