Dennis Hackethal
@dennis.hackethal·Joined Jun 2024·Ideas
Founder Veritula.
Author. Software engineer. Ex Apple. Translator of The Beginning of Infinity.
dennishackethal.com
Experimental Controls Aren’t What You Think:
https://libertythroughreason.com/experimental-controls-arent-what-you-think/
#5267·Benjamin DaviesOP revised 26 days agoThey are separate ideas, and the latter ideas depend on their formers. If there is a flaw in former ideas, they apply to latter ideas, but if there is a flaw in latter ideas, they don’t necessarily apply to the former. So arranging them like this was intentional, to respect that hierarchy.
This approach breaks search functions, where the system only goes off the ‘Criticized’ flag. Now the system shows some ideas as rationally adoptable even though they aren’t.
#5267·Benjamin DaviesOP revised 26 days agoThey are separate ideas, and the latter ideas depend on their formers. If there is a flaw in former ideas, they apply to latter ideas, but if there is a flaw in latter ideas, they don’t necessarily apply to the former. So arranging them like this was intentional, to respect that hierarchy.
But the UI won’t reflect that automatically. Now you have to remember which threads have structure and which don’t. Will you remember that, say, six months from now?
#5253·Dennis Hackethal, 26 days agoPopper says to prefer ideas that are better corroborated, more truthlike. I wrote about this recently, pasting it here:
Corroboration was meant to help us form rational preferences between ideas. From The Logic of Scientific Discovery (pp. 281-282):
We can sometimes rationally justify the preference for a theory in the light of its corroboration, that is, of the present state of the critical discussion of the competing theories, which are critically discussed and compared from the point of view of assessing their nearness to the truth (verisimilitude). The current state of this discussion may, in principle, be reported in the form of their degrees of corroboration.
Specifically, corroboration helps you form a rational preference between two theories that have both been shown to be false while there are no known alternatives. From Conjectures and Refutations (p. 318):
… even after t2 has been refuted in its turn, we can still say that it is better than t1, for although both have been shown to be false, the fact that t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass may be a good indication that the falsity-content of t1 exceeds that of t2 while its truth-content does not. Thus we may still give preference to t2, even after its falsification, because we have reason to think that it agrees better with the facts than did t1.
That “t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass” means t2 is better corroborated than t1.
There’s no need to single out corroboration or verisimilitude as special kinds of criticism.
Preference formation using either can easily be reduced to the method of counting pending criticisms:
Idea A fails to survive two tests.
Idea B fails to survive only one of the two.
Idea C says: I have only A and B; I don’t have time to create another; although both are false, I have to act; so for now I prefer B since at least it passes a test A doesn’t.
If idea C has no pending criticisms, then we should adopt it. (And thus ‘transitively’ adopt B.)
We can rationally prefer A over B if and only if A has no pending criticisms whereas B has at least one.
The property you mention is the existence of pending criticisms.
We can rationally prefer A over B if A has no pending criticisms whereas B has at least one.
The property you mention is the existence of pending criticisms.
#5258·Dennis Hackethal, 26 days agoWe can rationally prefer A over B if and only if A has no pending criticisms whereas B has at least one.
The property you mention is the existence of pending criticisms.
You can still prefer A over B if neither has pending criticisms. The “if and only if” is too strict.
#5250·Benjamin DaviesOP, 26 days agoThe more HTV an explanation is, the more closely it corresponds to reality.
There’s a risk in posting follow-up thoughts as nested comments. The risk is that criticism chains won’t bubble up far enough.
If you want to add more information to an idea, I suggest revising it.
#5246·Benjamin DaviesOP, 26 days agoWhen we reject explanation B in favour of explanation A, there must be some property of the explanations that comprehensively distinguishes A as better than B.
We can rationally prefer A over B if and only if A has no pending criticisms whereas B has at least one.
The property you mention is the existence of pending criticisms.
#5253·Dennis Hackethal, 26 days agoPopper says to prefer ideas that are better corroborated, more truthlike. I wrote about this recently, pasting it here:
Corroboration was meant to help us form rational preferences between ideas. From The Logic of Scientific Discovery (pp. 281-282):
We can sometimes rationally justify the preference for a theory in the light of its corroboration, that is, of the present state of the critical discussion of the competing theories, which are critically discussed and compared from the point of view of assessing their nearness to the truth (verisimilitude). The current state of this discussion may, in principle, be reported in the form of their degrees of corroboration.
Specifically, corroboration helps you form a rational preference between two theories that have both been shown to be false while there are no known alternatives. From Conjectures and Refutations (p. 318):
… even after t2 has been refuted in its turn, we can still say that it is better than t1, for although both have been shown to be false, the fact that t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass may be a good indication that the falsity-content of t1 exceeds that of t2 while its truth-content does not. Thus we may still give preference to t2, even after its falsification, because we have reason to think that it agrees better with the facts than did t1.
