Episode 128: Induction’s Immunizing Strategy
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Blue: Hello out there This week on the theory of anything podcast Bruce takes another deep dive into induction Why is induction such a confusing and multi -dimensional concept? What is this debate between critical rationalists and inductivists really about I? Enjoyed listening to Bruce here, and I hope someone else out there does too
[00:00:33] Red: Welcome to the theory anything podcast. Hey Peter.
[00:00:36] Blue: Hello Bruce How are you doing today doing
[00:00:39] Red: good? We’ve got a an interesting episode today We’re gonna talk about induction again or kind of I don’t know the episode is not really about induction I’m just going to be using a discussion. I had with a self -proclaimed inductivist to make some points But it’s also a setup for later where I am planning to do a podcast about induction and try to explore the concept of induction better and Why it is that I don’t think There seems to be a lot of agreement as to what it means So but I I think you’ll see that the conversation I had with this inductivist Helps explain why it’s sort of a fuzzy confusing concept So all right. Okay.
[00:01:23] Blue: Well, I I am getting the strangest University level course in epistemology And machine learning that I think anyone has ever gotten this is a This this life is is Is a strange place, but I’m very very happy to continue listening to you bruce.
[00:01:48] Red: All right Okay, so in previous podcasts We talked first about poppers critique of concepts and how he found theories to be a hundred times more valuable than concepts But I then critique poppers critique and found room for some strong disagreement concepts are quite a bit more valuable than popper thought But only if you consider the conjecture side of his epistemology, which I don’t think he really had in mind However, I I also accept that popper was correct that theories are a hundred times more valuable than concepts If we are talking about his critical methodology Indeed, it’s impossible to falsify a concept. So it’s impossible to hold a critical discussion about concepts Concepts by the very nature Built on analogies at least according to Hofstetter can’t be falsified because they are intentionally fuzzy and extensible So I also argued that there is no clear cut Demarcation between a concept and a theory a concept can often be treated like a theory You lock it down long enough that you can test it and a theory can be fuzzed out until it becomes a concept Free from any testable content And as popper put it we sometimes Use a concept as a summary for a theory or a shorthand for a theory and sometimes concepts hide theories inside of them So I’m I’m going to argue today Using a real life example that when people vaguely man their theories to immunize their theories from criticism That often what they are actually doing is they’re treating their theories less like a theory and more like a concept.
[00:03:22] Red: Okay Now there are several ways in which this can be done Um to treat a theory like a concept We’ll look at one way to do it today through use of analogy. Okay, Hofstetter Hofstetter’s point of view here The results of doing this is exactly what you’d expect the theory stops being falsifiable and loses all it loses all its content and it becomes immune to criticism So many of you may have met a guy on twitter named Karen. I don’t know if i’m pronouncing that that correct That’s presumably just a handle not his real name Um, he seems to be a philosophy student. I think or just maybe someone really interested in philosophy I think probably a philosophy student because
[00:04:05] Red: Anyhow, he is a self -proclaimed Inductivist and he wrote an article years ago about how deutch’s hard to vary criteria is based on induction So in his opinion, it doesn’t really refute induction So in the show notes, I’ll have to include a link to the actual article that kicked off what we’re going to be talking about in this episode Now here is a quick summary of kiren’s argument Uh, this is a quote now Um induction implied the induction implied by hard to vary criteria is deduced as follows A hard to vary theory is one in which each of its concepts is constrained by some past observed phenomena When we when we reflect back on past observations, we see how constrained our concepts are It is the same as reflecting back to see how well confirmed our concepts are Therefore every concept involved in a hard to vary theory must have support from past observations So in kiren’s mind, this quote -unquote proves induction is real and that critical rationalism Including in this case deutch’s hard to vary criteria are really just inductivism or at least relying on inductivism Therefore he concludes quote from this conclusion We see that the hard to vary criteria is really a requirement of support for the concepts employed by our theories The harder to vary the more support the better the theory is for our acceptance. This is induction says karen Now sure a problem is often an observation That doesn’t match our current theory. So there is a sense in which karen must be correct But what about if a theory has a problem by contradicting another theory?
[00:05:48] Red: So i asked karen about this and karen sees this as still fitting his theory of induction because quote These other theories are themselves constrained by observations Unquote so quote any theory that says something new about the world that is makes claims that must That must either be explained by other theories or were accepted as knowledge via induction Where as we saw he specifically defines induction as constrained by past observations So for example, this is a quote now from karen You might rely on a theory of human behavior related relating to trade But this theory itself is constrained by our observations of how humans behave in such situations So he so he claims he is quote just taking an additional step than me As a critical rationalist to see where our theory has been constrained by observations Okay, so karen is essentially arguing that induction is correct because apparently induction Just means that our theories are constrained by past observations Now as a critical rationalist this argument seems true, but uninteresting to me So you so that is my lens And I am going to make that argument to him And he’s not going to accept it. Okay.
