Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

L&FP, 67: So-called “critical rationalism” and the blunder of denying [defeat-able] warrant for knowledge

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

IEP summarises:

“Critical Rationalism” is the name Karl Popper (1902-1994) gave to a modest and self-critical rationalism. He contrasted this view with “uncritical or comprehensive rationalism,” the received justificationist view that only what can be proved by reason and/or experience should be accepted. Popper argued that comprehensive rationalism cannot explain how proof is possible and that it leads to inconsistencies. Critical rationalism today is the project of extending Popper’s approach to all areas of thought and action. In each field the central task of critical rationalism is to replace allegedly justificatory methods with critical ones.

A common summary of this is that it replaces knowledge as justified, true belief, with “knowledge is unjustified untrue unbelief.” That is, we see here the ill advised privileging of hyperskepticism.

The quick answer is to update our understanding, based on how well informed people of common good sense generally use “knowledge.” Knowledge is a term of the people, not some abstruse, rarefied, dubious philosophical notion. And it is a term that is sound,

Namely, and following Plantinga, Gettier and others, knowledge is warranted, credibly true [and reliable] belief, i.e. it includes strong form cases where what is known is absolutely certain, AND a wider, weaker sense where what we claim to know is tested and found reliable, but is open to correction for cause. Newtonian dynamics counted as knowledge before the rise of modern physics and with modification to recognise limitations it still counts as knowledge. This is a paradigm case.

But doesn’t that come down to the same thing as critical rationalism and its focus on what is hard to criticise as what counts for now as “knowledge”?

Not at all.

First, the confident but open to correction spirit of warrant and tested reliability is utterly different from the cramped, distorted thought that naturally flows from the blunder of privileging selective or even global hyperskepticism.

Second, inference to the best explanation and wider observational, inductive approaches — the vast majority of common, day to day knowledge and professional practice — is not put under the chilling effect of dismissive, undue suspicion.

Third, knowledge is accepted as a commonplace phenomenon, not a privilege of the elite few, undermining the subtext of contempt that reeks out of far too much of skeptical discussion.

And if you imagine these considerations are of little weight, that is because you are part of the problem. END

