Ramsey and the Vienna Circle 09

W ERNER L EINFELLNER

THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN EVALUATION IN DEMOCRACIES FROM RAMSEY TO DAMASIO

T HE NEW R AMSEYAN THEORY OF VALUES IN THE WORK OF LATER UTILITY AND VALUE THEORISTS Today’s individual and collective decision theory, game theory and evolutionary game theory, collective choice theory, microeconomics, and even welfare economics are based on a preferential “if-then” ordering of human evaluation and decision making. The historically earlier axioms of the RNMNS method, defined later in this paper, are the “if” condition and the “then” part consists of the ordered preferences and values. The “if-then” structure was at first introduced by Ramsey and improved later on by others. Ramsey’s foundation of evaluation and the measurement of values, R (1931e: 178-184), then, rest on the “if” condition formulated as axioms. If we can impose serially ordering axioms on given preferences, we can order and measure them serially and thus introduce scientifically justified values, opinions, and beliefs. If not, the preferences stay unordered and remain as so-called ordinary values, opinions, and beliefs. The same holds for the Neumann-Morgenstern axioms, NM (1961 [1944]: 24-31), for Suppes/Zinnes, S (1963b: 1-74), and for the Nash conditions, N (2002b [1950]: 38-40). Their common purpose is the reason why we speak here of a RNMNS method. We support this method by introducing additional conditions C1-C3 for their empirical application and use in democracies. R AMSEY ’ S FOUNDATION AS A REVISION OF N ASH As a teenager, Nash sent an as yet unpublished paper to Neumann at a time not ascertained. The article has been recently published in a volume edited by Kuhn/Nasar in 2002 (Nash 2002b: 38-41). Nash emphasizes strongly the mathematical (and therefore conscious) processing of evaluations, starting with preferences and ending with scientific, or expert, opinions as internal anticipations of future outcomes. The following Nash method N1-N5 uses prescriptive evaluation rules; they are rule-like assumptions, not axioms, while Ramsey and Neumann/Morgenstern speak of “axioms.” The assumptions show how we convert given preferences into conscious, e.g.,

139 M. C. Galavotti (ed.), Cambridge and Vienna: Frank P. Ramsey and the Vienna Circle, 139–153. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

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mathematical, values, opinions, and beliefs. We need value canons for conflict solving, be this a conflict of alternatives, a social conflict in democracies, or some other conflict. N1-N5 show clearly that Nash had contemporary psychology in mind when he formulated his mathematico-logical reconstruction of the mental processing of values: N1. An individual offered two possible anticipations can decide consciously which one is preferable or that they are equally desirable. N2. The ordering thus produced is transitive: if A is better than B, and B is better than C, then A is better than C. N3. Any probability combination of equally desirable states is just as desirable as either. N4. If A, B, and C are as in assumption (2 [= N2]), then there is a probability combination of A and C which is just as desirable as B (continuity assumption). N5. If 0 ” p ” 1 and A and B are equally desirable, then pA + (1-p)C and pB +(1-p)C are equally desirable. Also, if A and B are equally desirable, A may be substituted for B in any desirability ordering relationship satisfied by B. Nash’s method as included in the RNNMS method starts with given and conscious preferences and computes the necessary values for making specific social decisions. These values, then, are representations of ordered given preferences; this order assigns to each preference a real number as value. If u is a value function, then also au + b, provided a > 0. A representative value function represents the order of serial preferences unto conscious neo-cardinal values (Allais 1994a; b). This utility function is not unique, but a neo-cardinal one. It will satisfy the following rule-like properties: (i) u(A) > u(B) is equivalent to: A is more desirable than B, etc. (ii) If 0 ” p ” 1, then u[pA + (1-p)B] = pu(A) + (1-p)u(B) We now adduce the 3 criteria C1-C3 for meaningful preferences: Criterion C1: If an evaluation procedure is to begin, the given preferences should be empirical or at least potentially empirically realizable. Criterion C2: The evaluation procedure starts with imposing a strong order of given preferences (N2 in Nash 2002b [1950]: 39; Arrow 1963: 13). Individual processing should proceed rationally in a wider sense: either deductively or inductively-probabilistically (nonlinear) (Ramsey 1931c [1928]: 204ff; 1931d [1929]: 256; 1931e [1926b]: 192). Criterion C3: The order of values in any canon, i.e., the opinion, should enable solutions of social conflicts which are empirically feasible. The solutions should be compatible with superimposed democratic laws in representative democracies and democratic welfare states.

