What is the metaphysical status of a question?
— ucarr

Which question is that? — Ciceronianus

Casual answer - any question
— ucarr

Rhetorical questions? — Ciceronianus

↪Ciceronianus

Yes. — ucarr

If that's the case, then questions which aren't questions are questions. — Ciceronianus

The grammar that syntaxes question denotes form & function that operates independent of the sub-textual intentions of the speaker/writer.

Placing a filter over the grammar of question, such that we read it as a formal question that, in actuality, intends to make a statement, i.e. a rhetorical question, is a contextual maneuver that converts query into statement by social agreement. If this socially constructed reading of question as statement supports paradoxical word play, the grammarian of question can read it as would-be paradoxical piffle.

...I question whether all questions are alike, and think they vary in purpose and according to context. — Ciceronianus

If question, as signifier, possesses coherence, then a categorical examination of the grammar of question is possible & issues of speaker/writer intentions, sub-text & context are non-fatal to it.

As a test of this claim, I ask you to parse the following definition of question so as to configure it as a definition that supports characterization of same as paradox.

What is a question?
Generically, a question is an expression that consists of a variable. — 180 Proof

I think the logic supporting the general grammar of question, as defined above is
What Xa? ⇒ Xb, if Xa & Xb = Xab

Yes.

What is the metaphysical status of a question? — ucarr

Which question is that? — Ciceronianus

Casual answer - any question
Formal answer - Socratic Method > Elenchus

:grin: Thank-you!

A question is the difference between two or more simultaneously occurring mental states! — karl stone

Since I don't know if this refers to the volition choosing a single focus, or the differential in vertical stacking of prioritized activities i.e. multi-tasking, I need an elaboration.

I guess the paradox I mentioned in my previous posts can be "resolved" by changing the question (what is a question?) into a command (define "question"). It's kinda a cheat code to avoid/escape what is a mind-boggling loop. — Agent Smith

I believe, as you suggest, the differentiation of What is a question? and Define question is false. When I define something, I answer the question, What is it? Thus What is a question? equals Define question.

That you acknowledge existence of a resolution of the paradox shows you believe examination of question in general is possible.

I don't, however, rush to conclude your paradox is self-enclosed word play.

Premises

Undecidable ≠ meaningless

Ambiguous ≠ unintellibible

Generically, a question is an expression that consists of a variable. — 180 Proof

Can you reconfigure this statement as a paradox?

I, questioner = X, and I, questioner ≠ X — ucarr

This "question" makes no sense. — 180 Proof

Firstly, the statement normally appears to be nonsense, a point Agent Smith emphasizes. So, of course, in my translation of his paradox into my own paraphrase, the apparent nonsense is preserved. I express the paraphrase in route to examining whether Agent Smith's point is true.

In trying to write with the economy of symbolic logic, I find no symbol denoting examines, which is how I wish my statement quoted above to be read. Thus

I, questioner examine X, and I, questioner not examine X.

Instead of examine as the verb, is superset (in the sense of "encompass") better?

I, questioner ⊃ X, and I, questioner ⊅ X.

What is a question? is an impossible question - to ask it, one must know what a question is but it also indicates the questioner doesn't know what a question is. This is the paradox. — Agent Smith

Can we generalize the above thus, What is an X?

Must we parse it likewise? To ask it, one must know what an X is, but it also indicates the questioner doesn't know what an X is.

I, questioner = X, and I, questioner ≠ X

(These links are questions, no?) — 180 Proof

Serious questions. In light of QM, does the cognitive non-locality of word games signify something empirical?

You can't define "question" without knowing what a question is but you can't know what a question is without defining "question". — Agent Smith

The question of question, as it expresses in your language above, appears as paradox. With this claim I'm asserting that question of question, a two-tiered construction, defines as a curious singleton that occupies two places at once.

In our everyday experience of discrete singletons, paradox is seeming anomaly that science, with its grounding in cause_effect continuity & its emergent property, inference, works around via Zermelo-Fraenkel axiomatic set theory.

Take note that avoidable paradox & unavoidable paradox are two very different situations.

There is a conundrum, of ancient vintage, that examines the endless divisibility of the number line WRT walking about in the real world. If space is endlessly divisible, thus suggesting an endless journey across any interval of space, no matter how small, then how does a walking person ever get anywhere?

