My only point about induction is that it doesn't prove anything. — Pfhorrest

OK, I thought you were wanting to say more than that. Sure, induction is not deduction: Hume made that point more than 200 years ago.

It remains the case that inductive thinking is indispensable to our endeavors to discover comprehensive models of natural processes which are consistent and coherently incorporated into a 'master model'.

We might be free to choose arbitrary hypotheses which are not derived from inductive thinking, but although such hypotheses, as Popper points out, may inadvertently lead to inductively based discoveries and theories; they remain peripheral, if not completely dispensable, to the process, it would seem.

The point that you seem to be glossing over is that it is on the basis of inductive thinking that we decide which of the range of possibilities we can imagine are "far-fetched".

You'll tend to shrug off some of this as if it's okay to have a general theory and a practical way of applying it -- but that's not okay in this particular domain, as ought to be obvious. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't see what's obvious, or what particular domain you're referring to.

A large part of all critical rationalism, including mine, is that there's a lot of freedom that's rationally permitted in the epistemological process, something I'd think Isaac and Banno would like. Using the epistemological-deontological analogy again, we normally recognize it as a crazy extreme to either say that every action is either mandatory or fobidden, nothing merely permitted but omissible; or conversely to say that absolutely anything goes and there's nothing at all that is mandatory nor forbidden, everything is permitted and omissible. I'm applying that same standard to epistemology as we ordinarily do to deontology, saying that there's a lot of the process where you don't have to do it one way or another, you can do it however you like, and so long as you stay within the wide bounds of the few things where it does matter that you do it one way instead of another, you'll be fine.

Point being, the fact that I haven't specified exactly how to do every step of the epistemological process is a feature, not a bug. I'm not trying to give mandatory procedure for every "what do I do now?" question that comes up in every investigation. For a lot of those questions, the answer is just "try something, anything", and then if that doesn't work out, the parts of the procedure that are specified will eventually tell us that.

For instance, how are the background assumptions and theoretical commitments in your big conjunction ordered? Order doesn't matter for conjunctions. In what order are they examined? Is there a method, or is it more like the random 'fishing a belief out of a bag' I had above? — Srap Tasmaner

It's like "fishing out of a bag", but there's a rough natural order to even the process of fishing something out of a bag. You reach in blind, not knowing what's in the bag or aiming to grab any one thing in particular, but you're more likely to seize onto one of the largest things in the bag first, and only after all the bigger things have been pulled out will you end up grabbing the tiny pebbles and grains of sand in the bottom of the bag.

And what does it mean to examine a background assumption and see if it holds? Is that a logical process or is investigative, gathering more information? — Srap Tasmaner

A little bit of both. Reach in the bag of assumptions and grab the first thing you find -- probably some big obvious thing. Ask yourself, "without this, would I have expected these results?" (e.g. "if there were dirt on the antenna, contra my implicit assumptions, would I expect to see this signal?") If no, put it back and fish something else out until you get a "yes".

If yes, look for something that would test the new set of assumptions. (e.g. "do I see dirt on the antenna, as I would expect to if I thought there was dirt on the antenna?"). If the test is successful (i.e. you don't see anything unexpected anymore), then you're good to go for now.

If the test fails (e.g. you don't see dirt on the antenna, as you would expect to if you thought there was dirt on the antenna), you could start fishing around the bag of assumptions for something that would explain that observation, or you could fish out a different assumption to explain the first unexpected observation instead.

Which path you go depends on what the next biggest thing you grab onto when you reach into that bag of assumptions is. (E.g. if "there's not radiation coming from every direction in space" comes up first, i.e. with less digging for deeper, harder-to-find assumptions, before "dirt can't be invisible", then you try eliminating the first one before you resort to the second).

The point that you seem to be glossing over is that it is on the basis of inductive thinking that we decide which of the range of possibilities we can imagine are "far-fetched". — Janus

I have already described what I mean by far-fetched in a way that has nothing to do with induction, and everything to do with parsimony.

Really? Where? An example would help.

This post in response to you yesterday.

There are plenty of people who tell us that they use (and advocate the use of) fideistic methodologies; basically all of "Reformed epistemology" is about that. — Pfhorrest

Not on my reading of it it isn't. Reformed epistemology is just saying that belief in God might be a basic immutable belief (like we've already agreed logic is) in a world where God exists. So if there's a God, then a belief in God gained from introspection (the 'feeling' that there's a God) would be expected, and therefore it's a reasonable conclusion. They're suggesting that the 'feeling' that there's a God can be given equal footing as the 'feeling' that there's a table in front of me. Neither can be proven, and in that sense their position is, as you've said, akin to yours (and mine, incidentally) against foundationalism.

You always seem to forget that I consider all of the philosophy I'm advocating to be a shoring-up of common sense against badly done philosophy. — Pfhorrest

Hang on - are you describing the way our minds actually do work, or advocating a way they should work? You seem to flick between the two. If the latter then you are definitely criticising the entire group not currently using that technique, which must be at least a majority otherwise your model would be primarily descriptive. If the former, then you're just plain wrong. this is not how people think. I suggest getting out of the armchair and doing some research. The third option - a 'common sense' model of how people think they think - is next to useless. Why would we want that?

Perhaps we could have an example of this "badly done philosophy" that we can work with. Something which seriously advocates the permanent ignorance of all contrary evidence - so we can see what you're up against.

See the several preceding posts where I discuss parsimony as the rationale behind things like "unwieldy". — Pfhorrest

Ah - so we can add 'parsimony' to the list of your personal subjective judgements used to decide who's beliefs are justified and whose aren't - or are you claiming there's some objective algorithmic method of determining parsimony? Do we parcel up our beliefs into atomic packages and enumerate those required to shore up some theory or other and decide based on the final tally which to believe?

The rest of those quote snips are either explicitly describing someone else's subjective judgement, or speaking loosely in conversation (assuming that we have some common ground in our casual, on-the-ground opinions, that I can refer to, despite our disagreement on technical philosophical things) and not as part of explicitly defining my philosophical position. — Pfhorrest

Well, if I've taken them out of context, then let's clarify. The context I'm now specifying is in the matter of judging whether someone's revision of a C-type belief (observation/interoception) is motivated by fideism about the the B-type belief that a first reading of C would contradict, or a genuine rational assessment that their C-type belief is simply the better one to ditch on this occasion. How do we judge? - without using the subjective measurements (that were apparently not applicable to this context) -

unreasonable — Pfhorrest


plausible — Pfhorrest


obvious — Pfhorrest


unwieldy — Pfhorrest — Isaac

and we can add 'parsimonious' to that list too.

basic immutable belief — Isaac

That is exactly what I mean by fideism. If you think any beliefs are basic and immutable, not subject to question, then that's fideistic.

against foundationalism — Isaac

Foundationalism likewise is all about basic beliefs.

You seem to have missed a long post early in this thread where I went through all three branches of Agrippa's/Munchausen's Trilemma, concluding that both foundationalism and coherentism are fideistic, while infinitism is nihilistic, and on those grounds reject justificationism in its entirety in favor of critical rationalism instead.

