I was planning to write an essay explaining the method of rationally resolving conflicts and always acting on a single idea with no outstanding criticisms. It would followup on my essay Epistemology Without Weights and the Mistake Objectivism and Critical Rationalism Both Made where I mentioned the method but didn't explain it.
I knew I'd already written a number of explanations on the topic, so I decided to reread them for preparation. While reading them I decided that the topic is hard and it'd be very hard to write a single essay which is good enough for someone to understand it. Maybe if they already had a lot of relevant background knowledge, like knowing Popper, Deutsch or TCS, one essay could work OK. But for an Objectivist audience, or most audiences, I think it'd be really hard.
So I had a different idea I think will work better: gather together multiple essays. This lets people learn about the subject from a bunch of different angles. I think this way will be the most helpful to someone who is interested in understanding this philosophy.
Each link below was chosen selectively. I reread all of them as well as other things that I decided not to include. It may look like a lot, but I don't think you should expect an important new idea in epistemology to be really easy and short to learn. I've put the links in the order I recommend reading them, and included some explanations below.
Instead of one perfect essay – which is impossible – I present instead some variations on a theme.
Update 2017: Buy my Yes or No Philosophy to learn a ton more about this stuff. It has over 6 hours of video and 75 pages of writing. See also this free essay giving a short argument for it.
Update Oct 2016: Read my new Rejecting Gradations of Certainty.
Popper's critical preferences idea is incorrect. It's similar to standard epistemology, but better, but still shares some incorrectness with rival epistemologies. My criticisms of it can be made of any other standard epistemology (including Objectivism) with minor modifications. I explained a related criticism of Objectivism in my prior essay.
Critical Preferences
Critical Preferences and Strong Arguments
The next one helps clarify a relevant epistemology point:
Corroboration
Regress problems are a major issue in epistemology. Understanding the method of rationally resolving conflicts between ideas to get a single idea with no outstanding criticism helps deal with regresses.
Regress Problems
Confused about anything? Maybe these summary pieces will help:
Conflict, Criticism, Learning, Reason
All Problems are Soluble
We Can Always Act on Non-Criticized Ideas
This next piece clarifies an important point:
Criticism is Contextual
Coercion is an important idea to understand. It comes from Taking Children Seriously (TCS), the Popperian educational and parenting philosophy by David Deutsch. TCS's concept of "coercion" is somewhat different than the dictionary, keep in mind that it's our own terminology. TCS also has a concept of a "common preference" (CP). A CP is any way of resolving a problem between people which they all prefer. It is not a compromise; it's only a CP if everyone fully prefers it. The idea of a CP is that it's a preference which everyone shares in common, rather than disagreeing.
CPs are the only way to solve problems. And any non-coercive solution is a CP. CPs turn out to be equivalent to non-coercion. One of my innovations is to understand that these concepts can be extended. It's not just about conflicts between people. It's really about conflicts between ideas, including ideas within the same mind. Thus coercion and CPs are both major ideas in epistemology.
TCS's "most distinctive feature is the idea that it is both possible and desirable to bring up children entirely without doing things to them against their will, or making them do things against their will, and that they are entitled to the same rights, respect and control over their lives as adults." In other words, achieving common preferences, rather than coercion, is possible and desirable.
Don't understand what I'm talking about? Don't worry. Explanations follow:
Taking Children Seriously
Coercion
The next essay explains the method of creating a single idea with no outstanding criticisms to solve problems and how that is always possible and avoids coercion.
Avoiding Coercion
Avoiding Coercion Clarification
This email clarifies some important points about two different types of problems (I call them "human" and "abstract"). It also provides some historical context by commenting on a 2001 David Deutsch email.
Human Problems and Abstract Problems
The next two help clarify a couple things:
Multiple Incompatible Unrefuted Conjectures
Handling Information Overload
Now that you know what coercion is, here's an early explanation of the topic:
Coercion and Critical Preferences
This is an earlier piece covering some of the same ideas in a different way:
Resolving Conflicts of Interest
These pieces have some general introductory overview about how I approach philosophy. They will help put things in context:
Think
Philosophy: What For?
