empiricism is a method, not a value. efficiency is an outcome, not a value. my core values are for truth and utility (contextually limited)
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Replying to @danlistensto @PereGrimmer
Empiricism is a system for truth-generation requiring belief, a value of "truth" doesn't have meaning without a truth-generation system attached: this is the end-result of postmodern work. Efficiency is a property of a system & can be optimized for. What even is utility anyway?
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Replying to @simpolism @PereGrimmer
contextually limited utility means that you have solved relevant problems for people you care about (yourself, principally, perhaps others) with the available resources. empiricism is a method that utilizes verification of observable experience to confirm or falsify beliefs.
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Replying to @danlistensto @PereGrimmer
How is a "relevant problem" determined? The effectiveness of "empiricism the method" is buttressed by "empiricism the belief". Calling empiricism purely a method with no required underlying axiomatic set is a common bait-and-switch.
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Replying to @simpolism @PereGrimmer
relevance is a preference judgment, though some preferences become outright needs if survival/subsistence is on the line. empiricism "the belief" is too boring to be worth discussing. yes, I really do believe that senses and instruments can verify reality. I am not a solipsist.
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Replying to @danlistensto @PereGrimmer
Interestingly, the idea that peoples' preference judgments are worth listening to is a somewhat non-standard idea these days. The reason to question "empiricism the belief" is not so much "maybe science is fake" so much as "when/for whom might empirical truth be bad?"
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Replying to @simpolism @PereGrimmer
if you hold a delusive belief that can be falsified empirically, then empiricism is bad for your belief. if you identify too strongly with that belief it's bad for your ego-constructed self too.
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Replying to @danlistensto @PereGrimmer
I agree with this. On the other hand, often beliefs are abstract and malleable enough to be "routed around" empirical "damage", unless one is truly delusional.
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Replying to @simpolism @PereGrimmer
something's got to give eventually. if one counter-example doesn't do it then find others. if a belief is truly false there will be others. if you can't find others then you've improved the logical statement of the original belief or found an error in your empirical study.
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Replying to @danlistensto @PereGrimmer
It seems like a weird experience, of one having an a priori gut feeling that one's sincerely-held belief is false, regardless of proof.
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have to work with those feelings. cognitive dissonance is a real thing though and most people never resolve it to any satisfactory conclusion, even when resolutions are available.
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Replying to @danlistensto @simpolism
People try to minimize prediction error, but there are all manner of omniexplanations that can supply a cause for anything -- you can only really expect people to understand the mechanisms of things that impact them directly and that they can meaningfully influence.
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