"Empiricism is just the position that our knowledge comes from the outside world via our senses. This runs completely contra to Popper and Deutsch. Rather, our knowledge comes from bold conjectures about the world (people are universal explainers). These conjectures are uncertain (people are fallibile). And they are not sourced from repeated observations (induction cannot create knowledge)."
. The problem with the above is false dichotomy Empiricism is not everything , because you can't generate explanations just by looking. But it is not nothing, because a conjecture that has never been tested is not knowledge.
This has similar problems to Deutsch 's critique of induction. It is true that pure empiricism is not a source of explanations, but it does not follow that empiricism can play no useful role: empirical evidence can even play a role in Popperian science, as a source of refutation.
It is true that empirical data need interpretation. It follows that pure empiricism is useless, but does imply that empiricism has no use.
Kant got it right centuries ago: "Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions [sense data] without conceptions blind’
"Yet induction is false (as Hume pointed out) and we don’t use induction (as Popper pointed out but Hume was confused by). "
There's a lot to unpack there.
Deutsch has three problems with induction. The first is that it is not a source of explanations. The second is that never used.The third is that it is unusable, has no theoretical justification.
The first claim is true, but no longer relevant, because philosophy of science has moved on. The second and third claims are false.
Induction is both useful and easy to implement in AI s and organisms. It is very widely used inside and outside of science, including by people who claim to reject it! It can be shown to work by both probabilistic and conjecture arguments, ie. the fact that it cannot be justified in an infalliblist way is true, but does not matter.
In fact, Popper did not believe induction is never used, only that it is not useful for science.
Hume did not even consider probabilistic defences of induction , so Hume cannot be used to defeat Bayes.
Induction, as I have defended it, has limitations....it cannot generate novel hypotheses...nor can Bayes. But that's only one of Deutsch's claims against it. Induction can play a role without being the whole story.
I don't recall Deutsch stating that having qualia depends on being a universal explainer, or being all that clear about where Universal Explanation kicks in anyway..some humans have lower IQs than some chimps.
There was a notorious incident when one of his followers stated on a discussion group that torturing a dog was no different to destroying a TV set. Deutsch did not agree...without firmly stating it was false..and the main upshot was that the thread was deleted, and the follower stormed off, complaining that Deutsch wasn't Deutschian enough.
Yes. The criticism of animal welfare comes from Deutsch's followers more than Deutsch himself.
Deutsch does describe animals as non-universal explainers (or at least hints at it) in the podcasts The Lunar Society and Conversations with Tyler. Also, in Beginning of Infinity, he says that we don't know if animals suffer:“In reality, science has, and will have, no access to this issue until explanatory knowledge about qualia has been discovered.”
However, on one zoom call Deutsch even conjectured that the best explanation for dogs _looking like_ they suffer is that they may in fact be suffering. Similar to his argument against solipsisim.
So I think the existing problem for Deutsch might be that animals do not demonstrate explantory knowledge (just genetic knowledge). However, some animals seem like they suffer (which implies ability to _interpret_ things which implies explanatory knowledge.
Excellent piece and graphical organisation of the conflicts!
"Empiricism is just the position that our knowledge comes from the outside world via our senses. This runs completely contra to Popper and Deutsch. Rather, our knowledge comes from bold conjectures about the world (people are universal explainers). These conjectures are uncertain (people are fallibile). And they are not sourced from repeated observations (induction cannot create knowledge)."
. The problem with the above is false dichotomy Empiricism is not everything , because you can't generate explanations just by looking. But it is not nothing, because a conjecture that has never been tested is not knowledge.
This has similar problems to Deutsch 's critique of induction. It is true that pure empiricism is not a source of explanations, but it does not follow that empiricism can play no useful role: empirical evidence can even play a role in Popperian science, as a source of refutation.
It is true that empirical data need interpretation. It follows that pure empiricism is useless, but does imply that empiricism has no use.
Kant got it right centuries ago: "Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions [sense data] without conceptions blind’
"Yet induction is false (as Hume pointed out) and we don’t use induction (as Popper pointed out but Hume was confused by). "
There's a lot to unpack there.
Deutsch has three problems with induction. The first is that it is not a source of explanations. The second is that never used.The third is that it is unusable, has no theoretical justification.
The first claim is true, but no longer relevant, because philosophy of science has moved on. The second and third claims are false.
Induction is both useful and easy to implement in AI s and organisms. It is very widely used inside and outside of science, including by people who claim to reject it! It can be shown to work by both probabilistic and conjecture arguments, ie. the fact that it cannot be justified in an infalliblist way is true, but does not matter.
In fact, Popper did not believe induction is never used, only that it is not useful for science.
Hume did not even consider probabilistic defences of induction , so Hume cannot be used to defeat Bayes.
Induction, as I have defended it, has limitations....it cannot generate novel hypotheses...nor can Bayes. But that's only one of Deutsch's claims against it. Induction can play a role without being the whole story.
Found it. Starts at 1:17:25.
https://youtu.be/Q_Cs5iNazB8?t=4639
Deutsch appears fairly cautious on animal qualia. I can find the related interview, if you’re interested.
I don't recall Deutsch stating that having qualia depends on being a universal explainer, or being all that clear about where Universal Explanation kicks in anyway..some humans have lower IQs than some chimps.
There was a notorious incident when one of his followers stated on a discussion group that torturing a dog was no different to destroying a TV set. Deutsch did not agree...without firmly stating it was false..and the main upshot was that the thread was deleted, and the follower stormed off, complaining that Deutsch wasn't Deutschian enough.
Yes. The criticism of animal welfare comes from Deutsch's followers more than Deutsch himself.
Deutsch does describe animals as non-universal explainers (or at least hints at it) in the podcasts The Lunar Society and Conversations with Tyler. Also, in Beginning of Infinity, he says that we don't know if animals suffer:“In reality, science has, and will have, no access to this issue until explanatory knowledge about qualia has been discovered.”
However, on one zoom call Deutsch even conjectured that the best explanation for dogs _looking like_ they suffer is that they may in fact be suffering. Similar to his argument against solipsisim.
So I think the existing problem for Deutsch might be that animals do not demonstrate explantory knowledge (just genetic knowledge). However, some animals seem like they suffer (which implies ability to _interpret_ things which implies explanatory knowledge.