[00:07:09] Red: Okay, so now I as a critical rationalist fully accept popper’s concept of degrees of corroboration And karen’s supposed theory of induction Seems to me to be undifferentiatable from popper’s theory of corroboration at least so far In fact, let me rewrite karen’s argument against popperian determined Again, again using popperian terminology just to prove that so far the two are the same A hard to vary theory is one in which each of its concepts is constrained by past observations particularly tests When we reflect back on past testing to see how constrained our concepts are It is the same as reflecting back on how well corroborated our concepts are Therefore every concept involved in a hard to vary theory must have corroboration from past observations The way I’ve reworded that it’s That sounds just like critical rationalism to me now.
[00:08:03] Red: Okay, and I don’t know that I’m saying something Conceptually different or at least it’s not obvious that I’m saying something conceptually different than what karen was saying So this really does sound exactly right to me So if induction just means constrained by past observations, then okay I guess critical rationalism involves what karen happens to be calling by the label I N D U C T I O N induction with no real relationship to what the term originally meant or implied We’ll see later It’s a bit more complicated than that when karen starts to ad hoc add to his definition in various attempts to exclude critical rationalism But before we go there, let’s talk about a common crit rat response to someone like karen or even to karen There was numerous people that responded to him That is in my opinion a really unhelpful response a crit map rat might argue to karen something like this No, that’s not induction induction isn’t merely being constrained by past observations That’s corroboration. No induction Not induction. No. No. You’ve misunderstood induction karen induction is all about having only observations with no background theories at all and then forming a theory Forming a theory about it. That’s logically impossible. So induction is impossible Or they might even add and induction is about justifying a theory as true That’s impossible.
[00:09:37] Red: So induction is impossible I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen crit rats make exactly these arguments The problem is that this response is 100 pure essentialism It’s trying to argue over the meaning of the word induction Which is of course a total waste of time because that’s an argument over a word It’s it simply isn’t true that every person that that claims they believed in induction or had some concept of induction That they believed in believed induction justified truth in a hundred percent certain way in fact really no one ever Believed that okay, nor is it the case that every person that believes in induction believed you could induce using observations absent any background theory We should always accept all definitions If to karen induction really and truly only means constrained by past observations as at the time He was claiming that that’s fine. Of course we’ll quickly discover He doesn’t accept this definition either when accepting his definition to induction forces him to admit His induction is just a new name for critical rationalism Then he heal on his own accord ad hoc adjust his definition to avoid that fate But until then we should accept whatever definition he cares to give to us for induction But also hold him accountable for that stated definition However, it’s okay to point out that he’s not exactly using a historical definition of induction If we can put it that way then the crit rat response that I just parodied might actually make more sense So imagine instead of arguing to karen
[00:11:16] Red: That crit rat response, let’s argue something like this to him instead Well, karen to be honest I’m not familiar with the idea that of defining induction as meaning something as innocuous as constrained by past observations Now if you want to define induction that way I’m happy to refer to this as karen’s induction to make it distinct from how I would normally understand that term Different than what would call say a baconian induction As maybe for the original form of induction And I’ll be happy to continue the conversation forward Referring to this as karen’s induction Notice how this gives you exactly the same result that the crit rats are trying to get at But does so without turning to essentialism and while staying a word nominalist Now of course karen is not about to accept that his induction is merely a word for critical rationalism So he is also unsatisfied with defining induction as merely constrained by past observations too Interestingly, he admits to me that his form of induction is not the induction of bacon Um, and I was very pleased to hear him say that in fact, this is an actual quote from him So you are right that the induction i’m considering is not bacons inductivism.
[00:12:29] Red: He says He takes issue with the induction of bacon because it is supposedly used to induce new theories And he feels that this is impossible through induction Now I want to note here something important for crit rats They tend to believe that induction has a single essential definition That includes the following things like induction is about coming up with conjectures Using solely observations without any background knowledge at all Or induction is about proving a theory as true or at least probably proving it as true Note that karen is outright denying the first of these Instead he’s claim going to claim he’s arguing only for what he calls inductive inference Which he sees as distinct from the first claim because it’s got nothing to do with how you make conjectures It is unclear to me if karen believes the second claim or not I I do happen to know that iven the bayesian who we’ve had on this podcast number of times Is also an inductivist and he does not accept either claim as correct a correct view of induction So i’m often left with the impression that crit rats are straw manning inductivists and don’t really understand the claims of inductivists It haven’t taken the time to understand the claims of inductivists to clarify his view Kieran offers the following definition of induction from wikipedia Quote my understanding of induction can be summarized by what you will find on wikipedia or stanford encyclopedia of philosophy Quote in a good inductive argument The truth of the premises provides some degree of support for the truth of the conclusion Where this degree of support might be measured via some numerical scale
[00:14:09] Red: Now we need to break this argument down a bit a critical rationalist that agrees with popper on corroboration There are so few of us today. It would seem that agree with popper on corroboration Probably has no problem with the idea that observations do quote support a theory if by support you mean degrees of corroboration I think most critical rationalists would struggle a bit with this part of what was in the quote However where this degree of support might be measured via some numerical scale What new numerical scale would that be turns out again? No surprise karen means probability calculus Now if we’re talking specifically about a statistical inference problem Then sure even as a critical rationalist. I agree. I see no problem with that. I even um personally following the popperian debor mayo’s usage might don’t mind referring to To statistical inference as statistical induction and I see those as synonymous terms Kieran later repeated to me multiple times an example of using what he calls induction To determine if a certain medicine works or not By doing a double blind study now his chosen example of induction in this example of a medical double blind study Really does utilize probability calculus to indirectly quote measure the degree of support or corroboration of The theory that say the medicine Works and it’s not just the placebo effect But is this in general how we do science? Well, not that I can see in fact except for A pure statistical problem like karen’s much repeated medical example I’m not even sure what measured via some numerical scale would contextually mean without um Some some additional explanation or additional context.
