http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-Attack-on-Truth-The-Chronicle-of-Higher-Education-tp7586189p7586196.html
Righto. So what we do is put a measure on "how much confidence" we have.
entropic funtionals. So maybe it's a mixture of the relative and the
absolute. Maybe we've moved up to the "junior" level?
> Correct. Nothing is certain. We've known that since Kant. NOW what? That
> there are no certain facts does not imply that some facts are not more
> enduring and useful than others. We need to get beyond the sophomoric
> revelation that "everything is relative."
>
> n
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
> Clark University
>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:
[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
> Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 10:37 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; glen e. p. ropella;
> Frank Wimberly
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education
>
> I agree with Glen. Simply look at a basic statistics course. There we learn
> the idea of "confidence intervals". You don't really ever "prove"
> anything in statistics. Rather you may be able to "gain confidence"
> based on probabilities - along with your previously established "tolerance
> for maybe being wrong". The whole scientific method eventually comes down to
> "statistical inference". The best we can do is "infer" - not "know".
>
> Then consider the plight of deductive logic. There we are presented with the
> laws of thought. But those laws can only be put to work once they have been
> given a set of "assumptions" (axioms, hypotheses, etc.) to work on. The
> whole edifice depends on having started with the "correct"
> assumptions. But the laws of thought do not tell you how to select those.
>
> "Jes sayin'"
>
> Grant
>
> On 6/9/15 4:10 AM, glen wrote:
>> I enjoyed both the article and others' reactions to it, especially Grant's
> distinction between determined vs. determinability. My own reaction was one
> slightly tinged with nausea. Yes, it is lamentable when one's ideas, one's
> ideology, allow(s) one to deny "truth" (new evidence). But it is that very
> same thing that allows one to lament the denial of truth.
>> McIntyre seems to be just as willfully ignorant as those he accuses,
>> by assuming
>>
>> a) there _exists_ a singe, One True Truth, and
>> b) we (all of us or an in-group few of us) can approach that Truth.
>>
>> The point has been made most clearly by Orgel's 2nd Rule:
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgel%27s_rule . Why is it that we think that
> what we think is better (or more real, or more effective, or more ...
> whatever) than what _is_? Why is it that we think so intently about what we
> think? We're like a bunch of navel-gazing drug addicts, thinking intently
> about our own thoughts while the world moves on around us.
>> There's a kind of circularity to McIntyre's lament (as well as other
> truthers who continually lament the "truthers" -- 9/11 or whatever, or the
> deniers that continually complain about the "deniers" -- climate change or
> whatever). The most frustrating instance of this circularity is the
> escalation to absurdity exhibited by the ongoing co-evolution between
> "social justice warriors" and "political correctness freedom fighters" (for
> lack of a better term). At some point, the frequency of the circular back
> and forth out paces the recovery time needed by my "outrage neurons".
>> At some point, all the finger-pointing, all the childish "yes it is" "no
> it's not" "yes it is" back and forth makes me wish people like McIntyre
> would soften their own rhetoric just enough to exhibit more self-doubt and
> less other-doubt. it would have been more palatable if, e.g., he'd ended
> the article with "I do my best, but often fail respect the truth." ... or
> something of that sort, rather than ending with the implication that he's
> _always_ capable of respecting the truth and knows full well that he always
> infallibly does, especially right now in this article.
>> But, as Russ points out, other-doubt is profitable, while self-doubt is
> not.
>> -glen
>>
>> On 06/08/2015 06:19 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>> Philosophy haters do not read the linked article. It mentions Andy
> Norman. He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department
> where I used to work. My daughter was a friend of his when they were in
> high school in the 1980s. I am old.
>>> Frank
>>>
>>>
http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/>
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