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S CIENTIFIC / EXPERT OPINIONS AND NONSCIENTIFIC , ORDINARY OPINIONS ( VALUE HIERARCHIES ) Firstly: The RNNMS method and the criteria C1-C3 reconstruct very well how human values are established and formed, given rational and conscious preferences. Secondly, and most importantly: Its greatest advantage is that we now have a scientific tool, the RNMNS method, to decide whether a value hierarchy, a value canon, or opinion (belief), is scientific/expert, or not. Thirdly: The application of the criteria C1-C3, especially C3, define “socially optimal” in democracies. The greatest advantage of the RNMNS tool cum C1-C3 is that they offer a criterion whether a value is scientifically feasible. But it has its disadvantages, too. Firstly: It cannot be used to explain where preferences originally come from. Secondly: It cannot be used to explain how new values and value canons (opinions) are created, and how values are changed, adapted, in short: how they evolve (Damasio 2003: 48f, 110f, 161-164). “New” means “not previously existing,” “not existing within living memory.” The question remains: What are we to do with ordinary values which cannot be “proven” with the RNMNS tool cum C1-C3? The RNMNS method or procedure is a new scientific and mathematical reconstruction of an internal (psychological) human process leading from consciously given preferences to quantitative individual values. According to C1C3, “given preferences” means that the preferences can be empirically observed, realized, etc. The new quantitative utility theory, or approach, founded on RNMNS and C1-C3, replaces the traditional qualitative philosophy of value. This new theory works only because its background are the principles of modern representative democracies and democratic welfare societies, DP (= democratic principles). This background often goes unmentioned and is just assumed. Moreover, values are always embedded in value hierarchies, i.e., value canons, i.e. opinions, or democratic principles. Instead of “value hierarchy” or “value canon” we often use only “opinion.” Ramsey and later theorists, then, have reconstructed human individual evaluation in mathematical terms, not unlike Aristotle who reconstructed human reasoning in logical terms (see also Ramsey 1931b [1926a]: 62f, 68; 1931e [1926b]: 192). But the question from where and how preferences and human values originate remained open. Traditional answers assumed that they were introduced by external superior deities as legislators, by their successful use in societies in the course of human evolution, and so on. Damasio’s three books develop a new somatic and brain-physiological foundation of the creation of given preferences, discussed later. According to Nash, human preferences and individual values are psychic “anticipations” (ex ante values; Nash 2002b: 39-40). Since Pigou’s welfare

