But it’s based on misunderstandings of what we’re actually talking about, which he would not hold had he read the sequences.
His first statement “Traditional rationality goes back to Aristotle and is something that both Feynman and Popper rejected” is irrelevant because it’s not addressing what anyone else in the conversation is talking about. Oscar Cunningham clarified what Eliezer was talking about, and Eliezer’s commentary on it is elucidated in the sequences, and if Brian Scurfield had read them, he could have dispensed with the remainder of his post as well.
His first statement “Traditional rationality goes back to Aristotle and is something that both Feynman and Popper rejected” is irrelevant because it’s not addressing what anyone else in the conversation is talking about.
if you would pay any attention, you would notice that oscar wrote
Eliezer uses “Traditional Rationality” to mean something like “Rationality, as practised by scientists everywhere, especially the ones who read Feynman and Popper”.
Oscar made a list of things that were allegedly in the tradition of Feynman and Popper. He was wrong about those. Furthermore, Feynman and Popper are in a different tradition to Aristotle, which is conventionally called “traditional rationality”. Oscar says that Bayesianism is not “traditional rationality”, meaning it is not Popperism, but it is firmly in the mainstream tradition of Aristotle: it is conventional traditional rationality.
Aristotle invented the idea of induction. It is a major false idea in philosophy, one that Less Wrong subscribes to. If you disagree, please show me a criticism of induction in the sequences.
Reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Just because we think Aristotle was wrong about some things doesn’t mean we are obliged to disagree with him about everything.
Also, I’m pretty sure Aristotle did not invent induction. He may have been the first person to call it that, but he didn’t invent the concept, which probably predates writing.
Thinking about it, dogs are capable of induction, which suggests that no human invented it at all, in the same way that no human invented sensory perception.
Translation quality is, in general, terrible. By “terrible” I mean not nearly good enough for philosophy where some precision and detail matters. I’ve read 5 different translations of Xenophanes’ fragments. They are all significantly different, and they change the meaning.
BTW I’m not even sure if an English translation of Xenophanes existed yet when Popper learned Greek. Lesher’s book was published in 1992. Of course Popper was fluent in German, but the German translators are in general significantly worse, and the German language is not good for philosophy. Once Popper learned English he stopped doing philosophy in German saying it was much worse for it.
Popper did his own translations of some text and published criticisms of other translation which had got it wrong. He gives good arguments about why he has it right which are persuasive. Some of the people replied, and you can read their view of the matter and judge for yourself who had it right (Popper :).
To do good translations of philosophers, you have to not just know the language but also have some understanding of the philosophy. That’s the main reason Popper was able to do better than other translators who knew the language better than him. Popper came up with good explanations about what the people were trying to say, while others focussed on words too directly.
About the dog, you’re correct that on the theory that both people and animals do induction all the time it must have predated Aristotle. So if Popper is wrong about his major ideas, he’s wrong about this one too; but if not then you’re argument wouldn’t hold for this. On our theory that induction is a substantive philosophical idea, not ever done by anyone but merely a misconception, then it was invented. And Aristotle is the best candidate for who did it, as Popper explained.
One thing to consider is: if induction predates aristotle, which philosophers predating aristotle are in the inductivist tradition? In my reading, they are all different in their attitudes, assumptions and outlooks. Xenophanes is a good example of this (who Aristotle disliked). If you can’t find any induction in the presocratics, then saying it was popular since prehistory wouldn’t really make sense.
The dog is just enacting programs encoded in its genes by evolution (uniquely among animals, dog genes contain knowledge of human memes). Dogs can’t create knowledge, humans are the only animal that have that capacity, and the evolutionary process that created the knowledge in a dog’s genes is not an inductive process.
Popper learnt ancient Greek because he knew that translations are often wildly inaccurate and they are inaccurate because all translations are interpretations. He liked to get his facts correct.
Dogs do not have ‘knowledge’ in their genes. What they do have is pattern-matching capabilities. If they see a pattern enough times, they start expecting it to occur more often.
This same pattern matching goes on in the brains of humans, with the difference that the patterns it can spot are more sophisticated. Without it we would never have invented science or technology, and for that matter we would never have survived in the ancestral environment.
If the first three people to wander into the swamp get eaten by crocodiles, and you don’t consider this a valid argument for not walking into the swamp, then your genes won’t be present in the next generation.
I take it you have a subjectivist conception of knowledge. Is that right?
If the first three people to wander into the swamp get eaten by crocodiles, and you don’t consider this a valid argument for not walking into the swamp, then your genes won’t be present in the next generation.
If they considered something else a good argument for the same conclusion, then that argument wouldn’t work (had to do induction or die). Agreed?
But it’s based on misunderstandings of what we’re actually talking about, which he would not hold had he read the sequences.