Comments
I'd address what appears to be a paradox, but it's already been done. Your short memory seems to be in play again. See this article. But, I will point out, this is a continued misunderstanding. Specially, Even if a source were infallible, you still would need infallible access to it so that infallibility could actually help you in some infallible way. IOW, the argument presented is, any infallibly in a source cannot help you before our fallible human reasoning and problem solving has had its say. Criticism still occurs, regardless of you think a source is infallible or not. It effectively plays the same role.critical rationalist
April 10, 2023
April
04
Apr
10
10
2023
12:12 PM
12
12
12
PM
PDT
Sev, fallible sources can be reliable and subject to responsible controls. Where some truths are self evident such as || + ||| --> |||||. As for, I doubt my existence, who is it that doubts, i.e. self aware consciousness, even if otherwise in error, is self evident. The problem is with giving precedence to doubt, if I doubt I dismiss. No, if error is possible, one should be prudent to warrant reliable, credibly true conclusions. There is no incoherence or house of cards in that, as we all know from thousands of years of history; just, we acknowledge the branch on which we sit and refrain from sawing it off -- and the metaphor aptly describes a real situation with first facts, first principles, first duties. Radical or selectively radical doubt is self defeating. KFkairosfocus
April 10, 2023
April
04
Apr
10
10
2023
07:53 AM
7
07
53
AM
PDT
Seversky @200
I’m not sure I see the problem. The universal claim that “all sources are fallible” must include itself.
It must include the source of the claim itself. So, some fallible source says: “all sources are fallible.” The claim comes from a source that is able and/or is likely to make mistakes. This means that the claim “all sources are fallible” is likely mistaken and can be safely ignored.
In principle, it could be falsified by finding a source that is infallible.
The problem is more profound. Suppose that all sources are investigated and proven to be fallible, then the source of the claim “all sources are fallible” is proven to be infallible itself. So, it was wrong after all by claiming that no infallible source exists, because it was itself an infallible source. IOW the claim is wrong, even if it is right. We are dealing with self-referential incoherence, as has been pointed out by Kairosfocus.
I could doubt my own existence, which would not conflict with a falliblist position ….
It is even required by fallibilism. We must be able to doubt everything — even that “we must be able to doubt everything” (there is the ugly self-referential incoherence again). Question to you, you say “I could doubt my own existence”, but do you really mean that? Are you able to doubt your existence?. Can you conceive as possibly true that you do not exist?
…. but I would need at least a working definition of what I mean by “I”. Supposing I am an advanced avatar running on some advanced simulation such as in The Matrix what does it mean to say I exist?
I am not sure if I understand your question.Origenes
April 10, 2023
April
04
Apr
10
10
2023
06:14 AM
6
06
14
AM
PDT
I'm not sure I see the problem. The universal claim that "all sources are fallible" must include itself. In principle, it could be falsified by finding a source that is infallible. In practice that's not going to be so easy. I could doubt my own existence, which would not conflict with a falliblist position, but I would need at least a working definition of what I mean by "I". Supposing I am an advanced avatar running on some advanced simulation such as in The Matrix what does it mean to say I exist?Seversky
April 9, 2023
April
04
Apr
9
09
2023
07:32 PM
7
07
32
PM
PDT
CR
Ori: Do you make a distinction between “attempting to doubt ‘I exist’” and “doubting ‘I exist’”?
CR: You still end up criticizing ‘I exist’.
That’s not correct. Read Descartes — #200. Descartes performs radical doubt. He is able to doubt his memories, his senses, and the existence of an external world. At one point he writes:
I persuade myself that nothing has ever existed of all that my fallacious memory represents to me. I consider that I possess no senses; I imagine that body, figure, extension, movement and place are but the fictions of my mind.
He can doubt all this, and he can doubt the existence of God. But then he arrives at something he cannot doubt, namely his own existence. One thing must undoubtedly be true: “I exist.” In your view, this is doubting and/or criticizing “I exist.” I do not agree. At best it is a failed attempt at doubting and/or criticizing “I exist.”Origenes
April 9, 2023
April
04
Apr
9
09
2023
06:56 PM
6
06
56
PM
PDT
CR Fallibilism claims that all sources are fallible. I have stated that the claim “all sources are fallible” is a claim to knowledge. In my view, the claim by fallibilism ** all sources are fallible ** should NOT be understood as “some sources are fallible”, nor as “maybe all sources are fallible.” The claim “all sources are fallible” should be understood as universal and affirmative. It should be understood as certain knowledge about the status of all sources. The same with Xenophanes, who wrote “But as for certain truth, no man has known it, Nor will he know it." It would be wrong to think that Xenophanes says "MAYBE some men will not know certain truth." Instead, he says that no man will ever know certain truth.
