Zelalem Mekonnen
@zelalem-mekonnen·Member since March 2025
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#1875·Dennis HackethalOP, 1 day agoNow I’m submitting a criticism that contains a flaw. It has a tpyo.
Try counter-critizing my criticism by pointing out the typo. Observe that the red label saying ‘Criticized’ on #1874 disappears once you submit your criticism.
In other words, your counter-criticism ‘neutralizes’ my criticism.
Revising ideas and submitting counter-criticisms are the two ways to address criticisms.
There is a typo in "[i]t has a tpyo."
If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea. We accept the idea as true until it has received a criticism. In which case, until the current criticism isn't resolved, the idea is tentatively seen as false and makes no sense to live in accordance to it. We don't submit bulk ideas or criticisms.Each idea and criticism,Ideas (including criticisms), even if they are relatedmustshould generally betheir its own.submitted separately. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.
If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with anidea/conjecture.idea. We accept the idea as true until it has received a criticism. In which case, until the current criticism isn't resolved, the idea is tentatively seen as false and makes no sense to live in accordance to it. We don'tdosubmit bulkcriticism.ideas or criticisms. Each idea and criticism, even if they are related must beintheir its own. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.
#1861·Dennis HackethalOP, 1 day agoWe don't do bulk criticism. Each criticism, even if they are related must be in its own.
It’s true that each criticism should be submitted separately, but that’s not related to bulk criticism in the way you seem to be suggesting.
Imagine a post containing multiple ideas. Then a single criticism of that post will make it look as though all of the ideas in that post are problematic. If the criticism actually only applies to a subset of the ideas, that’s bulk criticism.
For example, somebody submits a post saying: ‘I love Batman. I love Spider-Man.’ Then somebody else criticizes the post by saying ‘Batman sucks because <some reasoning>.’ Now it looks like Spider-Man has received criticism, too, even though the criticism only applies to Batman.
See if you want to change the quoted passage to: ‘We submit only one idea at a time. Same for criticisms.’
What if the point an author is trying to make takes multiple ideas? Say we are talking about comic books and I say "DC comics are better than Marvel, because Thor is a better character than Superman, even thou Batman might be a better character than Iron man?"
If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea/conjecture. We accept the idea as true until it has received a criticism. In which case, until the current criticism isn't resolved, the idea is tentatively seen as false and makes no sense to live in accordance to it. We don't do bulk criticism. Each criticism, even if they are related must be init'sits own. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.
#1856·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 days agoMaking progress. Just a minor quibble next, but worth practicing with:
Each criticism, even if they are related must be in it's own.
There’s a typo: “it's” should be ‘its’ (no apostrophe).
See if you can revise your idea to address this criticism. Remember, there are two steps: changing the spelling and deselecting this criticism.
The gap between "it's" and "its" is big. My lack of paying attention to detail is becoming more and more obvious. In any case.
#1854·Zelalem Mekonnen, 2 days agoIf I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea/conjecture. We accept the idea as true until it has received a criticism. In which case, until the current criticism isn't resolved, the idea is tentatively seen as false and makes no sense to live in accordance to it. We don't do bulk criticism. Each criticism, even if they are related must be in it's own. Also, avoid duplicate ideas.
Ah. Now I get it!
If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea/conjecture. We accept the idea as true until it has received a criticism. In which case, until the current criticism isn't resolved, the idea is tentatively seen as false and makes no sense to live in accordance to it. We don't do bulk criticism. Each criticism, even if they are related must be in it's own. Also, avoid duplicatecriticism.ideas.
#1848·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 days agoDecent start with some room for improvement. Let’s learn Veritula by doing. I’ll submit criticisms of your idea one by one and you can practice Veritula by addressing them. Here’s the first one:
Also, avoid duplicate criticism.
Yes, but we should avoid duplicate ideas in general.
Try revising #1833 to address this criticism. Click ‘Revise’, change ‘avoid duplicate criticism’ to ‘avoid duplicate ideas’, deselect this criticism underneath the form, then hit submit.
Make sure that at each step you understand why you’re performing that step. Ask first if you don’t.
What of for "Supersedes previous version?" box? Would that be selected, since the new version would supersede the current version.
#1646·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoCriticism is a form of knowledge. How does reason have access to criticism if reason is not the source of knowledge?
Could you expand more on what you mean by the above question?
Ayn Rand claims that "[t]he virtue of *Rationality* means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge [...]." This is wrong, mainly because reason can only be used as a method of choosing between knowledge/ideas, not asathe only source of knowledge.
If I understand Veritula correctly, we first start with an idea/conjecture. We accept the idea as true until it has received a criticism. In which case, until the current criticism isn't resolved, the idea is tentatively seen as false and makes no sense to live in accordance to it. We don't do bulk criticism. Each criticism, even if they are related must be in it's own. Also, avoid duplicate criticism.