Update: This new piece (July 2017) talks about equivocations and criticizes the evidential continuum: Don't Equivocate
Want to understand more?
Read these essays and dialogs. Read Fallible Ideas. Join my discussion group and actually ask questions.
Messages (30 of 241) (Show All Comments)
Do you plan on answering my previous question?
>I can't recall Popper demonstrating the impossibility of performing an induction, only his demonstration of the impossibility of justifying an induction. I’m having a look through Popper’s “Realism and the Aim of Science” now because you list it under Popper’s best, but so far it looks like more of the same.
>Any particular chapter (quotes would be great!) where you think Popper provides this argument?
Also, I found your sports example inductive. If I spell it out:
1) X is a sample of the results from trying out a new sports play.
2) X shows the play had success 40% of the time.
3) Therefore, X will will continue to work approximately 40% of the time.
Haven't read your comments yet but I wrote this on 2020-04-02, didn't get around to working on it more but maybe it'll help:
---
Summary involving some guesses:
You associate induction with statistics.
You have many ideas about statistics.
Some of your ideas about statistics are basically correct and useful. But some are wrong and don’t work.
You conclude: Even if some of your ideas about statistics are flawed, *some of that stuff does work*. It isn’t all wrong. It isn’t thoroughly wrong.
I agree with the reasonableness of that judgment and the conclusion. While some particular ideas are broken, statistics isn’t thoroughly wrong or refuted.
You further conclude that therefore induction works, at least some inductive stuff to some extent. Because you associate induction and statistics.
Here I disagree. Lots of statistics has nothing to do with induction. Careful analysis of which parts of statistics are broken, and which parts are related to induction, will show that all the working stuff is non-inductive. But that analysis will require, first, better understanding and specifying what induction is. You need to be able to tell what counts as induction, or not, before you can do the analysis. Popper has sophisticated views on this matter that fit the history of philosophy and fit the views of other philosophers he talked with. However, due to Popper’s criticisms of induction, a lot of the response has been to start redefining induction or making it more vague or broad. So today a lot of people don’t have a good grasp of the meaning of induction that Popper and his predecessors and opponents largely agreed on, which is the thing Popper refuted. Popper’s refutations also have lots of applications to other similar claims, but there are also some kinda similar looking claims that are not refuted and which CR people do not consider inductive. Until you understand the distinction of what CR considers induction or not and why, you aren’t in a position to even judge whether you agree that “induction” (as CR sees it) is refuted.
One of the major inductive ideas is that the future will (or is likely to) resemble the past. Another is that correlations hint as causations. Another is that we can induce conclusions (that are likely to be true or whatever) from raw data without intellectual interpretation – just look at the patterns in the data for guidance. Another is that “evidence X supports conclusion Y” is a reasonable, coherent and useful concept. Another (older) inductive idea is that if we get rid of biases and preconceptions, and empty and open our mind and observe, we can learn the truth that way. These are some of the things that CR refuted. Understanding the extent and applications of these ideas, and what else is similar to them (so you can recognize the wide variety of variants of them), and how they are connected to each other, is a significant undertaking.
> I have read (not front to back) a number of Popper's books; "Conjectures and Refutations", "Logic of Scientific Discovery", and "Objective Knowledge". I have focused especially on the chapters that deal with his solution to the problem of induction, theory appraisal, probability, corroboration, and practical theory choice.
> I can't recall Popper demonstrating the impossibility of performing an induction, only his demonstration of the impossibility of justifying an induction. I’m having a look through Popper’s “Realism and the Aim of Science” now because you list it under Popper’s best, but so far it looks like more of the same.
Can you point out any topical error in any of this material, especially one with major consequences for what conclusions to reach? Or do you broadly accept what Popper says and just don't see how it's incompatible with induction?
> Are you not accepting/believing the truth-likeliness of the conclusion that your epistemology is induction-less, based on the premise that the past sample of arguments that you analysed were found to be induction-less?
That doesn't resemble my reasoning. I reject induction due to logical arguments criticizing it.