The conundrum, obviously, is not about the impossibility of walking over distance. It's about the difficulty of explaining foot travel in light of the observation about the number line.

In your Chicken-and-Egg Problem, you address defining/knowing a question.

You don't address asking a question. Just as I can walk progressively through space, infinite number line notwithstanding, I can think progressively through question of question, circularity of reasoning notwithstanding.

Although, at present, I can't explain the permeability of your circular reasoning conundrum, nonetheless I can observe said permeability, and thus proceed to examine fruitfully the role of question of question within logic.

And you didn't answer my question:

Who is placing a gun to the head of the masses, threatening to pull the trigger if they refuse to get doped on sex, drugs & religion, game shows, state lotteries & promotional giveaways? — Baker

Powerful, shaping influences upon our lives are not always blatant.

The short answer to your question is propaganda.

My reasoning proceeds from the premise that all professional governments maintain an aggressive propaganda machine. Propaganda + (the science of) polling_statistics combine to form the bedrock of technique for winning the hearts & minds of the people.

Ingenious propaganda closely interweaves with culture to make a seamless combination so seemingly natural as to prevent native members from even questioning the legitimacy -- both existential & moral -- of the state-sanctioned, core values of the culture. The minority of citizens who actively oppose core values are then easily shunned as radicals, malcontents, degenerates etc.

For example, consider a child born into a small village, geographically isolated. Everyone in the village professes to be a Christian. From day one, the child is casually indoctrinated with Christian ideology. They get it from their parents & extended family, from the school teacher, policeman, fireman, merchant and minister. In this situation, we have religious ideology shaking hands with the culture so tightly as to make the two indistinguishable & therefore inseparable.

But they are separate. Religion is spiritual_moral. Culture is social_political. When all of these potent forces are combined into a tight interweave, how likely is it that a child, nurtured up therein, will turn away from the family & society that fed, clothed, sheltered, educated, inspired & protected them?

Not very likely.

And you didn't answer my question:

Who is placing a gun to the head of the masses, threatening to pull the trigger... — Baker

Your metaphor above is taken from a crime drama. In real life, the gun placed to the head (and within the head) of the average citizen is ingenious propaganda, not a firearm.

What is the counter to ingenious propaganda? A firearm? No. The counter is critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking is taught in the public skills. However, when students are encouraged to apply such skills to core cultural values, their teachers, being radicals, soon face termination.*

*For an example, examine numerous articles pertaining to CRT.

One of the important responsibilities of philosophy is cultivation of a critical thinking mindset that plays no favorites.

Well! I must say, you're whacking me arse pretty good with your answers.

And you didn't answer my question:

Who is placing a gun to the head of the masses, threatening to pull the trigger if they refuse to get doped on sex, drugs & religion, game shows, state lotteries & promotional giveaways? — baker

Is it my fault the public schools give short shrift to critical thinking? The public needn't be herded together as livestock if they choose to resist. You can't deny, however, that rabbler-rousers travel the fast lane to prison. Most people are so numb with misery they've gotta be reminded of their discontent.

On the other hand, state-sanctioned rabble-rousers score pots of gold for their sage pronouncements, as we've been seeing with the many tongue-waggers hawking that Replacement Theory bosh.

Going by my experience, me saying anything to her or the cashier or the store manager would only result in things getting worse for me. Why is that? Because bosiness, aggressiveness, competitiveness always win, always prevail. — baker

I must say, Mr. Tweedle-Dumdee Baker, you're over-civilized to a fault, considering your experience at the greengrocer. I see you're a man who shelters by blending with the crowd. "What? I should publicize myself by opposing a shrew?! Messy affair."

Why, I say, someone's got to get you seeing yourself. You're deeply ensconced within a cage bound by gold bars, but a cage just the same.

It's beyond time you got that old rascal Complacency up on his feet and shakin' a leg.

(1) I don't know your meaning of 'homological' applied to relationships between a mathematical theory and empirical observation. — TonesInDeepFreeze

I'm trying to use homological in a parallel with onomatopoeia as it's used pertaining to verbal language.