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economics, Ramsey and others have defined values as individual and social values as expected values (Pigou 1912: 72f; cf. Neumann/Morgenstern 1961 [1944]: 3.1-3.8, especially 3.3.2 and 3.4.6). A comprehensive final version of this approach was worked out by Suppes/Zinnes 1963b (cf. also Leinfellner 1964a; b; 1974). From then on, the individual evaluation method RNMNS cum C1-C3, as first installed by Ramsey, was an important economic topic (Nash 2002b [1950]; Neumann/Morgenstern 1961 [1944]). Suppes/Zinnes 1963b improved the methods of scientifically turning given preferences into values. Here we call this procedure the “RNMNS method (procedure)” – “RNMNS” after the names of Ramsey, Nash, Neumann/Morgenstern, and Suppes. It became the mathematical hard core and cornerstone of modern quantitative utility (value) theory (we often simply say “RNMNS” method and “criteria C1-C3,” to mean “something akin / comparable to the RNMNS method,” and the like). Utility theory is the foundation of today’s game and decision theory, collective choice theory, and microeconomics. Collective choice theory explains how, in representative democracies and democratic welfare states, individual values become collective values. Collective choice theory peaked in the sixties of the last century with the welfare economists Arrow, Sen, and Harsanyi, Nobelists in economy all three. The consequences of the RNMNS method turned out to be a new probabilistic, nonlinear method. The concept of values as anticipations changed our previous, deterministic view of all social sciences, particularly microeconomics, political science, sociology, and evolution theory: From now on they are seen as nonlinear. This method helps us to understand how, and if, individual and social values can be measured quantitatively, how individual values and also canons of values, or opinions, can be computationally derived from given psychological preferences, why social sciences become nonlinear and are no longer able to predict deterministically, and when not. Once we have come that far, we can solve and even compute social conflicts in “nonlinear” democracies, be the values competitive or cooperative or, simply: expected averages or risks. In this paper, “democracy” is used also as a synonym both for “representative democracy” and its extension, “democratic welfare state.” This is possible because both have the same goal when it comes to the socially optimal solving of future conflicts. The improvement of future individual and, at the same time, future social, collective welfare replaces deterministic predictions. Democratic conflict solving is progressive and dynamic, an evolutionary process for short, based on the RNMNS method and its criteria C1-C3. In this process, the environment, the society, external and internal random events, etc. play an active role. In democracies, therefore, humans adapt continuously their individual and social values to uncertain situations and to democratic laws (Rawls, Neumann / Morgenstern) when they have to solve social conflicts in a socially optimal way. In all the social sciences, the traditional one-one causal predictions have become obsolete and must be replaced by the computation of future expected plusses (increases; risks) or future expected losses (risks), especially in the case of the current crisis of sinking individual and collective welfare standards. For

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more than 75% of the EU citizens nothing seems more important than to maintain the incredibly high individual and collective welfare standard which has been achieved since 1900. In the countries of the EU, democratic laws for the solution of social conflicts have been adopted, governed by the new supreme principle of Human Rights HR. (The quantification achieved by the RNMNS method is a sine qua non condition of the application of the HR.) By the Human Rights principle HR we mean the principle as formulated by the United Nations and introduced, for instance, into the Austrian Constitution (since September 3, 1958). The Human Rights stipulate categorically that progress in democracies means to improve the individual and collective welfare without decreasing, exploiting, or harming one specific part of the population; the rich should not be getting richer, and the poor, poorer (Samuelson 1970: 764). But how can we execute the Human Rights in democracies without measuring progress quantitatively, thus, without a RNMNS method cum C1-C3? In this spirit, already Pigou and Ramsey proposed a democratically acceptable fiscal taxation policy, formulated quantitatively, for democracies. When democratic states are encumbered with debts, there is, in representative democracies and the EU, no other way out of debt than by paying it back in a democratic way that is socially fair or just. This is not possible without quantification (missing, e.g., in Rawls 1971 and 2001). Such crises are either caused by extremely egoistic trends in the societies themselves, or they are the negative consequences of random events or of mistakes, or caused by ordinary values, opinions, beliefs, which are typical for evolutionary processes. When a democratic government has committed itself irrevocably to a progressive course of action in order to terminate a social conflict between egoistic and cooperative, altruistic interests, it cannot turn back, since this would mean its self-destruction (Dahrendorf 1988). In economics, similar considerations are expressed quantitatively by the Hicks-Kaldor and the Scitovsky criterion. Their basis is the RNMNS method cum C1-C3. If democracies cease to defend the Human Rights HR, they violate a series of democratic principles DP (see below), rely on empty promises and ordinary, nonscientific values and opinions or nondemocratic principles and are digging their own grave. T HE NEW METHOD OF R AMSEY , N ASH , N EUMANN /M ORGENSTERN , AND S UPPES AND ITS NONLINEAR CONSEQUENCES In the years between approximately 1926 and 1928, Ramsey had the ingenious idea for the first scientific, mathematical reconstruction of how individuals consciously form and process individual values. Ramsey’s reconstruction of what the individual does by estimating and evaluating looks like this: He, and his followers as well, start with the individual’s given preferences and then use serial conditions (Nash) and conditional probabilities and the concepts of non-linear

