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I think the Pop-Tarts example mixes together two different things: acquiring new knowledge and forming a preference between explanations. Looking up why Pop-Tarts were actually given their name gives us new knowledge; it doesn't by itself show that the preference formation between explanations isn't HTV.

As I argued in #5553, the program operates on the user's current understanding of the problem and explanations. The user is comparing explanations and variations they currently judge to work. So everything they already know, including criticisms they're aware of, is part of that judgment.

In the Pop-Tarts example, say the three explanations are equally hard to vary given what I currently know. That's fine. I currently have no reason to prefer one over another.

Now suppose I look it up and find historical evidence saying the name was chosen for reason X. I've gained new knowledge, and that changes the problem situation. I'm no longer just asking why they're called Pop-Tarts; I'm asking why they're called Pop-Tarts given that I also know this historical evidence says X.

I could still maintain that the real reason was something else. Maybe the company was lying or the historical source was wrong. But then I have to explain that too. If I just say “the real reason is that they pop out of the toaster, and for some unrelated reason the company says X,” I've added another arbitrary factor to preserve my explanation. That seems like exactly the kind of thing that would expose it as easy to vary.

So I don't see acquiring new knowledge as something that sits outside the process and simply overrides the HTV result. New knowledge changes the problem situation and therefore changes what a working explanation now has to account for. We can then compare the explanations again in light of that new problem situation.

Being hard to vary also doesn't guarantee that an explanation is true. Newton's theory of gravity was a good explanation and remains good enough for many engineering problem situations, even though we later learned that it isn't the full story. As new problems and observations came up that Newton couldn't adequately account for, the problem situation changed and we needed a better explanation.

So I don't think every act of acquiring knowledge or finding a criticism itself needs to take the form of thinking about variants. Those things change the problem situation and affect which explanations and variations we consider to still work.

But that's different from saying the preference formation itself isn't HTV. Once our current knowledge and criticisms are taken into account, HTV can still operate on the explanations that still work and give us a preference—or sometimes tell us that, given what we currently know, they're equally good.

#5562​·​Jad Elmourad, about 8 hours ago