CAN WE MEASURE TRUTHFULNESS?
(reposted to the main page for others to view)
Degrees of Precision In Truthfulness
4 – Imagined = we imagine it is possible because we cannot reason that it is impossible.
3 – Empirical = Correlative, observable, measurable (not quantifiable)
2 – Narrative = Sympathetic (sequential, brevity).
1 – Demonstrable = causal (descriptive, operational).
0 – Perfect (ideal) Parsimony (Name(referrer) of transformation rules (referent). In other words, names of functions, and functions.
The problem as I see it is that any narrative (form of brevity for the purpose of meaning) must both add information (sympathetic analogy for transfer of meaning by association) and remove information (operational detail overloading sympathetic analogy), thus leaving us with Names that refer to sequences (recipes) of operations (or natural transformations), or the sequences (recipes) for statements of Truthfulness (warrantied by due diligence of knowledge of Truth).
Since all knowledge is fungible and justification impossible, I do not make the traditional error of categorizing knowledge as justified belief (confidence in knowledge). I treat every opportunity-for-knowledge (hypothesis) from identity through causality as knowledge and truthfulness and falsehood as a measure of it.
I treat truth candidacy as an estimate by triangulation of the survival from due diligence under testimonialism – which unlike CR includes provides a checklist of due diligences (measures) for each dimension of reality, including costs of transformation – which we can use to compare estimates of truth. This differs from CP in that I am unable to falsify the hypothesis that cost of transformation is a proxy for opportunity cost, and therefore in matters physical(natural) and sentient(human), all other things being equal, appears (empirically and rationally) to inform CP if not solve it. Neither nature nor man refuse optimum opportunities. Nature cannot. Man appears not to. (he does err however.) I can find no existential counter examples. This roughly equates to the scientific method’s rational(logical) use of ‘parsimony’ and provides explanation for it.
Justification is necessary in matters of the export of ethical and moral risk. So it’s not that justification has no value to man. Justification is how we defend both error (loss), and success (gain). But justification is a moral-ethical question, whereas adjudication (truth) exists independently of consequences.
The fact that we must struggle to deflate our own behaviors in this way is indicative of our evolution as negotiating and cooperating creatures not tellers-of-truth. We evolved sympathy and utility. And truth is but a consequence of the pragmatism of negotiation.
So to some degree I tend to think in terms of the truthfulness (survival from due diligence) of our knowledge, not ‘knowledge of truth’ (justification of our knowledge). But in practice they are the same thing from different sides of the coin: survival from due diligence against falsehood. I think I am more sensitive to this matter because CR/CP provide no means of measurement (deflation), whereas I have provided the same deflation in all possible dimensions of knowledge that has been applied to existential and pure relations by mathematics.
I hope this is interesting for you. I don’t mean to change your mind, but merely to walk through it and see if you have criticisms, as well as to provide others with an education in what seems to be a fairly rare bit of expertise: the transition from justificationary(constructive) to evolutionary(survival) truth.
Source date (UTC): 2017-06-28 10:17:00 UTC
Leave a Reply