Episode 126: The Concept of Concepts
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Blue: Hello out there this week on the theory of anything podcast we discuss What is a concept? What is a theory and was Carl Papa wrong when he said theories are a hundred times more valuable than concepts? But where then do conjectures come from? Bruce explores these ideas and more in this week’s shorter episode
[00:00:33] Red: Welcome to the theory of anything podcast. Hey, Peter. Hey, Bruce. How you doing today? Good? I am I’m excited for today’s episode today.
[00:00:42] Blue: I Hope you’re sleeping at night. You’re you’re in a real real creative streak here
[00:00:48] Red: Yeah, you know, I I am not sleeping at night though. It’s got nothing to do with the podcast so But I I don’t know if everyone like I’m really excited about today’s episode. We’re gonna talk about the concept of concepts and
[00:01:04] Blue: The
[00:01:04] Red: reason why is because we’re really getting to the heart of my agi nerdness now, right? But I kind of wonder if anybody else but me is going to find it as interesting as I do probably not
[00:01:18] Blue: someone will yeah, I Mean well, you know, they’re what we might we might lose a patreon or two back to you So the concept of concepts, but not the concept of concept of concepts
[00:01:32] Red: no
[00:01:35] Blue: So
[00:01:36] Red: think back to like episode 112 words versus concepts We did a little video on that and I talked about how concepts were more important than words Okay, that was kind of my first dipping my toe into the concept of concepts Okay, and You know, if you’re a big popper fan You’re probably already aware of the fact that popper did not think much of the concept of concepts And in particular considered them to be vastly inferior to theories as popper put it in interestingly one of his talks on evolution epistemology that we just covered in the previous episode he says Theories are a hundred times more important than concepts theories may be may be true or false Concepts can at best be adequate or at worst be misleading Concepts are unimportant in comparison to theories. That’s from all of life’s problem -solving page 45 under the So it’s
[00:02:29] Blue: con a concept. Is that a related idea to a platonic ideal? Is that kind of is that how I should get my mind around what
[00:02:37] Red: it’s a good question. So
[00:02:38] Blue: saying there or
[00:02:39] Red: so here’s the thing We’re I’m going to quote what he says about it and yes, he does liking it to a platonic ideal So
[00:02:50] Blue: okay,
[00:02:51] Red: popper is seeing a connection between the problems of Platonism and the idea of a concept
[00:02:58] Blue: Okay, I
[00:02:59] Red: don’t think I Agree right like I kind of agree like I’m gonna explain it like I’ll explain in what sense I agree with him And in what sense I don’t agree with him. Okay,
[00:03:09] Blue: okay But maybe for our want, you know our 100th episode we got David Deutsch. Here’s what I’m thinking 1,000th episode we can have the AI version of Carl Popper on here to I’m seeing the future You know,
[00:03:26] Red: that’s not an entirely bad idea. You know, I have an AI Carl Popper, right?
[00:03:30] Blue: Oh, yeah, I
[00:03:32] Red: Could like I could program to be like really Argumentative with me and then like we can have him on the show to argue with me and
[00:03:40] Blue: yeah Yeah, that would be that would be epic. Wow. I look forward to that
[00:03:46] Red: Okay, do I agree with Popper on this or am I dissenting with him? It turns out to not be a simple yes or no question However, let me frame it this way so you can kind of see where I’m coming from the term Concept so that the word we’re talking about is at least to me a term that we use to refer to human ideas As such, if you are a me or a GI nerd like me, you recognize that the study of a GI is the study of Concepts whatever those turn out to be This means programming a GI is a matter of understanding Human concepts well enough to be able to implement them today We don’t we’re not entirely sure what a concept is and it’s an open area of research Certainly, we don’t understand it well enough that we could implement it into an algorithm There’ve been various attempts and obviously they haven’t really gone anywhere with it yet Now in episodes 85 and 86 we looked at Douglas Hofstetter’s theory of concepts and he treats them as fuzzy categories Which I find a useful starting point for the discussion, but I’ve honestly got no idea how accurate his theory is It’s surely not yet an implementable theory or at least in so far as he was able to implement it It was really kind of primitive stuff his copycat program for example Certainly not some giant breakthrough in a GI at this point. So given the importance of concepts to a GI Why was popper so negative on them? Is he correct that theories are a hundred times more valuable than concepts?
