Critical Rationalism

Contra Hill and Harman

2011-08-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

Dave Hill in the Guardian complains at the refusal of those in authority to even consider the causes of the riots:

"Michael Gove's performance on Newsnight was definitive. Fellow guest Harriet Harman's mild observation that the causes of the riots are "complex" produced a barked tirade of rigid sanctimony - the first refuge of the right in denial"

Dave Hill's, necessary, shortening of the argument misses some detail. Harman didn't just say that the causes were "complex" but advanced her ideas on what some of those "complex" causes were. Student Fees were an issue, together with Education Maintenance Allowance. She was careful to say that they did not "justify" the rioting.

So Harriet Harman was genuinely trying to figure out the ultimate causes of the riots.

Was she bollocks.

Amazing, isn't it, that amongst the causes of the riots were following Coalition policy and not following Labour policy? Not, entirely amazing. Mad Mel thinks that the riots were caused by being liberal and thinking too hard about stuff, more reactionary garbage is the cure. Nick Griffin thinks that the riots are a result of "multi-culturalism" (a codeword used by many in the racist community to mean "Blacks, Asians and Jews") and not following BNP policy (get rid of Blacks, Asians and Jews). Others think that the riots happened because of "soft" sentences and a lack of flogging.

Notice a pattern? Of course you do the "causes" of the riots are always too much "stuff I don't like", coupled with a lack of "stuff I do like".

This is hardly a "clear-eyed, realistic, intelligent diagnos(is)". It's a trick even Nick-fucking-Griffin can pull!

But this wasn't Gove's key objection. Gove's key objection was that, despite saying these causes didn't "justify" the riots Harman "relativised" the riots. I don't think "relativised" is a good word for what Harman did. But I do think he was right.

There are a huge number of (partial) causes for any event. When asked for the cause we almost never give it, the cause usually doesn't exists. Why am I late home from work? Well part of the reason is where I live and where my work is: were I to live next door to the office I would not have been late. Neither would I have been late if I could teleport. Of course I wouldn't be late home from work at all if I didn't go out to work. That is the product of a whole separate set of causes.

What we do is give the cause we think is the one we should concentrate on. One that we can change. One that, itself has "ultimate" causes we can influence. One that we should change.

I am late home from work because I went for a drink.

It's true that I work in a certain place, it is true that I can't teleport and it is true that I do go out to work. But I can't change where my work is, I can't learn to teleport and I shouldn't consider (for just this reason) stopping work. Those causes are "givens", we choose the key factor, my love of Real Ale.

My being late home from work is not really disastrous. Let's look at a couple of different choices of the cause.

Event 1: Man M1 rapes woman W1.
The cause 1: M1 is the sort of violent misogynistic scum who would do such a thing.
The cause 2: W1 wore a short skirt and dressed in a "provocative manner"

Event 2: Man M2 beats woman W2.
The cause 1: M2 is the sort of violent misogynistic scum who would do such a thing.
The cause 2: W1 did not have M2's dinner ready when he got home

How do those second causes sound to you?

Given that M1 would not have raped W1 had W1 not dressed in a "provactive manner" and that M2 would not have hit W2 had he had his dinner they are part of the causal history of the act. But they're hardly the thing we should be concentrating on. To even mention them sounds a lot like blaming the victim.

As it does with the riots.

Sometimes a demonstration can get out of hand, sometimes there is a genuine grievance (racist policing, totalitarian governments etc) that provoke riots amongst decent people. We all know, though, that last week wasn't a demonstration that got out of hand, we all know this wasn't a reaction to racist policing or totalitarian goverment. The rioters rioted for a reason similar to why the rapist rapes and the wife-beater wife beats: they are violent, thieving criminals.

There is your cause. The cause.

And if we want to look at "underlying" causes we can consider:
1. What caused them to be violent, thieving criminals and how we can reduce the numbers of other people becoming violent, thieving criminals
2. What keeps them being violent, thieving criminals and whether they can be reformed.
3. Given there will always be violent, thieving criminals, how we can reduce the adverse impact of violent, thieving criminals on the rest of us.

Just as we consider what causes people to be/remain rapists and wife beaters, whether they can be reformed and how to reduce their adverse impact. When people rape and beat we do not divert attention to some, morally, irrelevant "cause".

Imagine Harman's reaction if we did. Imagine the "provocative dress" and late dinner being suggested to Harman as part of the complex of causes for rape and wife beating. Imagine whoever was advancing them (some "Bufton Tufton" backbench Tory) was careful to say that these reasons in no way "justified" the actions of M1 and M2. Imagine Richard Littlejohn writing:

"[Harriet Harman]'s performance on Newsnight was definitive. Fellow guest [Bufton Tufton]'s mild observation that the causes of [rape] are "complex" produced a barked tirade of rigid sanctimony - the first refuge of the [left] in denial"

Now tell me you can't imagine exactly those two sentences and that you can't imagine Dave Hill being utterly appalled by them. Harman showed her intellectual rigour to be on a par with Nick Griffin and moral percipacity to be on a par with Richard Littlejohn.

Gove was right to bark a tirade in her direction and Hill showed either special pleading or a lack of self knowledge to criticise him for it.

The Joys of Regicide

2011-07-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

The revolution is won.

The spark that set it off, of course, was the revelations of tapping (and interfering with) Milly Dowler’s voicemail. People were outraged.

People were so outraged that both News Corp and Parliament lost control of events. And because Parliament could no longer control events it couldn’t, even if it wanted to, support the News Corp cause. All the bad things that would come from defying News Corp were going to come anyway or had already happened. You can't "out" Chris Bryant twice. All the good things that come from bowing to News Corp were lost anyway. Cameron was never going to get another Obama style poster on the front page of The Sun

Parliament had nothing to lose.

It must have felt good.

And if you’ve got nothing to lose in standing up to a bully, the chances are that the bully is going to get it good.

So, right now, the Prime Minister and prospective Prime Ministers no longer abase themselves before News Corp. There is no question of anyone promising to weaken the BBC to help BSkyB (as Cameron was alleged to have done). There is no question of a Prime Minister needing to defend his European policy to Rupert Murdoch (Blair). Murdoch no longer claims the right to be consulted, Cameron’s aids laughed at the idea that the Prime Minister might condescend to meet Murdoch.

This is how it should be: News Corp is no longer a de facto part of the UK Constitution. We have had a sudden and dramatic change in Constitution: a revolution.

Much was the same situation in 1789 Paris and 1381 London. The French citizens were running their own affairs and the English peasants had removed the Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer and were wandering at will through the capital. Both revolutions appeared to have succeeded.

One did, one didn’t. After the revolution had been won the French killed the king, to secure the revolution. The English peasants were presented with the opportunity of doing the same. The English balked and were robbed of all the revolutionary changes.

It was the people wot won it. It was the regicides wot kept it.

Fortunately, in this day and age, we don’t need to actually kill anyone. Not the least reason is that the person we need to be shot off is a corporation: News Corp. But if we are to keep these revolutionary gains we need to remove News Corp from our country.

- Dropping the BSkyB bid is a delay, not a cancellation
- The News of the World looks likely to be reborn, with much the same staff and much the same corporate culture, as the Sun on Sunday
- The 39% stake in BSkyB is still there
- The Times, Sunday Times and The Sun are still owned and controlled by News Corp.

They will be back.

Unless, of course, we kill the King : force News Corp to divest itself of all its UK interests.

Vive la revolution!

2011-07-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

What’s the difference between a riot, a popular movement or a demonstration on the one hand and a revolution on the other?

A riot, popular movement and a demonstration may change government policy or a law. Poll tax riots at least helped to end the poll tax and the gay rights movement has nearly got gay marriage legalised (it has got gay nearly-marriage legalised).

A revolution changes a constitution: the permanent environment within which public affairs, whether to have a poll tax or let gays marry, are conducted. The French chopped off the King’s head and transformed France into a republic: that counts as a revolution. East Germany didn’t have to chop anyone’s head off, they just went through some wall, had a few beers and “bingo!” they were part of a democracy. That still counts as a revolution as it transformed the constitution.

Now, the constitution is not only important, in public affairs the constitution is of overwhelming importance. The UK is, in general, a nice place to live. North Korea is, in general, a hell hole. The UK is a liberal democracy (small “l”) and, as can be seen by a quick mental survey of other reasonably nice places to live, liberal democracies generally are reasonably nice places to live. The example of places that were not nice places to live, Nazi Germany, fascist Spain and others, that now are reasonably nice places to live suggests that liberal democracies are reasonably nice places to live because they are liberal democracies.

Over longer timescales we can see that feudal corporate countries were not such nice places to live as liberal democratic nation states. Medieval France and Medieval England were places of servitude and cruelty, utterly inegalitarian and culturally repressed. Whilst modern day France and England are by no means perfect (especially France, obviously) they are paradise by comparison. Let’s get this straight: the increase in VAT to 20%, “THE CUTS!!!!” or student fees are temporary. Constitutional changes, universal suffrage, equality before the law, the secret ballot have permanent and deep effects on every citizen’s life.

The UK, as above, is a reasonably nice place to live and a big part of that is that we have a good constitution. We have a representative democracy, with a more-or-less independent judiciary and respect (sort of) by our rulers for the rule of law. Officiallywe have a Queen, actually her role is mainly ceremonial and just looks as though it’s a part of the old feudal set up. Officially the media have no role in the UK’s constitution. Actually one particular media organisation, News Corp., has become part of how public affairs are organised in the UK. Not just taking part in public affairs, many groups do that, but that there have arisen obligations on the part of others in public affairs to News Corp. Just as the government may be over-ruled by judges and Commons legislation is subject to amendment in the Lords the government is subject to oversight by News Corp. This is oversight, we all suggest things the government should do and anyone is entitled to suggest or campaign, with News Corp. there is a duty on the part of the government to take News Corp. wishes into account.

The Daily Telegraph quotes “a senior News International figure” on the first meetings of Cameron with Murdoch:

“We told David exactly what to say and how to say it in order to please Rupert. But Cameron wouldn’t play ball. I can’t understand it.”

There is a duty to please Rupert Murdoch. It makes sense to tell someone what to say to Rupert. You’re supposed to do as you’re told, to do otherwise is incomprehensible.

News Corp. have insinuated themselves into the very constitution of the UK. And how do they do this? We know that they made money by illegal means. To protect this they followed classic Mafia strategy: they paid off police officers and kept politicians in their pocket. News Corp. are part of our constitution and they are a foul and pestilent part of that constitution: the robber baron of the corporate feudalism we thought we had left behind. But they’re in there, and it seems as if only a revolution is going to get them out.

Revolutions usually start when “something snaps”. The causes will have been there for years, perhaps decades, perhaps centuries but suddenly something pushes the populace over an undefined limit. Revolutions often start small, they often don’t look like revolutions and don’t start as revolutions but, somehow, gain their own momentum. An isolated incident starts it off and initial successes feed the populace’s confidence. The power of the elite, which depends on the populace’s lack of confidence, teeters and falls.

‘Phone hacking and, more broadly, the excesses of the tabloid press have been with us for decades. The hacking of Milly Dowler’s ‘phone was just another, all-be-it spectacularly foul, incident of press lawlessness. But something in the populace seemed to give: the outrage was immense, such that advertisers dropped out, such that the News Corp. lie of “one rogue reporter” failed to work. News Corp seem now to be pushing the “one rogue title” line with the closure of the News of the World. But will it work? It’s a confidence trick, confidence tricks rely on confidence and the public’s confidence in a denial from News Corp. has disappeared. We may well be seeing the start of a revolution.

Protean revolutions though, can peter out. If this revolution is not to peter out it the rage of the public must be used for constitutional change. How does News Corp. push itself into our constitution? What would stop it doing so? That is what should be attacked. Unfortunately, much of the public rage is being used to attack Coulson and Brooks. But this is not revolutionary, that’s like the peasants in the Peasants Revolt being satisfied with policy promises (later renaged on) rather than shooting the King. In the case of Coulson, and the decision to appoint him to Number 10, this is in the past. We will gain nothing by concentrating on Coulson. Brooks is still in the job, but she’s a side issue: a hate figure whose demise will help appease the masses (just like the Peasants Revolt again).

Change the constitution, remove the means by which News Corp. Exercises power. Those bent coppers are more important than either Coulson or Brooks. Those coppers who may not be bent, but acted as is they might as well have been (Yates, anyone?) are more important than Coulson or Brooks. Get rid of them.

And then there are the politicians. We all know that they have been running scared of News Corp. Other than the Lib Dems (big “L”), Tom Watson, John Prescott, Chris Bryant and a few others they have all been running scared. Or, to be more exact, have been following their constitutional duty not to upset Rupert. Some though have not just been submitting to News Corp. but actively promoting its interests. They may not be shills per se, but they might as well be shills. These are the supporters of the ancien regime, these are the people it is critical that the energy of any revolution is targeted at.

Forget Coulson and Brooks: get Hunt and Gove and Osborne. Give them, by all means, an opportunity to renounce News Corp. and reform. But if they refuse, remove them, guillotine their careers. Yes Ed, call for an inquiry. It's pretty obvious that we should stop the News Corp. BSkyB bid and, yes, it was a silly appointment. But cooperate, Ed, cooperate with Cameron on the condition that he purges his Government of anyone pro-Murdoch. Do the same with your party, ditch them. Disown Blair.

Nick! Grow a pair. Take control. Talk to Ed. Talk to the rest of the Commons. Oh, and Commons! Yes I'm talking to you, forget about scoring some little point against the opposition and get rid of any Murdoch supporters. Get them out and get him the hell out of our country.

Vive la revolution!

My email to BCA

2011-05-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

The British Chiropractic Association posted this on their website:

The BBC programme “See You in Court” episode 4 was screened on BBC 1 on 3 May 2011. Half of the programme followed Simon Singh and his legal team during various stages of the legal proceedings with the British Chiropractic Association.

The BCA was not approached by the producers of the programme for comment, and consequently, the programme was biased to the Simon Singh “side” of the story. The BCA’s position is that the libel action against Simon Singh is now closed following a ruling in the Court of Appeal in 2010.Link

I've sent them a quick email (to enquiries@chiropractic-uk.co.uk). Here it is, complete with typo:

See You in Court - Screened on BBC 1 on 3 May 2011‏

Hi

I followed a tweeted link to your comments on the above programme.

I must say that I am puzzled. You state "(t)he BCA’s position is that the libel action against Simon Singh is now closed following a ruling in the Court of Appeal in 2010." shortly after an apparent objection to the programme being "biased". If your position, though, is no more than that the matter is "closed" there is no BCS "side" of the story to tell and the idea of bias disappears. The BBC told both "sides" in full: a call for Libel Reform from Simon Singh and silence from the BCA.

The BBC could be accused of discourtesy if your allegation that they made no approach to you for comment is true but, as the comment would have been "no comment", no actual harm was done.

Personally, I would have been delighted to learn of the BCA's "side". I still would be delighted to hear the BCA's "side": your justification for marketing treatments which (as admitted by your QC) can be described as having no reliable evidential support and then suing the chap who pointed that out!

I'd get popcorn.

I'll post any reply.

The Durian Candidacy - or why AV is more democratic than FPTP

2011-04-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

There are exactly one hundred diners who use the works canteen for a nice, healthy, lunch that involves fruit. Only one fruit is served. That fruit is served each and every day for four to five years. Why do the canteen management arrange things in this way? Is it because it’s more efficient? Does it save money? Is it because of some weird dietary theory? Or is it that I need to mirror the choice of one representative in a parliament that will last four to five years? Probably the last. Whilst the diners won’t have a choice of fruit each day and will never have an individual choice of fruit, the canteen management are responsive enough to allow them to collectively decide on the fruit once every four or five years.
There’s a fruit election with apple, banana, cherry and durian as the candidates.

Judging the outcome of the election

We’re going to look at the outcome of the election under First Past the Post (FPTP) and Alternative Vote (AV) and judge which system leaves the diners best off.

The principles in judging the outcome are:
1. If your favourite fruit is chosen then you are best off.
2. If a fruit that you like is chosen in preference to a fruit that you like less then you are better of than you would have been had the other fruit been chosen.
3. if you're “best off” you're also “better off”
4. If you are not better off then you are worse off

So, say you want banana. If banana is chosen, then you are best off. If cherry is chosen and you prefer that to apple then you are better off than you would have been were apple chosen. If apple is chosen and you prefer apple to durian, but prefer cherry and banana to apple, then you are better off than had durian been chosen, but worse of than if banana or cherry had been chosen.

Under AV the diners list the fruit in order of preference, under FPTP they just list one: the first in their AV list.

The outcome

Durian is reputed to taste absolutely delicious and smell utterly disgusting. I’ve found that a bit of an exaggeration (it tastes quite nice and pongs a bit), but it is a fruit that divides opinion. Some are passionately for it, some equally passionately against it. The same cannot be said for other fruits. I don’t particularly like apples but, if push comes to shove, I’ll eat one and am not going to ban you from even taking an apple near me (seriously – durian is banned from many hotels and public places in the Far East). If people don’t put durian down first, then they’re likely to put it down last. Durian is likely to get very, very few second preferences under AV. That said, people who like durian tend to be very enthusiastic about it. If they like it then they like it way more than other fruits. Durian is likely to get a lot of first preferences, under AV, and votes, under FPTP.

So let’s assume that durian gets most votes under FPTP and most first preferences under AV.

The outcome of the election under FPTP is that durian gets chosen. Under AV durian may get chosen. If more than 50 people listed durian as first preference then durian does get chosen.

If less than 50 people choose durian then the fruit with least votes gets eliminated. The diners who voted for that fruit are now counted as having voted for their second preference. If there is still no majority the fruit with the least votes gets eliminated and the votes of the diners counted against that fruit are re-assigned.

Let’s say that apple got eliminated first, then cherry and the count now shows banana and durian with the final tally of votes as follows:

Banana
First preferences - 30
Second prefs, from apple - 7
Second prefs from cherry - 17
Third prefs from apple – 5
Total - 59

Durian
First preferences - 35
Second prefs, from apple - 3
Second prefs from cherry - 3
Total - 41

Banana gets chosen under AV, whereas durian gets chosen under FPTP.

