All Problems Are Soluble

I originally wrote this for the beginning of infinity email list in Jan 2012.

To consider whether all problems are soluble (strong version), it's important to consider:

- what is a problem?
- what is a solution?


Notice that I did not include the qualifier, "unless it violates the laws of physics" anymore than one about time limits or having enough knowledge. Why not?

Consider the problem of an asteroid going twice as fast as a photon. How can that be solved?

Answer: It is not a problem. Asteroids do not have problems.

Only persons have problems.

Here is what my dictionary has for problem: "a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome". Notice that "regarded as" implies a mind doing some thinking.

Situations like an asteroid moving at speed S slower than a photon are not inherently problematic. Whether they are a problem or not is a matter of interpretation (how it's regarded). That requires a person to interpret.


Note: the word "problem" is routinely used in more than one way. For example we will say, "Yesterday I worked on a fun math problem. I haven't solved it yet." The "math problem" is *welcome*, not unwelcome, but is called a "problem". With this use of the word problem, *no solution is even needed* since no one minds the problem. My dictionary tries to cover this use with "a thing that is difficult to achieve or accomplish" which is decent but I think imperfect.

This type of problem is not the one we're talking about with "all problems are soluble". But these can turn into the other kind of problem -- the type regarded as unwelcome -- and if that happens then we are talking about it.


So, problem 2: a *person* wants to make an asteroid move at twice as fast as the speed of light.

How can he solve that? Doesn't solving it violate the laws of physics?

(Note: we could actually turn out to be mistaken about the laws of physics, but that's not important to our discussion.)


To solve this one, we need a more nuanced conception of what a solution is. Not all problems are solved in the straightforward way.


This problem can be solved by the person changing his preference. If he no longer wants to make the asteroid go twice as fast as the speed of light, it will no longer be "regarded as unwelcome", and so there is no more problem.


So, you may be wondering: can we solve all problems by changing our preferences? Wouldn't that be vacuous? Or does this technique have limits?


There are objective truths about which preferences are good or bad.

Bad is stuff like: unobtainable, counter productive, doesn't solve the problem it intends to solve, or aimed at a bad problem.


People cannot arbitrarily change their preferences by an act of will. They can only change them, in short, when they are persuaded that the new preference is better. This limits preference changing only to objectively better preferences. (As a complicating factor, which I won't explore here, they can also change preferences when they think a new one is better but are mistaken, but don't know they are mistaken.)


This allows for changing preferences as a solution (or part of a solution) to the extent it's objectively needed -- because bad preferences themselves cause problems -- but limits it from being arbitrarily used for everything.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Handling Information Overload

I wrote this in May, 2009 and posted it to TCS list. It provides an example of how problem solving works. how can we always find a solution ("common preference", aka something non-coercive to do) in time? this is an illustration of the method.

Here is a way to approach information overload (whether novel or not):

make a very rough estimate of the amount of information

make a rough estimate of how much time you have before the next deadline or important event

consider several methods of dealing with the information (such as thinking it all through carefully, or skimming it, or setting it aside for a week until you're less busy) and choose one that you expect will finish fast enough not to cause any problems.

With this simple technique, one can remain calm in the face of an unlimited amount of information, and it doesn't matter how slow one processes information. If necessary, just say "wow, that's too much to handle right now. i will look at it later and decide how to approach it then."

CEOs and other leaders do this kind of thing all the time. it's perfectly normal. if they need to make a decision, and their advisors are rushing or confusing them, they say "please write it up in a report" and then they have time to read the report and make a decision without being rushed or anything.

this technique can fail. things can go wrong. it's not 100% foolproof. in those cases, creativity is required. and in those cases, the amount of information you're facing is irrelevant. it never fails b/c the amount is large. if the amount is truly huge, that only makes it *easier* to decide how to deal with it. it makes it very clear you can't process all of it this minute, so you'll know not to try.

what especially makes this technique fail is entrenched theories, irrationality, hang ups. that's why they cause coercion, frustration, psychological trauma, etc. (btw the TCS technique for avoiding coercion is fairly parallel and similar to the technique i described above. roughly, if you can't resolve a dispute btwn two active theories now, adopt the single theory for how to proceed in the meantime, and figure it out later.)

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Critical Preferences

Originally posted Feb 2010 at http://www.criticalrationalism.net/2010/02/28/critical-preferences/

What problem is the idea of a “critical preference” intended to solve? (And how does it solve it?) I think the problem is this:
We form theories to solve our problems, and we criticize them. Sometimes we decisively refute a theory. If this leaves us with exactly one theory standing, there is no problem, we should prefer that theory.