> You start with premises that tell you that you have a representative sample of predictions derived from your theory
Do you agree with me that if you take any subset/sample of a set, the subset/sample is always unrepresentative in some respects?
> Can you point out any topical error in any of this material, especially one with major consequences for what conclusions to reach? Or do you broadly accept what Popper says and just don't see how it's incompatible with induction?
As I said earlier. I think Popper showed the impossibility of justifying induction, but I don't believe he demonstrated the impossibility of performing an induction.
My view is that induction is a natural way in which humans reason about the world/reality. Under this view it is not necessary for induction to be justified as absolutely true. Instead induction is a part of our reasoning, and is used to do the justifying.
Do you know of anywhere in Popper's writing where he demonstrates the impossibility of performing an induction?
>> You start with premises that tell you that you have a representative sample of predictions derived from your theory
> Do you agree with me that if you take any subset/sample of a set, the subset/sample is always unrepresentative in some respects?
Yes. What does this mean then?
>> Can you point out any topical error in any of this material, especially one with major consequences for what conclusions to reach? Or do you broadly accept what Popper says and just don't see how it's incompatible with induction?
> As I said earlier. I think Popper showed the impossibility of justifying induction, but I don't believe he demonstrated the impossibility of performing an induction.
> My view is that induction is a natural way in which humans reason about the world/reality. Under this view it is not necessary for induction to be justified as absolutely true. Instead induction is a part of our reasoning, and is used to do the justifying.
> Do you know of anywhere in Popper's writing where he demonstrates the impossibility of performing an induction?
Yeah but hold on, let me try asking my question again in a different way.
When you read Popper, was your general impression the following:
You agreed with most of it. You didn't find a bunch of logic errors, wrong facts, bad arguments, etc. Like most paragraphs are fine, you agree, no objections.
Your issue is a mix of 1) disagreeing with a few big picture points which you don't see as implied by the various detail arguments 2) maybe you also didn't even see a few big picture points as present or claimed at all that i think are there.
is that right?
i'm trying to differentiate this from a situation of someone who thinks lots of what Popper said is wrong, many errors all over, disagree with many sentences, etc. i think you just have a few disagreements but agree with most of the parts that you know of. but i wanna confirm that before proceeding.
>>> You start with premises that tell you that you have a representative sample of predictions derived from your theory
>> Do you agree with me that if you take any subset/sample of a set, the subset/sample is always unrepresentative in some respects?
> Yes. What does this mean then?
It means that "a representative sample" is underspecified or under-defined or something. It doesn't have a clear meaning without more elaboration about e.g. representative in what respects/traits/dimensions. So saying "you have a representative sample" is either wrong or incomplete.
> Yeah but hold on, let me try asking my question again in a different way.
> When you read Popper, was your general impression the following:
> You agreed with most of it. You didn't find a bunch of logic errors, wrong facts, bad arguments, etc. Like most paragraphs are fine, you agree, no objections.
> Your issue is a mix of 1) disagreeing with a few big picture points which you don't see as implied by the various detail arguments 2) maybe you also didn't even see a few big picture points as present or claimed at all that i think are there.
> is that right?
> i'm trying to differentiate this from a situation of someone who thinks lots of what Popper said is wrong, many errors all over, disagree with many sentences, etc. i think you just have a few disagreements but agree with most of the parts that you know of. but i wanna confirm that before proceeding.
Yes that seems quite right. A mixture of 1) and 2).
There are certainly times when I am reading Popper and I feel like he has the wrong idea about something (such as his writings about Hume). However, these are not significant issues that I can't charitably tolerate, and I am still able to follow his main arguments despite them.
> It means that "a representative sample" is underspecified or under-defined or something. It doesn't have a clear meaning without more elaboration about e.g. representative in what respects/traits/dimensions. So saying "you have a representative sample" is either wrong or incomplete.
Right.
My view is that our theory tells us in what ways the sample needs to be representative.
E.g.
If I have a theory that says "all of the beans drawn from this bag are blue", then the theory tells us that the sample will need to be representative of the colour of the beans drawn from the bag.
