# Lmf's quick questions about CF
**URL:** https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906
**Category:** Unbounded
**Created:** [January 17, 2024, 1:56am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906 "2024-01-17T01:56:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Elliot)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2024, 11:32pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/41 "2024-06-22T23:32:33Z")
> [@lmf](#):
>
> It’s obviously not right for me to say that I think the lone gunman theory is refuted.
I think, basically, that you can conclude the lone gunman theory is refuted **(edit: unrefuted)**. This conclusion, like _all_ conclusions, is tentative and fallible. In another context in the future, you might evaluate the matter differently and reopen the issue for further research, but that possibility shouldn’t stop you from reaching a conclusion and acting on it today.
I’m not afraid of reaching conclusions, and if I were, I don’t think that probabilistic hedging language would be a satisfactory solution. (And there are mechanisms by which probabilistic hedging language shields ideas against error correction.)
There are real dangers about bias, rushing to judgment, not learning enough about rival ideas, etc., and there are many things to be done about those issues, but avoiding conclusions isn’t the right solution. (I don’t think you’re against reaching conclusions in general. I’m just speaking to the general issue and also for some reason, that isn’t clear to me, specifically when the conclusion was “the lone gunman theory is refuted” **(edit: unrefuted)** you had an issue with reaching it.)
Edit: I [mixed up refuted and unrefuted](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/43) in this post. The unrefuted paragraph (unlike the refuted paragraph) did give a reason lmf didn’t want to reach that conclusion, so I do know his issue with reaching it, and I replied to that at [Lmf's quick questions about CF - #44 by Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/44)
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### Author:  [@lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/lmf)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2024, 12:12am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/42 "2024-06-23T00:12:56Z")
> [@Elliot](#):
>
> I think, basically, that you can conclude the lone gunman theory is refuted.
My intuitions are such that this statement seemed totally nuts to me.
I thought about it for a second and I think I understand what you mean, though. You mean something like: _my_ lone gunman theory, the one in my head, isn’t powerful enough to refute some of the criticisms I’ve seen. E.g. it doesn’t contain footnotes that explain why the way the bullet ricocheted is physically possible. Therefore, _my_ lone gunman theory is refuted.
I think the reason it seemed nuts (and probably the reason your view of the situation didn’t occur to me) is because my automatized view of refutations is still the traditional view, discussed earlier in the thread, wherein the lone gunman theory being refuted is equivalent to the theory that it was not a lone gunman being proved.
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### Author:  [@Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Elliot)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2024, 12:20am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/43 "2024-06-23T00:20:43Z")
> [@lmf](#):
>
> It’s obviously not right for me to say that I think the lone gunman theory is refuted.
>
> But it’s also not right for me to say that I think the lone gunman theory is unrefuted. I know of criticisms of the theory whose refutations I do not know.
Oops, I’m unfamiliar with this topic and mixed the positions up.
> [@lmf](#):
>
> I believe the lone gunman theory of the JFK assassination.
I meant to say concluding it’s unrefuted is OK. I didn’t mean to challenge your position. I thought it was reasonable for you to reach a conclusion without doing further research. (That would change with higher stakes, e.g. if you were writing a book about it.)
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### Author:  [@Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Elliot)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2024, 12:27am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/44 "2024-06-23T00:27:15Z")
> [@lmf](#):
>
> But it’s also not right for me to say that I think the lone gunman theory is unrefuted. I know of criticisms of the theory whose refutations I do not know.
You do not first-handedly know of any refutations of your position. You do not actually have any knowledge in your head that refutes your position. If you did, then you shouldn’t reach a conclusion contrary to that knowledge.
What you know of is _leads_ on _potential refutations_. But you evaluated whether to pursue those leads and reasonably decided not to.
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### Author:  [@lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/lmf)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2024, 5:27pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/45 "2024-06-23T17:27:34Z")
Okay, good. That makes way more sense than the position I momentarily thought you were taking.
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### Author:  [@lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/lmf)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2024, 8:15am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/46 "2024-06-25T08:15:46Z")
I have a couple of longstanding debates with friends, where we keep getting stuck in some way. My assumption up to now has been that it’s because the debates get into hairy philosophical issues, where neither one of us has enough knowledge to continue. However, it occurred to me that it maybe trying to make the debates decisive would help.
Could you point to any examples of debates that followed CF principles? Or perhaps something like: debates where you think analyzing them and putting them into decisive form would be a good exercise?
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### Author:  [@Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Elliot)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2024, 3:18pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/47 "2024-06-25T15:18:18Z")
> [@lmf](#):
>
> I have a couple of longstanding debates with friends, where we keep getting stuck in some way. My assumption up to now has been that it’s because the debates get into hairy philosophical issues, where neither one of us has enough knowledge to continue. However, it occurred to me that it maybe trying to make the debates decisive would help.
I’d suggesting trying a debate tree containing only the best, most important arguments (or decisive only if the friends are open to that). Just getting a curated, organized visualization helps a lot compared to most typical debate situations.
> [@lmf](#):
>
> Could you point to any examples of debates that followed CF principles? Or perhaps something like: debates where you think analyzing them and putting them into decisive form would be a good exercise?
That’s hard. I’ve had little access to debate since I developed CF. This is partly due to the harassment campaign, partly due to the rise of social media, but I think mostly due to raising my standards, knowing more (it’s harder for people to say useful things that I don’t already know), and changing how I debate compared to years earlier. Changes include bringing up methodology and prerequisites more and putting more effort into keeping things clear and organized.
Here are two of my most recent long debates but I think they aren’t very good due to flaws in the other party (who, among other things, didn’t know or try to follow CF principles):
> [@Elliot Temple and Corentin Biteau Discussion](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/elliot-temple-and-corentin-biteau-discussion/1543):
>
> This topic continues discussion from the Effective Altruism forum. I think Corentin Biteau (CB) is going to come here. Prior discussion: [Debate About Biased Methodology | Corentin Biteau and Elliot Temple - EA Forum](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gL7y22tFLKaTKaZt5/debate-about-biased-methodology-or-corentin-biteau-and) Mirror, 2022-12-02: [archive.ph](https://archive.ph/9Fcfk) Mirror 2, 2022-12-04: [archive.ph](https://archive.ph/99jvh)
This is the only person from the Effective Altruism I could get to talk much. Things began when I went to their forum and asked “_Is there a way here to get organized, rational debate following written methodology?_” I think the answer was there’s no reasonable way to get debate from EA. EA also didn’t engage with [critical articles](https://curi.us/2529-effective-altruism-related-articles).
> **[Curiosity – Firebench Debate](https://curi.us/2431-firebench-debate)**
>
> I had a debate with Firebench on the Fallible Ideas Learning Basecamp. You can read an archive at:
>
> curi & Firebench Debate (part 2)
>
> We agreed to debate to a conclusion (either mutual agreement or
This has a large debate tree made by me in the middle by memory and is after I was using an explicit debate policy. One of the lessons from this debate is that people can agree to debate terms/rules that govern e.g. how the debate may end and then simply break their word.
I don’t know what debates would be a good exercise to analyze. It depends. Maybe much shorter ones. I don’t know of any particularly high quality, productive, rational debates between public intellectuals, especially not the sort of debate that uses quotations heavily and has many back-and-forth exchanges.
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### Author:  [@Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Elliot)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2024, 3:21pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/48 "2024-06-25T15:21:27Z")
> [@Elliot](#):
>
> You do not first-handedly know of any refutations of your position. You do not actually have any knowledge in your head that refutes your position. If you did, then you shouldn’t reach a conclusion contrary to that knowledge.
>
> What you know of is _leads_ on _potential refutations_. But you evaluated whether to pursue those leads and reasonably decided not to.
So did this make sense to you?
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### Author:  [@lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/lmf)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2024, 4:57pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/49 "2024-06-25T16:57:58Z")
Yes.
There’s no other way it could be. If one’s policy was to think that his position was refuted _before_ he has first-hand knowledge of a refutation, i.e. just because someone happened to _say_ something which he hasn’t refuted yet, then that would cause a lot of problems for him. E.g. whatever people put significant effort into overwhelming him with a high quantity of arguments would get him change his mind automatically, not through their arguments or evidence, but through sheer quantity.
It would be a (very weird) version of second-handedness.
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### Author:  [@Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Elliot)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2024, 3:24pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/50 "2024-09-03T15:24:00Z")
How come you stopped posting about CF @lmf?
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### Author:  [@lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/lmf)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2024, 5:02pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/lmfs-quick-questions-about-cf/1906/51 "2024-09-03T17:02:39Z")
I haven’t posted about CF because I haven’t been spending much time thinking about it.
I haven’t been thinking about CF because I’ve been busy with a few other things.
I definitely plan to return to this thread, but I can’t say exactly when. The main thing on my plate right now is my PhD thesis, which I’ve been slacking on for quite some time.
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