Onomatopoeia - a word that sounds like the noise it describes. Examples - boing, gargle, clap, zap, and pitter-patter

Thus a math expression homological to a state-of-affairs, as specified in our example here, expresses contradictory conclusions that are both valid.

If we must use the word 'signifier' here, I would say that the signifier is not a model but rather a theory. — TonesInDeepFreeze

You're telling me that a math expression that asserts a claim is nonetheless considered theoretical?

I put it this way: There is no model of a contradictory theory. (That's for classical logic. We may find other things pertain in other kinds of logic.) — TonesInDeepFreeze

You're telling me that all legal permutations of classical logic expressions are devoid of contradictions?

If so, it must be the case that classical logic parameters categorically exclude contradiction.

If so, this is an example of a mathematician modulating axioms to fit a metaphysical principle (LNC).

If so, then, in the wake of QM, a mathematician can re-jigger axioms to admit contradictions, which action, you suggest, has already been taken.

...there are brilliant and wise thinkers in the past who have come up with entire fields of study, such as mathematical logic, in which we find rigorous and brilliant solutions — TonesInDeepFreeze

What say you to math language holding a homological relationship to the empirical-material world it's modeling? Looking through the lens of a homological relationship between a signifier (math model) & its referent ( material object), can the math model successfully model a self-contradictory material object without containing within itself any contradictory math expressions?

I'm speculating that, if the answer to the above is "yes," then the foundational logic of math need not be overhauled in light of the experimental evidence of QM, but rather should expand its scope to include QM paradoxes.

If the answer is "no," then the foundational logic of math either needs models that, beyond exclusion, preclude the reality of QM paradoxes. If no such models can be fabricated, then foundational logic of math needs reexamination.

A feedback loop is a physical-material memory structure of the brain. At the first order level of feedback looping, you get the behaviorism that Chalmers uses as evidence that neuro-science hasn't created a material model for the self.

I'm theorizing that the self, by definition self-referential (please bear with the circularity here, as circularity lies at the heart of memory functions), doesn't appear in a materialist-objectivist model until the second order of feedback looping that, in a vertical structure, rides atop first order feedback looping. In short, the self is the reflection of the first order behaviorist automaton, and thus this automaton individualizes over time as it examines ever more thoroughly the reflections of its automaton self.

This tells us that philosophy, which promotes self-examination, culminates in the individual, the apotheosis of human identity, according to western-hemispheric culture.

Here's my conjecture,

One of the pillars of the objective assessment of subjectivity is self-reference & self-referentiality.

If cognitive science has ascended to the level of analyzing the second-order feedback looping that substrates a self regarding first-order baseline feedback looping, then self-referentiality is now in the crosshairs of scientific objectivism. — ucarr

That is the problem. Where is the physical evidence for consciousness?
What does ‘consciousness’ do? This is in light of understanding that it is perfectly [sic] for a philosophical zombie to exist (without disrupting our understanding of nature). — I like sushi

I've already stated my response to your questions above. Here they are again.

One of the pillars of the objective assessment of subjectivity is self-reference & self-referentiality.

If cognitive science has ascended to the level of analyzing the second-order feedback looping that substrates a self regarding first-order baseline feedback looping, then self-referentiality is now in the crosshairs of scientific objectivism. — ucarr

Subjectivity can not be ‘given’ to another as someone else cannot be someone different. — I like sushi

We're on the same page here, as I've also said something similar,

What about the consciousness that comprises the inner, emotional life of the experiencing self?

Can that consciousness be objectified without it turning its observer-receiver into a clone of itself? — ucarr

Piecing together the intersubjectivity does allow us to shed some light — I like sushi

Our fellow member Joshs is pushing hard along this line of attack upon The Hard Problem.

My personal view is that it is more likely a problem of definitions and/or category errors. — I like sushi

Yes. The intersubjectivity of the subjective/objective divide sounds to me like a gnarly paradox. However, ascension to a 4D selfhood might enable the effecting of some type of Vulcan mind meld (don't laugh too loudly!)

He [Chalmers] merely states that it is not hard to imagine creatures on another world living as we do today and doing what we do yet having no consciousness whatsoever... — I like sushi

Regarding Quote 01 above, do I correctly characterize it as a description of the behaviorism resultant of high-level, automatic, chemical-mechanical processes?