Which leaves the diners better off?

Those who put banana first preference are best off under AV. Those who put banana second preference put either apple or cherry first (they wouldn't have been counted for second preference had they put durian as first preference). So they prefer banana to durian and, so, are better off under AV.

Those who put banana third preference did so because they chose cherry second preference (and apple first). Even though banana is low down on their list of preferences, banana is still higher on that list than durian (otherwise that third preference would be listed under durian).

Each of the groups of diners in the banana column is better off for banana being chosen against durian. Each of them would be worse off were durian to be chosen. And there is a majority of them. The outcome of AV (banana) leaves a majority of the diners better off than the outcome of FPTP (durian).

The same ranking of outcomes can be applied to elections of MPs. There is something “better” about your second choice candidate being elected as opposed to your third choice; even if “better off” might sound a bit awkward. Perhaps “better represented” is term to use. And, contra other arguments against AV, even your sixth or seventh preference candidate better represents you, and is a better outcome for you, than your eighth or ninth.

There are scenarios where AV does not ensure an optimal outcome. But in these situations, neither does FPTP. Where FPTP differs in outcome from AV, AV ensures a majority of the electorate have a better selection than under FP.

There are lots of arguments against AV other than the democracy of the outcomes in individual cases.

AV helps extremists, like the BNP, for eample.

Only it doesn't, if it did then the BNP wouldn't be so opposed to it. But there are still some good arguments. Like:

AV is complex and expensive to count.

But then I've counted AV and, actually, it's a piece of cake. And, as Eddie Izzard pointed out, the main additional cost is in pencil lead. Ok. So those two were bad examples, but there are good arguments for FPTP over AV other than the outcomes in individual constituencies. The point of this post was that that particular argument was bogus, regardless of any merit of any other argument. Like:

AV counts losers votes twice.

But no, look at the example above. 100 diners, 100 votes in the final tally. Oh well. There must be some good arguments for FPTP over AV.....

Verisimilitude Draft for Comments

2010-11-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

Classically a statement is either true or false, there's no in between. The idea that something can be nearly, somewhat or a little true, like the truth even if false is something that seems obvious. Saying just what it is for a statement to be "like the truth" is, though, a bit of a bugger.

Its a problem though that I thought I'd have a crack at and have written a first draft of some thoughts on the issue. I would be very grateful for any comments. As the draft includes diagrams, changes in formatting etc. I've put it in a PDF and uploaded it to Google Documents.

It's here.

Bogus Primitives, Customer Services and menaces

2010-10-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Some things just are.

Further analysis of some concepts is an academic pursuit, possibly valuable and interesting, but only tangentially connected to the real world. “Colour” is such a concept. If you say that an object is coloured you may be asked which colour it is, whether it’s solid or patterned or dark or light. You won’t be asked to explain colour per se. You can lie about the object, “this glass is coloured”. You can hallucinate, you can have a set of sense impressions that entail that the glass is coloured. There is a sense, though, in which you cannot be mistaken about the concept of colour. If you have a set of sense impressions that the glass is coloured then you have a set of sense impressions that the glass is coloured. If anything is wrong it’s your impressions not your concept of colour.

Other things are dependent

“A painting” is not a primitive, we can further analyse the concept of “painting”. A painting is an arrangement of coloured stuff designed to look in some particular way. Some of this analysis can be further analysed, some can’t. “Coloured”, we have already seen is primitive. “Stuff”, in this context, is primitive. Arrangement is not. We can talk of the purpose of an arrangement, the spatial relations of the arrangement etc. Notice, though, that where we can further analyse we reach a point where we get to a primitive concept. Notice also that if we don’t then we “lose” the concept. A painting that is not made of coloured stuff that has been purposefully set in spatial relations is simply not a painting.

On a more abstract level a concept that doesn’t analyse down to some primitives is an empty concept. Just as atoms are the “stuff” of matter, primitives are the “stuff” of concepts. A non-primitive concept that cannot be further analysed is simply meaningless.

You can also be wrong about a non-primitive concept in a way that you cannot with a primitive concept. You may think a chance pattern, lacking purpose, is a painting. Or you may mistake a reflection, lacking stuff, for a painting. For this reason reasonable disputes tend to be about non-primitive concepts.

Bogus primitives
If, in “real life”, you start trying to analyse a primitive then you really are being pedantic. To dispute someone’s use of a primitive, in “real life” again, you near-enough have to accuse them of dishonesty or mental illness. So people can get away with an empty or incorrect claim by pretending that it is a claim about a primitive.

Now sometimes it is perfectly acceptable to treat a non-primitive concept as primitive. Where any disagreement about the concept must be due only to dishonesty or mental illness, where operationally there is no difference, then we may as well act as if it were primitive. We all know what we mean by “a painting” and, say in a court of law, we are just going to accept someone’s testimony that they saw a painting. This leads onto a second problem. There is no question that something is (insert primitive here) but one can be wrong about something that is non-primitive. To discover your mistake with a non-primitive concept you need to do some analysis of that concept. What is (insert non-primitive here)? Does what I am considering have that? If you treat the concept as primitive you may not just get the concept wrong, but you miss the question you need to discover that fact.

Empty and incorrect

@RichardWiseman tweeted:

PC World have the worst customer service dept I have ever encountered. I vow never to buy anything else from them. Just saying.

What is this “service”? Can we further analyse it? Of course we can. A “service” is an action, by somebody else, that we want done. Companies “offer” services, PC world offer:
- Selling us computers
- Setting up computers
- Repairing computers

From the words “customer service dept” it would appear that PC World have a separate department charged with doing these services. But the “customer service department” doesn’t sell computers, set them up or repair them. Different departments sell them, set them up and repair them.

So what is the service that the “customer service dept” does? What is the action that we want doing that they do? What do we get if we try and further analyse the service? We get what we would get if we asked “what do you mean by “coloured”?”: either a restatement of “customer services” in slightly different words or blank incomprehension. “Service” in “customer service dept” is treated as a primitive when “service” is not a primitive. “Customer service” is meaningless, it does not exist. There is no service that a customer service department provides.

The purpose of a Customer Service Dept is to build up the claim that a company has customer services with no relation whatsoever to actually providing them.

Wrong, because you failed to notice the question

Can “menacing” be further analysed or is “menacing” a primitive? The gerund gives the game away: to be “menacing” something must have a tendency to menace. “Menace” may be primitive: “menacing” is not. Now is the following menancing?

Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!

Don't answer that! Just think what type of things would help answer that or not. Just think that there are things that will help answer it or not. "Menacing" is not a primitive concept that just either is or isn't present in a tweet. But the judge in the Paul Chambers case treated it as just such a primitive concept. The judge failed to give any analysis of "menacing", and analsysis which would have shown what the prosecution needed to demonstrate to establish that the tweet was menacing. Instead the judge took his own impressions as correct, "is it menacing? Yup.", in the same way as he would establish a promitive: "is is coloured? Yup."

Much modern discourse is characterised by an appeal to bogus-primitives. "Respect", "reasonable", "progressive", "regressive", "excellent customer service", "efficiency", "evidence" are all words thoroughly abused with their meanings horribly distorted but the fact of that distortion is hidden. It's time we called people on this, at least, sloppy practice.

K-scepticism and c-scepticism (part 1 of, probably, 3)

2010-09-04T16:35:00.001-07:00

This post started of as a brief post on why I didn't like spelling "scepticism" with a "k". I thought, in fact I still think, that those who call themselves skeptics pay far too much (that is to say "some") deference to authoritarian views of epistemology. To say why, though, I found I had to spell out x and in spelling out x I needed to address y and so on. The post grew into a summary of all that I currently think in this area. The post will, to bring it back down to manageable proportions, be split into three. This first adresses the traditional view of knowledge. The second further criticises the traditional view of knowledge. The third develops Popper's ideas of conjectural knowledge and seeks to promote its advantages.

Introduction

Since the time of the Ancient Greeks it has been held that knowledge must have a warranting basis. The basis differs depending on the analyst. There are claims of knowledge from authority, by divine revelation, by derivation from self-evident ideas, clear and distinct ideas, a reliable methodology, evidence, proper function and others. Some are held to stand alone, some in combination with others but all are held by someone to be necessary for knowledge and, in combination with truth and belief, sufficient for knowledge.

“Scepticism” has been used to denote many attitudes of denial. Sometimes it is used to denote denial of specific things, denial of the external world, denial of logic or morals or rationality. More globally it denotes denial of knowledge which, in its milder form, denotes denial of knowledge unless certain conditions are met. Here the sceptic takes a position of being resistant to belief. The sceptic will not allow as known, and resolves as a consequence not to believe, propositions with insufficient evidence or that have not been derived from a reliable methodology, received from an authority, or the like. This is the scepticism currently popular. In particular there is a desire for science and evidence, the sceptic will reject beliefs not derived from a scientific investigation or not backed by sufficient evidence. Once the proposition is adequately supported by scientific evidence, this sceptic will likely invert his attitude to the proposition and insist that others put aside their doubts. As the spelling of sceptic as “sketpic”, with a “k”, is also fashionable, I will use the term k-sceptic.

Another scepticism is a little more extreme. The other scepticism demands neither warrant nor warranting basis, this scepticism denies the possibility of a warranting basis. I will use the term c-sceptic. It follows from the denial of warranting basis that the c-sceptic must deny knowledge, as traditionally thought of. The c-sceptic uses the word “knowledge” all the time, though. The c-sceptic is quite happy to claim knowledge, allow that others know, even to claim that he knows that others know. If he is not to be ridiculously contradictory in his beliefs the c-sceptic must mean something different from warranted, true, belief when talking of knowledge. I will refer to this knowledge as c-knowledge. I will refer to the traditional concept of knowledge as k-knowledge.

I hope to convince the reader that k-skepticism is wrong, c-scepticism is right, that k-knowledge is unobtainable and its pursuit counter-productive. It draws, heavily, on the works of Karl Popper, his collaborators and critics. David Miller, Popper's research assistant and, later, collaborator and friend, may find the denial of authority of science and the treatment of the usefulness of warrant eerily familiar, should he chance upon the post.

K-knowledge

Truth
One of the Ancient Greeks’ concerns was to draw a distinction between episteme (knowledge) and doxa (belief). Yes, yes, you believe that the earth was created around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, that the stars are a guide to our destiny and that Liverpool are a good football team but do you know?

Things that are rubbish are not known. You cannot know that the earth was created around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago in six days of twenty four hours because the earth was not created then. You cannot know that the stars are a guide to our destiny because the stars give no clue as to what awaits us. You cannot know that Liverpool are a good football team because they are a bunch of red, koppite, gobshites. The Greeks (and almost everybody) would say something has to be true to be known.

It is important to note that this “truth” is not truth, full and precise, but “reasonable truth”. “The earth is round”, for example, is not true. The earth is slightly fatter around the equator making it an “oblate spheroid”. It is reasonably true. The differences between a round earth and an oblate spheroid earth are so small and unimportant that the two can be said to be very similar, or “much the same”. One would have to be either extremely pedantic or working in a very specialised area to object to anyone saying that the earth is round. However, if we take it seriously that both are true we can end up in serious difficulties. There will be a point, call it “a”, which “round earth” says is on the face of the earth but “oblate spheroid earth” says is not on the face of the earth. Call the assertion that point a is on the face of the earth “p”. If we take “round earth” as fully and precisely true we must assent to p. If we hold “oblate spheroid earth” as fully and precisely true we must assent to the negation of p: ¬p (pronounced "not p"). If we hold both “round earth” and “oblate spheroid earth” to be fully and precisely true we must assent both to p and ¬p.

Now, think of something utterly ridiculous, say “lager is better than real ale”, “Led Zeppelin weren’t very good” or “Liverpool are a not a bunch of red, koppite, gobshites”, and call that q. Since p is true “p or q” must be true (“or” is taken to be “not both of these are false”). Now we have “p or q”, one of which cannot be false and, from ¬p, p is false. So q, anything you like, must be true. (This demonstration is taken from Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 426 -427)

Of course the non-earth-shape-specialist and non-pedant is happy to accept and use the reasonably true proposition that the world is round. For our purposes the there is no need to make a distinction between the reasonably true proposition and the actually true proposition. More, for our purposes, there is no need to maintain the qualification of “reasonable”, no harm will come if we just call “the earth is round” “true”. Difficulties will only arise if we enter the specialist area where greater precision is needed, succumb to pedantry or look in depth at epistemology. Many of the arguments against k-knowledge, counter-intuitively, are bolstered by a slackening of the truth condition. In the philosophical literature the fine distinction between “reasonable truth” and “truth” is often blurred. As, counter-intuitively, many of the arguments against k-knowledge are bolstered by a slackening of the truth condition it is important in what follows not to blur the distinction.

Warrant

So, to be known a statement has to be a “reasonable” approximation to the truth. But that is not enough for knowledge. Each team in a knockout competition may believe that they will win that competition. For one of them that belief will be true, yet they cannot be said to know. True (or reasonable approximation to true) belief does not make knowledge. We move from “what turns belief into knowledge” to “what turns reasonably true belief into knowledge”. This is warrant.

What warrant is fills many pages of many philosophical works. Its general character, however, is pretty clear; it acts kind of “stamp of approval” on the belief. As we are interested in the truth its primary function is to approvingly stamp that truth.

Consider telling the time and when it would be right to move from saying that one believed that the time was 8:55 to saying that one knew that the time was 8:55. A belief that the time is 8:55 is just that, a belief. A belief that the time is 8:55 when in fact it is 8:55 is a true belief. If one looked at a reliable clock, saw that it indicated 8:55, it was 8:55 and one believed that it was 8:55 then one may be said to know that it was 8:55.

The same cannot be said of the sofa. The sofa would look the same were it 8:50 or 9:00 and is thus not reliable. If it were 8:55 but one guessed 8:50 a look at the sofa would confirm 8:50. A look at the clock would deny 8:50 and simultaneously confirm 8:55. Providing the clock is reliable if it says 8:55 then 8:55 is true. It warrants the truth of 8:55 and thus, added to true belief, creates knowledge.

Thus a warrant for p has to be, at some level of reliability, of the form:

If warrant then p
and
If ¬p then not warrant
(Most logicians would consider “if w then p” to be identical to “if not p then not-w”)

So there we have a three-part elucidation of knowledge. For someone to know p:
1. One must believe p
2. p must be true
3. One must have a method of deciding whether p or ¬p such that, to a reasonable level of reliability, if p then you believe it and if not p then you do not
That is not quite the end of the matter. If your method is reliable then you would be foolish to not to follow it. This means that if your method says p you are going to believe p and p is going to be true. If your method says p then you know p. If your method says ¬p then you are going to believe ¬p and ¬p is going to be true. If your method says ¬p then you know ¬p. The first two conditions for knowledge are a consequence of the third and so knowledge boils down to the level of warrant you have for any assertion.

A basis

At a minimum the relationship between warrant and a proposition that it warrants is that the proposition can be inferred from the warrant (“if warrant then proposition”). This can be represented by a simple argument schema:

Warrant
_________
Proposition

For example, we can illustrate the “knowing what time it is” example:

The clock says that it is 8:55
____________________
It is 8:55

Or take the example of whatever navigation mechanism a migratory bird uses to “calculate” its route:

Navigation mechanism
_____________________
Route

The bird is said to “know” the route to take by virtue of a navigation mechanism. The bird infers, all be it non-consciously, the route from the navigation mechanism. The route is inferable from the navigation mechanism, if the route were materially incorrect the navigation mechanism would not produce it and the navigation mechanism tends to produce routes that are correct.

However this is not enough for the k-sceptic. The k-sceptic wants our choice of propositions to be as a result of the warrant. Whether the navigation mechanism does reliably inform the bird or no the bird has no choice in the matter, it will follow the route. The “sofa” example also fits the schema above or, perhaps better, the example of an unreliable clock:

The unreliable clock says that it is 8:55
_____________________________
It is 8:55

“It is 8:55” is clearly not known, the unreliable clock does not give warrant for “it is 8:55”. We should, according to the k-sceptic, reject “it is 8:55”. Where a reliable clock says 8:55 we do have warrant and, according to the k-scpetic we should accept “it is 8:55”.

If we are to follow the k-skeptic’s stipulation some way of distinguishing between the non-warrant and the warrant must be available. To do the job this way must, at some level of security, give assent to “this is warrant” when “this is warrant” is true and reject “this is warrant” when “this is warrant” is false. That is to say it would be warrant for our warrant:

The clock is accurate
_____________________________________
“The clock says it is 8:55” is warrant for “it is 8:55”

Or we could show it as a stepped schema, with each line warranting the one below it.

The clock is accurate
____________________
The clock says it is 8:55
____________________
It is 8:55

But of course “warrant for warrant” is, itself, warrant. If warrant is required to be warranted then “the clock is accurate” must be warranted. Perhaps we have, or someone else has, tested the clock and concluded that the clock is accurate:

The clock has been tested
____________________
The clock is accurate
____________________
The clock says it is 8:55
____________________
It is 8:55

It is pretty clear where this is going: each warrant for warrant itself requires warrant, resulting in an infinite series of warrants that can never be completed.

Perhaps you think that I am being too strict. Certainty requires an infinite regress but, just as we will accept something that is reasonably true rather than true simpliciter, we will accept a certain level of uncertainty. Unfortunately any regress combined with any level of uncertainty makes the situation worse. If we a 0.95 confident that a working clock will tell the correct time and we are 0.95 confident that this is a working clock then the chances of us having a working clock that has just told the right time is 0.95 x 0.95 = 0.9025. If we are 0.95 sure that the test we use does confer a 0.95 chance of the clock working then the chances slip back still, 0.95 x 0.9025 = 0.87375. The more levels of warrant that we add the more the chances of the end result reduce until, fairly soon, the difference between a warranted proposition and a complete guess are negligible. Warrant that fails to raise the probability that a proposition is true is no warrant at all.

