Activity Feed
In this related article, I write:
If we could not speak the truth, our minds would have to have some subconscious mechanism that evaluates our ideas and detects and rejects true ones, or modifies them a bit to introduce errors, before we become aware of them. Otherwise, we could still utter the truth, if only “by chance”, as Xenophanes says. Such a mechanism would itself depend on a criterion of truth. So the epistemological cynics, though inspired by Popper’s fallibilism, and even though they would call themselves ‘fallibilists’, are not actually fallibilists. Whether they realize it or not, they rely on the existence of a criterion of truth and (simultaneously, ironically) reject the possibility that some of our knowledge is true.
#4891·Dennis HackethalOP, 4 days agoOur ideas can be 100% true in the sense of absolute truth. It’s possible to come up with true ideas. There’s no criterion of truth to tell that they’re true, but they can still be true.
#4892·Rob Rosenbaum, 4 days agoI think you run into the problem of definitions. An idea cannot be absolute, perfect truth without total, perfect, complete definitions for its terms. This isn't required for knowledge - the terms can be rough because the ideas are tentative. But for absolute truth, the boundaries of meaning of your terms must be completely determined. But, as the postmoderns pointed out, this requires infinite information - the complete determination of any one term requires its distinction from all other terms. In fact, they didn't go far enough. I'd argue you would need to know the distinction between the term and all other possible terms.
You have to know perfect definitions in order to have the idea in your head be perfectly true. Perfect definitions require infinite information, therefore you cannot know perfect truth.
… for absolute truth, the boundaries of meaning of your terms must be completely determined.
You seem to be using ‘absolute truth’ differently than others. Wikipedia:
Absolute truth is a statement that is true at all times and in all places. It is something that is always true no matter what the circumstances. It is a fact that cannot be changed. For example, there are no round squares.
This is what I think Popper had in mind. Also that absolute truth leaves no room for deviation (which I think is the reason it’s “true at all times and in all places”). Nothing related to definitions or meanings. Popper wasn’t very interested in definitions.
#4892·Rob Rosenbaum, 4 days agoI think you run into the problem of definitions. An idea cannot be absolute, perfect truth without total, perfect, complete definitions for its terms. This isn't required for knowledge - the terms can be rough because the ideas are tentative. But for absolute truth, the boundaries of meaning of your terms must be completely determined. But, as the postmoderns pointed out, this requires infinite information - the complete determination of any one term requires its distinction from all other terms. In fact, they didn't go far enough. I'd argue you would need to know the distinction between the term and all other possible terms.
You have to know perfect definitions in order to have the idea in your head be perfectly true. Perfect definitions require infinite information, therefore you cannot know perfect truth.
Hi Rob, welcome to Veritula. It’s nice to meet another software engineer. Be sure to read ‘How Does Veritula Work?’ and ‘How Do Bounties Work?’ to make the most of V.
Re: definitions, you raise an argument others have made before, namely that language has some unavoidable ambiguity or incomplete information, which necessarily introduces error. I already addressed that argument in the article linked in the discussion header:
I don’t know if I agree that natural language is always ambiguous, but even if so, I don’t see how that implies error. We can make ambiguous but true statements. ‘I’m currently located in a hemisphere’ is ambiguous as to which hemisphere, but it’s still true. We could be silly and ask, on which planet? This one. Earth. We all know what we’re talking about.
Therefore, I disagree that we need perfect definitions or infinite precision to find absolutely true ideas. (But correct me if I’m wrong to think you’re making the same argument.)
I suggest you read the article in full, otherwise you may inadvertently make more arguments that have been addressed: https://libertythroughreason.com/fallibilism-vs-cynicism/
There’s also https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/don-t-take-fallibilism-too-far.
#4891·Dennis HackethalOP, 4 days agoOur ideas can be 100% true in the sense of absolute truth. It’s possible to come up with true ideas. There’s no criterion of truth to tell that they’re true, but they can still be true.
