I found this to be a very tasty morsel of epistemological digression, written in a style that seems deliberately nuanced to underscore its central argument: What does it mean to “know”? How does a rational mind construct and justify its beliefs?
The piece argues that beliefs should function as guides for anticipating experience. This can be distilled into the following framework: Each hypothesis (or inquiry) must include a testable prediction (an anticipation). When confronted with sufficient empirical evidence (sensory experience), this prediction should either be disproven or confirmed, leading to the rejection (or eviction) of the initial hypothesis or the formulation of a belief (i.e., knowledge).
Inferences, particularly the unseen (the atoms and the floor paragraph), must ultimately connect to observable outcomes or be otherwise falsifiable to hold any value in constructing our mental maps of reality. The author cautions against human tendencies:
Arguing over labels (as illustrated by the parable of the falling tree, where differing definitions of “sound” spark a fruitless debate).
Faulty reasoning (as seen in the example of the English professor, who claims X is true because of Y, and Y is true because of X, thus falling in a trap of circular reasoning).
What I think makes this text a valuable addition to the EA handbook is its emphasis on the virtues of reason and empiricism, essential qualities to maximising positive impact through evidence-based altruism.
I found this to be a very tasty morsel of epistemological digression, written in a style that seems deliberately nuanced to underscore its central argument: What does it mean to “know”? How does a rational mind construct and justify its beliefs?
The piece argues that beliefs should function as guides for anticipating experience. This can be distilled into the following framework: Each hypothesis (or inquiry) must include a testable prediction (an anticipation). When confronted with sufficient empirical evidence (sensory experience), this prediction should either be disproven or confirmed, leading to the rejection (or eviction) of the initial hypothesis or the formulation of a belief (i.e., knowledge).
Inferences, particularly the unseen (the atoms and the floor paragraph), must ultimately connect to observable outcomes or be otherwise falsifiable to hold any value in constructing our mental maps of reality. The author cautions against human tendencies:
Arguing over labels (as illustrated by the parable of the falling tree, where differing definitions of “sound” spark a fruitless debate).
Faulty reasoning (as seen in the example of the English professor, who claims X is true because of Y, and Y is true because of X, thus falling in a trap of circular reasoning).
What I think makes this text a valuable addition to the EA handbook is its emphasis on the virtues of reason and empiricism, essential qualities to maximising positive impact through evidence-based altruism.