Abd comments on Empirical claims, preference claims, and attitude claims - Less Wrong

5 Post author: John_Maxwell_IV 15 November 2012 07:41PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (125)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Abd 14 November 2012 07:38:26PM -1 points [-]

For example, how do you classify your very first (meta-)claim: "None of them are falsifiable claims about the nature of reality." Is it an opinion?

The snarky answer: It's not a falsifiable claim.

Any claim might be falsifiable if it is adequately specified, so that it becomes testable. If a claim, as stated, isn't falsifiable, it might become so through specification. The author hints at this with:

"Justin Bieber sucks". There are a few ways we could interpret this as shorthand for a different claim.

And some of the "different claims" may be falsifiable.

Ultimately, we could also take unfalsifiable claims as being expressions of some attitude. It's only when we try to determine if they are "true" as applied to some reality "out there" that we run into trouble.

The value of the post is in practicing and developing the skill of ready identification of the whole class of claims that are not factual, i.e., not about reality aside from our judgments, opinions, estimations, theories, preferences, conclusions.