From there it is then a question of asking what is the difference between us and them. — I like sushi

Regarding Quote 02 above, I answer by declaring we humans, unlike the automatons, possess a self who, described functionally, maintains a personal POV of events as reported via the senses & the cogitating mind.

This leads me to my approach to The Hard Problem.

How does our scientific process, based mainly within objectivism, render an objective profile of subjectivity? In facing The Hard Problem, have we arrived at the limit of scientific objectivism?

Speaking traditionally, is not the academically objective rendering of subjective experience normally handled by denizens of the literary components of English Departments i.e. by the novelist?

The novel, however, does not normally delve into the how of rendering subjective experience objectively, or does it?

Disciplines such as structuralism & semiotics, derided by many as false scientification of the humanites, as I'm seeing them just now in context of this discussion, lean towards an objective assessment of subjectivity.

One of the pillars of the objective assessment of subjectivity is self-reference & self-referentiality.

If cognitive science has ascended to the level of analyzing the second-order feedback looping that substrates a self regarding first-order baseline feedback looping, then self-referentiality is now in the crosshairs of scientific objectivism.

What about the consciousness that comprises the inner, emotional life of the experiencing self?

Can that consciousness be objectified without it turning its observer-receiver into a clone of itself?

Must the individualized self soldier on through life in its unique & solitary bubble of selfhood?

However, methinks this is misguided because the mathematical descriptions seem not to exhibit any inconsistencies whatsoever. — Agent Smith

If I present a proof that a certain claim is false, would you say my proof is invalid because it's not also false?

"[T]he superposition of amplitudes ... is only valid if there is no way to know, even in principle, which path the particle took. It is important to realize that this does not imply that an observer actually takes note of what happens. It is sufficient to destroy the interference pattern, if the path information is accessible in principle from the experiment or even if it is dispersed in the environment and beyond any technical possibility to be recovered, but in principle still ‘‘out there.’’ -- The Apple Dictionary — ucarr

Is not the above statement telling us that no existential paradox can be experienced empirically (i.e. isolated) because even the linguistic concept of paradox collapses the existential expression of paradox?

The question of all questions is "is the imprecision a bug in language or a feature of reality?" — Agent Smith

Is not the superposition of an elementary particle within quantum mechanics an existential paradox?

Is not quantum computing already underway?

Is not Schrödinger's Cat a thought experiment in paradox at the human scale of sensory experience?

Does Schrödinger's Cat have no impact upon the LNC?


Anton Zeilinger, referring to the prototypical example of the double-slit experiment, has elaborated regarding the creation and destruction of quantum superposition:

"[T]he superposition of amplitudes ... is only valid if there is no way to know, even in principle, which path the particle took. It is important to realize that this does not imply that an observer actually takes note of what happens. It is sufficient to destroy the interference pattern, if the path information is accessible in principle from the experiment or even if it is dispersed in the environment and beyond any technical possibility to be recovered, but in principle still ‘‘out there.’’ -- The Apple Dictionary

The absence of any such information is the essential criterion for quantum interference to appear.

Does not quantum mechanics declare the imprecision is a feature of reality?

The classism based on the inequality of human individuals is in place practically..., — ucarr

Do you believe class division & the established social order, like human inequality, occur naturally, and thus no need for any type of social engineering?

Do you believe the law, like class division & the established social order, are natural?

In your sentence above, you use the passive voice with reference to (see bold words above) the fact of classism. If you rewrite the sentence with the verb in the active voice, who will you posit as the actor bringing classism into effect? You can answer by giving an example of the sentence rewritten with the verb in the active voice.

And then the revolution eats its children and soon enough, things go back to the way they used to be, just the faces in positions of power are new. — baker

Do you believe revolts & revolutions are, more often than not, merely superficial makeovers of short duration?

Do you believe revolutions are always the undoing of their authors?

Who is placing a gun to the head of the masses, threatening to pull the trigger if they refuse to get doped on sex, drugs & religion, game shows, state lotteries & promotional giveaways? — baker

Do you acknowledge two systems of justice, one for the rich & powerful, another for the commonality?