CR: Your hallucinated claims of infallibly again. Knowledge is defined as infallible?
OK. Tell me, if the claim “all sources are fallible” is itself to be taken as fallible, what does that mean? Should the claim by Fallibilism be understood as “MAYBE all sources are fallible”?Origenes
April 9, 2023
April
04
Apr
9
09
2023
05:03 PM
5
05
03
PM
PDT
“I” refers to consciousness, my self-aware conscious experience.
And the contents of that is what exactly? How can that statement actually help you as a source? You seem to be confusing sources of truths, which you would need to access infallibly, with ideas that are either true or false. Sources imply a chain by which you somehow end up with the infallibility in such a way that you can use it infallibility. Is a chain no stronger than its weakest link?
I do not lack infallible access to “I”. And I am the one and only expert on this.
Yes, you’ve said that already. And you know this infallibly, how? I'm suggesting that's an idea that we currently lack good criticism of. What makes you think we are guaranteed to have conjectured every possible good criticism of this idea? Perhaps you think we have an infallible list of criticisms necessary to find any errors, so if there was an error we would have found it by now? How do we know that has been exhausted? What of the time before Descartes? IOW, your experience is also compatible with fallibilism. Second, if you thought you were Napoleon, you're infallible about that since, you're the expert on yourself? So, in reality, you're whoever you think "I" is? That’s true, even if you think who “I” is would be false. So, you don’t end up with the infallible truth expressed your conscious experience.
Do you make a distinction between “attempting to doubt Y” and “doubting Y”?
You still end up criticizing Y. That’s what I meant by considering a source infallible or not. What follows is effectively the same thing. You seem to be suggesting this distinction somehow retro-causal, as if it's contingent on the outcome. Specially, if you doubting Y failed, then you didn't doubt Y. But if you doubted Y and it succeeded then you doubted Y? Huh? Again, I'd suggest we just have ideas that we lack good criticism of. Otherwise, Y could never improve. You couldn’t compare it to anything else. It would be immune to criticism. Why criticize something that you think is certain? The very process of thinking of ways it could be wrong is to criticize it. The outcome would be, you adopting the idea that has best withstood criticism, right? So, again our “report” of this is compatible with fallibilism. You’ve just interpreted it differently.
This is my personal account of such deliberations, perhaps others can do what I cannot.
Our personal accounts are theory laden. After all, you can change you mind about some personal account. Right? Or are you saying that's something that other can do, which you cannot? We interpret our experiences though the lens of an explanatory framework. When you come up with a better explanation for your experience, what happens? IOW, your experience is compatible with both of those explanations. One survives criticism, but the other does not. Your experience does not stop being compatible with your previous conclusion or change, you adopt the new explanation. Right? Again, I’m suggesting that your experience is compatible with fallibilism. And what about Anosognosia? A woman lost the ability to control her arm after a stroke. She was unable to conceive of having this disability. When asked why her arm wasn’t moving, she claimed it was her daughter’s arm, as she had been with her all week. When asked why her daughter was wearing her wedding ring, she said her daughter borrowed it, etc. This is known as confabulation. When missing information, our minds “make sense” out of our senses. Something similar has been reported with blindness, etc. There is much more here, including people with split brains and even those that do not have brain injuries.
If I were to assume that “I am fallible source WRT anything, including my existence”, it would mean that whatever conclusion I reach may be wrong.
Criticisms are a way to find errors in our ideas. However, “It could be wrong" would be applicable to all ideas. So, how can it be used in a critical way?
Fallibilism applied consistently blocks me completely. Whatever reasons I come up with … I may be wrong.
Yes. that's because your response to things like the Gettier problem is to try and salvage justification, as opposed to give up the quest for justification. It's as if you think you don't have free will. You cannot make any other choice but to try to save justification. IOW, this would be an example of not just a mistaken philosophy of knowledge, but bad philosophy in that it actually prevents you from making progress. You’re completely blocked because of holding that philosophy. As I’ve pointed out, in software development, the ability to make progress given sources that give you different mistaken results is a characteristic of a senior level developer. There is even a specific kind of logic developed for scenarios like this: Paraconsistant Logic.
