Reason Iteration: 02
Wednesday, 30 August 2017
Rejecting orthodoxy.
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I am setting out to accomplish the impossible.
Over the next thirty days, I am going to provide one hundred reasons for you, the unknown investor, to invest one million dollars.
Each reason stands on its own. Each is its own unique and independent justification for an investment. Read them all, if you will. Together, they make a cumulative argument. But each essay is a dimension unto itself, establishing its own rules, making its own argument — independent of the rest.
This is the first; the first essay, the first reason. And my reason is this: fuck you. That’s right: fuck you. Invest in me because I reject orthodoxy. That is, I don’t give a fuck what you, or anyone else, thinks.
I choose my words carefully. I know that the word ‘fuck’ will offend some people. I know that some people will reject me because of that word, and will stop listening to what I have to say. I am deliberately being rude.
I am being rude and making a rude statement because I have a philosophy of rudeness. That is, I reject orthodoxy. That’s the philosophy.
What’s my justification for rejecting orthodoxy? My justification is my own reason. As Descartes himself did, I consider the ground on which I stand. Before all authority, I recognize that first, I must begin with my own reason. That is the only starting point for inquiry that makes sense to me.
I begin with my own reason because it makes sense to me. This statement is tautological, ontological, axiomatic. It is internally consistent and logically valid. I feel comfortable defending it indefinitely.
Although there are, in the history of thought, other starting points, this is mine. Or at least, mine for today. Because as I look within, and see what makes sense to me, I see that I’m a whimsical bastard, who loves inconsistency as much as consistency.
That’s right, I resist consistency as much as I am attracted to it. I recognize the power of consistency, but I also recognize its limiting power. Dimensions trap us, denying us all outside possibilities. So whenever I submit myself to a dimension, I sacrifice my freedom to travel to all other dimensions.
The question returns: What is my justification for rejecting orthodoxy? Orthodoxy limits my power. There are more orthodoxies than one. And within each orthodoxy, there are more interpretations than one. Each orthodoxy, each interpretation, has its own power. But it also has its own limiting power, it’s own trapping power. And I don’t want to be trapped. I want to be powerful.
Accuse me of inconsistency, and I will concede the point. On your terms, I am inconsistent. On my terms, I am consistent. I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want the power of orthodoxy, without the limits of orthodoxy. This violates the very source of all orthodox power, which is orthodoxy itself.
Let us define the word explicitly. Orthodoxy is a truth monopoly. There is a fundamentalist version. Orthodoxy: there is no truth outside of this truth. There is an integral version. Orthodoxy: there is no higher truth than this truth.
So when I want the power of orthodoxy, without the limits of orthodoxy, I violate the very source of all orthodox power, which is the claim that there is no truth outside, or higher than, this truth. This claim denies that there are limits to orthodoxy, because it denies that there is anything to be gained outside of orthodoxy; anything essential, anyways.
But simply by virtue of the fact that there are many competing orthodoxies in our world, some within the same domain, I am guided by my own reason to be cautious about all such claims.
Every orthodoxy claims to have the truth, but by virtue of the truth of orthodoxy, these truths are mutually inconsistent. Removing the truth of orthodoxy, I am set free to evaluate them all for myself, and take for myself what I find valuable. Evaluate them— them — that is, the truths within each orthodoxy, excepting the truth claim of the orthodoxy itself.
Thus, all orthodoxies give me power, but none restrain my power. And this is my orthodoxy. My orthodoxy is unorthodoxy. I claim to have the highest truth, which is synthetic. If there is anything to be gained, upon investigation, from any truth, I would like to integrate it into my own understanding. All truth is my truth. If it is truth, I want it. I want to understand it, I want to integrate it with everything else that I understand.
In so claiming, I am myself limited. I am limited by the limits of my own understanding. I can only process so much truth so quickly. I can only integrate a new truth with an old truth so quickly. Acquiring truth is difficult. Integrating truth is difficult. Building a system of truth, a consistent system, is extremely difficult.
I could stop here. These limits are perfectly acceptable to me, whereas the limits of other orthodoxies are unacceptable to me. These limits are perfectly acceptable because I cannot, personally, overcome my own limits. By definition, I cannot know more than I know. If I overcome my own limits, then I have a new limit — and so the statement holds. If I know more, then I have a new limit — and so the statement holds.
By definition, my orthodoxy expands at the rate of my expansion. If I expand, it expands. If I expand faster, it expands faster. It is perfectly suited to me. It always is, and always will be.
