Search Ideas
1940 ideas match your query.:
It seems more plausible to me that this …
Unclear what “this” refers to.
The purpose of speaking of an embodied agent is to generalize cognition.
It’s possible that the actual purpose of such language is more sinister than that, having to do with static memes: to continue the age-old mystical tradition of portraying man as a pathetic, helpless being at the mercy of a universe he cannot understand or control.
But I’m purely speculating here and would have to think more about it. So I’m not marking this as a criticism (yet).
Again, to me, that’s how programmers think about their video-game characters, and how researchers think about lab rats in mazes. I would avoid talking about people as ‘agents’ and instead treat them as human beings.
To understand what’s relevant to a person, you need to understand their problem situation.
…feelings and other nonrational mental contents…
Feelings aren’t “nonrational” per se. There’s a rational place for feelings. See #3632: I mean no disrespect when I say this but I think you don’t yet understand the notion of rationality I use.
…rational deliberation.
Rationality isn’t the same as deliberation. Deliberation can be part of a rational process but it’s not synonymous with it.
…cannot be reduced to explicit reasons…
Favoring explicit ideas over inexplicit ones is an example of irrationality.
You cannot ride a bike or maintain a relationship by thinking through quantum mechanical or propositional theories to word.
That isn’t what I mean by unity of knowledge. Of course we can’t process our knowledge in its totality at once. That’s necessarily piecemeal. But that doesn’t mean we can’t live a life guided by reason.
If you consider riding a bike an example of irrationality, and reasoning through quantum mechanics an example of rationality, then you haven’t understood Deutsch’s/my stance on rationality. I think you should study it, ask more questions about it, before you’re ready to criticize it.
I don’t think any of this addresses my original criticism that calling people “embodied agent[s]” is dehumanizing. It sounds like we’re studying rats. So what if cog-sci is dehumanizing? That doesn’t make it better.
This is also borrowed from cognitive science.
Yeah, the cog-sci guys don’t understand Popper or epistemology generally. They seem to view minds and brains as input/output machines. But that isn’t how that works.
An example is how brain regions originally used for moving the body through 3D space are repurposed cognitively to "move around" in idea-space. Some anecdotal evidence for this: notice how many movement metaphors structure propositional thinking. We say we're close to the truth, we under-stand, we grasp a concept, we arrive at a conclusion.
That has nothing to do with brain regions. An AGI running on a laptop would use the same phrases.
Several typos here. Please use more care when you write ideas.
Okay. When your revision addresses a criticism, remember to uncheck each version of the criticism underneath the revision form. Try revising the idea again and uncheck the criticisms you’ve addressed. Otherwise, your ideas look more problematic than they are.
perspectively knowledge
I’m not sure that’s what you meant to write. Adverbs don’t go in front of nouns. Maybe something about perception?
It sounds like you have a different conception of knowledge and rationality from Popper’s/Deutsch’s.
There’s a unity of knowledge. Knowledge isn’t fragmented the way you suggest. Rationality means finding common preferences among ideas, ie making different types of ideas jibe. Why should that not be possible for the types of knowledge you mention?
Calling people “embodied agent[s]” like they’re barely superior to video-game characters is dehumanizing and weird.
The quote uses bullet points where the original source uses none.
They can, but the myth says such translations are impossible.
The answer to this question is 'no'. Tarski's theory says that a statement in some language, say English, is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts. And Tarski's theory implies that whenever there is another language, say French, in which we can describe the same fact, then the French statement which describes this fact will be true if and only if the corresponding English statement is true. Thus it is impossible, according to Tarski's theory, that of two statements that are translations of each other, one can be true and the other false. Truth, according to Tarski's theory, is therefore not dependent on language, or relative to language.
Fallibilism refutes the relativism on which the myth rests because fallibilism provides an absolute standard:
[T]here exists a very different attitude towards absolute truth, in fact a fallibilist attitude. It stresses the fact that the mistakes we make can be absolute mistakes, in the sense that our theories can be absolutely false – that they can fall short of the truth. Thus to the fallibilist the notion of truth, and that of falling short of the truth, may represent absolute standards – even though we can never be certain that we are living up to them. But since they may serve as a kind of steering compass, they may be of decisive help in critical discussions.
Popper then says that Alfred Tarsky revived this notion of absolute truth.
Cultural relativism and the doctrine of the closed framework are serious obstacles to the readiness to learn from others. They are obstacles to the method of accepting some institutions, modifying others, and rejecting what is bad.
The myth also stems from cultural relativism: the idea that truth is different for different cultures and that “there is no absolute or objective truth, but rather one truth for the Greeks, another for the Egyptians, still another for the Syrians, and so on.” (P. 45)
Popper opposes this relativism. He says it’s devastating when it comes to the administration of justice, say. “[W]e should try to understand and to compare [different cultures and conceptual frameworks]. We should try to find out who has the better institutions. And we should try to learn from them.” (P. 46)
The myth stems from a “disappointed over-optimism concerning the powers of reason …”. (P. 44)
People think truth should win decisively. But discussions usually don’t lead to such a decisive victory (see #3568). So then people become pessimistic about the fruitfulness of discussions.
“Truth is hard to come by.” (P. 44)
Don’t view discussions like debate club. The goal isn’t to win a debate or to convert others.
[E]ven the slightest clarification of one's problem - even the smallest contribution made towards a clearer understanding of one's own position or that of one's opponent - is a great success.
And:
[I]t is enough, more than enough, if we feel that we can see things in a new light or that we have got even a little nearer to the truth.