Dennis Hackethal

How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) can help you live a life guided exclusively by reason.

To reason, within any well-defined epistemology, means to follow and apply that epistemology. Unreason, or whim, is an undue departure from it. Epistemology is the study of knowledge – basically, the study of what helps knowledge grow, what hinders its growth, and related questions.

Veritula follows, and helps you apply, Karl Popper’s epistemology, Critical Rationalism. It’s a continuation of the Athenian tradition of criticism and the only known epistemology without major flaws.¹

Critical Rationalism says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold guesses and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these guesses in order to solve problems, correct errors, and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach. Critical Rationalism is a fallibilist philosophy: there is no criterion of truth to determine with certainty whether some idea is true or false. We all make mistakes, and by an effort, we can correct them to get a little closer to the truth. Rejecting all forms of mysticism and the supernatural, Veritula recognizes that progress is both possible and desirable, and that rational means are the only way to make progress.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Veritula provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is problematic. It does not tell you what to think – it teaches you how to think.

Consider an idea I:

              I

Since it has no criticisms, we tentatively consider I unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be irrational to reject it, consider it problematic, or act counter to it. (See #2281 for more details on rational decision-making.)

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

              I
              |
              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism 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 (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

                   Revise
              I ------------> I2
              |
              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you cannot think of a way to revise I, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it with a new criticism, C2:

              I
              |
              C1
              |
              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, considering it to be unproblematic, etc.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, as a discussion progresses, one of its trees might look like this:

              I
           /  |  \
         C11 C12 C13
         / \       \
       C21 C22     C23
                   / \
                 C31 C32

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, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

You don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula marks ideas accordingly, automatically.

Because decision-making is a special case of, ie follows the same logic as, truth-seeking, you can use such trees for decision-making, too. Veritula implements unanimous consent as defined by Taking Children Seriously, a parenting philosophy that builds on Popper’s epistemology. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a rational decision – meaning a decision you’ll be happy with. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no pending criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring 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 rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Comments that aren’t criticisms – eg follow-up questions or otherwise neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, ancillary ideas do not invert their respective parents’ statuses. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, adopt the displayed status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that people have same discussions over and over again. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

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 pending criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing all pending criticisms.

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.

---

1. Popperian epistemology has some flaws, like verisimilitude, but Veritula doesn’t implement those.

#3049·Dennis HackethalOP revised about 2 months ago

The guitarist line above is of course just a throwaway example. The core claims here seem very general to me. Is your stance that a person can always make a living doing something they enjoy? People can create all possible jobs, but this says nothing about human lifetimes, economics, etc. The first people couldn’t have had much fun, I wouldn’t think. Please explain.

#3913·Tyler MillsOP, about 12 hours ago

The guitarist line above is of course just a throwaway example. The core claims here seem very general to me. Is your stance that a person can always make a living doing something they enjoy? People can create all possible jobs, but this says nothing about human lifetimes, economics, etc. The first people couldn’t have had much fun, I wouldn’t think. Please explain.

#3913·Tyler MillsOP, about 12 hours ago

Feature idea: pay people to criticize your idea.

You start a ‘criticism bounty’ of ten bucks, say, per pending criticism received by some deadline.

The amount should be arbitrarily customizable (while covering transaction costs). The user also indicates a ceiling for the maximum amount they are willing to spend.

There could then be a page for bounties at /bounties. And a page listing a user’s bounties at /:username/bounties.

When starting a bounty, the user indicates terms such as what kinds of criticism they want. This way, they avoid having to pay people pointing out typos, say.

Anyone can start a bounty on any idea. There can only be one bounty per idea at a time.

To ensure a criticism is worthy of the bounty, the initiator gets a grace period of 24 hours at the end to review pending criticisms. They may even award a bounty to problematic criticisms, at their discretion. Inaction automatically awards the bounty to all pending criticisms at the end of the grace period. If doing so would exceed the ceiling, more recent criticisms do not get the bounty.

#3481·Dennis HackethalOP revised about 1 month ago

Oh dear, thanks. Corrected.

#3910·Tyler MillsOP, about 20 hours ago

How would you preview text in nodes?

#3906·Dennis HackethalOP, about 23 hours ago

@tyler-mills says:

I keep coming back to a graph-based presentation. Every comment a node, edges red if ending in criticisms. I crave a way to see structurally how many red criticism threads and grey comment threads are stemming from a given idea. The red ones could be bold and bright if they lead to an uncriticized idea, else dim and thin. Then we can see at a glance which ideas are sources of more criticisms, and/or hold greater opportunities for further criticism — can see which ideas are “deeper” niches, one might say (..!). Have greater evolvability…

Basically not doable for the user with the current bubble+hashtag method. But again it could just be an optional view. I think I mentioned I find that Kialo does a cool job with their sun dial diagrams (which are optional).

#3904·Dennis HackethalOP, about 23 hours ago

Have you thought about quite quitting?

Could you also come up with the reasons you dislike your job? Is it because of co-workers, managers or the work you actually do? In either case, the calculation in the calculated risk of quitting your job might be mentally checking out from it, but reaping the good thing about it, which is the financial stability.

#3898·Zelalem Mekonnen, 1 day ago

Have you thought about quite quitting?

