h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Certainty-based thinking is inappropriate for use on something of which we cannot be certain.



I said that too, didn't I?



Certain parts of the Mw - e.g. the scientific world model - will accept and nurture certainty, and all its trappings. OTOH, it is illogical for us to apply certainty-based tools or thinking to the Bw, of which we cannot be certain. But I'm not sure how that relates to your question; maybe "uncertainty" is a typo meant to be "certainty"?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I know how Ray Davies felt..

Boolean is but one tool for *Bodywold* reasoning. Other techniques can be applied *in the Bodyworld* which encompass uncertainty


C'mon...admit it...you think there are superior ways of looking at the world, don't you? Like mysticism.

<< Our lack of certainty forbids the use of boolean logic in our reasoning about the Bw. This is a seismic change to our thinking at the most fundamental level.
Oh we can apply our (Mw) certainty-based theories to the Bw, and they may well function. But the thinking that lead to them is flawed, and our reasoning is thus compromised.>>

I *think* I'm going to have to disagree on this one, P-c, even though I'm not entirely sure what point you're making. A concrete example of a "certainty-based" theory might help to focus the discussion, since both EtB and Potholer seem to be acknowledging that there is always *some* level of doubt, even if it's insignificant.

Noggin

Just to be pedantic...I'd use the word 'unimportant' rather than 'insignificant'. Insignificant implies that it can be ignored for practical purposes. Unimportant implies more 'So what?'

But, no...I'm still not sure what point P-C is making, either. I have my *suspicions* about where he's coming from - but I don't want to put words in his mouth.

I don't understand the resistance to what seems to be quite a simple and logical chain of reasoning:

Axiom (assumption): Human perception is not objective. [And when our perception fails us, we can't tell: the mistaken perception continues to appear accurate to the perceiver.]

Therefore we cannot have certain (objective) knowledge of the Bw.

Therefore we would be incorrect to apply logic to the Bw, because this requires us (among other things) to judge whether things are certainly true or false, and we don't have that capability.

Is there a flaw in this reasoning?

Pattern-chaser

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>>"Therefore we would be incorrect to apply logic to the Bw, because this requires us (among other things) to judge whether things are certainly true or false, and we don't have that capability."

>>"Is there a flaw in this reasoning?"

Yes - it's that if we *know* information isn't certainly true or false, all we have to do if we do apply logic is to bear in mind that the conclusions aren't certain either.
I guess it's possible to invent some special form of reasoning that deals with near-certainties and produces near-certain conclusions, but such a form would seem to be effectively the same in practical terms as logic plus a little skepticism, which many people already use.

In practice, caution is often applied to concusions based on the seriousness of their implications as well as the confidence in original data.

I agree that these conclusions are not certain. Surely they are *invalid* too?

Logic is a little more than just boolean logic, I know. But I think it tends to work like this: if proposition A is TRUE, and proposition B is TRUE, then we can show that proposition C is TRUE too. But when we apply this in practice, we find that A is probably true, and B is probably true too. Thus we are unable to use our logic to determine whether or not C is TRUE. Am I wrong to think that this sort of logic gives undefined results if A or B have values other than TRUE and FALSE?

It is my understanding that logic is a pretty black-and-white sort of thing. No grey areas. In the context of this discussion, logic is exclusively certainty-based.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

>>I don't understand the resistance to what seems to be quite a simple and logical chain of reasoning:

>>Axiom (assumption): Human perception is not objective.

No. Human perception is fallible. It is limited. We acquire objectivity by scepticism and replication (eg cross-checking with others). We push the limits through progessive exploration.

All straightforward. All bog-standard Bodyworld.

What is less straightforward is whether we can distinguish Mindworld illusion from Bodyworld 'reality'. (I maintain that the latter is Reality, you don't...but let that pass). Assuming that we can't, we can never objectively determine whether we are seeing reality or illusion. Agreed.

All I'm trying to get out of you is 'Why the does it ing matter?'

I maintain that nothing need change in our reasoning, even if we continue to fool ourselves that we are perceivers of a real world rather than generators of a perceived one.

You, I suggest, may think that the revelation that we are fooling ouselves requires us to adopt whole new styles of thinking.

<< if proposition A is TRUE, and proposition B is TRUE, then we can show that proposition C is TRUE too.>>

I think the capitals are in the wrong place. It should read "IF proposition A is true, and IF proposition B is true, then we can show that proposition C is true too."