Hang on - are you describing the way our minds actually do work, or advocating a way they should work? — Isaac

Primarily the latter, but I don't think that that's generally in conflict with the former. I think most people generally act like they agree with the broad strokes of this methodology, they're just not consistent about it -- when threatened with the frightening prospect that maybe they were in error and someone else is about to "win" against them, they look for a way out, and cheat the system they otherwise seemed to agree with until then.

People tend to argue about things as though some of their opinions are right and others are wrong, or at least some are more right or wrong than others; and as though they can sort out which of their opinions is which, or at least which lies more or less in one direction or the other. Otherwise, they wouldn't be arguing in the first place.

I think that those basic implicit premises of every argument should be treated as correct, because either “I’m just right and you’re just wrong” (supposing that some answers are unquestionable) or “there’s not really any such thing as right or wrong” (supposing that some questions are unanswerable) are lazy ways to dodge the argument, avoiding the potential of having to change one’s opinions, and so cutting one off from all potential to learn, to improve one’s opinions.

All the rest of my philosophy stems from rejecting those two cop-outs and running with whatever's left.

are you claiming there's some objective algorithmic method of determining parsimony — Isaac

Yes, and that is the topic of the next thread I have written up already.

a first reading of C — Isaac

This is every bit as subjective judgement as my use of "obvious" for the same purpose earlier. I think you and I, who seem to have similar on-the-ground beliefs despite our philosophical differences, would likely see the same reading as "obvious" / "first", but if "obvious" is too subjective then so is "first reading".

How do we judge? — Isaac

In the third person, we can't, at least not conclusively. We'd have to rely on their self-reports of whether there is anything that could possibly change their mind about B or if that's a "basic immutable belief" to them.

We can take an educated guess at whether they're holding B like that or not, though, based on how un-parsimonious a system of beliefs they're willing to construct to excuse the preservation of B. If they're doing all kinds of twisty mental gymnastics full of exceptions upon exceptions to preserve B when it would be much easier to just reject B and leave everything else simple and elegant, that suggests -- though doesn't prove conclusively -- that they're likely unwilling to question B.

That is exactly what I mean by fideism. If you think any beliefs are basic and immutable, not subject to question, then that's fideistic. — Pfhorrest

Like the belief in the truth-preserving property of logic?

Primarily the latter — Pfhorrest

Right, so that at least entails a judgement, as I said earlier, that a significant number of people don't think this way (otherwise it would be like writing a lengthy treatise in how we ought really to breathe). And yet you claim to have no power other than your own ad hoc reckoning to justify an assertion that anyone does, in fact, think in a fashion other than this method you're expending so much effort advising us all of.

I think that those basic implicit premises of every argument should be treated as correct, because either “I’m just right and you’re just wrong” (supposing that some answers are unquestionable) or “there’s not really any such thing as right or wrong” (supposing that some questions are unanswerable) are lazy ways to dodge the argument, avoiding the potential of having to change one’s opinions, and so cutting one off from all potential to learn, to improve one’s opinions.

All the rest of my philosophy stems from rejecting those two cop-outs and running with whatever's left. — Pfhorrest

If it did, we'd have little argument. As it is, the rest of your philosophy seems to either be trivially true to the point of uselessness, or to be based on assumptions about the methods by which you distinguish those parameters. What frustrates me about this approach (my 'personal vendetta', as you put it) is that you keep trying to muffle these subjective judgements, to hide them behind some wall of logic when in fact they are the only serious and interesting point of discussion. I'm really not trying to 'win' some argument with you, I'm trying to open up a discussion about the important and difficult matters that are raised by your posts. You seem to just want to drag them back to the trivial ground on which you are right, but uninterestingly and uncontroversially so.

are you claiming there's some objective algorithmic method of determining parsimony — Isaac


Yes, and that is the topic of the next thread I have written up already. — Pfhorrest

Oh good God, no!

a first reading of C — Isaac


This is every bit as subjective judgement as my use of "obvious" for the same purpose earlier. I think you and I, who seem to have similar on-the-ground beliefs despite our philosophical differences, would likely see the same reading as "obvious" / "first", but if "obvious" is too subjective then so is "first reading". — Pfhorrest

I only meant their 'first reading'. The first reading of C they're aware of is not particularly subjective. Arguable, maybe, but not subjective like s third-party judgement of what is 'obvious' and what is not.

We can take an educated guess at whether they're holding B like that or not, though, based on how un-parsimonious a system of beliefs they're willing to construct to excuse the preservation of B. — Pfhorrest

No doubt we're about to be told how the judgement of parsimony is also carried out by some logical algorithm?

If they're doing all kinds of twisty mental gymnastics full of exceptions upon exceptions to preserve B when it would be much easier to just reject B and leave everything else simple and elegant, that suggests -- though doesn't prove conclusively -- that they're likely unwilling to question B. — Pfhorrest

I see. Now we can add 'simple' and 'elegant' to our list of subjective judgements about other people's belief systems - as if we could somehow 'see' the structure! Nonsense on stilts!

the important and difficult matters that are raised by your posts. You seem to just want to drag them back to the trivial ground on which you are right, but uninterestingly and uncontroversially so. — Isaac

I'm with @Isaac here, @Pfhorrest, for the most part. This is what I was trying to get at it, how you sort of oscillate between "hard" and "soft": there's a methodology for belief revision that looks to be rule-governed or algorithmic. How do we form beliefs in the first place? "Do something reasonable." How do we apply the rules of the method? "Do something reasonable." How do we decide what belief to drop? "Do something reasonable." How do we gather and weigh new evidence? "Do something reasonable."

You have described this as a feature rather than a bug, but it repeatedly appears that your theory has no theory in it.

There is of course a fundamental problem to face up to: is reason computational? On the one hand, modeling reason in the obvious way with primitive formalizations of reasoning like classical logic leaves out about as much as your account; on the other hand, we need whatever model we come up with to be instantiated in a human being, and it's no good just retreating to some vague, pre-Darwin, gentleman's club sense of "reasonableness", a characteristic that cannot be described operationally. We know that it must be describable in operational terms *and* classical logic is not that description.

So there's real work to do. Your approach seems to want to give both of the failed approaches a seat at the table and hope that works, when we really need to try new things.

Like the belief in the truth-preserving property of logic? — Isaac

No, that’s something completely different. Basic beliefs are the kinds of things one would use as premises in an argument. The validity of logical inference itself is not something you ever need to put in a premise of an argument, because if you did you would just get an infinite regress: “if P then Q, and P, therefore Q” would have to become “if P then Q, P, and if ‘if P then Q’ and P then Q, therefore Q”, ad infinitum.

And yet you claim to have no power other than your own ad hoc reckoning to justify an assertion that anyone does, in fact, think in a fashion other than this method you're expending so much effort advising us all of. — Isaac

And other people’s explicit advocacy of methods to the contrary, as I already said.

Oh, and I forgot in my answer to last post, something someone else (Janus?) already brought up in this thread earlier: some kinds of beliefs can only be held on fideistic grounds, like if you believe in the kind of God that cannot possibly be detected observationally. So if someone believes in that kind of thing, you know they’re believing it fideistically.

