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Brett says HTV stands in opposition to mysticism.

He says it isn’t vague but then never gets specific about how to tell how hard to vary an explanation is or how to compare explanations this way. Instead, he mistakenly claims that isn’t the purpose of BoI, contrary to the evidence presented to him.

Brett replies saying “‘Hard To Vary’ is not vague. It is a real and useful solution to a philosophical problem. All actual scientific theories are hard to vary.”

I reply that the actual explanation is that people who make progress participate in a tradition of criticism. They’re critical of ideas and try to address all (or almost all) known criticisms. That process may lead to ideas having the feature Brett calls hard to vary, but it’s strictly an effect of that critical activity, not its means.

I had previously linked Brett to my blog post containing that explanation. He liked that reply at the time so he’s definitely seen it, but he’s still ignoring it.

I reply that the actual explanation is that people who make progress participate in a tradition of criticism. They’re critical of ideas and try to address all (or almost all) known criticisms. That process may lead to ideas having the feature Brett calls hard to vary, but it’s strictly an effect of that critical activity, not its means.

I had previously linked Brett to my blog post containing that explanation. He liked that reply at the time so he’s definitely seen it, but he’s still ignoring it.

The actual explanation is that people who make progress participate in a tradition of criticism. They’re critical of ideas and try to address all (or almost all) known criticisms.

I had previously linked Brett to my blog post containing that explanation. He liked that reply at the time so he’s definitely seen it, but he’s still ignoring it.

By saying HTV is central to progress, Brett contradicts his previous claim (#5355) that HTV is just a feature of explanations.

Brett says “Denying that good explanations of the physical world are hard to vary leaves us with *no better explanation* of what has driven progress in science, history and reason broadly.”

Brett’s response basically ignores existing criticisms and sounds like he’s lecturing people who haven’t read Deutsch or Popper. He’s forgotten that I’ve already corrected him on several misattributions of his to Popper and his misinterpretation of BoI re preference formation.

Dirk replies that he “called "glorpiness" bullshit, not HTV” nor Popper. Brett completely missed the point of Dirk’s argument.

Brett replies, among other things: “Calling it ‘bullshit’ doesn’t win the argument. People have been doing that kind of thing with Popper, falsification and conjectural knowledge since the 1930s.”

Dirk replies that the bounty doesn’t ask for essentialist definitions. It instead asks for clarity around how to actually use HTV:

Rejecting essentialism doesn't grant your ideas immunity from clarification. Being vague is not something to be proud of.

By your standard, I could invent any bullshit property of explanations, call it "glorpiness" and when you ask what it means, reply that definitions miss the point.

I reply:

The UI can show a *tentative* result. The result can change with more user input. All input remains criticizable.

The UI can show a *tentative* result. The result can change with more user input. All input remains criticizable. Again, I’m not looking for a criterion of truth or some guarantee of infallibility, which I know can’t exist. I’m looking for a criterion of rationality, which I know can: https://x.com/dchackethal/status/2091272979791659054

The word “again” refers to my previous remarks about fallibility here.

Neil Hudson emphasizes that “the procedure by which HTV is implemented cannot itself become the authority that decides which criticisms count. Its criteria, classifications and outputs would themselves have to remain conjectural and open to independent criticism - including criticism not already licensed by the procedure itself. Otherwise HTV has ceased to be a fallible aid to criticism and has become a final epistemic tribunal.”

I reply that “prompting users for creative input (within reason) would be fine, as the bounty states.”

I reply that “Variations are routinely programmed in genetic programming, no genuine creativity required.”

Neil Hudson says the bounty “would require programming the creative process by which relevant variations are conjectured in the first place.”

Well, no, people do conjecture variations, and so could use HTV themselves, though maybe not program a computer to do it for them.

Why is that a criticism of the bounty and not of HTV? If that’s what’s required to make HTV work, maybe HTV bit off more than it can chew.

Neil Hudson says the bounty “would require programming the creative process by which relevant variations are conjectured in the first place.”

More on the difference between a criterion of rationality and the demand for infallibility: #5336

They’re confused about what BoI actually says about HTV. It says HTV is central to the enlightenment and all rationality, that people use it systematically, that we should choose between explanations based on how hard to vary they are, and so on. According to BoI, HTV is not just another mode of criticism. It’s the central mode explaining progress.

As I say here, I’m personally on board with adopting a weaker form of HTV (or really ETV) where we only treat it as one mode of criticism among many and reject explanations if they have arbitrary components. But again, that’s not what BoI says. The bounty is about taking BoI seriously and rehabilitating HTV as presented there.

Several people have replied to the bounty saying it’s asking for the wrong thing; that HTV is only about rejecting ETV explanations, and that it’s only one mode of criticism among many.

I also reply that “Since a fully programmed replacement for HTV already exists that meets all these conditions [mentioned in #5428], I’m not sure it’d be fair to hold HTV to a lesser standard.”

I reply:

The word “reliably” refers to the claim in BoI that ppl search for HTV explanations “systematically”; that they follow some yet-to-be-specified system to form preferences this way.

The system/program, being man-made, would of course be fallible. Still, since BoI says HTV is at the heart of all rational endeavors, the system must be universal. Hence the requirement for any pair.