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betting to quantitatively measure future values as expectations of a better individual and collective welfare. Betting and hedging are means to cope with the pragmatic, good or bad consequences of random events when we foretell the outcomes of future solutions of societal conflicts, that is, the expected winnings or losses for the individual and for a democratic society. Today, this replaces the traditional deterministic prediction. Generally, in democracies social and collective values always carry with them a specific empirical “meaning” in form of their pragmatic future consequences for us, i.e., their utility for us and/or for the society, be it the value of things, commodities, individuals, their actions, decisions, individual or societal conflict solutions, culturefacts, etc. (Leinfellner 1984). Values without this specific form of “meaning” are empty; they are merely platonistic, merely mathematical. Pragmatically meaningful scientific values in canons of social values, or opinions, specify certain positive or negative consequences for human decisions, and they are restricted to a specific empirical domain D. Such a domain D is, e.g., the domain of competitive and/or cooperative games or the domain of common conflicts in democracies. The computed or expected solutions, which are based on individual and societal values, value canons, or opinions, must be empirically realizable or feasible, at least in democracies (see Criteria C1-C3). This pragmatic usefulness is expressed in modern economics by expected utilities, as represented by the RNMNS method cum C1-C3. The RNMNS method was later worked out in detail by authors of the Theory and Decision journal and book series; other, earlier names to be mentioned are Marschak (1974), De Finetti (1937), Leinfellner (1964a; b; 1974), and many others. These authors reconstruct quantitatively individual human value formation in terms of the mathematical RNMNS method; they separate traditional values from probable ones. Private conflicts, which have no bearing on anyone except the solitary decision maker and conflict solver, have to be excluded. Such values are prescriptive for specific social solutions only, and they can be replaced by better ones, adapted to a certain new task, changed, rejected offhand, etc., provided the procedure is democratic according to C3. They are dynamic and subject to evolutionary processes. They are stored in the individual and collective conscious memories (Leinfellner 1984: 268; Damasio 2003: 270; Tulving 1983: 127). Majority voting creates collective value canons, opinions, or beliefs (Arrow 1963: 76; Sen 1970: 23; Munier 2001). Legislation in democracies, finally, lay down such canons in constitutions and laws. It was an important step that Neumann/Morgenstern founded their own game theory on utility theory. We have already said that utility theory is based on the RNMNS method. This enabled quantitative scientific conflict-solving in democratic societies. The rules established by game theory and utility theory use a more empirical form of the RNMNS method cum C1-C3 than Ramsey did. When we solve social conflicts, they guarantee that a mathematically computed solution of social conflicts can be found, is scientifically o.k., and fits into democratic societies. Finally, when game theory turned into a dynamic, evolutionary

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theory, the RNMNS method was just as indispensable (Weibull 1996; Gintis 2000; Leinfellner 1998; 2000). C OLLECTIVE CHOICE THEORY AND THE RNMNS METHOD In collective choice theory, the individual values obtained by the RNMNS method were taken as the starting point for a mathematical reconstruction of collective democratic values by Arrow 1963, Rawls 1971 and 2001, and Sen 1970. Pigou’s (1912: 71-77) early foundation of welfare economics foreshadows such a reconstruction. This branch of welfare economics is a prescriptive economico-social science and showed formally how collective social values originate from individual values obtained by the RNMNS method and the C1-C3 criteria. It produced most of the Nobel prizes in economics. It permits to reach the goal of welfare societies: to maximize (improve) both the individual and the social welfare in the future (Leinfellner 1998). Seen in retrospect: In collective choice theory, but also in utility and game theory, their prescriptive rules have always been tailored after the pattern (rules) of democratic and economic principles. The imposition of these democratic welfare principles on the RNNMS mathematical apparatus facilitated the computation of social conflict-solving. In the course of 20th-century history, these disciplines “borrowed” more and more democratic values (value canons, opinions) from the democracies themselves (Rawls 1971; 2001). In some way, they all used the basic RNMNS method and its new criteria C1-C3 of application in democracies. This is a partial and quantified renaissance of Parsonian sociology. Arrow’s collective choice theory of 1951 and Sen’s of 1970 are pioneering and epoch-making reconstructions of how individual scientific values obtained by the application of the RNMNS method cum C1-C3 in representative democracies are represented2 technically by social welfare (utility2) functions into common democratic values and opinions. Historically, both use logical methods but come to the conclusion that logic and axiomatization alone cannot explain how democracies work. Here again, the reason is that social choice theory had been based on the RNMNS method which renders linear deductive methods obsolete (Arrow 1951: 11-14, Axiom 1 and 2; Sen 1970: 94-99). Indeed, it led to inconsistencies, such as captured in Arrow’s impossibility theorem. Firstly, the RNMNS method permits a representation1 of given individual preferences unto scientific values. Then social choice theory explains how these individual scientific values are represented2 by a following special representation2 unto common democratic social values and opinions, as for example by majority voting (MV) in representative democracies. Secondly, for that collective representation2 the social choice theory imposes empirically established democratic principles DP, borrowed from democratic usage, on gametheoretical democratic decision rules and models to compute

