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Spectral_Dragon comments on Rationality Quotes March 2012 - Less Wrong
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-- Terry Goodkind, Faith of the fallen. I know quite a few here dislike the author, but there's still a lot of good material, like this one, or the Wizard Rules.
Wrong. Ockham's Razor is, at best, deducible from the axioms of probability theory, which are logically independent of "what is, is". Without the Razor, most of human knowledge is not justifiable.
I have yet to study probability theory in depth, but how can it be wrong? It simply means relying on facts, reason of wishes, facts instead of faith. Probability might be interesting, but since it's subjective, it only serves as an estimate in figuring out what might be true. The above quote tells us that facts are facts, and we can choose not to believe them, but they are still there. Using logic, for example Occam's Razor, helps in discerning fact from belief.
The quote can be boiled down to "what is is, regardless of our knowledge".
I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. Specifically:
is wrong. Our knowledge is, as you say, subjective; it's based on our calculations, which are fallible, and on our axioms (or "priors"), which are even more fallible.
Thanks for clearing that up! As far as I can tell, however, all subjective knowledge is based on interpretations of the objective. We can all be wrong, but what is, is. We experiment to figure out what is in the first place, before we can try to form calculations, no? It would be more of something like "look at the territory first, else you might fall and break your neck if your map's wrong". I feel like I'm missing something painfully obvious here, though. Where am I going wrong here?
"What is, is" is a true statement, and one would do well to bear it in mind. My objection was to the assertion (as perceived by me) that we - as rationalists - can claim to deduce everything we know from that simple fact. We can't, and it's a flaw I don't think we pay enough attention to.
Maybe we should, then. I've always percieved it as we can potentially deduce everything from... Well, not just that fact, but the assumption that what is is, and we can only do our best to interpret it. We'll most likely never be completely right, I know damn well I'm not, but I understand your reasoning, anyway. What would in your view be impossible to deduce, then?