[00:05:20] Red: To answer this question note that popper was focused in his research in his life Almost entirely on formulating a critical method by working out how we criticize scientific theories via his falsification Okay Through use of empirical empirical experiments and the associated logic that that process utilized if we’re talking specifically about the critical method as applies to science and Therefore falsification in its peers form Then I actually feel like I wholly agree with that quote from popper when it comes to the critical method I have no doubt that theories are a hundred times more valuable than concepts But as I’ll cover in a separate podcast the next one If we are not talking specifically about popper’s critical method Then I do not agree with popper’s statement that theories are a hundred times more valuable than concepts But before I get into in the next episode what I’m why I say that Let me first as much as I can’t agree with popper In this episode before I disagree with him in the next episode So a separate question that will only touch upon in this episode But that I want to dig into in some future episode is the question What even is a concept and how does it differ from a theory now as we see in today’s episode Popper does briefly attempt to answer this question and I’ll go over his brief answer Let’s actually dig into it a little into it a little to understand popper’s view popper said This is quoting him again theories are a hundred times more important than concepts Note that popper is not claiming concepts are unimportant merely the theories are more important a hundred times more important I would note here a possible disagreement between me and popper on something though I doubt it’s yet of much importance Popper effectively treats concepts as the same as words So consider a quote from popper where he treats concepts and words as interchangeable So here’s the quote.
[00:07:14] Red: This is from quantum theory and the schism in physics Theories are also described quite wrongly as conceptual systems or conceptual frameworks It’s true that we cannot construct theories without using words or if you if the term is preferred concepts Okay, so note that popper is equating concepts and words there as if they’re one and the same Okay Now if we read popper here very literally as meaning that words and contract and concepts are the same Then I for sure disagree with what popper is saying here Okay, as we saw back at episodes 85 and 86 on Douglas Hofstadter’s theories There is no one -to -one correspondence between words and concepts There is um, there are far far far more concepts than we have words And there’s like an economy of words where we have to reuse words for multiple concepts because that’s just the way reality is Okay, there are even concepts as Hofstadter points out for which we have no words that there’s simply no word for the concept And yet we can still conceptualize it However, I don’t think there is any need to read popper in such a radically literal manner So even Hofstadter openly admits that there’s a very close relationship between words and concepts and how there’s even Are they are even in many common circumstances words and concepts are one of the same He talks about how you’re walking along and you think, you know, oh cute girl or something like that, right? um That’s an example of where you’re invoking a concept using a word because words and concepts are sometimes the same thing Um
[00:08:49] Red: when they’re treated as a kind of a giant fuzzy category Moreover popper was of course well aware that words can point to multiple concepts Okay, so you often find popper making The very sorts of clarifications between words and concepts that i’ve advocated all throughout this podcast Let me just give you just a sampling like he does this all the time Here’s a sampling of popper making it very clear that he understands the difference between words and concepts. Okay quote um I want to make it clear that i’m using the word thought Only in frege’s objective sense and i’m speaking only about the objective content or the logical content of theories That’s from objective knowledge Quote these very tried examples have only the function of helping to clarify what i mean when i speak of knowledge In the objective sense also from objective knowledge Quote in several of many customary senses of the term metaphysical and in a sense in which and in a sense in which It can be used in contradistinction to logical methodological or epistemological. That’s from realism in the aim of science Quote the term Anticipation is used by bacon in a deprecating sense as a synonym for prejudice I use it in a positive sense as a synonym for expectation or assumption from two fundamentals Um, so this next one is important. This next one’s a great quote It’s also important to the debate between modern crit rats and basiants quote I am ready to admit that the word probable and Probability are often used in a sense similar to the one in which I propose to use the somewhat awkward expression Degrees of corroboration think about that.