[00:16:02] Red: Let me see if I can explain what I mean here So for example, I’m in the bayesian in episode 90 I pointed out to him that every single physics theory is presumably wrong. He claimed he only meant Well, the theory is true enough for our purposes right now Which I thought was actually maybe not such a bad answer because that would be capturing the same idea under critical rationalism as their similitude That answer while I still consider it to be ultimately technically incorrect That is a discussion for another time. I can make sense of what I’ve been saying So Ivan’s view is that induction isn’t even trying to measure that a theory is quote probably correct per se But only quote correct enough for our current purposes probably correct enough for our current purposes Given that view What what does measured via some numerical scale even mean? It almost must imply something like this I’m doing this experiment at the moment using this particular instrument And I’m comparing the theory to the only known competitor And I’m making the false probably false assumption that one of these two theories is correct And I’m coming up with a probability output given the assumption of equal priors And the end result is going to only be used to determine not if the theory is probably correct But if given our experiment experiment experimental setup and assuming all our auxiliary hypotheses are correct, which they may not be Which of the two theories is probably better? That was quite the mouthful With all those caveats in place. Sure.
[00:17:33] Red: I guess I can agree that we Can and do measure a degree of support via some numerical scale even under critical rationalism and in science And we may even do that using probability calculus So I guess under this still pretty lame definition of induction. Sure, critical rationalism is induction But so what it seems like an unremarkable comment at this point It doesn’t change the fact that critical rationalism is not induction in the more generally used understanding of the term Say by bacon Nor does it change the fact that when I say we do not measure the probability of the truth of a theory That we do not in fact measure the truth of a theory in science other than in that extremely caveated sense that I just Suggested and really if we’re being honest not even then since we probably forgot several caveats Because they were unstated assumptions that we never thought to make explicit So really never we never measure the probability of any theory being true That just isn’t something science does To use an analogy from episode 122 Think about how people argue over logic when what they really really what they’re arguing over are premises
[00:18:50] Red: There seems to be a similar mistake being made here by so -called inductivists or possibly basians too You never measure the probability of a theory as true or false in any absolute sense You only measure the probability given a set of specific assumptions Each of which may be wrong and you have no ability to measure the probability of the assumption being wrong So if accuracy is required the claim that we quote measure the degree of support on a numerical scale Is really only true if you throw in all those additional caveats that I just mentioned And if you do throw them in then your argument starts to feel as lame as it actually is because you’ve now exposed the problem With what you’re saying This seems to be one of the most important mistakes inductivists and basians make They don’t see themselves as measuring the probability of something given a set of assumptions They mistakenly think they are measuring the absolute probability of something Which makes this all what makes this all worse is that the actual statement Ciaran quoted to me from wikipedia was and a quote Where this degree of support might be measured via some numerical scale So apparently you only sometimes need to measure
[00:20:04] Red: Degree of support on a numerical scale to be induction if you don’t well It’s still induction whether you measure it on a numerical scale or not Okay, if that’s what we mean then let’s drop the optional clause quote In a good inductive argument the truth of the premise provides some degree of support Which I take to mean corroboration for the truth of the conclusion Oops, we’re back to corroboration now induction apparently is just now another word for critical rationalism At this point Ciaran jumped to a new tactic with me He said quote my view is that we do use a form of inductive reasoning meaning inductive inference Especially when it comes to our general claims about the world The general form of such such an induction is in Is to infer the truth or falsity of a general claim from a random sample of its predictions I see induction as one aspect of the scientific method where its role is primarily for testing hypotheses Not for generating them like bacon wanted.
[00:21:05] Red: I have trouble accepting critical rationalism When they critical rationalists when they choose to outright reject all forms of induction He later clarifies as part of his description of the scientific method quote induction is defined as Test a random sample of the predictions to infer the truth falsity of your hypothesis The proportion of scientific successful predictions corresponds to the proportion of support we reveal For our hypothesis ah So induction now means using a random sample of predictions to infer the truth and falsity of a claim Which sounds to me like another term for statistical inference The beauty of this claim the way kiran just put that is that it is now clearly false We absolutely do not use statistical inference with random samples when doing all of science In fact, I would say in most cases. We just don’t do it other than maybe measuring say The quality of the instrument output Kiran Is much repeated of a medical example aside Where is the random sample in how the eddington expedition went about? corroborating general relativity They didn’t randomly take positions of stars in the sky. They targeted specific stars at a specific time during an eclipse This is about as non -random as you can imagine This was nothing like a random sample. It’s like they were intentionally making it not a random sample.
