A three-page paper that shook philosophy, with lessons for software engineers • Hacker News Board

Re: A three-page paper that shook philosophy, with lessons for software engineers

#181

Post by hopler » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 1:06 PM UTC

karmakaze wrote: post #171

So just to be clear, a 'gettier' is when something you Believe and have Justification for turns out to be false? Actually True J B 1 1 knowing 1 0 denying 0 1 lucky hunch 0 0 sceptic, default position Actually False J B 1 1 mis-justification: un/incorrectly-verified 1 0 lucky denial of mis-justified 0 1 superstition 0 0 sceptic, default position

No, it's when you get the right answer for the wrong reason, like a math problem solution that has two mistakes that cancel out in the end result, but are still incorrect logic

Re: A three-page paper that shook philosophy, with lessons for software engineers

#182

Post by thefringthing » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

My reaction Gettier cases as a philosophy minor was that J is the only philosophically interesting part of JTB.

Re: A three-page paper that shook philosophy, with lessons for software engineers

#183

Post by wahern » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #180

wahern wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the facsimile does all of those things? My initial reaction to the example was, "so what"? The guy _knew_ there was a cow but was wrong. The fact a _real_ cow existed behind the fascimile is irrelevant. All knowledge is contingent and relative. How could it be otherwise? What if 100% of all cow facsimiles ever displayed in the past were displayed on a farm with real cows--would that alone be sufficient to jus…

It's interesting because until Gettier nobody had actually proved that a justified true belief does not constitute what we commonly consider to be knowledge. It's all very well dismissing it an inconsequential, but several generations of philosophers and scientists have grown up in the post-Gettier world, before which the Justified True Belief account was widely considered to be unassailable. Yes _now_ we all know be…

But plenty of philosophers prior had suggested, if not argued, the contigency of knowledge. Kant famously discussed how knowledge is shaped and circumscribed by our faculties (e.g. sense of space and time).

Positivism was already well developed long before 1963.

I could on. I've studied enough philosophy to be comfortable with my criticism. But I'll grant that it may not have been until after 1963 that all these philosophical strains became predominate. But that doesn't excuse people from not seeing what's coming.

Re: A three-page paper that shook philosophy, with lessons for software engineers

#184

Post by yetanotherjosh » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 11:48 PM UTC

gnode wrote: post #110

paulsutter wrote: post #99

“Justified true belief”? All our knowledge is subjective by definition. We don’t even know whether we’re living in a simulation. Personally I doubt that we’re living in a simulation. But the fact that we could be, demonstrates that we don’t have objective knowledge. No cows needed in the field explain it Philosophy might better be called “the history of flawed thinking”

> We don’t even know whether we’re living in a simulation. I think it's actually worse than this. This scenario suggests that our minds are capable of infallible reasoning yet we may not be able to trust our observations. Really, I don't think we can even trust our own mind, and therefore JTB is undefinable.

This strikes me somewhat similar to saying that we should not use Newtonian mechanics, because we know better that at subatomic level Newton's laws do not apply.

But Newtonian mechanics are still extremely valuable, worth discovering and understanding, and anyone catching a baseball is employing them quite proactively. JTBs are the Newtonian mechanics of epistemology. You can pick them apart at a deeper level and show how they don't really exist, but they are still incredibly useful.

Re: A three-page paper that shook philosophy, with lessons for software engineers

#185

Post by gnode » Fri, Jan 18, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

yetanotherjosh wrote: post #184

gnode wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don’t even know whether we’re living in a simulation. I think it's actually worse than this. This scenario suggests that our minds are capable of infallible reasoning yet we may not be able to trust our observations. Really, I don't think we can even trust our own mind, and therefore JTB is undefinable.

This strikes me somewhat similar to saying that we should not use Newtonian mechanics, because we know better that at subatomic level Newton's laws do not apply. But Newtonian mechanics are still extremely valuable, worth discovering and understanding, and anyone catching a baseball is employing them quite proactively. JTBs are the Newtonian mechanics of epistemology. You can pick them apart at a deeper level and sho…

I'm not saying that we should entirely disregard epistemology. After all, belief is necessary to make decisions, and thus to thrive. Although I think people should be mindful that knowledge may not be possible in actuality, just as modern physicists are mindful of relativity and quantum mechanics.