A standard contemporary logical view has it that, from contradictory premises, anything follows. A logical consequence relation is explosive if according to it any arbitrary conclusion B is entailed by any arbitrary contradiction A , ¬ A (ex contradictione quodlibet (ECQ)). Classical logic, and most standard ‘non-classical’ logics too such as intuitionist logic, are explosive. Inconsistency, according to received wisdom, cannot be coherently reasoned about. Paraconsistent logic challenges this standard view. A logical consequence relation is said to be paraconsistent if it is not explosive. Thus, if a consequence relation is paraconsistent, then even in circumstances where the available information is inconsistent, the consequence relation does not explode into triviality. Thus, paraconsistent logic accommodates inconsistency in a controlled way that treats inconsistent information as potentially informative.
So, I may be wrong when I say “I do not exist” and I may be wrong when I say “I exist.”
I've given examples of this. As a source, you need infallible access to it before any supposed infallibility can help you. You could think you're JFK, or someone else. Or you could think you've been abducted by aliens, had all of your memories replaced, the CIA is beaming thoughts into your head, etc. These people think they are mistaken about their experience. Are they not mistaken about being mistaken, given that they are the authorities on their own experience?
But how can it know that I am a fallible source?
Criticism, like everything else. Is a chain no stronger than its weakest link? Fallibilism has best withstood criticism compared to rivals, like infallibilism. That’s it. Criticism is all we have. But, by all means, feel free to explain how we could have something more.
Criticisms failing is what we actually have. That’s what is really possible, unlike authority, infallibilism, or whatever. If you see why your criticisms fail, you can be comfortable, not that it’s true, but that the rival ideas you might have entertained are false. And if they are not false, there will be some reason they are not false, which you don’t know yet, which you need find via criticism.
Again, your projecting your problem on me.
To say that a source is fallible is a claim to knowledge. A claim to knowledge by some unaccounted-for infallible source, that incoherently denies its own existence.
Your hallucinated claims of infallibly again. Knowledge is defined as infallible? So, this is all semantics? Is everything just about defining words correctly? But, words are shortcuts for ideas.critical rationalist
April 9, 2023
April
04
Apr
9
09
2023
12:30 PM
12
12
30
PM
PDT
CR @201
CR: Who is “I” in that conclusion?
“I” refers to consciousness, my self-aware conscious experience.
If you lack infallible access to “I” ….
I do not lack infallible access to “I”. And I am the one and only expert on this.
Ori: So, if I radically doubt everything, one thing is certain after all: **I exist**.
CR: But, you reached that conclusion by doubting that you existed. Right?
Do you make a distinction between “attempting to doubt Y” and “doubting Y”? I do. If I were to say “I doubt my existence”, it would mean that I would consider my non-existence as a real possibility. IOW that, at least during the activity of doubting, my non-existence can be true. However, speaking for myself, I did not manage to doubt my existence, in the sense that my non-existence never entered my mind as a real possibility. This is my personal account of such deliberations, perhaps others can do what I cannot.
CR: IOW, if someone does not attribute infallibility to a source, is what happens next different than someone that does?
If I were to assume that “I am fallible source WRT anything, including my existence”, it would mean that whatever conclusion I reach may be wrong. Fallibilism applied consistently blocks me completely. Whatever reasons I come up with … I may be wrong. Even if I can reason as well as Descartes, I can still be wrong. All the tests that I come up with, may be wrong. So, I may be wrong when I say “I do not exist” and I may be wrong when I say “I exist.” Since I am the only source, I do not see a way forward. However, why should I accept any such assumptions? Why should I accept the claims of fallibilism? It claims that I am a fallible source. But how can it know that I am a fallible source? Where does this flawless knowledge about my fallibility come from? What source underlies fallibilism? Put differently, how can fallibilism infallibly know that I am a fallible source WRT anything, including my existence? What has meticulously judged me, what **Holy Source of Knowledge** veraciously informs me of my fundamental fallibility? These questions unveil the self-referential incoherence of fallibilism. To say that a source is fallible is a claim to knowledge. A claim to knowledge by some unaccounted-for infallible source, that incoherently denies its own existence.Origenes
April 6, 2023
April
04
Apr
6
06
2023
08:03 AM
8
08
03
AM
PDT
@Ori Who is "I" in that conclusion? If you lack infallible access to "I", then how can it help you? Now what?
So, if I radically doubt everything, one thing is certain after all: **I exist**.
But, you reached that conclusion by doubting that you existed. Right? IOW, if someone does not attribute infallibility to a source, is what happens next different than someone that does? They effectively take the same path of someone who does. Assuming it's infallible at the start doesn't change what happens next. Right? So, how does assuming that improve things? How does it help you?
critical rationalist
April 6, 2023
April
04
Apr
6
06
2023
05:53 AM
5
05
53
AM
PDT
~Descartes Radical Doubt~ (from Meditations II) First Descartes radically doubts all his memories and senses:
I suppose, then, that all the things that I see are false; I persuade myself that nothing has ever existed of all that my fallacious memory represents to me. I consider that I possess no senses; I imagine that body, figure, extension, movement and place are but the fictions of my mind.
Then he asks himself: given that, what can still be considered as true? God?
What, then, can be esteemed as true? Perhaps nothing at all, unless that there is nothing in the world that is certain. But how can I know there is not something different from those things that I have just considered, of which one cannot have the slightest doubt? Is there not some God, or some other being by whatever name we call it, who puts these reflections into my mind?
No, “I” can be the producer of my hallucinations:
That is not necessary, for is it not possible that I am capable of producing them myself? I myself, am I not at least something? But I have already denied that I had senses and body. Yet I hesitate, for what follows from that? Am I so dependent on body and senses that I cannot exist without these?
But if everything is a mere hallucination, can “I” be a hallucination as well?
But I was persuaded that there was nothing in all the world, that there was no heaven, no earth, that there were no minds, nor any bodies: was I not then likewise persuaded that I did not exist?
No, I must exist:
Not at all; of a surety I myself did exist since I persuaded myself of something [or merely because I thought of something].
But can there be a cunning deceiver who tricks me into the false belief that I exist?
But there is some deceiver or other, very powerful and very cunning, who ever employs his ingenuity in deceiving me.
No, I have to exist, in order to be deceived:
Then without doubt I exist also if he deceives me, and let him deceive me as much as he will, he can never cause me to be nothing so long as I think that I am something.
So, if I radically doubt everything, one thing is certain after all: **I exist**.
So that after having reflected well and carefully examined all things, we must come to the definite conclusion that this proposition: I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it.
Origenes
April 6, 2023
April
04
Apr
6
06
2023
02:19 AM
2
02
19
AM
PDT
CR, we can see for ourselves, Xenophanes as others since, went a fatal step too far. You by now must know that I have argued that knowledge belongs to the people so must have a weak, defeasible sense as say scientific or medical knowledge etc as well as common daily knowledge are subject to correction, development and replacement. There is a stronger utterly certain sense but relatively, that is rare. Hence, knowledge is warranted [knowable for good objective cause], credibly true [so, reliable enough to bet the farm] belief [actually accepted and trusted]. If all you meant was this there would long since have been agreement, but clearly there is not. Why? The answer on track record is, you advocate a radical, hyperskeptical theory that seeks to undermine warrant and evades why some claims are "hard to criticise," which would be because there is good, adequate, credible, reliable objective basis, which comes in a myriad of forms. KFkairosfocus
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
04:59 PM
4
04
59
PM
PDT
CR
CR: To quote Xenophanes…. “But as for certain truth, no man has known it, Nor will he know it …. The perfect truth, he would himself not know it ...”
Kairosfocus, and I, have pointed out the self-referential incoherence in these statements (see #187). But you argue that Xenophanes's text should be understood as purely conjectural.
CR: Actually, nothing KF wrote indicates he understands the problem. First, he too seems to hallucinate certainty in Xenophanes. This is as flawed as assuming that, unless you explicitly indicate certainty, then you must mean fallibly.
So, according to you, Xenophanes meant to write:
“But as for certain truth, *maybe* no man has known it, Nor *perhaps* will he know it; neither of the gods, Nor *perhaps* yet of all things of which I speak. And even if by chance he were to utter The perfect truth, he would *perhaps* himself not know it For all is *maybe* but a woven web of guesses”
So, this is what Xenophanes meant to say? This is fallibilism correctly understood? Fallibilism is just the modest suggestion that knowledge *might* be uncertain?Origenes
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
04:07 PM
4
04
07
PM
PDT
@Ori
Nothing you wrote indicates that you understand the issue of self-referential incoherence.
Actually, nothing KF wrote indicates he understands the problem. First, he too seems to hallucinate certainty in Xenophanes. This is as flawed as assuming that, unless you explicitly indicate certainty, then you must mean fallibly. Second, the problem is having infallible access to ideas via sources. Ideas are either true or false. That you assume KF addressed my criticism implies you do not understand the issue of the relevance of infallible sources. Any supposed infallibility in a source cannot help us before our fallible human reasoning and problem solving has had its say.critical rationalist
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
12:33 PM
12
12
33
PM
PDT
CR, it remains self-evident, that || + ||| –> |||||, or in usual symbols 2 + 3 = 5. KF
Except, 2+3=5 being not self evident is also comparable with our conscious experience. Take Ori for example. When pressed, he describes being a fallibilist in regards to 2+2=4, or 2+3=5. Apparently one is better than the other, but he can't seem to put into words why. So, apparently, your entire argument is about the correct definitions of words, not the actual ideas behind them.critical rationalist