Thus if we are to secure warrant a basis is needed to stop the regress. A set of secure propositions is needed to provide the initial warrant which can be carried to all further propositions. Some contenders for this basis are listed above: authority, divine revelation, self evidence, clear and distinct ideas, a reliable methodology, evidence, proper function. But which of these bases, or combinations of these bases, are to form the basis?

The prospective bases often differ markedly in the propositions they certify. The pronouncements of authority, for example, differ so radically from some of the pronouncements of evidence and the scientific method that if one were true the other, far from being reasonably true, could not be remotely true. We must, therefore, choose a basis and this creates a dilemma. If we try and justify our choice of basis we do not treat it as a basis, we claim some warrant for the choice which creates a new recess. On the other hand if we do not offer any justification then our choice is entirely uninformed and arbitrary.

Alternatively, we could follow the fundies in their (perhaps not favourite, but extremely annoying) argument that “the Bible is a revelation from God because the Bible says it is a revelation from God”. What do we say to that? Really that they have given us no argument at all, just restated a conclusion as a premise. A third way fails and we find ourselves in Hans Albert’s “Münchhaussen trilemma”. All searches for an ultimate basis of warrant must “end” in:

1. infinite regress
2. circularity, or
3. an arbitrary exemption from the need for warrant
(Hans Albert. (trans. Mary Rorty) 1985. Treatise on Critical Reason. Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University Press p. 18 or Wikipedia)

The k-sceptic, who insists on a basis for propositions, insists on something he will never have. There is no basis of knowledge, there is no primeval warrant and thus no warrant. There is no k-knowledge.

I sense a face-palm. “If we cannot know anything then we are all doomed” is the objection. Another is the enquiry as to whether, if I do not know that exiting my house from the front door is safe whilst exiting from the bedroom window is not, I do not jump out of the bedroom window every now and again. I will attempt an answer to the second objection later. First we must consider “if we
cannot know then we are all doomed”.

The first response is that, from the above, we cannot know anything. So, if we cannot know anything then we are all doomed, then we are doomed. There is little point in bewailing the fact and even less pretending we know just because we do not like the consequences of not knowing. We are better off finding ways to cope with our damnation.

There is another response, though, one a little more palatable but rather counterintuitive. “If we cannot know anything then we are all doomed” is false and a prime reason why it is false is because knowledge is useless.

That is the topic for the next part.

Glenn Peoples' "A New Euthyphro": David Hume arrives

2010-08-28T13:54:00.000-07:00

The story so far: Glenn Peoples reported on an updated conversation between Socrates and Euthyphro. Euthyphro is prosecuting his own father for manslaughter because he claims that it is the right thing to do. Horrified, Socrates seeks to attack Euthyphro’s understanding of what is the “right thing to do” by posing his famous question:

“Does God will us to do things because they are right, or are things right because God wills us to do them?”
(Euthyphro agreed to interpose “right” for “pious” in deference to his audience's 21st century language and Socrates uses the singular “God” to account for monotheism.)

Socrates hoped to show that Euthyphro could not “ground” his ethics in Divine Commands (the second half of the dilemma) because it is always possible to ask why God commands this or that (the first half of the dilemma).

This time, with the benefit of two thousand years of philosophy, Euthyphro avoids the implication that Divine Command provides no ground for ethics by positing the identity of divine commands with morality. If “rightness is the quality of being that which God commands” (p.6) then that is not disturbed one iota by asking why God commands it. The “why” question, although interesting, is not a question about the grounding of ethics: it is a question about the nature of God, quite a different subject. God may have reasons for choosing to forbid torture but those are not reasons for us to obey that injunction. The reason we ought not to torture people is that God forbids it.

David Hume now arrives to join the two protagonists. Declining the invitation to a game of backgammon, Socrates and Euthyphro recount the conversation so far.

Hume: Of course I would wave away Divine Command Theory with the claim that you cannot derive a “ought” statement from an “is” statement. But I know that Euthyphro would never allow that.

Euthyphro: I most certainly would not. Divine Command Theory starts from the idea that the “is” of God’s will creates the “ought” in us.

H: Quite so. But you will allow that the identity of the good allows me to substitute “you ought to do them” for “are right”.

E: I think so. Let me see “does God will one to do things because one ought do them, or ought one do them because God wills us to do them”. You know, I think that is better, it helps stop the confusion about God’s motives. Very well, we will adopt your re-formulation and I will say that one ought do things because God tells you to do them.

H: Wonderful. Now, supposing you and I are in the pub with Sartre. It is your round. Is there something that Sartre is morally obliged to drink? Ought Sartre have a pint of Real Ale?

E: You know that I am a colossal Real Ale snob, David, but not even I would suggest that there was a moral obligation on someone to avoid Lager. Sartre can ask for what he likes.

H: We can even say he ought to ask for what he likes, though that might be stretching the meaning of “ought” too far. It would be entirely correct, though, to say that you ought to get him what he asks for. If Sartre asks for a pint of Lager it would be bad, not very bad, but a little rude, to bring him a pint of Real Ale.

E: Agreed.

H: So you ought to buy a pint of Lager because Sartre asks you to. It makes no sense to ask whether you ought to buy a pint of Lager because Sartre asks you to or does Sartre ask you for a pint of Lager because it is right that he ought to ask for a pint of Lager. “Buying a pint of Lager” is identical to “the right thing to do”. Also, as it happens, Sartre is also a colossal Real Ale snob.

E: Strange for a Frenchman.

H: He is not a Frenchman. He is a clumsy conceit in a 21st Century philosophical dialogue. And part of that conceit is that the likelihood of him asking for a pint of Lager is around the same as God willing torture. So Sartre will ask for a pint of Real Ale and, as what is right is identical to Sartre’s wishes then the purchase of a pint of Real Ale is right.

E: This is beginning to sound like “Sartre Command Ethics”.

H: Precisely. And I am quite happy to accept that your recent arguments have established that Socrates’ question has not shown your Divine Command Ethics to be any worse than my Sartre Command Ethics.

E: That’s not much of a concession; your Sartre Command Ethics are appalling. Moral laws do not derive from Sartre’s wishes.

H: They do, I just gave you an example: it is right to buy Sartre a pint of Real Ale because Sartre wishes a pint of Real Ale. What is right to do is what Sartre wishes.

E: What is right to do is what Sartre wishes in this case. If Sartre wished me to torture someone then it would be the wrong thing to do.

H: Not in Sartre Command Ethics. I have identified the moral with the wishes of Sartre, just as you have identified the moral with the wishes of God. We both have a perfectly robust grounding for our ethics, mine in Sartre and yours in God, neither fall to the challenge in Socrates’ dilemma.

E: That is ridiculous. I have alternative arguments for why my view is correct. I did not bring them into the discussion with Socrates as his dilemma has no bearing on them. I am sure that you know that I do have these arguments, that they are quite good and that they are certainly better than any you have for Sartre ethics. Face the facts, David, you just made up Sartre Command Ethics, you have no reasons at all to adopt it other than that it is useful in an argument with me. That is not a good basis for morality.

H: Oh. You want a good basis of morality, not just a basis of morality?

E: Of course. There can be many prospective bases of morality, if we just allowed any prospective basis of morality to be a basis we would end up with relativism.

H: So, presumably, I should adopt a good basis.

E: Yes.

H: But the statement “I should adopt a good basis for morality” is a statement about morality, a meta-statement. You can identify morals with God’s wishes and force me to accept that identification only if you can separately establish this meta-moral statement. If you cannot establish it apart from the basis that it seeks to establish, I can do exactly the same in any ethical system I care to mention.

E: And I can establish it. Firstly…

H: Never mind the specifics, for the moment we will take them as read and agreed. All moral statements are derived from God’s wishes; they are true depending upon whether or not wills them so. There is another, meta-moral statement, which is dependent on arguments outside of God’s will. This is “you should adopt Divine Command Ethics”. If you like we can imagine that God wills “Divine Command Ethics” and preserve the universality of “one ought to do what God tells one to do”. God tells you to adopt Divine Command Ethics, you ought to adopt Divine Command Ethics and so you ought to do what God tells you. However this meta-moral statement could be wrong. It could be the case that you ought not to adopt Divine Command Ethics.

E: Ridiculous. God can never be wrong!

H: This is not about God being wrong; it is about you being wrong. You can be wrong Euthyphro, you could be wrong about Divine Command Ethics. If you are that concerned about God being right we can imagine that, if you are wrong about Divine Command Ethics then God does not will Divine Command Ethics.

E: And if I am right then God does command it.

H: Yes. So if Divine Command Theory is correct then God wills it. If Divine Command Theory is incorrect then God does not will it.

E: I do not like the sound of this. We are getting back to the dilemma.

H: Yes we are. But do not think to drop this stipulation. If you are wrong about Divine Command Ethics then you ought not to follow Divine Command Ethics. If God wills Divine Command Ethics then it is not the case that one ought to do what God wills.

E: I will, then, accept the stipulation.

H: So now answer me the question: is Divine Command Theory correct because God wills it or does God will it because it is correct?

The Moral argument for the existence of God and the Euthyphro

2010-08-27T06:05:00.000-07:00

Simply expressed the moral argument for the existence of God is:

- If God did not exist then morals would not exist
- Morals exist
- Thus, God exists

What are these morals of which we speak? Naturally, the argument envisages a theistic theory of morals. If a non-theistic theory of morals is accepted the argument fails. If we hold to nihilism, the second premise fails: morals do not exist. If we hold to naturalism, emotivism, or relativism then the first premise fails. Naturalist, emotivist and relativist ethics can get along quite well without the existence of God.

The result is a corollary argument, often in the background, about the adequacy of non-theistic theories of morals. Non-theistic thories, it is alleged, do not explain morals, provide no basis for morals. The Euthyphro is often invoked to argue that theistic theories neither explain nor provide a basis for morals and, so, the theist is on just as sticky a meta-moral wicket as the non-theist. This leads to attacks on the Euthyphro, defences, and on.

Let us just ignore non-theist theories of morals, accept that they do not explain morality, can never do so and are just plain wrong. Let us also allow that that the Euthyphro fails to establish that theistic theories are non-explanatory, groundless or whatever bad things about theories it seeks to establish. The Euthyphro still has an effect, a fatal one, on the moral argument for the existence of God.

The Euthyphro is a whole dialogue but one that boils down to one question which can be paraphrased in terms of modern discourse:

“is something moral/immoral because God says so or does God say something is moral/immoral because it is”.

The key aspect for the moral argument is not that the Euthrypho forces an impossible choice, but that it forces a choice. Is morality contingent on God or not?

If it is not contingent then the moral argument fails at the first premise. The second premise is fine, we are all able to agree that morality exists, after all torturing babies for fun is wrong. But to establish the conclusion both premises are needed and the first plainly claims that morality is contingent on God.

If we hold that morality is contingent, of course, the first premise is fine. But we’ve left ourselves with everything to do with the second premise. We cannot appeal to well-worn examples of morality unless we can establish that these examples are moral truths. “Morality exists” entails, under a God-contingent meta-theory, that God has willed moral laws. The contingency of morality on God begs the question of his existence and requires that any necessary “acts”, or “willings”, on His part, have taken place. But that is not the evidence commonly given by those putting forward the moral argument.

For its effect the moral argument relies on non-God-contingent morality to get us to agree the second premise but relies on God-contingent morality to support the first. The Euthyphro prevents that equivocation and, in doing so, reveals the fallacy.

The, modestly titled, Lloyd meta-protocol

2010-05-22T08:20:00.001-07:00

I’ve been reading Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science”. “Shocking” is one word I’d use. The people behind “Brain Gym”, “detoxing” footbaths, Patrick Holford, Homeopaths, most of the pharmaceutical industry, Gillian McKeith and others ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

“Puzzled” is another word I’d use. Why are so many trials, even those published in “prestigious” journals, misleading? Ben’s answer partly lies around:

1. Crap protocols
2. Crap write-up
3. Publication bias

I would like to make a suggestion as to how these three can be easily, and cheaply, combated. My suggestion is the, modestly titled, “Lloyd meta-protocol”.

The “Lloyd meta-protocol” is to be followed by a journal and consists of three things:

1. The publish/not publish decision is not taken after the results are known. Where it is to be published is not taken after the results are known. The decision is taken by peer-review of the protocol for the test. These protocols are published in the journal with space for letters criticising protocols. An amended protocol may be published making changes to meet criticisms of the protocol. No actual testing happens until after the protocol is “finalised”. (A protocol is “finalised” when a decision not to further amend it is taken.) Following this protocol actually stops badly designed trials being carried out.

2. The finalisation of the test protocol involves the advance acceptance of the paper by the journal and the agreement on the part of the researchers that there will be a paper. Any trials where the paper fails to materialise after a certain time-limit a reported on by a short one-paragraph assuming that the results were entirely negative. This part of the protocol protects against “publication bias”.

3. That agreement that the paper will be published might lead one to expect that any old crap knocked up by the researchers, with all the ways of being dishonest in the write up Ben told us about, will be accepted. The “Lloyd meta-protocol” avoids that by removing the task of writing up the paper from the research group and giving it to the journal. The test is written up by the journal. Sure, the research group will sit with the writer. The research group will suggest wording (perhaps, even, giving a draft of a paper to the journal) but the person who actually chooses which words are used and in which order will be a journal appointee.

Those “playing with a straight bat” should welcome these procedures. The criticism of the test protocols, at present, happens when all that expensive field research has been done. If those reading the paper are not happy about the protocols then that field research has been a waste of time and money. Under the Lloyd meta-protocol rejection happens early and rejection happens cheaply. They will be guaranteed the journal in which the results will appear. No need to sweat on this one, no need to work on some research only to find you can’t publish it in “Prestigious Journal” but only “Obscure Piece of Toilet Paper”. But there’s more. If “Prestigious Journal” follows the “Lloyd meta-protocol” then readers of the journal will know that all trials reported:
o Have peer-reviewed protocols
o Are not subject to publication bias
o Are written up independently of the researchers
In short, “Prestigious Journal” will become “Super-prestigious journal” and which researchers wouldn’t want to publish in that?

Those currently “playing it a bit dodgy” should be tempted by these procedures. As above, publication (if they followed the protocol) would be in “Super-prestigious Journal” following the Lloyd meta-protocol. How’s that going to sound? Pretty bloody good. If you’ve got a good product then you could make it look really good by playing a few dodgy tricks. But now you’d loose out on that “stamp of approval”. Does the prestige that can be got by fiddling protocols, dodgy write ups and publication bias really make up for the loss of the “stamp of approval”? Maybe, maybe not. But at least now they’ll have to think about it.

Medical professionals should adore these procedures. No more trailing through paper after paper just to find you should ignore the results. As well as publication in a Lloyd meta-protocol compliant journal being a “stamp of approval”, publication in a non-compliant journal is a warning sign. These people before they did the test were determined to do something dodgy. Avoid them:
- Try X, Y, Z it reduces the A, B, C count in populations 1,2,3
- Was that in “Super-prestigious Journal”?
- No, it was in “Obscure Piece of Toilet Paper”
- Go away then

- Try X, Y, Z it reduces the A, B, C count in populations 1,2,3
- Was that in “Super-prestigious Journal”?
- Yes, it was.
- Interesting, tell me more

The rest of us should welcome these procedures. Despite having read Ben’s book I do not have the ability to read through a medical research paper and, sorry Ben, I don’t really want to. I don’t think I can rely on an abstract (Ben’s taught me that much), but I’d be quite happy to rely on it if there was a big blue “Lloyd meta-protocol compliant” tick next to it.

The journals should welcome these procedures. It will increase their prestige (from prestigious to “super-prestigious) and, importantly, it’s easy for one journal to do it on its own, right now. We do not need a central registry of trials; the journal announces that it is its own registry. We don’t need some great world-conference to “renegotiate” a “settlement” on “conduct and publication of research”. “Obscure Piece of Toilet Paper” can remain as it is, you can’t hide bad results there anymore, just because “Super-prestigious Journal” (on its own) already has an agreement to publish it.

That’s probably the biggest argument in favour of the Lloyd meta-protocol: it doesn’t cost anything and you could start on Monday.

What should the Liberal Democrats do next

2010-05-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

This is the text of my email to the Party President on what the Liberal Democrats should do next. (You can send your own, details here)

"I was a member of the Liberal Democrats in its foundation year and, before that, the Liberal Party. I am in this for the long haul and think you should be too.

Let the Conservatives govern as a minority unless they guarantee substantive constitutional and electoral reform.

Do not sell out the long term constitutional good of this country for a few scraps of temporary power. Do not compromise on constitutional reform because you are frightened of the current economic crisis. Our mountain of debt will not be increased by multi-member constituency single transferrable vote. An elected second chamber will not produce a “double dip”.

Even were retaining the current constitution to reduce the pain that is to come such retention would be a short term move with long term consequences. Such short term thinking is exemplified (on a very much larger scale) by the movement of countries in crisis to totalitarianism. Yet we know that the quality of life in a country is inextricably linked with the quality of its constitution. Constitutional decisions now effect the whole of public life for decades to come. Take the right constitutional decision."

In a hung parliament a Lib Dem vote is a Lib Dem vote.

2010-04-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

It’s on Twitter:

“Labour claim voting #libdems =voting Tories who claim #Libdems = Labour. Clearly #labservatives think voters = stupid”
(Tweeted by @El_Cuervo)

There is one big reason why a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for the Liberal Democrats:

A hung Parliament

On 6th May your constituency will elect a Member of Parliament. Under the First Past the Post system beloved of David Cameron and Gordon Brown your MP would normally take up his seat in a House with a clear overall majority. As a consequence your MP would spend the next four to five years being ignored.

Most of the governing party’s MP’s sit on the backbenches and do as they are told. They vote in accordance with the whips dictates. Those who gain ministerial positions do so because they have set aside their personal convictions and their constituents interests to do what the whips tell them. The whips instructions come from the cabinet. Opposition party MP’s are totally ignored.