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quantitative optimal solutions of societal conflicts in welfare democracies. Rawls 1971 tried the same but his theory is only a qualitative one. A RROW ’ S IMPOSSIBILITY THEOREM AND THE RNMNS METHOD The clash known as Arrow’s impossibility theorem, is a theorem, since it derives from supposedly logical axioms and the essential democratic principles DP = (U & P & I & ˜D & MV & HR) ¬ D. The supposed contradiction is: “From D ˜ follows logically D.” The elements of this set, value canon, or scientific/expert opinion DP are: U = unrestricted liberal domain or free choice between democratically possible alternatives, permitting the greatest democratically possible liberal freedom of choice; P = understood here as the extended Pareto Principle; I = independence of irrelevant alternatives, for instance, one cannot chose someone as president solely because of his or her race or telegenic qualities; D = the ˜ conflict solution should not depend on a dictator, i.e., non-dictatorship; dictators are not necessarily political dictators who rule by force; in democracies, there may be cultural dictators (Arrow 1963: 30f, 85; Sen 1970: 21-32, 37f, 42, 45-46, 48-55). MV is the majority vote. The Human Rights principle HR holds in welfare democracies only. One of the consequences of Arrow’s impossibility theorem is: Complex theories of how democracies work cannot be modelled in a purely logical fashion. It is one of the impossibility problems, which haunt philosophies, whether social, logical, or something else. Gödel’s purely logical impossibility theorem is the most famous one. According to this theorem, it is impossible to formalize a consistency proof for a complex logical system within this system itself. In our case, we know that the culprit is the RNMNS method and the empirical social principles which induce nonlinearity, intransitivities, and unpredictability (Barrow 1999: 242-247). The same holds when we introduce random events into traditional deductive systems. The impossibility of using a merely logical reconstruction of democracies is one of the consequences of the RNMNS method which, in the last century, shook the fundament of traditional economics and its deterministic predictions. For example, the C1-C3 conditions exclude in democracies deterministic future predictions for single individual values and opinions and allow only average expectations. Another example is any majority decision in democracies. It holds if many opposing individuals prefer a valuei or opinioni and its number is greater as the number of individuals voting for valuej or opinionj. In democracies, any fifty:fifty vote (distribution) means an undecided vote and has to be annulled or repeated. But logically, undecided votes are not possible and the system becomes nonlinear. In this nonlinear system, solutions which would be considered contradictory in a logical system, are now characterized simply by ȕ = 0.5 and (1-ȕ) = 0.5. To sum it up: In nonlinear theories of democratic societies, Arrow’s impossibility theorem withered away.

