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How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is true or false.

It follows Karl Popper’s epistemology, which says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold conjectures and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these conjectures in order to correct errors and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Consider an idea I:

              I

Since it has no criticisms, I is considered unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it, tentatively consider it true, and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would generally be irrational to reject it, consider it false, or act counter to it.

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

              I
              |
              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism C1 is not addressed. How do you address it? You can revise I so that C1 doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone I (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

                   Revise
              I ------------> I2
              |
              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you cannot think of a way to revise I, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it:

              I
              |
              C1
              |
              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, considering it to be true, etc.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, as a discussion progresses, its tree might look like this:

              I
           /  |  \
         C11 C12 C13
         / \       \
       C21 C22     C23
                   / \
                 C31 C32

In this tree, I is considered problematic. Although C11 has been neutralized by C21 and C22, C12 still needs to be addressed. In addition, C23 would have neutralized C13, but C31 and C32 make C23 problematic, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

But you don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula marks ideas accordingly, automatically.

Because decision-making is a special case of, ie follows the same logic as, truth-seeking, such trees can be used for decision-making, too. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a decision. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no outstanding criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Ideas that are neither criticisms nor top-level conjectures – eg follow-up questions or neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, they do not invert their respective parent’s truth status. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the truth status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, the rational course of action is to adopt the displayed truth status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that the same discussions are had over and over again, sometimes by the same people. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has outstanding criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing the outstanding criticisms.

Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.

How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is problematic.

It follows Karl Popper’s epistemology, which says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold conjectures and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these conjectures in order to correct errors and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Consider an idea I:

              I

Since it has no criticisms, I is considered unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it, tentatively consider it unproblematic, and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would generally be irrational to reject it, consider it problematic, or act counter to it.

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

              I
              |
              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism C1 is not addressed. How do you address it? You can revise I so that C1 doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone I (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

                   Revise
              I ------------> I2
              |
              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you cannot think of a way to revise I, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it:

              I
              |
              C1
              |
              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, considering it to be unproblematic, etc.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, as a discussion progresses, one of its tree might look like this:

              I
           /  |  \
         C11 C12 C13
         / \       \
       C21 C22     C23
                   / \
                 C31 C32

In this tree, I is considered problematic. Although C11 has been neutralized by C21 and C22, C12 still needs to be addressed. In addition, C23 would have neutralized C13, but C31 and C32 make C23 problematic, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

But you don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula marks ideas accordingly, automatically.

Because decision-making is a special case of, ie follows the same logic as, truth-seeking, such trees can be used for decision-making, too. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a decision. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no outstanding criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Ideas that are neither criticisms nor top-level conjectures – eg follow-up questions or neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, they do not invert their respective parents’ statuses. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, the rational course of action is to adopt the displayed status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that the same discussions are had over and over again, sometimes by the same people. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has outstanding criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing all outstanding criticisms.

Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.

I started with looking it up, whether to include the ‘s’ in ‘criticism’ to find that it didn’t matter much.

I started with looking it up, whether to include the ‘s’ in ‘criticism’ to find that it didn’t matter much.

If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea. We accept that idea as true until it is criticized. The idea is considered false until all criticism is resolved. Since the goal is to live a rational life, we wouldn't act in accordance with that idea. We don't submit bulk ideas or criticisms. Ideas (including criticisms), even if related, should generally be submitted separately. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.

If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea. We accept that idea as true until it is criticized. The idea is considered false until all criticism is resolved. Since the goal is to live a rational life, we wouldn't act in accordance with an idea that has outstanding criticism. We don't submit bulk ideas or criticisms. Ideas (including criticisms), even if related, should generally be submitted separately. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.

If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea. We accept that idea as true until it receives criticism. The idea is considered false until all criticism is resolved. Since the goal is to live a rational life, we wouldn't act in accordance with that idea. We don't submit bulk ideas or criticisms. Ideas (including criticisms), even if related, should generally be submitted separately. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.

If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea. We accept that idea as true until it is criticized. The idea is considered false until all criticism is resolved. Since the goal is to live a rational life, we wouldn't act in accordance with that idea. We don't submit bulk ideas or criticisms. Ideas (including criticisms), even if related, should generally be submitted separately. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.

