I made a small update to the article to add this:
That way, if youâre mistaken, and another person knows the mistake and is willing to tell you, there is a good way (path) for your error to be corrected (which moves your ideas forward to be better).
I think I see why the way is good. Like the other person can know something you didnât and whatever was holding you back before isnât as much now as before.
It also helps others learn from you.
I like that it could help others too idk how exactly tho. Like maybe the other person learns what was useful to say in a situation or what was a good approach.
If Iâm wrong, and you know it, how can I find out? If youâre wrong, and I know it, how can you find out?
Did you think of this question? It sounds like Karl Popperâs quote of(handwritten from the myth of the framework):
âI may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth.â
i like the question itâs straightforward
Accepting your fallibility, and trying to find and fix your mistakes â actually wanting to find your own errors on purpose â is one of the main parts of rationality.
I like the idea of wanting to fix your errors on purpose cuz then youâll be doing rationality.
Paths Forward talks about sharing ideas and organizing ideas. These both help enable mistakes be found and corrected.
Thatâs good actually cuz if you find how to organize and share your ideas better you can find more of your mistakes and correct them. Thatâs better than trying to be right on the spot
If thereâs a disagreement they may contact you to tell you youâre wrong. If youâre in fact correct you can convince them of the truth. If there wasnât Paths Forward the discussion mightâve never happened and they couldâve stayed wrong forever.
It can help others correct their errors generally.
If someone tells you a critical argument, then you can learn from it or give a counter-argument (or sometimes both). If you give a counter-argument, then they can learn from you (or give a counter-counter-argument, in which case you get another chance to learn or counter).
In my example I presumed that you were correct. But you could be wrong but the other person still learns through developing a new theory in response to your counter-argument. Both people could learn from the new knowledge.
Oh that happens when people are discussing in a path forwards way.
Oh like you find out your error wasnât actually wrong and their criticism is wrong and you let them know how your argument is right?
Donât discussions happen even without paths forward? They just donât focus on finding and fixing errors? Maybe a little but like in an indirect kind of way.
I like that cuz you can improve. The only thing I donât like is that it just becomes so difficult to fix errors in an effective way and I get stuck.
Thatâs good you can stand up for your argument. Youâre not just giving up your idea and settling to learn.
Also sometimes both? Like maybe you can take something good from their counter argument and learn from it and combine it with the good parts of your argument. That last part can happen cuz youâve made a good counter argument for your idea.
Thatâs a lot of chances to learn. Like one person gives the counter argument and the other person can learn. But if they can counter counter argument then you can learn. You can work together to learn like you would on your own.
yeah.
Yes, but they would happen more with Paths Forward. The purpose of PF is get more critical discussion (debate) happening, especially among intellectuals.
For some problems we have we have to create new knowledge, that takes creativity and can be very hard. For other problems we are wrong but someone else knows a good solution, thatâs easier to solve: someone can tell us the answer. For example once germ theory is discovered you want to spread it across the world such that doctors will start washing their hands and such that more medical research based on germ theory is done. PF would help with spreading good ideas. It would be inefficient if the rest of the world kept being ignorant of germ theory.
We have lots of long standing controversies which means we have inefficiencies due to the best knowledge not being adopted instead of not being able to create the knowledge (unless every alternative solution is approximately equally bad). The problem isnât complete ignorance of the rival theories in these cases. For example, lots of socialists have heard about Austrian economics but they donât know about the economic calculation problem.
For these controversies PF would also help with dealing with peoples biases that stops them from accepting the better ideas. Public intellectuals would have debate policies and transparency to combat their bias and show they are open to critical discussion.
Getting the critical discussion to happen more among intellectuals looks like it matters cuz they have a big audience to spread their ideas to.
It would be good to talk to those people that know the answer. Like why are we not talking more. We should so we can help each other out
That germ theory is the easier solution and can help others solve their problems.
If germ theory was one theory that the world stopped being ignorant of then there must be so many weâre we donât know of that would help us with our problems
It isnt right cuz we have the internet. Today theories can be spread easily
Oh ok they do know about the economic calculation problem cuz they arenât completely ignorant to it. They just donât deal with rival theories well
Yeah that would be good that way people can deal with ideas properly.
