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When you have program [sic] you can test a concept (incl. whether it is sufficiently defined to allow a program in the first place). But the other way around does not work: "If one does not have a program, then the concept is underspecified".

That isn’t what I said anyway. No disrespect but frankly I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.

I didn’t read the rest of your comment because you keep talking instead of coding. I’ll delete any further comments of yours that don’t contain code that at least tries to meet the bounty terms.

Yes. When you have program you can test a concept (incl. whether it is sufficiently defined to allow a program in the first place). But the other way around does not work: "If one does not have a program, then the concept is underspecified".

One way to program HTV could be to feed 2 explanations of the same phenomenon (in the form of text strings) to an LLM that is trained on seeking ETV patterns in text (things of the form "and then -all of a sudden- X happened ..." or "and Y (e.g. tears of a God) is kind of like Z (e.g. rain)" ) and seeking HTV patterns in text (e.g. Y happened because of X, with the LLM evaluating whether it is actual causation, whether if X did not happen, Y could not happen).And then the LLM could rank score the HTV-ness of each string (as a first approximation)

Isn't every theory infinitely underspecified ?

No. For example, the theory of addition is sufficiently specified: we have enough info to implement an algorithm of addition on a computer, then run it, test it, correct errors with it, and so on.

We’re getting off topic. I’m currently running a bounty requesting a working implementation of HTV.

If you think you can beat the bounty, do it. I’m not interested in anything else for now.

Also, I would think that criteria for sufficiency must always be subjective ones (e.g. a working computerprogram [sic] cannot be itself a proof of meeting an some objective sufficiency criterium)?

No, there are objective criteria.

Isn't every theory infinitely underspecified ?

No.

Isn't every theory infinitely underspecified ? Also, I would think that criteria for sufficiency must always be subjective ones (e.g. a working computerprogram cannot be itself a proof of meeting an some objective sufficiency criterium)? So I don't see how insufficiency points to a conflict of ideas/ contradiction

The mistake is insufficiency. If someone gives you a recipe for baking a cake but doesn’t specify ingredients or bake time, that’s a problem.

How is that a criticism ? What mistake does it point out/ argue for ?

"HTV is underspecified by Deutsch"

That isn’t a quote. Don’t put things in quotation marks unless they are literal quotations or obviously scare quotes.

It’s a criticism. Deutsch says to use HTV but never explains in sufficient detail how to do that.

That’s only one of several criticisms.

Do you mean "HTV is underspecified by Deutsch" ? But that is not a criticism ? It does not point to a mistake/ contradiction with HTV ?

Elaboration:

The conflict in addiction is between short-term and long-term solutions.

The preference for short-term in addiction is caused by uncertainty/an inability to make predictions based on explanations.

This uncertainty can be real (e.g. increased heroin addiction during the Vietnam War) or learned from insecurity during one's early years.

I think Lucas is right to reject that fragmentation but I don’t think it happens in the first place.

CR universally describes the growth of knowledge as error correction. When such error correction leads to correspondence with the facts (about the physical world), we call that science. When it doesn’t, we call it something else, like art or engineering or skill-building.

It’s all still error correction. There is no fragmentation due to correspondence.

I think Lucas is right to reject that fragmentation but I don’t think it happens in the first place.

CR universally describes the growth of knowledge as error correction. When such error correction leads to correspondence with the facts (about the physical world), we call that science. When it doesn’t, we call it something else, like art or engineering or skill-building.

It’s all still error correction. There is no fragmentation due to correspondence.

Criticising HTV would anyway be the more important first step. Maybe examples of good theories with some ETV aspects (compared to rejected theories) in them could reveal some more.

That could work, yeah. What other criticisms of HTV can you think of?

To make a new version of #3516, revise the idea. See that pencil button?

Criticising HTV would anyway be the more important first step.

The linked blog post has several criticisms of HTV.

I think the first question is whether HTV is a real concept (because if real, it is programmable, and via EC to arbitrary precision)

To understand if it’s real, we need to seek counterexamples/ counterarguments, not demand that a program can be written

What would such a program prove ? Not that HTV is real, but also not that we understand something about HTV.

That’s because Deutsch only says : no program = no understanding. That implies having a basic conception programmed can mean that you understand something. Take the season’s example, you could simulate that replacing Gods would not change the fact that they cry but that tears are not the same as rain etc. Granted, this would only be for 1 example, extending HTV to general examples would be needed. But with such basic program, for 1 example theory, we can’t conclude either that we do not understand anything about HTV.

Criticising HTV would anyway be the more important first step. Maybe examples of good theories with some ETV aspects (compared to rejected theories) in them could reveal some more.

I think the first question is whether HTV is a real concept (because if real, it is programmable, and via EC to arbitrary precision)

To understand if it’s real, we need to seek counterexamples/ counterarguments, not demand that a program can be written

What would such a program prove ? Not that HTV is real, but also not that we understand something about HTV.

That’s because Deutsch only says : no program = no understanding. That implies having a basic conception programmed can mean that you understand something. Take the season’s example, you could simulate that replacing Gods would not change the fact that they cry but that tears are not the same as rain etc. Granted, this would only be for 1 example, extending HTV to general examples would be needed. But with such basic program, for 1 example theory, we can’t conclude either that we do not understand anything about HTV.

But again, criticising HTV is the more important first step. Maybe examples of good theories with some ETV aspects (compared to rejected theories) in them could reveal some more.

Deutsch’s “hard to vary” is a guideline for criticizing explanations, not a step by step decision algorithm.

But he says to use hard to vary as part of a decision-making algorithm. As quoted in my blog post:

“we should choose between [explanations] according to how good they are…: how hard to vary.”

Hey Fitz, welcome to Veritula.

I realize that DD doesn’t think of it in strict, procedural terms, but I just don’t think that’s good enough, for several reasons. One is that it’s too vague, as I explain here. We don’t know how to actually do anything he says to do, beyond broad suggestions.

I think your challenge asks for the wrong kind of thing. Deutsch’s “hard to vary” is a guideline for criticizing explanations, not a step by step decision algorithm. In this paper he says scientific methodology does not prescribe exact procedures, and that “better” explanations are not always totally rankable in a clean, mechanical way. “Hard to vary” mainly means avoiding explanations that can be tweaked to fit anything, because then they explain nothing, so the lack of a universal scoring program does not refute the idea.

THE LOGIC OF EXPERIMENTAL TESTS, PARTICULARLY OF EVERETTIAN QUANTUM THEORY

https://www.constructortheory.org/portfolio/logic-experimental-tests/

From the Paper:

An explanation is better the more it is constrained by the explicanda and by other good explanations,[5] but we shall not need precise criteria here; we shall only need the following: that an explanation is bad (or worse than a rival or variant explanation) to the extent that…

• (i)

  it seems not to account for its explicanda; or

• (ii)

  it seems to conflict with explanations that are otherwise good; or

• (iii)

  it could easily be adapted to account for anything (so it explains nothing).

For something to be a core virtue, it needs to be a virtue that should always be applied in any situation where it can be applied. Forgiveness is not something that should be applied in all relevant situations, so I don’t believe it is a core virtue.

At best it would be an applied virtue, as an expression of Justice.

I actually think people are too forgiving in some ways.

I’ll think about adding it to the applied virtues list.