Why would anyone ever believe in something that no observations could possibly have led them to think was real? You’re the one saying everyone always has experiential reasons for their beliefs. My hypothesis is that they arrive at these kinds of unassailable but useless beliefs after they’re challenged in arguments and modify their old beliefs however necessary to avoid “losing”, even if it requires methodologically “cheating”.

As it is, the rest of your philosophy seems to either be trivially true to the point of uselessness — Isaac

To someone who agrees with it, I would hope it would. Premises are supposed to seem trivially true in any argument, since starting off with controversial premises just begs the question. To someone who can easily see the implications of those premises, the conclusions should seem equally trivial. It’s only people who already agree with the premises but didn’t realize their implications who are surprised to learn something from an argument — any argument, not just mine. It’s the people who didn’t think through all the implications of these trivial premises I’d hope everyone would agree are obvious that I’m hoping to reach with my arguments.

Yes, and that is the topic of the next thread I have written up already.
— Pfhorrest

Oh good God, no! — Isaac

See, this is the kind of thing that makes me think you just want me to stop talking.

The parsimony thread I have queued up doesn’t hinge on critical rationalism, it touches on things that could apply in a justificationist epistemology too.

Like I said at the start of this thread when you were upset that I dared to post this, I’m trying to start separate discussions on each little piece of each topic that I have some original thought on, rather than just one huge 80,000 word “here is everything I have to say about philosophy” post. And I’m spacing them out so I don’t flood the front page with dozens of threads all at once. Of course a lot of them are going to connect to each other, because everything in philosophy connects to everything else.

Besides just not posting, or that one huge 80k-word post, or maybe quarantining all my posts in one General Forrest Thread (should all users be quarantined to one thread like that? Lots of people start lots of threads wherein they repeatedly touch on the same theme; anything by schopenhauer1 is probably anti-natalist for instance), I just don’t know what you want from me.

Now we can add 'simple' and 'elegant' to our list — Isaac

Obvious synonym for “parsimonious” is obvious.

How do we form beliefs in the first place? "Do something reasonable." How do we apply the rules of the method? "Do something reasonable." How do we decide what belief to drop? "Do something reasonable." How do we gather and weigh new evidence? "Do something reasonable." — Srap Tasmaner

I don’t say “do something reasonable”, but just “do something” — presumably you’ll do what seems most reasonable to you, but whether that’s actually reasonable and what “actually reasonable” means in that context is not something my model cares about.

Go ahead and believe something, for any reason or no reason, it doesn’t matter. (This is the “liberal” plank of my system, contra “cynicism”).

When you experience something contrary to what you believed you would experience, change your beliefs, exactly how and why doesn’t matter. (This is the “critical” plank of my system, contra “fideism”).

Repeat forever and you’ll get less and less wrong over time. Just keep trying on beliefs (never give up and say you’re never believing anything again until it’s first proven for certain), and changing them when they fail you (never give up and say some belief you hold just has to be right because it just does), and you’ll continually improve.

How you pick your initial beliefs and how you change them doesn’t matter, so long as you keep up the process. Some methods could certainly be more efficient than others, and that’s an interesting question itself, but that’s a different question from whether they are epistemically valid or not. On my account, epistemic validity just requires that you believe something or other regardless of how little you have to go on, and that you remain willing to change anything you believe when you encounter evidence to the contrary.

All this stuff sounds so good in theory.

We like falsification because we can imagine science as one Michelson-Morley experiment after another. It's not, of course, but it somehow works anyway.

We like holism because we're familiar with finding out our assumptions and presuppositions were wrong.

We like the Asymptote of Truth because of the succession of theories and because probability.

In a sense all you're doing is reinventing the dual process model. System 1, that "machine for jumping to conclusions" as Kahneman calls it, can be counted on to continually produce new beliefs, and when there's trouble system 2 attempts some logical process of evaluating and revising. How that's done is apparently, in some sense, within our control. That we do it is more or less a fact.

For all that, when I want to know if I should stop for milk on the way home, I look in the fridge, and I don't need Popper or Quine or Peirce to get a definitive answer.

No, that’s something completely different. Basic beliefs are the kinds of things one would use as premises in an argument. The validity of logical inference itself is not something you ever need to put in a premise of an argument, because if you did you would just get an infinite regress: “if P then Q, and P, therefore Q” would have to become “if P then Q, P, and if ‘if P then Q’ and P then Q, therefore Q”, ad infinitum. — Pfhorrest

Well, you needn't use infinite regress as logic is a formal language and so self-reference can be dealt with using Tarskian meta-languages, but that's not the point. The point here really is that infinite regress doesn't define what beliefs are. Beliefs are just tendencies to act as if.... We tend to act as if logical function preserve truth, so it is a belief. As @Srap Tasmaner is pointing out, you've got it back to front here. We're biological creatures first and foremost. There are things we tend to act as if were the case, these are fundamental beliefs and we don't question them. something like Reformed epistemology is just positing that the belief in God might be one of these, and in a world where a God existed, it's not a bad assumption.

And other people’s explicit advocacy of methods to the contrary, as I already said. — Pfhorrest

Yes, but we're still discussing whether you have actually shown this. This is another issue we're having here, we're in the middle of disagreeing over whether some issue has been shown and yet you still later refer back to it as if it had. We've yet to be shown an example of some philosophy advocating the complete ignorance of all evidence that contradicts their belief - the example you gave is one I disputed and you've not yet settled that dispute.

some kinds of beliefs can only be held on fideistic grounds, like if you believe in the kind of God that cannot possibly be detected observationally. So if someone believes in that kind of thing, you know they’re believing it fideistically. — Pfhorrest

That's not a belief. A belief is a disposition to act as if... Anything less is a meaningless statement and it's pointless to create a model of it, you might as well build castles in the air.

My hypothesis is that they arrive at these kinds of unassailable but useless beliefs after they’re challenged in arguments and modify their old beliefs however necessary to avoid “losing”, even if it requires methodologically “cheating”. — Pfhorrest

Well good. So what tests have you carried out to check that hypothesis? What papers have you read that support it? There's been a great volume of study done on religious belief, even this very topic. An hypothesis is useless unless you're going to test it. You seem to be ignoring your own advice here - there's a whole bookshelf full of papers studying the causes and maintenance factors for religious belief and you've not cited a single on in support of your hypothesis - they should be ready to hand surely?

Besides just not posting, or that one huge 80k-word post, or maybe quarantining all my posts in one General Forrest Thread (should all users be quarantined to one thread like that? Lots of people start lots of threads wherein they repeatedly touch on the same theme; anything by schopenhauer1 is probably anti-natalist for instance), I just don’t know what you want from me. — Pfhorrest

"We shouldn't just believe stuff without being willing revise that belief (except stuff like logic which we have to believe on pain of chaos). We shouldn't believe nothing, that would get us nowhere because we have to at least act on some basis and underdetermination means we can't 'prove' each step. We shouldn't believe all things because a) that's impossible in one person, and b) we're not going to get any better in our beliefs if we don't at least try and get them more right"

There you go, 100 words or so. See if anyone (serious) disagrees, if they don't, let's get on to the interesting stuff.

Go ahead and believe something, for any reason or no reason, it doesn’t matter. (This is the “liberal” plank of my system, contra “cynicism”).

