Gettiers in software engineering (2019)

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orbisvicis ◴[15 Oct 24 05:19 UTC] No.41845194[source]▶

I'm not sure I see the big deal. Justification is on a scale of 0 to 1, and at 1 you are onmiscient. We live in a complicated world; no one has time to be God so you just accept your 0.5 JTB and move on.

Or for the belief part, well, "it's not a lie if you believe it".

And as for the true bit, let's assume that there really is a cow, but before you can call someone over to verify your JTB, an alien abducts the cow and leaves a crop circle. Now all anyone sees is a paper-mache cow so you appear the fool but did have a true JTB - Schroedinger's JTB. Does it really matter unless you can convince others of that? On the flip side, even if the knowledge is wrong, if everyone agrees it is true, does it even matter?

JTB only exist to highlight bad assumptions, like being on the wrong side of a branch predictor. If you have a 0.9 JTB but get the right answer 0.1 times and don't update you assumptions, then you have a problem. One statue in a field? Not a big deal! *

* Unless it's a murder investigation and you're Sherlock Holmes (a truly powerful branch predictor).

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orbisvicis ◴[15 Oct 24 05:30 UTC] No.41845236[source]▶

>>41845194 #

edit: Then there's the whole "what is a cow" thing. Like if you you stuffed a cow carcass with a robot and no one could tell the difference, would that still be a cow? Or what if you came across a horrifying cow-horse hybrid, what would you call that? Or if the cow in question had a unique mutation possessed by no other cow - does it still fit the cow archetype? For example, what if the cow couldn't produce milk? Or was created in lab? Which features are required to inherit cow-ness? This is an ambiguity covered by language, too. For example, "cow" is a pejorative not necessarily referring to a bovine animal.

edit: And also the whole "is knowledge finite or infinite?". Is there ever a point at which we can explain everything, science ends and we can rest on our laurels? What then? Will we spend our time explaining hypotheticals that don't exist? Pure theoretical math? Or can that end too?

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pelorat ◴[15 Oct 24 09:28 UTC] No.41846687[source]▶

>>41845236 #

A robot in a cow carcass is not a cow, it's a "robot in a cow carcass". Someone might believe it's a cow because they lack crucial information but that's on them, doesn't change the fact.

A cow-horse hybris is not a cow, it's a cow-horse hybrid.

A cow with a genetic mutation is a cow with a genetic mutation.

A cow created in a lab, perhaps even grown 100% by artificial means in-vitro is of course still a cow since it has the genetic makeup of a cow.

The word cow is the word cow, its meaning can differ based on context.

Things like this is why philosophers enjoy zero respect from me and why I'm an advocate for abolishing philosophy as a subject of study and also as a profession. Anyone can sit around thinking about things all day. If you spend money on studying it at a university you're getting scammed.

Also knowledge is finite based purely on the assumption that the universe is finite. An observer outside the universe would be able to see all information in the universe and they would conclude; you can't pack infinite amounts of knowledge into a finite volume.

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1. fenomas ◴[15 Oct 24 13:51 UTC] No.41848606[source]▶

>>41846687 #

I have this pet theory that Philosophy is kind of the Alternative Medicine of intellectual pursuits. In the same way that Alternative Medicine is doomed to consist of stuff that doesn't work (because anything proven to work becomes "Medicine"), Philosophy is made entirely of ideas that can't be validated through observation (because then they'd be Science), and also can't be rigorously formalized (because then they'd be Math).

So for any given claim in Philosophy, if you could find a way to either (a) compare it to the world or (b) state it in unambiguous symbolic terms, then we'd stop calling it Philosophy. As a result it seems like the discipline is doomed to consist of unresolvable debates where none of the participants even define their terms quite the same way.

Crazy idea, or no?

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2. pegasus ◴[15 Oct 24 14:21 UTC] No.41848920[source]▶

>>41848606 (TP) #

From Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy:

"Some ungentle reader will check us here by informing us that philosophy is as useless as chess, as obscure as ignorance, and as stagnant as content. “There is nothing so absurd,” said Cicero, “but that it may be found in the books of the philosophers.” Doubtless some philosophers have had all sorts of wisdom except common sense; and many a philosophic flight has been due to the elevating power of thin air. Let us resolve, on this voyage of ours, to put in only at the ports of light, to keep out of the muddy streams of metaphysics and the “many-sounding seas” of theological dispute. But is philosophy stagnant? Science seems always to advance, while philosophy seems always to lose ground. Yet this is only because philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science—problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics or political philosophy); it is the front trench in the siege of truth. Science is the captured territory; and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvelous world. Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed; but only because she leaves the fruits of victory to her daughters the sciences, and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and unexplored."

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3. grvbck ◴[15 Oct 24 14:58 UTC] No.41849300[source]▶

>>41848606 (TP) #

> for any given claim in Philosophy, if you could find a way to either (a) compare it to the world or (b) state it in unambiguous symbolic terms…

Not a crazy idea – that is called logic. Which is a field of philosophy. Philosophy and math intersect more than many people think.

4. dogleash ◴[15 Oct 24 15:00 UTC] No.41849326[source]▶

>>41848606 (TP) #

Science and Math started as part of Philosophy. They just split out and became large specializations of their own. Schools for Math and Science still graduate Doctors of Philosophy for a reason.

Even the Juris Doctor is a branch of philosophy. After all, what is justice?

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5. fenomas ◴[15 Oct 24 15:02 UTC] No.41849348[source]▶

>>41848920 #

Thanks, that's a hell of a quote! Though one suspects that Alternative Medicine would describe itself in similar terms, given the chance..

6. fenomas ◴[15 Oct 24 15:04 UTC] No.41849361[source]▶

>>41849326 #

Sure, I hoped it might go without saying that I meant Philosophy as the term is used now - post-axiomatic systems and whatnot, not as the term was used when it encompassed the two things I'm comparing it to.

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