Refutations can be hard to create. Often there are several theories offered as solutions to one problem, which contradict each other, but which are not decisively refuted. What are we to do then? The intellectual answer is to invent new criticisms. That may take years, so there is a pragmatic problem: we must get on with our life, and some of our decisions, today, may depend on these theories.

The idea of a critical preference is aimed to solve the pragmatic problem: how should we proceed while there is a pending conflict between non-refuted theories?
Popper proposes (without using the term “critical preference”) that we can form a critical preference for one theory, and proceed using that theory in preference to the others. The critical preference should be for whichever theory best stands up to criticism, or in Popper’s words the theory that “in the light of criticism, appears to be better than its competitors” (C&R p 74). Popper writes something similar in Objective Knowledge, p 82 (see also pages 8, 16, 22, 41, 67, 95, 103). Similarly, Firestone wrote, “The best problem solution is the competitive alternative that best survives criticism.”

(How we judge which theories are better, or best survive criticism, is another question, and Popper gives various guidance (e.g. C&R p 74, and the idea of corroboration), as does Deutsch (e.g. his recommendation to prefer explanations that are hard to vary), but I’m not interested in that here.)

Would others here agree that this is the problem and solution of critical preferences? (My purpose here is that I think it is mistaken, and I want to get the theory right prior to offering criticism. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood it.)

Follow up post: http://curi.us/1489-critical-preferences-and-strong-arguments

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (76)

Corroboration

Originally posted April 2010 at http://www.criticalrationalism.net/2010/04/07/corroboration/

When we corroborate a theory (i.e., it passes tests), the theory is better in some way. This is a dangerous statement because being better sounds like it’s more supported.

The way it’s better is this: it is now harder to invent rival theories which are not already refuted by existing knowledge. The scope for rival theories is reduced because they have more evidence they have to be consistent with.

Better tests are the ones which will more greatly reduce the scope for possible rival theories. Corroboration increases our stock of known criticism. More severe tests increase it more.

In this way, we can clearly see that corroboration is distinct from confirmation, and is not a type of confirmation, and does not play a related role to confirmation. It’s role is exclusively criticism oriented, and not support oriented.

This is the only valid way to “support” theories: by building up a stock of known criticisms of potential rivals.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Conflict, Criticism, Learning, Reason

I wrote this in March, 2010.

We are fallible: we can and do make mistakes, often. Therefore we have a great need for mistake (error) correction. Mistakes cause bad things like suffering. The way to correct mistakes is to find or notice bad things, criticize them, and come up with better ideas which will solve the problem. Criticism consists of explanations of mistakes: what the mistake is, and why it's bad.

Creating knowledge (learning) consists of imaginatively coming up with ideas and then using criticism to correct mistakes in them and thus improve them. No method of creating ideas reliably creates good ideas directly. Ideas have to be improved. This process is called evolution and the creation of knowledge in genes is another instance of it.

In science, we refer to evidence in our criticisms. When an empirical claim does not match the physical facts, that's a flaw in it. However, even in science most ideas are never empirically tested, but instead are rejected due to philosophical criticism first. Ideas need to be good explanations. They should be non-arbitrary, solve some problem or answer some question, be clear, understandable and unambiguous, be self-consistent, and not contradict any existing ideas which we have no criticism of.

A rational lifestyle (way of life including policies, institutions, traditions, ways of thinking, philosophical attitudes, background knowledge, etc) is one that does a good job of correcting mistakes rather than repeating mistakes. It's important because mistakes are common and uncorrected mistakes hurt people. It's also important because it's a knowledge creating lifestyle and knowledge lets us solve our problems and make progress.

An important way to judge a lifestyle is by how it treats disagreements or conflicts. When there's no disagreement or conflict, life is straightforward; everyone agrees about what to do, and doesn't see any problem with it, so just do that. When there is a conflict or disagreement, a rational lifestyle will not use force but will instead focus on critical discussion and persuasion with an aim towards conflict resolution.

Getting your way by force is bad because winning a fight does not magically make your ideas good. Force does nothing to improve our ideas, nor to evaluate which are good. Force also hurts people, and using force risks losing the fight and being hurt. When we use force, we do not correct our mistakes; choosing for conflicts to be determined by force is an irrational lifestyle. The only reason to use force is if the other guy has decided the disagreement will be settled by force, thus precluding a rational outcome or any learning, and so you're just using force to defend yourself.

In a disagreement, it's crucial for me to remember that I may be mistaken. My goal should not be to get my way, but rather to consider that the other guy's ideas might have some value, and this is an opportunity for both of us to learn something. Clashes of ideas can help us discover flaws and improve.

