Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 11:16 pm
Well, obviously you have a shared goal with yourself. So you can determine relative utility.
You may or may not have a shared goal with others. So you can determine relative utility.
Sure, though often people state their goals and their own evaluations.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:18 pm
I'm not comparing two diffenent descriptions. I'm comparing when one thinks of it as a useful fiction or one thinks of it as simply true.
Note: what one thinks of it as. I am not saying it is (or is not) a useful fiction.
Useful fictions are necessarily true. By the pragmatic theory of truth.
Sure, but it's one thing to think of it as a useful fiction, while engaging in application, and another to, at least temporarily, hold a different view of truth.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:18 pm
I am suggesting that at least for many descriptions, when you then set out to do something, based on that description, the useful fiction is more effective when you are not thinking of it as a useful fiction but as describing what is.
IOW while I may have a kind of pragmatic view of truth, I notice that in situations where I presume correspondance I am more effective (than if I am thinking the description is a useful story.
Reconceptualising how you think of the information doesn't change the information; and it doesn't change how you use the information. I don't see how it would affect effectiveness.
I think you are more fully committed when your attitude is correspondance based. You are more immersed. If you view prayer in a useful fiction way, I think it will have less impact than if you view it as actual communication with a deity, even if while you are engaging in philosophical discussions and perhaps at other times, to maintain a meta-position that truths are useful fictions.
For example when I am making wooden furniture I consider that the useful fiction "Earth is flat" corresponds. I don't need to take the curvature of Earth into account to make a coffee table.
Sure, but one doesn't really need to think of either one when making wooden furniture. And if one usually thinks of 'objects' as useful fictions for some kind of interaction in quantum foam, meaning that objects are useful fictions for shifting areas of energy, it might be best to while workign with carpentry tools to think of the thing as an object utterly. Not that objects are mere useful fictions (even though it may be useful to have the pragmatic ((useful fiction)) model at other times)).
But the fact is that the "correspondence" is an approximation. There are end-goals for which this approximation absolutely doesn't correspond.
i'm not sure what you mean here though my guess is I agree. I am not suggesting a full shift over to correspondance theory belief.
And it may as well be that non-correspondence is useful. Say - if you are testing the reliability of some other system.
Absolutely. Again, I am not suggesting: hey here's a reason to abandon a pragmatic model in general. I am saying that it may be best in some situations to come from correspondance model attitude.
I think one may be more immersed when one does this. More committed. And it can help when one is more committed in many situations.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:18 pm
If it's not a good coach, I'll catch on faster, because there's not the slightest detachment from the truth he's throwing at me. And if he's a good coach, I'm also more invested.
That still falls into "Sufficient descriptions for particular purposes." situation.
Yes, I think I am retaining at the overarching level, when waxing philosophical, a pragmatic approach. But suggesting an important place for letting go all 'it's sort of like X' 'it works best when one views it as X' 'a useful fiction for this situation is' attitudes, explanations, tips, framing...
that are present simply when one is engaged on one's own
or
situations where one is teaching/coaching or learning/apprenticiing with another.