Great writing, Jayson. This is my favorite piece of yours yet, as I think it gets to the heart of the issue. By the way this is the Roger you met in San Diego in December at the informal meeting.
I agree completely with your comments on the naïveté of early writing on the philosophy, especially on the myth of inevitable progress. In his review of the great writers on the topic, —The Idea of Progress,— J.B. Bury saw inevitability as fundamental to "The Idea." Other naive beliefs that were common included the belief that progress was the sam...
Thanks for the reply Jason,
I would explain the distinction as such. Progress requires greater problem solving capability. This is measured in Type 1. Improved outfomes/welfare (Type2) requires greater problem solving in a way which is coordinated so that we work together rather than at odds with each other.
An obvious example is evolution/natural selection. Clearly, problem solving activity has seen long eras of improvement in ability to solve problems such as metabolism, locomotion, memory, and so forth. However, what we don’t see are com... (read more)