#1727·Dennis Hackethal, 26 days agoI pointed out a circularity in #1655. Instead of resolving the circularity, you posted another idea repeating the same circularity. That makes no sense.
Even if I was somehow mistaken about there being a circularity, repeating the same idea doesn’t correct that.
Please read the discussion ‘How Does Veritula Work?’ in its entirety before continuing here.
Say someone said "I had a dream that {insert something true}" or "god told me that {insert something true}," what is the source of knowledge here?
#1623·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoIf I get her right, one could in principle hold a rational belief which is false —a belief in god, say— so long as this belief stems from a sincere effort to explain the world and so long as the believer is ready to jettison his belief if he were to think of some reason why it cannot be true.
A belief in god is a form of mysticism. Rand writes that rationality “means the rejection of any form of mysticism […].” So a belief in god is not just false, it’s irrational. It’s also implausible that someone could hold on to as blatantly false an idea as the existence of god without some refusal to look into the matter critically.
This has to take time into context. At one point, a belief in god was all that we had. We didn't have hard to vary explanations. As such, a person might have a belief in god as the only worldview currently. So it isn't irrational for that person, or people back in the days, to believe in god.
#1727·Dennis Hackethal, 26 days agoI pointed out a circularity in #1655. Instead of resolving the circularity, you posted another idea repeating the same circularity. That makes no sense.
Even if I was somehow mistaken about there being a circularity, repeating the same idea doesn’t correct that.
Please read the discussion ‘How Does Veritula Work?’ in its entirety before continuing here.
Dreams can be a source of knowledge. But dreams aren't always reasonable. Sometimes, dreams are lies.
In that statement, I am looking at reason as a mode of criticism. You might get ideas and potentially knowledge from all sources and reason tests weather they are right or not.
And if I understand you right, what you're saying is if an idea isn't from 'reason' than how can we criticize it using reason. But we can and do all the time. Religion is irrational, but we criticize it and take what is good from it and discard the rest.
Fire purifies gold,Religion is a form of knowledge, but itisn't gold itself. Reason doesn't need to be the source of knowledge to criticize other sources. The main source of knowledgeismyth and things that don't make sense. All of our scientific theories are testable, hard to vary myths. As Popper states in Conjecture and Refutations (171), "[w]e shall understand that, in a certain sense, sciencenot reasonable. It holds some truths, but it ismyth-making just as religion is." ↵ ↵not reasonable. Knowledge can come from myths, which are not reason. ↵
#1646·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoCriticism is a form of knowledge. How does reason have access to criticism if reason is not the source of knowledge?
This misses the point of the post before it. Knowledge starts as myths and contains myths. Reason makes it hard to vary, thus reasonable to take as true until the myths in that theory itself are corrected.
#1646·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoCriticism is a form of knowledge. How does reason have access to criticism if reason is not the source of knowledge?
Fire purifies gold, but it isn't gold itself. Reason doesn't need to be the source of knowledge to criticize other sources. The main source of knowledge is myth and things that don't make sense. All of our scientific theories are testable, hard to vary myths. As Popper states in Conjecture and Refutations (171), "[w]e shall understand that, in a certain sense, science is myth-making just as religion is."
#1649·Zelalem MekonnenOP, about 2 months agoSo the [...] or ellipsis indicates that the sentence is quoted half way.
I thought ellipsis was including the []. But it isn't.
Ayn Rand claims that"The"[t]he virtue of *Rationality* means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge [...]." This is wrong, mainly because reason can only be used as a method of choosing between knowledge/ideas, not as a source of knowledge.
#1635·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoThat quote is better but still not quite right. You’d want to end it not in a dangling comma, but in an ellipsis to indicate that you’re cutting the sentence short. Try changing it to:
"The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge […]." This is wrong etc.
Then, in the section “Do the comments still apply?”, be sure to deselect the criticisms that your edit addresses.
So the [...] or ellipsis indicates that the sentence is quoted half way.
Ayn Rand claims that "The virtue of *Rationality* means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source ofknowledge,"knowledge [...]." This is wrong, mainly because reason can only be used as a method of choosing between knowledge/ideas, not as a source of knowledge.
#1634·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoIn other situations, I would agree. For example, back when I was first learning how to code, I made it a point to type code from tutorials manually to retain it better.
But with quotes it’s different because retaining the literal letter matters. Typing it manually is too error prone and there’s no compiler (except Quote Checker) to catch errors.
Point taken. It is copy/pasted now.
#1618·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoWhat do you think is the source of knowledge if not reason?
The source of knowledge is myths. Reason criticizes them and we get myths that are testable (if knowledge about the physical world), hard to vary and make some assertion about reality. Popper highlighted the myth and testable nature of scientific knowledge, and Deutsch highlights hard to vary and explanation/assertion nature of knowledge.