And is the "medium" you speak of conspiratorial thinking, or something else? — Leontiskos

I just suggested watching Owens on Charlie Kirk for two reasons. The first is as a polished example of the new media. Tucker Carlson and Fox News in general turned conspiracy theory into a powerfully profitable and self-sustaining industry. Now you have huge money going into self-organising YouTube communities where the viewers get to be part of the reporting team.

Everyone is tied into a tight circle where the skill at discovering conspiracies improves for all. You are not just passively viewing Fox and its weirdos. You are being drawn into the industry in an active way.

The other thing is then how there is so much information to keep the story going. Every event has so much cell phone footage from so many angles, or citizens sleuths running around interviewing each other, immediately finding all the strange coincidences that are going to be there to be found. With so many involved on the ground, there are swiftly any number of dots for a conspiracy theory to join.

I think that's part of the reason why he got so quiet after seeing his own theories debunked by his own authorities. — Leontiskos

Even months ago, AI gave a lot of shit answers. Good only for a laugh. But now it is becoming very useful for self factchecking.

Of course, you then have to be in the habit of self factchecking. :smile:

Banno feels like he is here to run the cosy introductory philosophy tutorials of his fond memory. That would be why he treats us like confused first year students having to retread the well worn paths of ancient debates. We are allowed to speak, but as tutor, he gets to steer and gently reveal our neophyte errors of thought. We should be warmly appreciative of his condescension. And learn to stick closely to areas where he has already prepared the answers.

What's your point? Are you just acknowledging what I said about background beliefs being involved in our epistemic judgements? — Relativist

The point is clear, I hope - evidence is always equivocal. There is always a point about which folk may disagree.

I contend that more credence should be given to claims that are supported by evidence, than those that are purely speculation. — Relativist

No one would disagree ( :wink: ). At issue is how "supported by evidence" is payed out. From Quine-Duhem, we see that there are always ways to question the evidence. So the issue becomes when questioning the evidence is reasonable, and when it isn't. And it seems there is often no clear clean place at which to draw the line.

Hence,

Plausibility is a factor in epistemic judgement. — Relativist

And not the result of the application of an algorithmic method. I think you see this, but perhaps what's been said here will better articulate it.

Feyerabend's conclusion is that "Anything Goes" in choosing between hypotheses. That's too far. The trouble with "anything goes" is that we are obliged to choose, and so if anything goes, we may as well choose the easiest path, which will be what we already hold true - again, a recipe for confirmation bias. The trouble with "anything goes" is that it will amount to "everything stays the same".

But instead we can admit that the process is fraught with difficulty, and not so clean and clear as some theorists would suppose. Scientific method is not algorithmic, but communal. It is human, involving the interaction of many, many people in an organised and cooperative fashion. I'd argue that this process involves not interfering with the work of others, responding to their claims in a way that is relevant, and doing so publicly; basic liberal virtues. Values not on show in places in this very thread.

Part of that is the issue of demarcation, the separation between science and non-science, which relates to your discussion of conspiracy theories. The idea is that conspiracy theories are not scientific; they do not conform to scientific methods. Now this is I think pretty much toe right sentiment, but given that we are unable to set out what that scientific method is quite as clearly as some suppose, and hence that the difficulty in setting out what counts as a conspiracy theory and what doesn't, a bit of humility might be needed. It won't help to just tell a conspiracy believer that their theory does not match the evidence, because for them it does.

Just noticed an article in the recent Philosophy Now that is germane: Popper, Science & Democracy.

I just suggested watching Owens on Charlie Kirk for two reasons. The first is as a polished example of the new media. — apokrisis

Okay, I will have a look. I generally don't watch conspiratorial material because it causes the algorithm to give me more of the same, and this muddies up my feed (and I don't have a VPN to fully insulate myself). But I'll suck it up for once. :razz:

The other thing is then how there is so much information to keep the story going. Every event has so much cell phone footage from so many angles, or citizens sleuths running around interviewing each other, immediately finding all the strange coincidences that are going to be there to be found. With so many involved on the ground, there are swiftly any number of dots for a conspiracy theory to join. — apokrisis

Fascinating.

Even months ago, AI gave a lot of shit answers. Good only for a laugh. But now it is becoming very useful for self factchecking. — apokrisis

I tend to use it in areas where the programming and the training would tend to produce an accurate response, but I think it is deceptively difficult to gauge its reliability. The manner in which we vet and eventually come to trust an authority turns out to be a rather complex process.