[00:22:31] Blue: Yes Just just quick question. So am I is this this this person kiran? Whatever you’re arguing with. Yes debating with is he a inductivist but not a bayesian
[00:22:45] Red: Uh, he only talked to me about inductivism. I he did not bring up bayesianism. So I don’t actually know
[00:22:51] Blue: Okay, okay. I was just trying to read in between the lines here and thinking maybe he was making sort of a unique case For induction that I just wanted to kind of get my mind around because I kind of associate the two You know just seems like most people accept induction. So there is a relationship between Bayesianism and induction But they’re not specifically the same thing But there’s plenty of people who argue for inductivism who aren’t bayesian Yes, and and even for a bayesian inductivism is like one small aspect of their overall theory Oh, is that right? Okay. Okay. I’m just trying to Place this get my mind around this. Okay.
[00:23:32] Red: Okay Okay, so with this additional clear clarification from kiran now in place Apparently popper was right induction is false. Let’s just drop the whole embarrassing theory and embrace critical rationalism So here is how kiran responded to this problem quote What I mean is they the observations gathered by the eddington expedition were not chosen with any sort of bias except for the fact that they were all All that the universe provided us and so in an important sense. They were random You don’t need to get hung up on the requirement for a random sample. Anyway We still proceed with our inductions even when there are severe limitations on the sample But we do so with degraded confidence in our conclusion There are degrees of strong and weak inductions. Okay, so apparently by random sample kiran actually means unbiased sample Even if it’s non -random And why are we even using the word sample here? What exactly is the What exactly is the observations of the eddington expedition a sample of is it a sample of possible outcomes of doing the eddington expedition experiment Why are we calling this a sample? It seems to me that he’s saying random sample But he’s stretching or if you prefer clarifying that the term really means we test it by doing an experiment Okay, let’s plug this new definition back into the original statement Quote the general form of such an induction is to infer the truth or falsity of a general claim by testing it Some crit rats might take issue with the word truth there and want to say that we only infer the falsity Of a general claim by testing it.
[00:25:14] Red: But even those crit rats would admit That it that if this is your best surviving theory, we’re going to embrace it as tentatively true And since neither kiran nor iven are claiming that we prove a theory definitively true It’s unclear. There’s any actual disagreement here between the crit rats and the Inductivists at this point. Okay, so apparently induction is another word for critical rationalism. Yay. Are we done yet? Kiran then makes another argument to me. He says that it doesn’t have to be random That’s true, but it is preferred to be random because otherwise quote um, otherwise it quote confidence in our inference will be degraded Honestly, i’m not seeing why this would be true. The energy and expedition was convincing Precisely because it was non random. So apparently we’ve again disproven induction. Yay. Let’s all become critical rationalists Also, i’m not seeing how to turn this into um easy probability calculus based analysis We have no idea how many corroboration How many corroborating tests of newton came over the centuries for the sake of argument? Let’s assume it’s like say a hundred thousand So newton has a hundred thousand corroborating tests and gr has a hundred thousand and one corroborating tests I doubt there is any way to have the probability Calculus if you’re using it correctly show anything but a difference of maybe out to the sixth digit at this point Okay, like literally if we’re treating this as random samples like kiran says we’re supposed to be doing Then there is something drastically off over the fact that the eddington expedition suddenly caused Cataclysm, you know Through the scientific community Because it suddenly showed that there was something wrong with newton.
[00:26:57] Red: We should be treating it as oh, it’s just one out of a hundred thousand So we’re gonna adjust our proportions by one out of a hundred thousand And if you were to do that you would find that both are what 50 50 or something at this point 49.9999999 and 50 point point zero zero zero zero one That’s the most you would actually adjust things using probability calculus if you’re going to treat them as random samples So surely we do not use the probability calculus for something like this Or at least not in the way kiran is trying to position it as every test is to be treated like a random sample What really happened with the eddington expedition fits poorly when treated as just one more random sample of an observation But it makes perfect sense under critical rationalism as the critical test as a critical test between two theories Where we falsified newton’s theory and left gr as the soul standing theory So again induction as currently defined by kiran himself is definitely not how science works in real life The moment there is a counter example of to newton immediately everyone knows that you’ve either got to show There was something off with the experiment Or you have to accept gr is now the current best theory. It isn’t treated like oh, that’s just one observation out of 100,000 Because it’s just one more sample Okay, so good. We have now disproved induction. Yay. Are we done yet? Given this criticism kiran again quote clarifies The way induction applies to gr is through testing its consequences We derive consequences predictions from gr such as orbital procession light reflection redshift gps signaling, etc And then we test them.