I think you run into the problem of definitions. An idea cannot be absolute, perfect truth without total, perfect, complete definitions for its terms. This isn't required for knowledge - the terms can be rough because the ideas are tentative. But for absolute truth, the boundaries of meaning of your terms must be completely determined. But, as the postmoderns pointed out, this requires infinite information - the complete determination of any one term requires its distinction from all other terms. In fact, they didn't go far enough. I'd argue you would need to know the distinction between the term and all other possible terms.
You have to know perfect definitions in order to have the idea in your head be perfectly true. Perfect definitions require infinite information, therefore you cannot know perfect truth.
Our ideas can be 100% true in the sense of absolute truth. It’s possible to come up with true ideas. There’s no criterion of truth to tell that they’re true, but they can still be true.
Assumption A1: Only programs that are people, while running, can constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.
Assumption A1: Only programs that are people can, while running, constitute qualia/experience/subjectivity/consciousness.
#4751·Tyler MillsOP, about 1 month agoSOLUTION: The apple programs are not the same programs one execution to the next. They are being re-evolved every time they are run. This evolution is what the person is doing, and so must be what gives rise to the experience consisting of the apple rendering.
This is the only solution to the "apple problem" raised in #4752.
(Criticize this with alternatives solutions).
#4803·Tyler MillsOP revised 26 days agoIf only some of the criteria are stored, and the rest are random, is it still evolution? Is evolution only happening if there is random variation? But we could program an LLM to do that as well...
To clarify and add on to #4805: No, we couldn't program an LLM (on its own) to do random variation in the sense constituting evolution, because all of the randomly chosen changes to its outputs are still implicit from its current knowledge (training data + design from programmers). There is also no means of criticism that are not also implicit: any niche or criterion it generates, then seeks to satisfy, was derived again from its existing knowledge. It is a closed system (whether or not we have run it such as to reveal everything it implies!).
#4806·Tyler MillsOP, 26 days agoEven if variations are agnostic to any meaning or context of the knowledge, why are they still not implicit? Anything is implicit from anything else, if implicit just means: follows from when a given change is applied... The whole question is where the change is coming from... (?)
#4806 is saying: variations of knowledge being agnostic to that knowledge's meaning means they are not implicit from it, else implicit doesn't mean anything. So #4806 is only really asking if what matters is the source of knowledge, and that isn't really a criticism of #4805.
Criticism #4875 applies to #4806, as shown.
#4806·Tyler MillsOP, 26 days agoEven if variations are agnostic to any meaning or context of the knowledge, why are they still not implicit? Anything is implicit from anything else, if implicit just means: follows from when a given change is applied... The whole question is where the change is coming from... (?)
Yes, everything is not implied by everything else, so I think what we must mean by implicit is: can be deduced from/assembled using available transformations.
For knowledge to be truly novel in the sense of having come from creativity, it must not be deducible. Ambient, unjustified substrate is "taken from the environment" and filtered by selection. What survives can be increasingly truth-containing.
Mutations to a substrate, meaning blind mutations, not specific or designed, must not be implicit from the substrate; the result of their application cannot be deduced in any way... Otherwise the knowledge they might contain would already have been present...
#4860·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 18 days agoI think tractibility lacks the open-ended capacity to reformulate what counts as a problem, a solution, and relevant data. Creativity is (at least partially) the ability to reformulate the problem space itself, not by ironing out implications of existing theories. An AI and computational systems is already good at ironing out the implications in our language and existing knowledge systems. But that's search within a given space, not the creation of a new one. Creativity seems to work on a higher level. It's operating at the level of problem framing, which requires things like relevance. An AI can't create new relevance, because its weights are a statistical compression of what humans have already found relevant. It inherits a pre-given frame.
I might be confused about what you mean by tractible. But it seems to me that tractability can't do the work the bounty asks. Tractability is formally defined relative to a fixed problem space. But universal creativity is (at least partially) the capacity to restructure the space, to change what counts as a problem, a solution, and relevant data.