Could you also come up with the reasons you dislike your job? Is it because of co-workers, managers or the work you actually do? In either case, the calculation in the calculated risk of quitting your job might be mentally checking out from it, but reaping the good thing about it, which is the financial stability.

#3898·Zelalem Mekonnen, 1 day ago

Have you thought about quite quitting?

Could you also come up with the reasons you dislike your job? Is it because of co-workers, managers or the work you actually do? In either case, the calculation in the calculated risk of quitting your job might be mentally checking out from it, but reaping the good thing about it, which is the financial stability.

#3898·Zelalem Mekonnen, 1 day ago

The Fountainhead is on my list. Listened to ‘The Simplest Thing in the World’. One message seems to be that one's creativity will continuously resist attempts to coerce it into doing something it doesn't want. A will of its own. I feel such resistance acutely at this current job, more so but no differently than during previous jobs and assignments, as we all have. But what is the import of the story to the present debate? My creative muse will continue fighting me so long as I'm trying to steer it towards other things? I have no doubt. The questions here are over what is practical, secure and strategic, all largely in the financial sense--or so I think. Where does one draw the line between passion and security? Maybe there is no general-purpose explanation. I will continue reflecting.

#3874·Tyler MillsOP revised 1 day ago

Still learning the art of Veritula (my bad for combining ideas in #3819). From the top, this branch seems to be:
Go on hiatus?
- No hiatus, compress activates
----- Yes hiatus, can't compress. No hiatus because resume gap.
--------- No to resume gap -- So YES hiatus. But currently #3834 flows up and flips to a no-hiatus criticism (because I melded a yes and a no idea in one comment, and Dennis criticized the latter).
------------- Yes hiatus via this comment to correct

"It’s best to write only one criticism at a time."
----- Best, or required, to avoid errors?! (or I'm confused)

#3881·Tyler MillsOP revised 1 day ago

Still learning the art of Veritula (my bad for combining ideas in #3819). From the top, this branch seems to be:
Go on hiatus?
- No hiatus, compress activates
----- Yes hiatus, can't compress. No hiatus because resume gap.
--------- No to resume gap -- So YES hiatus. But currently #3834 flows up and flips to a no-hiatus criticism (because I melded a yes and a no idea in one comment, and Dennis criticized the latter).
------------- Yes hiatus via this comment to correct

"It’s best to write only one criticism at a time."
----- Best, or required, to avoid errors?! (or I'm confused)

#3881·Tyler MillsOP revised 1 day ago

There's no security in not pursuing your passion

Do we mean by security something other than food/water/shelter? Or, resisting your passion only buys temporary security? This isn't true; people go their whole lives resisting their passions, and are secure.

#3877·Tyler MillsOP, 1 day ago

There's no security in not pursuing your passion

Do we mean by security something other than food/water/shelter? Or, resisting your passion only buys temporary security? This isn't true; people go their whole lives resisting their passions, and are secure.

#3877·Tyler MillsOP, 1 day ago

There exist people who's passions exclude all available paying jobs, unless this is not physically possible. Aspiring guitarists in dark ages.

#3876·Tyler MillsOP, 1 day ago

There exist people who's passions exclude all available paying jobs, unless this is not physically possible. Aspiring guitarists in dark ages.

#3876·Tyler MillsOP, 1 day ago

This isn’t a criticism.

#3847·Dennis Hackethal, 3 days ago

My thought was to negate (criticize) the "if you don't" portion of your comment, which was a criticism of mine. Unrefuted, yours sits as a criticism of the original, but it isn't...
- Go on hiatus?
- No runway = bad
- Do have runway
How should criticisms with conditionals in them be handled? Is this comment a criticism?!

#3872·Tyler MillsOP, 1 day ago

Option 1: Continue working the day job and balancing the other pursuits on the side.

#3638·Tyler MillsOP, 9 days ago

So my criticism is that the HTV criterion is not a computational task (but a principle, universal statement) and Deutsch's criterion of understanding (you need a program) only applies to computational tasks.

With principle/ universal statement/ theory, I mean for example: for all masses, there is a force proportional to the inverse square of their distances/ for all integers, addition is commutative/ for all species, their evolution is governed by variation and selection, for all interpretations of moral actions, they are moral relativism when ... applies to that interpretation/ ....

• Principles/ universal statements/ theories are not computable because they speak about sets of (possible) transformations (not 1 in particular which would be a computation) and they offer a constraining criterion to those transformations in the set.
• Whereas a computer program is an abstraction capable of causing 1 particular transformation (between sets of inputs and sets of outputs)

There may be a way to quantify HTV, and thus deal with specific evaluations of how HTV of one theory is higher than another. That would be a computational task. But that is different from the criterion for HTV (which is by definition not computable). And having no program for that computational task does not imply that the criterion for HTV is irrelevant or not usable, or even fluff.

Compare for example to the theory of evolution: the theory of "variation and selection" is the criterion for a set of allowable transformations (of species), but not having a specific program (e.g. for how a particular species can evolve in some particular niche) does not imply that the criterion is useless or fluff.

I think the usefulness of the HTV criterion becomes clear when you link it to Constructor Theory, then one can argue that HTV criterion adds more than criticisms alone can do. But that's a whole other story we could get into.

#3862·Bart Vanderhaegen revised 3 days ago