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idle-chat
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Truth is success at a purpose, not a different type of evaluation that can reach a different answer.
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“2+2=4” is true for the purpose of obeying the laws of arithmetic but false as the answer to “What color is the sky?”
Is “2+2=5” true for the purpose of NOT obeying the laws of arithmetic?
Is a fiction-idea true for the purpose of providing entertainment if it succeeds at this purpose?
My current guesses about what you mean by “decisive argument” and “indecisive argument”: Every “indecisive argument” is not formally logically valid. Every “decisive argument” is formally logically valid. If something of this is incorrect, then please, let me know.
CF evaluates ideas by whether they succeed or fail at a purpose (achieve a goal, solve a problem, answer a question). Ideas are for something and can’t be evaluated in isolation.
Ideas which are either false or true can be evaluated on a scale of plausibility. Do you think this may be useful at times? If yes, does this fit with “succeed/fail at a purpose” frame?
A decisive positive argument contradicts its target being false (it says the idea must succeed at its purpose). A decisive negative argument contradicts its target being true (it says the idea must fail at its purpose).
I’m not completely sure on how the target relates with the argument and the idea. I guess the target is not the conclusion. Because if I assume that the target is the conclusion, then a decisive negative argument contradicts its conclusion which can’t be. I guess the target is not the idea. Because if I assume the target and the idea are the same, then all what a decisive positive argument is doing is contradicting the idea being false. But the idea being true doesn’t necessarily mean the idea will succeed at its purpose. Here I assume “its purpose” is not something the idea inherently has, it’s an artifact of someone’s choice. The idea being false doesn’t necessarily mean the idea will fail at its purpose. If the idea is a fiction and its purpose is “entertain” and/or “teach”, then the idea being false doesn’t preclude it from succeeding at its purpose. Did I get this correctly?
Indecisive negative arguments have the same basic flaw as indecisive positive arguments: you can accept the argument but still reject the argument’s conclusion without contradicting yourself.
My intuition is that if one rejects the conclusion of the argument, then necessarily they do not accept the argument. Which means one can’t accept the argument and reject the argument’s conclusion. Did you mean by “accept the argument” something like “accept the premises and intermediate conclusions if any”?
An indecisive positive argument is “I’ll go to McDonald’s because their food tastes good”. It’s indecisive because the reasoning (McDonald’s food tastes good) doesn’t contradict “I won’t go to McDonald’s”. Both can be true.
I don’t think people use arguments like that when choosing if to go to a restaurant and to which restaurant, at least not in a literal sense. One may say McDonald’s food tastes good as one of the steps in determining a subjective degree of goodness of a restaurant, or how it compares with others, or how it compares with not going at all, and then choosing the best option.
To make them decisive, clarify the purpose, …
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To convert to a decisive argument, you often need to clarify your purpose/goal.
“Clarify the purpose/goal” seems like the defining step which contains basically all of the complexity of making a decision. Once that is determined, then the decisive negative argument phase is just a trivial logical deduction.
How does CF deal with the following? One has determined intuitively that a certain restaurant is the best for them to go. Which is like this restaurant scores most on their subjective degree of goodness kind of scale. Then they apply CF. They either tailor their “clarify purpose/goal” step to make it produce such a goal which ensures the decisive negative argument phase excludes all restaurants besides the “best” one. This makes CF application in this case entirely irrelevant. Or they “clarify their purpose/goal” somehow but the decisive negative argument phase excludes the “best” restaurant. So if they comply with whichever the CF output happens to be, they will be upset for missing out on the “best” restaurant.
Does the fact that CF eliminates credences completely mean that whoever is applying CF in practice never considers credence for anything, never reports credence for anything, never asks others for credence for anything? Does CF recommend that nobody ever considers credence?
For me there is a lot of uncertainty about the meaning of reasoning in terms of models, reasoning in terms of propositions, meaning of being a (not) Bayesian in practice.
For example:
Is reasoning in terms of propositions necessarily takes away from reasoning in terms of models?
Can it be be part of reasoning in terms of models?
Are there other modes of reasoning?
This is an obstacle for figuring out what one can implement in practice differently if they become convinced with every argument you make in this post.
The following might help with this.
Could you provide a concrete hypothetical such that:
1. The subject must select one action.
Actions A1, A2, A3 are the best and mutually exclusive.
Not necessarily every one of them is good, just any other action is worse.
2. An average person uncontaminated by Bayesianism, nor arguments of your post, nor critical rationalism, will choose A1.
3. An average Bayesian, however you define that for the purposes of your post, will choose A2.
4. You will choose A3.
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Of all ideas I’d like to consider statements in particular. I guess according with your usage of “true/false” a statement can be true/false only for a purpose. Just saying a statement is true/false without assuming any purpose has no valid meaning. A statement is true/false for a purpose if and only if it succeeds/fails at that purpose. The {statement, purpose} pairing for the “true/false” evaluation can be any, at least in principle.
When you say you “accept/believe/think that” followed by a statement, like for example, “I think that it was raining yesterday.”, do you always imply a specific purpose for which you think the statement is “true”, i. e. the statement succeeds at this purpose? What is this purpose?
That’s exactly it. I guess this is standard for new users here and I’m a new user. My previous comment took especially long. I guess it was approved moments before you received the notification.
I don’t think there is anything I can do to shorten the time before my comments get auto-approved. I just hope it won’t take too long. If it does take too long, I don’t mind joining your forum and talking there. Also I myself may take a few days or even weeks before I generate a followup I’d be satisfied with. I’m posting this comment roughly 6 days after I saw the corresponding comment of yours.
Edit: This comment was auto-approved.