Unless your constituency elects a cabinet minister (and, face it, they’re all in such safe constituencies that your vote won't make a blind bit of difference) your representative will have no input. You’ll hear of the odd “rebellion” every now and again, but you know nothing will come of it. Those few MP’s brave enough to defy the whip are never enough.

In a hung parliament that changes. There will still be whips, of course. There will still be a cabinet, there will still be “party discipline”. But in a hung parliament each an every rebellion has a chance of success. Any combination of the three main parties has a majority. Each party has enough factions that, on an issue of real importance, sufficient rebels can be found.

Now I don’t think we’ll hear of many rebellions. For why is the exciting part: the cabinet will have to consult. They’ll want to make their policy and administration rebellion-proof. This they can only do, in a hung Parliament, by modifying their policy and administration to take into account the opinions of the House as a whole. Opposition MPs may still get a look in, for every opposition MP that supports you on one issue you can afford to annoy one of your own so the government will consult them as well.

Oh, it’s not going to be a utopian vision of calm rationality and open debate. Your MP won't have anything like a veto. It’ll be shouting, back room deals and party pressure. For the most part nothing will change but the MPs will not be ignored completely they will have some input. Which means that each and every Liberal Democrat MP elected will, whatever the governing coalition, have some real input into government of this country. MPs deciding things? MPs controlling the executive? No wonder Cameron doesn’t like the prospect.

But the value of a Liberal Democrat vote goes further than just the electing an MP who will be able to act, well, as an MP. A deal will have to be struck to create a government. A negotiation will take place. Most power in the negotiations will arise from the numbers of MPs each party can bring to the table. Some moral advantage, though, will come from the numbers of votes secured. Coming first in the vote will give more moral advantage than second, second more than third. 34% will count for more than 33%, not enough of course, but it will count. However miniscule the effect it will be more than the effect when a majority government is return: absolute zero.

Each and every vote for a Liberal Democrat will give some, tiny advantage to the Liberal Democrats in negotiations. Even if you live in David Cameron’s constituency, or Gordon Brown’s and have no hope of electing a Liberal Democrat MP it will have some effect. In this election no vote for the Liberal Democrats is “wasted”.

All votes will count.

Vote Liberal Democrat.

Four suggestions on "proof" in libel

2010-04-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

There are lots of things that need addressing in libel reform. Should corporations be able to sue? How on earth can we reduce costs to an acceptable level? And, of course, what "proof" should be presented and by which side. Below are three suggestions I have, not for "reversing" the burden of proof but re-thinking proof-in-libel altogether.

Facts, opinion and burdens of proof

The defences open to a defendant in English law depend on whether the words complained of express an “opinion” or a “fact”. Broadly (very – see here for a better outline ) if the words complained of make a verifiable claim then the defendant had better damn well verify it. The burden of proof here is firmly with the defendant. The complainant is not, in any way, required to show that the claim is false. If the words complained of are the expression of an opinion then (absent malice) the defendant need only show that it is an honest opinion.

In libel reform discussions it is often put forward that the burden of proof should be reversed: that the claimant should be required to show any factual allegations made to be false. This seems nice and simple but is fraught with difficulties. The difficulties arise because the fact/opinion dichotomy is too, well, dichotomous.

There are facts about the world, things that if said would be true. Unfortunately not all, in fact very few, of those facts are either known or readily discoverable. Thus we have opinions about facts.

Some facts we do not have "opinions" on or, if we do, we all share the same opinion or, if we don't, we consider those who differ in opinion lacking in knowledge, mad or bad. "Jack Kennedy was assassinated in Texas" is a fact in this sense. We can call "this sense" a "Fact", in inverted commas and with a capital "F".

If there are one or more putative “Facts” on which the case depends I see no problem in asking the complainant to establish them. The reason they are “Facts” is that they already have been established and their demonstration to others who do not accept them is a simple and straightforward matter. In the case imagined we could simply pull out a history book. Failure to meet a reversed burden of proof on this type of "Fact" would not unjustly disadvantage claimants: it merely invalidates the judgement that the case involves “Facts”. Pure “Facts” cases should be “open and shut” cases where, if the claimant can show that no informed person could reasonably believe what had been said then the claimant can cut out all the argument and the court starts looking at compensation.

But the vast majority of cases will not be decided on the basis of "Facts". They will have at their heart a putative fact such as “Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Jack Kennedy”. Yes, this is a factual statement: one of “Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Jack Kennedy” and “Lee Harvey Oswald is innocent” is a fact. But it is not a "Fact", we can reasonably put forward either one and "opinion" becomes inextricably mixed with fact. On the current "Fact"/verify "opinion"/honest basis, together with an understanding that most interesting facts are also matters of opinion, almost all libel cases would revolve around "honest opinion".

That seems way too broad to me. Interpreted one way it allows anyone to shoot their mouth off merely on the basis that they "honestly believe" an allegation. Interpreted another way it pretty well stops us saying anything at all. There is a difference between saying:
1. X is a paedophile
2. X cheated on his expenses
3. X supports Liverpool Football Club
All three are defamatory and any one of us may honestly hold that opinion about any other person. I would contend that whilst I could happily throw about the accusation that X supported Liverpool Football Club when there was not a jot of eidence I should have reasonable evidence for claiming that he cheated on his expenses. If I were to, publicly, claim that X was a paedophile then I should have very strong evidence indeed. The “honesty” of my opinion doesn’t enter into our judgements as to whether the claim can be put forward. The level of evidence required does and appears to vary with just how defamatory the accusation is. An overarching principle, such as “honestly held” would risk overriding that. If newspaper A alleged that X was a paedophile, X would effectively be prevented from seeking redress if all the defendant needed to show was that he had a conversation in a pub and as a result believed X was a paedophile. On the other hand my rights to free expression would be unfairly curtailed if I were not allowed to say “Dr. Evan Harris supports Liverpool” without conclusive proof.

Suggestion 1: Anything other than facts that are readily established, to the extant that anyone with knowledge, sanity and goodwill, should be treated as "opinion"
Suggestion 2: At the initial hearing in any libel case the claimant should be offered the opportunity to show that the allegations made would be recognised as false by anyone with knowledge, sanity and goodwill. If he established that then the court would, in that hearing, assess how defamatory the allegations were and what recompense (if any) was appropriate.

Suggestion 3: At the initial hearing the court should look forward to the likely damages that would be awarded as a way of determining the extent of the defamation caused by any opinion. Based on this the court would decide the nature and extent of reasons the defendant should have had before making the allegation.

Harm done and what is the defamation

We can consider a real case for this bit, the BCA’s claim against Simon Singh which they have recently discontinued after an adverse ruling by the Court of Appeal. The BCA contended that they were libelled (ie defamed unjustly) by the following words:

“The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.”

The BCA press release of 15th April 2010 states that the BCA still considers that it was defamed by Simon Singh in the article. Of course it was defamed and remains defamed. Given the lightest reading from the Court of Appeal decision the article claimed that the BCA promoted treatments for which there was no reliable evidence without regard to that lack of evidence. That is not a good way for a professional body to behave. Any decent person should downgrade their opinion of the BCA on the basis of this. The words had a defamatory meaning. What has not been established is whether the words unjustly defamed the BCA and the BCA seems to accept that they have no hope of establishing that they were unjust. On the basis of this allegation the BCA have dropped the case: we can term it the “accepted” allegation.

The BCA had hoped to show that an allegation had been made that they had promoted the treatments when they knew that there was no evidence reliable or otherwise. It can be argued (indeed it was accepted) that Simon did not have sufficient evidence to establish that the BCA knew the state of evidence of the treatments. Neither could Simon have established that there was no evidence reliable or otherwise for the treatments. If one accepts that evidence can be unreliable and still be evidence (I don't) then the BCA have lots of evidence even though it is shit evidence. We can call the allegation of "no evidence, reliable or otherwise" and the BCA's knowledge the "disputed" allegation.

The issue before the Court of Appeal was whether Simon had made the accepted allegation or the disputed one. And it seems a fairly reasonable issue to address. If Simon had made the accepted allegation he was in the clear. If he had made the disputed allegation, an allegation he did not have good grounds to make, he was in trouble.

But hold on, what if:
1. The accepted allegation is just as defamatory as the disputed one and
2. Simon first (clearly) made the accepted allegation and later made the disputed allegation.

As above the level of evidence required to back up an allegation depends on the defamatory effect of the allegation. In this scenario the, later, disputed allegation has no defamatory effect: the BCA's reputation would have already been trashed by the accepted allegation.

Simon would appear to be varyingly liable dependent on the order in which he made the allegations. But this is clearly unjust. The damage to the BCA’s reputation does not similarly vary dependent on the order in which the allegations are made: the link between the damage Simon does and his liability is broken.

Suggestion 4: The court should break allegations apart. The grounds for making the allegation that the defendant need show should be set on the basis of the marginal defamatory impact of the particular part considered.

(In the BCA case, the court might have been unlikely to consider the marginal defamation of the disputed allegation to be nil. However the court may well have decided that the marginal defamation was not very much and, thus, that Simon had to show very liitle reason to make the allegation.)

In Defence of Hume’s Guillotine

2010-04-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

It may, of course, be a false memory but I remember one clear sign that the last Conservative government had “lost it”. Minister after minister would be interviewed on television and repeat the mantra that they needed to better explain their policies. They saw growing opposition not as a sign that they should re-think their policies but that their policies were sound and anyone would support them if they were just communicated correctly. The idea that they were simply wrong never seemed to occur to them.

Sam Harris gave an eighteen minute “TED” talk entitled “Science can answer moral questions” and ran into some pretty forthright opposition. Much of this opposition Harris seemed to lay at the difficulty in properly explaining himself in the time available:

“18 minutes is not a lot of time in which to present a detailed argument” (Harris, 2010)

Listening to the talk I saw little that extra detail would add. My opposition, and the opposition of others, was guaranteed by the title. We subscribe to Hume’s Guillotine, the old maxim that you cannot derive an ought statement from an is statement. Harris mentioned the Guillotine in the opening minutes of the speech

“it’s often thought that there is no description of the way the world is that can tell us how the world out to be”.

Absent some pretty clear and interesting arguments that Hume’s Guillotine was wrong (and there were none such in the talk) it is clear that any moral system based on deriving ought from is would be wrong. No amount of explanation, no more clarity, would add to that. Harris had not fallen foul of a time limit but of a basic logical error. I am a little jealous of the pithy way Sean Carroll put it:

“Attempts to derive ought from is are like attempts to reach an odd number by adding together even numbers. If someone claims that they’ve done it, you don’t have to check their math; you know that they’ve made a mistake. (Carroll, 2010)”

Harris is of the opinion that not only is Hume’s Guillotine “clearly wrong” (the talk) but that there is something wrong in holding to it:

“Many of my critics piously cite Hume’s is/ought distinction as though it were well known to be the last word on the subject of morality until the end of time. Indeed, Carroll appears to think that Hume’s lazy analysis of facts and values is so compelling that he elevates it to the status of mathematical truth”

To be fair to Harris many people adopt Hume’s Guillotine unargued for. It is time that we examined the Guillotine, which I shall do below. We will not find it to be a “mathematical truth”, but will see that it is a logical one.

The claim made by Hume’s Guillotine

“In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.”
(Hume, 1739)

The key claim is that some reason should be given for the introduction of an ought statement, a reason that cannot be given by however long a chain of is statements. It is not the claim that there are no moral facts, it is the claim that if there are moral facts then these do not derive from non-moral facts. It is not the claim that part of a moral argument cannot be formed of non-moral facts, that is statements cannot help in our formulation of ought statements. It is the claim that if we conclude “ought…” then we must have “ought…” somewhere in our premises: that there is a reason for “ought” and that is another “ought”.

The form of arguments

(By “arguments” I do not mean some disagreement or row. For “argument” I adopt the Monty Python definition: “a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition”)

All arguments can be represented in the following form:

1. Premises
2. Conclusion

Arguments are generally split into deductive and inductive arguments with deductive arguments thought to be conclusive, whilst inductive arguments non-conclusive.

A deductive argument is one where, if the premises are accepted, the conclusion cannot be denied without contradiction. The old example is:

1. (Premise) All men are mortal
2. (Premise) Socrates is a man
3. (Conclusion) Socrates is mortal

If one were to deny Socrates’ mortality then, to maintain consistency, one would either have to deny than Socrates was a man (and thus deny the second premise) or claim the existence of at least one non-mortal man (and thus deny the first premise).

Non-conclusive arguments are termed inductive. The premises are held to be indicative of the conclusion, lend some support to the conclusion, make the conclusion more likely or whatever but the conclusion can still be denied without contradiction. Whilst we may conclude that “all ravens are black” because all the many hitherto seen ravens have been black there is no contradiction in believing that purple ravens may exist somewhere, have existed or will come to exist.

How conclusive arguments work

In the Socrates example we begin with a generalisation: “all men are mortal”. This statement has consequences, lots of them. It means that Plato is mortal, Aristotle is mortal, Cratylus and Xenophanes are mortal. It means that anything of which we can say “is a man” is mortal.

The second premise, “Socrates is a man”, picks out just one of those consequences. We could have picked out any of the other consequences, that about Plato or Aristotle or any of the others. The key issue is that we would be picking out a consequence of “all men are mortal”, a consequence that (to be picked out) must already be there. Before we make the specific statement that Socrates is mortal we have already said it in general.

Kant calls this picking out of consequence that is already there “analytic”:

“(I)f I say: “All bodies are extended,” then this is an analytic judgement. For I do not need to go outside the concept that I combine with the word “body” in order to find that extension is connected with it” (Kant, 1998, p. 130)

The conclusion to a conclusive argument contains no more than is contained in the premises of the argument.

Conclusiveness

Now all arguments on which we rely are, in a certain way, conclusive. That “certain way” is that we conclude. As a consequence, in principle, a logically conclusive argument can be reconstructed for any accepted proposition.

It is important not to confuse “conclusive” with “shown to be true”. If we conclude incorrectly then we still conclude and there are still reasons why we conclude how we did. “Conclusive” should not even be confused with “rational” or “reasonable”. If we come to an entirely unreasonable conclusion we do so because, well, we are being entirely unreasonable. We still have reasons why we conclude as we do even if they are not thought to be particularly good reasons.

If, for example, I conclude that “the pixies are after me” you might think me insane. “Insane” would be a reason put forward to explain my, otherwise odd, conclusion. Only insane people think that pixies are “after them” when everything else is normal and, given a few ancillary facts, certain types of insanity will lead one to believe in malevolent pixies. Here is the argument:

1. Pixie-type insanity
2. Ancillary facts
3. (Conclusion) The pixies are after me

The “pixie-type insanity” I have imagined above has as part of its consequences a range of situations where the sufferer (me) would become convinced that pixies were after him. The ancillary facts pick out one of those situations: situations that, as with individual mortal men, are already there. We need not go “outside the concept” of “pixie-type insanity” to find the conclusion.

On non-insanity inspired arguments, Kant expands his “containing” concept:

“in synthetic judgements I must have in addition to the concept of the subject something else (X) on which the understanding depends…(i)n the case of empirical judgements of experience there is no difficulty here. For this X is the complete experience of the object that I think through some concept A.(Kant, 1998, p. 131)”

When saying something about the world (“synthetic judgements”) requires us to go “outside” the concepts we hold. The concepts we hold do not “contain” descriptions of the world. To remain conclusive the arguments we put forward must have something about the world (the “X”) added to our premises. It is the fact that, from Hume’s arguments against induction, this X is contains more than we can possibly derive from empirical data that motivates the entire Critique of Pure Reason: where do the extra premises come from?

Whether or not Kant is successful in overcoming “Hume’s problem” (of induction) or, indeed whether Hume’ arguments against induction are sound, we can see the problem behind the critique: what reasons do we have for concluding on the basis of seemingly inconclusive arguments. How do we make the arguments conclusive?

The same issue faces us with “all ravens are black”. The evidence we have is not conclusive, it is compatible with a number of different propositions. Yet we do conclude. Somewhere, buried in our heads, must be another principle which, together with the arguments we put forward, entails “all ravens are black”.

Back to Hume’s Guillotine

If:

1. All arguments are conclusive
2. The conclusion of a conclusive argument is “contained” in its premises
then
3. A conclusion that expresses a “should” has a premise that expresses a “should”

---Edit---12th April 2010

Dave Lull has sent me a number of links to another blogger's detailed examination of the is/ought distinction in Hume:

Reading Hume on Ought and Is
http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2005/11/reading-hume-on-ought-and-is.html

On Ought and Is, II
http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-ought-and-is-ii.html

Hume on Ought and Is, Part I: Background
http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2009/09/hume-on-ought-and-is-part-i-background.html

Hume on Ought and Is, Part II: The Argument
http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2009/09/hume-on-ought-and-is-part-ii-argument.html

Hume on Ought and Is, Part III:
Conclusions
http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2009/09/hume-on-ought-and-is-part-iii.html

Is-Ought Muddles
http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2010/01/is-ought-muddles.html

Blackford and Is/Ought
http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2010/04/blackford-and-isought.html

Works Cited
Carroll, S. (2010, 03 24). The Moral Equivalent of the Parallel Postulate. Retrieved 04 05, 2010, from Discover: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/03/24/the-moral-equivalent-of-the-parallel-postulate/
Harris, S. (2010, March 29). Moral confusion in the name of science. Retrieved April 5, 2010, from Project Reason: http://www.project-reason.org/newsfeed/item/moral_confusion_in_the_name_of_science3/
Hume, D. (1739). A Treatise of Human Nature. London: John Noon.
Kant, I. (. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Do I have evidence that Chiropractic is the cause of AIDS?

2010-03-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post I argued that the unit of evaluation/quantification of evidence is “all”. Now I turn my attention to its classification as evidence.