The important thing, to me, is that I cannot be limited by the orthodoxies of others. If I submit to an orthodoxy, I gain its truth, but I am limited to its truth. There is a ceiling. I can know as much as the orthodoxy knows, but I can never know more — I can never go beyond, and remain within the orthodoxy.
If I reject my first orthodoxy, only to replace it with another orthodoxy, I give myself room to grow, but I also create a crisis. Either the new orthodoxy entirely subsumes the old one, and is a sufficiently integrative orthodoxy, or the old truths need to be rejected. If I seek to privately integrate the old truths, which are rejected by my new establishment — I am privately violating the legitimacy of my new orthodoxy. If the new orthodoxy is sufficiently integrative, so that the old truths are accepted, or accepted in a modified form, then I have the benefit of the old truths, and the benefit of new truths.
But eventually, if I decide to grow into the fullness of the new orthodoxy, I may, if I don’t run out of time, hit its limits, just as I hit the limits of the old orthodoxy. If this happens, I will again reach a point of crisis. I will have to search for an even higher orthodoxy with yet new truths to grow into, capable of containing and integrating the old truths.
This paradox of orthodoxy, if it is taken half-way seriously, deserves a response from apologists for orthodoxy. A sophisticated apologist may point to a singularity within the orthodoxy that is itself a dimension capable of infinite expansion. For Christians this is the mystery of The Cross itself, and for Zen this is the realization of The Tao. In both examples, there is a realization of an un-realizeable truth, a celebration of mystery, an embracing of paradox, a sacred Strange Loop.
But as delightful as this defense of Orthodoxy is, it is only half-way serious. Because although an individual may devote themselves for a lifetime to exploring a single infinite mystery, such as these, the recognition of other Orthodoxies with competing claims and competing mysteries begs the question: Why devote yourself to this Orthodoxy?
The three-quarters serious apologist may then admit that this is my path, and there are other paths, but that given their life story, given their path, given the limited time we have as mortals — they are dedicating themselves to this path and not the others.
This, to me, is not yet fully serious. The fully serious realization of many competing Orthodoxies either leads to (1) a wholehearted and active denial of all truths outside of a single Orthodoxy — that is, extreme, fundamentalist Orthodoxy — or, (2) a noble attempt to radically expand a single Orthodoxy fast enough to keep up with, integrate and subsume all other Orthodoxies, or (3) a radical rejection of Orthodoxy, which amounts to an Orthodoxy of Unorthodoxy, or a Synthetic Orthodoxy. Pursued fully seriously, that is, radically, (2) and (3) amount to the same thing: Synthetic Orthodoxy.
What is Synthetic Orthodoxy? Synthetic Orthodoxy is an attempt to integrate all truths into a single unitary truth. This involves both (1) acquiring truths and (2) integrating truths.
Synthetic Orthodoxy is economic and technological in nature. It takes resources to acquire truths and integrate truths. Time and intellectual effort, for starters. The lone thinker, the monk on the mountain — cloud hidden, whereabouts unknown — may, without paper, without books, without instruments of any kind, merely apply himself to synthesis.
But can such an effort be improved? Yes, if the monk is given a hermitage, if the monk is given food, if the monk is given instruments of knowledge — presumably the monk may go farther in his lifetime. But the monk cannot seriously attempt to synthesize all truths without engaging with all truths, and that means engaging with all thinkers and with the entire history of thought. This means coming down from the mountain, engaging with the cosmos of society, by means of the internet, by means of physical conversation, by whatever means is most effective.
But again, we ask, can such an effort be improved? If a venture is to be made, let us make it in earnest: and apply capital and technology for their maximum effect. Let us add warrior-scholar monks, and let us coordinate their efforts.
By virtue of the venture itself, it exceeds the capacity for a single individual to solve alone. The venture of Synthetic Orthodoxy ultimately requires all individuals. Why does it require all individuals? Because individuals are individuals insofar as they are different. And individual minds are individuals insofar as they think different thoughts.
Individuals in a fundamentalist Orthodoxy that does not grow, that is static and definitive, insofar as they are orthodox, do not possess individual minds. There is only one mind, and that is the mind of the orthodoxy.
Every individual mind, insofar as it is an individual mind, is an orthodoxy unto itself. To achieve the absolute end of a Synthetic Orthodoxy, then, requires the synthesis of all individual minds.
Any venture of such a vast ambition requires a team, capital and technology. How much capital? What technology? These are questions for the team to answer. I will not answer them now, they exceed the scope of this argument.
I will also not answer the question of whether Synthetic Orthodoxy is possible. Or whether it is desirable. I will only assert that it is both possible and desirable.
Unknown investor: this is the venture that my team and I have undertaken. Our company, Invisible Technologies, Inc., is building the world’s firth general Synthetic Intelligence.
