Philosophy Now Forum

Skepdick wrote: I think Hypothesis -> Falsification (Like a Scientist)

Depends on the scientist, but it's definitely like Popper, the philosopher.

Skepdick wrote:When you have eliminated the impossible hypotheses, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

That's what Sherlock Holmes would say. Doesn't follow.

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:24 pm Depends on the scientist, but it's definitely like Popper, the philosopher.

Popper the Philosopher learned it from Bayes - like most scientists. Ask E.TJaynes, the physicist.

It's in Chapter 5.

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:24 pm That's what Sherlock Holmes would say. Doesn't follow.

All counter-factual thinkers do intuitively what Sherlock Holmes would say. It follows.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:11 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:08 pm And if the statistical evidence of that data supports a conclusion that betterness is fulfilled by action X, and Y has worseness as an outcome by common assent, then X is better and Y is worse?

Your question is ambiguous. Formalize it.

I have no idea how to even begin testing whether X supports conclusion Y; let alone falsifying it.

Can you design an experiment by which this can be empirically determined?

You are the one defending a claim that this stuff is empirically testable. I am saying it is nonsensical to reduce morality to empirically testable data. So no, obviously I cannot design that experiment, your demand is circular in that it depends on me being the one that understands this set of circumstances in order for you to then explain it to me.

Before we establish testing parameters for your claim, I suggest starting by explaining what it is. You have rejected good and bad as part of a moral vocabulary that you don't need, so we need to understand how this is supposed to work with those normal elements removed and only betterness and worseness in their place. Something testable must make for betterness and worseness to apply to something right? So tell us about that.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:41 pm Before we establish testing parameters for your claim, I suggest starting by explaining what it is.

I can't possibly explain to you what morality is because I don't have any instrument at my disposal which can determine what things are.

Science only ever tells us how things behave and what happens when things interact.

You think in nouns - I think in verbs. Static vs dynamic. So here is a better question for you: What does morality do?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:31 pmAll counter-factual thinkers do intuitively what Sherlock Holmes would say. It follows.

It only follows if the 'true hypothesis' is contained in the set of all the hypotheses that have been considered. Ya can't know that another hypothesis won't be thunk at some future date. It's basic underdetermination.

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:50 pm It only follows if the 'true hypothesis' is contained in the set of all the hypotheses that have been considered.

Of course! Which is why we must not discriminate against any hypothesis.

We accept them ALL on zero evidence. Infinite set of possibilities. The process of elimination happens next...

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:50 pm Ya can't know that another hypothesis won't be thunk at some future date. It's basic underdetermination.

Sure. That's basic Bayesian updating

Just because a new hypothesis arrives it doesn't mean the old one is discarded. It just means the existing evidence is re-allocated/re-calculated mindful of the new hypothesis.

Your old hypothesis may still remain the victor.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:46 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:41 pm Before we establish testing parameters for your claim, I suggest starting by explaining what it is.

I can't possibly explain to you what morality is because I don't have any instrument at my disposal which can determine what things are.

Science only ever tells us how things behave and what happens when things interact.

You think in nouns - I think in verbs. Static vs dynamic. So here is a better question for you: What does morality do?

Ok. So you started with an objectivist moral proposition that a thing is 'objectively wrong'.
Since then you have come to reject all use of the words right and wrong anyway.
Then you decided to lambast me for being 'the one who insists on "objectivity"'
Now, when tasked with explaining how betterness and worseness can be applied in this system, now there is a new self destructive swerve.

One of the things we use our moral vocabulary for is deciding what should be described as right or wrong in some situation. Your thing appears to have no such role.

All it seems to do is allow you to assert any opinion that is in your head and then insist everyone else constructs impossibly convoluted falsification criteria, which you will reject if there is any reference to a secret list of no-no words which you are willing to update on the fly, and can include the words you use to state your own position.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:54 pmJust because a new hypothesis arrives it doesn't mean the old one is discarded. It just means the existing evidence is re-allocated/re-calculated mindful of the new hypothesis.

Your old hypothesis may still remain the victor.

There ya go again. If that is so, then there is no such thing as an 'impossible hypothesis', contrary to what you said here:

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:11 pmWhen you have eliminated the impossible hypotheses, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 3:52 pm There ya go again. If that is so, then there is no such thing as an 'impossible hypothesis', contrary to what you said here.

So what if it's contrary? Are you unable to navigate seemingly contradictory statements in the broader context of the conversation?

You've claimed otherwise before.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 3:55 pmAre you unable to navigate seemingly contradictory statements in the broader context of the conversation?

No I'm not.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 3:55 pmYou've claimed otherwise before.

No I haven't.

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 4:49 pm No I haven't.

Yes you have.

uwot wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 5:04 pm It really would speed things up if you could stop insisting that I believe things that I only hold as general principles and will happily abandon for specific purposes.

Would you say that the law of non-contradiction is just a general principle that can be abandoned for specific purposes?

If would really speed things up if you stopped insisting on consistency.

A consistent system does not contain any information. Or in a language that you can understand: Consistency hinders communication!

Humans care about completeness. Consistency is for robots.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2020 4:21 pm

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2020 2:43 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2020 1:58 pm
Do you want to try again, and see if you can write that out coherently?

Oh, I don't know.?? Do you want to teach me how to be 'coherent' in your terms?

Maybe it might help for you to 'own' that YOU do not understand me rather than assume that I 'owe' you the debt of what you alone already 'own'?

Really? I have a fairly simple point that there is no fundamental unit of nastiness, or pain, or any other complete abstractions. Therefore it is a category mistake to try to measure them in the same way as miles of distance or the number of mice in a cage, which are measurable things in some meaningful way.