[00:10:31] Red: That’s from the realism and realism in aim of science He’s literally saying that in many most cases the words probable and probability are exactly the same as what he calls Degrees of corroboration think about that for a second. Okay In each of these things I could go on there’s like tons of these So popper clearly was aware that words sometimes have to be clarified as to how one is using them To point to different underlying concepts because words can point to many different concepts due to concepts outnumbering words By a wide margin. Okay, so I I because of this I’m not sure I actually disagree with with Popper on this. I think if you read him literally I do but I don’t think you should read him literally here Given all this I prefer to read popper as more or less agreeing with hofsteder that there’s a close relationship between words and concepts But they aren’t quite the same thing specifically words have meanings for those underlying meanings. Those are the concepts I doubt either popper or hofsteder would disagree on this point At least from my read of them It is specifically meaning though that popper takes issue with Popper feels meaning is only important in so far as it’s instrumentally necessary to communicate a theory In fact popper’s criticism of meaning helps us understand how Popper differentiates between a concept and a theory.
[00:11:52] Red: So let’s consider some quotes from popper that show this From unended quest page 18 to 20 Meaning philosophies and language philosophies so far as they concerned with words are on the wrong track In matters of the intellect the only thing worth striving for are true theories or theories which come near to the truth This I suppose most people would will admit but they will be inclined to argue as follows Whether a theory is true or new or intellectually significant depends on its meaning And the meanings of a theory provided it is a grammatically Unambiguously formulated is a function of the meaning of the words to which the theory is formulated So popper here is talking about words But we see he really means meaning of words or in other words He’s talking about the underlying concepts and this the idea of meaning is specifically what popper is now going to criticize quote This view of the meaning of a theory seems almost obvious The the argument that he just made on their behalf steel manning it It is widely held and often unconsciously taken for granted Nevertheless, there is hardly any truth truth in it. I would counter it with the following rough formulation the relationship between a theory or a statement And the words used in that formulation is in several ways analogous To that between written words and the letters used in writing them down Letters play a merely technical or pragmatic role in the formulation of a word In my opinion words also play a merely technical or pragmatic role in the formulation of theories both
[00:13:28] Red: Thus both letters and words are mere means to an end different ends So popper is arguing that words and their concepts are pure instruments They are really only meaningful in so far as they help us make sense of the theory Thus thus popper goes on to say quote And the only intellectually important ends are The formulation of problems and the tentative proposing of theories to solve them and the critical discussion of the competing theories The critical discussion assesses the submitted theories the terms in In terms of their rational intellectual value as solutions to the problem under consideration And as regards their truth or nearness to truth So pop to popper a theory is an assertion about reality that could be tested and potentially false falsified Popper goes on to say Truth is the main regulative principle in the criticism of theories their power To raise new problems and to solve them is another By comparison a concept isn’t really making an assertion that can be either true or false Now think back to quote the quote from popper We started with at the beginning of this episode and its full import will now be understood. Let me quote it again Okay theories may be true or false By comparison concepts can at best be adequate and at worst be misleading So there there is answers popper’s answer to the question How do theories and concepts differ a theory is falsifiable a concept is not popper’s answer is surprise His falsificationism gosh.
