I'm glad i managed to finally be understandable. Part of the problem is that my enthusiasm for the project leads me to be a bit coy about revealing too much detail on the internet. The other problem is that I'm frequently straying into academic territories I don't know that well so I think I tend to use words to describe it that are probably not be the correct ones.
Thanks for those, it was interesting to see how some other people have approached the problem and if nothing else it tells me that other people are trying to take the epistemology of everyday discourse seriously so hopefully there will be an appetite for my version.
Definitely the "framework or rubrik" option. More like a rubrik than anything else, but with some fun nuance here and there. Work would be done by humans but all following the same rules.
There are a number of ways that I would like to use it in the future, but in the immediate most practical sense what I'm working on is a plan to create internet content that answers people's questions (via google. Siri, Alexa, etc) but makes declarative statements about the quality of information used to create those answers.
So for example, right now (02/08/20) if somebody asks google "does the MMR vaccine cause autism?" you get this page:
Which is a series of articles from various sites all pointing you in the direction of the right answer, but ultimately dancing around it and really just inviting you to make up your on mind.
What I would want to do is to create content that directly answers even difficult questions and trades the satisfaction of directness of the answer for the intellectual work of making you think about the quality rating we give it.
Creating a series of rules that gets to the heart of how the quality of evidence varies for different types of claims is obviously quite difficult. I think I've found a way to do it, but I would really like to know if it's been tried before and failed for some reason, or if someone has a better or faster way than mine.
I think that my way around the problems mentioned in the above replies is just conceding from the start that my model is not and can never be a perfect representation of the world. However, if it's done well enough it could bring a lot of clarity to a lot of problems.
I read "37 ways...". Thanks. I think I understand what you mean now.
I think those would definitely be the sorts of problems I would run into if I was to do this via a Philosophy PHD (something I've thought about, but don't think I would be very likely to pursue) or in building an AI algorithm.
I think they are problems that I would need to be cognizant of, but I think I have a workaround that still lets me create something valuable, but maybe not something that would satisfy philosophers.
That was really interesting. Some of it was a little too technical for me, but hopefully I can spend some time learning some of the parts that threw me and see if I can figure out exactly how close that is.
My first impression is that would be the microscopic view of one part of the whole model. I actually had in mind something much more basic, but where that level of complexity could be added slowly as the overall model is built. It's a kind of never-ending project that improves it's accuracy as more is added to it.
In one imaginary iteration of this, I just hire people to do that level of work for me and tell me what the answer is.
Anyway, thanks.
Yeah, I suppose in a way it is!
Thanks for the reply
I haven't read anything besides overviews of (or takes on) Wittgenstein, but if you think it's worthwhile I'll definitely give it a shot.
I can't say that I'm familiar with the morass that you speak of. I work in clinical medicine and tend to just have a 10,000 mile view on philosophy. Can you maybe elaborate on what you see the problem as?
I really am mostly just anxious not to waste my time on things that have been done before and failed.
I've heard similar things and agree completely. It's just difficult to fight the impulse to bury away the details!