George DinwiddieDo you desire to know the truth, or close to it, versus fiction, misinformation, or lies?
If so, what makes that preferable to you?
Jesse T. Alford@gdinwiddie prediction value; the truth is more predictive. Beyond that’s dominant, root factor, the truth has advantages in aligning around and persuading, because it can be a sought and checked. Truth value, even when high-effort to check, is a meta-trust system. When beliefs I select for reasons other than truth conflict with the truth, that’s evidence against the trustworthiness of the other reasons.
@anEXPer
Predictive value is certainly a good outcome, and tests the truthfulness.
One thing I note is that our predictions, while based on beliefs selected for truth, may not account for other randomness in the context that our current understanding of truth hasn't considered. That can make a narrow truth that is outside it's expected range seem no better, or even worse, than a "obviously" biased belief.
Contextual boundaries are a pernicious problem in knowledge and understanding.
@gdinwiddie to be sure, truth isn’t quite “predictive” by itself - intelligence is predictive, and truth is useful to it when available at reasonable expense. Predictive power is only modest evidence for truth in any complex system.
@anEXPer
Yes. One cluster of ideas I'm struggling with is the inherent limits of knowledge, the consequences of that, and the ability to "generally succeed" in the face of that.
Yes. One cluster of ideas I'm struggling with is the inherent limits of knowledge, the consequences of that, and the ability to "generally succeed" in the face of that.
@gdinwiddie I’ve been playing with considering things “solutions” rather than directly as knowledge, and including “validity” as a relational concept. So you know various solutions to problems or other questions, and the validity of those solutions varies with context; selecting/applying solutions is a fractal problem.
@gdinwiddie this also means that context stability, transferability, and solubility are major factors in success. Someone with access to a stable, transferable, or successfully imperial or general context will tend to be more successful because more of their solutions - including solution-selection - will retain sufficient validity to accumulate experience and resources.