The first rule of conflict resolution is that the harder time you're having coming to an agreement, the less ambitious you should be. If you can't cooperate to mutual benefit, don't cooperate. Go your separate ways. If one person wants to end the discussion, and he's under no clear, specific and binding obligation to carry on (examples: people are obligated by contracts they agree to, and parents are obligated to feed their children), then the discussion must end. The reason the discussion must end is that there's no way to continue it without using force to prevent the person from leaving. Of course if you can tell him a good reason to continue then go ahead, but if he doesn't want to listen to any more of your ideas there's nothing you can rationally do about that. He may be making a big mistake; but on the other hand you might be; to think that using force to get the outcome you think best would improve matters is to assume you are right, but in a disagreement you might be mistaken. Plus fighting is destructive and you might lose.

Conflict resolution does not just apply to disagreements between two people. It its purest form, it applies to disagreements between ideas, which may both be within the same mind. In this case, going separate ways is not an option, but there is a solution. Conflicts of ideas are only dangerous when there is a decision to be made, otherwise we can just peacefully ponder them until one day we come up with an answer. If we can't resolve a conflict directly in time to make the decision, we can consider the question, "Given this conflict is undecided, how should I make the decision?" This method can be repeated if further conflicts come up. In this way, decision making can continue while an unlimited number of conflicts between ideas remain. All we need is one idea about what to do which isn't in any conflict and which we have no criticism of.

Learning in general is about creating one single idea. Whenever we have multiple ideas, we don't know what to think. But we use criticism to eliminate mistaken ideas. When we get to exactly one idea, then we can tentatively accept it. What if we have two conflicting ideas and can't think of any criticism of either? Don't worry about it too much, maybe you'll come up with a criticism later, or someone else will. And what if we have to make a decision that depends on this conflict? Then use the method above: consider the conflict undecided and come up with a decision compatible with that. And what if we have zero ideas that survive criticism? Then come up with one idea about what to do which is compatible with not knowing the answer.

Liberalism is this rational style of decision making and conflict resolution applied to political questions. For example, liberalism highly values freedom, and freedom means that you can live your life without anyone using force against you. The Government uses force (and, more often, threat of force) routinely, and therefore the Government should be improved to use less force and, ultimately, not to use any non-defensive force. The free market is freedom/liberalism applied to economics. It recognizes that force never helps anything, so it insists that all interactions be voluntary.

Morality is rational epistemology applied to decision making. In this way, one will never hurt an innocent, will resolve all his conflicts amicably (unless the other person irrationally prevents that), will solve as many of his problems as he can, and will have the best life he knows how to. And one can do this while always learning so that his problem solving capabilities, and the best life he understands, continuously improve.

In each of these fields, there is an objective truth. That is necessary to agreement and consent and voluntary cooperation and so on being attainable. If every arbitrary idea was as good as every other, people would have no reason to ever change their minds or care what anyone else thought.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Message (1)

Induction is Wrong. A lot

There are two particularly hard parts of explaining why induction is false. First, there are many refutations. Where do you start? Second, most refutations are targeted at professional philosophers. What most people mean by "induction" varies a great deal.

Most professional philosophers are strongly attached to the concept of induction and know what it is. Most people are strongly attached to the word "induction" and will redefine it in response to criticism.

In *The World of Parmenides*, Popper gives a short refutation of induction. It's updated from an article in Nature. It involves what most people would consider a bunch of tricky math. To seriously defend induction, doesn't one need to understand arguments like this and address them?

Some professional philosophers do read and respond to this kind of thing. You can argue with them. You can point out a mistake in their response. But what do you do with people who aren't familiar with the material and think it's above their head?

If you aren't familiar with this argument against induction, how do you know induction is any good? If you don't have a first hand understanding of both the argument and a mistake in it, then why take sides in favor of induction?

Actually, inductivists have more responses open to them than pointing out a mistake in the argument or rejecting induction (or evading, or pleading ignorance). Do you know what the other important option is? Or will you hear it for the first time from me in the next paragraph, and then adopt it as your position? I don't recommend getting your position on induction from someone who thinks induction is a mistake – all the defenses I bring up are things I already know about and I *still* consider induction to be mistaken.

Another option is to correctly point out that Popper's refutation only applies to some meanings of "induction", not all. It's possible to have a position on induction which is only refuted by other arguments, not by this particular one. I won't help you too much though. What do you have to mean by "induction" to not be refuted by this particular argument? What can't you mean? You figure it out.

Popper argues against induction in books like LScD, C&R, OK, RASc. Deutsch does in FoR and BoI. Should I repeat points which are already published? What for? If some inductivist doesn't care to read the literature, will my essay do any good? Why would it?

