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Add tree diagrams and improve wording throughout

*Veritula* (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is true or false.

It follows Karl Popper’s epistemology, which says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make *bold conjectures* and use the full arsenal at our disposal to *criticize* these conjectures in order to *correct errors* and *seek truth*. It’s a creative and critical approach.

**Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.**↵
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If a criticism ofepistemology.**↵
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Consider an idea `I`:↵
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```↵
              I↵
```↵
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Since it has no criticisms, it is criticized in turn, the criticismconsidered *unproblematic*. It is neutralizedrational to adopt it, tentatively consider it true, and the originalact in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be *irrational* to reject it. Next, someone submits a criticism `C1`:↵
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```↵
              I↵
              |↵
              C1↵
```↵
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The idea is now considered true again.*problematic* for as long as `C1` is not addressed. How do you address it? You can *revise* `I` so that `C1` doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone `I`. Veritula marks ideas accordingly, automatically. Sinceoffers beautiful diffing and *version control for ideas*. Alternatively, you can *counter-criticize* `C1`, thereby neutralizing it:↵
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```↵
              I↵
              |↵
              C1↵
              |↵
              C2↵
```↵
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Now, `I` is considered unproblematic again, since `C1` is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.↵
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Since there are many ideas,can be manypotential criticisms (which are also just ideas),ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. BecauseFor example, it might look like this:↵
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```↵
              I↵
           /  |  \↵
         C11 C12 C13↵
         / \       \↵
       C21 C22     C23↵
                  /   \↵
                C31  C32↵
```↵
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In this tree, `I` is considered problematic. Although `C11` has been neutralized by `C21` and `C22`, `C12` still needs to be addressed. In addition, `C23` *would* have neutralized `C13`, but `C31` and `C32` make `C23` problematic again, so `C13` makes `I` problematic as well.↵
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But you don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula marks ideas accordingly, automatically.↵
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Because decision-making is a special case of, or follows the same logic as, truth-seeking, this treesuch trees can also be used asa decision tree.↵
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Alltrees.↵
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All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible.
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Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of causingrequiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be considered false.↵
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Therejected.↵
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The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms do apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit.

Ideas that are neither criticisms nor top-level conjectures – eg follow-up questions or neutral comments – are considered *ancillary ideas*.↵
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Oneideas*. Unlike criticisms, they do not invert their respective parent’s truth status. They are neutral.↵
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One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the statetruth status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, the rational course of action is to adopt the displayed truth status of the ideas involved.↵
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**Veritulainvolved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.↵
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**Veritula acts as a *dictionary for ideas*.**
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Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has outstanding criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by addressing them. To address a criticism, you either criticize *it* or revise the criticized idea so that the criticism doesn’t apply anymore.↵
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Manythem.↵
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Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

**Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.**