In the appeal the BCA's lawyer, Ms. Rogers, said:

(I)f Dr Singh had said "There is no reliable evidence", that is again a very different matter. Of course he could have said "There is no evidence that I think is reliable", but let us go a step further: that there is no reliable evidence. Again, it is very doubtful whether we would be here at all, because it would then be apparent -- if it had said "There is no reliable evidence", "The evidence is not good enough", or "There is no sufficient evidence", or something of that kind -- that that would be the kind of proposition which manifestly signals to the reader that we are in the land of debate and we are in the land of opinion. But, contrary, if we are into the land of "There is nothing". That is what "not a jot" means. It is not a figure of speech: "There is nothing".

From Jack of Kent's blog, Jack got it from Marten Walsh Cherer Ltd.

Ms. Rogers is here drawing a distinction between evaluating evidence and classifying something as evidence. Classifying evidence determines whether or not it is evidence, evaluating evidence grades it once its existence has been established. The distinction is usually cogent. I might give Liverpool FC, mash potato and lager an extremely poor evaluation. This would be a judgement on my part. They would still though have a classification. Liverpool FC are a football team, mashed potato is food and lager is a drink. This is a cold, hard, fact. So Ms. Rogers here puts forward the arguement that even if Simon Singh has given evidence for Chiropratic as an effective treatment for colic, asthma etc. a very low evaluation it is still evidence. Judge it as he may it is simply a fact that the evidence exists. In a way the bad evaluation ensures the classification: surely, it can’t be unreliable evidence unless it is evidence?

Well there is a way. What is a football team, what is food and what is drink? A football team is a team that plays football. Food is a substance that nourishes. Drink is something that can be drunk. You cannot have a football team that does not play football, food that does not nourish and drink that cannot be drunk. You can have a football team that rarely plays football, food that has little nourishment and drink that we call ”undrinkable”. You can’t have non-playing-football-teams, non-nourishing-food and actually-undrinkable drink. If evidence were "stuff that you rely on" then "reliable evidence" would be akin to "nourishing food". "Unreliable evidence" could not be classed as evidence.

Ms. Rogers position on “unreliable evidence” appears to be akin to “horrible food”. Being reliable is a lot like being tasty. Its very important to be reliable/tasty and the more tasty/reliable it is the better. But even if it fails to be reliable/tasty it still is evidence/food even if it may be quite appalling evidence/food.

The question is invited: if "evidence" is not "stuff that you rely on" then what is it? I think that anything other than reliability would either:

1. Establish that I had evidence for "Chiropractic is the cause of AIDS" (or could "knock it up" pretty quick) or
2. Remove the classification of "evidence" from most of what we do claim to be evidence.

This is because every facet of evidence that is universal across evidence, other than relaibility, I can get for "Chiropractic causes AIDS". Pick one and I can get it. Pick one I can't get and there are other things that are clearly evidence that do not have it.

Evidence is claimed to support. I can claim that a pint of beer is evidence that Chiropractic causes AIDS. Evidence is believed to support. I can't believe the beer is evidence, but I may be able to find someone suffering from a mental illness who could. Evidence is the fulfilment of a prediction of a theory. "Chiropractic is the cause of AIDS" predicts that AIDS would have arisen after Chiroractic. AIDS did arise after Chiropractic. Pathetic evidence but, if evidence is the fulfilment of a prediction it is evidence. (If you want to play about with the Raven Paradox you can generate as many fulfilled predictions as you like).

Now I won't get my theory published in Pub Med, I won't get my theory published in any respected journal: but every criminal now in prison was convicted on the basis of "evidence" that never saw journal publication. Of course all that evidence in court was at least reviewed. But it was evidence before it was reviewed, and I can surely get people to review my evidence (nb it doesn't have to be favourably reviewed, the BCA's evidence certainly wasn't.) And on it goes. Food is used to nourish you, and so that is what it is. Evidence is used to help conclude epistemological decisions, to rely on in deciding what to accept, and so that is what it is.

So there we have Ms. Rogers' problem. She wants to split the factual question of whether there exists evidence or not from the judgement of whether that evidence is any good but it is the judgement of the reliability of evidence that establishes (or otherwise) the fact of it being evidence.

As I argued earlier that judgement must be on the totality of the evidence. A reasonable judgement on that evidence is that it is totally unreliable. Anyone making that judgement is forced to assent to the factual assertion that it is not evidence.

(As a little aside consider further what is being said by Ms. Rogers on behalf of the BCA: “it is very doubtful whether we would be here at all”. It’s not clear where “here” is. If it’s “in the court of appeal” then I don’t think the statement can be right. The appeal was, in part, about “bogus” and “happily”. Clearing up “not a jot” would not have cleared up the “bogus” and “happily” questions. Does Ms. Rogers mean “in a case for libel” by “here”? If so then it’s an astonishing admission: that it would not have been libellous (or, at least, not worth suing) on the accusation that the BCA had knowingly promoted treatments with insufficient evidence, with evidence that was not good enough or, even, with absolutely no reliable evidence what-so-ever!)

What does “not a jot of evidence” mean?

2010-02-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

The “not a jot” comment in the BCA v Simon Singh libel case has re-reared it’s head now that it’s beginning to look like “bogus” and “happily” weren’t so libellous after all. What on earth is a “jot” of evidence anyway?

The philosopher John Watkins held that some people treated evidence as some sort of “juice”. These people treat evidence as a substance which you go about collecting and, as soon as you have enough, you have proved your point. Substances are easy to measure or, at least, easy to compare. We may not have a measuring jug handy to say that a has a gallon of x whereas b has only a pint but it’s pretty clear who has more. Substances also persist. You may only have a cupful but it is a cupful and will remain a cupful. If you have some evidence you may add to it to get lots of evidence but you will never go back to having no evidence at all. Finally substances are additive. If you have one pint of x and you add another pint of x then you have two pints of x.

Such an attitude is mistaken. Take ravens, as an example. It will be readily agreed that we have huge amounts of evidence for:

1. All ravens are black

Whilst we have no evidence for:

2. All ravens are male

Think about just exactly what that evidence is and, if we think in “juice” terms, we are bound to take it that we have a very good deal of evidence that, in fact, every single raven is male. Part of our evidence for ravens being a uniformly black species is that we have collectively seen huge numbers of ravens that are black. Let’s mentally take that evidence-juice and place it in the huge vat needed to accommodate it. Naturally with that much evidence we would have a pretty hard time denying that all ravens are black.

But we have also seen huge numbers of ravens that are male. In fact approximately half of all the huge numbers of ravens seen have been male. Mentally take that evidence-juice and place it in the huge vat next to the ravens-are-black vat. The juice will reach a level half that of the other vat. We could argue about whether it was enough, whether it had reached the level of “iffy” or “proven” or “certain”. We could not argue that it was nothing: which, of course it is.

The thing missed in this analysis is that sightings of black ravens on their own is no evidence at all for concluding that all ravens are black. Sightings of black ravens and no sighting of ravens of any other colour is. We could preserve the juice/substance by considering sightings of ravens of any other colour as a sort of “anti-juice”. If you see a black raven then you get a whisky measure of evidence-juice. If you see a raven of another colour then you get a whisky measure of anti-evidence-juice. The more black ravens predominate over other colours the more net-evidence-juice we have. At a cost of giving up persistence we save the juice concept of evidence.

This would work for “all ravens are male”. Each male raven seen would contribute a measure of evidence-juice, each female raven seen a measure of anti-evidence-juice. As half the ravens seen would be female the sum total of evidence would be zero.

It wouldn’t work for “all swans are white”. The existence of black swans does not reduce the amount of positive evidence for “all swans are white” but (no matter how few of them there are) is fatal for the hypothesis. Negative evidence in other areas is not so powerful: the odd bad game played by Everton reduces the evidence for, but is not fatal to, “Everton are the greatest team on earth”. It seems that we have to give up the idea of a nice, neat, additive nature of evidence.

Bayesian analysis seeks to replace a nice, neat, but unworkable, additive concept of evidence with a calculus of belief. If I test positive for disease a (Bayesians like to talk about diseases) then my degree of belief in “I have disease a” should increase. How much depends on how likely I am to test positive if I have the disease, how likely I am to test positive if I don’t have the disease and just how likely I am to have the disease (ignoring any evidence). But here we’ve gone another stage on: we have given up quantifying evidence and are now quantifying belief.

Yet we do speak of an “amount” of evidence. The evidence for “all ravens are black” is “huge”, the evidence for “all ravens are male” is “not a jot”. This is simply loose, colloquial, talk. It is not the evidence that is quantifiable (or, at least, rankable) but belief. The total evidence we have informs belief and, taking the degree of belief caused, we use this quantity to label all the evidence. The totality of evidence for “all ravens are black” is such that no reasonable person would doubt that all ravens are black. We are really sure that all ravens are black and, thus, label the totality of evidence that got us there “huge”. No reasonable and informed person thinks all ravens are male. Our degree of belief in “all ravens are male” is zero and so we use this to quantify the totality of evidence for “all ravens are male”. This is “zero”, despite the fact that there is substantially more than a plethora of male ravens.

So when someone says, for example, that there is “not a jot” of evidence for chiropractic as a remedy for asthma it does not mean that no trial has ever seen anything even vaguely compatible with chiropractic. What is meant is that, given the evidence, a reasonable and informed person would have “not a jot” of belief that chiropractic is a remedy for asthma.

Sceptical Absolutism

2009-12-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

A raw first draft of some thought on scepticism, a belief in an absolute objective truth and relativism. The use of logical notation is only partly so I can fuel fantasies about being a theoretical physicist, it's also because a lack of skill in writing prevents me from rendering somethings in halfway decent English.

Whilst the absolutist and relativist agree that “the world is everything that is the case”i they disagree on what they take to be “the case”. They will, naturally, often agree on specifics. Both the relativist and the absolutist are likely to hold the same opinion on the correctness of an uncontroversial statement such as “there is a blue Everton shirt in front of Eve” (call this statement “s”). Their disagreement is more abstract: over what it means for something to be “the case”, what causes it to be so, what makes s true.

Absolutism

The absolutist holds that what is the case simply is the case, utterly independent of the observer. There either is a blue Everton shirt in front of Eve or there is not. s is true just in those cases where there is a blue Everton shirt in front of Eve and false just in those cases where there is not a blue Everton shirt in front of Eve.

s entails a number of other putative facts, that there is an object that absorbs red light in front of Eve, that the object is made of cloth, that the object has a definable badge with Everton's motto “nil satis nisi optimum” and so on. Other statements, not identical to s, may have the same entailments. These same entailments may be expressed in a different language, may be expressed by speech or text, will expressed differently even if spoken in the same language in a strong Liverpool accent as opposed to in received pronunciation. “Il y a un maillot Everton en face d'Eve” and “there is a blue Everton shirt in front Eve” both entail that there is an object that absorbs red light, that the object is made of cloth and so on. Although they are different statements it can be said that they express the same proposition, from here on referred to as p.

Any two series of statements that purport to be a complete description of what is the case will either express the same or differing propositions. If the series express the same proposition then all statements that the series entail will express the same propositions. A complete description of reality in French will, if it contains the statement “il y a un maillot blue Everton en face d' Eve” entail that there is an object that absorbs red light. A complete description of reality in English will, if it contains the statement “there is a blue Everton shirt in front of Eve”, also entail that there is an object that absorbs red light. Now there either is, or is not, at a specific time and place an object that absorbs red light. If our series of statements in French is true it will correspond to that state of affairs: affirming it if it is the case, denying it if it is not the case. If both our French and our English series of statements are to be true then they must both entail the same proposition about the presence of red light absorbing objects. If they are true, and complete, descriptions of what is the case then for each aspect of what is the case they must agree with each other as well as correspond to what is the case. If they are both true they must express the same set of propositions, what is the case corresponds to just the one set of propositions: there is only one totally of what is the case. There is just the one world.

Relativism

Most relativists think this is all hopelessly vague, often circular and ultimately unproductive. The proposition seems particularly vague. A “proposition” seems to be, more or less, what a statement is if you remove all the language: and that sounds like silence. It we wish to give the concept some content we have to talk in term of what is the case rather than our method of talking about it. This makes the concept of truth sound circular, propositions are the “what is the case” about a statement that statement being true if “what is the case” corresponds to what is the case. Whether circular or not it is unproductive, to operate the concept in our lives we cannot leave the world and truth as ineffable mysteries. We need true statements and knowledge of hard facts and that necessitates that whatever is the case is determined.

This determination necessitates a framework; an “ideology”, “paradigm”, “discourse”, “world view”, “set of presuppositions” and the like. Frameworks vary, producing differing determinations of what is the case and there is no framework independent method of determining which framework is “correct”. A determination of what is the case is, thus, relative to the framework that determined that it is the case. Whilst a statement can be correct just in so far as it corresponds to what is the case it makes little sense to talk of a statement being correct per se. Eve's statement s is right relative to Eve's framework just in case Eve's framework determines that there is a blue Everton shirt in front of her and wrong just in case Eve's framework does not determine that there is a blue Everton shirt in front of her. (For ease of distinction in this paper the terms “true” and “false” will be used to denote objective truth and falsehood, the terms “right” or “wrong” will be reserved for correspondence with relatively determined facts.)

Assume a situation, call it “situation1” where we would assent to s. We would assent to s because s emanates from a framework that uses the concepts of “Everton”, “shirt” and “blue”. Football clubs are a cultural construct as is the concept of “shirt”. The idea of a football club specific shirt is another cultural gift, allowing some shirts to win first prize in the lottery of shirt-dom and be Everton shirts. The blue arises as result of the human eye and brain which compartmentalises the smooth variations in wavelengths of light into distinct colours.

And none of this need be so. Were we in the early 19th century, if we had a 19th century framework, then “football” would denote a very different activity than it does today. We have to wait until 1878 before there is an Everton Football Club for the shirt to pertain to, whilst still earlier frameworks would fail to recognise a shirt. Other cultures extant today, despite the march of globalisation, would not recognise a shirt, or football, or Everton. The French “il y a un maillot blue en face d'Eve” is not entirely commensurate with the English. The French use the word “maillot” for an item of sportswear, whereas “shirt” covers both sportswear and everyday clothing. You can wear a shirt to work but not a maillot. The blueness of the shirt arises, if we accept what we are told, because it absorbs most of the visible spectrum of light reflecting only the portion we call “blue”. Were the shirt to reflect both the blue and green portions it would not be both blue and green but yellow. Now humans only see a small range of wavelengths of light, insects see more: they see ultra-violet. Where an object absorbs all light except for ultra-violet an insect will see an ultra-violet object and a human a black object. If the putative Everton shirt reflected back both blue and ultra-violet the insect would see a different colour that, because we have never seen it, we have no name for. Remaining within the bounds of human frameworks we may use Goodman's terms of grue and bleen to describe the shirt. A shirt is grue if, when examined before time t, it is green and blue if unexamined. A bleen shirt is one that is blue if examined before time t and green if unexamined.ii Or we may be speakers of one of those human languages that do no have a term that corresponds to blue. s can only be right within a very particular framework, one which there is no objective justification for privileging.

Frameworks vary, producing differing determinations of what is the case. A judgement between frameworks itself dependent on a framework. As a result although framework-f may be judged the absolute business within framework-f, outside of any framework it cannot be judged more (or less) valid than any other. The necessity of frameworks renders all frameworks equally valid.

This much, the doctrine of equal validity, is a common factor in relativism. The next step brings a divergence. Some insist that a framework is not just necessary but sufficient for establishing what is the case, the doctrine that frameworks are “equally valid and valid”. The view manifests itself in popular discourse with such ideas that there are “different ways of knowing the world”: the differing ways result in knowledge of what is the case. As they are differing ways they result in differing worlds.

An alternative take is to deny that a framework is ever sufficient. Any determination of what is the case must transcend a framework which, as the framework is necessary, is an impossibility. We are left with various “discourses” that we tale part in all with little, or no, relation to anything that might be said to be “the case”.

To bring the strands of relativism together and for ease of distinction from absolutism, the terms “true” and “false” will be used to denote objective truth and falsehood, the terms “right” or “wrong” will be reserved for correspondence with relatively determined facts.iii

Partial Refutation of Relativism

Whilst it is entirely correct that nothing that is the case can be determined it is incorrect that nothing can be determined about what is the case.

Take a situation (call this “situation2”) where the putative blue Everton shirt in front of Eve is replaced with something it would be right to call a red pair of Liverpool shorts. s has now become wrong. It becomes wrong independent of any framework: our conclusion changes, but our framework has not. We have not changed culture, developed new cognitive apparatus or undergone a sudden conversion experience. The world has changed and with it our conclusion about the world.

Neither does a person with an alternative framework, one which fails to support s when we maintain it, fail to reject s when we reject it. The framework is a necessary condition of s being right. If s is right then our framework, or the relevant part of it, holds for the observer. If our framework fails to hold for Trevor then s is not right for Trevor whether or not somebody is waving a pair of Liverpool shorts in his face. Nor does our framework need to support s being wrong. If we is presented with black Manchester United shorts, green Norwich City socks or a pint of Real Ale then s is wrong. It is not necessary to establish what it is that is in front of Eve, just that it is not a blue Everton shirt. It is not what is the case that makes s wrong but what is not the case.

Resisting the temptation to describe what is the case, a description that depends on a framework and is subject to relativist objections, we can designate what fails to be the case as a. We can accept that we have no idea what a is and accept that we have no idea what is the case in situation2. We must also accept both that a is a consequence of s ( s→a)iv and that a does not obtain, independent of any framework (¬a). Thus s is not just wrong, it is false. In situation2 a does not obtain, but it is entailed by s. If s were true then a would obtain, a does not obtain, thus s is false.

We can now make the confusing sentence that began this section clear. “Nothing that is the case can be determined”: we cannot say what is the case. “Incorrect that nothing can be determined about what is the case”: we can often say some of what is not the case.

If there where no objective states of affairs to which propositions may correspond no statement could be refuted solely on manipulation of what is the case. Statements can be refuted solely on manipulation of what is the case, thus there is an objective state of affairs to which propositions may correspond.

