Dirk Meulenbelt
@dirk-meulenbelt·Member since August 2024
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#2261·Edwin de Wit, 1 day agoI still see epistemology as distinct, and I'll try to make my case for it. Epistemology explains how humans create explanatory knowledge — unlike biological evolution, which also produces knowledge, but not explanations. Explanatory knowledge is special because it allows us to understand the world. Deutsch even suggests that this kind of knowledge tends toward convergence — a unified theory of everything — implying a deep connection between reality and its capacity to be explained.
Economics, on the other hand, isn’t distinct in the same way. It deals with trade-offs and scarcity — principles already fundamental to biology. Life itself is about managing limited resources and the trade-offs that come with them. Evolution, in turn, discovered increasingly effective strategies for doing so — including cooperation, exchange, and other relationships between and across lifeforms that facilitate these trades.
You say that trade-offs and scarcity are fundamental to biology. I agree, and this implies economics as a more fundamental science than biology or evolution. It still applies in our computer models, where biological details may not.
#2261·Edwin de Wit, 1 day agoI still see epistemology as distinct, and I'll try to make my case for it. Epistemology explains how humans create explanatory knowledge — unlike biological evolution, which also produces knowledge, but not explanations. Explanatory knowledge is special because it allows us to understand the world. Deutsch even suggests that this kind of knowledge tends toward convergence — a unified theory of everything — implying a deep connection between reality and its capacity to be explained.
Economics, on the other hand, isn’t distinct in the same way. It deals with trade-offs and scarcity — principles already fundamental to biology. Life itself is about managing limited resources and the trade-offs that come with them. Evolution, in turn, discovered increasingly effective strategies for doing so — including cooperation, exchange, and other relationships between and across lifeforms that facilitate these trades.
Undestanding does not flow from explanatory knowledge the way you imply. I understand Dutch and English, but a lot of my understanding of it is inexplicit.
#2259·Edwin de Wit, 2 days agoYes, but that inhirent in biology (evolution) right? I see it as part of the evolutionary strand for this reason.
In that same vein, why couldn't we class biology (evolution) under epistemology?
#2090·Erik Orrje, 7 days agoYeah (3) is interesting. Constructor theory is the contender I can think of for a future fifth strand. Any other suggestions?
Economics as a fundamental study of trade-offs.
#2255·Erik Orrje, 2 days agoHaha not a programmer so understood maybe half of it, but I think I see what you mean. There'll always be inexplicit parts to every explanation. My concept of explanations is that there must be at least some explicit part for it to be called an explanation. That's why genes aren't explanations.
My point is rather that it's not so clean a line between explicit and inexplicit. You're a doctor, so imagine the steps being something like:
- Extensive description of patient's symptoms, test results, conclusion, etc, in English.
- Same as above but mostly made out of quick notes by attending doctors and nurses.
- Only a collection of test names and test results. Test results accompanied by Chinese.
- Just a collection of numbers coming out of tests, without saying which test.
Arguably all the information is always there, and can be read off, but with increasing difficulty, requiring you to learn another language, or do a series of deductions.
#2230·Dennis Hackethal, 4 days agoSince you’re a doctor, Erik, let me ask: is there a possibility Alzheimer’s could be explained in terms of bad software? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like the prevailing view is limited to bad hardware.
Not a doctor. But it's not hard for me to imagine untainted memory but a script with an error such that it can't manage to look up the information.
#2030·Erik Orrje, 9 days agoCan't think of how it could be otherwise. Do you have any examples of inexplicit explanations?
Let's fuck with your intuitions a little bit:
Say "stop" when it's no longer an explanation:
Didactic chapter in plain English with examples and edge cases, distilled into a concise technical note with formal definitions, invariants, and pseudocode.
Literate program interleaving prose and code, or a heavily commented Python implementation with docstrings and tests.
The same code stripped of comments/tests and then minified or obfuscated (e.g., Python one‑liner, obfuscated C), up through esolangs and formalisms (Brainfuck, untyped lambda calculus with Church numerals, SKI combinators).
Operational specifications with minimal labels (Turing machine tables), then hand‑written assembly without labels and self‑modifying tricks, down to raw machine code bytes/hex and binary blobs with unknown ISA or entry point.
The same bits recast as DNA base mapping with unknown block codec, unknown compression, encrypted archives indistinguishable from noise, arbitrary bitstrings for unspecified UTMs, or physical media (flux/RF) without modulation specs.
#2153·Dennis Hackethal, 6 days agoThe rival theories and clashes sound like competition between genes – or more precisely, between the theories those genes embody.