[00:15:03] Red: I didn’t see that coming Popper goes on to develop a pretty strong argument against the idea that meaning is the the meaning of the theory is what matters Now I really agree with his argument and I feel it’s important So we’re gonna dwell on it a bit before I then later take some issue with it Popper’s argument is this it is entirely possible to word of theory and explain its meaning differently In entirely different words such that it feels like two entirely different theories Yet if those two theories make identical truth claims about the world They ultimately popper is arguing must be considered the same theory
[00:15:40] Red: Quote from popper theories are also described quite wrongly as conceptual systems or conceptual framework It is true that we cannot construct theories without using words or if the term is preferred concepts Now here’s the rest of the quote But it is most important to distinguish between statements and words And between theories and concepts And it’s important to realize that it is a mistake to think that a theory t is bound to use a certain conceptual system c One theory t one may be formulated in many ways and may use many different conceptual systems Say c one and c two or to put it another way two theories t one and t two should be regarded as one If they are logically equivalent even though they may use two total totally different conceptual systems c one and c two Or as can or are conceived in totally different conceptual frameworks This is from quantum theory and the schism of physics popper’s argument here is simple If you can put a single theory in terms of entirely different words and conceptual frameworks then clearly and you can Then clearly the theory cannot have been dependent on the conceptual framework From this popper concludes that theories are ultimately what scientists must care about and concepts must be purely instrumental in communicating theories
[00:16:58] Red: Let’s now take a closer look at popper’s criticism of concepts and how it relates to his criticism of words From objective knowledge page 123 to 125 And this is where we’re going to talk about play dough now Okay, play dough believe that the third world the former’s ideas would provide us with the ultimate explanations That is explanation by essences Thus he writes for example I think that if anything else apart from the idea of absolute beauty is beautiful Then it is beautiful for the sole reason that it has some share in the idea of absolute beauty And this kind of explanation applies to everything. That’s from play dough 1000 bc or whatever Now back in episode 85 and 86 we talked about play dough’s error here Words point to what i’ve called either fuzzy categories or fuzzy concepts These concepts typically though not always have no essence to them that defines them. That’s the norm Such fuzzy categories exist as a series of analogies with some connecting idea at the time But no central essence that defines everything in the category Again think here of mother. This is hoffseder’s example. There is no essence of what it means to be a mother It’s just a series of different analogies Thus play dough’s whole theory of explanations by essences was doomed from the outset because he has he was fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of human concepts Okay Now popper explains further why play dough’s platonism was such a problem epistemologically speaking quote This is a theory of ultimate explanations that is to say of an explanation whose expo cans is neither capable nor in need of further explanation and is a theory of the explanation of essences that is by
[00:18:43] Red: hypostase They size words If play dough was correct Then figuring out why both a woman and a piece of art are both beautiful would simply be a matter of figuring out What they had in common Then throw in there a beautiful sunset and a beautiful sword And you just keep seeking the properties that all of these different types of beauties share and that would be the explanation of beauty This is exactly what play dough got wrong and why play dough’s platonism is an incorrect idea
[00:19:12] Blue: That’s a great distillation. Wow
[00:19:15] Red: Popper goes on something like non material things or perhaps like stars or constellations to be gazed at and Intuitive though not liable to be touched by our By our minds. This is why the inmates of the third world the formers or ideas Become concepts of things or essences or natures of things rather than theories or arguments or problems Continuing the quote from popper this had the most far -reaching consequences for the history of philosophy from play dough until today Most philosophers have either been nominalists or else what I have called essentialists. They are the essentialists They are most more interested in the essential meaning of words than the truth and falsity of theories Popper then offers a famous diagram that I’m sure most of my listeners have seen because it’s in more than one of his books I’m going to read it. It can be read in multiple directions. That’s part of what makes the diagram clever I’m just going to read it straight which loses a lot in the translation But then I will continue with what he said here It’s ideas So there’s a there’s a left side of the diagram and a right side of the diagram And popper’s going to argue that the that the things on the the left side of the diagram Are not very valuable and the things on the right side of the diagram are very valuable Even though most people equate the two together ideas.
