Search ideas

As I write in the first link, the videos “mostly show bugs and nonsensical behavior, things that wouldn’t happen if animals were sentient.”

P.S. Dirk was here

Criticism accepted

Superseded by #426. This comment was generated automatically.

Done as of cc8e3e9. It now says ‘x unchanged lines collapsed’. See eg this activity.

Done as of a02e6c4, see eg this activity.

Would be neat linking to a specific activity.

Done as of cc8e3e9. It now says ‘x unchanged lines collapsed’.

Diffs should omit unchanged lines. Maybe just leave up to three lines around changed content for context – that’s how git does it.

Superseded by #420. This comment was generated automatically.

Now that there are user profiles (#408), each profile can have a tab for unproblematic ideas. Among all the ideas a user has submitted, those are the ones he can rationally hold. And another tab for problematic ideas, ie ideas he has submitted that he cannot rationally hold.

Now that there are user profiles (#408), each profile can have a tab for unproblematic ideas. Among all the ideas a user has submitted, those are the ones he can rationally hold. And another tab for problematic ideas, ie ideas he cannot rationally hold.

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is true or false.

It follows Karl Popper’s epistemology, which says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold conjectures and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these conjectures in order to correct errors and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Consider an idea I:

              I

Since it has no criticisms, it is considered unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it, tentatively consider it true, and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be irrational to reject it. Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

              I
              |
              C1

The idea is now considered problematic for as long as C1 is not addressed. How do you address it? You can revise I so that C1 doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone I. Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas. Alternatively, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it:

              I
              |
              C1
              |
              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, it might look like this:

              I
           /  |  \
         C11 C12 C13
         / \       \
       C21 C22     C23
                   / \
                 C31 C32

In this tree, I is considered problematic. Although C11 has been neutralized by C21 and C22, C12 still needs to be addressed. In addition, C23 would have neutralized C13, but C31 and C32 make C23 problematic, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

But you don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula marks ideas accordingly, automatically.

Because decision-making is a special case of, or follows the same logic as, truth-seeking, such trees can be used for decision-making, too. When you’re planning your next move, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a decision. Again, it’s rational to go with the idea that has no outstanding criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible.

Separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms do apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit.

Ideas that are neither criticisms nor top-level conjectures – eg follow-up questions or neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, they do not invert their respective parent’s truth status. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the truth status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, the rational course of action is to adopt the displayed truth status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that the same discussions are had over and over again, sometimes by the same people. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has outstanding criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by addressing them.

Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.

There’s a bug where hovering over a link in the markdown preview removes the form and all typed text. Hovering over a link should have no effect on the form.

Done as of 8d3eed0, see eg the version history of #414.

Superseded by #414. This comment was generated automatically.

Since the diff processes the text as a single line, the hunk header is always going to say either @@ -0,0 +1 @@ (for the first version) or @@ -1 +1 @@ (for every subsequent version). Meaning the header provides no real information. So I might as well remove it.

Since the diff processes the text as a single line, the diff information is always going to say either @@ -0,0 +1 @@ (for the first version) or @@ -1 +1 @@ (for every subsequent version). Meaning it provides no real information. So I might as well remove that part.

Superseded by #411. This comment was generated automatically.

I also don't mind the bulk criticism.

Even if the person submitting a post doesn’t mind bulk criticism, others still have a harder time discerning which ideas in the post are true/salvageable and which should be discarded. Meaning error correction is harder.

It helps when critics quote the part they’re criticizing, like I’m doing above, but the responsibility still lies with the original poster.

Done as of b3c06c4, see eg my profile.

There should be user profiles.

Superseded by #406. This comment was generated automatically.

I also don't mind the bulk criticism.

Even if the person submitting a post doesn’t mind bulk criticism, others still have a harder time discerning which ideas in the post are true/salvageable and which should be discarded. Meaning error correction is harder.

It helps when critics quote which part they’re criticizing, like I’m doing above, but the responsibility still lies with the original poster.

I also don't mind the bulk criticism.

Even if the person submitting an idea doesn’t mind bulk criticism, others still have a harder time discerning which parts of the idea are true/salvageable and which should be discarded. Meaning error correction is harder.

It helps when critics quote which part they’re criticizing, like I’m doing above, but the responsibility still lies with the original poster.

I agree many people would make the same error and that it’s a good idea to see how things play out when it does happen. There’s going to be a learning curve for new users. I will probably just point it out every time. I may even implement a feature where ‘AI’ analyzes text and helpfully points out to users that they’re about to submit multiple claims at once.