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Neil Hudson says the bounty “would require programming the creative process by which relevant variations are conjectured in the first place.”

Several people have replied to the bounty saying it’s asking for the wrong thing; that HTV is only about rejecting ETV explanations, and that it’s only one mode of criticism among many.

Neil replies fallibility means the criterion must be able to get answers wrong or not deliver an answer at all sometimes. And if that’s the case, not any pair should be needed. Otherwise, “reliably compare” would be a demand for infallibility.

Neil replies fallibility means the criterion must be able to get answers wrong or not deliver an answer at all sometimes. And if that’s the case, not any pair should be needed.

Why should HTV need to algorithmically rank every pair of explanations to be meaningful?

Because, per BoI, we can’t claim to have understood a computational task if we can’t program it. The formation of rational preferences is a computational task.

Neil Hudson says in response to the bounty:

I wonder if this objection risks making a Hilbertian mistake: assuming that an objective criterion must provide a universal decision procedure. Gödel taught us not to equate objectivity with decidability. Why should HTV need to algorithmically rank every pair of explanations to be meaningful?

Brett says “Rational decision making is not a matter of pulling a lever and cranking through a calculation.”

Dirk replies that the bounty doesn’t ask for essentialist definitions. It instead asks for clarity around how to actually use HTV.

Brett says the bounty is “impossible” because “it’s asking for a definition for something that *cannot be defined* in the way the challenge demands.”

I don’t care whether people agree with me about this. I care about what’s true, what the ideas imply, as written. Ironically, chapter 1 also says theories can have implications their authors did not intend or may not like (p. 27):

What if you’d rather not know? You may not like these predictions.
Your friends and colleagues may ridicule them. You may try to modify
the explanation so that it will not make them…

Ben explored and addressed this criticism in more detail, see #5382.

Tyler says “All known programs to date” outsource creative input to the user.

I read “two strings” literally. The strings are the only case-specific inputs. A fact read from a database, sensor, or anywhere else is another input, whether or not it appears in the function signature.

No function of those two strings can always provide such a ranking.

The bounty says the code must accept two strings as input. It doesn’t say only or at most or exactly two. But I see now that this may not have been clear – if you think it’ll help, I can edit the bounty to say ‘at least two’.

Also, when I wrote the bounty, I meant input as in ‘part of the function signature’. If the function body later reads from a database or prompts the user for input, that doesn’t in and of itself disqualify the submission.

I read “two strings” literally. The strings are the only case-specific inputs. A fact read from a database, sensor, or anywhere else is another input, whether or not it appears in the function signature.

No function of those two strings can always provide such a ranking.

The bounty says the code must accept two strings as input. It doesn’t say only or at most or exactly two. But I see now that this may not have been clear – if you think it’ll help, I can edit the bounty to say ‘at least two’.

Also, when I wrote the bounty, I meant input as in ‘part of the function signature’. If the function body later reads from a database or prompts the user for input, that doesn’t in and of itself disqualify the submission.

… we cannot avoid guesswork about which changes preserve meaning …

If a good-faith submission prompted the user for answers about changes in meaning or other creative input (within reason), that also would not automatically disqualify the submission. (The proviso “within reason” matters or else bad actors will simply prompt the user to tell the program which explanation is harder to vary. As with all other bounties, any submission will have to meet not just the bounty terms but survive all criticism it may get.)

Here also, I can edit the bounty to clarify that user input at runtime is permissible.

I hope I’ve addressed all reasons the bounty might not be doable, but let me know if I missed something.

I read “two strings” literally. The strings are the only case-specific inputs. A fact read from a database, sensor, or anywhere else is another input, whether or not it appears in the function signature.

No function of those two strings can always provide such a ranking.

The bounty says the code must accept two strings as input. It doesn’t say only or at most or exactly two. But I see now that this may not have been clear – if you think it’ll help, I can edit the bounty to say ‘at least two’.

Also, when I wrote the bounty, I meant input as in ‘part of the function signature’. If the function body later reads from a database or prompts the user for input, that doesn’t in and of itself disqualify the submission.

… we cannot avoid guesswork about which changes preserve meaning …

If a good-faith submission prompted the user for answers about changes in meaning or other creative input (within reason), that also would not automatically disqualify the submission. (The proviso “within reason” matters or else bad actors will simply prompt the user to tell the program which explanation is harder to vary. As with all other bounties, any submission will have to meet not just the bounty terms but survive all criticism it may get.)

Here also, I can edit the bounty to clarify that user input at runtime is permissible.

I hope I’ve addressed all reasons the bounty might not be doable, but let me know if I missed something.

Idea: showing the quickest way to rehabilitate an idea.

Could be a visual feature showing something like the shortest path down a discussion tree where a criticism needs to be addressed.

Or all such branches.

Such a thing has probably been done in graph theory before, could look for existing algorithms.

But #5331 relies on our ability to come up with new options to remain rational in the face of mutually exclusive options.

I don’t care whether people agree with me about this. I care about what’s true, what the ideas imply, as written. (Ironically, chapter 1 also says theories can have implications their authors did not intend or may not like.)

Liberty says in a previous discussion that the first quote is “just a cherry picked sentence and it's ambiguous as to the claim you're making. Neither Deutsch nor anyone else who agrees with it interprets the theory in the way you're doing.”

But those quotes aren’t all about HTV.

I reply:

BoI is full of remarks about preference formation. Doing word searches for “choose between” and “rival explanation”, we can find, for example:

“… we should choose between [policies or theories] not on the basis of their origin, but according to how good they are as explanations: how hard to vary.” (209)

“… how does the ‘dictator’ itself choose between rival explanations …?” (341)

“[The] main use [of experience] is to choose between theories that have already been guessed.” (4)

“The role of experiment and observation is to choose between existing theories…” (32)

In response, Brett claims “that can’t be so because that’s not the purpose of ‘HTV’.” Claims it is instead “a crucial feature of good explanations.”

Brett’s response:

One can *call* that “rationality”. And ok. But what I’m referring to is that process which causes behaviour in humans. We create (choices) and choose them.

If one wants to extract out “coming up with ideas” from this process, ok. But that to me looks just like sentential logic.

Brett claims/implies Veritula is no better than other online forums; remains “unconvinced it amounts [to] the ‘algorithm’ for rationality.”

Brett claims/implies Veritula is no better than other online forums; remains “unconvinced it amounts [to] the “algorithm” for rationality.”