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
12:26 PM
12
12
26
PM
PDT
CR, it remains self-evident, that || + ||| --> |||||, or in usual symbols 2 + 3 = 5. KFkairosfocus
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
11:42 AM
11
11
42
AM
PDT
CR @193 Nothing you wrote indicates that you understand the issue of self-referential incoherence. Perhaps you should read Kairosfocus post #187. He explains the matter very well.Origenes
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
10:14 AM
10
10
14
AM
PDT
@Ori
Thus Xenophanes’s proposition is not conjectural, but, instead, universal and affirmative. He states that ‘no man has known certain truth’ – which is a claim to knowledge.
You didn't specify "certainty" before your sentence. So, you must mean that proposition conjecturaly? How, self-contradictory and embarrassingly stupid? Do you see how that works? Or, should I say, it doesn't? Certainty or infallibly is an interpretation of what someone wrote previously. Right? For example, anytime we use the word "he" when there is more than one person in the previous sentences, we use multiple contexts to interpret what "he" the author was referring to, etc. This is what it means to interpret something. So, you've infallibly interpreted Xenophanes, how exactly? Apparently, you're incapable of even conceiving of falliablism for more than a few seconds?critical rationalist
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
08:32 AM
8
08
32
AM
PDT
@KF Any proposed Infallibly in an supposedly infallible source cannot help us before our fallible human reasoning and problem solving has had it say. Is there something about this you do not understand? After all, you wrote...
2: The capability of logic, including say Arithmetic*, properly done is not undermined by the errors of imperfect reasoners and arithmeticians.
Which completely avoids the issue. If you lack infallible access to logic, arithmetic, etc. then how can any infallibly it might represent help you? Again...
Infallibility is a characteristic of sources of ideas. As such, an infallible source would be a source that provides us with completely and utterly true ideas. Ideas are, themselves, either true or false. Truth exists, regardless if there are infallible sources of ideas. The question I keep asking is, how do you have infallible access to that truth? How can any supposed infallibly of a source help us before our fallible human reasoning and problem solving has had its say?
critical rationalist
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
08:11 AM
8
08
11
AM
PDT
@Ori I’d suggest you have mistaken ideas about how knowledge grows. In most cases, this is not harmful. However, I’d suggest you're not merely mistaken. You hold a mistaken idea that reflects bad philosophy. Specifically, it interferes with the ability to make progress, by actively thwarting your ability to make it. For example, if you have concluded something doesn’t work in any meaningful sense of the word, then it would come as no surprise that you would also conclude that we cannot make progress. Because the ability to conjecture how something works for the purpose of criticism. Is no longer available to us. Of course, it’s unclear how you would know this infallibly. You’ve just arbitrarily decided to stop criticizing ideas. No progress can be made.critical rationalist
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
08:06 AM
8
08
06
AM
PDT
CR
Does “Make the smallest change you can make to a system that could rule out the biggest piece of the pie [system] as being the cause of an issue.” sound random to you?
It seems that you think that you have knowledge about the cause of the issue that informs your action. This is, under fallibilism, unjustifiable conjecture. Also, I do hope that your unjustifiable conjecture is not based on induction, which Popper calls "a myth."Origenes
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
07:50 AM
7
07
50
AM
PDT
So, when you have a car engine problem. You make a random small change to the engine. When it does not fix the engine, one changes it back and makes “the next” small change to the engine.
It's seems that you're still hallucinating words and concepts like "random" in other peoples comments. Does "Make the smallest change you can make to a system that could rule out the biggest piece of the pie [system] as being the cause of an issue." sound random to you? When we try to find an error in a system, we start out with a mental model of what parts it contains, what specific roles those parts play in its overall operation, etc. This takes the form of hard to vary, long chains of explanatory ideas. From this model, we expect the system to work. However, since the system doesn't work as we expect it to, at least one of our assumptions must be wrong. Right? So, the question becomes, where are the errors in our ideas about the system? At which point, we conjecture criticisms that could reveal errors in those ideas. For example, it could be that the documentation for some API is wrong or misleading. Or we misinterpreted the docs. We think it does X when it actually does Y, which could be close to what we want, but not quite Or it could be that it has a bug in that it returns the wrong result all the time, some of the time, etc. Now, despite being a designer, we are finite beings. We have finite