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It is no wonder that collective choice theory suffered in the eighties the same fate as the natural sciences in the thirties when their deterministic natural laws had to be changed into highly confirmed statistical laws or default rules. Another example: When in the eighties, traditional game theory became an evolutionary game theory, it lost its deductive character (Weibull 1996; Gintis 2000; Leinfellner 1984; 1988; 1995; 2000; 2001; Leinfellner/Köhler 1998). Thus, under the influence of the RNMNS method cum C1-C3, democratic principles became default rules, and collective choice theory a nonlinear, causally “soft” and complex theory. Social solutions S of conflicts and predictions are now always statistical mixtures of [ȕ S1 , (1-ȕ)S2], where ȕ indicates the frequency distribution or the common social strength of individual values or opinions, e.g., after a vote in democracies. This “soft”, nonlinear collective choice theory freed traditional social choice theory from its deductive straitjacket. Democracies do not function as deduction would prescribe: They are evolutionary, open systems which are regulated by democratic, empirical, prescriptive, and accepted pragmatic welfare rules, not by logical principles or axioms. Here, a generation after Ramsey, we see again the strong impact of the RNMNS method and Criteria C1-C3. Social choice theory, utility or value theory, decision theory, game theory, evolutionary game theory, and related theories function under pragmatic democratic principles or laws and rest on the RNNMS method and the criteria C1-C3. Without the democratic principles DP, collective choice theories could not be formulated (Arrow 1963; Rawls 1971; Sen 1970; Leinfellner 1995; 2001). Arrow (1963: Ch. 3) and, later on, Sen (1970) have defined an effective minimal set DP, or value canon, of democratic principles as descriptive default rules which are imposed on mathematical, e.g., gametheoretical, rules for the computation of socially optimal solutions in democratic societies. T HE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER The purpose of this section is to show that Damasio’s somatic, brainphysiological theory can be used as the physiological and neurological fundament of a general theory of value creation, which begins with the human creation of values, continues with the RNMNS method cum C1-C3, and ends with the collective choice theory. The intended result is a general value theory for representative and welfare democracies. The steps are the following: 1. Damasio’s fundamental theory explains in detail how the human body blindly, at random creates unpredictable mixtures M, i.e., random sets, of all kind of values, e.g., potentially scientific ones, ordinary nonscientific ones, opinions, beliefs; the values may be completely new. In the course of further processing, some values of the random set M may reach our consciousness as given preferences; we consider these values as prima facie values. Damasio’s theory, then, provides a new fundament for the somatic and brain-based RNMNS

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method and the C1-C3 conditions, since it deals with the origin and creation of preferences and values out of a bodily and brain-based cognitive neuronal value processing. 2. After the values have been created, the RNMNS method and C1-C3 allow us to separate the given preferences into scientific, empirically applicable values, opinions and beliefs, and all the others. Thereby, the traditional social sciences become nonlinear which may be considered a disadvantage by some. An advantage is that we are now able to measure scientific values with the aid of the utility functions of utility theory and offer quantitative, empirically applicable solutions of social conflicts. 3. Finally, with C3, collective choice theory imposes democratic collective welfare principles DP on scientific individual values, opinions, and beliefs. Furthermore, collective choice theory allows us to explain how individual scientific values, opinions, and beliefs can be changed into social collective ones by means of social welfare functions, provided a democratic framework. One of the democratic welfare functions is the majority principle. 4. The unification of 1, 2, and 3 has the advantage that we can now explain how scientific values, opinions, and beliefs work quantitatively in democracies and how to optimally solve social conflicts in democracies, not necessarily in other forms of government. The disadvantage is that scientific values are not the only one that may get the majority in, e.g., democratically elected parliaments. In such a case, only the RNMNS method and the criteria C1-C3 can come to the rescue and help us to avoid catastrophes and the breakdown of democracies caused by nonscientific and empirically unfeasible values, opinions, beliefs. We will now discuss some details of such a general theory of values. According to Damasio, such theory cannot be any longer a dualistic body-mind theory. D AMASIO ’ S SOMATIC MARKER THEORY AND THE CREATION OF HUMAN SCIENTIFIC AND NONSCIENTIFIC VALUES , OPINIONS , AND BELIEFS Damasio investigated brain-physiologically and practically for the first time in history how human evaluations, values, and opinions originate from bodily, chemically and physiologically aroused somatic markers, (primary and secondary) emotions, and feelings. The body-brain is described as a dynamic unit of them. The incoming sensations generate at first in our bodies chemically and physiologically aroused somatic states, i.e., somatic markers, or primary emotions, felt as pain, pleasure or plus of individual, or even primitive collective welfare according to Harsanyi (1976: 46). Patterns of primary emotions emerge. This interactive value processing can be described schematically as a constantly occurring sequence of bodily aroused markers p primitive emotions p secondary emotions pfeelings p conscious preferences. This process, then, is a bod-