When you experience something contrary to what you believed you would experience, change your beliefs, exactly how and why doesn’t matter. (This is the “critical” plank of my system, contra “fideism”).

Repeat forever and you’ll get less and less wrong over time. — Pfhorrest

How? I don't see how this process will lead to you being less wrong. It could just as easily lead to you constantly shifting beliefs to favour one experience only to find they now contradict an experience previously modelled well by your theory. The net result of such a change will be no movement in the direction of being less wrong. There's nothing in your model to prevent this from being a permanent state of affairs.

On my account, epistemic validity just requires that you believe something or other regardless of how little you have to go on, and that you remain willing to change anything you believe when you encounter evidence to the contrary. — Pfhorrest

A good neat summary. So the entire matter rests on a judgement (both third party and introspective) of 'willingness'. Something which is a) entirely subjective, b) scalar, and c) has no proveable zero point as it anticipates future events. These are the 'interesting' questions, and without answering them you have no theory because, as written above, you have no useable definition of epistemic validity without a method of judging willingness. If you're happy to let 'willingness' remains something naturalistically obvious to any rational person, I'd have no objection to that, but you have to then concede you have a naturalistic argument, not a logical one. Implicit in this concession is the requirement to absorb that which the proper sciences are showing to be the origins of such natural thought.

We shouldn't just believe stuff without being willing revise that belief (except stuff like logic which we have to believe on pain of chaos). — Isaac

I don't know how one knows one is willing to revise a belief. Or, perhaps better put, I think people's self-evaluations on such an issue are radically biased.

I don't know how one knows one is willing to revise a belief. Or, perhaps better put, I think people's self-evaluations on such an issue are radically biased. — Coben

Yep. That's exactly the point I'm making to @Pfhorrest.

Ah, OK. i though you were trying to summarize a common ground. I am interested in the topic but finding it hard to get in there.

Beliefs are just tendencies to act as if.... — Isaac

This may be a root of our disagreement. I do agree that well-formed beliefs are coextensive with "tendencies to act as if...", but there is a broader sense of "belief" that I am also concerned with here, a sense something like "propositions one would assent to".

There are things we tend to act as if were the case, these are fundamental beliefs and we don't question them — Isaac

We tend to resist questioning them, sure, but rationally speaking we need to always be open to questioning them if pressed. Look at how many widespread intuitive assumptions about the nature of the world have been overturned in modern theories of physics, for example. If we hadn't been willing to question those things, we wouldn't be where we are now in our understanding of the universe. Our intuitions are frequently wrong, sometimes even our deepest and most securely-held (and widely-shared) intuitions.

A basic belief, in the sense of foundationalism, of which Reformed epistemology is a species, is something held to be beyond such questioning, and it's my position that nothing is to be held as beyond questioning.

Yes, but we're still discussing whether you have actually shown this. This is another issue we're having here, we're in the middle of disagreeing over whether some issue has been shown and yet you still later refer back to it as if it had. — Isaac

As consistent with critical rationalism, there is no burden of proof on either of us to convince the other before we're allowed to continue believing as we did before. Claiming that I'm wrong and demanding proof doesn't require I give up my beliefs until I can do so. I think something is the case, you think it's not, and if you make some assertion on the grounds that it's not, I'm free to point back at my position that it is; that you've not conclusively established that it's not, so your assertion doesn't rest on solid ground since that's still in dispute. And you of course find my assertions to the contrary not to rest on solid ground either, since that's the same ground that's still in dispute.

My point being this isn't a one-sided thing; until the ground is settled, we both think the other is making an unfounded assertion by appealing to that ground, and neither of us is more right or wrong in thinking so, until the ground is settled. IOW I see you as doing the same thing you see me as doing.

That's not a belief. A belief is a disposition to act as if... Anything less is a meaningless statement and it's pointless to create a model of it, you might as well build castles in the air. — Isaac

Well you'll find plenty of people right here on this very forum claiming that God as they conceive of him is not empirically testable. I agree that this is a poor kind of belief, and ultimately claims of that sort are meaningless, but nevertheless people assent to the truth of such meaningless propositions. Showing why that's a useless or erroneous way of thinking is part of the aim of my philosophy.

It seems like you really want to restrict the topic of discussion to the subset of discourse where people are already being fairly reasonable, when all I'm trying to do is show why discourse beyond that subset is useless or erroneous. All the possibilities within the domain you're concerned about discriminating within are already A-OK by me; I'm only concerned with those who wander far outside that domain.

So what tests have you carried out to check that hypothesis? — Isaac

That hypothesis is not central to my project, so it's not something I've researched in any depth, and if the hypothesis turns out false it has no bearing on any of my main points, which are all about why it's counterproductive to do certain things, not what inclines people to do them. I'm just venturing a guess, informed mostly by my own interactions over many years with people who do those things (including their responses when I inquire as to why they do them), as to why they do them.

There you go, 100 words or so. See if anyone (serious) disagrees, if they don't, let's get on to the interesting stuff. — Isaac

As I said in my last post, I don't expect anyone to disagree with those premises. It's the implications that they have on other, common philosophical positions that would be contentious. Rejecting justificationism, the default form of rationalism most philosophers tend to assume, because it inevitably leads to either fideism or nihilism, for example. I expect most rationalists (e.g. most philosophers) to agree that fideism and nihilism are wrong (but not all of them, of course), yet not to have realized how all three justificationist possibilities (from Agrippa's/Munchausen's Trilemma) inevitably lead to one or the other.

And that is what I find to be the interesting stuff. You seem to find the interesting stuff to be the things that I say are work beyond philosophy and more the domain of more specialized sciences. Which makes sense, since you're a... neuroscientist? Psychologist? I forget what you do exactly but you study brains in some capacity, no? So it makes sense that you're more concerned with the nitty gritty details of how human brains in particular work. I don't think that's the domain of philosophy -- it's still important work, but not philosophical work -- and I'm focused on the broader philosophical stuff within which that kind of work is conducted.

How? I don't see how this process will lead to you being less wrong. It could just as easily lead to you constantly shifting beliefs to favour one experience only to find they now contradict an experience previously modelled well by your theory. — Isaac

Only if you discard your previous experiences that were modeled well by the old theory, which I assumed was obviously not implied. As you accumulate more and more experiences, the range of possible sets of belief that could still be consistent with all of them narrows.

So the entire matter rests on a judgement (both third party and introspective) of 'willingness'. Something which is a) entirely subjective, b) scalar, and c) has no proveable zero point as it anticipates future events. — Isaac

The third party assessment isn’t important at all for strict epistemological purposes; at most it’s useful for deciding whether you think it’s worth your time engaging in a discussion with someone who doesn’t seem open to changing their mind, but you can never be sure that they’re not and if time and effort were no consideration and all we cared about was arguing until we settled on the truth then guessing whether the other person is fideist or not would be irrelevant; we would have to assume they were not.

And it’s only in the third person that subjectivity is a problem: in the first person, you just decide whether you’re willing to change your beliefs or not.

