Fact just isn’t an epistemological category that I have, and it’s not one that I find useful. There are only models.
So how you choose between different models, then? If there are no facts, what are your criteria? Why is the model of lizard overlords ruling the Earth any worse than any other model?
You use expressions like “because it’s always been true in the past”, but what do you mean by “true”?
My primary criterion is consistency. On a very basic level, I am an algorithm receiving a stream of sensory data. I make models to predict what I think that sensory data will look like in the future based on regularities I detect/have detected in the past. Models that capture consistent features of the data go on to correctly control anticipation and are good models, but they’re all models. The only thing I have in my head is the map. I don’t have access to the territory.
And yet I believe with perfect sincerity that, in generals my maps correspond to reality. I call that correspondence truth. I don’t understand the separation you seem to be attempting to make between facts and models or models and reality.
aspect of the climate system that consistently and frequently chnages between glacial and near-interglacial conditions in periods of less than a decade, and on occassion as rapidly as three years
I am not sure this interpretation of the data surivived—see e.g. this:
Neat. Thanks.
The article you link seems to go out of its way to not be seen as challenging my basic claim, e.g. “Having said this, it should be reemphasised that ice-core chemistry does show extremely rapid changes during climate transitions. The reduction in [Ca] between stadial to interstadial conditions during D-O 3 in the GRIP ice-core occurred in two discrete steps totalling just 5 years [Fuhrer et al., 1999].”
Indeed it the success of the human species that I would cite as evidence for my assertion that human behavior is more closely linked to genetic self-interest than to personal self-interest. Cultural and social success is a huge factor in genetic self-interest.
I haven’t been following the subject closely, but didn’t the idea of group selection ran into significant difficulties? My impression is that nowadays it’s not considered to be a major evolution mechanism, though I haven’t looked carefully and will accept corrections.
I’m not sure how group selection is related to material you’re quoting. Cultural success and social success refer to the success of an individual within a culture/society, not to the success of cultures and societies.
If you don’t consider the opinions of experts evidence, what qualifies?
Opinions are not evidence, they are opinions. Argument to authority is, notably, a fallacy. I call things which qualify “facts”.
I mean, it’s sort of a fallacy. At the same time when I’m sick, I go to a doctor and get her medical opinion and treat it as evidence. I’m not an expert on the things that humans value. I don’t have the time or energy to background to perform experiments and evaluate statistical and experimental methods. Even trusting peer review and relying on published literature is a series of appeals of to authority.
On a very basic level, I am an algorithm receiving a stream of sensory data.
So, do you trust that sensory data? You mention reality, presumably you allow that objective reality which generates the stream of your sensory data exists. If you test your models by sensory data, then that sensory data is your “facts”—something that is your criterion for whether a model is good or not.
I am also not sure how do you deal with surprises. Does sensory data always wins over models? Or sometimes you’d be willing to say that you don’t believe your own eyes?
two discrete steps totalling just 5 years
At this rate of change we are not talking about climate. The ice core data essentially measures certain characteristics of dust in the atmosphere. Even in recorded history we had things like volcano eruptions causing a “year without summer”. It’s not like glaciers can noticeably react to weather/climate abnormalities on a scale of years, anyway.
group selection
When you said “more closely linked to genetic self-interest than to personal self-interest” did you mean the genetic self-interest of the entire species or did you mean something along the lines of Dawkins’ Selfish Gene? I read you as arguing for interests of the population gene pool. If you are talking about selfish genes then I don’t see any difference between “genetic self-interest” and “personal self-interest”.
is a series of appeals of to authority
Kinda, but the important thing is that you can go and check. In your worldview, how do you go and check yourself? Or are “streams of sensory data” sufficiently syncronised between everyone?
On a very basic level, I am an algorithm receiving a stream of sensory data.
So, do you trust that sensory data? You mention reality, presumably you allow that objective reality which generates the stream of your sensory data exists. If you test your models by sensory data, then that sensory data is your “facts”—something that is your criterion for whether a model is good or not.
I am also not sure how do you deal with surprises. Does sensory data always wins over models? Or sometimes you’d be willing to say that you don’t believe your own eyes?
I don’t understand what you mean by trust. Trust has very little to do with it. I work within the model that the sensory data is meaningful, that life as I experience it is meaningful. It isn’t obvious to me that either of those things are true any more than the parallel postulate is obvious to me. They are axioms.
If my eyes right now are saying something different than my eyes normally tell me, then I will tend to distrust my eyes right now in favor of believing what I remember my eyes telling me. I don’t think that’s the same as saying I don’t believe my eyes.
group selection
When you said “more closely linked to genetic self-interest than to personal self-interest” did you mean the genetic self-interest of the entire species or did you mean something along the lines of Dawkins’ Selfish Gene? I read you as arguing for interests of the population gene pool. If you are talking about selfish genes then I don’t see any difference between “genetic self-interest” and “personal self-interest”.
The idea of the genetic self-interest of an entire species is more or less incoherent. Genetic self-interest involves genes making more copies of themselves. Personal self-interest involves persons making decisions that they think will bring them happiness, utility, what have you. To reiterate my earlier statement “the ability of individual members of that species to plan in such a way as to maximize their own well-being.”
is a series of appeals of to authority
Kinda, but the important thing is that you can go and check. In your worldview, how do you go and check yourself? Or are “streams of sensory data” sufficiently syncronised between everyone?
