Summary: I explain Critical Rationalism’s fallibilist, evolutionary epistemology, including criticism of induction and justificationism. These are ideas that Critical Fallibilism (CF) agrees with and builds on.
I’ll be doing the same type of analysis that I did with Introduction to Critical Fallibilism - #2 by ActiveMind. I read the article the day it came out.
these are ideas I had about evolution before reading the section. I looked at the length of the section and tried to write approximately the same amount. it serves as a good test and also to expose contradictions.
I’ve read FoR, BoI and everything (I think) Elliot has written about evolution (only blogs/essays/articles/podcasts, not all forum posts for example or paid material). I didn’t read anything or search anything up about evolution before writing this.
evolution is a knowledge creating process. it creates knowledge by correcting errors in our current knowledge.
the process starts out with a problem. a guess is generated to solve the problem. the guess is then criticized to look for errors. this creates a new problem which we can create new guesses for.
(why is there always a new problem to solve? I don’t know. I’m not convinced currently then. infinie precision? infinite regress? no, that’s about certainty)
evolution is compatible with fallibilism because it says we don’t need perfect knowledge or certainty to have knowledge at all. we can continuously improve our knowledge by correcting more and more errors with our current knowledge. criticisms are ideas just like the guesses are, and are therefore also subject to criticism itself.
evolution is compatible with incremental progress because new guesses can solve single small problems. creating new knowledge can solve one aspect of the problem and leave the others unsolved.
we would prefer for our guesses to get correct what our previous knowledge got correct and then make an extension to be correct at some things our previous knowledge got wrong. if the new knowledge is wrong on some things the previous knowledge got correct, then there’s a new problem which is to integrate the two pieces of knowledge.
biological/genetical evolution is a type of evolution. the genes’ problem is to survive and multiply in an environment which is often hostile. new guesses happen by random mutation which creates new attributes in the organism to help the genes survive and pass themselves on to the next generations. natural selection is the criticism process. gene mutations that dies out are analagous to ideas that are criticized and let die.
every step in biological evolution has to be viable. you can imagine a sequence of mutations which could take an organism from dying to supreme predator, however the mutation in the middle is ill-suited to the environment and kills of the organism before it reaches the final form. human reasoning can take such leaps in engineering for example. we can create intermediate version of a product which does not meet the goals but is moving in the right direction and let’s the engineers improve upon to reach a better final version.
56 minutes
17 minutes
Intelligence works by literally evolving ideas in your subconscious mind.
Can’t you do conscious evolution as well? like if you do conscious brainstorming.
When we see the appearance of design, that indicates knowledge is present.
There can be coincidences, but we first assume there it was caused knowledge and then look for explanations of why it couldn’t be knowledge present and how it happened to fall in place and look like there was design.
I think I did worse than I thought I would.
I didn’t mention replication and variation. I thought about the difference of purpose in intelligence and biological evolution, but idk why I didn’t write anything.
I don’t see anything myself I would have to fix about what I wrote other than saying things more elegantly/efficiently. I think the bottleneck in writing more efficiently is the understanding of the concepts, not writing skill.
it was a good test. I sat still and thought about things to include, so omissions are meaningful.
Total time: 1 hour and 30 minutes.
That’s a way of using your intelligence, not the underlying mechanism that makes you intelligent. Also the quantity of evolution done consciously is far smaller than subconsciously so I don’t think it could cause much adaptation just from conscious generations of replication, variation and selection.
I understand that we are fallible and can get things wrong but it doesn’t follow that we don’t have certainty about some things. I am fallible but, in order to say that, I acknowledge that I exist and that I am writing right now, minimally. I can’t see the reason to not acknowledge some things as being certain. A is A, or a thing is itself, is as true as one can get. Of course, because I am fallible, I could possibly misidentify something as being what it is not (which would be a contradiction) but just because I can always make a mistake does not mean that I always do make a mistake.
