[FRIAM] AI and argument
gⅼеɳ ☣
gepropella at gmail.com
Wed Oct 4 12:07:29 EDT 2017
There is an "out there" reality. But the map between it and me (or a bee or a tree) is plectic, with all that entails including far-from-equilibrium, polyphenism, robustness, sensitivity to initial conditions, multi-scale, etc. That implies that my understanding of what's out there can be stuck in only 1 of many attractors for a very long time, perhaps from birth to death.
Further, because other humans have similar physiology to me, some, many, or all other humans can find themselves stuck in a stable attractor for a very long time, perhaps over an infinite number of generations.
Hence, if Peirce's definition of truth is that which endures indefinitely, then I disagree fundamentally. I, you, and all of us, can easily persist in complete delusion forever. The question becomes whether that delusion is satisficing. Do we care that our sense of truth could switch from one attractor to another at any moment? Is it OK that our models of reality aren't general enough to be full (or complete) models? My guess is that most of us don't care and are happy to assume their concept of truth is actually true.
In this conception, (if you've characterized him right) Peirce would merely be another pluralist, admitting there can be many truths and I would be a monist, insisting there is only 1 truth, but many ways to interact with it.
On 10/04/2017 08:51 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> What, on your various accounts is the relationship between “logic”, “right thinking”, “right reasoning”, and “truth”? As I understand Peirce, a true opinion is one that is likely to endure indefinitely, unchallenged by any new experiences, “right reasoning and thinking” are methods of inference that lead (fallibly] to such true opinions, and logic is the distillation and formalization of such methods of inference. Peirce was the premier logician of his time and the origin of much of our modern statistical method and scientific logic. Am I wrong about his views on right thinking and truth? Or do you guys hold different views? Is this just some sort of semantic food fight that we can tidy up with a few quick definitions and move on? Or are we really arguing about something, here? Am not interested in the fine points of your thought, right now. What is it that */you all agree/* on that I don’t understand?
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☣ gⅼеɳ
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