If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea. We accept that idea as true until it receives criticism. When it has received criticism and until the current criticism is resolved, that idea is seen as false. Since the goal is to live a rational life, we wouldn't act in accordance with that idea. We don't submit bulk ideas or criticisms. Ideas (including criticisms), even if related, should generally be submitted separately. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.

If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea. We accept that idea as true until it receives criticism. When it has received criticism and until all outstanding criticism is resolved, that idea is seen as false. Since the goal is to live a rational life, we wouldn't act in accordance with that idea. We don't submit bulk ideas or criticisms. Ideas (including criticisms), even if related, should generally be submitted separately. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.

Edwin says to either have hover effects for all clickable items or none of them. Buttons currently don’t have hover effects but links do.

I could remove hover effects from links. macOS links in System Settings don’t have a hover effect either. (They don’t even have a pointer cursor but IMO that’s going too far.)

Add hover effects to schemed buttons so there’s consistency with the existing hover effects for links.

@edwin-de-wit says buttons should have a hover effect.

Edwin says to either have hover effects for all clickable items or none of them. Buttons currently don’t have hover effects but links do.

I could remove hover effects from links. macOS links in System Settings don’t have a hover effect either. (They don’t even have a pointer cursor but IMO that’s going too far.)

Thanks for the reminder! Yes, I agree it’s good to strive for some form of resolution. My current take is that I’m still satisfied with Intuitions and Drives as more accessible labels. But the shortcomings you’ve raised in Statement are severe, and I hope to find a better alternative. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success on my own. I’ll share my current thoughts here — perhaps we can continue exploring alternatives for Statement if you think that’s worthwhile. If, however, you believe all three labels are a mistake and that it’s irrational for me to pursue them, I of course understand if you’d prefer not to continue the discussion.

Problems with Statement

1) By definition a statement is a verbalized expression, whereas explicit knowledge doesn’t need to be verbalized. It just needs to be verbalizable. Calling it a Statement is confusing, as people might think it must be verbalized, while my point is simply that it can be verbalized.

2) It also carries the figurative meaning of “making a statement” through non-verbal actions (e.g., wearing a certain outfit, defying a social norm), which causes confusion, as you pointed out in #1700.

3) You say that statements don’t necessarily need to contain knowledge (see #1806), but can also be trivial or tautological. While I agree, I don’t see this as a relevant criticism of my labels, since in my book and video I define them as types of knowledge — not as trivial utterances or noise.

Given these problems, I’ve tried to find a more suitable word. The only candidate I’ve found so far is Formulations. It conveys explicitness, but it doesn’t fully address problem 1), since it still carries the connotation of being expressed rather than merely expressible.

Curious to hear your thoughts, as always.

Thanks for the reminder! Yes, I agree it’s good to strive for some form of resolution. My current take is that I’m still satisfied with Intuitions and Drives as more accessible labels. But the shortcomings you’ve raised in Statement are severe, and I hope to find a better alternative. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success on my own. I’ll share my current thoughts here — perhaps we can continue exploring alternatives for Statement if you think that’s worthwhile. If, however, you believe all three labels are a mistake and that it’s irrational for me to pursue them, I of course understand if you’d prefer not to continue the discussion.

Problems with Statement

1) By definition a statement is a verbalized expression, whereas explicit knowledge doesn’t need to be verbalized. It just needs to be verbalizable. Calling it a Statement is confusing, as people might think it must be verbalized, while my point is simply that it can be verbalized.

2) It also carries the figurative meaning of “making a statement” through non-verbal actions (e.g., wearing a certain outfit, defying a social norm), which causes confusion, as you pointed out in #1700.

3) You say that statements don’t necessarily need to contain knowledge (see #1806), but can also be trivial or tautological. While I agree, I don’t see this as a relevant criticism of my labels, since in my book and video I define them as types of knowledge — not as trivial utterances or noise. Therefore, the label I’m looking for doesn’t need to address this criticism, since I’ll clarify beforehand that all are types of knowledge.

Given these problems, I’ve tried to find a more suitable word. The only candidate I’ve found so far is Formulations. It conveys explicitness, but it doesn’t fully address problem 1), since it still carries the connotation of being expressed rather than merely expressible.

Curious to hear your thoughts, as always.