I recently spoke with some Objectivists who said they weren't in favor of enumerative induction. They were in favor of the other kind. What other kind? How does it work? Where are the details? They wouldn't say. How do you argue with that? Someone told me that OPAR solves the problem of induction. OPAR, like ITOE, actually barely mentions induction. Some other Objectivists were Bayesians. Never mind that Bayesian epistemology contradicts Objectivist epistemology. In any case, dealing with Bayesians is *different*.

One strategy is to elicit from people *their* ideas about induction, then address those. That poses several problems. For one thing, it means you have to write a personalized response to each person, not a single essay. (But we already have general purpose answers by Popper and Deutsch published, anyway.) Another problem is that most people's ideas about induction are vague. And they only successfully communicate a fraction of their ideas about it.

How do you argue with people who have only a vague notion of what "induction" is, but who are strongly attached to defending "induction"? They shouldn't be advocating induction at all without a better idea of what it means, let alone strongly.

There are many other difficulties as well. For example, no one has ever written a set of precise instructions for how to do induction. They will tell me that I do it every day, but they never give me any instructions so how am I supposed to do it even once? Well I do it without knowing it, they say. Well how do they know that? To decide I did induction, you'd have to first say what induction is (and how it works, and what actions do and don't constitute doing induction) and then compare what I did against induction. But they make no such comparison – or won't share it.

Often one runs into the idea that if you get some general theories, then you did induction. Period, the end. Induction means ANY method of getting general theories whatsoever. This vacuous definition helps explain why some people are so attached to "induction". But it is not the actual meaning of "induction" in philosophy which people have debated. Of course there is SOME way to get general theories – we know that because we have them – the issue is how do you do it? Induction is an attempt to give an answer to that, not a term to be attached to any answer to it.

And yet I will try. Again. But I would like suggestions about methods.

Induction says that we learn FROM observation data. Or at least from actively interpreted ideas about observation data. The induced ideas are either INFALLIBLE or SUPPORTED. The infallible version was refuted by Hume among others. As a matter of logic, inductive conclusions aren't infallibly proven. It doesn't work. Even if you think deduction or math is infallible (it's not), induction STILL wouldn't be infallible.

Infallible means error is ABSOLUTELY 100% IMPOSSIBLE. It means we'll never improve our idea about this. This is it, this is the final answer, the end, nothing more to learn. It's the end of thinking.

Although most Objectivists (and most people in general) are infallibilists, Objectivism rejects infallibilism. Many people are skeptical of this and often deny being infallibilists. Why? Because they are only infallibilists 1% of the time; most of their thinking, most of the time, doesn't involve infallibilism. But that makes you an infallibilist. It's just like if you only think 1% of haunted houses really have a ghost, you are superstitious.

So suppose induction grants fallible support. We still haven't said how you do induction, btw. But, OK, what does fallible support mean? What does it do? What do you do with it? What good is it?

Support is only meaningful and useful if it helps you differentiate between different ideas. It has to tell you that idea X is better than idea Y which is better than idea Z. Each idea has an amount of support on a continuum and the ones with more support are better.

Apart from this not working in the first place (how much support is assigned to which idea by which induction? there's no answer), it's also irrational. You have these various ideas which contradict each other, and you declare one "better" in some sense without resolving the contradiction. You must deal with the contradiction. If you don't know how to address the contradiction then you don't know which is right. Picking one is arbitrary and irrational.

Maybe X is false and Y is true. You don't know. What does it matter that X has more support?

Why does X have more support anyway? Every single piece of data you have to induce from does not contradict Y. If it did contradict Y, Y would be refuted instead of having some lesser amount of support. Every single piece of data is consistent with both X and Y. It has the same relationship with X and with Y. So why does Y have more support?

So what really happens if you approach this rationally is everything that isn't refuted has exactly the same amount of support. Because it is compatible with exactly the same data set. So really there are only two categories of ideas: refuted and non-refuted. And that isn't induction. I shouldn't have to say this, but I do. That is not induction. That is Popper. That is a rejection of induction. That is something different. If you want to call that "induction" then the word "induction" loses all meaning and there's no word left to refer to the wrong ideas about epistemology.

Why would some piece of data that is consistent with both X and Y support X over Y? There is no answer and never has been. (Unless X and Y are themselves probabilistic theories. If X says that a piece of data is 90% likely and Y says it's 20% likely, then if that data is observed the Bayesians will start gloating. They'd be wrong. That's another story. But why should I tell it? You wouldn't have thought of this objection yourself. You only know about it because I told you, and I'm telling you it's wrong. Anyway, for now just accept that what I'm talking about works with all regular ideas that actually assert things about reality instead of having built-in maybes.)

Also, the idea of support really means AUTHORITY. Induction is one of the many attempts to introduce authority into epistemology.

Authority in epistemology is abused in many ways. For example, some people think their idea has so much authority that if there is a criticism of it, that doesn't matter. It'd take like 5 criticisms to reduce its authority to the point where they might reject it. This is blatantly irrational. If there is a mistake in your idea it's wrong. You can't accept or evade any contradictions, any mistakes. None. Period.

Just the other day a purported Objectivist said he was uncomfortable that if there is one criticism of an idea then that's decisive. He didn't say why. I know why. Because that leaves no room for authority. But I've seen this a hundred times. It's really common.

If no criticism is ever ignored, the authority never actually gets to do anything. Irrationally ignoring criticism is the main purpose of authority in epistemology. Secondary purposes include things like intimidating people into accepting your idea.

But wait, you say, induction is a method of MAKING theories. We still need it for that even if it doesn't grant them support/authority.

Well, is it really a method of making theories? There's a big BLANK OUT in the part of induction where it's supposed to actually tell you what to do to make some theories. What is step one? What is step two? What always fills in this gap is intuition, common sense, and sometimes, for good measure, some fallacies (like that correlation implies or hints at causation).

In other words, induction means think of theories however (varies from person to person), call it "induction", and never consider or examine or criticize or improve your methods of thinking (since you claim to be using a standard method, no introspection is necessary).

For any set of data, infinitely many general conclusions are logically compatible. Many people try to deny this. As a matter of logic they are just wrong. (Some then start attacking logic itself and have the audacity to call themselves Objectivists). Should I go into this? Should I give an example? If I give an example, everyone will think the example is STUPID. It will be. So what? Logic doesn't care what sounds dumb. And I said infinitely many general conclusions, not infinitely many general conclusions that are wise. Of course most of them are dumb ideas.

So now a lot of people are thinking: induce whichever one isn't dumb. Not the dumb ones. That's how you pick.

Well, OK, and how do you decide what's dumb? That takes thinking. So in order to do induction (as it's just been redefined), in one of the steps, you have to think. That means we don't think by induction. Thinking is a prerequisite for induction (as just redefined), so induction can't be part of thinking.

What happens here is the entirety of non-inductivist epistemology is inserted as one of the steps of induction and is the only reason it works. All the induction stuff is unnecessary and unhelpful. Pick good ideas instead of dumb ones? We could have figured that out without induction, it's not really helping.

Some people will persevere. They will claim that it's OBVIOUS which ideas are dumb or not – no thinking required. What does that mean? It means they can figure it out in under 3 seconds. This is silly. Under 3 seconds of thinking is still thinking.

Do you see what I mean about there are so many things wrong with induction it's hard to figure out where to start? And it's hard to go through them in an orderly progression because you start talking about something and there's two more things wrong in the middle. And here I am on this digression because most defenses of induction – seriously this is the standard among non-professionals – involve a denial of logic.

So backing up, supposedly induction helps us make theories. How? Which ones? By what steps do we do it? No answers. And how am I supposed to prove a negative? How do I write an essay saying "induction has no answers"? People will say I'm ignorant and if only I read the right book I'd see the answer. People will say that just because we don't know the answer doesn't mean there isn't one. (And remember that refutation of induction I mentioned up top? Remember Popper's arguments that induction is impossible? They won't have read any of that, let alone refuted it.)

And I haven't even mentioned some of the severe flaws in induction. Induction as originally intended – and it's still there but it varies, some people don't do this or aren't attached to it – meant you actually read the book of nature. You get rid of all your prejudices and biases and empty your mind and then you read the answers straight FROM the observation data. Sound like a bad joke? Well, OK, but it's an actual method of how to do induction. It has instructions and steps you could follow, rather than evasion. If you think it's a bad joke, how much better is it to replace those concrete steps with vagueness and evasion?

Many more subtle versions of this way of thinking are still popular today. The idea of emptying your mind and then surely you'll see the truth isn't so popular. But the idea that data can hint or lead or point is still popular. But completely false. Observation data is inactive and passive. Further, there's so much of it. Human thinking is always selective and active. You decide which data to focus on, and which ways to approach the issue, and what issues to care about, and so on. Data has to be interpreted, by you, and then it is you interpretations, not the data itself, which may give you hints or leads. To the extent data seems to guide you, it's always because you added guidance into the data first. It isn't there in the raw data.

Popper was giving a lecture and at the start he said, "Observe!" People said, "Observe what?" There is no such thing as emptying your mind and just observing and being guided by the data. First you must think, first you must have ideas about what you're looking for. You need interests, problems, expectations, ideas. Then you can observe and look for relevant data.