It’s only in the first person that that matter, as one needs to remind themselves to consider all possibilities, even the possibility that one of their most cherished beliefs is false, if they really do care about figuring out what’s true. That’s not a scalar quality, that’s a boolean choice: “am I open to reconsidering this belief or not?” The only thing that makes it seem scalar is how integral to the rest of one’s belief system that belief is: one can be in principle willing to reconsider any belief, but if some beliefs would require that the whole rest of one’s belief system be made much more convoluted to accommodate their removal, then one is pragmatically right to consider other alternatives first.

If you're happy to let 'willingness' remains something naturalistically obvious to any rational person, I'd have no objection to that, but you have to then concede you have a naturalistic argument, not a logical one. Implicit in this concession is the requirement to absorb that which the proper sciences are showing to be the origins of such natural thought. — Isaac

A naturalistic account of epistemology cannot help but be circular, because to do the natural sciences soundly you need some epistemological account of what soundly done science is, and if that account in turn depends on the results of the natural sciences that in turn depend on the epistemological account for their soundness... well there’s your circle.

This may be a root of our disagreement. I do agree that well-formed beliefs are coextensive with "tendencies to act as if...", but there is a broader sense of "belief" that I am also concerned with here, a sense something like "propositions one would assent to". — Pfhorrest

Funnily enough, I spent a good 15 years of my academic career studying the differences between "tendencies to act as if..." and "propositions one would assent to", but the former are an indicator of at least some mental connection between the state of affairs believed in and the action about to be taken reliant on that state of affairs. The latter is a completely different indicator of the statements which constitute a membership criteria for social groups to which one aspires to belong. I'm not sure what you're going to get out of mixing the two other than a mess. What people actually believe and what they publicly assent to (or even self-deceptively assent to in internal verbalisation) are two completely different things with completely different origins and processes, they involve different parts of the brain, they're about as disconnected as it's possible for two mental activities to be.

We tend to resist questioning them, sure, but rationally speaking we need to always be open to questioning them if pressed. Look at how many widespread intuitive assumptions about the nature of the world have been overturned in modern theories of physics, for example. If we hadn't been willing to question those things, we wouldn't be where we are now in our understanding of the universe. Our intuitions are frequently wrong, sometimes even our deepest and most securely-held (and widely-shared) intuitions. — Pfhorrest

This depends on how you verbalise the belief. Prior to Einstein humans didn't have a fundamental 'belief' in classical gravity, they had a fundamental belief that when you throw things up in the air they come down in a predictable way, they still do after Einstein. what changed there was the beliefs about the deeper scientific model of why, those weren't fundamental at all. That being said, I agree with you that in principle, any belief could be wrong, not matter how fundamental (people have to behave in unintuitive ways in space for example, they're simply not expecting there to be no up and down), but I don't think there's any evidence that people don't or wouldn't do this, so I think expending effort on explaining why they should is pointless.

My point being this isn't a one-sided thing; until the ground is settled, we both think the other is making an unfounded assertion by appealing to that ground, and neither of us is more right or wrong in thinking so, until the ground is settled. IOW I see you as doing the same thing you see me as doing. — Pfhorrest

Yep. The difference being I haven't written a long series of posts on a public forum under the assumption that other people could benefit from my insight on the matter. That sets the threshold of justification higher for you than for me. You asked me for my opinion (implicitly, by posting on a forum), I never asked you for your, you decided it was important enough for other people to hear. We are not doing the same thing here.

Well you'll find plenty of people right here on this very forum claiming that God as they conceive of him is not empirically testable. I agree that this is a poor kind of belief, and ultimately claims of that sort are meaningless, but nevertheless people assent to the truth of such meaningless propositions. Showing why that's a useless or erroneous way of thinking is part of the aim of my philosophy.

It seems like you really want to restrict the topic of discussion to the subset of discourse where people are already being fairly reasonable, when all I'm trying to do is show why discourse beyond that subset is useless or erroneous. All the possibilities within the domain you're concerned about discriminating within are already A-OK by me; I'm only concerned with those who wander far outside that domain. — Pfhorrest

Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired — Jonathan Swift

That hypothesis is not central to my project, so it's not something I've researched in any depth, and if the hypothesis turns out false it has no bearing on any of my main points, which are all about why it's counterproductive to do certain things, not what inclines people to do them. — Pfhorrest

But it does if your hypothesis is wrong to the extent that there is no proper target for your normative assertion anymore. That's the point. You need a good prior hypothesis that people do genuinely believe there's a rational argument for them to deny all contrary evidence for a belief they hold (or against nihilism, that people genuinely believe no beliefs are more reflective of what is the case than others). Absent of this hypothesis you're presenting a normative theory to an audience who, to a man, already act that way.

I expect most rationalists (e.g. most philosophers) to agree that fideism and nihilism are wrong (but not all of them, of course), yet not to have realized how all three justificationist possibilities (from Agrippa's/Munchausen's Trilemma) inevitably lead to one or the other. — Pfhorrest

Well then a good place to start would be some quotes or texts in which these philosophers make the case that you're claiming they're mistaken in, or reach conclusions that you're claiming have missed a crucial step. Otherwise it's very difficult to see what you're arguing against.

Which makes sense, since you're a... neuroscientist? Psychologist? I forget what you do exactly but you study brains in some capacity, no? So it makes sense that you're more concerned with the nitty gritty details of how human brains in particular work. I don't think that's the domain of philosophy -- it's still important work, but not philosophical work -- and I'm focused on the broader philosophical stuff within which that kind of work is conducted. — Pfhorrest

I'm a psychologist (academic, not clinical). But I disagree that scientists work 'within' broader philosophical stuff of the nature you're investigating here. Your arguments are littered with assumptions about how brains and minds work which can be (and should be) tested and modelled by scientific investigation. If you can conduct the philosophical investigation you're interested in without making a single assumption about how people's minds actually work, then you're welcome to it, but I contest that you cannot, and here that has certainly not been the case. Philosophy, when it's done well, works with the information the sciences provide, not outside of it.

Only if you discard your previous experiences that were modeled well by the old theory, which I assumed was obviously not implied. As you accumulate more and more experiences, the range of possible sets of belief that could still be consistent with all of them narrows. — Pfhorrest

Only if you attend to every single experience you've ever had simultaneously. Which is flat out impossible. Otherwise any 'new' or 'revised' belief could well be inconsistent with some previous experience and will continue to be so until you happen to attend to it. Given the sheer number of beliefs (tens of thousands at least), the number of potential divisions of experience, the relatively short time we have here, the limited bandwidth of the working memory and the limited neural firing speed, there are practical parameter set by basic natural conditions which limit the possible solutions to the problem of maintaining a set of right beliefs.

It’s only in the first person that that matter, as one needs to remind themselves to consider all possibilities, even the possibility that one of their most cherished beliefs is false, if they really do care about figuring out what’s true. — Pfhorrest

Again, this comes back to the fact that you're presenting this normative theory, the very act of doing so assumes there is a target who do not behave this way already which itself is a third party judgement.

A naturalistic account of epistemology cannot help but be circular, because to do the natural sciences soundly you need some epistemological account of what soundly done science is — Pfhorrest

Only if you've started from a premise of denying naturalism about truth already. If you haven't, then you do not need to take that step. "Here is a hand" does not start with an assessment of how we know what it is that's 'here', it's starts with "Here is a hand".

