But although bayesianism makes the notion of knowledge less binary, it still relies too much on a binary notion of truth and falsehood. To elaborate, let’s focus on philosophy of science for a bit. Could someone give me a probability estimate that Darwin’s theory of evolution is true?
What do you mean by that question? Because the way I understand it, then the probability is “zero”. The probability that, in the vast hypotheses space, Darwin’s theory of evolution is the one that’s true, and not a slightly modified variant, is completely negligible. My main problem is: “is theory X true?” is usually a question which does not carry any meaning. You can’t answer that question in a vacuum without specifying against which other theories you’re “testing” it (or here, asking the question).
If I understand correctly, what you’re saying with the “97% of being 97% true” is that the probability that the true theory is within some bounds in the hypotheses space, which correspond to the property that inside those bounds the theories share 97% of the properties of “Darwin’s point” (whatever that may mean), is 97%. Am I understanding this correctly?
What do you mean by that question? Because the way I understand it, then the probability is “zero”. The probability that, in the vast hypotheses space, Darwin’s theory of evolution is the one that’s true, and not a slightly modified variant, is completely negligible. My main problem is: “is theory X true?” is usually a question which does not carry any meaning. You can’t answer that question in a vacuum without specifying against which other theories you’re “testing” it (or here, asking the question).
If I understand correctly, what you’re saying with the “97% of being 97% true” is that the probability that the true theory is within some bounds in the hypotheses space, which correspond to the property that inside those bounds the theories share 97% of the properties of “Darwin’s point” (whatever that may mean), is 97%. Am I understanding this correctly?