Sceptical Truth-schema
Resisting the temptation to describe what is the case, a description that depends on a framework and is subject to relativist objections, we can designate what fails to be the case as a. We can accept that we have no idea what a is and accept that we have no idea what is the case in situation2. We must also accept both that a is a consequence of s ( s→a) and that a does not obtain, independent of any framework (¬a). Thus s is not just wrong, it is false. In situation2 a does not obtain, but it is entailed by s. If s were true then a would obtain, a does not obtain, thus s is false.

Of course a is just one of a whole host of consequences of s, any one of which is sufficient to render s false. If there exists any x such that s entails x and x is false then s is false:

1.∃x [(s→x) & ¬x] → ¬s
(if there exists an x which is entailed by s and that x is false then s is false)

Now if there is an x entailed by s that is capable of being true or false then it is either true or false and thus everything entailed by s that is capable of being true or false is either true or false. If everything entailed by s were true then s would be true. To be false s must make a false claim. The falsity of s entails that there will be something false entailed by s:

2.¬s → ∃x [(s→x) & ¬x]
(if s is false then there will exist an x entailed by s that is false)

This is equivalent to:

3.∃x [(s→x)] & ¬∃x [(s→x) & ¬x] → sv
(if there exists an x, such that x is entailed by s and there exists no x such that s is is entailed by x and is false then s is true)

For good measure “3.” is equivalent to:

4.s → ¬∃x [(s→x) & ¬x]
(if s is true then there does not exist an x such that x is entailed by s and x is false)

Which combines with “3.” to give:

5.s ↔ ∃x [(s→x)] & ¬∃x [(s→x) & ¬x]
(s is true if and only if there exists an x, such that x is entailed by s and there exists no x such that s is is entailed by x and is false)

The schema holds that entailment combined with an absence of false entailments is both necessary and sufficient for the truth of a statement. The combination of necessity and sufficiency negates both the necessity of a framework and the sufficiency of a framework.

We are not entitled to conclude from the premise that a statement either entails nothing or entails something that is false that the statement is not correctly made from within a framework. There are plenty of examples of statements made perfectly in accordance with an epistemology, all the relevant data, in accordance with a preferred ideology that have predicted events that did not come to pass. A framework is not sufficient.

As for the necessity, the schema defines a logical relation between a statement and the world it purports to describe. A framework may be contingently necessary for a statement to entail, but it is not a logical necessity. Neither, as we have seen above, is a framework necessary for statement to fail to conflict with reality. Where there is contingency in failing to conflict it is a contingency of the world rather than the statement.
be false.

It has to be said, however, that the contingent need for a framework almost universally obtains. The relativist arguments against the absolutist hold for all actual statements made about the world. We cannot say anything true about the world if we use a framework, we cannot say anything about the world without a framework. It follows that we cannot say anything true about the world.

A Bayesian Argument Against Induction

2009-06-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

Have I gone mad? Taking a favoured tool of those who accept induction to argue against them? I don’t believe I have gone mad, this is quite calmly considered. I am well aware, however, that I am writing using something (maths) I do not have a full grasp of. This may not be madness but it is fertile ground for internet crankness. Internet cranks start off making simple, basic, errors in areas they do not fully understand and, on the basis of these errors, leap to wild conclusions. Now I haven’t quite gone for other aspects of internet crankery, branding anyone who disagrees with me as part of a conspiracy or cackling madly. But I am worried that what follows contains a really basic error. If it does I would be very grateful to anyone who pointed it out to me.

Induction and Abduction

Take a number of hypotheses that make a prediction, one way or another, about a piece of evidence “E”:

1. H1, H2, H3 and H4 which have been formulated and
2. A number of hypotheses H5 to HN which haven’t been formulated yet, for brevity let’s call all these “HU”

Before anything, evidence, abduction or induction we allocate a range of probabilities over these hypotheses.

1. We may firmly believe H1: “H1 is true”.
2. We may spread the probability over the four formulated hypotheses: “Either H1, H2, H3 or H4 are true” or
3. we may decide that we should include the unfortmulated propostions: “either H1, H2, H3, H4 or HU is true”.

Whatever distribution of probabilities we decide on the sum of all these is not dependent on that distribution. If we reject a hypothesis we reduce the probability, we assign it to zero. To keep the sum of probabilities stable we must increase the probability assigned to the remaining hypotheses. Without a principle, inductive evidence or prejudice to guide us we are free to distribute this increase in probability how we wish over the non-rejected propositions. That is to say that no particular proposition is singled out as being more likely to be true. All that we are forced to is a conjunction of the hypotheses left. This is abduction and is deductive:

1. Either H1, H2, H3 or H4
2. It’s not H3
3. Thus either H1, H2 or H4

is perfectly valid.

Induction, however, confirms a proposition. It does pick out a specific hypothesis and make that hypothesis more likely. If we have evidence for, say, H2 then we must increase the probability we assign to H2. If we have evidence against H3 then we could redistirubute all that probability to H1 (say we started off believing "it's either H1 or H3" and falsified H3, we'd then believe "it's definitely H1"). If we have evidence that is solely supportive of H2 then we would have to increase the probability we assign to E2 alone.

Induction, evidence for, picks out a hypothesis, or group of hypotheses, and increases the likelihood we should attach to them. How we spread the necessary reduction in other probabilities is up to us. Abduction, evidence against, picks out a hypothesis or group of hypotheses and decreases the likelihood we should attach to them. How we spread the necessary increase in other probabilities is up to us.

What I hope to show is that any movement in the probability assigned to a hypothesis is either abductive or unrelated to the evidence. If I show this I will consider that I have shown that induction does not exist.

Bayes Theorem

To show this I am using the arguments of those who believe in induction against them. There current favourite tool is Bayes’ Theorem which states:

P(H¦E) = P(E¦H) P(H) / P(E)

Where:

P(H¦E) = The probability of a hypothesis ,“H”, given an item of evidence “E”

P(E¦H) = The probability of the evidence given the hypothesis

P(H) = The probability of the hypothesis before considering the item of evidence (the “prior probability”)

P(E) = the probability of the evidence arising (without direct reference to the hypothesis)

(For an explanation of Bayes’ theorem that even I can understand (after two or three readings) go to Eleizer Yudkowsky’s )

Competing Predicitions

Return to the example list of hypotheses above and lets say that H1 and H2 predict E whilst H3 and H4 predict not-E. Not having formulated HU we can’t tell whether those hypotheses predict or forbid E.

We then see E.

This, naturally, should make us downgrade our belief in H3 and H4. It follows that we should increase the level of probability assigned to “H1, H2 and HU” but says nothing about how we should now distribute that probability across these hypotheses. So far, so abductive. This is because we have just considered the negative effect on H3 and H4 and not the positive, inductive, support that E gives any one of H1, H2 or HU.

Equal Predictions

How does E inductively effect, say, H1? It’s no good showing that the probability of H1 after the evidence, P(H1¦E), is greater than the probability of H1 before the evidence, P(H1). We know that already by abduction. To show inductive support we need to show that the P(H1¦E) is greater than the probability of another unfalsified propostion, say H2. We need to show that P(H1¦E) > than P(H2¦E) or, from Bayes’ Theorem:

P(E¦H1) P(H1) / P(E) > P(E¦H2) P(H2) / P(E)

P(E) is on both sides, so we can cancel it out:

P(E¦H1) P(H1) > P(E¦H2) P(H2)

In this part of the argument I am assuming that both equally predict the evidence, thus P(E¦H1) = P(E¦H2) and they can be cancelled out:

P(H1) > P(H2)

So our comparison of posterior probabilities depends upon the prior probabilities. How could they be different? If it is absolutely nothing to do with prior evidence then on the evidence P(H1) = P(H2) and thus P(H1¦E) = P(H2¦E). So any evidential support of E for H1 over and above H2 depends on prior evidential support for H1 over H2. This can’t be abductive, because this will increase the probability of H1 and H2 without favouring either. So the effect of the prior evidence on the prior probabilities depend on the prior-prior probabilities going into that particular calculation. The regress will go back with differentials of prior probabilities depending on previous prior probabilities until we get back to before any evidence whatsoever. If, and only if, a differential here depends on evidence will any of the later differentials in prior probabilities depend on evidence. Of course a differential that depends on evidence arising before evidence is an absurdity. Thus, where hypotheses predict evidence with equal probability any support beyond that given by abduction, is not from evidence but merely the reinforcement of non-evidential belief.

Unequal Predictions

If on the evidence P(H1) = P(H2) then P(E¦H1) > P(E¦H2) will result in P(H1¦E) > P(H2¦E).

However any hypothesis that predicts evidence with probability of less than 1 can be readily converted to a hypothesis that gives a definite prediction by adding a hypothesis about the probability predictions. If H2 predicts E will occur one in two times then the following formulations of H2* will predict that E will occur all the time:

H2* : H2 and “whatever combines with H2 to produce E” or

H2* : H2 and “it just happens to be one of those times when H2 does produce E”

For more ease let’s call the phrases in inverted commas “W” (“whatever”). H2* becomes “H2 and W1”.

The same argument can be applied to H1, to create H1* (or “H1 and W1”) which makes a definite prediction of E. If we do that then, from the analysis of hypotheses that predict the evidence with equal certainty, we know that evidence cannot favour one over the other. So there cannot be any evidential support of H1* over H2*. Can we assess the evidential support of H1 and H2 without the additional factor?

No. Because, given E, “H2 and not-W2” is falsified. Thus “H2 and W”, or H* is the only “live” hypothesis. The same argument applies to “H1 and W1”. This gets us back to the equality (on the evidence) of prior probabilities and no variation (on the evidence) of posterior possibilities. Thus evidence fails to favour one hypothesis over any other non-falsified hypothesis. Induction does not exist.

Plantinga, Defeaters and Reasonable Belief

2009-02-27T15:22:00.000-08:00

I have been mulling over this particular issue for a long time and, as it popped up on Stephen Law's blog, I decided to get my thoughts down.

Alvin Plantinga's argument from evolution against naturalism is an ingenious and controversial argument. Plantings argues that evolution without the intervention of a supernatural being makes our beliefs very unlikely to have been reliably formed. One of those beliefs would be evolution without the intervention of a supernatural being. Evolutionary naturalism is therefore "self defeating". Do panic at the word "evolution", the argument is not some idiot creationist nonsense. It is very well formed, very well argued and examining it brings interesting insights into defeaters and what is means to have a rational belief. "Undercutting" defeaters are themselves self-defeating.

A brief summary of the argument
The argument starts with pointing out that if there was no intervention from a supernatural being in the evolution of man then we are entirely reliant on the operations of evolution for the production of reliable belief-forming mechanisms, reliable cognitive processes. Plantinga then questions whether evolution gives two hoots about our cognitive processes. If we behave right then we will be evolutionarily successful, whether or not we believe right. If I have sex (behaviour) then it advantages my genes whether I believe I am having sex, cleaning the windows, praying, drinking beer or whatever. Now, unless we can show direct causation of behaviour by belief (such that I can only have sex if I believe I'm having sex) we are stuck without a selection mechanism for belief. As there are very, very many false beliefs that are possible for any situation and only the one true one the chance of us having a true belief is small. Thus naturalism and evolution should lead us to believe that our cognitive processes are not reliably formed. As this covers all beliefs we form on the basis of those cognitive processes it covers evolutionary naturalism. Evolutionary naturalism confounds the reliability of its own formulation’. Evolutionary naturalism cannot have been reliably formed, it has a "defeater".

Undercutting Defeaters
Take a subject S who believes in naturalism, N, for reasons Rn (perhaps “the arguments on Stephen Law's blog”). She also believes in evolution, E, for entirely independent reasons Re (perhaps “the arguments in 'The Blind Watchmaker'”).

Now, Plantinga's “defeater” is “undercutting”, it does not suggest that either N or E is false. Nor does it suggest that “N and E” is inconsistent. The defeater acts on the reasons for accepting N and E, Rn and Re. Not that the defeater suggests that these are false, rather that there is no good reason to suppose that are true.

Are these good reasons necessary? Allowing good reasons as necessary for Plantinga's conception of knowledge together with Plantinga's anti-naturalist argument leads to the conclusion that neither Rn nor Re can be known and, by extension neither can “N and E”. But Plantinga's argument is not that “N and E” cannot be known (as an absolute sceptic I would have no issue with that conclusion) but that “N and E” is “unreasonable”. If good reasons are necessary for reasonable belief then, for S to be reasonable in disbelieving in either Rn or Re there would have to be good reasons for believing in their negations. Any arguments for the truth of their negations would be arguments for their falsity, which Plantinga has not given. (I am ignoring issues of agnosticism. This is partly because I have powerful intuitions that widespread enforced agnosticism would cause problems. But it is mostly because I haven't figured out how to handle the issues of agnosticism).

Thus Plantinga fails to support his case. But worse, Plantinga's insistence that S rejects “N and E” commits her to an irrational belief. Given that S reasonably believes Rn and Re she is not only reasonable in believing R and E she would be unreasonable if she accepted Plantingas call to reject R and E.

S believes:

1.Rn
2.Re

Plantinga offers no arguments against the entailment of naturalism and evolution by the reasons S has and they do, in fact, entail. Thus S also believes:

3.If Rn then N
4.If Re then E

From 1. and 3., by modus ponens, S is committed to believing:

5.N

and, from 2. and 4., by modus ponens, S is committed to believing:

6.E

Finally, from 5. and 6. by conjunction, S is committed to believing:

7.N and E
If S believes either not-N or not-E then she believes a contradiction.

We believe in probabilities, we do not believe in terms of probabilities

2009-02-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

In Warrant: the Current Debate1, Alvin Plantinga criticises Bayesian Coherentism. Bayesian Coherentism is a new fangled way of dealing with an old idea: that we should be consistent in the probabilities we apply to propositions and should act on those propositions in accordance with their probability.

As Plantinga points out Bayesian Coherentism does at least acknowledge that we have degrees of belief in propositions. Plantinga, for example, believes “that Banff is in Scotland, that there was such a thing as the American Civil War, that I am more than ten years old, and that 7 + 5 = 12; and I believe these in ascending order of firmness.”2 Whilst many epistemologies lack the means to deal with these distinctions, Bayesianism simply attaches probability statements to them and introduces a precise method coping with diverse probabilities: Bayes Theorem (for an explanantion of the theorem even I can understand, see Eliezer Yudkowsky's)

All this is to the good. To the bad are the difficulties in applying probability to everyday reasoning and the applicability of Bayesian arguments for coherence, usually in the form of gambling theory, to people who may not want to bet. Almost as a coupe de grace Plantinga pulls out the Paradox of the Preface to argue that, despite the Bayesian's protestations, it is rational to believe propositions with contradictory probabilities.

Plantinga goes further than is necessary, he need not argue that we can believe propositions with probabilities that are incoherent because...well...applying probabilities to propositions is bollocks.

Propositional and Empirical Probability

I can say that the probability of the next throw of a fair die coming up six is 1/6. Whilst it can be argued that this expresses a degree of belief that the next throw of a fair die will come up six, it doesn't express the degree of belief I hold in the proposition “the next throw of a fair die coming up six is 1/6”. To make it a little clearer and to remove the need for inverted commas, let's call “the next throw of a fair die coming up six is 1/6” by a name: “Ichabod”. Let's name a non-probabilistic statement, say “there is a pint of beer in front of me”, “Ahitub”. I am pretty confident that there is a pint of beer in front of me, but not entirely sure. There is a degree of belief I have in Ahitub, despite the proposition itself containing no probability statement. Using the language of probability it can be said that I believe Ahitub to X%. Applying the language of probability to Ichabod, it can be said that I believe Ichabod to Y%. The probabilistic elements of proposition, the 1/6 probability predicted of the die, are the “empirical probability”. The probabilistic terminology applied to the degree of belief in the propositions themselves is the “propositional probability”. Now, how big is Y%?

It appears that I can vary a propositional probability by varying the probabilistic element within a treatment. Whilst I only believe “there is a pint of beer in front of me” is probable, I believe “there is probably a pint of beer in front of me” completely. Actual numbers, given a few auxiliary assumptions, can be given in the case of dice. Let us take it that a die is a cube, it has six equal sides. A “fair” die is so constructed that no one side is favoured over another when thrown and that its edges are so constructed that, when thrown, it must show one side and one side only.

If we cast the propositions in terms of empirical certainty there are six possible propositions:

1.The die, on the next throw, will come down “one”
2.The die, on the next throw, will come down “two”
3....etc

one of which must be true. Thus the combined probability of one of the six propositions being true is 1. Given that the die is a “fair” die the distribution of that probability over the propositions will be even: each empirically certain proposition is believed 1/6.

Given our auxiliary assumptions, the empirical probabilities of the six possible outcomes are:

1.The probability of the next throw coming up “one” is 1/6
2.The probability of the next throw coming up “two” is 1/6
3....etc.

the combination of which must come to 1. Something will happen and, as our auxiliary assumptions limit that something to one of the six I must believe “the summation of the probabilities is 1” with certainty. Our assumptions also determine that no individual outcome is preferred: I must also believe the distribution of that probability with certainty.

We either believe the empirically certain proposition “the die, on the next throw, will come down “six”” with a propositional probability of 1/6 or believe the empirical probability statement “the probability of the next throw coming up “six” is 1/6” with propositional certainty. I leave it for someone who has the mathematical ability to show that this holds for all values of empirical and propositional probability but, at the limits, it is clear that:

Claim 1: Propositional probability of X with Empirical probability of Y
is equal to
Empirical probability of X with Propositional probability of Y

and

Claim 2: my propositional belief in Ichabod, described in terms of probability, is 100%

Unavoidable Propositional Uncertainty

So far, so good. However, let us consider another die. This die is supplied by 'Doc' Plantinga, a philosopher of international renown who has built up a lucrative sideline in scamming games of chance. This die is also a cube, it has six equal sides and is so constructed that when thrown, it must show one side and one side only. This die, however, is anything but a “fair” die. 'Doc' Plantinga has almost certainly loaded the die so that one side is favoured over the others when thrown. In predicting the likelihood of a particular number being thrown I must factor in the likelihood of that side being weighted for and the extent of the distortion (whether it biases the die to that number or guarantees that number).