[00:20:29] Red: That is designation designations or terms or concepts left side Right side statements or propositions or theories may be formulated in left side words right side assertions Which may be left side meaningful right side true and their left side meaning Right side truth may be reduced by way of left side definitions right side derivations to that of left side undefined concept undefined concepts right side primitive propositions The attempt to establish or rather than reduce by these means by these means their meaning left side truth right side leads to an infinite regress He continues my thesis is that the left side of this table is Unimportant as compared to the right side which should interest what should interest us our theories truth argument If so many philosophers and scientists still think that concepts and conceptual conceptual systems And problems of their meaning and the meaning of words are comparable in importance to the To theories and theoretical systems and the problems of their truth or the truth of statements Then they are still suffering from Plato’s main error which in his foot notes He defines Plato’s error as the error, which is traditional traditional is known as the problem of universals This should be replaced by the problem of theories or the problem of theoretical content of all human language Okay, so let’s try to now summarize popper’s criticism of concepts and how he feels they are less valuable than theories Popper’s argument is as follows The falsified the
[00:22:03] Red: falsifiable truth content of a theory is what matters not how we conceptualize the theory True you have have no choice but to conceptualize it somehow To make sense of it, but a theory can always be conceptualized in multiple ways That is to say it can be explained in very different words that may sound different But if the theory still has the same truth content, it is the same theory Moreover concepts can’t be falsified. So their truth content is zero This is why so argues popper concepts don’t ultimately matter where as theories do Now so far I entirely agree with popper other than a few aforementioned knits about how words and concepts shouldn’t really be equated But I feel like that knit has no real bearing on his overall argument Can
[00:22:48] Blue: I just ground this thanks to our to my bff chat gpt here? A chart that I think really distills this The I think just reiterates what you’re saying So to nominalism Universals are just names. No independent reality To realism universals exist independently of particulars And then how I’m seeing this just as fallible ism Or critical rationalism offers a third way outside of subjectivism subjectivism and object Subjectivism and objectivism I In popper’s view concepts are human made tools to describe reality fallibly So reality exists independently But concepts are our tools to understand it I
[00:23:46] Red: think that’s pretty
[00:23:46] Blue: good.
[00:23:47] Red: Yeah,
[00:23:47] Blue: is that does that distill it? It’s just I think it’s still satisfying way
[00:23:51] Red: what popper is saying. I’m not necessarily saying I agree with that I’m going to somewhat agree and somewhat disagree, but um, okay But yeah, I think that that does a pretty good job to actually be teed in a fairly I think I’m you know what keep in mind. I’m no expert, right? Like I make this podcast and I look into this and I’m certainly a lay expert if that’s such a thing but like I’m not overly concerned about philosophy. I’m not a philosopher I get it.
[00:24:18] Blue: Okay. So let’s let’s so bruce bruce nielsen’s fourth way Okay, okay,
[00:24:26] Red: but I the what you what you just summarized seems to match what I think popper just said So I I think it’s a decent summary. Okay Okay, so um So it’s surely the case that concepts can’t be falsified. So the truth content is zero This is my main objection to people arguing over definitions by the way It never never never makes sense to argue over definitions What you should do is just accept all definitions numbering them if necessary and move on and stop wasting people’s time Note that not that I’ve ever even once been able to convince anyone else to do that with me Now Uh popper goes on to argue that one of the main problems with concepts is that they can’t be made exactly precise And trying to make them precise is a waste of time. So quote In in any case concepts remain like every language to some extent vague and ambiguous It cannot be made precise the meaning of concepts cannot essentially be laid down by any definition whether formal operational or Ostensive any attempt to make the meaning of the conceptual system precise That’s in quotes scare quotes by way of definitions must lead to an infinite regress and to merely um And to merely apparent precision Which is the worst form of imprecision because it’s the most deceptive form And then he says this holds even for pure mathematics.
[00:25:48] Red: That’s from quantum theory and the schism of physics Now in episodes 85 and 86 Hofstadter claimed There were some precise and unambiguous Words or concepts within some contexts at least and I agreed with Hofstadter at that point And I even claimed that sometimes essences are real in say mathematics Seems like Popper just disagreed with Hofstadter and me on this So are I and Hofstadter disagreeing with popper here? I’m not sure actually but maybe okay One of Hofstadter’s examples was the term prime number Okay, that term has an unambiguous meaning in number theory in mathematics Did we just refute popper’s claim that even though math that that math even mathematics has no exactly precise terms Okay, now I have a heavy suspicion that popper would argue to me and Hofstadter That he did admit that there is such a thing as precision within a specific problem space Don’t we get the exact quote so we can see what popper says here This is from popper’s critical remarks on meaning analysis Exact or precise terms is a pseudo problem.