We had this discussion earlier. It ended with my response:
>>The definition tells you what counts as a minimum wage law. It is up to you to try and get a random sample. We have already established the difficulty in obtaining such a sample. I accept it as a limitation of this type of reasoning, but it is not fatal. Even an approximately random sample is useful, and we correct for errors as our sample size grows in the future, and as we identify important biases in our sample.
If you need footnotes for a claim, please mention them upfront instead of making incomplete statements that you expect me to object to.
But this footnote doesn't solve the issue. Saying what is in set X does not define what is a "representative" sample from set X.
An example of defining a "representative sample" is: The set is swans. I claim 90% of swans are black. I define a "representative" sample of swans as any subset of swans where 88% more are black.
A different definition of representative would be if the percentage of black swans in the sample was within 5% of the percentage of black swans in the full set – that'd be a sample that's representative *with respect to black color percentage* (a specific way of looking at a specific trait) but it's not representative in general (there's no such thing). With the second definition, you have to already know the true value before you can judge whether a set is representative.
A random sample is a different matter than a representative sample. It is both useful and problematic in different ways. You need to differentiate between the two concepts.
When you talk about biases in the sample you're also missing the same point as above: all samples are biased in some respects and representative (unbiased) in other respects. There is no such thing as an unbiased sample in general anymore than a representative sample.
g2g so will put off replying re what popper says about induction until later. is any of this stuff about representative sets making sense to you? it's closely related to what's wrong with induction.
Sorry for the delay. Got lost in one of my hobbies for a couple months.
Ok, I see what you are getting at. It is a question of how we can know if our sample is representative in those respects that we care about.
My understanding is that an induction usually runs with the premise that we have a random, or essentially random sample of the given phenomena. Logically it follows from this premise that such a sample would lead us right more often than not.
So what do I mean by "essentially random", well I’m not so sure how well I can currently describe this, but I will try. For games of chance, or other well understood physical phenomena, we have a clear idea of what is required for a random sample (rolling a dice 30 times, etc), but for more complicated phenomena, such as involved when learning a new skateboard trick, or understanding a social dynamic, etc, then it becomes less clear what is a fair random sample of the phenomena. However, In all cases it seems that we rely on our background knowledge to judge (deduce) the randomness of a sample.
For example, let's say I decide to try and concentrate on throwing myself higher in the air when trying to perform a skateboard trick (in an effort to improve my execution). After a few attempts at this I might conclude that this technique does indeed improve my execution of the trick. My conclusion here is based on the assumption that I have just witnessed a practically, or an “essentially random” sample of the uses of this technique. One reason why I believe this is a random sample is because I might have learned many other ticks and skills in the past in a similar manner. My background knowledge in such a case is something like ‘Focusing my mind on adjusting the movement of my body during the execution of a skill/trick usually has a direct and consistently repeatable outcome on the success of the execution’. So from this I deduce that I would likely be getting a practically random sample of the phenomena (practical for my purposes of improving my execution of this trick, not for predicting the outcome of all such uses of this technique from now and until the end of the universe).
> However, In all cases it seems that we rely on our background knowledge to judge (deduce) the randomness of a sample.
This is a concession that we don't and can't learn by induction and that CR is right. I don't think you're very clear on 1) what inductivist philosophy says 2) what CR says
re the skateboard trick, you had a causal understanding of why the technique might work before you tried it. then when you tried it several times, you e.g. observed that none of the trials contradicted your causal understanding – you never got results out of line with your mental model like going way higher or lower than expected. your mental model has some approximations, estimates, etc., instead of being totally precise. in the context of having an explanatory understanding of what's going on and what data is relevant, then having a several data points helps you improve those estimates.
> This is a concession that we don't and can't learn by induction and that CR is right.
I do not see how you conclude this.
> re the skateboard trick, you had a causal understanding of why the technique might work before you tried it. then when you tried it several times, you e.g. observed that none of the trials contradicted your causal understanding – you never got results out of line with your mental model like going way higher or lower than expected. your mental model has some approximations, estimates, etc., instead of being totally precise. in the context of having an explanatory understanding of what's going on and what data is relevant, then having a several data points helps you improve those estimates.