Unfortunately, although I am pretty confident that 'Doc' has fixed the die I do not know in which direction. The same factor must be applied to the same original probability for each side and the result for all six sides must still add to 1. Thus the 'new' empirical probability is the same as the old: 1/6. From the two claims above it follows that my “propositional probability” for “the probability of 'Doc' Plantinga's die coming up six on the next throw” (call this proposition “Solomon”) is 100%.

Claim 3: Whatever 'degree of belief' I attach to a statement of empirical probability, the propositional probability of that statement is 100%

Whoever thought otherwise?

On reflection it is quite ridiculous to apply probabilities to our attitudes to propositions. Whilst we may estimate probabilities, our actions (both practical and intellectual) are binary: we either act as if we believe or we do not. We do not “probably” drink a pint of beer, nor do we press down really hard on the pencil if we particularly believe the proposition we are writing. All logics reduce to two value logic: that 1/6 chance either is, or isn't, 1/6 and it is either true or false to say of a variable in n-value logic that it stands at value n. Even in games of chance, deliberate exercises in allowing probabilistic judgements, we are rarely in a position to align our actions with our estimates of probabilities. We either bet on 'Dog's Dinner' in the 3:30 or do not, I am given one hand in poker and must either call, raise or fold.

So what is going on?

Our resort to probabilities results from their success elsewhere, the necessity of something to describe degrees of belief and the idea that probability is the only game in town. I do not believe Solomon to anywhere near the degree I believe Ichabod. What other concept can be used to distinguish my attitude to Ichabod from my attitude to the Solomon? What is different? It is my attitude to revising my beliefs in the light of future information. If the fair die came up six on each of the first three throws I would put this down to an unusual, but not outrageously unlikely, event and continue to believe that the odds of the next throw coming up six to be 1/6. If 'Doc' Plantinga's die came up six on each of the first three throws I would start to question whether this was the side he had weighted for and start to revise my estimate of the odds of the next throw with this die coming up six. Right now, if I believe Solomon, I believe it with the same probability as Ichabod but I believe it a darn sight less tenaciously.

This solves the “Paradox of the Preface”

As the Paradox of the Preface, which Plantinga uses to justify inconsistency, arises from the probability calculus removing propositional probability can be expected to solve the paradox. And so it does. I shall use Plantinga's formulation of the “Paradox of the Preface” as he casts it neatly in terms of belief, nicely isolating that part of the traditional view of knowledge:

“I write a book named I Believe! reporting therein only what I now fully believe. Being decently modest, I confess in the preface that I also believe that at least one proposition in I Believe! is false (although I have no idea which ones[s]). Then my beliefs are inconsistent, in the sense that there is no possible world in which they are all true; but might they not nevertheless be perfectly rational?”3

He is being perfectly rational and not at all inconsistent. Let us expand the statement “I believe X” to encompass two statements:

1.I have adopted X, for the present, and will act as if it is true
2.I am happy to revise that belief in the light of future experience

And let us imagine a strangely sceptical Plantinga who believes just five propositions, P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5. The text I Believe! can be summarised:

1.I have adopted P1 and am prepared to revise it in the light of future experience
2.I have adopted P2 and am prepared to revise it in the light of future experience
3.I have adopted P3 and am prepared to revise it in the light of future experience
4.I have adopted P4 and am prepared to revise it in the light of future experience
5.(The Preface) I have adopted P1, P2, P3 and P4 and am prepared to revise P1, P2, P3 and P4 it in the light of future experience

Terrifying

2008-07-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

By which I mean the idea that P. Z. Myers seems to think that this is hate mail:

So, would you really do something like that? Really? I can only suppose, then, that you also wouldn't mind defecating on a Buddha in a temple, or urinating on a Torah while it's still in its Ark, or maybe you'd go for stuffing a Koran down a toilet and flushing. Were you the kind of brother that would tear off the head of your sister's favorite doll? - or step on one of your mother's favorite plants? I saw your picture on the university's website and you look like a pretty even-tempered man. You don't look like a man that would do what you described above, let alone say it. What happened man? Seriously - what happened?

You should be nicer in what you say and do to people and to the things those people hold dear. If you don't have anything good to say - don't say anything at all.

PZ! They disagree with you! They think you're wrong. That's debate, that's ....er....rationalism.

Or consider this extract:

Shame on you for abusing your academic pulpit in this way. I pray that the university authorities will handle your case with wisdom and with justice.

Paul, you have some bridges to build after this terrible misdeed. Make amends, and stop hating for hate's sake.

Have a look through the emails in P. Z. Myers collection and, remember, these are the pick of the intolerant, medieaval, venom-filled bunch.

There’s no goal like an own-goal

2008-07-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

P. Z. Myers writes about a student, Webster Cook, who took a Eucharist wafer but failed to consume immediately and has found himself the subject of threats of expulsion from campus and, even, death.

Death threats? Trying to get him thrown off campus? This is totally over the top. It doesn’t seem that Cook intended to give offence. Surely he’s entitled to the benefit of the doubt? He’s made a mistake; it has upset a lot of people, so what should they do about it? They should take the chap to one side, explain what he’s done and give him a jolly good talking to. The reaction is no doubt being hyped but, even so, it’s over the top. It shows these people in a very bad light: unforgiving, aggressive and doctrinaire.

What a great post for P. Z. Myers. The champion of reason can point out how far the actions of the religious fall short of what they themselves claim. They claim that if only we all took up religion then everything would be fine. Here we have pretty clear evidence that a firm moral compass from God doesn’t stop you being the kind of asshole who threatens someone with death.

This is not, however, the main thrust of Myers’ post. Myers goes badly awry and misses the target entirely. The main thrust of his post is that these people should not get in a tizzy at all because what they believe is wrong and that he, Myers, is going to show them that they are wrong. According to Myers the actions of Cook are not a “hate crime”, not because Cook intended no harm, but because no harm was done. These people are “demented fuckwits”, “deluded lunatics” who are only offended because they believe something idiotic. “It’s a Frackin’ Cracker” heads the piece which ends with a promise to show us “sacrilege….and with much fanfare”.

It doesn’t matter if they are factually incorrect about the cracker

Was the publication of “those” cartoons in “that” Danish newspaper a “hate crime”? I would say not. Non-muslims do not have to follow the Islamic injunction not to depict the prophet. We are also quite entitled to think him less than perfect, to say so and to say so publicly. Now, if I were to take those cartoons print them on large poster-sized paper and stick them on the inside of the nearest mosque would that be a “hate crime”? Of course it would, it would be a mean, nasty, vile and deliberate insult. And where does whether or not Mohammed was the last prophet of God fit in? How reasonable a belief that Mohammed is Allah’s messenger have to be for it to be an insult? I am not a Muslim. I do not think Mohammed was the last prophet of God. I do not think it a “reasonable” belief at all. From my point of view those Muslims complaining about my poster campaign are complaining about me telling the truth! It does not matter whether I think it’s a silly belief or not: it’s their Mosque, they would be upset and I should respect their wishes.

But what if I’m completely wrong about Mohammed? Beside being in deep trouble when I die, does it mean that the cartoons were wrong? No, no it doesn’t: they may be factually incorrect but the cartoonists are entitled to their beliefs. As far as mistakes go denying the Prophet of God is one of the biggest, it matters not. What matters is the right of people to hold these beliefs. Either the cartoonists or the Muslims in the nearest mosque have got something very, very, wrong indeed. Yet the cartoonists have a right to publish without death threats and the Muslims have a right to worship unmolested.

Real Delusion

Let’s look at real delusion for a moment. I have a favourite chair. It’s my chair and I sit on it. If my son’s friends come round and sit there I will ask them to get up. How stupid is that? What sort of difference do I think that chair has? How deluded a demented-fuckwitted-lunatic do you have to be to actually care about which seat you sit in? What do these teenagers do when I ask them to move? They move. They realise that it’s my house, my chair, I will be upset if they stay there and, no matter how stupid the entire thing is, common decency requires them to move.

And so it is with the Mass. These people gathered together “in private” (though I imagine anyone could attend none had to) to do certain things that were very important to them. Whether or not they were demented lunatics is irrelevant. The facts in the case are that this Mass was important to them. The fact is that they believed that the cracker was the body of Christ and were bloody upset.

Own Goal

So Myers missed the target, the totally over-the-top reaction. Missed opportunity, yes, but why did I mention “own goal”? Because we all know what is wrong with fundamentalists. They try and impose their beliefs on us and we hate them for it. For them the question is not whether or not you are hurting anyone else, but whether or not what you believe is correct. If they decide that it is incorrect, silly, idiotic or “demented” then they feel free to completely ignore it. If your idea doesn’t match up to their standards then you are not worthy of respect. It’s ok to deliberately misquote Darwin, because Darwin is wrong. It’s fine to disrupt prayers in Congress, because they are stupid heathen prayers. The Fundie cannot see what is wrong with picketing a gay carnival, because they’re against God.

The Fundie cannot see what is wrong with desecrating what somebody believes is the body of Christ because, it’s just a frackin’ cracker.

What should happen now? Certainly not “39 pieces of personal hate mail” saying some of the things Myers says that they said. Should he be sacked? What for? For being wrong? (Standard definition of "wrong": disagreeing with me). This is what this free speech stuff is all about, we disagree, we argue, we criticise. We do not silence and sack. P. Z. Myers has written something on the web that I, strongly, disagree with. P. Z. Myers deserves the embarrasment of reading a good, well argued, well written, rebuttal.

Sadly, PZ, you’ll have to make do with this!

Oh, have a link to some fun own-goals

The Localised Falsification Diagnosis of Meaning

2008-06-04T05:15:00.000-07:00

Logical Positivism is dead. With its demise the world lost a wonderful tool for dealing with nonsense: the Logical Positivists insistence on a Universal, Verification Criterion of Meaning ('UVCM').This post examines the, much criticised, UVCM. It discovers that there is a lot to be said for a Universal, Verification, Criterion of Meaning that is stripped of 'universal' 'verification' and 'criterion' and puts forward a replacement Localised, Falsification Diagnosis of Meaning.

0 Introduction

Logical Positivism, as has been known for over forty years is dead. This is a matter of regret. It was a matter of regret to Karl Popper, who claimed responsibility, but expressed his admiration for the movements ‘rational attitude’[1]. It was naturally a matter of regret to its foremost Anglophone proponent, A. J. Ayer. When reflecting on the movement after its demise he thought the ‘the most important of (its) defects was that nearly all of it was false’. Never-the-less Ayer still felt he wanted to say that ‘it was true in spirit – the attitude was right’[2].

That ‘truth in spirit’ and the right (rational) attitude was manifest in Logical Positivism’s attacks on meaningless nonsense. The Logical Positivists’ main tool in these attacks was the institution of a universal, verification, criterion of meaning (‘UVCM’):

The meaning of a statement is its method of verification

For all statements the mode of verification was held to elucidate the meaning and, where no verification method could be presented by an opponent, was held to be conclusive evidence that the opponent was talking gibberish. So central was the criterion as to, almost, become synonymous with Logical Positivism itself. UVCM was there at the start of the movement and it was difficulties with the theory that precipitated its death.

Ayer blamed considerable difficulties in formulating a viable version of UVCM[3]. In my opinion the cause of these difficulties can be laid at the door of three flaws in the basic conception. UVCM was pressed into service beyond its capabilities. Logical Positivism was concerned to delineate ‘science’ from ‘metaphysics’. This seems a reasonable enough aim until you bring into the equation the Logical Positivists’ attitude to science and metaphysics. Under the Logical Positivist banner ‘science’ was all that was intellectually good and ‘metaphysics’ was all that was intellectually bad. The proposed use of UVCM was not just to sharpen and give content to the meaning of ‘meaning’ but to do so in such a way as to enforce a dichotomy and come down firmly on the ‘correct’ side of that dichotomy. Secondly, it was to enforce that dichotomy over all intellectual activity. Finally it was to use ‘verification’ to do that: for all their admiration of Hume the Logical Positivists did not incorporate his full inductive scepticism into their philosophy.

Whilst the UVCM is often traced back to Charles S. Peirce’s pragmatism I trace it back to a reformulation of ‘Leibniz’s Law’. This Straw Man methodology enables the best case possible to be made for what is good in UVCM whilst highlighting the negative effects of universal application, emphasis on verification and use as a criterion. There was a lot of nonsense about when Logical Positivism came to be, there is a lot of nonsense about now. The motive behind UVCM is still with us, even though UVCM is untenable. I propose an alternative, a Localised Falsification Diagnosis of Meaning and argue that; stripped of ‘universal’ ‘verification’ and ‘criterion’ a Universal Verification Criterion of Meaning is just what we need!

1 ‘Leibniz’s Law’ and meaning

My reformulation of ‘Leibniz’s law’ asserts the identity of A and B where A and B share all predicates.

A is identical to B if and only if every property of A is also a property of B and vice versa.

Which is unproblematic, simply the assertion that if something is the same then everything about it is the same. If we want to cast the principle in a pragmatic way, which I do, it can be:

A is identical to B if and only if everything that can be said of A can be said of B and vice versa

(One thing in particular that can be said of either A or B is that it is A). The principle is still an unproblematic exposition of what ‘being the same’ is. If problems are needed the principle can be split in two:

Indiscernibility of Identicals: If A and B are identical then no difference can be discerned

Identity of Indiscernibles: If no difference can be discerned between A and B then A and B are identical.

The Indiscernibility of Identicals still gives us no problems. If it is the same there is no difference, if there is no difference then none can be discerned.

The identity of indiscernibles can be used with less confidence. That we are unable to make a distinction is far from a guarantee that no distinction is to be made. Fun is to be had imagining different objects, removing as much of what distinguishes them as possible, and trying to find what makes them different objects. Take three spheres alone in a nice symmetrical universe. If all qualities by which we could distinguish them, size, weight, colour etc. are removed we begin to need to create new ones. Unable to say ‘the small one’, ‘the heavy one’ or ‘the blue one’ we are reduced to talking about ‘this one’ and ‘that one’. We create the quality of ‘thisness’ or, as reification is always easier with Latin, ‘haecceity’.

‘Thisness’ and ‘haecceity’ are not qualities we are able to detect. Only if, in some way, we can rule that predicates not available to us ‘do not count’ as differentiating may we proceed from ‘it seems the same’ to ‘it is the same’. Whilst this seems horrendously ad hoc it is often a perfectly proper course to take. Consider the electronic encoding of a piece of music. Electronic encoding proceeds by converting the analogue soundwave into digital format. There are infinitely many points on the analogue wave but a limited number of digital bits into which to encode these points. Digital encoding thus ‘samples’ points at a certain frequency, the encoding program informing the user of the ‘bitrate’ measure of the sampling frequency. If I convert music from one format to another, say in order to listen to the music in my car, I can alter the sampling rate. The greater the sampling rate the more faithful the reproduction of the original recording. The smaller the sampling rate the less memory is needed, enabling more music to be stored in the car. As the sampling rate is increased a point is reached (call it ‘A’) where I am unable to distinguish the quality of the music whilst driving in the car. I should not increase the bitrate beyond A to A+1 as I will not increase my listening pleasure but will decrease the amount of music that can be stored. I can make the distinction between the two encodings. I cannot make that distinction by using only my ears in the car, from this limited body of evidence. For the purpose of ‘listening enjoyment’ A and A+1 are the same piece of music: using only ‘listening enjoyment’ as my guide I cannot distinguish between A and A+1.

We can say that something is unitary for a particular purpose if, and only if, differences cannot be discerned with the body of evidence brought into play by that purpose. This aligns with commonsense and, in much discourse, labels the ‘type’ of description:

For the purposes of describing the shape of the two figures shape-statements are used. With these statements no distinction can be made between (a) and (b). They are the same shape. For the purpose of describing the angle, angle-statements are used. With these a clear distinction can be made. Thus (a) and (b) are the same shape at different angles.

I shall call the varying bodies of evidence brought into play ‘magisteria’ following on from Stephen Gould’s[4] use of the term in arguing against a necessary conflict between science and religion. The separation of religious and scientific knowledge Gould advanced was argued from the differing purposes of science and religion:

‘science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives.’[5]

For the purpose of discussing the empirical constitution of the universe we use empirical statements. For the purpose of discussing ethical values and the spiritual meaning of life we use ethical and spiritual statements. The body of empirical statements is the magisterium of science and distinctions we make using these statements are ‘scientific’ or ‘empirical’. The body of ethical and spiritual statements are the magisterium of religion and distinctions made using the magisterium of religion are ‘religious’, ‘spiritual’ or ‘ethical’.

Gould takes ‘the soul’ as an example and the Catholic teaching that, if humans evolved, at some point in that evolution God infused man with a soul. The soul has no empirical consequences, we cannot touch, see, smell, taste or hear the soul nor does the soul entail anything touchable, visible, odorous, noisy or tasty. Using the magisterium of science no distinction can be made between a human body before infusion (‘BS’) of the soul and after ‘AS’. For the purposes of science BS and AS are the same body. Using the religious magisterium there is a ready distinction to be made. We can say something like ‘BS and AS are the same body with different persons’.

If we ask a question such as ‘what is meant by ‘the soul’?’ the answer will consist of outlining what the concept entails. Whilst the elucidation is unlikely to be complete whatever magisteria are used the magisterium of religion will be necessary and the magisterium of science will be useless. Let us consider an actual ‘body A’ and the proposition P that ‘body A has a soul’. If we are presented with ‘body A’ there are two possibilities, it is identical to either of two ideal bodies:

1. A body with a soul
2. A body without a soul

If body A is identical to 1 then P is true. If body A is identical to 2 then P is false. However as we have seen, for science, body 1 and body 2 are identical. Body A is thus identical to both and either true and false at the same time or, on this particular question, falls silent. ‘The soul’ entails nothing in the scientific magisterium. Where nothing is entailed there is no claim to relate to the facts and so there is neither the possibility of truth nor of falsity: for science ‘the soul’ is meaningless.