The idea that we learn FROM observation is flawed in another way. It's not just that thinking comes first (which btw again means we can't think by induction since we have to think BEFORE we have useful data). It also misstates the role of data in thinking. Observations can contradict things (via arguments, not actually directly). They can rule things out. If the role of data is to rule things out, then whatever positive ideas we have we didn't learn from the data. What we learned from the data, in any sense, is which things to reject, not which to accept.

Final point. Imagine a graph with a bunch of dots on it. Those are data points. And imagine a line connecting the dots would be a theory that explained them. This is a metaphor. Say there are a hundred points. How many ways can you draw a line connecting them? Answer: infinitely many. If you don't get that, think about it. You could take a detour anywhere on the coordinate plane between any two connections.

So we have this graph and we're connecting the dots. Induction says: connect the dots and what you get is supported, it's a good theory. How do I connect them? It doesn't say. How do people do it? They will draw a straight line, or something close to that, or make it so you get a picture of a cow, or whatever else seems intuitive or obvious to them. They will use common sense or something – and never figure out the details of how that works and whether they are philosophically defensible and so on.

People will just draw using unstated theories about which types of lines to prefer. That's not a method of thinking, it's a method of not thinking.

They will rationalize it. They may say they drew the most "simple" line and that's Occam's razor. When confronted with the fact that other people have different intuitions about what lines look simple, they will evade or attack those people. But they've forgotten that we're trying to explain how to think in the first place. If understanding Occam's razor and simplicity and stuff is a part of induction and thinking, then it has to be done without induction. So all this understanding and stuff has to come prior to induction. So really the conclusion is we don't think by induction, we have a whole method of thinking which works and is a prerequisite for induction. Induction wouldn't solve epistemology, it'd presuppose epistemology.

What we really know, from the graph with the data points, is that all lines which don't go through every point are wrong. We rule out a lot. (Yes, there's always the possibility of our data having errors. That's a big topic I'm not going to go into. Regardless, the possibility of data errors does not help induction's case!)

And what about the many lines which aren't ruled out by the data? That's where philosophy comes in! We don't and can't learn everything from the data. Data is useful but isn't the answer. We always have to think and do philosophy to learn. We need criticisms. Yes, lots of those lines are "dumb". There are things wrong with them. We can use criticism to rule them out.

And then people will start telling me how inconvenient and roundabout that is. But it's the only way that works. And it's not inconvenient. Since it's the only way that works, it's what you do when you think successfully. Do you find thinking inconvenient? No? Then apparently you can do critical thinking in a convenient, intuitive, fast way.

At least you can do critical thinking when you're not irrational defending "induction" because in your mind it has authority.

EDIT: Some more problems with induction I didn't mention:

"the future is like the past" principle. or "the future will resemble the past". or other similar formulations. the problem is the future always resembles the past in some ways and not others. which are which? induction doesn't tell you which are which. instead it implicitly smuggles in thinking as a prerequisite to figure that out. (so it presupposes, rather than explains, thinking).

Induction is supposed to be a solution to epistemology but doesn't address Paley's problem.

The issue of how we think about abstract non-empirical ideas is not addressed by induction.

See also: http://www.curi.us/1450-new-induction-disproof

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

Epistemology Without Weights and the Mistake Objectivism and Critical Rationalism Both Made

Objectivists accuse Popperians of being skeptics. Popperians accuse Objectivists of being infallibilists. Actually, both philosophies are valuable and largely compatible. I present here some integrating ideas and then a mistake that both philosophies made.

Knowledge is certain, absolute, contextual, conclusive and progressive. The standard of knowledge is conclusiveness not infallibility, perfection or omniscience.

Certain means we should act on it instead of hesitating. We should follow its implications and use it, rather than sitting around doubting, wondering, scared it might be wrong. Certain also means that it is knowledge, as opposed to non-knowledge; it denies skepticism.

Absolute means no contradictions, compromises or exceptions are allowed.

Contextual means that knowledge must be considered in context. A good idea in one context may not be a good idea when transplanted into another context. No knowledge could hold up against arbitrary context switches and context dropping.

Further, knowledge is problem oriented. Knowledge needs some problem(s) or question(s) for context, which it addresses or solves. Knowledge has to be knowledge about something, with some purpose. This implies: if you have an answer to a question, and then in the future you learn more, the old answer still answers the old question. It's still knowledge in its original, intended context.

Consider blood types. People wanted to know which blood transfusions were safe (among other questions) and they created some knowledge of A, B, AB and O blood types. Later they found out more. Actually there is A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+, AB-, O+ and O-. It was proper to act on the earlier knowledge in its context. It would not be proper to act on it today; now we know that some B type blood is incompatible with some other B type blood. Today's superior knowledge of blood types is also contextual. Maybe there will be a new medical breakthrough next year. But it's still knowledge in today's context, and it's proper to act on it.