As well as multiple data points helping me improve the accuracy of my mental model, they have also importantly told me that this technique works at all. Before I try such a technique I may only have a vague intuition that it might help, but I wouldn't say "I know it works" until I have tried it multiple times.
>>> However, In all cases it seems that we rely on our background knowledge to judge (deduce) the randomness of a sample.
>> This is a concession that we don't and can't learn by induction and that CR is right.
> I do not see how you conclude this.
It contradicts the claim that we induce theories from data by saying that we rely on [something other than data] in order to deal with data.
>>>> However, In all cases it seems that we rely on our background knowledge to judge (deduce) the randomness of a sample.
>>> This is a concession that we don't and can't learn by induction and that CR is right.
>> I do not see how you conclude this.
> It contradicts the claim that we induce theories from data by saying that we rely on [something other than data] in order to deal with data.
I disagree.
There are premises involved in an inductive argument (e.g. the sample is practically random) as there are in a deductive arguments too. The background knowledge I'm talking about are speaking to these premises.
For example. In the deductive argument.
1) All dogs bark
2) Spot is a dog
3) Therefore, dog barks
It would be our existing background knowledge that we use to judge whether premises 1 and 2 exist.
BTW, there was a question I didn't really get an answer to, but I would like one.
> Do you know of anywhere in Popper's writing where he demonstrates the impossibility of performing an induction?
#16821
>For example. In the deductive argument.
>1) All dogs bark
>2) Spot is a dog
>3) Therefore, dog barks
??????????????????????
This doesn't seem like a deductive statement. This just seems like all dogs bark therefore all dogs bark. It's just tautology and and it doesn't use the Spot is a dog premise in the conclusion. Did you mean:
P1) All dogs bark
P2) Spot is a dog
C1) Therefore, Spot barks
#16823
Yes, error in the conclusion. It should be:
3) Therefore, spot barks.
#16821 You said induction relies on the background knowledge necessary to figure out how representative a sample is. That means major, prior understanding of the field before you even try to use induction to do anything. Understanding what's representative in the field is basically the whole ball game that induction deals with. That's basically the thing induction is claiming to offer. Induction is supposed to tell us that the sun rising tomorrow is highly representative, rather than use that as a premise to say "given that we already non-inductively figured out that the sun rising tomorrow is highly representative, it's likely to happen".
And induction further alleges that it does its job without creative, critical or intelligent thought because it's supposed to explain how those work rather than rely on them. By allowing such major background knowledge, which comes from prior rational thinking, you're violating this and ruining induction as an explanation of how thinking works. You're changing induction into a mere thinking technique that intelligent beings can use sometimes, which gets rid of its claimed fundamentalness.
Again, you aren't familiar with either side of the debate and what the rival positions are, and that's our main problem.
This proposed (by you) use of background knowledge for induction doesn't compare with the background knowledge used by deduction. I can evaluate deductive arguments about singing, dogs or suns without having background knowledge about singing, dogs or suns. Deduction doesn't require field-specific prior knowledge.
#16822 For example in:
Realism and the Aim of Science
PART I. THE CRITICAL APPROACH
Chapter 1. Induction
Section 2. The Critical Approach: Solution of the Problem of Induction.
Sub-section VI
To help search for it, that section starts with:
> The critical approach which I have described here leads almost immediately to a straightforward solution of Hume’s problem of induction (1739).[11]
> Let us remember what Hume tried to show (in my opinion successfully, as far as logic goes).
Another one is
The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment
ESSAY 10
CONCLUDING REMARKS ON SUPPORT AND COUNTERSUPPORT
How induction becomes counterinduction, and the epagōgē returns to the elenchus
---
One can also state the refutation of induction in a sentence, e.g.: All finite data sets can be generated from infinitely many different functions.
In other words, the idea that we learn by spotting the patterns in our data is wrong because all data sets fit infinitely many patterns.