What people actually believe and what they publicly assent to (or even self-deceptively assent to in internal verbalisation) are two completely different things with completely different origins and processes, they involve different parts of the brain, they're about as disconnected as it's possible for two mental activities to be. — Isaac

Okay, well part of my position could be phrased in your terms here as "don't assent to things you don't actually believe", though I would phrase that instead as "don't believe things that have no bearing on your experience of the world".

Prior to Einstein humans didn't have a fundamental 'belief' in classical gravity, they had a fundamental belief that when you throw things up in the air they come down in a predictable way, they still do after Einstein. — Isaac

I was thinking more of things like the relativity of simultaneity, which is far more counterintuitive than just a different explanation for why things fall down.

The difference being I haven't written a long series of posts on a public forum under the assumption that other people could benefit from my insight on the matter. That sets the threshold of justification higher for you than for me. You asked me for my opinion (implicitly, by posting on a forum), I never asked you for your, you decided it was important enough for other people to hear. — Isaac

It's sounding more and more like you think my positions are generally correct, and only object that they are trivially so. If you find them trivial, that's fine with me. I don't especially care to convince anyone who thinks these things are trivially true that they ought to find them more significant than they do. I'm only really concerned about reaching people who either don't think these things are true, or who don't think they're trivial.

If that's not you, that's fine. I don't really get why you even bother responding in that case. If I see someone post something that's just obviously correct to me, I either don't respond or just post a thumbs-up emoji or something. Seems pointless to belabor how obvious (to me) the thing they're saying is. That you do that towards me just comes off as you being somehow offended that I dare say something so obviously true. It kind of reminds me of complaints about "mansplaining", like you feel like I'm condescending to you personally by saying something you already well know. If you already well know it and think it's uninteresting and obvious, that's fine. If everyone else agrees, I'll get no responses, and the post will fall off the front page quickly. That'd be disappointing, but better than the pointless tediousness that our conversations always turn into.

Well then a good place to start would be some quotes or texts in which these philosophers make the case that you're claiming they're mistaken in, or reach conclusions that you're claiming have missed a crucial step. Otherwise it's very difficult to see what you're arguing against. — Isaac

The entirety of Descartes Meditations is basically an exercise in this, starting off with a cynical justificationism rejecting everything that can't be positively proven from the ground up, then claiming some beliefs are basic and unquestionable (not just the cogito, which is much more subtle in its flaws, but he basically grounds everything besides his own existence on "God exists and wouldn't let me be deceived"). It's classic foundationalism.

Even further back, Aristotle (in Posterior Analytics) explicitly explored the three branches of the trilemma and decided that since the only alternatives were circular reasoning or infinite regress, some beliefs had to be regarded as basic and unquestionable.

Only if you attend to every single experience you've ever had simultaneously. Which is flat out impossible. — Isaac

Sure, but that just means humans are incapable of perfectly conducting the epistemic process, which is uncontroversially true. Humans are limited and fallible. Saying what they should aim to do doesn’t require that they be capable of doing it perfectly. Just that they should do it as well as they can manage, and if they fail at it in some way, that’s an error they should aim to correct. (E.g. if you come up with a new theory that disregards some old observations, that’s a mistake, and hopefully peer review will catch it and help keep it from spreading).

Only if you've started from a premise of denying naturalism about truth already. — Isaac

Or if that’s in question, and you’re not asserting it as an unquestionable foundational belief. You say “here’s a hand” and Descartes asks “Is there really though? I mean it sure looks like one, but my senses have deceived me before...”. I agree in the end that this is a dumb line of questioning he’s starting, but the goal of my project is to make explicit WHY that (and other things philosophers say and do) is not as wise as he thinks it sounds, but rather goes against not only what everyone commonly thinks, but what they’re right to think: yeah, here IS a hand, for reals (unless maybe [unlikely alternatives]).

If everyone already agrees that there’s a hand, great, we can move on from there and do real science. But philosophy is about things like what to do when that kind of thing is questioned, and whether we can find our way back to that common sense or are compelled to believe some strange nonsense instead. I think we can find our way back to common sense, but it’s worthwhile addressing the nonsense people and showing them that; and preemptively inoculating others against such nonsense, too.

Okay, well part of my position could be phrased in your terms here as "don't assent to things you don't actually believe" — Pfhorrest

Why not? It's really super useful to assent to things you don't believe. It greases the wheels of social interaction, it bonds social groups, it might even create useful beliefs in the long-term. I'm not sure why you'd want to rule it out, except fro some Kantian obsession with radical honesty.

I was thinking more of things like the relativity of simultaneity, which is far more counterintuitive than just a different explanation for why things fall down. — Pfhorrest

Same thing would apply. The matter that people would have fundamental beliefs about would not be the matter that Einstein theorised about. People do not have fundamental beliefs about models of physics, people have fundamental beliefs about what will happen in their day-to-day lives - how objects respond to manipulation, move through 3-dimensionsal space, interact. None of these things are affect by belief in the models which explain them.

It's sounding more and more like you think my positions are generally correct, and only object that they are trivially so. — Pfhorrest

No. I don't know how to make this any more clear. I object to the implication (resulting from such a long exposition) that there exist people who seriously disagree with you but who do so only because they haven't seen the strength of your argument. If you think these people are irrelevant then it seems petty to disabuse them of the cruxes. If rather, like me, you think these people's purported beliefs can be quite importantly damaging, then it seem crucial to find out exactly why they have them (or pretend to), not just guess at it from your armchair.

The entirety of Descartes Meditations is basically an exercise in this, starting off with a cynical justificationism rejecting everything that can't be positively proven from the ground up, then claiming some beliefs are basic and unquestionable (not just the cogito, which is much more subtle in its flaws, but he basically grounds everything besides his own existence on "God exists and wouldn't let me be deceived"). It's classic foundationalism. — Pfhorrest

Yeah. And do you think it's a coincidence that deeply religious person in a deeply religious society concluded from his 'radical doubt' that there must be a God? Of course it's not foundationalism, it never was, it was never doubt either. It was a convoluted post hoc rationalisation for a belief which he already held for mush the same reasons as you're here advocating (in his case it would go something like "I believe there's a God because I've ben told there is, so I'll hold that for now" (liberal part) - "Literally everyone I speak to who I consider an expert in the matter says there is a God, and I've personally experienced no contrary evidence, so I think I'll keep that belief"(critical part). The meditations was just Descartes re-arranging his beliefs (exactly as you advise) to accommodate some inconsistencies in observation (the lack of clear connection between the outside world and the mental picture he had of it).

People will say any old thing to make a narrative out of their beliefs, you really should take too much notice of it.

Sure, but that just means humans are incapable of perfectly conducting the epistemic process, which is uncontroversially true. Humans are limited and fallible. Saying what they should aim to do doesn’t require that they be capable of doing it perfectly. — Pfhorrest

I strongly disagree. It's absolutely imperative if you're going to advocate a task that the task is either achievable or, if not, then the partially achieved task is worth the effort that must be put into it relative to other methods. We can't fly either, despite the fact that it would be great if we could (save a lot on fuel). Do you think on those grounds alone it would be sensible to advise that we 'keep trying' to fly, just do our best, keep flapping those arms and jumping even if we only get a little bit off the ground because flying would be so great if we achieved it. No. If it is abundantly clear that a method cannot be achieved, then we need to consider the next best alternative - not just assume that a partially achieved version of the first idea will automatically be the next best thing.

