PhilGoetz comments on Is semiotics bullshit? - Less Wrong

13 Post author: PhilGoetz 25 August 2015 02:09PM

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

Comments (45)

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

Comment author: PhilGoetz 28 August 2015 09:09:51PM 0 points [-]

Sorry; I don't know why your comment got downvoted so much. It seems reasonable to me.

Comment author: TheMajor 28 August 2015 09:54:17PM *  1 point [-]

The parent argument proves too much, I think. Try adding the following, for example:

Since any communication can be described as the transmission of information, and, in order to be transmitted, this information must exist, any formal system of semiotics (providing it exists) can be encompassed by a larger formal system of physics. Taken together with the earlier observation (about the triviality of semiotics) we conclude that any formal explanation of physics must be trivial and/or incomplete.

I think the moral of the story is that one should not attempt to invoke Gödels Incompleteness Theorem in Social Science.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 29 August 2015 12:27:03AM *  2 points [-]

I think the parent argument is saying that a social science should not claim it supersedes logic.

Also, I'm afraid we may both be doing semiotics.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 29 August 2015 03:08:27AM 0 points [-]

Oh, a number of reasons; The carefree tone of the approach. The implication that I didn't spend too much time considering my opinion. The fact that my carefree, ill-considered tone is combined with a rejection of the idea that studied experts in a particular field actually have a clear idea what they're talking about based on a clearly limited understanding of what it is they're studying, as opposed to your pretty clearly well-thought out and considered response to a field you actually investigated.