Search Ideas

Too complicated/ambitious for a first implementation. Start piecemeal. But could be a promising approach if reactions to ideas as a whole end up being ambiguous (#2166).

Doesn’t need to be arbitrary emojis, it could just be a handful that you choose, each being a different flavour of acknowledgement.

Thumbs up,
Thinking emoji,
Mind-blown emoji,
Etc.

Edit: X spaces are an example of a limited set of emojis working well.

I can speculate ahead of time, but I might implement reactions and find that this is not an issue after all. And if it is, I can either retire the feature or improve it.

This seems both complicated and restrictive.

Doesn’t need to be arbitrary emojis, it could just be a handful that you choose, each being a different flavour of acknowledgement.

Thumbs up,
Thinking emoji,
Mind-blown emoji,
Etc.

I like the acknowledged/unacknowledged idea.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

Maybe it does. Any kind of reaction is a response that turns a criticism from ‘pending’¹ to not ‘pending’ anymore.

But this doesn’t address the scenario where someone wants to react to no particular paragraph but the idea as a whole.

Agreed, thanks. Fixed in #4095. “Since decision-making follows the same logic as truth-seeking, you can use these trees to make decisions, too.”

Agreed, thanks. Fixed in #4095. “Since decision-making follows the same logic as truth-seeking, you can use these trees to make decisions, too.”

Agreed, thanks. Fixed in #4095. “Since decision-making follows the same logic as truth-seeking, you can use these trees to make decisions, too.”

How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) can help you live a life guided exclusively by reason.

To reason, within any well-defined epistemology, means to follow and apply that epistemology. Unreason, or whim, is an undue departure from it. Epistemology is the study of knowledge – basically, the study of what helps knowledge grow, what hinders its growth, and related questions.

Veritula follows, and helps you apply, Karl Popper’s epistemology, Critical Rationalism. It’s a continuation of the Athenian tradition of criticism and the only known epistemology without major flaws.¹

Critical Rationalism says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold guesses and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these guesses in order to solve problems, correct errors, and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach. Critical Rationalism is a fallibilist philosophy: there is no criterion of truth to determine with certainty whether some idea is true or false. We all make mistakes, and by an effort, we can correct them to get a little closer to the truth. Rejecting all forms of mysticism and the supernatural, Veritula recognizes that progress is both possible and desirable, and that rational means are the only way to make progress.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Veritula provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is problematic. It does not tell you what to think – it teaches you how to think.

Consider an idea I:

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              I

Since it has no criticisms, we tentatively consider I unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be irrational to reject it, consider it problematic, or act counter to it. (See #2281 for more details on rational decision-making.)

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

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              I
              |
              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism 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 (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

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                   Revise
              I ------------> I2
              |
              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you cannot think of a way to revise I, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it with a new criticism, C2:

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              I
              |
              C1
              |
              C2

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

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, considering it to be unproblematic, etc.

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

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              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.

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

Since decision-making follows the same logic as truth-seeking, you can use these trees to make decisions, too. Veritula implements unanimous consent as defined by Taking Children Seriously, a parenting philosophy that builds on Popper’s epistemology. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a rational decision – meaning a decision you’ll be happy with. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no pending criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and 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 can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Comments that aren’t criticisms – eg follow-up questions or otherwise neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, ancillary ideas do not invert their respective parents’ statuses. They are neutral.

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

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that people have same discussions over and over again. 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 pending criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing all pending criticisms.

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.

You could think up a design for a self-replicating machine and then build it. Assuming you made no critical mistakes, you have made a self-replicator that hasn’t self-replicated yet.

It is considered a replicator based on what it can do, rather than on what it has done.

I think the same logic applies because it’s not just memes that can have static and dynamic replication strategies – ideas in one mind can have those replication strategies, too.

I call a mind dominated by either replication strategy a dynamic or static mind, respectively.

Advocacy is not the same as telling people what to think.

Because decision-making is a special case of, ie follows the same logic as, truth-seeking, you can use such trees for decision-making, too.

This sentence is difficult to follow. Could it be made simpler or broken up?

Is there a reason the analogy follows from open vs closed societies, to open vs closed people? A society is not a person.

Maybe there could be some type of guide for a user’s ideas generally. It takes him through all of his controversial ideas and let’s him either counter-criticize pending criticisms or revise his ideas, one at a time. And maybe the user could also choose to ‘abandon’ a controversial idea, in which case the guide would not show the idea again (unless maybe there was some new activity on the idea?).

Implemented as of 39c2686.

Then people could occasionally check the search page for ideas they think they can rationally hold but actually can’t. And then they can work on addressing criticisms. A kind of ‘mental housekeeping’ to ensure they never accidentally accept problematic ideas as true.

Then people could occasionally check the search page for ideas they think they can rationally hold but actually can’t. And then they can work on addressing criticisms. A kind of ‘mental housekeeping’ to ensure they never accidentally accept problematic ideas as true.

Some people work in professions where sharing certain opinions puts them at risk of being fired.

Also, there are people living under repressive regimes.

Some reputational concerns are legitimate, and Veritula should accommodate them to promote free speech.

People could use Veritula to establish that intellectual presence and put their name (real or not) behind their ideas.

Would it be any harder than verifying someone’s name? It’s not like I check people’s ID.

There are ways. For example, they could use an established account to reach out.