Dennis Hackethal’s avatar

Dennis Hackethal

Member since June 2024

Activity

  Dennis Hackethal submitted criticism #1760.

All emails have unsubscribe links, but people shouldn’t be able to unsubscribe from system emails like password resets.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #1753.

I should revisit this now that I have email infrastructure in place.

#1753·Dennis HackethalOP, 9 days ago

Done as of 9c14b22.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #1755.

Newly added comments keep animating when hidden and then unhidden.

#1755·Dennis HackethalOP, 9 days ago

Fixed as of 985430e.

  Dennis Hackethal submitted an idea which has since been removed.
  Dennis Hackethal submitted an idea which has since been removed.
  Dennis Hackethal submitted criticism #1755.

Newly added comments keep animating when hidden and then unhidden.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #1752.

See #595. The form for new ideas is pushed to the very bottom of the discussion page. For long discussion, that means users won’t know where to submit new ideas.

#1752·Dennis HackethalOP, 9 days ago

Duplicate of #453.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #1136.

Workaround: have users email me for password reset for now. Re-evaluate when I have enough users to merit additional infrastructure for sending emails.

#1136·Dennis HackethalOP, 8 months ago

I should revisit this now that I have email infrastructure in place.

  Dennis Hackethal submitted criticism #1752.

See #595. The form for new ideas is pushed to the very bottom of the discussion page. For long discussion, that means users won’t know where to submit new ideas.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #1749.

Each activity should have a distinct HTML title. The browser history and search results in search engines all look the same…

#1749·Dennis HackethalOP, 10 days ago

Done as of 7ef69da.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #1748.
Each activity should have ana distinct HTML title. The browser history and search results in search engines all look the same…
  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #425.

Done as of a02e6c4, see eg this activity.

#425·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 year ago

Each activity should have an HTML title. The browser history and search results in search engines all look the same…

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #417.

There’s a bug where hovering over a link in the markdown preview removes the form and all typed text. Hovering over a link should have no effect on the form.

#417·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 year ago

Fixed as of b555677.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #1604. The revision addresses idea #1603.
  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #1582. The revision addresses idea #1743.

Fix typo

If we use the correspondancecorrespondence theory of truth, then truth consists of explanations that correspond "perfectly" to reality. In that sense all our statements are false: we don't have those explanations that perfectly correspond, all our actual statements are approximations, or deductions from approximations (1+1=2 is a deduction from a set of explanations, but that set is not entirely true - since the set is inconsistent and incomplete)
  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #1582.

If we use the correspondance theory of truth, then truth consists of explanations that correspond "perfectly" to reality. In that sense all our statements are false: we don't have those explanations that perfectly correspond, all our actual statements are approximations, or deductions from approximations (1+1=2 is a deduction from a set of explanations, but that set is not entirely true - since the set is inconsistent and incomplete)

#1582·Bart Vanderhaegen, 3 months ago

correspondance

typo

  Dennis Hackethal submitted idea #1736.

Veritula implements a recursive epistemology. For a criticism to be outstanding, it can’t have any outstanding criticisms itself, and so on, in a deeply nested fashion.

def criticized? idea
  outstanding_criticisms(idea).any?
end

def outstanding_criticisms idea
  criticisms(idea).filter { |c| outstanding_criticisms(c).none? }
end

def criticisms idea
  children(idea).filter(&:criticism?)
end

This approach is different from non-recursive epistemologies, which handle criticisms differently. For example, they might not consider deeply nested criticisms when determining whether an idea is currently criticized.

  Dennis Hackethal commented on idea #1597.

Avoid duplicate criticisms during revisions

When revising a criticism, check the box that says “Supersedes previous version?”. This will automatically ‘neutralize’ the older version to avoid counting a criticism twice.

#1597·Dennis HackethalOP, about 2 months ago

As a convenience, this checkbox is now checked automatically for criticisms.

  Dennis Hackethal submitted idea #1732.

What does “battle tested” mean?

One of @edwin-de-wit’s ideas recently got the blue label that says “battle tested” – well done, Edwin! – so he asked me what it means.

