Notes : * "Epistemy" refers to the second meaning of epistemology : "A particular theory of knowledge". * I'm more interested in ideas to further the thoughts exposed here than exposing them. Good Experiments The point of "Priors are useless" is that if you update after enough experiments, you tend...
Metainformations : * Cross-post. Steemit. * Epistemic Effort. Much more reasoning behind that post. I'm mostly trying to see if people are interested. If they are, much more writing will ensue. * Epistemic Status. Field : Development of idea repository for a community. Phase : pre-epistemy. * Thesis. There should...
Short vocabulary points : * By epistemy, I refer to to the second meaning of epistemology in the wiktionary (ie, a particular theory of knowledge). Polysemy is bad and should be fixed when possible. * By episteme, I mean the knowledge and understanding of a given science at a given...
Indeed, we were talking about rationalists (not only LW, but SlateStarCodex too for instance).
I think there are meaningful instinctive differences too, but that's not the point, is it ? If it was, then we can assume that people holds beliefs too. Sometime they change their beliefs too because of reasons (or lack thereof).
I agree with your model, but without the nerd-exception.
The lack of nerd focus on epistemology and meta-ethics implies that nerds don't have beliefs either.
They do have pressures to appear rational. Either external (peer pressure) or internal (intelligence/rationality being part of the core identity because of reasons).
The same model you mention has been useful for me in understanding why nerdy people don't actually care about the epistemic soundness of their argument, and only about sounding rational. It made me understand why many were angered when I pointed the lack of sound definition of the words used or the use of countless fallacies : it's perceived as an attack against their rationality.
I suppose I do insofar as the very act of experiencing experience is experience and thus by at all noticing your experience you know a way of knowing. And although you may infer things about epistemology from ontology, you cannot derive them because ontology must be constructed from knowledge gained through experience (at least if we demand a phenomenological account of knowledge), and thus all ontology is tainted by the epistemological methods of experience used to gain such knowledge.
Naive observation precedes any epistemic method to gain knowledge. However, let's say we consider naive observation and innate reasoning as being part of a proto-epistemy. Then we have to acknowledge too that we have a fair-share of embedded ontological knowledge that we don't gain through experience, but that we have when we are born. (Time, space, multiplicity, weight, etc.).
This is paramount, as without that, we would actually be trapped in infinite regress.
But you do because fields are just an after-the-fact construction to make understanding reality more manageable. There's just one reality (for a phenomenologically useful sense of "reality" as the thing which you experience), fields just pick a part of it to focus on, and as such there is much overlap between how we know things in fields.
I disagree thoroughly with that paragraph.
Science is not about "understanding reality". Or at least, not the "reality" as "the thing which you experience". The impact of science in "the thing which we experience" can only be seen through pragmatism. Quantum physics is good not because it gives to some of us a more manageable understanding of... (read 435 more words →)
Certainly a person's epistemology affects their understanding of many things
I think having an epistemy to deal with everything is a mistake. It stems from the post that the strength of an epistemy lies from its specialization.
I guess it's somewhat unclear to me just what work "epistemy" is doing
I don't understand "what work is [X] doing" means in this context.
that seems like a teleological approach to epistemology
It's more that different fields of inquiry lead to different epistemies. If you want to study different fields, you have no a priori reason to use the same epistemy for both.
I guess I'm also somewhat unclear on what binds these ideas/questions together.
I don't know of a Bayesianist account of epistemies. As such, I'm shotgunning questions aiming to reveal it. The questions are spread on different fields, and different position on the abstract-concrete spectrum.
Notes :
The point of "Priors are useless" is that if you update after enough experiments, you tend to the truth distribution regardless of your initial prior distribution (assuming its codomain doesn't include 0 and 1, or at least that it doesn't assign 1 to a non-truth and 0 to a truth). However, "enough experiments" is magic :
Thank you for your thorough answer. :)
I am not asking for a general discussion place, but for an idea repository with dedicated discussion places.
From the post :
The current forum doesn’t cut it : it isn’t meant to that end. It’s easier to build a forum dedicated to that than try to artificially support a balance between “New Ideas” posts and “Information Sharing” posts so that none of these get overshadowed. The same problem applies to existing reddit boards and facebook groups.
Also, regular discussion places (reddit, fb), aren't really meant as thread repository : pinning more and more threads is a nuisance to the discussion part.
I initially needed an editor I was used to to link a post to someone on the EA Discord Server.
I thought I might as well do it on LW to gather input from LWians.
Most scientists haven't read Popper and those people in history of science that analyze what scientists actually do, don't find that scientists follow Popper's maxims.
As far as I know, this is still subject of debates. cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
I agree that for psychologists and many people in biology there isn't enough explicit attention paid to epistemology. On the other hand it's still import to be aware that you will never get 100% explicit.
I don't see what is your criterium to agree with my point on a given field. Also, my point isn't about "100% explicit". My point is that if a field of study is interesting enough, defining an epistemy becomes primary. Else, too much... (read more)
Metainformations :
I came to define myself as a non-standard Effective Altruist. I’ve always been interested in Effective Altruism, way before I’ve even heard of EA. When I was younger, I simply thought I was altruist, and that what people did was … noise at best. Basically, naive ways to relieve one’s conscience and perpetuate one’s culture.
Since primary school... (read 793 more words →)
Short vocabulary points :
No. I mention the practical patch right after : epistemies.
Those are two different fields, with different problems. My answer to your thing is that we have embedded... (read more)