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Gettiers in software engineering (2019)

(jsomers.net)
303 points FigurativeVoid | 1 comments | 14 Oct 24 18:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.194s | source
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PaulDavisThe1st ◴[14 Oct 24 21:41 UTC] No.41842315[source]▶
> true, because it doesn't make sense to "know" a falsehoood

That's a problem right there. Maybe that made sense to the Greeks, but it definitely doesn't make any sense in the 21st century. "Knowing" falsehoods is something we broadly acknowledge that we all do.

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n4r9 ◴[14 Oct 24 21:51 UTC] No.41842396[source]▶
Could you elaborate what you mean by that?
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PaulDavisThe1st ◴[14 Oct 24 22:30 UTC] No.41842828[source]▶
We all carry around multiple falsehoods in our heads that we are convinced are true for a variety of reasons.

To say that this is not "knowing" is (as another commenter noted) hair-splitting of the worst kind. In every sense it is a justified belief that happens to be false (we just do not know that yet).

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bee_rider ◴[14 Oct 24 23:05 UTC] No.41843138[source]▶
What exactly does it mean to know something then? As distinct from believing it. Just the justification, and then, I guess it doesn't have to be a very good justification if it can be wrong?
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1. mrbombastic ◴[15 Oct 24 01:44 UTC] No.41844119[source]▶
I think like many things “know” and “believe” are just a shorthand for convenient communication that makes binary something that is really a continuum of probability. That continuum might be something from loose theory to fundamental truth about the universe in our minds. Justifications and evidence move things down the continuum, such that we might assign a probability a thing is true, things can approach 100% probability but never get there, but we as mortals need to operate in the world as if we know things so we say anything close to 100% we “know”. Even though history tells us even some things we believe to be fundamental truths can be discovered to be wrong.