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Another problem with the term ‘statement’ is that not every statement encodes knowledge. Only some statements do.
For example, trivial or tautological statements aren’t knowledge, neither in the Popperian nor common sense of the word.
You make a good point. Maybe the definition ‘information with causal power’ on its own isn’t very good since virtually any statement can have causal power yet presumably even Deutsch would agree that merely saying ‘hi’ isn’t knowledge even though it can have causal power (eg prompting someone to say ‘hi’ back).
Gotcha! Did my most recent edit now address the criticism that Joy isn't signaling an unaddressed conflict?
I think it does imply a conflict. Every emotional sensation—including urges—arises to provide feedback to our consciousness about how a particular problem (in the Popperian sense: two or more incompatible theories in conflict) is or isn’t progressing.
For example, consider hunger. One theory (Drive A) is that we don’t want to be hungry, while another signals that we are hungry (from ephemeral sense data (which could itself be viewed as a Drive, though that’s not important here)). The conflict between these theories produces the urge — in this case, the sensation of hunger.
I explain these conflicts in more detail, with further examples of Drives, Intuitions, and Statements, in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEcR_0GbzRE
Addition 01-09-2025:
In the case of hunger, the sensation was signaling an unaddressed problem, but as you correctly pointed out, not all emotions signal unaddressed problems. Emotions are a feedback mechanism that can reflect different stages of problem solving. For instance, joy may signal a resolved problem, and impatience might signal frustration with an ongoing one. Likewise, anxiety can serve as an early warning of potential obstacles ahead, while relief marks the successful removal of a previously pressing issue.
Yeah, it doesn’t feel like a real criticism. I’m just trying to figure out the right way to resolve this thread. You’ve raised other criticisms focused on the content of my explanations—those make sense to keep open. But this thread, about my English possibly being a problem, doesn’t seem like a relevant or substantive criticism. I've claimed that my inaccuracies come more from carelessness than from a lack of comprehension of the language, and that doesn’t feel like a criticism of the ideas we’re discussing. So what should we do with this thread?
Interesting, I hadn’t thought of that angle before. I’ve always taken a fairly broad view of “information with causal power,” assuming that any explicit statement from a human mind qualifies. Even the simple remark “Nice weather we’re having” can have causal power—it might prompt the listener to respond, or push the speaker to continue if the comment goes unacknowledged. In that sense, almost any statement can be read and potentially inspire another universal explainer. Even when fed into an LLM, the statement can still be parsed and worked with. In contrast, mere “information” in the form of gibberish, a made-up language, or a nonsensical string of random words would not be parsable, and therefore would not exert causal power on the parser.
I also recall Deutsch often saying that knowledge is information that tends to remain instantiated once it appears. I always understood that as a form of causal power, rather than as a separate criterion. I’m not sure he has ever been fully explicit on this point. But if he does mean it as a strict demarcation—that knowledge is only what causes itself to persist—then I’d agree with your criticism.
Cool, appreciate it. Since you agree and plan to be more precise, should this really be marked as a criticism?
By the way, you don’t need to put disclaimers like “Addition 01-09-2025”. The versioning system records and displays all that information automatically :)
[J]oy may signal a resolved problem […]
But then the conflict is gone. So I don’t think revision #1741 addresses #1730.
To be clear, when I asked about the conflict behind joy, I meant ongoing conflict.
Your addition seems to agree with my criticism, not address it.
joy may signal a resolved problem
But then the conflict is gone. So I don’t think revision #1741 addresses #1730.
Another problem with the term ‘statement’ is that not every statement encodes knowledge. Only some statements do.
Recall Deutsch’s definitions of knowledge (paraphrasing from memory): information with causal power; information which, once instantiated, causes itself to remain instantiated.
The sentence ‘nice weather we’re having’ is a statement but doesn’t meet those definitions of knowledge.
Or the existing search page could be filtered by discussion. For example, I could link to that page with an additional query param discussion_id=1 or something like that.
Or each discussion could have a search/filter form to filter ideas not just by criticized or not but also content and potentially other attributes.
Feature to collapse all criticized ideas of a discussion? Useful for todo lists.
Feature to collapse all criticized ideas on a page? Useful for todo lists.
Make sure cycling between a leaf revision with children and a leaf revision without children properly toggles the gutter.
Cycling through the revisions of a leaf reveals its gutter, which should be hidden since it’s a leaf.
Sometimes you just want to hide the comments without collapsing the parent idea.
Because that would mean hiding each comment individually if you ever do want to hide all comments of an idea.
Because that would mean hiding each comment individually if you ever do want to hide all comments of an idea. And sometimes you just want to hide the comments without collapsing the parent idea.
Having features to both collapse an idea and hide all its comments seems like an opportunity for unification. Why not just go with collapsing and remove the ability to hide all comments?
As noted in #1777, fetching the idea actually helps. Well worth the overhead.