But in most situations, probability theory doesn’t work well, because reality isn’t like that. For one thing, there are no utilons in physics, so there is no objectively correct definition of distance.
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This has several moving parts, so it’s a bit complicated. First, there is no clear definition of “objective” or “objectively true,” as far as I have been able to discover. There are several pretty different uses that are all quite vague.
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Under some reasonable interpretations of “objectively true,” there aren’t any outside math and possibly QFT. Under some other reasonable interpretations, lots of things are objectively true. Lots of arguments founder on this contrast.
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People who invoke “culture” here typically want to argue for some kind of extreme relativism under which they are allowed to win any argument by dismissing factual evidence and saying everything is just power politics, so they win because they are more oppressed than you.
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Words are mostly irrelevant to the issue, I think. The problems are ontological, not linguistic. It doesn’t matter what you call a categorical distinction; it matters how you draw it.
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“Man proposes, Nature disposes” is basically correct. Lots of things don’t work. In fact, since there aren’t any absolute truths (outside math and maybe QFT) nothing works perfectly consistently.
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The meta-rational question is: how can we use rational methods effectively, given that they aren’t about Objective Truths? We agree that we *do* often use them effectively, and that this is very important. I think that an accurate understanding of how that can be should help.
End of conversation
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