It means that the idea has at least three criticisms, all of which have been addressed.

The label is awarded automatically. It’s a tentative indicator of quality. Battle-tested ideas generally contain more knowledge than non-battle-tested ones.

When there are two conflicting ideas, each with no outstanding criticisms, go with the (more) battle-tested one. This methodology maps onto Popper’s notion of a critical preference.

The label is not an indicator of an idea’s future success, nor should it be considered a justification of an idea.

You can see all battle-tested ideas currently on Veritula on this page. Those are all the best, most knowledge-dense ideas on this site.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #1721.

I’ve added a comment on #1704 to clarify my point. I don’t think my English is the issue here. If/where we disagree, it’s more likely due to a gap in mutual understanding or an error in the substance of my knowledge.

#1721·Edwin de WitOP, 28 days ago

Your new comment notwithstanding, I invite you to be more critical of your English. I’ve pointed out several issues already (which, to your credit, you did fix), and you’ve since made more mistakes (eg see #1729, and in a recent DM you wrote “criticizems”). A typo of that magnitude plausibly indicates deeper issues.

Again, I don’t mean to get too personal here – forgive me if that’s how it comes across.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #1712.

I think it does imply a conflict. I think every emotional sensation — including urges — arises from problems in the Popperian sense: two or more incompatible theories in conflict.

For example, consider hunger. One theory (Drive A) is that we don’t want to be hungry, while another signals that we are hungry (from ephemeral sense data (which could itself be viewed as a Drive, though that’s not important here)). The conflict between these theories produces the urge — in this case, the sensation of hunger.

I explain these conflicts in more detail, with further examples of Drives, Intuitions, and Statements, in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEcR_0GbzRE

#1712·Edwin de WitOP, 28 days ago

[E]very emotional sensation — including urges — arises from problems […]

If that’s true, a conflict is behind every positive emotion as well. What’s the conflict behind joy, say?

(If you’re wondering why I’m marking this a criticism even though it’s phrased as a question: it means that a satisfactory answer would address the criticism; such an answer should itself be marked a criticism.)

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #1722.

It's a fair point. I agree it's not a perfect word. I tried many labels and variations, but I ended up with Drives because in my view it contrasted well with Intuition:

Unlike Intuitions, Drives carry the sense of a deep urge whose underlying theory is largely unconscious. You’re aware of the feelings they produce as you say, but not of the reasoning behind them. For example, you might know you’re sexually attracted to someone or suddenly feel sad, yet have no idea why — then that’s a Drive.

If you do have some sense of why you’re feeling a certain way and can roughly express it in words, it’s an Intuition. If you can fully articulate it in words, it’s a Statement. Statements can also produce feelings. For example, if one of your core value is non‑coercion, you might feel angry when someone disciplines their child in an immoral way — here, the Statement (often paired with Intuitions or Drives) is producing the feeling of anger.

I agree the main shortcoming of Drive is that it’s often taken to mean innate or hardwired knowledge. I haven’t found a better alternative, so I make it clear when explaining the concept that Drives can also arise from habitualized knowledge. Deutsch (in this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2LWxaqQUQ) seems to also support this way of defining new terminology

If you want to say something new the terminology you use is going to be unsuited for it because the terminology is going to be adapted to previous ways of thinking um what you can do is just invent your own terminology that's a terrible idea because no one will understand what you're saying and secondly it is subject to the same problem that it will only represent accurately fairly accurately your thoughts at a particular time when you're addressing a new criticism it will no longer be suitable so I think what people usually do and what is done in physics and what's done in philosophy what Popper did is to use the nearest existing term and be very careful to explain that one means something new by it.

If you have alternate suggestions, I'm of course eager to hear them!

#1722·Edwin de WitOP, 28 days ago

For example, if one of your core value is non‑coercion […]

Should be plural ‘values’

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #1726.

This misses the point of the post before it. Knowledge starts as myths and contains myths. Reason makes it hard to vary, thus reasonable to take as true until the myths in that theory itself are corrected.

#1726·Zelalem MekonnenOP, 24 days ago

This should be marked a criticism.