Knut, you’ve won the bounty. You need to integrate with Stripe to get paid.
#4826·Tyler Mills, 23 days agoCould be optional, as I said. Rearrange top-level ideas as toggled. Maybe not worth the trouble. Just spitballing. See #4825.
I agree this feature should be optional and toggleable but that doesn’t address its (potential) shortcomings. It just kinda hides them.
#4825·Tyler Mills, 23 days agoNot understanding this criticism. Maybe my idea is unclear. I'm picturing the existing "column" of a discussion, repeated column-wise for each top-level idea. Current discussion content takes up only the left ~third of my screen, while the right two thirds of my screen is totally unused. The cost of using that real estate is more content (clutter) on screen, the benefit is less time scrolling up and down in one dimension, looking for given ideas and getting bearings, which I sometimes find tiring. A second dimension helps get bearings (e.g. "Oh yeah, this relates to that one over here near the middle of the third column." Rather than: "That one was ... 77% of the way down the page, hmm, what were some words from it that I can use to ctrl+f, grrrrr.").
I’m saying it’s not clear to be how deeply nested comments would be shown.
If I’m understanding you correctly, you dislike having to scroll up and down in a discussion. You see empty space on the right and you think it should be filled. Hence your suggestion to put top-level ideas next to each other rather than on top of each other.
But then where do comments on each top-level idea go? Do they still go underneath? Nesting needs indentation. So that means deep nesting gets lots of indentation. So there’ll still be plenty of empty space.
Those are the kinds of things we’d need to figure out to have a mature design proposal ready for implementation.
#4863·Dennis Hackethal, 18 days agoNice work on #4856. Sounds like you’re one of the few who get DD’s stance re creativity.
I don’t think you’re in the Veritula Telegram channel yet. Email me if you want to be: dh@dennishackethal.com
Thanks! Creativity is one of the most interesting ideas in DD's philosophy. If you come across any articles or resources on it that you've found helpful, I'd love for you to send them over.
I'm actually in the channel, just haven't been very active.
#4867·Tyler MillsOP, 16 days agoI agree that tractability is related to a given problem space, and that creativity is about reshaping the problem space, among other things. Given that I've been thinking of the problem space as the space of all explanations, I'm not sure where I stand... Maybe the "space of all explanations" framing is wrongheaded, because a mind never has any actionable knowledge of that space? We can discuss the space of all explanations in some sense, but we can't organize or describe it in any substantive way...
Also, per #4865, you helped me remember that personhood could involve intractable algorithms, but ones which only ever run with small inputs, since that can still be perfectly practical. Whether or not that means the whole person is a tractable algorithm or not, I'm not sure.
Between these points I think this is enough for you to claim the bounty, because it does argue that personhood "should not be defined in terms of tractability", per the bounty terms (italics mine, here). Tractability does not help explain personhood. Or, in any case, it doesn't seem like this line of discussion will be very fruitful (but this could itself be mistaken).
Upon review, we should maybe say instead that personhood should not be defined solely in terms of tractability, which the bounty terms are not clear about. As it stands (bounty aside), I find myself still seeing tractability as an important aspect of epistemology and the mystery of personhood/knowledge creation, a hunch reinforced as I continue reading through "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity" by Scott Aaronson: https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/philos.pdf
#4868·Tyler Mills, 16 days agoThis may be too subjective, but I've always really disliked end-of-line hyphenation, of the kind currently used here. I find it pretty disruptive to the flow of reading, AND a source of visual clutter. That's a heavy cost for the supposed benefit of a justified margin, but we don't seem to be getting that benefit here either; the margin still appears jagged. A justified margin itself is unnecessary, if you ask me, but it can in any case be accomplished the other way, where small spaces are distributed between words in each line as needed. To me the latter method of the two is better for readability, no contest. I would advocate for the third/default method, here (jagged margin, no funny business), since justified margins seems needlessly formal.
Removed hyphenation