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curi comments on Popperian Decision making - Less Wrong
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Many starting points work fine.
In theory, could you get stuck? I don't have a proof either way.
I don't mind too much. Humans already have standards of criticism which don't get stuck. We have made scientific progress. Our standards we already have allow self-modifiaction and thereby unbounded progress. So it doesn't matter what would have happened if we had started with a bad standard once a upon a time, we're past that (it does matter if we want to create an AI).
You would definitely get stuck. The problem Khoth pointed out is that your method can't distinguish between good criticism and bad criticism. Thus, you could criticize any standard that you come up with, but you'd have know way of knowing which criticisms are legitimate, so you wouldn't know which standards are better than others.
I agree that in practice we don't get stuck, but that's because we don't use the method or the assumptions you are defending.
I meant stuck in the sense of couldn't get out of. Not in the sense of could optionally remain stuck.
What's the argument for that?
We have knowledge about standards of criticism. We use it. Objections about starting points aren't very relevant because Popperians never said they were justified by their starting points. What's wrong with this?
I don't think there's a way out if your method doesn't eventually bottom out somewhere. If you don't have a reliable or objective way of distinguishing good criticism from bad, the act of criticism can't help you in any way, including trying to fix this standard.
If you don't have objective knowledge of standards of criticism and you are unwilling to take one as an axiom, then what are you justified by?
Nothing. Justification is a mistake. The request that theories be justified is a mistake. They can't be. They don't need to be.
Using the best ideas we know of so far is a partially reliable, partially objective way which allows for progress.