One thing to learn here is that a false idea can be knowledge. The idea that all B type blood is compatible is contextual knowledge. It was always false, as a matter of fact, and the mistake got some people killed. Yet it was still knowledge. How can that be?

Perfection is not the standard of knowledge. And not all false ideas are equally good. What matters is the early idea about blood types had value, it had useful information, it helped make many correct decisions, and no better idea was available at the time. That value never goes away even when we learn about a mistake. That original value is still knowledge, considered contextually, even though the idea as a whole is now known to be false.

Conclusive means the current context only allows for one rational conclusion. This conclusion is not infallible, but it's the only reasonable option available. All the alternative ideas have known flaws; they are refuted. There's only one idea left which is not refuted, which could be true, is true as far as we know (no known flaws), and which we should therefore accept. And that is knowledge.

None of this contradicts the progressive character of knowledge. Our knowledge is not frozen and final. We can learn more and better – without limit. We can keep identifying and correcting errors in our ideas and thereby achieve better and better knowledge. (One way knowledge can be better is that it is correct in more contexts and successfully addresses more problems and questions.)

The Mistake

Peikoff says that certainty (meaning conclusive knowledge) is when you get to the point that nothing else is possible. He means that, in the current context, there are no other options. There's just one option, and we should accept it. All the other ideas have something wrong with them, they can't be accepted. This is fine.

Peikoff also says that before you have certainty you have a different situation where there are multiple competing ideas. Fine. And that's not certainty, that's not conclusive knowledge, it's a precursor stage where you're considering the ideas. Fine.

But then Peikoff makes what I think is an important mistake. He says that if you don't have knowledge or certainty, you can still judge by the weight of the evidence. This is a standard view held by many non-Objectivists too. I think this is too compromising. I think the choices are knowledge or irrationality. We need knowledge; nothing less will suffice.

The weight of the evidence is no good. Either you have knowledge or you don't. If it's not knowledge, it's not worth anything. You need to come up with a good idea – no compromises, no contradictions, no known problems – and use that. If you can't or won't do that, all you have left is the irrationality of acting on and believing arbitrary non-knowledge.

I think we can always act on knowledge without contradictions. Knowledge is always possible to man. Not all knowledge instantly, but enough knowledge to act, in time to act. We may not know everything – but we don't need to. We can always know enough to continue life rationally. Living and acting by reason and knowledge is always possible.

(How can we always do this? That will be the subject of another essay. I'm not including any summary or hints because I think it's too confusing and misleading without a full explanation. Edit: here is the follow up essay.)

Knowledge doesn't allow contradictions. Suppose you're considering two ideas that contradict each other. And you don't have a conclusive answer, you don't have knowledge of which is right. Then using or believing either one is irrational. No "weight of the evidence" or anything else can change this.

Don't pick a side when you know there is a contradiction but have not rationally resolved it. Resolve it; create knowledge; learn; think; figure it out. Neither idea being considered is good enough to address the contradiction or refute the other idea – so you know they are both flawed. Don't hope or pray that acting on a known-to-be-flawed idea will work out anyway. Irrationality doesn't work.

That's not good enough. If you discover a contradiction, you should resolve it rationally. If you fail at that – fail at the use of reason – then that's bad, that's a disaster, that's not OK.

Karl Popper made the same mistake in a different form. He said that we critically analyze competing ideas and the one that best survives criticism should be acted on. Again this is too compromising. Either exactly one idea survives criticism, or else there is still a contradiction. "Best survives criticism", and "weight of the evidence", are irrational ways of arbitrarily elevating one flawed idea over another, instead of using reason to come up with a correct idea.

(For some further discussion about weighing ideas, see also the choices chapter of The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch.)


Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)

False Dichotomies, Package Deals, and Karl Popper

Karl Popper is often misunderstood because he says the debates for several major philosophy issues involve a false dichotomy. The question is misconceived; both sides are wrong; a new way is needed.

(Whether there are exactly two standard positions, or actually more in some cases, doesn't affect my point.)

Popper's epistemology is the most innovative epistemology of note. By that I mean it changes more from prior epistemology than any of its rivals do. It's the most different. That makes it harder to understand.

(Also, to be clear, Popper personally is not important. Like all philosophers, different people have read his books and interpreted him to be saying a variety of different things. I am interested here only in what I regard as the correct, best interpretation. This includes refinements by David Deutsch and myself.)

What commonly happens is Popper (or a Popperian, or a person advocating a Popperian idea, whatever) says a particular epistemology idea is mistaken and tries to explain why. Then people usually interpret Popper as being on the other side of the dichotomy from them, because he's disagreeing with them. "If he says I'm wrong, he must be on the opposing side from me!" That's an easy conclusion to reach when you don't fully understand the point being made. But actually Popper is taking neither of the standard sides.