What is needed is a way to get beyond the split, by making creative differentiation and transformation intrinsic to matter, and by understanding subjective feeling as having a kind of causality or logic. — Joshs

What you describe sounds to me like partial deconstruction of enlightenment scientific method back to modulated animism & also reinvigorated belief in instinct & intuition. Together these cultural currents appear to be slanting towards a mild version of postmodernism.

The new unifying dualism. Presented her on Tee-Pee-Fee...eeehh.... Tee-Pee-eeF! — Hillary

:up:

Both Ying and Yang would be hopelessly lost. — Hillary

In each other? Cosmic romance.

We have rightly posited two monisms to be the basis of nature, but wrongly put them together as separate. If we consider them simply as belonging to the same elements, we see the Sun breaking through and a rainbow appear. — Hillary

Yin and Yang dualism!

Thanks to language I have actually closed the gap. If I didn't speak with other people and read things I doubt this would have been the case. — Hillary

So... you've solved the hard problem. This is good news. Please share your solution with us.

Your elaboration of gnarly issues pertaining to the subject/object question shows clear & thoroughgoing scholarship on your part. I find what you've written very instructive and I understand myself to be a beneficiary of insightful readings & ruminations by you. I'm grateful for the time & effort you've expended in the writing of this latest post.

David Chalmers' Hard Problem of Consciousness is sparking current & exciting work in consciousness studies, and maybe you have fashioned a berth for yourself therein.

Many philosophers have argued that there seems to be a gap between the objective, naturalistic facts of the world and the subjective facts of conscious experience. — Joshs

I see that one of the big problems in bridging the gap is language. Subjective facts tries to express some realities of the observing self i.e., the personal POV, but it is blatantly a literal oxymoron because if subjectivity is factual, then it's objective, thus a general public of observers can perceive it in consensus, but, as we know, you're using Subjective facts in contrast with Objective facts.

I'm beginning to see your position overall as a heavily QM-influenced conceptualization & understanding of the hard problem; I'm thinking it's center is entanglement at the human scale.

f you’re trying to distinguish between something you would want to call scientific method from your conception of the methods of inquiry typifying continental
philosophy, as that between experimental conjecture and received opinion, I would strongly suggest that no such distinction can be drawn. A philosophical account is no more or less tentative, and no more or less validated, than a scientific one. — Joshs

If a philosopher is not a Berkeley type idealist, s/he acknowledges the source of ideas being external, objective nature (holistically unified, or not), and thus probative investigation requires empirical journeys beyond the boundaries of the explorer's own mind.

If you want to counter by arguing no explorer can get completely beyond one's mental boundaries, then we're venturing into Idealism's skeptical POV on the empirical. Is that where you're coming from?

One god, in its most general sense, is precisely what is subjected to an authentically public scrutiny through experimental verification by countless
observers, because the shard [sic] commitment to a certain understanding of concepts like ‘observation’ and ‘experimental verification’ already presupposes a certain. metaphysics. In a certain historical era of science, this made God and scientific truth synonymous. — Joshs

Sounds like herein you place your faith in Kant's transcendental idealism, which has the mind's conceptualization limits & biases shaping our view of nature via a priori intuition.

Well, Kant's claims about space & time (the foci of this theory) being necessarily rendered to us by a priori intuition hinges upon discarded Newtonian physics. We now know, in the wake of Einstein, that space & time are out there, impacting our world quite beyond the boundaries of mind.

...time cannot be stopped, not even within a singularity
— ucarr

Here I disagree. If you throw a watch in a black hole, it doesn't stop indeed. It gets almosts instantly radiated away by Hawking radiation (the information, that is). — Hillary

Leonard Susskind won a debate with Hawking to the effect that 2nd law of thermodynamics is preserved through the singularity, and thus no info is permanently lost, which would include temporal info.

Thanks for the correction. So, as to the following quote,

Like Gödel showed us, every basic system of logic will generate true statements that can’t be justified within the generating system. — ucarr

I amend it to,

Like Gödel showed us, every basic system of logic will generate moot statements.

But it does not eliminate the idea of a single unified space-time totality — Joshs

No, it doesn't. However, idea & practical phenomenon are not always the same thing, which is the point of seeking experimental verification by literally countless observers. I don't know if The One god, being intangible, can ever be subjected to an authentically public scrutiny.

