Critical Fallibilism's (CF's) concept of error correction mechanisms helps people deal with fallibility. Common approaches to fallibility allow arbitrary judgments without transparency, thus enabling bias. On the extreme other end of the spectrum is putting unbounded effort into handling fallibility: just keep trying to agree with critics until you get mutual agreement, get mutual consent, or they give up and stop engaging, but never, ever unilaterally quit a discussion where anyone disagrees with you (and therefore might conceivably be able to correct an error of yours). CF's idea of error correction mechanisms is designed to rationally deal with fallibility using limited time, energy and other resources.
âWhyâ questions are expressly allowed & encouraged, and certain common parental non-answers (âBecause I said soâ, âBecause thatâs the way God made itâ, âBecause thatâs just the way it isâ, âMy house, my rulesâ and variants of those) are disallowed as answers. âI donât have time to answer right nowâ or âI canât remember the answer right nowâ are allowed, but then parent should try to give an answer when theyâre in a different context later, especially if child asks again. âI donât knowâ, âI donât know how to put it in wordsâ, and similar answers are also allowed, but then if itâs something parent thinks is important enough to make a rule, parent should diligently try to research & develop an answer.
Parents allow and encourage âopposition researchâ in things that are reasonably mainstream but different from parentâs view. Ex: If parent is not religious & child is willing to try church, help them go (parent might or might not have to go - extended family or friendâs parents or whatever will generally happily take a child to church). If parent homeschools and child wants to try school, help them understand the parameters theyâd have to agree to and get signed up if they still want it. If parent believes in alien visitors and child wants to watch videos debunking UFOs, let them. If parent hates baseball but child wants to play, help them join little league. Etc. Basically parent should commit to exposing their child to mainstream information and activities the child wants but parent disagrees with.
I really like this idea! Like you suggested, it would take a certain type of parent to make this work though. Just like it would take a certain type of rationalist for debate policy to work, and a certain type of debate opponent, and a certain group of audience members.
Oh that would make sense to me that itâs a philosophical problem cuz isnât philosophy the practice of how to be rational?
That âtry your bestâ makes sense to me kind of cuz a lot of the time people donât want to over think their method. That when the method could be the very thing messing them up
It seems unintuive to check if youâre wrong about something youâre confident about.
Idk what important mistakes you can make but maybe the critic has something to say thatâll change the conclusion of your argument
Fallibility requiring unlimited effort being open to error correction looks good cuz you can fix a lot of mistakes, but yeah people donât have that much effort to give.
Bias is enabled in part(?)/fully(?) by allowing arbitrary judgements without transparency. So if the arbitrary judgement was transparent it would be fine? I guess because its knowingly arbitrary people wouldnât account for it or something.
I think I remember you being criticized for this. I donât remember if that criticism was an honest one or not. Have you ever believed this? Did Deutsch or Popper?
Oh, so TCS is an example of what I just asked. ok.
Bit confused on reading this. Is the backup plan the solution divided into multiple parts?
~yeah. I think itâs probably also harder the smarter you think you are. Youâll probably give your confidence more weight (weight is a problem too). People do this with others. An intellectual being confidence gives people more confidence versus some random dude who has no intellectual background (or whatever issue) being very confidence isnât taken as seriously. The intellectual is seen as less likely to be wrong.
In one sense you can fix a lot of mistakes. In another sense I think maybe you could fix less? If you give everything a lot of time forever you can maybe go down a rabbit hole that ends up addressing nothing. If you interact with a bunch of people and ideas maybe you have more opportunities to be corrected?
Yeah, I think itâs harder too cuz confidence can mean im right
I think yeah like if you think youâre really smart then itâs ok to be really confident about something you already figured a ton of stuff out.
Oh i see thatâs a good example
Yeah like is time really the thing stopping you from fixing all your mistakes?
yeah i think you do but im also thinking how is the person correcting errors in the first place like how are they doing it. Are they being successful at it?
edit: added sentenct after second quote :âI think yeah like if you think youâre really smart then itâs ok to be really confident about something. You already figured a ton of stuff out.â
Can you give a typical example of a backup plan in some other simple scenario?
With transparency, judgments can be good or bad, but bad judgments can be called out. The audience has information about whatâs going on and can point out mistakes and biases.
Without transparency, bias is protected from criticism.
We ran out of mop heads one day. Plan A/the primary plan(?) is to call around the stores nearby and find mopheads to use. If no mopheads were available then plan B/the backup plan was to use a bunch of cleaning rags bundled together as a mophead to mop the floor somewhat.
Yes literally but do people think that way? I think now that Iâve reread @Eternity âs reply:
i donât think he meant being more confident means thereâs more weight to the truth of a personâs argument. I thought we were talking about weight of truths
Oh confidence canât do what truth, logic, and arguments can do? Can rational discussion and brainstorming mean youâre right?
It doesnât? Like if i say 2+2=4 and im saying im very confident in my answer, my confidence canât change it from right to wrong.
So can emotions not make you right? I thought they did something with the truth like tell you if something is wrong. Itâs hard to think about what is an emotion vs logic, truth, and analysis.
I didnât. I do think that smart people, or people who think theyâre smart more importantly, can end up giving their ideas in their head more weight. They, being so smart, came up with an idea. Therefore, it must be a smart good idea. Its harder for them to criticize and have issues with this smarter good idea.
I think there are some people who say stuff quite confidently that people think is wrong. Hmm. Like my islamic teacher growing up (at saturday, not sunday, school): God can make 2 + 2 = 5. In an odd way if you could get certain very religious people to believe that God did decree that then they would believe it and probably have confidence in their answer. Also something like flat earthers come to mind. They seem pretty confident in their arguments.
I donât think confidence here is a bad thing. Itâs just not related to actually being right.
I think emotions are like quick judgements. Like if your pro second amendment (or not, I donât too have too much of a strong opinion on guns nowadays), you read something anti second amendment, you may get angry. That anger is based on your judgement of that thing. Anger seems to me a feeling in relation to stuff that is like âanti-lifeâ. Before you consciously processed those arguments, your already mad at them.
Have you read any of Miss Rands stuff? In certain essays and stuff she covers the branches of philosophy and stuff. I mean there are other ways to get familiar with philosophy stuff. I just remembered her stuff is where I got familiar with philosophy.
Oh their ideas in their head are given more weight cuz they think theyâre smart. Thatâs similar to giving weight to confidence cuz theyâre both adding up stuff
Oh i see how that could happen. A good idea is different than a smart good idea.
Oh wow Iâve seen people very confident about things that look so wrong.
Oh ok im kind of starting to see how a feeling like confidence is not related to being right. It just seems so automatic to me that it is
Oh so the judgement comes first before the anger cuz then why would you be angry in the first place. Even tho the judgement might be kind of wrong.
Oh so the stuff can be things not friendly to life. Like maybe stuff that is not good for life to survive
Yeah I read a little bit of Philosophy: Who Needs It. I remember reading it 5 years ago.
Yeah, maybe iâll read it again for a refresher. I liked how it introduced the reader to the branches of philosophy for a first time philosophy person. Philosophy seemed pretty vague before that.
I think anger is primarily about perceived injustice. It can be useful to show youâre being mistreated. If the injustice is too great you can get aggressive enough to take revenge or protect yourself from future exploitation.
âAnti-lifeâ is too broad, it includes injustice but also stuff you would get sad, scared or disgusted about. Or maybe even any negative emotion.