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ily induced, brainphysiological, cognitive, memory-bound Bayesian learning which lasts as long as we live, even though each individual value process lasts only for milliseconds. It is the internal creation of primary and secondary emotions (feelings) as predecessors of conscious preferences, values, and opinions which steer our human conscious decision making (Damasio 1999: 20, 83-85, 134, 191; Leinfellner 1988: 349-353). Thus the body provides ground level (primary and secondary) emotions, or feelings, which are signalled to the somatosensory cortex of the brain and back (Damasio 1994: 133, 173, 184). Via feelings, emotions gradually become conscious. In the beginning, feelings are only prestages of conscious, linguistically expressible preferences and values. It is their neural representation unto the brain stem (the amygdala) and the human forebrain which bestows degrees of consciousness by feelings, and, finally, full consciousness on them. The steadily ongoing individual processing, i.e., the representation of bodily emotions and feelings unto our forebrain, creates step by step somatically or neocortically half or fully conscious values expressible in language. Damasio explains that, without the creation of new values, there is no purposeful acting, no decision making possible (Damasio 1994: 177; 1999: 319f). Once values, preferences etc. have become conscious, one can separate scientific from nonscientific values etc. by the RNMNS method cum C1-C3, as already described. The value processing continues with the formation of collective values as already discussed. Social choice theory explains how values become social collective values. T WO MAIN KINDS OF VALUES : S CIENTIFIC VERSUS ORDINARY VALUES Besides other things, Damasio’s theory explains the somatic and brain-based, step-by-step creation not of single values but of unpredictable mixtures M of potentially scientific and nonscientific values, where ȕ indicates the frequency of scientific values SV and (1-ȕ) the frequency of ordinary values SV: M= [ȕ SV, ˜ (1-ȕ) SV] in any society (cf. Damasio 1999: 8-10; 2003: 319). Some of these values˜may pass the RNMNS procedure cum C1-C3 and become checked scientific values. The process thus described can be a creative, self-organizing process which is supported by a primitive memory and learning (Damasio 2003: 3-33; 1999: 68, 272, 318-320). To sum it up: In any democratic system, there exist in M two completely different kinds of values, opinions, and beliefs with changing frequencies: 1. scientific ones which have successfully passed, or will pass, the tests prescribed by the RNMNS method and the C1-C3 criteria; 2. values, opinions, beliefs which did not pass the RNMNS method and the C1-C3 criteria. The latter are going around in our minds just like scientific values, opinions, and beliefs; they are being discussed and published, they spread and replicate also in democracies. In the worst case, they may even become the opinion of the majority and win elections by majority voting. They may also become programs