I think there is a stolen-concept fallacy happening with CR as it uses deduction to criticize and deduction rests on the law of identity. It seems that Popper is going beyond truth and falsehood in the same way that Nietzsche went beyond good and evil. Nietzsche (correctly) saw problems and difficulties with morality and (incorrectly) decided that we don’t need it. Popperians, likewise, have identified – although they don’t want to call it “identifying” because that implies certainty – problems with certainty/truth and decided that we don’t need it. This is avoidance.
Knowledge must be built up (induced) as much as it needs to be broken down (deduced). Yes, there are problems but they need to be faced instead of only avoided. I view error correction as useful for criticism but not for creation. For creation, you must take a risk. Error correction does not do this.
I think CR’s reasoning goes the other way. It follows from the fact that for logical reasons we can’t have (absolute) certainty that we are fallible and can always make mistakes.
Not thinking that certainty is possible is a reason.
I think maybe what you mean is that we need to hold some things as true when we are reasoning? Like, that we need to make assumptions in order to reason? But our assumptions don’t need to be certain; they can just be guesses. You can just guess that e.g you and the physical world exists. Your reasoning will work out just fine if that’s true. Truth and certainty aren’t the same thing, do you agree?
I don’t think it’s been suggested by CR or Elliot that we always make mistakes.
Do you think that “never having certainty” = “always making mistakes”?
CR says that we can find truth but we cant be certain that we’ve found the truth. We can at best conjecture that we’ve found the truth.
I think they do, but it can get easily misinterpreted.
Why are we always at the beginning of infinity? How can we always make infinite progress? Because we always make mistakes. We make progress by error correction, so there has to be infinite mistakes to have infinite progress.
The misinterpretation is to think this means we can never be correct of anything and have no knowledge.
I think the reason that we can have knowledge and infinite errors/progress is because we can’t have infinite precision. Even if we hit upon something true, we could express it even better. For example 2 + 2 = 4 rests on our understanding of arithmetic. but our theory of arithmetic could improve and still say that 2 + 2 = 4. It would agree with what knew before but also let us understand it deeper. Compare with Newton’s theory of gravity and general relativity. Newton’s theory was an approximation of the truth, it was better than what we had before, it was knowledge. But it lacked precision in calculations and also in understanding. (I only have a high school understanding of gravity and general relativity).
Another way to see it is to say that we can solve certain problems, we can have goals and succeed absolutely, but solving the problems creates new problems.
Do you remember where you got this from? I’m not sure myself which way it goes and I would like to figure out. I can see both ways working.
The fact that we can always make mistakes does not mean that we are always making mistakes. Sometimes we are correct, i.e. what we are saying is true.
This is dropping the context. The context is that I exist and that I am responding to you right now. There is no reason to be uncertain about this.
I agree with that.
But I don’t think CR or Elliot argue that because we can always make mistakes that means that we are always making mistakes. Do you think they do? Could you quote it?
Also, I don’t see how what you’re saying is related to that quote of mine. Are you disagreeing with something in it?
CR says we can’t have certainty but it says we can have knowledge. By saying we can’t have certainty it only means we cannot guarantee that there has been no mistake in any reasoning.
To criticize what? The law of identity? I don’t think CR criticizes the law of identity. If your concept of the law of identity contains then CR would criticize that part. But CR would have another concept for the law of identity without certainty that CR’s use of deduction can rest upon.
As far as I know CR believes in objective truth and reality, which I think is the essence of the law of identity.
Why does identification imply certainty? I think Popperians would call any identification a guess and say that it could be knowledge.
Creation of ideas/knowledge happens by conscious brainstorming and unconscious generation. I don’t think we know good explanations for how this works, but we know we can generate ideas. The generated ideas are guesses, so they’re risky. Compare with mutation in biological evolution which often ends up negatively effecting the genes.
I would say I think it’s true that I exist and that I’m responding to you right now. To mirror “there is no reason to be uncertain about this” I would say: I have no criticism of this. But due to fallibilism I cannot be certain about this.
I think we disagree. Do you know somewhere where CR or Elliot say that we always make mistakes?
