SecondWind comments on Where Recursive Justification Hits Bottom - Less Wrong

41 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 July 2008 10:16AM

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Comment author: SecondWind 27 April 2013 07:00:19PM 2 points [-]

By examining our cognitive pieces (techniques, beliefs, etc.) one at a time in light of the others, we check not for adherence of our map to the territory but rather for the map's self-consistency.

This would appear to be the best an algorithm can do from the inside. Self-consistent may not mean true, but it does mean it can't find anything wrong with itself. (Of course, if your algorithm relies on observational inputs, there should be a theoretical set of observations which would break its self-consistency and thus force further reflection.)