Importantly true! Also importantly true: the world doesn’t make sense, and never can. This is a source of enjoyable wonderment and awe (as well as terrifying dangers).https://twitter.com/reasonisfun/status/1092150947416031233 …
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Replying to @Meaningness
If the extent to which the world makes sense is somewhere between 0 and 100%, does falling short of 100% make it true that it doesn't make sense? I think only if said against a very particular background.
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Replying to @everytstudies
This raises key issues in the ontology of truth! One way of relativizing an absolute statement, that is importantly true in some sense (like
@reasonisfun’s) is to assert that its opposite is also true. That then prompts the question “how can that be?”1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes -
One answer can be yours: it’s true to some extent between 0.0 and 1.0. Or, it’s absolutely true that some parameter of it likes between 0.0 and 1.0. That prompts the question “how do we get that number?” Which in this specific case seems meaningless and unanswerable.
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There’s other ways of resolving a paradox of a statement and its negation both being importantly true. There’s no general method. One needs to dig into the specifics. In this case, one should ask “what does ‘making sense’ mean? How, when, and why does the world ‘make sense’?”
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Replying to @Meaningness @reasonisfun
Yes, very much that. I just suspect you're being coy when making blanket statements like the OP that you know requires a bucketload of interpretation to evaluate and I sorta want to call you out on it
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Replying to @everytstudies @reasonisfun
Ah… what would be a better approach, do you think?
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Replying to @Meaningness @reasonisfun
Depends on what you're trying to do exactly, doesn't it? I think most people confronted with the assertion that the world doesn't make sense would take the wrong message from it. I did when I first read your stuff.
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Replying to @everytstudies @reasonisfun
Ah, that’s interesting. What’s the wrong message, and how can I communicate the right one more effectively, or prevent the misunderstanding?
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Replying to @Meaningness @reasonisfun
In my mind the wrong message would be that there is no reality out there and it's all in our minds, or that all knowledge is completely subjective (everything equally valid) and other such boogeymen.
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Yes, this is an expositional problem. There’s 200 years of people (Romantics) saying rationalism is wrong for reasons X. I explicitly reject that analysis, and say rationalism is wrong for reasons Y, which are unfamiliar to rationalists (although not unique to me).
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I need to prevent the misunderstanding that I’m just reiterating the tired wrong arguments X. The Eggplant attempts that by devoting the introduction to saying how great rationality is, and how it’s under threat, and that strengthening it is critical. Will that be enough?
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Replying to @Meaningness @reasonisfun
There are a few issues as far as I'm concerned. Your nonstandard use of "rationality" to mean formal, strictly systematic reasoning threw me off for quite a while. I assume this has to do with your background in AI? I'd wager it's not what most people would mean by the word.
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