I object to the implication (resulting from such a long exposition) that there exist people who seriously disagree with you but who do so only because they haven't seen the strength of your argument. If you think these people are irrelevant then it seems petty to disabuse them of the cruxes. If rather, like me, you think these people's purported beliefs can be quite importantly damaging, then it seem crucial to find out exactly why they have them (or pretend to), not just guess at it from your armchair. — Isaac

So you admit that such people do exist. Why then were you pressing me for proof of them? This is the kind of thing that makes me suspicious that you're not arguing in good faith, when you radically doubt things that I would really expect you to already agree with... and it turns out later, you do.

Anyway, I never said those people are irrelevant, I said that it's irrelevant for the purposes of philosophy to know why they believe those things (or pretend to, if you like). For philosophical purposes, all that matters is whether those (purported) beliefs are true, or at least justifiable, and the causes of people believing falsehoods don't tell us whether or not they're false or unjustified.

For broader social purposes, it's good to know why people believe falsehoods. But to know that they believe falsehoods, you first need to know whether or not the things they believe are false.

It would not be very epistemologically sound, or discursively fair, to approach someone espousing something you think is false and reply to that only with an analysis of the conditions that have caused them to come to believe that, as if presuming that they are a crazy person who can't think rationally, just because they've reached a different conclusion than you. If what they believe is actually true, then you'd be dodging the issue they're trying to talk about entirely.

When people do irrationally believe falsehoods (or meaningless nonsense), it is good to figure out what's causing them to do that, but first we need to assess whether what they believe is false, and whether they believe it on rational grounds. To do that, we need to determine what the rational grounds for believing things are... and that brings us back to epistemology again.

(And if they are believing falsehoods on rational grounds, then doing philosophy with them, i.e. having a rational argument, is the most epistemologically sound and discursively fair way of changing their mind anyway. Only once that fails, and we conclude that they are not thinking reasonably, should be begin concerning ourselves with the irrational causes of their nominal belief).

I strongly disagree. It's absolutely imperative if you're going to advocate a task that the task is either achievable or, if not, then the partially achieved task is worth the effort that must be put into it relative to other methods. We can't fly either, despite the fact that it would be great if we could (save a lot on fuel). Do you think on those grounds alone it would be sensible to advise that we 'keep trying' to fly, just do our best, keep flapping those arms and jumping even if we only get a little bit off the ground because flying would be so great if we achieved it. No. If it is abundantly clear that a method cannot be achieved, then we need to consider the next best alternative - not just assume that a partially achieved version of the first idea will automatically be the next best thing. — Isaac

Unless you think fideism or nihilism will get us anywhere (which it seems you don't), then whatever other method could possibly get us anywhere will be some subset of my method, because it's just the negation of those two things.

Your flight analogy is actually quite similar to an analogy to this general balance of neither-fideism-nor-nihilism that I thought up a while back. That balance recurs throughout my philosophy, and I thought this analogy up originally in terms of existential nihilism etc, but it works just as well for other cases like this:

We're on the surface of an infinitely deep ocean, with the infinite sky above us. Therefore we cannot stand on the bottom, because there is no bottom. And we cannot grab for the sky, because the sky isn't some solid ceiling above us; nor can we just stick our arms up and hope our imaginary friend Superjesus will save us from drowning or anything like that. If we try to do either of those things, stand on the bottom or hang on to something above us, we will surely drown. Therefore we have to do something other than those things: neither try to stand on the bottom nor hang on to anything above us.

In other words, we have to swim. I'm not specifying how to swim, nor saying that the specifics of how to swim are unimportant. I'm just pointing out that there is no bottom to stand on and hanging from the sky isn't an option either, so we've got to do something else directly involving the water we're immediately surrounded by instead.

What exactly to do is beyond the scope of philosophy, and the realm of more specialized sciences.

I'm just pointing out that there is no bottom to stand on and hanging from the sky isn't an option either, so we've got to do something else directly involving the water we're immediately surrounded by instead. — Pfhorrest

That's actually nice, but it only works if you believe there's nothing to stand on and nothing to hold onto, and if you believe you don't have to demonstrate your faith by allowing yourself to slip into the water before His Hand reaches down to save you (think: the binding of Isaac). But as a description of philosophy "starting in the middle", I wholeheartedly approve. You just seem to think this is some use in dealing with people who don't already agree we have to start in the middle, and I don't see how it possibly could be.

(By the way, this is exactly how Quine defends the naturalization of epistemology against charges of circularity: if science is the source of the doubts about the results of science, then we may legitimately use science in the defense of those results.)

Something else I've had on my mind. It is sometimes said that epistemology is a search for a method that, if followed, would produce two results: (1) believing things that are true; (2) not believing things that are false. Critical rationalism is a claim that we get (1) for free so long as we do (2), at least in the very long run. But that only makes sense for finite sets of beliefs, hence you're inclined to model a person's web of beliefs as a snapshot that is at least arguably finite, on the grounds that it's hard to see how a person could hold an infinite number of beliefs.

But that model could itself be wrong, if you include within our beliefs not only closed propositions about particulars but also material inference rules that are open-ended. That is, if we actually had belief generators that ought to be dealt with. (Can you throw a car over your house? What about that car? What about that car? What about that car? ...)

And, as I think I've tried to say before but maybe didn't, it's entirely retrospective and we actually live with a stream of incoming new beliefs, so even if the model is okay we never quite have the opportunity to hit the pause button and use it.

You just seem to think this is some use in dealing with people who don't already agree we have to start in the middle, and I don't see how it possibly could be. — Srap Tasmaner

No, I started off with arguments for why we must start in the middle. I’m not repeating those arguments in full in every thread, but exploring the implications of that conclusion on each sub-field of philosophy, thread by thread.

Something else I've had on my mind. It is sometimes said that epistemology is a search for a method that, if followed, would produce two results: (1) believing things that are true; (2) not believing things that are false. Critical rationalism is a claim that we get (1) for free so long as we do (2), at least in the very long run. But that only makes sense for finite sets of beliefs, hence you're inclined to model a person's web of beliefs as a snapshot that is at least arguably finite, on the grounds that it's hard to see how a person could hold an infinite number of beliefs. — Srap Tasmaner

As I frame it, believing anything at all always has some odds of believing things that are true, so if we go about eliminating beliefs in things that are false, we increase the odds that our remaining beliefs are true. And this works whether we have finite or infinite beliefs. Take an infinite continuous plane, and repeatedly draw lines across it marking the boundaries of possibility, and you will end up enclosing a smaller and smaller area between those lines, even if there are still infinitely many points in that area.

enclosing — Pfhorrest

That depends obviously on the lines, so unless you're really working up some math here, this analogy is not so good.