Banno feels like he is here to run the cosy introductory philosophy tutorials of his fond memory. That would be why he treats us like confused first year students having to retread the well worn paths of ancient debates. We are allowed to speak, but as tutor, he gets to steer and gently reveal our neophyte errors of thought. We should be warmly appreciative of his condescension. And learn to stick closely to areas where he has already prepared the answers. — apokrisis

I can vouch for that a hundred times over. Awhile back there was a wild thread where Banno chastised his wayward students, insinuating that the deplorables were forcing him into private message conversations. The thread didn't go well for Banno and had to be closed by the mods, which I ahead of time. :lol:

Your engaging in yet an another conversation about me instead of about my arguments is gratifying. It implies you have no were left to go.

- You've been failing to answer arguments and even posts for months now. No one is holding their breath for you to engage in philosophy. .

Of course! I'll go further: discussing our reasoning with others can help us improve our judgements, by getting additional facts before us, and alternative theories. It forces us to think through our reasoning with more rigor, and to justify the various intermediate judgements that lead to the position we're defending. — Relativist

Okay, I agree.

Good, but do you also agree that if everything is an IBE then there is no intelligibility given that no differentiation is possible? — Leontiskos

Absolutely not. I can't imagine why you'd suggest no differentiation is possible. Do you worry about losing your keys in an interdimensional portal? Do you worry your spouse might be an extra-terrestrial? If you do not differentiate, how can you ever make ANY decision? — Relativist

If everything is an IBE, then what sense does it make to exhort someone to engage in IBE? Or to argue in favor of IBEs?

Okay, good. So would we say that, at least in some cases, there is the real explanation and nominal explanations are better or worse depending on how well they approximate the real explanation? If so, then an IBE is presupposing the ontological existence of an aitia/cause/explanation. — Leontiskos

Yes, to the 1st question (I think).

I don't understand the 2nd. What's the ontological status of descriptions of events in the public sphere? What does it matter? The appropriate objective is truth, and this is irrespective of one's preferred theory of truth, theory of mind, or the metaphysical foundation of reality. — Relativist

Let me put it this way: if some explanations are better and some are worse, then what are they better or worse in relation to?

For example, if I run a 100m dash in 16 seconds and you run it in 13 seconds, by what standard do we say that you did better than I? Isn't it by the standard, "The shorter the time, the better" (which is equivalent to, "The faster, the better")?

1. If there are better and worse explanations, then they must be better or worse relative to some standard
2. The standard is the true explanation
3. The true explanation is not an IBE
4. Therefore, not everything is an IBE

If Sherlock Holmes is working a case then he has any number of candidate theses floating around his head. Some are better than others. Also, something actually happened in reality that he is trying to understand. The best explanation will (arguably*) be the one which most closely approximates the thing that happened in reality. That is what his spectrum of worst/worse/better/best is aiming at.

Note too that there may be a witness who knows exactly what happened. They know the answer to the question that Holmes is asking. I don't think we would call their knowledge an IBE. They have the answer to the question, "What happened here?," and that answer is not an IBE.

My point is that if you try to make everything an IBE, then IBEs make no sense. An inference to the best explanation presupposes the possibility of the real explanation. Depending on our questions and their level of specificity, a single real explanation may not be possible, but in many cases it is possible, and especially so in a theoretical or conceptual sense.

This general problem in abduction is called being "the best of a bad lot". — Relativist

Okay, sure. I don't want to get into that tangent, as I think it might take us too far afield.


* "Arguably" in the sense that we don't have to get into the subtopic of better-relative-to-available-evidence vs. better-relative-to-the-reality-being-investigated.

You've been failing to answer arguments and even posts for months now. — Leontiskos

From you, yes.

Awhile back there was a wild thread where Banno chastised his wayward students, insinuating that the deplorables were forcing him into private message conversations. — Leontiskos

Yes. The advantage of PF over the more focused private chats one might have with one's peers is that it is so wide open and the challenges come from all directions. That's what I like. Having to fend off all possible viewpoints. The uncontrolled element is the greatest part of the appeal.

But to come on PF and find someone fussing about like a prim substitute teacher, trying to make a class of larrikins stick to the kind of syllabus that would have been acceptable to a 1960s Oxbridge don, is a major irritation.

Your engaging in yet an another conversation about me instead of about my arguments is gratifying. It implies you have no were left to go. — Banno

Oh and that is the other annoying thing. Everything truly has to be about him in egocentric fashion. He really is gratified as even being scorned is still being noticed.

And as you say, show us the argument. Earn the respect. Take your chances along with the rest of us.

Everything truly has to be about him in egocentric fashion. — apokrisis

And will continue to be so, as long as you two talk about me rather then the topic at hand.

You don't have to make this a conversation about me. But you choose to. You can stop any time you like.

I didn't start the conversation about me. But I am happy to encourage it.

I didn't start the conversation about me. — Banno

:lol: :lol: :lol: