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Brett says HTV stands in opposition to mysticism.
Brett replies saying “‘Hard To Vary’ is not vague. It is a real and useful solution to a philosophical problem. All actual scientific theories are hard to vary.”
I reply that the actual explanation is that people who make progress participate in a tradition of criticism. They’re critical of ideas and try to address all (or almost all) known criticisms. That process may lead to ideas having the feature Brett calls hard to vary, but it’s strictly an effect of that critical activity, not its means.
I had previously linked Brett to my blog post containing that explanation. He liked that reply at the time so he’s definitely seen it, but he’s still ignoring it.
The actual explanation is that people who make progress participate in a tradition of criticism. They’re critical of ideas and try to address all (or almost all) known criticisms.
I had previously linked Brett to my blog post containing that explanation. He liked that reply at the time so he’s definitely seen it, but he’s still ignoring it.
Brett says “Denying that good explanations of the physical world are hard to vary leaves us with *no better explanation* of what has driven progress in science, history and reason broadly.”
Brett replies, among other things: “Calling it ‘bullshit’ doesn’t win the argument. People have been doing that kind of thing with Popper, falsification and conjectural knowledge since the 1930s.”
Neil Hudson emphasizes that “the procedure by which HTV is implemented cannot itself become the authority that decides which criticisms count. Its criteria, classifications and outputs would themselves have to remain conjectural and open to independent criticism - including criticism not already licensed by the procedure itself. Otherwise HTV has ceased to be a fallible aid to criticism and has become a final epistemic tribunal.”
Neil Hudson says the bounty “would require programming the creative process by which relevant variations are conjectured in the first place.”
Why is that a criticism of the bounty and not of HTV? If that’s what’s required to make HTV work, maybe HTV bit off more than it can chew.
Neil Hudson says the bounty “would require programming the creative process by which relevant variations are conjectured in the first place.”
Several people have replied to the bounty saying it’s asking for the wrong thing; that HTV is only about rejecting ETV explanations, and that it’s only one mode of criticism among many.
Neil replies fallibility means the criterion must be able to get answers wrong or not deliver an answer at all sometimes. And if that’s the case, not any pair should be needed. Otherwise, “reliably compare” would be a demand for infallibility.
Neil replies fallibility means the criterion must be able to get answers wrong or not deliver an answer at all sometimes. And if that’s the case, not any pair should be needed.
Why should HTV need to algorithmically rank every pair of explanations to be meaningful?
Because, per BoI, we can’t claim to have understood a computational task if we can’t program it. The formation of rational preferences is a computational task.
Neil Hudson says in response to the bounty:
I wonder if this objection risks making a Hilbertian mistake: assuming that an objective criterion must provide a universal decision procedure. Gödel taught us not to equate objectivity with decidability. Why should HTV need to algorithmically rank every pair of explanations to be meaningful?
Brett says “Rational decision making is not a matter of pulling a lever and cranking through a calculation.”
Dirk replies that the bounty doesn’t ask for essentialist definitions. It instead asks for clarity around how to actually use HTV.
Brett says the bounty is “impossible” because “it’s asking for a definition for something that *cannot be defined* in the way the challenge demands.”
I don’t care whether people agree with me about this. I care about what’s true, what the ideas imply, as written. Ironically, chapter 1 also says theories can have implications their authors did not intend or may not like (p. 27):
What if you’d rather not know? You may not like these predictions.
Your friends and colleagues may ridicule them. You may try to modify
the explanation so that it will not make them…
Ben explored and addressed this criticism in more detail, see #5382.
Tyler says “All known programs to date” outsource creative input to the user.
I read “two strings” literally. The strings are the only case-specific inputs. A fact read from a database, sensor, or anywhere else is another input, whether or not it appears in the function signature.
No function of those two strings can always provide such a ranking.
The bounty says the code must accept two strings as input. It doesn’t say only or at most or exactly two. But I see now that this may not have been clear – if you think it’ll help, I can edit the bounty to say ‘at least two’.
Also, when I wrote the bounty, I meant input as in ‘part of the function signature’. If the function body later reads from a database or prompts the user for input, that doesn’t in and of itself disqualify the submission.
I read “two strings” literally. The strings are the only case-specific inputs. A fact read from a database, sensor, or anywhere else is another input, whether or not it appears in the function signature.
No function of those two strings can always provide such a ranking.
The bounty says the code must accept two strings as input. It doesn’t say only or at most or exactly two. But I see now that this may not have been clear – if you think it’ll help, I can edit the bounty to say ‘at least two’.
Also, when I wrote the bounty, I meant input as in ‘part of the function signature’. If the function body later reads from a database or prompts the user for input, that doesn’t in and of itself disqualify the submission.
… we cannot avoid guesswork about which changes preserve meaning …
If a good-faith submission prompted the user for answers about changes in meaning or other creative input (within reason), that also would not automatically disqualify the submission. (The proviso “within reason” matters or else bad actors will simply prompt the user to tell the program which explanation is harder to vary. As with all other bounties, any submission will have to meet not just the bounty terms but survive all criticism it may get.)
Here also, I can edit the bounty to clarify that user input at runtime is permissible.
I hope I’ve addressed all reasons the bounty might not be doable, but let me know if I missed something.
I read “two strings” literally. The strings are the only case-specific inputs. A fact read from a database, sensor, or anywhere else is another input, whether or not it appears in the function signature.
No function of those two strings can always provide such a ranking.
The bounty says the code must accept two strings as input. It doesn’t say only or at most or exactly two. But I see now that this may not have been clear – if you think it’ll help, I can edit the bounty to say ‘at least two’.
Also, when I wrote the bounty, I meant input as in ‘part of the function signature’. If the function body later reads from a database or prompts the user for input, that doesn’t in and of itself disqualify the submission.
… we cannot avoid guesswork about which changes preserve meaning …
If a good-faith submission prompted the user for answers about changes in meaning or other creative input (within reason), that also would not automatically disqualify the submission. (The proviso “within reason” matters or else bad actors will simply prompt the user to tell the program which explanation is harder to vary. As with all other bounties, any submission will have to meet not just the bounty terms but survive all criticism it may get.)
Here also, I can edit the bounty to clarify that user input at runtime is permissible.
I hope I’ve addressed all reasons the bounty might not be doable, but let me know if I missed something.
But #5331 relies on our ability to come up with new options to remain rational in the face of mutually exclusive options.