kjm@ut-ngp.UUCP (Ken Montgomery) (05/09/85)
Odd # of >'s = Paul Torek, even # of >'s = me >> Accessiblity of evidence is often controlled by the technology of the >> times. Does that mean that what one "ought to believe" is controlled >> by the available technology? > >Yes. This implies that attempts to develop technology which might change one's understanding of the world (i.e., Galileo's telescope) are unethical, since they go against what one "ought to believe" (according to the already existing technology). [ ... ] >> >... (OK, maybe so much the worse for *us* if there are unknowable >> >realities, too. The point is: if something is *ex hypothesi* unknow- >> >able it is *ipso facto* uninteresting, i.e. not worth worrying about.) > >> Until it hits you... My point was that it sounds to me like you think >> that an unknowable reality is *itself* worse off because *you* can't >> know about it; this idea (if I understood you correctly; if not, please >> elucidate) is ridiculous. > >Pardon my idiom. It's not that the reality is *itself* worse off. >What I mean is, so much the worse for any claim that we should worry about >it. Why worry about something that you can't know about? It seems the most >elementary wisdom to see that such worries are silly. Precisely, except that one's ability to know things may vary with time; e.g., the new perceptions made possible by the understanding of optics, which was at one time a new technology. >> Your "can't lose" proposition sounds exactly as if you mean that >> believing something makes it true. > >No, I mean that "can't lose" situations settle the issue of rational >belief, and inquiry into evidence for truth/falsity becomes superfluous. The only way to settle issues of rational belief is by reference to reality; _a priori_ reasoning is as apt to wander away from the truth as towards it. For instance: in a deterministic universe, it might be predetermined that you would believe that you had free will -- that you would, perhaps, buy the "can't lose logic", or whatever -- but your belief would still be wrong. >>>> The alleged "can't lose" nature of believing some proposition does not >>>> make that proposition correct. >>> It makes it worth believing. That's what counts. >> No, it doesn't. The only thing that makes something worth believing >> is for it to be true. > >Not true! How do you decide what to believe? Unless you are a fundament- >alist, you don't have a checklist of truths and falsehoods listed in two >neat columns... Argument by intimidation? Why does seeking to distinguish truth from falsehood make one a "fundamentalist"? > You have to go on the evidence. Huh? You just contended that there are situations in which inquiry into the evidence can become "superflous"! Which way is it? > The evidence rarely >gives Cartesian certainty -- logic and math aside, you have to decide that >the evidence is "strong enough" -- strong enough to make belief a better >strategy than suspension of belief. For can't-lose propositions, that's >any amount of evidence whatsoever. But isn't this very evidence, by your own statement, "superfluous"? How can you say that evidence can be "superfluous" and then make contentions based on evidence? >>> ... the medievals were wrong about what we ought to believe. > >> But how can you know, at any given time, what you are wrong about? > >Well, in the medievals' case, for example, they could have (should have) >known they were wrong by examing the evidence Copernicus et. al. presented. According to the technology of their time, they were correct -- so anyone differing from them was obviously false (according to your "ought to believe" principle). >> >Which proves that there are better and worse decisions. So what else is >> >(cough!) new? > >> But how to tell the difference? Your "can't lose" proposition seems >> to me to *obscure* the very difference (in the possible choices) in >> which you claim to be interested! > >Huh? A "can't-lose" proposition is always a better decision; a "can't-win" >always worse, and a "can go either way" depends on the evidence. You've already canned examination of evidence as a valid method of determining truth. Which way do you want it? -- The above viewpoints are mine. They are unrelated to those of anyone else, including my cats and my employer. Ken Montgomery "Shredder-of-hapless-smurfs" ...!{ihnp4,allegra,seismo!ut-sally}!ut-ngp!kjm [Usenet, when working] kjm@ut-ngp.ARPA [for Arpanauts only]