The probability of "IF" depends on context.

Noggin

Simulpost.

<>

It depends what you mean. For the brain in a vat, the computer simulation is not an illusion; it is reality. "Illusion" suggests a misconception created by the mind.

Nothing need change in our reasoning because our reasoning is applied to our *model* of external reality (which of course includes all the inputs from that reality).

Noggin

Yes. That's what I mean. 'So what?'

(I used the terms illusion and reality merely for convenience).

P-C:

Ed:

Yes, and does this not mean that it is non-objective? After all, put the other way around, objective perception is infallible.

Ed:

This is not an interpretation of 'objective' that I have ever considered or encountered before. I agree that we can *refine* our perception by cross-checking, achieving greater accuracy than would be possible for one person. But I'm not convinced that such refinement would allow us to achieve objectivity. Isn't your reasoning equivalent to saying "consensus = truth"?

Pattern-chaser

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For me, the realisation that we are fooling ourselves lead to the secondary realisation that the apparently sound logical principles we use to reason are not valid because we are not suitably equipped. The next step in this reasoning chain might be that we need to develop and adopt new styles of thinking. I hadn't got as far as discussing that.

Pattern-chaser

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I was using "TRUE" to represent the boolean value, and "true" to be the more everyday meaning of the term. I did this because a boolean variable can accept only the values TRUE and FALSE. We, in everyday conversation, happily mix "true", "false", "probable", and many other such terms that describe a point somewhere in between true and false.]

Pattern-chaser

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>>"

>>I agree that these conclusions are not certain. Surely they are *invalid* too? huh

How can they be 'invalid' if we don't absolutely believe them, and they are essentially the same conclusions we'd reach if we had some formalised way of reasoning with near-certainties?

>>"In the context of this discussion, logic is exclusively certainty-based."
You may wish it to be, but I disagree.
It may formally originate from abstract uses based on certainties, and be *applicable* to certainty, producing certain results, but so what?
Artihmetic may be applied to definite numbers and produce a definite result, but it may also be applied to guesstimates to produce an uncertain result, but a useful result nonetheless, and therefore a perfectly valid result for anyone not taking it excessively seriously.

>>Isn't your reasoning equivalent to saying "consensus = truth"

It's about a million miles away from what I'm saying, and you know full well.

Example...

If everyone says there's a big shiny thing in the sky...then there is.

If most people say the big shiny thing moves around the world, it doesn't mean that it does. It just means that they haven't looked properly. Yet. That's the limits of human perception.

>>For me, the realisation that we are fooling ourselves lead to the secondary realisation that the apparently sound logical principles we use to reason are not valid because we are not suitably equipped.

So what it says is that we are not equipped to know things that are fundementally unknowable. Yippee -ing aye ay!

>>The next step in this reasoning chain might be that we need to develop and adopt new styles of thinking. I hadn't got as far as discussing that.

I shall await with genuine enthusiasm (no, really) your sage words on how we can reason about a theoretical construct which is (unknowably, mind) out there....or not. And on how any knowledge derived can help us in the part of reality that we actually inhabit.

Damn! I'd promised myself I wouldn't start to mock.

>>Isn't your reasoning equivalent to saying "consensus = truth"

Ed:

If I knew full well I wouldn't've said it.

You mentioned "cross-checking". How could we get to know what the consensus is without cross-checking? They sound like the same thing to me. Your apparently reasonable objections to consensus seem to apply also to 'cross-checking'.

Please explain how you can start from fallible (and non-objective ) human perceptions, and aquire objectivity by 'cross-checking', and/or whatever other methods you feel would be of benefit.

Pattern-chaser

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>>objectivity by 'cross-checking', and/or whatever other methods you feel would be of benefit.

BECAUSE THEY'RE ONLY THEORETICALLY UNOBJECTIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are we indulging in serial simulposting? Is it legal? Moral?



I assume you refer to the 'real world' - which we all believe is out there, but can't prove - when you refer to this "theoretical construct". For a start, the real world is not wholly unknowable. We can't know it with certainty, which isn't the same thing at all. This real world is probably there. We all believe so, anyway. And one way we could start to reason about something that is probably, as opposed to certainly, there is probabilistic logic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_logic

Pattern-chaser

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