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…you only think we need it to explain progress in science.
No, I think progress in science is explained by error correction. The aim of science is correspondence. There’s a difference between aims and means.
Are you asking if there can be correspondence between two abstractions? Or between a physical object and an abstraction?
Only 5-10% of gold's value is tied to its industrial use (per chatgpt).
ChatGPT is notoriously unreliable and known for making stuff up. I recommend using a different, human-made source. Should be easy to find one using your search engine of choice.
The reason to back a currency with gold or some other commodity is that the commodity has other utility aside from being used as money. This sets a floor on the price, making it a store of value.
It looks like you were trying to quote the parent idea. Be sure to use either quotation marks or, for blockquotes, start each paragraph with a > sign. That’s the markdown way to specify a blockquote so it gets the red border on the left.
For example, if you type:
> this will appear as a blockquote
…it will turn into:
this will appear as a blockquote
Check the preview to correct errors as you draft a reply.
See here. Lucas had asked:
Can you say more about why we need correspondence to make sense of the concept of self-similarity? I don't see why. And it seems to me that self-similarity is all we need to make sense of the universality of computation.
My response below. For others reading this, Erik has also since started a dedicated discussion on the topic of correspondence: https://veritula.com/discussions/is-correspondence-true-in-cr
The FoR glossary entry on self-similarity from chapter 4 reads:
self-similarity Some parts of physical reality (such as symbols, pictures or human thoughts) resemble other parts. The resemblance may be concrete, as when the images in a planetarium resemble the night sky; more importantly, it may be abstract, as when a statement in quantum theory printed in a book correctly explains an aspect of the structure of the multiverse.
The way I read that, it means the images in the planetarium correspond to the night sky. Otherwise we wouldn’t consider them similar.
From chapter 6, on the universality of computation and how “various parts of reality can resemble one another”:
The set of all behaviours and responses of that one object exactly mirrors the set of all behaviours and responses of all other physically possible objects and processes.
That means there is one-to-one correspondence between the behaviors and responses of the first object and those of all the other objects. This is basically another way to describe the self-similarity property of the universe.
From chapter 10, in the context of mathematics (italics mine):
… the physical behaviour of the symbols corresponds to the behaviour of the abstractions they denote.
(The same is true of the physical parts of a Turing machine harnessing the self-similarity property of the universe to correspond to other physical objects.)
From chapter 14, in the context of the creation of scientific knowledge (which, AFAIK, DD views as increasing correspondence):
The creation of useful knowledge by science … must be understood as the emergence of the self-similarity that is mandated by a principle of physics, the Turing principle.
It’s been ages since I read FoR so I’m relying on word searches in the ebook but it’s full of these links between self-similarity and correspondence.
a knowledge
I don’t think it’s correct to use the word ‘knowledge’ with an indeterminate article (meaning ‘a’ or ‘an’).
You could say ‘Finding problems that some knowledge addresses…’
Presumably, Zelalem wanted to delete the idea. Veritula purposely doesn’t have that functionality. In the future, Zelalem, just leave the idea and criticize it for being outdated or superseded or whatever reason you have for rejecting it.
When we try to solve a problem, we might find out that we've already solved it, but that only happens after we have looked at the problem.
That still means we solved the problem before we encountered it.
I understand you want to stress that we usually solve a problem after we identify it. Your text already covers that. So I’d still just remove the sentence “We can't solve a problem we haven't encountered yet.” because it’s not true.
We can't solve a problem we haven't encountered yet.
Some theories have enough reach to solve problems we haven’t encountered or even considered yet. I would just remove this sentence.
…because all knowledge contains errors.
This isn’t true, see #2374.
Should credit Popper where applicable (with a disclaimer that any errors are yours, if you want to be careful).
Knowledge, therefore, grows by addressing the errors we encounter as we encounter them.
The part “as we encounter them” implies that we address every error the minute we find it. That isn’t true. Some errors take a long time to address. We also have to prioritize some errors over others because they are more important or more urgent or both.
Knowledge, therefore, grows by addressing the errors we encounter as we encounter them.
Remove ‘therefore’
I would prioritize clarity over sounding poetic.
obviously obvious
Did you mean to say ‘obviously true’?
Fallibilism is the idea that all of our knowledge contains errors…
This is a common mischaracterization of fallibilism. It’s actually a form of cynicism. See https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/don-t-take-fallibilism-too-far
In reality, fallibilism is the view that there is no criterion to say with certainty what’s true and what’s false; that, as a result, we inevitably make mistakes; and that some of our knowledge is mistaken at any given time. But not all of it.
Veritula cautions against making multiple points at once so as to avoid ‘bulk criticism’. But people can write as much as they want in a single idea. For example, you can find several long-form articles in ‘How Does Veritula Work?’. It just depends on how confident people are in their ideas, and how much they have practiced using Veritula.
I would also consider financially supporting someone who gave me good reason to think they had the vision, the motivation, and the technical skill to create it.
I’m interested. Let’s continue this discussion privately for now. Email me: dh at dennishackethal.com
Memes and genes are the same type of knowledge.
That doesn’t sound right to me. Can you elaborate?
Yeah I could see some knowledge in genes corresponding to certain facts about reality, like knowledge about flight corresponding to facts about certain laws of physics.
… "let ideas die in their place" …
Popper said we can let our theories die in our place.
Careful with quotation marks. Either match the source (and cite it) or properly indicate modifications – or don’t use quotation marks.
If America is an option (you mention Austin), the non-coastal Western US could work.
A lot of those states get good water from the Sierra Nevada or the Rocky Mountains.
Those states have either no or low state income tax and largely leave residents alone. (For example, the difference between CA and NV during Covid was night and day.)
Southern NV gets a lot of sun throughout the year. NV has no state income tax.
I’ve heard good things about the area surrounding Las Vegas, though I haven’t been myself.
New Mexico could be good for high altitude (I think).