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I don't understand, so you just pick beliefs and ignore that the reasoning behind them may be fallacious? A fallacy might not point you towards the truth, but i

by imgabe 6y ago

I don't understand, so you just pick beliefs and ignore that the reasoning behind them may be fallacious? A fallacy might not point you towards the truth, but it can identify when something is not the truth.

Lammy 6y ago
Striving for a single “The Truth” seems like a fundamentally losing battle when I’d have to convince 8+ billion other humans to agree with me in every aspect of how I see the world, but an entire world that could fit in my single viewport would be a very narrow world indeed.
- imgabe 6y ago
  I agree, striving to find a single great Truth and convince everyone of it does sound like a losing battle. Luckily this is neither desirable or necessary. Ascertaining the small-t truth of individual beliefs is useful insofar as it enables you to better achieve things you want to do with tangible results in the real world. There is no need to convince anyone of anything in this endeavor, because they can observe the results for themselves.
BurritoAlPastor 6y ago
A fallacy can not identify when something is not the truth. A fallacious statement is not a necessary result of the argument that led to it, but it can still be completely true. There’s even a fallacy about it! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
ahelwer 6y ago
This isn't me saying how people should pick their beliefs. This is me saying how people do pick their beliefs. It's an exhortation to know thyself, and to let go of the delusion that you're different. If you're stuck in the illusion that your beliefs all follow logically from some carefully-chosen first principles, you have a muddier view of the world (and yourself) than someone who hasn't put the least thought whatsoever into choosing their beliefs.
- imgabe 6y ago
  You can observe the world. I'm assuming you're not locked in a room somewhere and handed a set of first principles that you have to use to reason out what the world is all about. You adopt beliefs that explain observations and successfully predict future observations. When beliefs fail to do that you abandon or refine them. It's in this process of refining beliefs that you watch out for fallacious reasoning to try to ensure that you are correctly understanding what you observed. I don't know anyone who just picks some first principles and goes from there. I agree that seems silly.

by imgabe 6y ago

Lammy 6y ago

Striving for a single “The Truth” seems like a fundamentally losing battle when I’d have to convince 8+ billion other humans to agree with me in every aspect of how I see the world, but an entire world that could fit in my single viewport would be a very narrow world indeed.

imgabe 6y ago
I agree, striving to find a single great Truth and convince everyone of it does sound like a losing battle. Luckily this is neither desirable or necessary. Ascertaining the small-t truth of individual beliefs is useful insofar as it enables you to better achieve things you want to do with tangible results in the real world. There is no need to convince anyone of anything in this endeavor, because they can observe the results for themselves.

BurritoAlPastor 6y ago

A fallacy can not identify when something is not the truth. A fallacious statement is not a necessary result of the argument that led to it, but it can still be completely true. There’s even a fallacy about it! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

ahelwer 6y ago

This isn't me saying how people should pick their beliefs. This is me saying how people do pick their beliefs. It's an exhortation to know thyself, and to let go of the delusion that you're different. If you're stuck in the illusion that your beliefs all follow logically from some carefully-chosen first principles, you have a muddier view of the world (and yourself) than someone who hasn't put the least thought whatsoever into choosing their beliefs.

imgabe 6y ago
You can observe the world. I'm assuming you're not locked in a room somewhere and handed a set of first principles that you have to use to reason out what the world is all about. You adopt beliefs that explain observations and successfully predict future observations. When beliefs fail to do that you abandon or refine them. It's in this process of refining beliefs that you watch out for fallacious reasoning to try to ensure that you are correctly understanding what you observed. I don't know anyone who just picks some first principles and goes from there. I agree that seems silly.