His first statement “Traditional rationality goes back to Aristotle and is something that both Feynman and Popper rejected” is irrelevant because it’s not addressing what anyone else in the conversation is talking about. Oscar Cunningham clarified what Eliezer was talking about, and Eliezer’s commentary on it is elucidated in the sequences, and if Brian Scurfield had read them, he could have dispensed with the remainder of his post as well.
if you would pay any attention, you would notice that oscar wrote
and that brian’s reply was relevant to that.
your comment is plainly factually false.
If he was disputing the definition, then his comment was irrelevant. What he was describing was not what was under discussion.
Oscar made a list of things that were allegedly in the tradition of Feynman and Popper. He was wrong about those. Furthermore, Feynman and Popper are in a different tradition to Aristotle, which is conventionally called “traditional rationality”. Oscar says that Bayesianism is not “traditional rationality”, meaning it is not Popperism, but it is firmly in the mainstream tradition of Aristotle: it is conventional traditional rationality.
It really isn’t.
Aristotle is one of the few philosophers who is explicitly named and criticized in the sequences.
Aristotle invented the idea of induction. It is a major false idea in philosophy, one that Less Wrong subscribes to. If you disagree, please show me a criticism of induction in the sequences.
Reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Just because we think Aristotle was wrong about some things doesn’t mean we are obliged to disagree with him about everything.
Also, I’m pretty sure Aristotle did not invent induction. He may have been the first person to call it that, but he didn’t invent the concept, which probably predates writing.
Thinking about it, dogs are capable of induction, which suggests that no human invented it at all, in the same way that no human invented sensory perception.
No, he invented it. Read Popper’s The World of Parmenides. (BTW, Popper took the trouble to learn ancient Greek)
Then explain how my dog figured out that when if she sits when I say ‘sit’ I give her food.
I’m pretty sure she’s never read Aristotle.
Aristotle may have codified induction, he may have taken credit for it, but he didn’t invent it.
Bit of a waste of time for someone so important, no? Is there anything he gained from that which he couldn’t have gained from a translation?
Translation quality is, in general, terrible. By “terrible” I mean not nearly good enough for philosophy where some precision and detail matters. I’ve read 5 different translations of Xenophanes’ fragments. They are all significantly different, and they change the meaning.
BTW I’m not even sure if an English translation of Xenophanes existed yet when Popper learned Greek. Lesher’s book was published in 1992. Of course Popper was fluent in German, but the German translators are in general significantly worse, and the German language is not good for philosophy. Once Popper learned English he stopped doing philosophy in German saying it was much worse for it.
Popper did his own translations of some text and published criticisms of other translation which had got it wrong. He gives good arguments about why he has it right which are persuasive. Some of the people replied, and you can read their view of the matter and judge for yourself who had it right (Popper :).
To do good translations of philosophers, you have to not just know the language but also have some understanding of the philosophy. That’s the main reason Popper was able to do better than other translators who knew the language better than him. Popper came up with good explanations about what the people were trying to say, while others focussed on words too directly.
About the dog, you’re correct that on the theory that both people and animals do induction all the time it must have predated Aristotle. So if Popper is wrong about his major ideas, he’s wrong about this one too; but if not then you’re argument wouldn’t hold for this. On our theory that induction is a substantive philosophical idea, not ever done by anyone but merely a misconception, then it was invented. And Aristotle is the best candidate for who did it, as Popper explained.
One thing to consider is: if induction predates aristotle, which philosophers predating aristotle are in the inductivist tradition? In my reading, they are all different in their attitudes, assumptions and outlooks. Xenophanes is a good example of this (who Aristotle disliked). If you can’t find any induction in the presocratics, then saying it was popular since prehistory wouldn’t really make sense.
The dog is just enacting programs encoded in its genes by evolution (uniquely among animals, dog genes contain knowledge of human memes). Dogs can’t create knowledge, humans are the only animal that have that capacity, and the evolutionary process that created the knowledge in a dog’s genes is not an inductive process.
Popper learnt ancient Greek because he knew that translations are often wildly inaccurate and they are inaccurate because all translations are interpretations. He liked to get his facts correct.
Dogs do not have ‘knowledge’ in their genes. What they do have is pattern-matching capabilities. If they see a pattern enough times, they start expecting it to occur more often.
This same pattern matching goes on in the brains of humans, with the difference that the patterns it can spot are more sophisticated. Without it we would never have invented science or technology, and for that matter we would never have survived in the ancestral environment.
If the first three people to wander into the swamp get eaten by crocodiles, and you don’t consider this a valid argument for not walking into the swamp, then your genes won’t be present in the next generation.
I take it you have a subjectivist conception of knowledge. Is that right?
If they considered something else a good argument for the same conclusion, then that argument wouldn’t work (had to do induction or die). Agreed?