Scientific observations of nature bolstered by experimental evidence are riddled through and. through with metaphysical presuppositions. — Joshs

There's no doubt of this and, I say, also, metaphysical commitments are predicated upon would-be scientific observations of nature. And moreover, the interweave of observation-interpretation-evidence falls under the scrutiny of the science of consciousness studies no less than under the ruminations of phenomenology.

Special Relativity has nothing to teach phenomenology, whereas phenomenology points to a future of physics. — Joshs

I would amend this claim as follows,

Special Relativity has nothing to teach the received opinion component of phenomenology, whereas phenomenology points to a conjectured future of physics.

Not sure if this was a progression. This idea of a unified abstract omni monster god originates in Xenophanes who wasn't satisfied with the plurality of gods in his time. The idea fitted with the idea of a single abstract mathematical heaven introduced by Plato. The reality was knowable only approximately, in Plato's case by math. It fitted well with the trend of abstraction. But it became less personal (there it is, the impersonal absolute reality). Why can't heaven just be a material temporary version of heaven and life in it? Which in orinciple can make each form of life a god. I know it sounds ridiculous, but why, literally, shouldn't there be whale gods, monkey gods, virus gods even? I dreamt i saw a beautiful place in nature where all were working enthusiastically during the preambles to creation. Collectively they were looking for, the gods particle. Turned out they needed just two! Plus that damned 5D vacuum structure, which appeared in full color, pumping out two universes, in both sides of the wormhole, on the beating. To let a temporary version of heaven inflate periodically. Their reason? Boredom from the eternal life! — Hillary

You're onto something here! Keep on truckin'

You want "complex time"? Here's an example: T=t+ib(t). A ballistic missile defines a trajectory that has the following real part - the normal time in flight = t. For the imaginary part, suppose the missile were to hit an imaginary wall at normal time t and drop to the ground. The normal time it takes to drop to the ground is b(t). :cool: — jgill

:up:

Limit of what system? — jgill

By conceiving of the divine as unified , we simultaneously saw the human psyche as a autonomous and internally unified. It also gave us a view of the cosmos as a perfect unity. Why are you trying to say about us and the world by connecting us back to a plurality of deities rather than the One? — Joshs

I've quoted Joshs above as part of my reply to jgill's question at the top. More than a few philosophers want to comprehend "the cosmos as a perfect unity," want to be spiritually subsumed into The One of Platonism, want to resonate with the oscillations of universal Om.

Special Relativity replaces universal time with time dependent on reference frame & spatial position. I think we've got to spend more time navigating the local neighborhoods of existence before presuming to have a valid & practical comprehension of The One.

Metaphysicians can makes claims for the independence of their discipline, except when contradicted by scientific observations of nature bolstered by experimental evidence. Premature attempts to distill philosophy from science amounts to foolish class warfare. The two disciplines need each other.

Universe is the limit of system, my chief premise, has me claiming not even the material universe is a verifiable oneness, not to mention metaphysical speculations about oneness. I think Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem runs through the heart of a viable cosmology. Likewise, the essential reality of a sequence of unique & unrepeatable moments in time declared by Lee Smolin.

The human mind seeks patterns as foundations for its understandings. With respect to the cognitive importance of patterns, I think science is much younger than philosophy, which is to say, far less certain about the meaning (or existence) of "the cosmos as a perfect unity."



System, in general, makes an asymptotic approach to all-inclusive oneness, which is to say, our existence is always approaching but never arriving at oneness. And hallelujah to that! Since we all need something to live for, oneness, heaven & total harmony are the enemy.

The greatest question of all is, "What next?"

It's springtime. Fresh air!

I haven't seen such powerful example of an accelerated reference frame before! — Hillary

Thanks for weighing in, Hillary!

There is nothing socialist about states taking on private risk. The risk being taken on is that of corporations, without any concomitant control; ownership remains in private hands, and states taking on such risk simply means that corporate failure is ultimately underwritten by taxpayers. It is capitalism taken to the nth degree such that private enterprise parasitizes on public finances. — Streetlight

When a state underwrites private risk with taxpayer money, do we speak truthfully when we say that taxpayer money is queer venture capital via which the state participates in the market, except, however, the venture capitalists i.e., the taxpayer-investors, down the line, are excluded from profit participation in the event of private risk ultimately turning a profit?

