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JoshuaZ comments on Bayesian Epistemology vs Popper - Less Wrong Discussion
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So could you be more precise in how you think the goals differ and why the Popperian goals are better?
Huh? Do you mean that because the Bayesians have made precise mathematical claims it somehow ceases to be an epistemological system? What does that even mean? I don't incidentally know what it means to eliminate philosophy, but areas can certainly be carved off from philosophy into other branches. Indeed, this is generally what happens. Philosophy is the big grab bag of things that we don't have a very good precise feel for. As we get more precise understanding things break off. For example, biology broke off from philosophy (when it broke off isn't clear, but certainly by 1900 it was a separate field) with the philosophers now only focusing on the remaining tough issues like how to define "species". Similarly, economics broke off. Again, where it broke off is tough (that's why Bentham and Adam Smith are often both classified as philosophers). A recent break off has been psychology, which some might argue is still in the process. One thing that most people would still see as clearly in the philosophy realm is moral reasoning. Indeed, some would argue that the ultimate goal of philosophy is to eliminate itself.
If it helps at all, in claiming that the Bayesians lack an epistemology or are not trying to philosophy it might help to taboo both epistemology and philosophy and restate those statements. What do those claims mean in a precise way?
Different people are telling me different things. I have been told some very strong instrumentalist and anti-philosophy arguments in my discussions here. I don't know just how representative of all Bayesians that is.
For example, moral philosophy has been trashed by everyone who spoke to me about it so far. I get told its meaningless, or that Bayesian epistemology cannot create moral knowledge. No one has yet been like "oh my god, epistemology should be able to create moral and other philosophical (non-empirical, non-observational) knowledge! Bayesian stuff is wrong since it can't!" Rather, people don't seem to mind, and will argue at length that e.g. explanatory knowledge and non-empirical knowledge don't exist or are worthless and prediction is everything.
By "philosophy" I mean things which can't be experimentally/empirically tested (as opposed to "science" by which I mean things that can be). So for philosophy, no observations are directly relevant.
Make sense? Where do you stand on these issues?
And the way I think Popperian goals are better is that they value explanations which help us understand the world instead of being instrumentalist, positivist, anti-philosophical, or anything like that.
Have you never dealt with people who aren't moral realists before?
You are going to have to expand on this. I'm still confused by what you mean by anti-philosophical. I also don't see why "instrumentalist" is a negative. The Bayesian doesn't have a problem with trying to understand the world: the way they measure that understanding is how well they can predict things. And Bayesianism is not the same as positivist by most definitions of that term, so how are you defining an approach as positivist and why do you consider that to be a bad thing?