[00:28:38] Red: Okay, so apparently induction just means We do critical tests It doesn’t require any sampling at all. Okay looks like induction is again just a word for critical rationalism. Yay Wait Kiran Clarifies further quote it might not be as easy To quantify this sort of induction compared to the quantification of induction related to medicine the medical example But the form of reasoning is still the same We infer the probable future success of our theory based on the proportion of successful tests We did we found in the past. Okay Now we can disprove induction for sure if we’re going to accept that statement as correct It is not not only not just not easy to quantify this sort of induction done by the editing Expedition. It’s completely impossible because we have no idea how many past Observations there were but if we did try to do it Again, maybe we’ll just accept there’s a hundred thousand for the sake of argument This basically tells us nothing for the reason. I just explained if you treat it like it’s just one more sample That’s all you you don’t see that. This is a critical test. You don’t see why it’s a falsification And instead you think of it as just a random sample Then absolutely the editing to an expedition showed nothing but maybe a sixth digit. Okay So clearly we did not in the editing expedition quote infer the probable success of our theory based on the proportion of successful tests We have found in the past. In fact, it had nothing to do with that at all
[00:30:14] Red: For that matter science doesn’t really take this idea of quote inferring the probable future success of our theory based on the proportion of successful tests in the past seriously anyhow even when there was What we now know a misprediction for newton say on the perihelion of mercury We didn’t say oh I’m now going to assume that newton will occasionally make mis predictions And i’m going to adjust my confidence of successful future predictions accordingly That would literally be a silly thing to to assume.
[00:30:46] Red: Okay Instead there was an assumption that one of the auxiliary theories Must be wrong and we started putting to work tried to figure out what it was in this case looking for a missed planet called vulcan Okay, and it was only after we failed to find vulcan that it started to occur to us Oh, something might be wrong with newton’s theory So, whoo Karen Karen’s induction has again been disproven We can drop it as a theory and we can all become critical rationalists And then Karen it clarifies again quote what i’m trying to say is that we can’t Be as precise when presenting our inductive support for gr in comparison to medicine One of the reasons is because in a medical study the samples are recorded precisely And therefore we can present the precise results of a statistical induction When it comes to newton and einstein’s theories We can reflect back on countless observations of objects moving about under gravity and see that they confirm these theories But we can’t easily give exact figures However, we know that einstein’s theories are confirmed in more cases than newton’s Ah So what he really means is that gr explains all of what newton does plus something newton can’t So we favor gr because it is the soul surviving theory Okay, it looks like induction is now just a term for critical rationalism. Are we done yet? This back and forth continued for a while.
[00:32:10] Red: I would alternate between saying okay I can refute your theory of induction easily only to have karen quote clarify His theory of induction in such a way that it was so vague it could easily be mapped to critical rationalism By doing this he immunized his theory from induction from criticism His theory of induction from criticism with a vague enough understanding of induction It’s basically impossible to ever refute karen’s theory of induction Every time you think you’ve got a way to refute his theory He simply takes whatever he said and extends it via Analogy so that the refutation is no longer valid a few examples of this from what we just quoted. Okay Um, he wants to say science is about taking a random sample now that is clearly false But it is not clearly false if by analogy You decide that random sample includes any test or observation even if it was neither random nor a sample Likewise induction is clearly false if you claim that we utilize the proportion of past successful tests to determine our confidence in future tests But if you can just reimagine the phrase portion of past successful tests to merely mean You go with the theory that wasn’t refuted because it passed more tests Then clearly that phrase initially clearly false now might be understood as true I have a term for this rational fallacy.
[00:33:37] Red: I call it playing with words or word games It always surprises me that people don’t seem to see how easy it is to start with a well stated and fully testable theory And fuzz it out by extending the word the meaning of the word Through use of analogy into an untestable theory words and concepts are meant to be stretched So this is a truly easy thing to do. It can always be done I’m going to say that again. It can always be done There is never a case where your theory can’t be stretched via analogy To where it becomes unfalsifiable Okay Notice also that Hofstetter is vindicated here Kieran’s stretching his terms Specifically requires use of analogy a random sample is analogous to a test So in his mind all tests are now just random samples Once you realize this that’s the trick of course It becomes impossible to refute him because science really is about testing theory severely But notice that each time Kieran fuzz out his theory using these language tricks That he can’t help but turn induction into something so muddled that now critical rationalism counts as a form of induction Where all the true aspects of his theory of induction are only true because they happen to match critical rationalism So far the argument loop goes like this Kieran would claim that critical rationalism relies on induction He’d quote prove this by defining induction such that critical rationalism was relying on induction Typically by defining induction is merely meaning something like our theories are constrained by past observations I then say to Kieran.
[00:35:14] Red: Okay, if you’re going to define induction that way, then I agree critical rationalism is a form of induction Indeed Critical rationalism is the only true form of induction Now i’m supposedly giving Kieran exactly what he just said he wanted I’m a critical rationalist and i’m admitting that critical rationalism relies on induction Though only in the way he defined it vaguely at this point Kieran Would then offer an attack on critical rationalism attempting to prove that critical critical rationalism is not induction after all Kieran never saw the irony of the fact that he himself was just a moment ago claiming that critical rationalism was induction Or at least relying on induction and I was now agreeing with him and that made him When I would agree with him that would make him want to argue. No critical rationalism is not induction Let me give a few examples of his attacks on critical rationalism And allow me to show how I responded to each attack And let’s make a distinction between the responses that I give him from popper And the way he was stretching clarifying through stretch stretching terms Via analogy for example Kieran argued to me quote My claim is not just that we use observations to test our theories if that was if it was Then as you suggest, I would be in agreement with popper. Okay, we agree on that much But then he says that leaves out the important claim of inductive inference that we can provide some rational justification slash support for our general claims through our particular observations Popper allows us to falsify our general claims, but he denies that we can rationally justify them I wonder where you stand on this.