Do we speak truthfully when we say that the state, in deciding to invest in private risk with public money, acts the role of a queer stockholder on behalf of a corporation, and thus the risk portion of the venture exemplifies a state-run business?

Do we speak truthfully when we say that the taxpayers, in raising the public money that underwrites corporate ventures, does the work of financing production for the market, but receives zero payment for its work?

Do we speak truthfully when we say that conventional underwriting of private ventures with public money as with, for example, the public underwriting of potentially lucrative research & development programs conducted at universities, exemplifies taxpayer-funded welfare for the corporations?

Do we speak truthfully when we say that public underwriting of private ventures exemplifies a queer conjunction of private_public enterprise i.e., a complex mixture of capitalism_socialism?

And the other thing states do, more and more - I think maybe among the most consequential and least talked about - is to take on private risk. That is, private business risk is 'offshored' to state, who bear the burden when capitalist markets fuck up. The political economist Daniela Gabor has a really, really excellent and easy to read paper [PDF] on this topic. From the abstract: "The state risk-proofs development assets for institutional investors by taking on its balance sheet: (i) demand risks attached to commodified (social) infrastructure assets, (ii) political risk attached to policies that would threaten profits, such as nationalization, higher minimum wages and climate regulation, (iii) climate risks that may become part of regulatory frameworks; (iv) bond and currency markets risks that complicate investors’ exit". This 'taking on investment risk' tracks with the increase of financialization: states can function as lenders of last resort and prop up 'too-big-to-fail' institutions without which everything goes tits-up. — Streetlight

Is there a kernel of truth in my thinking the state taking on private risk is least talked about (albeit most consequential) because it is a critical phase of the economic life of a mature capitalist state wherein it starts to move toward socialism strategically?

Moreover, have you seen this movement towards state-run economy attributes in other mature capitalist economies that are nearing market saturation (in the absence of wars of conquest), thus suggesting as capitalism matures, it's compelled to move away from free market purity towards a complex, mixed capitalist-socialist economy?

Note - the section in bold is excepted because it describes anti-socialistic moves.

What approach should morally upright social scientists & legislators take regarding the naturally occurring inequality of human individuals grouped together within a state?
— ucarr

None. The classism based on the inequality of human individuals is in place practically, even if not officially, and it prevails.

For example, theoretically, officially, we're all equal before the law. But practically, we're not. — baker

By saying "none," you're saying you condone the double-standard that, for the same crime, has the judge handing down a draconian sentence to a commoner and a slap on the wrist to a noble.

Your conformity to the status quo, once it's amplified by a smug polity, launches a potent recipe for revolt.

John Lennon sang about nobles keeping the masses doped on sex, drugs & religion. Are you also signed on with this stratagem?

Game shows, state lotteries & promotional giveaways take aim at the roiling dissatisfaction of the legions of working stiffs. Apparently you think they're effective.

Nathaniel West, like other writers before and since, characterizes Los Angeles as a desert fever dream unmoored from the Puritan stolidity that keeps the rest of the continent sound. At the movie premiere, the downtrodden, the locusts of the land, ignited by Homer Simpson's breakdown into psychotic rage, erupt into mad revolt against the class bondage that mummifies them.

The quick & the clever are forever herding the pliant populace into one or another scheme of usury until, periodically, a seismic eruption of social upheaval lays waste to the cultural order. The first cracks in the facade appear within the glib & gleaming complacency of the conservatives. No?

Will to power is not the desiring to possess power by a freely willing autonomous subject. The ‘subject’ is a fractured community of competing drives, and power flows through it rather than being possessed by it. Each of these drives within the psyche is its own will to power, and it is their tension that is the creative force of genius l. — Joshs

Will to power is in the service of the eternal return by being differential and multiple, transforming the arts, politics and the sciences through the constant clashes of the drives. The idea of a political class maintaining control is antithetical to the anarchic spirit of will to power. — Joshs

The above read like fast lanes to a nightmare of social instability, with frequent visits to thresholds of disintegration & collapse.

Perhaps Nietzsche's downfall in microcosm was personality disintegration due to an excess of Sturm und Drang.