←back to thread

303 points FigurativeVoid | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.241s | source
Show context
skybrian ◴[] No.41843335[source]
This seems to essentially be saying that coincidences will happen and if you’re fooled by them, sometimes it’s not your fault - they are “justified.” But they may be caused by enemy action: who put that decoy cow there? I guess they even made it move a little?

How careful do you have to be to never be fooled? For most people, a non-zero error rate is acceptable. Their level of caution will be adjusted based on their previous error rate. (Seen in this sense, perfect knowledge in a philosophical sense is a quest for a zero error rate.)

In discussions of how to detect causality, one example is flipping a light switch to see if it makes the light go on and off. How many flips do you need in order to be sure it’s not coincidence?

replies(1): >>41843370 #
1. bhickey ◴[] No.41843370[source]
> How careful do you have to be to never be fooled?

This is where Contextualism comes into play. Briefly, your epistemic demands are determined by your circumstances.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contextualism-epistemolog...