Notes to myself on rationalism

1. Rationalism's root word is ratio.

2. Rationalism is not just a philosophical branch talked about amongst humans, but also can be thought of as the environs of semiotics. Ratios provide a perpetual disequilibrium in which all 'things' (ideas and tangibles) must co-habitate in a system of unequal relativism, that shifts and morphs those inequalities over time.

3. The Boethian Wheel is a political/economic expression of this semiotic rational universe operating in constant perpetual disequilibrium.

4. Is Pragmatism equivalent to Rationalism?

5. Is American Pragmatism an economic, cultural embodiment of Rationalism?

6. Is American Pragmatism so repugnant to ideologues because it operates with the dynamism of ratios?

7. Perpetual disequilibrium and American Pragmatism does not necessarily have to equate to an evil, dystopic chaos.

8. Ideologues, usually humanistic and religious or communistic, have 'made bank' in the 20th century by propagating derivatives of Rationalism as evil, and promoting a more static, safe but (in my opinion) untenable and unsafe economic culture ( this propaganda often reveres more primitive cultures such as Native Americans or European peasants ) .

9. The core disease introduced by these ideologues has been irrationalism. Mysticism, which is impervious to facts (empiricism).

10. Empiricism is the brake and steering wheel of Rationalism ( the one operating in the semiotic universe, managing the decline and ascendance of 'things' ). It is the feedback loop. Mysticism throws away the feedback loop. Mysticism creates within humans an ability to keep marching on in service to an idea even when facts are coming in showing the idea is a bad one.

11. It is this quality of Mysticism that is driving the nihilism of Islamic terrorists and violent criminals.

12. 'Religion' does not have to equate to 'Mysticism'. There is an ancient etymology in which Rationalism is the religion. See Logos. In his book, "Zero, the Biography of a Dangerous Idea." Charles Seife notes that the Greek word for 'ratio' was 'logos'. Thus the translation of John 1:1 reads: "In the beginning, there was the ratio, and the ratio was with God, and the ratio was God."