I understand the impulse to talk in terms of weeding out and pruning and increasing the odds; there's reason to think this is a sound procedure in some situations (my "Poe-Doyle rule" is an example). I remain skeptical that it can be generalized so easily, and think it more likely that pruning only works on already bounded solution spaces. If you want to generalize, you want an account of how we narrow the range of options to a manageable set we can successfully prune. But you're going to refuse to do that, because you refuse to acknowledge the conditions that make pruning an option. You want a single universal method that can get you from anything at all to probably true; I am doubtful there is any single such skeleton key.

But more than the amount of modifications, it's about the amount of exceptions to an otherwise more parsimonious system of beliefs. If you have the choice between a parsimonious system plus a huge mountain of exceptions, or a slightly less parsimonious system that's still more parsimonious than the other plus its mountain of exceptions, it's pragmatically more useful to go with the latter.

If we didn't care about parsimony at all, we could always just hold a belief system that consists of an unorganized list of all of the uninterpreted particulars of every experience we've ever had, but that wouldn't mean anything to us, it wouldn't show us any connections between things or highlight any patterns in any way that allows us to usefully interact with the source of those experiences. The whole reason to form theories at all instead of just keeping unorganized lists of experiential minutia is to have that easier-to-use, more-parsimonious abstraction to work with, so it's counterproductive to pick a less-parsimonious explanation when a more-parsimonious one that equally fits the experiences is available. — Pfhorrest

A belated response; I've been a little busy on the farm.

To my way of thinking achieving parsimony is done by weeding out propositions or assumptions that are not grounded in anything other than imagination, association or feeling. Earlier, unless I am mistaken, you said somewhere that you wanted to dispense with induction; that critical rationalism does not depend on inductive thought. I remain unconvinced on this point, because it is precisely those propositions that spring from imagination, association or feeling that are not, properly at least, based on inductive thinking as we moderns now conceive it.

I gave earlier the example of phlogiston. There never had been any observations or experiments which supported the idea of phlogiston. It was displaced by the idea of oxidation, and the inductively derived proposed commonality of burning, rusting and respiration.

Of course induction proves nothing; but if we had been clear all along about the difference between logical entailment and expectation based on accumulated cross-referenced experience and the inter-cohering conceptual systems (chemistry, physics, biology and so on) that have developed based on the inductively derived notion of law-like behavior coupled with empirical observation, we would not have needed Hume to point out the difference.

So, we don't, as you point out, hold belief systems that consist of "unorganized list(s) of all of the uninterpreted particulars of every experience we've ever had". Such lists would not be systems at all but merely arbitrary associations. Inductive thinking just is systematic thinking, and this goes for pre-scientific, non-empirical thought as well, because such thinking is always based on the inductive notion of cause, even in the absence of any observable mechanisms or measurable forces to be causally theorized.

Think about the idea of chi in Chinese thought for example. Chi is conceived as a unifying force that produces law-like outcomes. So the expectation of predicted phenomena is operative in that system, as much as it is in modern science. Modern science rejects chi because there is no observable structure or mechanism that could confirm or dis-confirm its actuality. So the idea is not actually induced by systematic observation, but by associative imagination. And although it is quasi-inductive in the sense of being induced by associative imagination, it is not properly inductive insofar as it is not induced by examining observable phenomena.

To my way of thinking achieving parsimony is done by weeding out propositions or assumptions that are not grounded in anything other than imagination, association or feeling. — Janus

I’ll save further discussion on parsimony for the thread on that, but for now I’ll just say that your characterization of it does not bear any resemblance to mine.

Earlier, unless I am mistaken, you said somewhere that you wanted to dispense with induction; that critical rationalism does not depend on inductive thought. — Janus

I said earlier that induction is perfectly fine (and indeed very useful, though not exclusively so) as a way to come up with beliefs in the first place, hypotheses to test. It’s just not a proper part of the process of testing which beliefs are correct when there are multiple competing hypotheses.

Two hypotheses reached by induction can’t be judged for their relative merits just by finding more things that fit either pattern. You need to instead find something that doesn’t fit at least one of the patterns — which is then into falsification, and so critical rationalism.

Two hypotheses reached by induction can’t be judged for their relative merits just by finding more things that fit either pattern. You need to instead find something that doesn’t fit at least one of the patterns — which is then into falsification, and so critical rationalism. — Pfhorrest

I did mention this earlier, but I think that hypotheses are the result of abductive thinking. We imagine hypothetical causal systems of interacting forces based on what has previously been observed and confirmed by repeated observation.

Then we run experiments and make observations to discover whether the predicted phenomena do indeed occur. If what we have predicted is observed then our hypothesis is provisionally verified and if not it is provisionally falsified. Neither verification nor falsification follow logically.

So, you say "You need to instead find something that doesn’t fit at least one of the patterns — which is then into falsification, and so critical rationalism.". Where I am disagreeing is that I would say, as the other side of the coin you seem to be wanting to dispense with 'You need to find something that does fit at least one of the patterns — and it is on the basis of that that one pattern will be preferred over another — and this is how science is generally done; a critical process jointly empirical and rational'.

Abduction falls into the same place as induction as far as I’m concerned: a fine way of generating a guess, a hypothesis, a theory, a model, a belief. What I’m concerned with is not how to come up with them, though, but how to choose between them.

And when trying to choose between them, finding more results that follow the prediction of one of them tell us nothing, unless those results also go against the predictions of the other one, in which case you’ve falsified the other one. But you’ve still not verified the alternative, because it’s impossible to ever verify anything, since the verification (or confirmation) process is logically invalid, just affirming the consequent.

But you’ve still not verified the alternative, because it’s impossible to ever verify anything, since the verification (or confirmation) process is logically invalid, just affirming the consequent. — Pfhorrest

The main points that you still seem to be resisting seeing is that just as verification or confirmation is not deductively certain, insofar as verification does not strictly logically follow from observing what is predicted by an hypothesis, exactly the same pertains to falsification, and that fasification of A is logically equivalent to verification of not-A, in any case.

On the one hand you want to agree to the distinction between deductive and inductive thinking, and on the other you want to use the principles of deductive validity, where they don't belong; in the inductive domain.

Even in the deductive domain falsification of A is verification of not-A. I gave the example earlier, with a mistake in the way I set it down, and you addressed that, unfortunately irrelevantly because of the mistake. But you didn't attempt to address it after I had corrected it.

Here is it is again: falsification of "all swans are white" is logically equivalent to verification of "not all swans are white".

The truth of every statement is equivalent to the falsehood of its negation, sure, but that’s not the point in contention here. The point is the form of the argument being made about something.

You can say “if not P then Q, not Q, therefore P” and that works just fine. You can also say “if P then Q, not Q, therefore not P” without problem either. It doesn’t matter whether the antecedent (the beliefs you’re testing) is some proposition or the negation of some proposition. What matters is that you can’t say “if P then Q, Q, therefore P”, or “if not P then Q, Q, therefore not P”. Both of those are invalid inferences, whether the antecedent is a negation or not. The point is that you can only validity deny the consequent from an observation contrary to the consequent, you can’t confirm the antecedent from an observation affirming the consequent.

Yes, I understand all that; it's pretty elementary, but it isn't addressing the arguments I have made regarding verification being no more more and no less definitive than falsification.