What I meant here was that they were ignorant of the specific criticism of socialism that is the economic calculation problem, but not totally ignorant of austrian economics and Mises (whom the criticism comes from). Also I bet there are lots of socialists who have heard about the economic calculation problem and just brush it off without finding a solution. PF would hold them accountable for that.
That is a good question about why more debates and critical discussions arenât happening. You and others may want to brainstorm about reasons for that.
Why arenât more debates and critical discussions happening?
Brainstorm:
Because we are afraid of being wrong
Ideas are taken too seriously they could be wrong
Ideas are held too close as a form of identity
debates are seen as scary
debates and critical discussions are seen as combative
debates and critical discussions are seen as non productive and so no one wants to debate
debates and critical discussions are seen as picking one side to win and no one wants to stick around in the end to change their mind
debates and critical discussions are x
x are mostly for people to witness as a crowd and be entertained
x are for those that want to prove why theyâre right and not why they might be wrong
x are for those who are only high intellectuals
if x is done by those who are not really intellectuals then all the answers and points were already found so itâs not taken seriously
x is not seen as a way to solve problems
x is not seen as another way to find a solution
x is seen as entertainment
x is just so when you solo learn your things you can show how smart you are to the other party
x is not seen as a way to get things done better
x is not seen as useful for getting things done
x is not taken as a form of problem solving, because problem sovling is barely seen as problem solving itself. No good starting points and not automatic enough for people
x is not practicced enough for people to see how useful it is in their lives
x is for college campus arguing only not for the home
x is rude to do and bad to questeion othersâ beliefes
x is for thanksgiving dinner when people can speak their mind and not be bored or felt unseen
x is for the conservative uncle who doesnât want to change their beliefs
x is not used in schools and so a late skill to aquire in life
Oh ok i think I get it now: the austrian economics is the rival theory and the economic calculation problem is the specific criticism that socialists would be ignorant of.
It sounds right to me in a way that the criticism would be brushed off cuz dealing with a criticism varies a lot i think person by person. Like it can sound wrong to them or think thereâs something wrong with it and not think too much about it
From what Iâve read so far of PF and what I kind of understood is that if like a counterargument or counter counter argument isnât resolved then it doesnât really say that the root idea or criticism is bad, but that there is an unresolved issue down the line of the discussion. That way people have more accurate takes on if itâs really the idea thatâs wrong or something down the line of the discussion.
Read some forum posts mentioning Path Forwards and I just realized Iâm not too sure about what it is exactly. Iâm gonna read this and some other things.
Paths Forward is an original Critical Fallibilism idea about approaching discussion and ideas rationally. That way, if youâre mistaken, and another person knows the mistake and is willing to tell you, there is a good way (path) for your error to be corrected (which moves your ideas forward to be better). It also helps others learn from you.
Paths Forward is an idea about approaching discussions in a way where there is a good way (path) for your errors to be corrected so they can improve and be better (so they move forward).
Accepting your fallibility, and trying to find and fix your mistakes â actually wanting to find your own errors on purpose â is one of the main parts of rationality.
Knowing that youâre fallible, that you make mistakes, and trying to fix those mistakes is rational. Knowing that you make mistakes isnât enough. Thatâs better than a lot of people to an extent but whatâs the point of that knowledge? Then again so long as you know that much it may prevent you from being headstrong with certain ideas or what not. To be careful of what you say.
You can also try to address mistakes without accepting fallibility. I think thatâs what a lot of people do. They try to fix themselves until they get a âperfectâ version of themselves.
This would be too vague of a definition. PF specifically helps us move forward on problems which are actually already solved. Problems where no one knows the answer are hard because they require creativity, whereas for solved problems the knowledge is already created and you just need to spread the knowledge.
Although âjust spreading the knowledgeâ isnât necessarily easy. I think there are ideas which are just lacking attention and would easily convince the right people quickly, but I think for the most part ideas which lack the attention they deserve are so because theyâre controversial and meet resistance when they are brought up.
There is a sense in which this is also a matter of someone just being ignorant of the knowledge, despite having heard about the idea and rejected it. What they donât know is what sort of responses and criticisms are made by the idea because they havenât had a proper debate about it. They donât know the deeper implications, inner workings or premises of the idea, which if they did know, they would drop their current ideas and adopt this one instead.