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Historically, Western culture is the result of culture clash between Romans and Greeks, Greeks and Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians. (P. 38)

Such clashes led Xenophanes draw important epistemological conclusions about truth and guesswork (p. 39).

Historically, Western culture is the result of culture clash between Romans and Greeks, Greeks and Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians. (P. 38)

Such clashes led Xenophanes draw important epistemological conclusions about truth and guesswork.

Historically, Western culture is the result of culture clash between Romans and Greeks, Greeks and Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians. (P. 38)

When ideas “conflict, then at best only one of them can be true.” (P. 39)

Even without a common framework, people usually share problems, “such as the problems of survival.” (P. 38) But even if they don’t, they can still learn from each other. Success “will depend largely on our goodwill, and to some extent also on our historical situation, and on our problem situation.”

A fruitful discussion between people of different frameworks is possible, but we should not expect too much (p. 37).

Don’t expect to find agreement! If we learn “new and interesting arguments”, then even if they are “inconclusive”, the discussion is still fruitful. It can take “time and patience”.

[W]e should look with tolerance and even with respect upon customs or conventional laws that differ from our own.

Popper grants that the myth has a “kernel of truth” (p. 35). A fruitful discussion can be hard without a common framework. But it’s not impossible.

A discussion is fruitful if people learn. The more their views differ, the more they can learn from each other!

The myth Popper criticizes, in one sentence:

A rational and fruitful discussion is impossible unless the participants share a common framework of basic assumptions or, at least, unless they have agreed on such a framework for the purpose of the discussion.

By ‘framework’, Popper means an intellectual framework (as opposed to, say, certain attitudes like a desire to find truth).

Tradition is important, but:

[O]rthodoxy is the death of knowledge, since the growth of knowledge depends entirely on the existence of disagreement.

(defn add [a b]
  (if (zero? b)
    a
    (recur (inc a) (dec b))))

Do you have examples of such algorithms?

Always, because of the underlying uncertainty about the future. Please criticise!

If the court can force people to be jurors because it needs jurors, why can’t it also force people to be judges, lawyers, prosecutors, etc? Why can’t it force carpenters to make tables, chairs, and gavels? Etc. Why draw the line at jurors? Seems absurd.

Interesting. Do you think the conflict is always between short vs long-term preferences, or could there be addictive conflicts between two short-term preferences or even two long-term preferences?

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.