[00:26:59] Red: It depends essentially upon the inexact and imprecise terms exact and precise These are most misleading not only because they strongly suggest that there exists what does not exist Absolute exactness or precision But also because they are emotionally highly charged under the guise of scientific character and of the character Of the scientific objectivity they suggest that precision or exactness is something superior a kind of ultimate value And that it is wrong or unscientific or muddleheaded to use in exact terms And then he puts in parentheses as it is indeed wrong not to speak as lucidly and simply as possible Continuing the quote But there is no such thing as an exact term or terms made precise by precise definitions Also a definition must always use undefined terms in its definition Since otherwise we would get involved in an infinite regress or in a circle And if we have to operate with a number of undefined terms it hardly matters whether we use a few more Okay, so popper in so far is um Is all criticism but then he says this and this is the thing that I wanted to emphasize here quote of course If a definition helps to solve a genuine problem The situation is different And some problems cannot be solved without an increase of precision Indeed this is the only way in which we can reasonably speak of precision The demand for precision is empty unless it is raised relative to some requirements that arise from our attempts to solve a definitive problem So it isn’t so it’s just isn’t the case that popper has an issue with precision in general Even getting um even getting precise with definitions.
[00:28:52] Red: He just said that that’s okay within the scope of trying to solve a problem um popper was Was okay with that if it was he was He was okay with that if it was necessary to solve a specific problem Now I call this out because I’ve encountered a general misunderstanding of the cryptic community towards this point The moment you ask them to make something more precise to try to work on a problem They will say no popper said getting precise is wrong Completely missing this kind of important caveat that he actually placed on that That you do get more precise to solve problems And then it’s okay to get precise precise with your definitions. He just said that like there’s no doubt He said that okay It would be more correct to say that popper had issues with sitting around defining things up front With precision with no real problem in mind to be solved Now a common that is it that is a common problem with philosophers today So it’s understandable that popper had problems with that Then this is a silly thing to do because it mistakes the true purpose of concepts Which was not meant to be a falsifiable truth assertion about reality But in relationship to solving definitive problems You’ll often need to get more precise to sharpen your theory and to make it more testable and criticisable Compare what we’re just talking about to a quote I love that I’ve reused from popper multiple times from objective knowledge page 25 A scientist tries to kill his theories.
[00:30:25] Red: He is consciously critical of his theories Which for this reason he tries to formulate sharply rather than vaguely Here popper is arguing for the importance of making your theories precise rather than vague so that they can be easily criticized Before we go too far down the road of concepts have no value Let’s make sure we recognize that popper never makes that claim He’s arguing for the he is arguing for the value of concepts, but he believes in minimal instrumental value compared to theories He does at times quickly mentioned ways in which concepts can be valuable And I want to I want to recognize that fact and quote him so that you can see that he does Talk about the value of concepts at times And this is also going to be useful for a future episode Quote for concepts are partly partly means of formulating theories Partly means of summing up theories in any case their significance is mainly instrumental And they may always be replaced with other concepts objective knowledge page 123 quote Although concepts may have great suggestive power.
[00:31:27] Red: This is also um, sorry May have great suggestive power and may thus influence the and may thus Influence the further development of the theory It’s kind of an important thing about concepts It is not the conceptual system But the theory that is of the real importance for the pure scientist and the theory is not merely an instrument For him it is more he is interested in its truth or in its approximation to the truth Continuing the quote the con se conceptual system on the other hand is exchangeable And is one of among several possible instruments that may be used for formulating the theory It merely provides a language for the theory perhaps a better and simpler language than another or perhaps not That’s quantum theory and the schism in physics. So that was all me quoting popper To make things more confusing popper says sometimes a concept is actually hiding one or more theories So quote all universal concepts incorporate theories Although some of these can be tested.