You might be using “always” in a more loose sense than me?
To me, “always” in “always make mistakes” implies that on every occasion mistakes are made. Fallibilism doesn’t imply that. It just implies that there is no way to know that we are not making mistakes. Sometimes we don’t make mistakes and sometimes we do.
I think that we are capable of mistakes and that mistakes are really common, which is what I do see CR and Elliot saying, but that’s not what I understand “always making mistakes” to mean.
I can imagine someone saying “I always do x” but meaning it in a casual exaggerated way and it meaning “I really often do x”.
I think that “we always make mistakes” means that everything we do is a mistake, and nothing we could do could ever be right or true, only wrong and false. I don’t think that’s true. Sometimes we can do the right thing and sometimes we can know the truth. We just can’t be sure that it’s right or true.
I don’t understand Objectivism’s concept of contextual certainty, but I’ve heard about it. This might be something that is already causing some misunderstanding, but I don’t know.
I don’t understand what you mean here. I may not really know what context dropping is. Would you help me understand how what I’ve said is context dropping?
Would you agree that whether we have certainty depends on how you define “certainty”? We can have some definitions of “certainty” and can’t have others?
To identify something is to say what it is. For instance, a rock. Saying that it is a rock is synonymous with saying it is true it is a rock and also that it is certain that it is a rock. Its identity is a rock. Does CR say that these statements are different? 1. It is a rock. 2. It has the identity of a rock. 3. It is certain that it is a rock. 4. It is true that it is a rock. To me, all four sentences say the same thing.
I acknowledge different levels of certainty, of course. This is not exhaustive but some things could be clear and convincing, others could be beyond a reasonable doubt, and others could be 100% absolutely certain. For example, I am 100% absolutely certain that I am alive right now, as well as a lot of other things.
To simplify it maximally, the context is that I exist. If you say that I don’t then are dropping the context. To say that this context is like any other context insofar as you can never be certain about anything is to drop the context. The context matters, and you know, for certain, that I could not be typing and having this conversation if I did not exist.
I think the disagreement is partly coming from what we think certainty, truth and knowledge are. I think knowledge contains lots of truth and is possible without any degree of certainty. I don’t have clear conception of these ideas so I think it’s best if I let you talk about it with Elliot.
How do you know that you’re alive right now? How do you know an old celebrity like Ian McKellen is alive? How do you know that a missing person is alive right now?
At what point could you be 100% certain about something? For you being alive? For the celeb being alive? For the missing person being alive?
What if you find out that alive humans tend to emit a certain constant frequency of sound when they are alive? And you learn about that. Are you 101% certain about you being alive if you test it on yourself and it comes out true?
I wasn’t referring to quantitatively different levels of certainty but qualitatively different definitions. For example, here are some dictionary definitions for “certain”:
Unfailing; infallible.
definitely true
not to be doubted as a fact :indisputable
incapable of failing : destined — used with a following infinitive
having no doubts that something is true
given to or marked by complete assurance and conviction, lack of doubt, reservation, suspicion, or wavering through or as if through infallible knowledge or perception
firm and assured as though practiced : without hesitation, wavering, or diffidence
Sure; true; undoubted; unquestionable; that cannot be denied; existing in fact and truth.
Sure, unerring, not liable to fail; to be depended upon; wholly trustworthy or reliable.
Established as a truth or fact to be absolutely received, depended, or relied upon; not to be doubted, disputed, or called in question; indubitable, sure.
The state of mental certainty, certitude. Obs.
having complete conviction about something; confident
I read most of these as defining certainty as something binary (present or not present) that doesn’t have levels, quantities, degrees or percentages.
Would you agree with me that that actually does follow for some definitions of “certainty”?
I was actually planning to let other people do most of the talking if they want to try. I’d prefer that. Feel free to discuss even if you think I could do better!
Ok. I’ll do some reading and thinking then. This was fun to discuss and I think it’ll be motivating to learn stuff in order to use it in this discussion.
I’ll read your stuff but can you point to some relevant Popper chapters as well?