resources, deadlines, stakeholders, customers, etc. So, a way to criticize our idea efficiently is to make the smallest change we can make, that would rule out the greatest amount of the system as the problem. How can we rule out as many ideas about the system as being potentially wrong as possible in the shortest amount of time / work. We do this via the explanations and the roles we think play, etc. For example, we may think part X's role in the system is Y, so we should be able to make changes to test our assumption. If it actually plays role Y, then changing r should result in Q, etc. Again, all of this is trying to find our mistaken idea about how the system works. Sometimes it's the case that we picked the wrong variant of some API. We were mistaken as to when to defer to it. It does a similar thing, but it doesn't exactly fit our situation. Sometimes, it just seems to do what you want, because it did every time you looked at the output. But that doesn't mean it will continue to do that with every value you feed it. etc. IOW, it could be an approximation of what you want, but one that is not sufficiently close to what you actually need. Sometimes the API doesn't work correctly when used on a specific platform. You have to use another API or some other strategy all together for each of them . Other times, it works across platforms, but only when you use it in a very specific way, which isn't clearly indicated in the documentation. So, you have to conjecture how the API works under the hood, in reality, even though you cannot see the source code, then try to test your conclusions. This is why it's a good idea to learn older UIKit and AppKit APIs, on Apple platforms, even if you're primarily developing with SwiftUI. This is because, some parts of SwiftUI is implemented using UIKit/AppKit under the hood. I'm actually doing this right now by making a minimally reproducible test project that reflects some part of an actual system. This excludes all of the other parts of the system when there are dependencies that you cannot easily mock, exclude, etc. I could take the time to change the actual system to mock all of the work other parts of the system performs, to rule them out, but that would take an enormous amount of time. Again, we're finite beings. Making a minimal test project is significantly faster. So, it's not just that we want to criticize our ideas. But we want to conjecture criticisms that can potentially give us the biggest bang for the buck, so to speak. IOW, when something is wrong, it’s not just wrong in some generic sense of the word. It’s wrong in a very specific way. The specific way that it’s wrong can conflict with our conjectured ideas about how the system works, under the hood. Does any of this sound random to you?critical rationalist
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
07:11 AM
7
07
11
AM
PDT
KF @186, 187 Very well said. This should put a stop to the nonsense called "Fallibilism."Origenes
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
06:47 AM
6
06
47
AM
PDT
CR, 167:
To quote Xenophanes…. “But as for certain truth, no man has known it, Nor will he know it [--> is he certain of this, why?]; neither of the gods, Nor yet of all things of which I speak. And even if by chance [--> notice, chance, necessity, art] he were to utter The perfect truth, he would himself not know it [--> so, how does X know?] For all is but a woven web of guesses [--> including this?] For example, if logic was an infallible source, then no one would fall a logic test.
1: Xenophanes repeatedly fails through self-referential incoherence, precisely the issue that has been repeatedly raised. 2: The capability of logic, including say Arithmetic*, properly done is not undermined by the errors of imperfect reasoners and arithmeticians. 3: Logic is capable of warrant, and of both valid and cogent argument. 4: There are self evident first logical truths, including that a thing A is itself, in light of its core characteristics, often summarised A is A. Where, as immediate corollaries, LNC and LOI obtain. 5: Truth, again, is accurate description of reality, involving entities and states of affairs etc. 6: That we know X on adequate warrant does not preclude that we may err on Y. 7: As our hands readily demonstrate, || + ||| --> ||||| is absolute, certain, incorrigible, warranted truth that is knowable, known to be empirically reliable and by logic of being known to hold in any possible world. That we, error prone creatures, do not know all that is knowable simply means we are finite, fallible and necessarily not all knowing. KF * F/N: An Arithmetic, Logic and Shift Unit performs Arithmetic by logic operations, e.g. a half adder uses XOR and OR, etc.kairosfocus
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
04:24 AM
4
04
24
AM
PDT
CR, we both know that warrant as developed by Plantinga et al is not justificationism, as you put it. So, you have doubled down on a strawman fallacy. Warrant is about objective access to truth on grounds that point to proper faculties aimed at adequate truth as an evident end and credibly, reliably delivering on it, thus being trustworthy. Adequacy can accommodate pitch vs frequency, differing colour sensitivity [keyed, doubtless, to a G2 class solar system] and the like, such as associated log compression reflected in the Weber Fechner law, giving wide dynamic range, e.g. for sound, note for light we have single photon detection capability. Similarly, it can address self evident truth, validity vs soundness, inductive reasoning based on support leading to cogency, and specifically abductive inference to best explanation. Where, as knowledge belongs to the people, hyperskeptical preferences that lead to denigrating ability of hoi polloi to know, are defeated. KFkairosfocus
