How Does Veritula Work?
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Rational Decision-Making
Expanding on #2112…
If an idea, as written, has no pending criticisms, it’s rational to adopt it and irrational to reject it. What reason could you have to reject it? If it has no pending criticisms, then either 1) no reasons to reject it (ie, criticisms) have been suggested or 2) all suggested reasons have been addressed already.
If an idea, as written, does have pending criticisms, it’s irrational to adopt it and rational to reject it – by reference to those criticisms. What reason could you have to ignore the pending criticisms and adopt it anyway?
Or, simplified:
It is rational to adopt only those ideas which, as written, don’t have pending criticisms, and to reject ideas that do.
By this criterion, it is irrational to adopt or advocate either GR or QM, as they have pending criticisms.
According to every physicist I have heard speak on the matter, GR and QM conflict.
@bart-vanderhaegen has also said to me that GR falsely predicts the orbit of electrons, and QM falsely predicts the mass threshold at which black holes form.
This is addressed in section 5 of Dennis' paper: The Structure of Rational Thought.
‘How can we rationally proceed when all known ideas have pending criticisms?’
By treating ideas as immutable and discrete, even if content overlaps. For example, as a description of reality, general relativity has pending criticisms. But there are no serious contenders. Instead, take the idea: ‘Although GR has pending criticisms as a true description of reality, it’s an excellent approximation, makes precise predictions, and powers technology such as GPS. So we keep using it until we find a replacement.’ As written, this idea has no pending criticisms, so its advocacy is rational.
“Serious contender” smuggles comparison of explanations with known flaws back in.
How do we distinguish between serious and unserious contenders?
The criterion excludes comparing the strength of criticisms, not comparison altogether. ‘Serious’ could be binary: does the contender solve the same problems, reproduce GR’s successful predictions, and lack a pending criticism that prevents replacing GR?
“There are no serious contenders” is itself merely another conjecture inside the composite idea. It too can be criticised and revised recursively.