The issue is the infinite ambiguity of data. So the inductive idea, that data guides us, is wrong, because data is infinitely ambiguous.
There's also Russel's chicken story as well as Hume.
I think the issue is you have no clear idea what induction is, so you take refutations like helpful comments about what not to include in your conception of induction. If you committed to any particular version of induction, it'd either be refutable or compatible with CR (and poor terminology). But without a clear target, one can't offer you a refutation that will work for you.
> This proposed (by you) use of background knowledge for induction doesn't compare with the background knowledge used by deduction. I can evaluate deductive arguments about singing, dogs or suns without having background knowledge about singing, dogs or suns. Deduction doesn't require field-specific prior knowledge.
Take my example then:
1) All dogs bark
2) Spot is a dog
3) Therefore, Spot barks
How do you evaluate the first or second premise without any background knowledge?
You would require knowledge of what a dog is in order to determine whether Spot is a dog.
#16832 You don't deductively evaluate whether the first premise is true. Deduction doesn't do that. Deduction tells you whether the conclusion follows from the premises, not whether it's true.
from https://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/
>>A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. Otherwise, a deductive argument is said to be invalid.
>>A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
So when we are checking if the first and second premises are true we are checking if the argument is sound. Here you require background knowledge.
#16834 Yes, what's your point?
I was replying to this.
>This proposed (by you) use of background knowledge for induction doesn't compare with the background knowledge used by deduction.
So if you're now in agreement with me that we use background knowledge to evaluate the premises of both inductive and deductive arguments then we are led back to this exchange.
>>> However, In all cases it seems that we rely on our background knowledge to judge (deduce) the randomness of a sample.
>> This is a concession that we don't and can't learn by induction and that CR is right.
> I do not see how you conclude this.
#16836 You're lost. Deduction doesn't make the same claims as induction, so trying to parallel them like this won't help you. You're trying to lead the discussion but you're doing it pretty incoherently because, again, you are familiar with the claims of neither side of the debate that you're trying to debate. Do you want to study and learn? Do you have questions or curiosity, or are you just going to keep trying to incompetently win debating points instead of trying to understand the issues?
You need to take a step back and consider what the problem(s) to be solved are, then what the candidate solutions are and how they solve those problems. Since you don't have a clear picture of this, the stuff you're saying is a mess.
You also didn't answer #16826
>You're lost. Deduction doesn't make the same claims as induction, so trying to parallel them like this won't help you.
Yes, deduction and induction are not the same things. I was only referring to the evaluation of their premises, which as you have now agreed, involves background knowledge (for both types of inference). My reason for bringing up deduction was to highlight how this is an uncontroversial aspect of arguments/inferences.
You had made the claim that the use of background knowledge is a concession that we can't learn by induction. That is what led us down this path. Please provide a new argument for your claim or retract it.
I will review the texts you have referenced. Thank you for providing them.
#16843 You're trying to logically debate me, but you're incompetent at it, which is boring and tedious for me.
Here you make another claim without providing an argument.
It is important for me to be provided an argument for your claims, especially when you boldly conclude things that I don't agree with like "This is a concession that we don't and can't learn by induction and that CR is right".
Yes, following arguments carefully and logically might seem tedious, but that is the nature of philosophy.
Hit me up on twitter/discord if you find renewed interest in continuing this discussion.
#16845 I already argued many things with you. I presented a problem in need of solving here. You aren't providing a way of continuing which makes sense, and offers value, from my perspective. You seem neither interested in learning nor in problem solving about this. Suppose I go into detail on this an explain it to you and you concede, and I was simply right that you were confused. What will I get out of it?
Some more relevant posts:
https://curi.us/2124-critical-rationalism-epistemology-explanations
https://curi.us/1579-objectivist-and-popperian-epistemology
https://curi.us/1582-induction-is-wrong-a-lot
https://www.curi.us/1450-new-induction-disproof
https://curi.us/1580-false-dichotomies-package-deals-and-karl-popper
Another relevant post:
https://curi.us/2466-fallible-justificationism