And I go look for review articles that support the quote that people care about social status. But if you don’t consider expert opinion to be evidence, then you have to go back and reinvent human knowledge from the ground up every time you try and learn anything.
I can always go look for more related data if I have questions about a model. I can read more literature. I can make observations.
If your model(s) and sensory data conflict, who wins? Which one do you trust more?
Since you’re saying you have no access to the underlying reality (=territory), you have trust something. I am not sure what do you mean by “meaningful”.
If my eyes right now are saying something different than my eyes normally tell me, then I will tend to distrust my eyes right now in favor of believing what I remember my eyes telling me.
Well, clearly that can’t be true all the time or you’ll never update your internal models.
Genetic self-interest involves genes making more copies of themselves. Personal self-interest involves persons making decisions that they think will bring them happiness, utility, what have you.
Ah, I see. So, basically, genetic self-interest is “objective” (and we can count the number of gene copies in the next generations), while personal self-interest is “subjective”. But how does the genetic self-interest work if not through the personal self-interest? Or do you posit some biological drives which overpower personal self-interest?
I can make observations.
Any particular reason you are unwilling to call your observations “facts”, by the way?
My primary criterion is consistency. On a very basic level, I am an algorithm receiving a stream of sensory data. I make models to predict what I think that sensory data will look like in the future based on regularities I detect/have detected in the past. Models that capture consistent features of the data go on to correctly control anticipation and are good models, but they’re all models. The only thing I have in my head is the map. I don’t have access to the territory.
And yet I believe with perfect sincerity that, in generals my maps correspond to reality. I call that correspondence truth. I don’t understand the separation you seem to be attempting to make between facts and models or models and reality.
Neat. Thanks.
The article you link seems to go out of its way to not be seen as challenging my basic claim, e.g. “Having said this, it should be reemphasised that ice-core chemistry does show extremely rapid changes during climate transitions. The reduction in [Ca] between stadial to interstadial conditions during D-O 3 in the GRIP ice-core occurred in two discrete steps totalling just 5 years [Fuhrer et al., 1999].”
I’m not sure how group selection is related to material you’re quoting. Cultural success and social success refer to the success of an individual within a culture/society, not to the success of cultures and societies.
I mean, it’s sort of a fallacy. At the same time when I’m sick, I go to a doctor and get her medical opinion and treat it as evidence. I’m not an expert on the things that humans value. I don’t have the time or energy to background to perform experiments and evaluate statistical and experimental methods. Even trusting peer review and relying on published literature is a series of appeals of to authority.
So, do you trust that sensory data? You mention reality, presumably you allow that objective reality which generates the stream of your sensory data exists. If you test your models by sensory data, then that sensory data is your “facts”—something that is your criterion for whether a model is good or not.
I am also not sure how do you deal with surprises. Does sensory data always wins over models? Or sometimes you’d be willing to say that you don’t believe your own eyes?
At this rate of change we are not talking about climate. The ice core data essentially measures certain characteristics of dust in the atmosphere. Even in recorded history we had things like volcano eruptions causing a “year without summer”. It’s not like glaciers can noticeably react to weather/climate abnormalities on a scale of years, anyway.
When you said “more closely linked to genetic self-interest than to personal self-interest” did you mean the genetic self-interest of the entire species or did you mean something along the lines of Dawkins’ Selfish Gene? I read you as arguing for interests of the population gene pool. If you are talking about selfish genes then I don’t see any difference between “genetic self-interest” and “personal self-interest”.
Kinda, but the important thing is that you can go and check. In your worldview, how do you go and check yourself? Or are “streams of sensory data” sufficiently syncronised between everyone?
I don’t understand what you mean by trust. Trust has very little to do with it. I work within the model that the sensory data is meaningful, that life as I experience it is meaningful. It isn’t obvious to me that either of those things are true any more than the parallel postulate is obvious to me. They are axioms.
If my eyes right now are saying something different than my eyes normally tell me, then I will tend to distrust my eyes right now in favor of believing what I remember my eyes telling me. I don’t think that’s the same as saying I don’t believe my eyes.
The idea of the genetic self-interest of an entire species is more or less incoherent. Genetic self-interest involves genes making more copies of themselves. Personal self-interest involves persons making decisions that they think will bring them happiness, utility, what have you. To reiterate my earlier statement “the ability of individual members of that species to plan in such a way as to maximize their own well-being.”
And I go look for review articles that support the quote that people care about social status. But if you don’t consider expert opinion to be evidence, then you have to go back and reinvent human knowledge from the ground up every time you try and learn anything.
I can always go look for more related data if I have questions about a model. I can read more literature. I can make observations.
If your model(s) and sensory data conflict, who wins? Which one do you trust more?
Since you’re saying you have no access to the underlying reality (=territory), you have trust something. I am not sure what do you mean by “meaningful”.
Well, clearly that can’t be true all the time or you’ll never update your internal models.
Ah, I see. So, basically, genetic self-interest is “objective” (and we can count the number of gene copies in the next generations), while personal self-interest is “subjective”. But how does the genetic self-interest work if not through the personal self-interest? Or do you posit some biological drives which overpower personal self-interest?
Any particular reason you are unwilling to call your observations “facts”, by the way?