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Redefining "truth is knowable" to "truth is knowable with infinite certainty a la Descartes" is itself a deeply contentious epistemological stance, and still do

Redefining "truth is knowable" to "truth is knowable with infinite certainty a la Descartes" is itself a deeply contentious epistemological stance, and still doesn't validate the use of the term "faith" for ordinary abductive reasoning from experience.

3pt14159 8y ago
I did no such redefinition. Though I also didn't downvote you, because I think it's a valid misunderstanding. I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith. We have evidence of derangement all around us and it takes faith to proceed as though our actions are our own and are unclouded. From a bayesian perspective, one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. But there is no escape because the mind is the centre of all investigation.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  >I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith. Could you please define "mere" truth? >From a bayesian perspective, one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. Nonetheless, that probability can be very low, putting us firmly in normal epistemological territory and not requiring any "faith". In fact, millions of people regularly make the rational, but clouded, assessment that they are too drunk to drive, and take a taxi home. (Also, from a Bayesian perspective, the form of the generative model and priors is up to the experimenter. From a formal epistemology perspective, you can either try to designate some optimal universal prior, or you can take a variational approach and simply say you want to minimize KL divergence of your predictive posterior from your available data.)
- ux-app 8y ago
  > I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith Does the infantry man's faith in ballistic charts affect where a mortar will land? Yes it turned out that Newtonian physics doesn't describe absolute truth, but it sure is useful if you need to blow that enemy up over on that hill. > one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. An interesting thought experiment, but what practical use can I apply it to? btw I'm not implying that only lines of inquiry that result in practical uses are worthwhile, but, science for the most part is related to this. I guess there is a distinction to be drawn between faith and blind faith. "Faith" in the atomic model allowed prediction of elements that had not yet been discovered. That faith was rewarded when the elements turned up exactly where expected (even though the orbital model of electrons turned out not to be the absolute truth). "Faith" in Einsteins theories required a belief in time dilation. Turns out we can't have GPS without accounting for it. This is quite different to, for example, religious faith which so far has not had any of these predictive powers.

3pt14159 8y ago

I did no such redefinition. Though I also didn't downvote you, because I think it's a valid misunderstanding. I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith. We have evidence of derangement all around us and it takes faith to proceed as though our actions are our own and are unclouded. From a bayesian perspective, one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. But there is no escape because the mind is the centre of all investigation.

eli_gottlieb 8y ago
>I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith. Could you please define "mere" truth? >From a bayesian perspective, one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. Nonetheless, that probability can be very low, putting us firmly in normal epistemological territory and not requiring any "faith". In fact, millions of people regularly make the rational, but clouded, assessment that they are too drunk to drive, and take a taxi home. (Also, from a Bayesian perspective, the form of the generative model and priors is up to the experimenter. From a formal epistemology perspective, you can either try to designate some optimal universal prior, or you can take a variational approach and simply say you want to minimize KL divergence of your predictive posterior from your available data.)
ux-app 8y ago
> I'm arguing that mere truth is unknowable without faith Does the infantry man's faith in ballistic charts affect where a mortar will land? Yes it turned out that Newtonian physics doesn't describe absolute truth, but it sure is useful if you need to blow that enemy up over on that hill. > one of our priors must be that there is some probability that the very mind that is doing the thinking may be of a nature that is unable to effectively reason. An interesting thought experiment, but what practical use can I apply it to? btw I'm not implying that only lines of inquiry that result in practical uses are worthwhile, but, science for the most part is related to this. I guess there is a distinction to be drawn between faith and blind faith. "Faith" in the atomic model allowed prediction of elements that had not yet been discovered. That faith was rewarded when the elements turned up exactly where expected (even though the orbital model of electrons turned out not to be the absolute truth). "Faith" in Einsteins theories required a belief in time dilation. Turns out we can't have GPS without accounting for it. This is quite different to, for example, religious faith which so far has not had any of these predictive powers.