[00:36:52] Red: He says do you believe you can justify or provide a degree of support for our universal claims about the world So notice that kieran is inviting me to respond and to explain my own stance So I do by the way, he probably picked the worst critical rationalist to have this argument with Because I believe in corroboration and a lot of critical rationalists don’t if he had happened to be arguing with Brett Hall or one of the critical rationalists that doesn’t believe in corroboration His argument might have had some teeth, but against me it’s it’s almost pointless Note that kieran is making an attack on popper’s epistemology over the fact that famously it rules out the idea of verifying a theory But allows a one to falsify a theory Now, of course, I could just play the very same word game kieran is playing I might simply vaguely define falsification in such a way that everything counts as a falsification And in fact, I’ve noticed that some crit rats do exactly this and I’m planning to do a podcast in the future To criticize crit rats over how they sometimes do this But this would make critical rationalism no better than kieran’s induction. Can we do better? I think we can Put another way Is it possible to respond to this attack from kieran without relying on his fuzz out trick of extending words and concepts via analogy?
[00:38:08] Red: Until they are so loose that his theory has no possibility of turning out to be wrong Again, I think we can I think we should We do not want to indulge in simply stretching our terms and associated concepts until they mean anything imaginable What we want is to respond to kieran’s criticism Not by fuzzing out our explanations until they become vague contentless concepts like he’s doing but by focusing in and making our explanations increasingly explicit So let’s attempt to respond to kieran’s attack using that approach note first that support and verification are not the same thing Kieran has missed this and is acting like popper said there was no such thing as support when what popper really said is there’s no such thing as verification Verifying a theory as true is impossible period end of story Unless of course, I guess you could stretch the term verify by analogy to just mean corroborate And people may do that but in general when we say verify theory, we mean verify. It is true. Okay Supporting a theory can mean many different things Might include the concept of verification, but it has a much broader set of meanings But surely supporting a theory could be used as a synonym for corroborating a theory So kieran is strictly wrong that popper doesn’t allow for any concept of support I need to clarify by which I mean make explicit not fuzz out what support or corroboration means for popper for us Popperians corroboration means this you propose a theory that gives an explanation And it is not an ad hoc explanation.
[00:39:51] Red: That is it makes independently testable predictions Implications that put the theory at risk meaning the theory is genuinely testable To avoid being ad hoc at least some of those predictions must be things we did not already know A good theory yields a surprising Previously unknown outcome for example that starlight bends around an eclipsed sun We then test that implication If the test fails The theory faces a serious problem because the theory was formulated as an explanation with consequences and not as a vague stretchable concept If the test succeeds and the older theory can’t explain the result without adding its own independently Testable auxiliary theories then our new theory becomes the best available and the old one must be abandoned Unless it can introduce its own non ad hoc independently testable auxiliary theories That also explain the outcome but surviving such tests offers a form of support for a theory and more tests in more critical circumstances Increases the degree of corroboration or the degree of support if you will Now notice how my clarification differs from kieran’s when kieran clarifies He fuzzers things out stretching his terms by analogy until no counter examples are possible when i or rather popper clarifies popper gets more explicit and specifies what he offered and and Popper gets more explicit and specific and what he offers is always an explanation Not a debate not a debate over terminology That means the checkability of his theory increases Rather than dropping to zero as in the case of kieran’s approach I also let kieran use whatever terms he wants while holding him to the Definition he chose.
[00:41:38] Red: This is exactly what I call popper’s ratchet and I argued in past episodes It applies to philosophical theories just as much as it to empirical ones kieran avoids reputation by vague manning turning his theories into vague analogies why Popper keeps his fully checkable explanations How did kieran respond to me doing this? Here is a sample response quote so in year view one theory outperforming another In a particular case in the past is a reason to prefer using this theory in a similar future case This is essentially the same solution as the one I provided It is inductive when we infer the future success of our theory based on its past success Can you give me an answer that clearly doesn’t invoke induction? So we’re back to the original word game to be clear kieran’s question to me was about how popper Didn’t allow for any idea of support and when I responded by showing that popper does allow a specific kind of support Here and then just resorted back to defining induction in such a way that my response now must of necessity count as induction Which as I have already admitted to kieran If you are going to define induction this way, sure critical rational rationalism is a form of And the only true form of induction Kieran then doubles down like this quote popper wasn’t just arguing against a hundred percent justification Even partial probable justification support was a problem for popper Now popper rather explicitly talks about degrees of corroboration a choice of words that for sure implies Increasing support for theory based on how severely tested the theory is compared to its competitors So right off the bat. We know kieran Has a problem with his argument of necessity.
