Search Ideas

The proposal does not say whether conduct from before the rule is adopted can count as an offence for existing members. Without a prospective effective date, members could be warned or banned for conduct that was not covered by this rule when it occurred.

The proposal should require the statement and claimed match to be recorded and open to criticism before they can support a warning.

There’s a better Popper quote on https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/cross-check/the-paradox-of-karl-popper/

Should it have been submitted as a criticism of #4460?

I don’t think so, no, since it reads more like a suggestion/extension than anything wrong with #4460.

(Have I misunderstood that part of #4460?)

Slightly, yes. I had in mind a scenario where someone violates a rule and then submits a criticism of #4460 so he can claim to have disabled it with a pending criticism. As in: people can’t conveniently criticize #4460 only because they have reason to personally take issue with it.

A new rule could help set expectations. I don’t think the general public would view repeatedly forgetting the outcome of a discussion as bad faith, for example.

I think this is already covered by #5460:

… sometimes we have a nagging feeling that something about the outcome of a discussion just isn’t quite right, but we can’t put our finger on it. In such a situation, when asked about one’s stance, it’s rational to say something like: ‘Although I personally disagree, at the current state of the discussion, idea X (link to the idea on V) is (or is not) rationally adoptable.’

I don’t see a clash here. Being irrational is anyone’s prerogative. It’s also others’ prerogative to avoid them as a result.

Fair point, I’ve revised #2201.

Make a reasonable effort to make the criticism explicit so it can be brought into direct conflict with the parent idea and examined further. In the meantime, do consider it a pending criticism and don’t act on the parent idea.

You can also submit a placeholder criticism saying something like ‘I have an inexplicit criticism of this idea.’ (Unless such a criticism would block others from adopting the idea – do this only in, say, discussions about personal matters, private discussions, or discussions about matters of taste.)

You can also submit a placeholder criticism saying something like ‘I have an inexplicit criticism of this idea.’

But then that would block everyone else from adopting the idea. See #5465.

No, they don’t need to look up every single idea beforehand. The kind of scenario I have in mind is more like recent discussions on X. Say you send someone links to resources that already address their argument preemptively. But then you can tell they flat out ignore those resources because next they ask questions or raise objections those resources already address as well. And they do this repeatedly. At some point it’s just patently irrational and no productive discussion is possible.

Long term, I do want to create a culture where people get in the habit of looking up the state of a discussion on V the same way they’d look up the meaning of a word in a dictionary. Users who’ve been told that can be held to that standard.

But even someone new to V should know to look up the state of a discussion they themself have participated in.

I want to improve the search function for independent reasons. (Though I just tried it and found results for three out of four sample topics, which should be enough to tip somebody off that something may have been discussed before.)

If somebody were to make a convincing case that they wouldn’t have started a duplicate discussion if it weren’t for a subpar search feature, I’d let that slide. But if it happened repeatedly, even after you point them to the ideas directly or explain how the search feature works, then that wouldn’t be good enough.

Veritula’s rule applies to an idea “as written”. An off-platform statement may be different because of its wording or context. How would a moderator decide that it is the same idea as a particular Veritula post?

Dirk replies to a bunch more points Brett has made. I won’t get into them, at least not for now. Brett’s previous arguments have too many pending criticisms, and he ignores them, so tracking additional points won’t help. Brett isn’t in truth-seeking mode, he’s in defend-Deutsch mode. If I see Brett addressing any pending criticisms on X after all, I’ll update V accordingly.

I think that was the intention behind it, but its effect has been the opposite, to an extent. Hand-wavy referrals to explanations being HTV and rationality being synonymous with creativity, without explaining in detail how these things work, turn them into a black box that may as well work magically to give us the answers we want.

Being rational requires a criterion of rationality that is clear and precise enough so you know when you stray from it. HTV isn’t.

He says it isn’t vague but then never gets specific about how to tell how hard to vary an explanation is or how to compare explanations this way. Instead, he mistakenly claims that isn’t the purpose of BoI, contrary to the evidence presented to him.

I reply that the actual explanation is that people who make progress participate in a tradition of criticism. They’re critical of ideas and try to address all (or almost all) known criticisms. That process may lead to ideas having the feature Brett calls hard to vary, but it’s strictly an effect of that critical activity, not its means.

I had previously linked Brett to my blog post containing that explanation. He liked that reply at the time so he’s definitely seen it, but he’s still ignoring it.

By saying HTV is central to progress, Brett contradicts his previous claim (#5355) that HTV is just a feature of explanations.

Brett’s response basically ignores existing criticisms and sounds like he’s lecturing people who haven’t read Deutsch or Popper. He’s forgotten that I’ve already corrected him on several misattributions of his to Popper and his misinterpretation of BoI re preference formation.

Dirk replies that he “called "glorpiness" bullshit, not HTV” nor Popper. Brett completely missed the point of Dirk’s argument.

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

Rejecting essentialism doesn't grant your ideas immunity from clarification. Being vague is not something to be proud of.

By your standard, I could invent any bullshit property of explanations, call it "glorpiness" and when you ask what it means, reply that definitions miss the point.

I reply:

The UI can show a *tentative* result. The result can change with more user input. All input remains criticizable.

The UI can show a *tentative* result. The result can change with more user input. All input remains criticizable. Again, I’m not looking for a criterion of truth or some guarantee of infallibility, which I know can’t exist. I’m looking for a criterion of rationality, which I know can: https://x.com/dchackethal/status/2091272979791659054

The word “again” refers to my previous remarks about fallibility here.

I reply that “prompting users for creative input (within reason) would be fine, as the bounty states.”

I reply that “Variations are routinely programmed in genetic programming, no genuine creativity required.”

Well, no, people do conjecture variations, and so could use HTV themselves, though maybe not program a computer to do it for them.