[00:32:26] Red: They can never be exhaustively tested and can never be verified The statement here is a glass of water Is open to an indefinite and exhaustible number of tests chemical tests, for example Because water like anything else is recognizable only by its law like behavior Quote thus water is dispositional like every other universal concept even red is dispositional for this surface is red Asserts that this surface has a dispositional has a disposition to reflect red light That’s all from realism and aim of science Dispositional if you don’t know what dispositional means it means having a disposition to behave in some way So the concept of a disposition refer dispositional refers to the inherent potential capacity or tenancy of an object to behave in a certain way under specific conditions or laws Rather than merely describing its current immediate or observable properties What popper is saying here is that a concept May what you’re calling a concept may actually contain a theory Right that was what he was trying to explain with this whole dispositional thing um And because of this there is some confusion. We may call something a concept, but it but we’re actually referring to a theory
[00:33:38] Red: So far I’ve had little disagreement with popper I agree with him that concepts can’t can’t be falsified Indeed if Hofstadter’s theory is at all accurate concepts are meant to be slippery and totally unfalsifiable You’re supposed to keep extending concepts over time rather than falsifying them concepts or Some concepts anyhow are in fact built on analogies There is no true correct or incorrect analogy Because of this concepts are not open to falsification And thus can’t truly be criticized at least not in the scientific falsificationist sense Further you can always choose a different set of concepts to express the same theory And nothing changes in terms of the truth concept of the associated theory. I agree with popper on that In fact, I completely agree with everything. We just talked about from popper here. However Is it therefore true that as popper put it quote theories are a hundred times more important than concepts My answer is a resounding resounding. No popper is completely wrong in this statement
[00:34:41] Red: Actually, let me walk that back just a bit I’ll even agree that he is right If we assume he was tacitly implying within the scope of the critical method, which was his main area of research interest If he meant that then I actually do agree with his statement that There is a hundred are a hundred times more important than concepts Popper’s epistemology is often summarized as conjecture and refutation or conjecture and criticism But popper said little to nothing about how we come up with conjectures and he concentrated Literally 99.9 percent of his effort and does understanding how scientific refutation works And what institutions and conventions were necessary for it to function And this focus made sense solving the problem of how we make conjectures is basically equivalent to solving the problem of agi It’s one of the hardest problems imaginable Since the critical method was popper’s main interest. I can see why he felt theories within the scope of what he was interested in Were a hundred times more valuable than concepts On the criticism side, that’s true But if we’re actually going to choose to pay attention to how conjectures are made what then I’m going to argue in the next podcast That if you look at the conjecture side of popper’s epistemology that could that concepts are incredibly important to how humans make conjectures Those theories they don’t come from nowhere, of course That is the end of Today’s episode Any questions there peter
[00:36:12] Blue: No, that was interesting and a lot and there’s There’s no one else On your path bruce. You’ve you’ve left the left the rest of the world behind in in and as we should all start as we should all Strive to do I think I
[00:36:29] Red: may well be the only person in the world working on both popper’s epistemology and hofstetter’s theories at the same time
[00:36:37] Blue: Okay, well, thank you bruce. All right. Thank you.
[00:36:40] Red: Thanks peter. Bye. Bye
[00:36:49] Blue: Hello again If you’ve made it this far, please consider giving us a nice rating on whatever platform you use or even making a financial contribution Through the link provided in the show notes As you probably know, we are a podcast loosely tied together by the popper dutch theory of knowledge We believe david dutch’s four strands tie everything together So we discuss science, knowledge, computation, politics, art, and especially the search for artificial general intelligence Also, please consider connecting with bruce on x at b nielsen 01 Also, please consider joining the facebook group the mini worlds of david dutch Where bruce and I first started connecting. Thank you
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