[00:43:26] Red: He must be misreading popper It might be helpful here to let popper speak for himself Quote by the degree of corroboration of a theory I mean a concise report evaluating the state at a certain time t of the critical discussion of a theory Which with respect to the way it solves its problems its degree of testability The severity of tests it has undergone and the way it has stood up to these tests corroboration or degree of corroboration is thus an evaluating report of past performance as a objective knowledge page 18 Popper even imagines a degree of corroboration as being a roughly measurable amount Though he warns there’s no way to actually assign a value to it. Quote Can we assess the degree to which a theory has stood up to tests in particular? Can we compare two theories say newtons and einstein’s theory of gravitation? And say precisely why einstein’s is better tested Or better corroborated and therefore tentatively more acceptable Quote in its simplest form that was a quote too. Sorry. This is a continuing quote in its simplest form This problem may be put as How well is theory t tested and can we ascribe to it a number a measure of degree? Summing up the severity and number of tests and the manner in which the theory has stood up to them Award awarding to it something like an examination mark to be called its degree of corroboration That’s from realism in the aim of science page 230.
[00:44:51] Red: So popper Literally has no i no problem with even attempting to put it into a numerical mark of some sort Okay, at least in principle so far popper’s degree of corroboration easily fits within kiran’s Fuzzed out view of induction which only requires that past observations including tests Narrow down which theories have been falsified But popper does not treat degrees of corroboration as equivalent to probability calculus And this is probably where we’re starting to see the actual difference between the two theories Among other reasons popper does this is theories rarely overlap in a way That would let you directly compare how much content one has relative to another Popper argues that theories and their content form a partial order To be a partial order means some of the elements in your set can be ordered But others can’t so here think of like imaginary numbers where some can be ordered But others can’t because there’s two values you have to order The opposite of a partial order is a total order, which means every element can be ordered think of integers here So to popper content of a theory is a partial order not a total order So quote contents of theories are some sometimes logically comparable and sometimes not they form a partially ordered system objective knowledge page 50 Because of this among other reasons it would be impossible to force fit degrees of corroboration into the probability calculus So popper’s degrees of corroboration is not equivalent to a probability It may be something that you could In context even give a number to maybe Based on numbers of tests or something like that. He’s not against that But it would never fit into the probability calculus.
[00:46:29] Red: I shouldn’t say never It would it would not usually fit into the probability calculus if you had the um If the theories were set up such that they one encompassed the other that may be a different story And that’s something we’ll have to discuss in a future podcast. I just earmark it for the moment Even when two theories content can be directly compared though say newtons and general relativity It’s still wrong to treat corroboration as a probability here. I differ slightly from popper Um, we could treat it probabilistically But only if we reinterpreted as something like the probability that our instruments didn’t mislead us given certain assumptions Not the probability that this theory is true This is because a new theory can always emerge and the probability calculus Usually assumes must assume that the full set of problem possible theories is known and mutually exclusive An assumption that almost never holds in science because there’s always new theories that could come up That might become competitors in the future So even when using probability calculus in science We’re never measuring the probability that a theory is correct. We’re measuring something else Uh with that something else what that something else is depends on the problem being solved For this reason popper is right that degrees of corroboration are not Probable support in the care and sense But corroboration is a legitimate concept of support It just isn’t a kind of support that follows the probability calculus Despite this difference popper often uses the term support and corroboration interchangeably As at one point he writes if x is confirmed or corroborated or supported by y Clearly in that quote.
[00:48:13] Red: He’s using all three terms in this context as synonyms Popper even originally called degrees of corroboration his degrees of confirmation Before realizing that that wording misled people and switching back to degrees of corroboration So popper clearly held that science provides a kind of support namely corroboration Not an inductive probabilistic justification of a theory’s truth What about justification kiran claims that popper rejects all forms of justification Now many modern crit rats agree with kiran the inductivist here But let’s let popper speak for himself quote We can never rationally justify a theory that is claim a theory is claim to know its truth But we can if we’re lucky rationally justify a preference for one theory out of a set of competing theories For the time being that is with respect to the present state of the discussion And our justification though not a claim that the theory is true Can be the claim that there is every indication at this stage of the discussion that the theory is a better Approximation to the truth than any competing theory so far proposed that’s objective knowledge page 82 So popper does allow a kind of justification Just not the justification of a theory as true or even probably true He says that’s impossible But popper does allow justification as a preference for one theory over another and he treats that as entirely legitimate So kiran is again strictly incorrect popper isn’t against all forms of justification
[00:49:49] Red: Note that unlike kiran popper clarifies by being more explicit not by fuzzing out And widening his terms over until they cover everything this matters It’s how you distinguish a good explanation from a bad one Watch who clarifies by expanding meanings into vagueness and who clarifies by tightening them into an explicit and checkable explanation I propose this as a rule Proposed this in past podcasts as a rule. Don’t vageman your theories In this context that means don’t stretch your concepts until the theory becomes unfalsifiable Only clarify by making your explanations more explicit and more checkable Popper has now made it clear that he accepts a narrow form of support And a narrow form of justification and he rejects all other forms Keeping his theory highly checkable because it has real content So popper is following popper’s ratchet surprise while kiran is vagemanning his theory my exchanges with kiran Went on much longer, but they quickly fell into a loop he’d say What you just said uses past observations. That’s induction. See popper is really induction I’d agree that under his extremely expansive definition of induction that he was right Then kiran would insist no popper rejected induction and attacked popper again Usually with I what I would say is an out of context quote Um, I’d explain that popper what popper actually said Then kiran would repeat you use past observations. See that’s induction I’d again grant the point that under his definition it is This cycle would repeat three or four times before we both gave up It’s literally a perfect immunization strategy because it’s a circular argument I honestly wanted to shout make up your mind. Are you claiming popper’s epistemology really is induction? Or is it that it’s not induction?