It is far from obvious that any of that could be reliant on measuring the total immeasurability of an unquantifiable, or whatever that oblique string of innuendo you presented was supposed to mean.

So write it out as a proper argument, or don't. But don't expect the same latitude I give to the neuro-atypcial crowd, where I am prepared to restate in new terms over and over until I am certain there is no avoidable miscommunication arising from the neurotypical vs atypical conversation. I am not asking anything of you that I wouldn't ask of myself here.

Okay, here is a bit more information. But I'm unclear of your own position, Flash. And so when you merely tell me that I'm being 'incoherent', it is as though you think I should read your mind and default to knowing how you intrerpret me! I can only speak from my perspective and so when someone asserts others as "being X" (for your suggestion of me here "being incoherent"), it burdens the another to MAKE another understand as though you have control of another person's mind.

If you have some critical argument against my points, I expect details of the 'what' and 'why', just as I would respect of you and am doing so right now with this discription. I'm not offended of your difference of opinion, I just don't know what your opinion is, whether it of critique against what I said or of some opinion of yours. That's all.

I am just catching up and already forgot what I had said which led to this. So if you can, please reference what I said that came across incoherent and why. As for what you just said above I'll repeat:

I have a fairly simple point that there is no fundamental unit of nastiness, or pain, or any other complete abstractions. Therefore it is a category mistake to try to measure them in the same way as miles of distance or the number of mice in a cage, which are measurable things in some meaningful way.

It is far from obvious that any of that could be reliant on measuring the total immeasurability of an unquantifiable, or whatever that oblique string of innuendo you presented was supposed to mean.

Okay, I remember responding to you asserting something that could be interpreted as "measurably immeasurable", as I read into that post (that I'd have to go back to see and can't while I am presently responding.)

My response was pointing that out, I recall. And then YOU didn't understand but asserted only that I AM incoherent rather than expressing your OWN confusion. So then I reflected your own response in kind in hopes that you might recognize that merely accusing me of BEING some kind of irrational idiot unable to effectively communicate, that your own expression doesn't permit me to own your lack of understanding me or anyone else and thus makes you relatively 'incoherent' and irrational for lacking any argument in insulting me. I don't 'owe' you the power to make you understand. I can only learn how you interpreted me where YOU put in the investment to TRY understanding something as I would you.

At this point, I don't care and it appears I'd have too much to catch up on to participate fairly for this thread. I just know that my initial response was not of any ill intention against you.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 5:21 pm Okay, here is a bit more information. But I'm unclear of your own position, Flash. And so when you merely tell me that I'm being 'incoherent', it is as though you think I should read your mind and default to knowing how you intrerpret me! I can only speak from my perspective and so when someone asserts others as "being X" (for your suggestion of me here "being incoherent"), it burdens the another to MAKE another understand as though you have control of another person's mind.

If you have some critical argument against my points, I expect details of the 'what' and 'why', just as I would respect of you and am doing so right now with this discription. I'm not offended of your difference of opinion, I just don't know what your opinion is, whether it of critique against what I said or of some opinion of yours. That's all.

I'm sorry if you found my response curt and unfriendly, but I didn't put anything about you being some sort of incoherent person.

I commented on a collection of four sentences, not the man. Unfortunately the first of those sentences is something about binary values being all that can be measured, which doesn't make a lot of sense. The second states. "But this doesn't mean that our measures can't include different ones collectively as 'true'", and that serves only to muddy the waters. The third one seems to be following those, but I can't make any sense of it. So although the final sentence in the set is entirely explicable on a standalone basis, as conclusion to the three that precede it, I have no idea what it is trying to say. And honestly looking at in the context of the quote to which that argument is attached simply doesn't help me to know what is going on.

If there is an argument in there, it does need to be rewritten. I can't see how that's an unfair observation. I frequently have to restate may arguments when they are not being understood, it's usually because I have chosen some of the words in them without due care. If you suspend your indignation and re-read it, I think you will probably see my point.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 7:34 pm Unfortunately the first of those sentences is something about binary values being all that can be measured, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

The definition of 1 bit (Shannon) is trivially understood as the answer to 1 yes/no question.

Any explicit positive statement you utter in English, I can turn into a implicit yes/no question you have answered.

This immediately puts the entire game of Philosophy (asking and answering questions) on the playing field of Probability Theory (which you don't understand).

Is any of this incoherent to you? If yes - which parts?

If the other guy actually wants to limit all measurability to binary values we can let him do that for himself. In the meantime, you are skirting other matters.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:46 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:41 pm Before we establish testing parameters for your claim, I suggest starting by explaining what it is.

I can't possibly explain to you what morality is because I don't have any instrument at my disposal which can determine what things are.

Science only ever tells us how things behave and what happens when things interact.

You think in nouns - I think in verbs. Static vs dynamic. So here is a better question for you: What does morality do?

Ok. So you started with an objectivist moral proposition that a thing is 'objectively wrong'.
Since then you have come to reject all use of the words right and wrong anyway.
Then you decided to lambast me for being 'the one who insists on "objectivity"'
Now, when tasked with explaining how betterness and worseness can be applied in this system, now there is a new self destructive swerve.

One of the things we use our moral vocabulary for is deciding what should be described as right or wrong in some situation. Your thing appears to have no such role.

All it seems to do is allow you to assert any opinion that is in your head and then insist everyone else constructs impossibly convoluted falsification criteria, which you will reject if there is any reference to a secret list of no-no words which you are willing to update on the fly, and can include the words you use to state your own position.