It's hard conceiving of a new way of looking at an issue. That's harder than understanding that someone has an opposing position which you've heard before and have arguments about. The standard opponent is within your framework, which is easier to deal with.

Look at it another way. For many issues, there are two sides which disagree but also have some points of agreement. For example, they agree on what the right question or dichotomy is, but give opposing answers to it. When popper says that not only is their answer wrong, but also their question is wrong, Popper is disagreeing with them more than their opponents do! So he could be misunderstood as an even more disagreeable version of their opponents, even though he isn't.


This is relevant to Objectivism because Objectivists have misunderstood Popper, and their criticisms of Popper rely on misunderstanding his positions. There aren't any Objectivist refutations of the Popperian ideas I'm advocating. (Nor are there Objectivist answers to Popper's actual criticisms of some Objectivist positions, like induction).

Popperian epistemology does not contradict all of Objectivist epistemology. There are many points in common, such as valuing clarity and accepting the possibility of humans attaining objective knowledge. But there are some major points of disagreement such as induction and self-evident axioms. Objectivists have the opportunity to learn something, and should be happy about that (just as, for example, Popperians could and should learn a lot from Objectivist morality and politics).


Let's look at some example issues where there is a false dichotomy which Popper rejects: certainty and proof, induction, justification, support.

Take certainty or proof: there is a false dichotomy between having certainty and not having knowledge. There is an assumption, shared by both sides, that certainty is a requirement of knowledge. Popperian epistemology rejects that package deal, and offers a new way: a non-authoritarian, fallibilist way to gain objective knowledge.

Take induction: the two main positions both center around the problem of induction. One position is that we can solve the problem of induction (some claim they already did solve it, some expect it to be solved any decade now). Another position is that the lack of solution to the problem of induction presents a big problem for epistemology. The popperian position is that it's the wrong problem, the wrong question. Popper instead raised a different better question and solved it.

Take justification: there is a false dichotomy between "yes we can justify our beliefs/ideas/knowledge" and "no we can't, justification fails due to regress [and several other arguments], therefore knowledge is impossible". The Popperian view is that both of these positions are wrong. They both agree on an incorrect concept of what justification is and why we need it. They package justification together with knowledge.

Take support: consider the idea that we can support our beliefs with evidence and arguments. Some people say we can't, therefore our beliefs are irrational. Some people say we can, and it makes our beliefs rational. Both sides have accepted that we need to support our beliefs with evidence and argument for them to be rational. Popper disagrees with both standard sides. He says we don't have to support our beliefs with evidence and argument for them to be rational; that isn't actually how you get rational knowledge; but there is a different way of getting rational knowledge.

There is a package deal combining rationality and support. And it creates a false dichotomy where either you have both rationality and support, or neither.


Popperian epistemology is a complex subject requiring study to understand well. I cannot cover it all here. I'm going to talk about one example in more detail to give you a sample.

Do we have to support our beliefs with evidence and arguments for them to be rational? Pretty much everyone agrees the answer is "yes". That includes both people who think we can do this and thereby get rational knowledge, and also people who think that our inability to do this prevents us from getting rational knowledge (skeptics).

The Popperian view is that rationality is not about support. It is achieved by a different method. Rational ideas are ideas which are open to criticism. If there's no way to improve an idea, it's stuck, it's bad, it's irrational. If it's open to improvement via criticism – if it's open to reform, refinement, error correction – then it is rational.

Whether ideas are open to error correction does not depend on how much support they have. That is not the issue. (And actually, sometimes when people say, "I've proved my case with all this supporting evidence," it can indicate they are not open to criticism.)

Think, for a moment, about what we want to accomplish in epistemology. For example: we want to sort out good ideas from bad ideas. We want to improve our ideas. We want to get knowledge – ideas that are connected to reality and effective in reality.

Trying to support ideas was a false goal. It's not really what we wanted. It was a way of getting something else. It had indirect value. It's important to identify this gap and separate the concepts. We can reject support but still find a different method to get the useful stuff support was intended to achieve.

Supporting ideas is meant to sort out good ideas from bad ideas. The ones with more support are good. This method does not work. One unsolved problem with it is to define exactly when, why and how much any given idea supports any other ideas. A second problem is whether a less supported idea could be the best one. If it can, what does it really matter that it's less supported?

However, a different method of sorting out good ideas does work: criticism. Ideas which are not refuted by criticism are sorted out from those which are refuted by criticism. (These critical classifications are always open to revision in the future as we learn more.)

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (0)