That “t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass” means t2 is better corroborated than t1.
Preference formation is a computational task. (#5255) To claim we’ve understood a computational task, we must have programmed it (Deutsch). Popper never programmed it, so he didn’t understand it.
(To his credit though, he got pretty technical in defining verisimilitude, logical vs. empirical content, etc.)
Consider that preference formation is an engineering problem:
https://libertythroughreason.com/rationality-as-computation/
And if it is, consider also that maybe it’s worth staying away from concepts like HTV, which we have no idea how to program:
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/hard-to-vary-or-hardly-usable
https://libertythroughreason.com/simple-refutation-of-david-deutschs-hard-to-vary/
The task is to write an algorithm that takes two ideas (eg in the form of strings of characters) and returns the preferable one.
How would one go about writing that?
I think it’d be fine to start with obviously wrong answers to that question and then incrementally correct errors. For example, an algorithm that favors the idea with fewer words. (A bit like Occam’s razor.) That’d be fine as long as one wrote working code.
#5253·Dennis Hackethal, 26 days agoPopper says to prefer ideas that are better corroborated, more truthlike. I wrote about this recently, pasting it here:
Corroboration was meant to help us form rational preferences between ideas. From The Logic of Scientific Discovery (pp. 281-282):
We can sometimes rationally justify the preference for a theory in the light of its corroboration, that is, of the present state of the critical discussion of the competing theories, which are critically discussed and compared from the point of view of assessing their nearness to the truth (verisimilitude). The current state of this discussion may, in principle, be reported in the form of their degrees of corroboration.
Specifically, corroboration helps you form a rational preference between two theories that have both been shown to be false while there are no known alternatives. From Conjectures and Refutations (p. 318):
… even after t2 has been refuted in its turn, we can still say that it is better than t1, for although both have been shown to be false, the fact that t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass may be a good indication that the falsity-content of t1 exceeds that of t2 while its truth-content does not. Thus we may still give preference to t2, even after its falsification, because we have reason to think that it agrees better with the facts than did t1.
That “t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass” means t2 is better corroborated than t1.
Pavel Tichý and David Miller independently proved in 1974 that Popper’s definition of verisimilitude leads to a contradiction. Explanation:
Let us suppose that A and B are both false, and that A’s truth content exceeds B’s. Let a be a true sentence entailed by A but not by B. Let f be any falsehood entailed by A. Since A entails both a and f the conjunction, a&f is a falsehood entailed by A, and so part of A’s falsity content. If a&f were also part of B’s falsity content B would entail both a and f. But then it would entail a contrary to the assumption. Hence a&f is in A’s falsity content and not in B’s. So A’s truth content cannot exceeds B’s without A’s falsity content also exceeding B’s.
Suppose now that B’s falsity content exceeds A’s. Let g be some falsehood entailed by B but not by A, and let f, as before, be some falsehood entailed by A. The sentence f→g is a truth, and since it is entailed by g, is in B’s truth content. If it were also in A’s then both f and f→g would be consequences of A and hence so would g, contrary to the assumption. Thus A’s truth content lacks a sentence, f→g, which is in B’s. So B’s falsity content cannot exceeds A’s without B’s truth content also exceeding A’s. The relationship depicted in Diagram 4 simply cannot obtain: in this sense, that picture is an “impossible” one, like those in Escher’s famous drawings.
Popper says to prefer ideas that are better corroborated, more truthlike. I wrote about this recently, pasting it here:
Corroboration was meant to help us form rational preferences between ideas. From The Logic of Scientific Discovery (pp. 281-282):
We can sometimes rationally justify the preference for a theory in the light of its corroboration, that is, of the present state of the critical discussion of the competing theories, which are critically discussed and compared from the point of view of assessing their nearness to the truth (verisimilitude). The current state of this discussion may, in principle, be reported in the form of their degrees of corroboration.
Specifically, corroboration helps you form a rational preference between two theories that have both been shown to be false while there are no known alternatives. From Conjectures and Refutations (p. 318):
… even after t2 has been refuted in its turn, we can still say that it is better than t1, for although both have been shown to be false, the fact that t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass may be a good indication that the falsity-content of t1 exceeds that of t2 while its truth-content does not. Thus we may still give preference to t2, even after its falsification, because we have reason to think that it agrees better with the facts than did t1.
That “t2 has withstood tests which t1 did not pass” means t2 is better corroborated than t1.
#5250·Benjamin DaviesOP, 26 days agoThe more HTV an explanation is, the more closely it corresponds to reality.
The idea ‘I’m located in a hemisphere’ is ‘easy to vary’ as to which hemisphere but it’s true, meaning it corresponds to reality.
HTV and correspondence are orthogonal.
#5188·Tyler Mills, 29 days agoI'm on PC, and alt+shift+hyphen does not work—but alt+0151 on numpad does... which is a very Windows way to do it, but I'll take it.
