A little more light Sunday Philosophy. Through the mathematical and philosophical fields of information theory, mathematical philosophy, ontology engineering, and complexity theory (aka, theory of computation), it may be demonstrated that the truth, of any knowledge, may only be validated up to a degree that is proportional to the verifiable and consistently testable evidence in support there of. A challenge emerges, in that supporting evidence is also, subject to the same validity constraints, thus rendering the absolute truth of knowledge, incalculable. Human minds, being emergent instances of Church–Turing Computable informatic agents (as far as is currently detectable), endowed with the capacity for self reflecting logical inference (some of them anyway), may deal with the in-determinant nature of absolute knowledge, in one of two ways. 1) The easy way: Just believe something. Anything, it really doesnt matter what it is. Just as long as it is something that you can employ as a substitute, for not actually knowing. There is, surprisingly, an advantage to believing things to be true, regardless of and/or in spite of contradictory and/or absent evidence. In select circumstances, believing things to be true without any evidence to support the perceived truth thereof, may actually offer a sense of emotional comfort, not necessarily shared by some degree of stochastic certainty, based on evidence and test-ability in the same or similar scenarios. However, the disadvantage being, a significantly impaired capacity to identify practical and effective solutions, to problematic scenarios. Examples include such things as; believing that one or more mythological beings will assist one to pass their exams. Or that pseudoscientificly derived alternative medicines, are able to aid in the treatment of measurably real medical conditions. Or, that supernatural metaphysical forces of one fantastic kind or another, will provide magical guidance with decision making, in the absence of disciplined efforts to employ pragmatic reasoning and rational enquiry. The list of emotionally comforting substitutions for effective reasoning is, disappointingly long. 2) Bayes’ Theorem: Given the demonstrably indeterminate nature of informatic truth, coupled with the negligible value offered through the employment of belief, as a substitute for pragmatic knowledge acquired through reason and rational enquiry. It becomes apparent, that one may gain more effective value, by employing a probabilistic approach to ones perception of the world. However, evaluating advanced stochastic equations in one’s head, on the fly, can prove to be somewhat taxing. And this is where the value of Bayes’ Theorem is manifest. Although the mathematical expression of Bayes’ Theorem, may seem to involve some degree of complexity. The philosophical principle behind the theorem, is in fact quite intuitive, and may be applied by anyone, of any age, to very accurately evaluate the nature of the world they perceive around them. Julia Galef (journalist, entrepreneur, and philosopher), explains the application of Bayes’ Theorem in the following video. youtube/watch?v=NEqHML98RgU
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 10:20:49 +0000
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