I was wondering if you have seen any good examples of the process of applying the Decisive argument criteria over the weighty criteria, because I think it may well be true l’m having trouble in its application
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I feel like it could be very useful though once I understand it.
That’s one thing I love about Leonard Peikoff is that he’ll explain a principle and then apply it to a concrete
Coincidentally, I was actually thinking about the binary classification of ideas last night. When going for a walk, I saw a kookaburra (a bird which makes a loud laughing noise that sounds like its name—like a “koo koo kaa kaa kaa” kinda sound) and I wondered if the bird was named after the sound it makes (i.e., onomatopoeia).
I thought it was “possible” that this was the case. But then I wondered how classifying this idea as “possible” would fit into CF’s way of thinking.
I didn’t have any decisive arguments for or against this hypothesis:
Arguments in favor:
It sounds like it
Arguments against:
It might be an indigenous word that just coincidentally sounds like the bird’s call
I wasn’t sure how CF would think about this issue.
So I want to see if I can understand CF’s way of thinking about these kinds of things more.
I’ll post any progress I make on understanding/studying this issue here.
P.S. I’d also love it if others could share “any good examples of the process of applying the Decisive argument criteria over the weighty criteria” or give their thoughts on how CF might think about the kookaburra example.
when two ideas contradict each other (in a relevant way) and aren’t refuted, then neither is adequate for you to figure out what to do. At least one of them must be wrong since they contradict, and you don’t know which one(s) are wrong.
Applying this to the kookaburra example:
(Without looking up the etymology of the bird’s name on the Internet) I don’t know of any decisive refutations of the idea that the kookaburra’s name is onomatopoeia. But I also don’t know of any decisive refutations of the idea that it isn’t. Therefore, both ideas are non-refuted. But both ideas contradict each other. So there can be non-refuted ideas that contradict each other. I made the mistake of failing to realize this.
So instead of saying it’s possible, I think it makes more sense to say it’s unknown.
I was thinking this argument fails at a goal you have. The goal I think is you being able to say yes or no to:
That’s my first impressions general view of how I think CF would apporach this.
Idk what else I would ask. I think it would be what will make it a yes or no answer? Looking up a historical source? Or idk maybe an encyclopedia? Or maybe someone who knows a lot about birds. What would be good enough to say that the bird name is otomotopiea? I think the answer to this question would change the more people are involved in the convo cuz they’ll raise objections or criticisms about the sources you use I think. I think that happens cuz more people have more knowledge
I still don’t really get weighty vs decisive arguments so I’m trying to imagine what those different perspectives might look like.
Kookaburra: Weighty vs Decisive
Weighty Thought Process: The weighty way of thinking about the kookaburra example might sound like: “Well, on the one hand, its call sounds like its name, so that lends some credence/weight to the idea that its name is onomatopoeic. But then again, on the other hand, that could be a coincidence, which lends a tiny bit of credence/weight to the idea that its name is not onomatopoeic. Overall, I think these two counterarguments balance out thus: it’s somewhat possible that the name is onomatopoeic.”
Decisive Thought Process: I wonder if the decisive way of thinking about the kookaburra example might sound more like this: “Is the idea that its name is not onomatopoeic refuted by the fact its call sounds like its name? No, because that could be a coincidence. Is the idea that its name is onomatopoeic refuted by the idea it could be a coincidence? No, because it might also not be a coincidence. So both ideas are non-refuted. Therefore, I don’t know whether the kookaburra’s call is onomatopoeic.”
Thank you Dface, I really appreciate that you brought up the issue of goals. I got a bit too focused on the issue of weighty vs decisive (which I’m still interested in) and forgot that CF has a lot to say about goals. So thanks to you I now want to study more what CF has to say about goals and the details how that relates to binary epistemology.
In terms of my current understanding:
I suppose my overall goal was something like: experience intellectual stimulation. My initial idea for how to achieve that was to achieve the subgoal(?) of exactly what Dface said:
But then the idea of appreciating that there can be two non-refuted ideas that contradict each other achieved my overall goal of experiencing intellectual stimulation (since for whatever reason that hadn’t occurred to me before and so I found it interesting).
But if I was intent on the goal of knowing the etymology of the bird’s name, then Dface’s suggestions could work:
Yeah, I wasn’t too sure a lot about what I wrote so I said a lot of “I think” and “idk”. I do think goals are important tho.
I know your overall goal was for intellectual stimulation, but I hope it’s ok if I analyze your previous reply literally. i think i did it for the goal of making a discussion tree and share my thoughts about it. Let me know if my reply was not ok
You saying “also” above means there’s a disagreement over:
between the idea:
and
I think when you say
you mean that because the Kookaburra’s call sounds like its name, it’s onomatopoeia.
So to this:
I want to say that because the disagreement is there both ideas are not refuted. Both ideas are that the kookaburra’s name is onomatopoeic and that the kookaburra’s name is not onomatopoeic.
If the disagreement was resolved then we would probably know that it is or is not a coincidence and maybe one idea might be refuted.
Wanna see my discussion tree about this? Tell me what you think if you want:
I’ve given simple examples. Real decision making is often super complex (people subconsciously take into account hundreds of things) and varies by context and goal. Peikoff just gives a few heavily simplified examples IIRC.
Many people haven’t actually done structured non-CF decision making with an explicit method, so walking them through a structured, explicit example with a spreadsheet might not make sense.
If people have examples where they don’t know how to apply the ideas, they could ask/discuss. That’s one of the things a forum is good for.
In this case, conclude that you don’t know or else do research.