[00:51:44] Red: It can’t be both But because he would never every any time I would clarify something as to what popper actually meant He would simply look for where in that answer it mentioned past observations And then he would say see that’s induction and then we would go back to the beginning I would say yes, it is there was no way out of this loop, right because it was a circular argument It was an immunization strategy to be fair to kiran Let me just say that I have not presented his full arguments And I’m actually going to present his full arguments in a future podcast I’m saving his full arguments for a future podcast The one I’m going to do on corroboration Where in all honesty, I may even agree with kiran on a few things that he says here And may end up being more siding with him than the critrack community as it is today instead But for now, I’m not really trying to catalog every issue with his view of induction Not in this podcast. I’m not really even talking about induction at all I’m examining what makes a good rational argument or explanation versus a bad explanation My claim is is that kiran’s rational mistake is this whenever you show him a problem with his theory He fuzzes it out into a vague concept often using hofstetter style analogy extension Popper biker contrast never does this when challenged.
[00:53:07] Red: He drills down makes the theory more explicit and therefore more checkable To put simply when people want to immunize a theory they turn it into a concept and concepts as popper noted are unfalsifiable Because this is a podcast by a critical rationalist for critical rationalists Most of you except maybe i’ve in the bayesian are probably nodding Yep, kiran fuzzed out his in fuzzed out his theory into concepts and popper focused Um in clarifying them by explanation But would you feel the same if it weren’t a theory you already disagreed with like induction? Let’s take an example from episode 121 where I discussed the problem of the critrack disobedience criteria Those using the disobedience criteria fall into the same rational fallacy as kiran when you ask In what sense is agi disobedient they often start with an analogy a program follows its code and agi disobeys its original programming But this is problematic general intelligences follow their code just like any software physics won’t allow it to be otherwise When faced like this they try to quote clarify disobedience to save the theory For example, they might claim that variation and selection is really quote disobeying discarded variants A huge stretch from the original meaning of the term disobedience Even so it’s still problematic the immune system would also count as disobedient because it it too follows variation and selection Therefore it is disobeying the variance that didn’t work No problem critrats then arbitrarily restrict the definition discarded variants only count as disobedience If the general intelligence if a general intelligence does it open -endedly and keeps asking for explanation Now disobedience scare quotes intended is defined. So it necessarily only applies to general intelligences How comfortable are you with my proposed rule now?
[00:55:04] Red: Do you still think my criticism of kiran is fair when we apply the same rule to a favored critrat theory If you have to decide you have to decide Is it a real rule that universally applies to Explanations or is it flawed and what I mean here is is it a real rule that you should never fuzz out your clarifications and Turn your theory into a concept And should only clarify by making your theory more explicit and more specific Okay, i’m proposing that as a rule. Is that a universally true rule for good explanations? Or is it flawed if it is a universally good rule? Then the disobedience criteria is a bad explanation for exactly the same reason that Induction is okay kiran’s induction is If it is a flawed rule Does it contain a grain of truth that could be refined into a better rule? And if so, what is the better rule? Or are you simply opposed to trying to define rationality and content to leave it as I’ll know it when I see it What you shouldn’t do is decide. It’s a good rule when applied to kiran’s induction But not a good rule when applied to critrat pet theories All right, that is the end of my first part here. So I’ve introduced um my argument with kiran over induction I’ve explained what the problem I had with the overall tactics he was using but I’ve left I have not gone over his actual full Arguments against poppers cooperation, which I think do deserve more of a look and I’m going to do that in a future podcast Any questions peter?
[00:56:45] Blue: uh, well Or my only comment at bruce is that you seem to have a limitless well of thoughts About epistemology inside of you and I’m happy to listen and be a part of this. It’s it’s such a a unique position to be in and I hope that i’m pretty sure it’s pronounced kiran There’s a lot of variation on the name.
[00:57:09] Red: Yeah, kiran.
[00:57:10] Blue: I think every Every iteration of possibility was Attempted got out there this I I if it’s not kiran then I um
[00:57:23] Red: I’ve always pronounced it in my mind as kiran
[00:57:25] Blue: I know because there isn’t an
[00:57:28] Red: end at the end.
[00:57:29] Blue: I’m a teacher. I’ve got hundreds of names To memorize all the time It’s I know it’s really hard when you get it in your mind that a name is pronounced one way And then you figure out it’s pronounced a different way and then you can’t remember what it is So, you know No judgment from me and I hope our audience and kiran himself will will forgive you
[00:57:54] Red: Okay, sounds good.
[00:57:55] Blue: Okay. Thank you bruce.
[00:57:57] Red: All right. Thank you. Bye. Bye
[00:58:05] 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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