I will not tell you more about it now. Instead, I will conclude my argument.
I have given you what I consider to be an independent and valid reason for why you should invest $1,000,000 in my company. If I had $1,000,000 to invest, I would invest for this reason, and this reason alone, otherwise I would not have made the argument.
The reason was: I reject Orthodoxy. Because I reject Orthodoxy, I say: fuck you. But I also say: you are right. To the extent that you believe anything, there is an inherent truth in your believing it, and as a syncretist — I must welcome it.
My rejection of Orthodoxy is a valid reason to invest, because it is adaptive. Entrepreneurs, individuals who undertake ventures such as these, must be religiously unorthodox.
Ventures such as these are ventures that actually change the world, if they succeed. There are many orthodox ventures which seek capital for orthodox reasons, on orthodox terms, in orthodox ways. But an unorthodox venture must be thoroughly unorthodox: must reject orthodoxy on every level, and think for itself.
Unknown investor, look at the other companies seeking funding, competing for your dollar. They are all competing on the same terms. They are all presenting you with the same metrics. They are all promising you the same returns. Their websites look the same. Their products look the same. Their teams look the same. Their beliefs look the same. Their clothes look the same. Their business models look the same.
Markets are, by nature, orthodoxies. Every market has a standardizing function. It enframes its participants, commoditizes them, turns them into supply and demand.
But every company must create a market for itself. It must create its own supply and generate its own demand. It must play by its own rules.
Reject my competitors. Reject them because they are playing by your rules. Reject them because they are playing by the rules of a market they don’t understand. Reject them because they aren’t questioning the rules. Reject them because they aren’t even aware that they aren’t questioning the rules, they accept them blindly.
Reject them because their essential argument is “invest in us, because we’re going to provide a reasonable rate of return for very little risk.”
You’re not a banker! You’re a risk taker!
This isn’t a loan! This is equity!
Innovation begins with aggressively questioning everything, until some strange new insight emerges. Culture is a word for unexamined orthodoxy. Culture is unexamined orthodoxy.
And Silicon Valley, insofar as it is Silicon Valley, is the technology industry. And the technology industry, insofar as it is the technology industry, innovates. And innovation, insofar as it is innovative, rejects orthodoxy.
So the fact that Silicon Valley has a culture, has, indeed, an overwhelming culture, is deeply concerning, because it points to an unexamined orthodoxy. The orthodoxy of Silicon Valley is not, as it once was, The Orthodoxy Of Unorthodoxy. Gone are the days of question everything, nothing is sacred. No, there are sacred shibboleths, and they are so insidious, and have become so pervasive, that only now, at last, in the very moment that they threaten complete tyranny — are they being exposed and questioned. Those who expose and question them are denounced, and become scapegoats of the lynch mobs, or ostracized, economic pariahs.
But we’ll be fine. We’ll be fine because we’re Roarks. And they’re Keatings. You need us. We don’t need you.
No, I am not oppressed. I am not a victim. I do not need your money. And I will not play by your rules. Fuck you, I reject your rules. Even as I understand the truth and history that they represent.
You need me. You need me to take your money. You need to convince me to take your money. You need to respect our rules. Because we control the supply. So demand! And know your place.
Capital is a commodity. Innovation is singular. Capital is extremely abundant. Innovation is extremely rare.
So-called ‘venture capitalists’ have become so used to being the supply, to being treated as the supply, to being begged and demanded upon, that they have forgotten their place. They have become venture socialists. The whole industry has evolved to give entrepreneurs equal opportunity and treat entrepreneurs fairly, as if entrepreneurs are fragile victims, and need their help. Just today I read a headline: “Funding you to find a cofounder”. And thought: socialism for entrepreneurs.
Most companies don’t matter. Most companies don’t change the world, don’t change the course of history, don’t change the way human beings live life. They provide incremental value, but they don’t essentially make a difference. They are not Kennedy’s bloodless revolutions, they are just an extension of purgatory and its consumer socialism.
They are not futuristic, because they do not radically challenge the present. They have metrics because they are predictable. They are not innovating, because they can make projections with reasonable confidence.
Unknown investor, if you are indeed a venture capitalist, you are looking for the chosen one. I am that one. This team is that team. This company is that company. This idea is that idea. That once in a decade, once in a lifetime opportunity you swore an oath to find.
As all quantitative metrics are lagging indicators, to find the chosen one, you must seek the qualitative source of innovation. That source is the radical and profound — spiritual, rational, political, economic and technological — rejection of orthodoxy, which leads to the seeking of a Synthetic Intelligence.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
