Dennis Hackethal

Have some thoughts, which might be way off. But interested in your response. It seems to me that "hard-to-vary" is itself the criterion that a theory should be as programmable as possible. As you note, the goal of a theory should be to make it as explicit as possible, and a program is explicitness in its most complete form. Any theory with ambiguous components automatically has a breaking point that is changeable which is hard to detect. A programmable theory has strict causal relations all the way from the axioms to the prediction, which makes any change to the components detectable. In other words: a theory is hard to vary to the extent that its components and the couplings between them can be specified as a program. If a theory is vague, you cannot tell when it has been varied.

This might give a concrete operationalization. A breaking point is any place in the formalization where the chain stops being programmable: a primitive with no implementable type, a coupling between components that cannot be turned into a function, or just a step that requires implicit theories to fill the explanatory gaps. A mathematical theory with no remaining gaps has zero breaking points and is maximally hard to vary. A theory in natural language is already worse, because words carry ambiguity and vary from mind to mind. This does not rule out better and worse theories in natural language, since we can use more or less ambiguous words and relations. But it does create a hierarchy of hard-to-vary explanations, where the share of the explanation that is programmable, or at least unambiguous, forms the basis for measuring the "hard-to-vary" criterion.

This is probably too crude a formalization. But evaluating the two theories of Demeter's emotions and axial tilt as explanations, you could check how much of each is programmable. Detecting seasons is programmable in both cases through temperature and changes in weather. Demeter's emotions and the causal link from them to the weather, which is the entire explanation, are not programmable. In the axial tilt theory, every component is. So on this measure Demeter scores 25% and axial tilt scores 100%.

#4936​·​Knut Sondre Sæbø revised about 1 month ago

Would you agree that this notion of truth amounts to truth relative to our conceptual framework? When you say it's 100% true that it's raining, "the facts" you correspond to are already facts within that framework, and not reality.

At the molecular level there are no discrete raindrops, only a continuous distribution of H2O molecules constantly evaporating and condensing, and some of those very molecules are diffusing through the roof into the house, since no material is 100% impermeable to water vapor.

#4930​·​Knut Sondre Sæbø, about 1 month ago

You might disagree. But when we search for truth, I think most of us are trying to understand the causal structure of the universe, not just predict it with our own fitted models. This is just a criticism of this notion of truth, which waters the concept down from what I at least think of as truth. Many incompatible theories can fit the same facts without capturing any causality. If you agree that truth is correspondence with reality, and not with the facts within our conceptual framework, the problem reemerges.

A statement carves the world into concepts standing in relations. For it to correspond with reality, those concepts must pick out genuine entities and relations in reality. But we have no way of verifying that our conceptual carvings track or pick out entities and relations in reality. This might not imply that some theories can't be more true than others. But it definitely rules out absolute truth.

#4928​·​Knut Sondre Sæbø revised about 1 month ago

You might disagree. But when we search for truth, I think most of us are trying to understand the causal structure of the universe, not just predict it with our own fitted models. This is just a criticism of this notion of truth, which waters the concept down from what I at least think of as truth. Many incompatible theories can fit the same facts without capturing any causality. If you agree that truth is correspondence with reality, and not with the facts within our conceptual framework, the problem reemerges.

A statement carves the world into concepts standing in relations. For it to correspond with reality, those concepts must pick out genuine entities and relations in reality. But we have no way of verifying that our conceptual carvings track or pick out entities and relations in reality. This might not imply that some theories can't be more true than others. But it definitely rules out absolute truth.

#4928​·​Knut Sondre Sæbø revised about 1 month ago

If you take an idea from me and produce a derivative work you may change the value of my copy.

It need not necessarily be a decrease in value. For example, a novel derivative work created by you may increase purchases of my works. Alternatively, your work may tarnish the brand associated with my work, or even directly compete with me, and reduce my sales.

I may not want to take this risk. I ask you not to take such actions in exchange for me sharing a copy with you (with agreed restrictions). If you accept and breach the agreed restrictions, you have violated our contract.

#4919​·​Ed Matthews revised about 1 month ago

In that case, I'm unclear what "100% true" means. If your definitions have wiggle room, then the truth is not your idea. The truth is within the bounds of your idea, but it is not identical to your idea.

#4914​·​Rob Rosenbaum, about 1 month ago

Cool - maybe that is better. I think that inexplicit knowledge is underrated in the David Duetsch circles, what do you think? ... there, I used it in a sentence, now I'll remember it!

#4912​·​Patrick O'Loughlin, about 1 month ago

It’s a gift, then. He increased the value you had by, let's say, replacing your bike with the same bike but new.

#4908​·​Fabio Guerreiro, about 1 month ago

Implicit vs Explicit knowledge -- AI, like DNA, has the ability to create implicit knowledge.

#4909​·​Patrick O'Loughlin, about 1 month ago

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.

#4892​·​Rob Rosenbaum, about 1 month ago

I think you misunderstand both my own argument and the meaning of ambiguity. "I'm currently located in a hemisphere" is not ambiguous in its meaning due to not knowing which hemisphere you're in. The meaning is ambiguous to the extent that we do not have absolute knowledge of what you are, what it is to be located, or what a hemisphere is - or what "in" is. While you obviously know what those words mean, you do not have absolute, 100% defined boundaries of what they refer to and what they don't. But you would have to have that to have absolute truth.

I may be wrong in this argument, but I don't see how your counterexample refutes it.

#4904​·​Rob Rosenbaum, about 1 month ago

‘Are all our ideas false? 🤔’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrQ9lrYGObc

#4900​·​Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 month ago

Couldn’t the mechanism introduce falsehood by other means? For example by introducing contradictions. Then it wouldn’t need a criterion of truth.

#4896​·​Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 month ago

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.

#4895​·​Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 month ago

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.

#4891​·​Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 month ago

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.

#4892​·​Rob Rosenbaum, about 1 month ago

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.

#4892​·​Rob Rosenbaum, about 1 month ago