Basically, genes contain guesses (in a non-subjective sense) for how to spread through the population at the expense of their rivals. Those guesses are met with selection pressure and competition.
Dirk approves of your comment.
#2151·Dennis Hackethal, 6 days agoA gene doesn’t have problems in any conscious sense, but it always faces the problem of how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Maybe that answers your question, Erik.
How could we integrate that vision with Popper's definition (paraphrased): a tension, inconsistency, or unmet explanatory demand that arises when a theory clashes with observations, background assumptions, or rival theories, thereby calling for conjectural solutions and critical tests.
I turned it into a criticism per Dennis' prompt
Sure, philosophers and pedants do. But typically people use the word "know" in situations well short of being absolutely sure.
Sure, philosophers and pedants do. But typically people use the word "know" in situations well short of being absolutely sure.
#1601·Dennis Hackethal, 3 months agoWe do in every single way in which we use the term "know".
Don’t people disagree about what ‘know’ means? As in, some think it means they’re justified in their belief, others think they have corrected a sufficient amount of errors, etc…
Sure, philosophers and pedants do. But typically people use the word "know" in situations well short of being absolutely sure.
We can't always be wrong, because that implies that correct ideas are not expressible, which makes no sense.
I think there is a sense in which we cannot always be sure that we are right, as there's always some possibility that we are wrong, even if we think we are completely right. And if we are completely right, there is nothing that is "manifest" about that.
Let's say I open my fridge, and there is cheese there, I conclude "I have cheese in my fridge". I may be hallucinating, or wrong about the category of cheese, or it just appears like cheese, or whatever. In that sense I could potentially be wrong. However I find it silly to think that I am infinitely wrong in my assessment of where my food is, all the time. That's like saying that we don't know what happens after we die. We do in every single way in which we use the term "know".
I think this idea that we are always wrong needs a rephrase, such as "we could always consider how we could be wrong", or "there is nothing that justifies our true belief", or "we could and should always criticise", or "nothing exists outside of criticism" (as we picked 1+1 and not 1+2 for some critical reason). The rephrase leaves open the possibility of being right a lot, like about where your food is, because you just found it, while still leaving open the possibility that the cheese you just saw is actually your butter.
This is stifling to creativity, as now people are not incentivised to write fan-fictions as much as without copyright.
I fail to see how fan fiction is at all damaging to an original creator.
We have found an example where copyright is bad.
Where is copyright good?
Copyright is stifling to creativity, as now people are not incentivised to write fan-fictions.
#1322·Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoNot a lawyer but I believe such fan fiction would be considered a derivative work.
Copyright protects original creators’ exclusive right to create derivative works. So, selling your Star Wars fan fiction without permission from the copyright holders would be copyright infringement.
See this article.
This is stifling to creativity, as now people are not incentivised to write fan-fictions as much as without copyright.
I fail to see how fan fiction is at all damaging to an original creator.
We have found an example where copyright is bad.
Where is copyright good?
We discuss whether it would be moral to abolish copyright
I am not allowed to sell my Star Wars fan-fiction. Why not?
#710·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 year agoIn the coming period, expect us to pick up on many of the talks’ subject matter.
Interesting. I recall this felt 'off'. I keep learning grammar details after 20 years of knowing English.
#714·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 year agoWe will update you on news, events, and do longer form write-ups […]
‘longer-form’
[…] on the projects discussed in the talks, […]
You mentioned the talks in the previous sentence. Remove “discussed in the talks” and instead say ‘discussed projects’ or ‘projects that were discussed’.
[…] as we now have many more news sources we didn’t yet know about.
Don’t explain yourself to your readers. Remove this part.
agreed
#709·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 year agoZu- series of popup projects
That hyphen looks out of place.
There are a bunch of things that start with Zu, such as ZuBerlin, ZuThailand, etc. I suppose that too could've been explained clearer
#708·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 year agoThe Honduran Supreme Court still needs to publish an explanatory addendum on the passed law to explain how (existing) ZEDEs will be dealt with after this ruling.
Passive voice hides accountability. Who will deal with ZEDEs? Use active voice accordingly.
Agreed
#707·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 year agoProspects for Próspera and other ZEDEs look dire and in a recent post […]
The alliteration threw me off a bit here. And if they’re dire they’re not really prospects. ‘Outlook’ might work better here.
Agreed
#706·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 year agolighter taxes and regulations
‘lower taxes and lighter regulations’ (I don’t think taxes can be ‘light’)
I suppose not