Magisteria abound, corresponding to the sets we either can or do make of propositions. We may, and do, distinguish separate non-overlapping magisteria; as Gould did with ‘science’ and ‘religion’. We also break magisteria into proper sub-sets (‘biology’, ‘physics’, ‘chemistry’), ill-defined sets (such as Wittgenstein’s analysis of the ‘family’ of games) and overlapping sets. We argue that one magisterium can be subsumed in another. Quine’s claim that arithmetic reduces to set theory amounts to the claim that all the distinctions that can be made by the magisterium of arithmetic can be made by the magisterium of set theory. The same phenomena may be meaningful for one magisterium, meaningless for another. The magisterium of science is unable to distinguish a dead Schrödinger’s cat from a live Schrödinger’s cat; the magisterium of the cat can readily make the distinction. We may, and do, also take diverse magisteria to create a new, broader, magisterium: taking the magisteria of ‘melody’, ‘rhythm’ and ‘dynamics’ enables us to talk cogently about ‘music’.

Some statements patently fail to have meaning no matter which magisteria are use. The magisterium of ‘literature’ or of ‘story telling’ makes sense of George Orwell’s ‘1984’:

‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.’[6]

But rather fails to make sense of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jaberwocky’:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.[7]

A new magisterium could be constructed, such as Tolkien’s invention of ‘elvish’, but it seems beside the point: the poem is supposed to be (mostly) nonsense[8].

2 Universality

This raises the question as to whether we can bring together all important magisteria into one group which excludes irrelevant magisteria, a ‘Universal Magisteria’. That which was outside the all embracing over-magisteria would be confidently classified as meaningless. If it did have meaning we would be happy to ignore that meaning. We might never know what borogoves were, other than being mimsy, but we would be no worse off for that.

It is not too much of a distortion to re-cast much of Kant’s critical project in these terms, as an attempt to categorise the discriminating limits of the magisterium ‘reason’. At least we can replicate his argument for the empirical reality of space and time by using the language of magisteria:

The ‘empirical’ magisterium necessarily describes the world in terms of space and time. As a result this magisterium cannot distinguish between:

A-with-a-non-time-non-space-property and
A-without-a-non-time-non-space-property

The non-time-non-space-property is meaningless for empirical discourse. An object consisting entirely of non-time-non-space-properties is indistinguishable, in empirical discourse, from:

1. Nothing
2. Everything
3. Anything

Thus it does not, for empirical discourse, have any meaning. Each and every of property of any object distinguishable using the empirical magisteria necessitates either time or space. Thus, for empirical discourse, time and space are constant requirements: time and space are empirically real.

An unfortunate side-effect of Kant’s philosophy, as pursued by those who came immediately after him, was a rekindling of hope in transcendental metaphysics. These later philosophies made much use of magisteria that lay wholly outside any experiential statements and ended up describing a world which we simply did not live in. And so we come to Peirce and his plea for usefulness:

‘Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.’ [9]

The plea is to ignore anything that does not fit into a magisteria of practicality, to identify the ‘Universal Magisteria’ with statements of practical effects.

There is a degree of ambiguity in the use of the word ‘conceivably’. This would appear to authorise the use of conditional magisteria: the practical effects that would have occurred if. Peirce is not clear on this, sometimes allowing a conditional; at other times claiming it is irrelevant. Peirce is happy to call a thing heavy where if it were to be dropped it would fall and yet questions whether a diamond whose hardness is ever actually put to the test can be called ‘hard’. We can, with justice, dispute the asserted irrelevance of conditionals. Let us suppose, with Peirce ‘that a diamond could be crystallized in the midst of a cushion of soft cotton, and should remain there until it was finally burned up.’ Whilst we can never actually retrieve the diamond and perform a scratch test we can, quite clearly, understand what it would mean. Indeed the meaning of the example depends upon these very imaginative capabilities.

We can also dispute the completeness of the ‘practical’ magisterium, even if expanded by the authorisation of conditionals. The time of the never-existent Winston Smith’s entry into the never-existent Victory Mansions has no practical effects. We can, never-the-less distinguish the, true, statement ‘Winston Smith entered Victory Mansions at 1 p.m.’ from the, false, statement ‘Winston Smith entered Victory Mansions at 2 p.m.’. Now this may well be parasitic on concepts learned in practical discourse; such as people, Mansion flats and times of the day; but the distinction can still be made.

Ignoring, for the moment, Peirce’s specific views on which magisteria are acceptable his basic view of meaning is sound. We use magisteria to distinguish, if we cannot distinguish between hard and soft the statement ‘x is hard’ fails to entail anything, cannot be said to be either true or false and, thus, fails to have meaning. If there is no magisteria to make a distinction, such as between mimsy and non-mismsy borogroves, the concept fails to have meaning. The totality of practical effects of an object is our whole conception of the object for practical purposes.

On the choice of magisteria, Peirce’s view might be sound if suitably rephrased. Just as the magisteria used in deciding a bitrate to encode music for the car depends on what I am interested in (sound quality and storage capacity) the ‘Universal Magisterium’, to be Universal, will depend on the totality of our interests. Peirce is, in effect, stating ‘I am not interested in anything other than practicality’. However I am interested in things other than ‘practicality’, and I rather suspect Peirce was interested in things other than practicality. Instituting a distinctive border, especially between ‘all things good’ and ‘all things bad’, rather depends on an accurate drawing of the boundary. Drawn too broadly, ‘everything I am interested in and nothing I am not’, it fails to serve as a guide. Drawn narrowly enough to act as a guide it risks ruling out matters of genuine interest (‘what happens to Winston at the end of the book?’). I shall refer to this as the Universality Problem.

The Universality Problem was repeated as Logical Positivism developed the UVCM. Some removed conditionals entirely, the propositions would have to be actually verified, some allowed a vast range of conditionals: that we should be able to give some indication of how a proposition might be verified. All however limited the magisteria to empirical evidence, preferably statements about phenomena.

The limit to this magisterium failed. The Logical Positivists may have been only ultimately interested in phenomena but talk of phenomena is underpinned by talk of other things. Talk of phenomena necessitates talk of things held to produce those phenomena and things have non-phenomenal characteristics. Talk of things usually leads to talk of the stuff from which they are constituted. As we are interested in propositions about phenomena we are, at least subsidiarily, interested in propositions about the things and stuff that let us formulate and test those propositions, the ethics that inform us what to do with them and the art that lets us express them.

Logical Positivism thus led to constant failed attempts to describe non-empirical concepts in purely empirical terms. The emotivist theory of ethics is a case in point. Having outlawed ‘ethics’ per se as a result of UVCM the Logical Positivist is reduced to scratching around in the magisterium of empirical evidence for something that looks like an ethical injunction. The nearest that can be constructed in the empirical magisterium is something like ‘S says sticking needles into babies’ eyes is always wrong’. The emotive theory of ethics may, of course, be correct. There may be no ethical injunctions per se. It is, however, not a priori correct. It is certainly not the case that our non-emotive-theory statements are either identical to the emotive theory statements or are gibberish. By ‘sticking needles into babies’ eyes is always wrong’ we do not mean ‘S says that…’, we mean ‘sticking needles in babies eyes is always wrong whether S says so or not’.

Interestingly, this was Popper’s primary objection to the UVCM. Now Karl Popper is the last person anyone would expect to support a verification criterion. But some amongst the Logical Positivists were happy to accommodate Popper on this matter and ‘persuaded themselves that (Popper) would agree to substitute falsifiability for verifiability as a criterion of meaningfulness’[10]. They persuaded themselves incorrectly because Popper appreciated the Universality Problem. In their zeal to outlaw nonsense the Logical Positivists had inaccurately drawn their boundary. Too much of genuine interest was removed: the ‘positivists, in their anxiety to annihilate metaphysics, annihilate natural science along with it.’[11]

Never-the-less ‘S says sticking needles into babies eyes is always wrong’ is the totality of the meaning for empirical evidence. Speaking locally, as opposed to universally the arguments about meaning have considerable merit.

3 Verification

Being a good little falsificationist I would hold that verification was a mistake. But I do have an argument to give you that:

Outlining falsification outlines meaning.
Outlining meaning outlines falsification
Outlining verification does not necessarily outline meaning

We can agree, I hope, that a tautology does not mean anything for any particular magisterium. Now, suppose P entails Q, a proposition of magisterium-M. Q may be put forward as part of the meaning of P. Is P falsified by not-Q, does it have a ‘falsificatory mirror’? If ‘yes’ then a falsifying instance has been specified for P. If ‘no’ then a verifying instance only has been specified. However Q on its own is equally a verifying instance of any tautology T.

Failing to specify a falsifying instance for P means that no difference has been established between P and the, meaningless for magisterium-M, tautology T. Thus no meaning for P has been specified. On the other hand specifying not-Q as a falsifying instance on its own is sufficient to distinguish P from the tautology T. Not-Q is a verifying instance of the tautology T and a falsifying instance of the, meaningful, proposition P.

We can, thus, specify a conditional:

Conditional 1: if a situation has been specified where a proposition would be falsified then part of the meaning of that proposition has been specified.

We cannot specify the conditional:

Conditional 2: if a situation has been specified where a proposition would be partly verified then part of the meaning of that proposition has been specified.

A rule could be brought on that the complete verification method of P would have to be specified. This, naturally, would specify the complete meaning of P. A requirement of complete verification would be difficult to maintain consistently. As above we can place confidence in the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals. If P is falsifiable it can, clearly, be distinguished from a meaningless proposition and is, clearly, meaningful (conditional 1 holds). A full elucidation of what would verify P may not be possible even if some of the meaning were sat there staring everyone in the face.

We can go on and start with meaning. If a proposition has meaning for then it differs from a tautology. A tautology has nothing that will make it untrue. Thus P has meaning P has propositions in some magisterium that would make it false. We can specify another pair of conditionals:

Conditional 3: if a proposition has meaning there is a situation in which it would be false

Conditional 4: if a proposition has a situation in which it would be false then it has meaning

The two create the biconditional: if a proposition has meaning there is a situation in which it would be false and if a proposition has a situation in which it would be false then it has meaning. Alternatively, in less tortured prose:

The meaning of a proposition is what will falsify it.

4 Criterion

If the biconditional is split out this gets us back to much the same place we started, one consequence seeming beyond reproach:

If a proposition has no meaning no falsifying situation can be outlined

and a trickier situation:

If no falsifying situation can be outlined then the proposition has no meaning.

This is very much like the bastardised Leibniz’s Law. Indeed the above principles can be re-written as principles of identity:

1*. If a proposition is identical in meaning to a tautology no falsifying situation can be outlined
2*. If no falsifying situation can be outlined then the proposition is identical in meaning to a tautology

Unfortunately the former, the one beyond reproach, did not really tie in with the aims of the Logical Positivists. Crudely put this was to shut the metaphysicians up once and for all. The Logical Positivists needed a criterion, an explicit hurdle which propositions would have to be seen to clear. This requires that the absence of falsifying situations in 2 and 2* be automatically available to us, unfortunately they are not.

The longing for a ‘criterion’ produces another problem: what actually counts as a falsification? We are now back to the ‘conditional magisteria’ mentioned in relation to Peirce and the problem of judging a proposition meaningless when there is meaning evident to all. Drawn as widely as possible any potentially falsifying scenario would reveal meaning. This would render the principle useless as a criterion. It is almost always possible to come up with some conditional in some magisteria, some ‘if’ that would get around the injunction. ‘But if Pegasus were to exist he would have a favourite food so it is not entirely meaningless to talk about whether he likes oats or not.’

All but ‘realistic’ falsifying pathways could be outlawed, but this brings up the same problems in drawing boundaries as search for a universal magisterium. And, of course, even a proposition that depends on ‘if Pegasus were to exist’ has some meaning. It is a particularly pointless meaning, but a meaning non-the-less.

We are left with the operation of 1 and 1* which will enable us to diagnose a meaning but not determine its absence.

5 Localised, Falsification Diagnosis of Meaning ‘LDFM’

I propose that we act locally, not universally; that we use falsification, not verification; that we remain aware that our diagnosis may not be a clear cut criterion. In short I propose a Localised, Falsification Diagnosis of Meaning.

Primarily I am concerned to put LFDM forward simply because I think that it is correct. I contend that if we have outlined all the circumstances in which a proposition can be falsified within a magisterium we have outlined, in full, its meaning in that magisterium. This would hold true whether or not LDFM advanced UVCM’s aim of exposing and combating nonsense. A localised falsification diagnosis of meaning would also be a useful analytical tool. Contextualists would find it useful in determining which context, magisterium, a proposition is held to apply to. “Does a proposition have objective meaning, or is it purely subjective?” is, again, a question about the magisteria to be applied in diagnosing its meaning. Alternatively we might find that, whilst a proposition has meaning the magisteria that give it meaning are not of real interest.

Again, this would hold true whether or not LDFM advanced UVCM’s aim of exposing and combating nonsense.

Happily LFDM does give us back some of the nonsense combating properties of UVCM. Both UVCM and Popper’s, related, criterion of demarcation were an attempt to fight against arrant nonsense. Popper’s acted against pseudo-science, UVCM against any and all nonsense. UVCM failed, universally. Popper’s criterion succeeded, and continues to succeed, but only for science. LFDM can be seen as a generalisation of Popper’s criterion of demarcation:

'In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.’[12]

LFDM expands the magisteria to which it can be applied:

'In so far as a statement of magisteria X speaks about X, it must be falsifiable by other propositions about X; and in so far as it is not falsifiable by other propositions about X, it does not speak about X.’

LFDM separates X from pseudo-X by looking at the falsifying effect of other propositions within magisterium-X. That being the case it separates science from pseudo-science in the same way as Popper’s criterion does: scientific propositions are capable of falsification by scientific propositions. It separates history from pseudo-history: historical propositions are capable of falsification by other historical propositions. Pseudo-ethical propositions are those which cannot be falsified by other ethical propositions, pseudo-sexual-political propositions lack sexual-political falsifiers, and so on.

And so to the fight against nonsense. Take the, now notorious, question of Luce Irigaray:

‘Is E=Mc2 a sexed equation?’[13]

We are perfectly entitled to ask ‘what the **** is a ‘sexed equation’’? Interestingly this appears to be a question about the meaning of a (rhetorical) question about meaning. Is the meaning of ‘E=MC2 expoundable in anyway in terms of sex? Does the equation have meaning within the sex magisterium? A falsificationory diagnosis of part of the scientific meaning might be something along the lines of:

If you perform a calculation on the basis of E=MC2 you will not get an incorrect answer

or, perhaps,

If you ever find yourself in a position to measure the energy content of some matter you will not find it other than C2 times however much matter you have

So, for the magisterium of science, we can happily establish meaning. What about the magisteria of sex or sexual politics? It is difficult to see how it could possibly mean anything in either magisteria. Irigaray offers the, confirming, proposition that the equation ‘privileges the speed of light over other speeds vitally necessary to us’. Would ‘Is E=Mc2 a sexed equation?’ be falsified by it not privileging the speed of light? I suspect not, I suspect that this is some vaguely conforming proposition put forward without a falsificationary mirror. It is Q where not-Q also confirms.

Under LFDM the passage cannot be demonstrated to be meaningless tripe. As above, we cannot conclude from the inability to describe a falsificationary pathway that a proposition has no meaning. However, if a person writing or speaking cannot give us a falsificationary pathway then we can conclude that they do not know what they mean by what they say or write. Irigaray is quite happy to expound without any intentional meaning on her part. That empty intended meaning can be neither true nor false. Irigaray thus expounds it without regard to its truth: Frankfurt’s paradigm definition of bullshit[14].

Above I mentioned the possibility of throwing in some falsifying instance. Here the magisterium concept comes into its own. What would falsify the proposition R: ‘sticking needles in babies’ eyes is always wrong’? The proposition not-R ‘sticking needles in babies’ eyes is permissible if you really feel like it’ would do it. Not-R forms part of the ethical magisteria and so, as it is falsified by an ethical statement, R has ethical meaning. The proposition U: ‘S says that sticking needles in babies’ eyes is always wrong’ would not be falsified by not-R. U would be falsified by proposition not-U: ‘S says that sticking needles in babies’ eyes is permissible if you really feel like it’. Not-U is a proposition about S, a descriptive statement about S. U has descriptive meaning, not ethical meaning. What could Irigaray posit as a falsifying instance? What magisterium would be needed to frame that falsifying instance and what type of statement would that make ‘E=MC2 is a sexed equation’? I leave an answer to the reader, my suggestion being too unkind.

[1] Popper, Karl. Unended Quest: an intellectual autobiography. Fontana. Glasgow. 1976. pages 88-89
[2] In conversation with Bryan Magee. Magee, Bryan. Men of Ideas. British Broadcasting Corporation. London. 1978. Page 131
[3] Ibid. page 131
[4] Gould, Stephen Jay. ‘Nonoverlapping Magisteria,’ Natural History 106 (March 1997) Pages 16-22.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Orwell, George. 1984. Penguin Books, London 2004 p. 3
[7] Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass. Project Gutenberg.
[8] It is not complete nonsense, as Alice points out ‘SOMEBODY killed SOMETHING:
that's clear, at any rate’.
[9] Peirce, Charles S. ‘How To Oake Our Ideas Clear’ in Buchler, James. Philosophical Writings of Peirce. Dover. New York. 1955. Page 31.
[10] Popper, Karl. Unended Quest : An Intellectual Autobiography. Fontana. 1976 p. 87
[11] Ibid p 36
[12] Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Hutchinson. London. 1986. page 314.
[13] Irigaray, Luce. ‘Sujet de la science, sujet sexué?’ in Sens et place des connaissances dans la société. Centre National de Recherche Scientifique. Paris. 1987. page 95 quoted in Sokal, Alan and Bricmont, Jean. Fashionable Nonsense. Picador. New York. 1998. page 109
[14] Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press. Princeton and Oxford. 2005