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and platforms of ruling parties. But ordinary, superfluous values can be corrected and improved, hopefully before they have caused any damage. The improved version may be accepted as scientific values, since improvement is an evolutionary process. One reason for the spread of nonscientific values, opinions, beliefs is: In democracies, the freedom of speech provides a wide leeway also for the discussion of ordinary values and opinions and does not hinder the spread of nonscientific values, opinions, and beliefs unhampered by the RNMNS method and the C1-C3 criteria. These are treacherous if one persuades the citizens to accept them as scientific, despite the fact that they are false, for instance pre-election pledges which cannot be fulfilled. Ordinary values, opinions, and beliefs are used frequently in spite of being empirically inapplicable even though they may be sometimes serially ordered; often they are chaotic. If we, against better knowledge, use ordinary values and opinions in politics and economics, we have to bear sooner or later their bad consequences. Even in democracies, then, these two sets of values exist side by side. “Leftover” ordinary opinions are in most instances not empirically applicable in democracies, since they have not passed or cannot pass the RNMNS procedure cum C1-C3. They are, nevertheless, abundant. The question, Where do both come from? Who or what created them? has been answered by Damasio. As already said: Damasio offers a completely new answer: Both are constantly created prima facie by a somatic-neurological, physiological, and brain-based primitive cognitive process. T HE PRESENT CRISIS OF VALUES , OPINIONS AND BELIEFS IN DEMOCRACIES We will now shortly discuss also the fate of nonscientific, “leftover” values and opinions and their social, political, economic, and cultural role in democracies. Despite the fact that the RNMNS method and the C1-C3 criteria are our most important means to separate scientific, rational values and opinions from not rational, not scientific ones – “rational” understood as in Criterion C2 – the nonscientific values can often become more important than the scientific ones. Unfortunately, in democracies scientific, often irrational, empirically false, popular, chaotic, and postmodern values, opinions, and beliefs have their own way of life. The situation becomes critical and worse when nonscientific values, opinions and beliefs multiply and, by a majority vote, may proceed to dominate our life in democracies. Seen evolutionarily, both kinds of values and opinions grow in democracies by imitation and replication, survive or disappear (Schuster/Sigmund 1983; Sigmund 1993). If nonscientific, but powerful and dominant values, opinions, beliefs cannot be improved so that they fulfill the RNMNS and the C1-C3 tests, they may become detrimental for democracies and even ruin them, when they dominate the parliaments.

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Finally, this throws a new light on the RNMNS method and the C1-C3 criteria, which turn out to be our most important scientific tool for all social sciences and for our representative democracies in order to prevent the takeover of nonscientific values, opinions and beliefs, and to save, at the same time, the presently endangered welfare democracies. Nevertheless, nonscientific values, opinions etc. are created constantly. It would need a deus ex machina to prevent them in advance. H UMAN V ALUE P ROCESSING : R ANDOMIZERS AND CREATIVITY Somatic markers and bodily emotions are constantly produced and literally created by the cognitive body-brain interaction as responses to external sensations and random changes. Random changes now are the fundamental precondition of being innovative and creative, but not all random changes lead to innovations. Since somatic markers are dependent on random events, their creation is blind and the produced mixture M is generated at random and unpredictable (Boden 1991; Leinfellner 2001: 222-232). Somatic, brain-physiological creative processes create new values, values which have not existed within living memory, and begin with the creation of new somatic markers. They cannot be planned or predicted (Damasio 1999: 122; Leinfellner 2001). The processes of the creation of new values provide more than consciousness, logic, and even science can provide. Creation means simply to go where nobody has gone before. Any innovative, creative process begins with the production of huge random sets M of possible values out of which we can select by the RNMNS method and C1-C3 those scientific ones which serve our democracies. To summarize: Since preferences, values must be created by our body and its value processing brain, human creativity is unthinkable without neuronal and bodily randomizers which produce a random set M. As already mentioned, M may contain not yet used and not previously existing, possible, prima facie values, opinions, beliefs. From this random set M of potentially scientifically correct and potentially nonscientific values, of ordinary values and opinions, of empirically inapplicable and even chaotic, abstruse and postmodern “anything goes” values and opinions only our RNMNS and C1-C3 testing can separate the new scientific values and opinions. This is a complex Bayesian trial-and-error approach, based on somatic neuronal randomizers which generate the set M (Leinfellner 2001). Only the RNMNS and the C1-C3 criteria together with the democratic rules DP can help us to prevent our falling into the trap of unfounded ordinary values, opinions, and beliefs. So far, this functions successfully only in representative democracies and democratic welfare states. As Abraham Lincoln has said: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.”

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In a recent prepublication of the Boltzmann Institute for Scientific Research of the University of Graz, Leinfellner has outlined the consequences of the RNNMS method and their Criteria C1-C3 for the contemporary social, political, economic sciences, for neuropsychology and for post-modernism. To explain this in detail would go beyond the scope of this article.

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