PC 😳
#5237·Dennis Hackethal, 27 days agoFound this article illuminating (emphasis mine):
The gradual loss of energy during the day produces a drive to sleep in order to restore that energy. This is known as the homeostatic sleep drive. If the homeostatic process were the only one involved, a person would wake up fully energized and then gradually wind down over the course of the day, like a battery losing power. This would mean an uneven level of alertness during the day, with dangerously low alertness in the afternoon and evening. To counterbalance this, the SCN also regulates alertness by what is known as the circadian process. As the day goes on, and energy winds down, the SCN compensates for this by sending a stronger alertness signal to the brain and body. This alertness signal reaches a peak in the two hours just before bedtime. This zone of maximum alertness is known as the “forbidden zone for sleep” since the alertness signal makes sleep nearly impossible during that zone. When the usual bedtime is reached, the SCN begins to turn down its alertness signal to allow the body to sleep.
The article is on “Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder”. I’m obviously no doctor so don’t take anything I say as advice or diagnosis. But from what you’ve said, I wonder if you have that. I think I have the same issue.
The article goes into several causes you could look into. For example, it says exposure to blue light in the morning can help reset one’s internal clock. But that requires a special type of cell on the retina. If those cells don’t work properly, then as far as your internal clock is concerned, you’re effectively blind.
That said I still think you should go see a sleep doctor, Tyler.
Found this article illuminating (emphasis mine):
The gradual loss of energy during the day produces a drive to sleep in order to restore that energy. This is known as the homeostatic sleep drive. If the homeostatic process were the only one involved, a person would wake up fully energized and then gradually wind down over the course of the day, like a battery losing power. This would mean an uneven level of alertness during the day, with dangerously low alertness in the afternoon and evening. To counterbalance this, the SCN also regulates alertness by what is known as the circadian process. As the day goes on, and energy winds down, the SCN compensates for this by sending a stronger alertness signal to the brain and body. This alertness signal reaches a peak in the two hours just before bedtime. This zone of maximum alertness is known as the “forbidden zone for sleep” since the alertness signal makes sleep nearly impossible during that zone. When the usual bedtime is reached, the SCN begins to turn down its alertness signal to allow the body to sleep.
The article is on “Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder”. I’m obviously no doctor so don’t take anything I say as advice or diagnosis. But from what you’ve said, I wonder if you have that. I think I have the same issue.
The article goes into several causes you could look into. For example, it says exposure to blue light in the morning can help reset one’s internal clock. But that requires a special type of cell on the retina. If those cells don’t work properly, then as far as your internal clock is concerned, you’re effectively blind.
#5214·Tyler MillsOP, 27 days agoDaytime noise in any kind of city is hard to avoid. One can try to optimize their living situation to avoid, but that's not always doable. Earplugs and noise-machines can help, but have never been totally foolproof for me.
You may be overstating the difficulty. IIRC you like rural America. Finding a quiet place to live should be doable, even in cities but especially in rural places. (Believe it or not I once stayed at an Airbnb in Tahoe that was TOO quiet to sleep. It was so quiet it kinda freaked me out. And that’s saying something because I love quiet.)
Have you traveled internationally? I’m thinking specifically of flying west for a large distance.
For example, if I fly to the West coast from central Europe and I land at 12pm say. That’s 9 hours behind Europe. And then I try to stay up until 10pm or so. That’s nearly impossible. I’ve fallen asleep with the lights on.
Would be interesting if you still lay awake for an hour or so even when severely jet lagged.
#5225·Tyler MillsOP, 27 days agoInteresting. But I would guess it only works well for constant sounds. The sensor has to read the waveform to create one that cancels it. Will not do much for short impulses of sound, which are the main offender (my current neighbors are okay, for the record).
Isn’t this a criticism?
#5204·Tyler MillsOP, 27 days agoTime-release melatonin has solved the backfire problem for me. But I don't want to be dependent on it forever to get a good 8 hours.
What’s wrong with using melatonin indefinitely?
AFAIK it creates no physical dependence, you don’t build a tolerance, and it’s cheap. What’s not to love?
#5204·Tyler MillsOP, 27 days agoTime-release melatonin has solved the backfire problem for me. But I don't want to be dependent on it forever to get a good 8 hours.
Shouldn’t this be a criticism?
#5230·Dennis Hackethal, 27 days agoCould you do meal prep for the week? Have meals ready in the freezer so you don’t need to cook every day.
Something I made the other day, recipe in the caption :) https://www.instagram.com/p/Db2DzFplBXq/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
#5221·Tyler MillsOP revised 27 days agoI also clearly procrastinate preparing food and eating, almost every day, conflicting with caloric intake goals. For a few years in childhood I had an anxiety disorder around eating. I suspect some residual hangup from that, but hard to say. Relates to the sleep trouble..?
Could you do meal prep for the week? Have meals ready in the freezer so you don’t need to cook every day.