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
04:11 AM
4
04
11
AM
PDT
CR & Xenophanes
CR: To quote Xenophanes…. “But as for certain truth, no man has known it, Nor will he know it; … ”
Ori: How embarrassingly stupid, Xenophanes claims to certainly know that no one knows anything for certain.
CR: How embarrassingly stupid, Ori keeps adding “certain” to everyones statements, as if he cannot comprehend fallibilism for more than a few seconds ….
WRT to certain truth, Xenophanes claims “no man has known it”. To be clear, he does not say maybe no man has known it”. Thus Xenophanes's proposition is not conjectural, but, instead, universal and affirmative. He states that ‘no man has known certain truth’ - which is a claim to knowledge. The proposition thus asserts what it denies and is self-contradictory and embarrassingly stupid.Origenes
April 5, 2023
April
04
Apr
5
05
2023
02:57 AM
2
02
57
AM
PDT
PM1, do not address me ever again.Origenes
April 4, 2023
April
04
Apr
4
04
2023
03:27 PM
3
03
27
PM
PDT
@182
So, when you have a car engine problem. You make a random small change to the engine. When it does not fix the engine, one changes it back and makes “the next” small change to the engine.
Absolutely right -- if "conjecture" means whatever you want it mean and not what Critical Rationalist has very carefully specified. I don't know why you want anyone else to actually engage with you. You quite obviously do not take the time to understand what anyone else here is saying. You are wasting everyone's time -- including your own. Which is fine -- it's your life and your time to waste. But for anyone else to respond to you is a waste of their time. As for me, I'd rather spend time talking with people who are fallible and corrigible than with people who think they're infallible when they are really incorrigible.PyrrhoManiac1
April 4, 2023
April
04
Apr
4
04
2023
02:36 PM
2
02
36
PM
PDT
Cr:
Another maximum: Make the smallest change you can make to a system that could rule out the biggest piece of the pie as being the cause of an issue. If the issue remains, make the next smallest change, and then the next, etc. This systematically rules out where the issue is not. until you’re left with where the problem must be.
So, when you have a car engine problem. You make a random small change to the engine. When it does not fix the engine, one changes it back and makes "the next" small change to the engine. Really? This can go on forever, without fixing the engine.Origenes
April 4, 2023
April
04
Apr
4
04
2023
11:54 AM
11
11
54
AM
PDT
CR:
Again, this is a high-level, senior developer technique used to making progress when most people, apparently like Origenes, would throw up their hands and say “I don’t know how to make progresses.”
Correct. If fallibilism is true and all sources are unreliable, then, indeed, “I don’t know how to make progress". So, why don't you explain it?Origenes
April 4, 2023
April
04
Apr
4
04
2023
08:40 AM
8
08
40
AM
PDT
@Ori See #130 Apparent's Ori's data bandwidth is highly capped? So he left out part of the original paragraph? Otherwise, he run out of bandwidth?
We can do this by comparing different sources and trying to come up with an explanation of the underlying objective reality that explains what all of the sources say. They will not all be flawed in the same way and so we can try to work out which ones are giving us bad information on any particular issue.
Note the real world applications I provided earlier.
One solution is to conjecture how the API works, under the hood, to generate its output. From there you can carefully craft various input values, then feed them into the API to attempt to see what values cause the issue, which does not, etc. IOW, this is an attempt to refute that underlying model of how the API works. Again, this is a high-level, senior developer technique used to making progress when most people, apparently like Origenes, would throw up their hands and say “I don’t know how to make progresses.”
Another maximum: Make the smallest change you can make to a system that could rule out the biggest piece of the pie as being the cause of an issue. If the issue remains, make the next smallest change, and then the next, etc. This systematically rules out where the issue is not. until you’re left with where the problem must be. Even if you only get a different wrong result, that tells you something. If you propose that sub system z plays role q in problem x, change z to see if that even makes a difference, even if it’s just to get a different wrong answer. If it doesn’t change in a way that you’d expect, had in actually played role q in reality, then z didn’t play the role you thought it played. These kind of scenarios are common in specific fields. Hopefully, I never have to depend on Origenes in any of these cases to make progress.
Thank Zeus I don't have to work with Ori when trying to debug complex systems. I mean, Ori can't even go back and look for existing answers provided to anticipated questions. How can Ori's conscious experience be infallible, despite having "overlooked" what he was looking for?critical rationalist
April 4, 2023
April
04
Apr
4
04
2023
08:09 AM
8
08
09
AM
PDT
1 2 3 7

Leave a Reply