Should we go somewhere else to discuss, rather than heavily nested comments? Would a new discussion topic page be the right place?
I agree that the nested comment format is a little cumbersome (in fact, this is a bit of a complaint of mine about the LW format in general), but it’s not clear that this discussion warrants an entirely new topic.
Terminology isn’t terribly important . . . If you want to take the Popperian conception of a good theory and label it “justified” it doesn’t matter so much.
Okay. So what is really at issue here is whether or not the Popperian conception of a good theory, whatever we call that, leads to regress problems similar to those experienced by “justificationist” systems.
It seems to me that it does! You claim that the particular feature of justificationist systems that leads to a regress is their reliance on positive arguments. Popper’s system is said to avoid this issue because it denies positive arguments and instead only recognizes negative arguments, which circumvents the regress issue so long as we accept modus tollens. But I claim that Popper’s system does in fact rely on positive arguments at least implicitly, and that this opens the system to regress problems. Let me illustrate.
According to Popper, we ought to act on whatever theory we have that has not been falsified. But that itself represents a positive argument in favor of any non-falsified theory! We might ask: okay, but why ought we to act only on theories which have not been falsified? We could probably come up with a pretty reasonable answer to this question—but as you can see, the regress has begun.
We might ask: okay, but why ought we to act only on theories which have not been falsified? We could probably come up with a pretty reasonable answer to this question—but as you can see, the regress has begun.
No regress has begun. I already answered why:
The reason we behave as if it’s true is that it’s the best option available. All the other theories are criticized (= we have an explanation of what we think is a mistake/flaw in them). We wouldn’t want to act on an idea that we (thought we) saw a mistake in, over one we don’t think we see any mistake with—we should use what (fallible) knowledge we have.
Try to regress me.
It is possible, if you want, to create a regress of some kind which isn’t the same one and isn’t important. The crucial issue is: are the questions that continue the regress any good? Do they have some kind of valid point to them? If not, then I won’t regard it as a real regress problem of the same type. You’ll probably wonder how that’s evaluated, but, well, it’s not such a big deal. We’ll quickly get to the point where your attempts to create regress look silly to you. That’s different than the regresses inductivists face where it’s the person trying to defend induction who runs out of stuff to say.
I agree that the nested comment format is a little cumbersome (in fact, this is a bit of a complaint of mine about the LW format in general), but it’s not clear that this discussion warrants an entirely new topic.
Okay. So what is really at issue here is whether or not the Popperian conception of a good theory, whatever we call that, leads to regress problems similar to those experienced by “justificationist” systems.
It seems to me that it does! You claim that the particular feature of justificationist systems that leads to a regress is their reliance on positive arguments. Popper’s system is said to avoid this issue because it denies positive arguments and instead only recognizes negative arguments, which circumvents the regress issue so long as we accept modus tollens. But I claim that Popper’s system does in fact rely on positive arguments at least implicitly, and that this opens the system to regress problems. Let me illustrate.
According to Popper, we ought to act on whatever theory we have that has not been falsified. But that itself represents a positive argument in favor of any non-falsified theory! We might ask: okay, but why ought we to act only on theories which have not been falsified? We could probably come up with a pretty reasonable answer to this question—but as you can see, the regress has begun.
I think it’s a big topic. Began answering your question here:
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/551/popperian_decision_making/
No regress has begun. I already answered why:
Try to regress me.
It is possible, if you want, to create a regress of some kind which isn’t the same one and isn’t important. The crucial issue is: are the questions that continue the regress any good? Do they have some kind of valid point to them? If not, then I won’t regard it as a real regress problem of the same type. You’ll probably wonder how that’s evaluated, but, well, it’s not such a big deal. We’ll quickly get to the point where your attempts to create regress look silly to you. That’s different than the regresses inductivists face where it’s the person trying to defend induction who runs out of stuff to say.