The Gettier counterexamples to Justified True Belief as knowledge

[New Buddha]

5 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:

But as far as theories of gravity go, it's the best we've got.

Do we need any better?

Edit: Are you aware that when we send a rover to Mars that we use neither QM or GR?  We use Newtonian Mechanics.

Edited January 25, 2017 by New Buddha

[SpookyKitty]

Just now, New Buddha said:

Do we need any better?

Edit: Are you aware that when we send a rover to Mars that we use neither QM or GR?  We use Newtonian Mechanics.

 

If we want to know the truth then yes.

And yes, I am aware, who cares?

[New Buddha]

8 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:

If we want to know the truth then yes.

But if our goal is to send a rover to Mars -- and Newtonian Mechanics works  -- how is Newtonian Mechanics not true?

Read my Tag Line.

And realize that with my William James Avatar and New Buddha moniker, I'm no Objectivist fan boi....

[SpookyKitty]

Just now, New Buddha said:

But if our goal is to send a rover to Mars -- and Newtonian Mechanics works  -- how is Newtonian Mechanics not true?

Read my Tag Line.

And realize that with my William James Avatar and New Buddha moniker, I'm no Objectivist fan boi....

 

Because it makes false propositions. Why is this so goddamn complicated?

[New Buddha]

16 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:

Because it makes false propositions. Why is this so goddamn complicated?

But why would engineers at NASA shape orbital trajectories using Kepler/Newtonian Mechanics - which are mathematically much, much simpler than GR - if they both arrive at the same, workable answer?  Because engineers are stoopid?

Why would Universities around the world overwhelmingly educate engineers in CM and not GR and QM?  Was the building you work in designed by a physicists, or an engineer?  The elevator you ride on?  The refrigerator you store your food in?  The car that you entrust you life in?

[SpookyKitty]

Just now, New Buddha said:

But why would engineers at NASA shape orbital trajectories using Kepler/Newtonian Mechanics - which are mathematically much, much simpler than GR - if they both arrive at the same, workable answer?  Because engineers are stoopid?

Why would Universities around the world overwhelmingly educate engineers in CM and not GR and QM?  Was the building you work in designed by a physicists, or an engineer?  The elevator you ride on?  The refrigerator you store your food in?  The car that you entrust you life in?

 

Because it's easier to calculate and the deviations from reality are small enough to not matter for those purposes?

[New Buddha]

40 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:

Because it's easier to calculate and the deviations from reality are small enough to not matter for those purposes?

Sort of.

But NM, GR and QM are all approximations, i.e. "deviations" from reality.

All models are "wrong", but some are useful.

Edit:  Think of the relationship between Reality > GR > NM as analogis to the relationship between the reality of a live musical performance > a lossless recording > and a MP3 file.

Edited January 25, 2017 by New Buddha

[Eiuol]

I can't comment as to the details of QM/GR/Newtonian Mechanics but... NB, it looks you are talking about a sort of pragmatist epistemology such that even entire theories are at best approximations, that measurement is always an approximation, and -truth- is what is most useful to one's goals. I mean, the truth is for sure useful, truth does in fact help one attain goals, but usefulness is not what makes for truth. It's fine, of course, to ask why this is wrong, except it's important to recognize this notion of truth is a major criticism of Rand. 

Besides, if your point is just that you KNOW it's an approximation, then strictly speaking, it's false, no matter how useful it.  

2 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:

Can you give me a simple example of a justified belief that meets these criteria?

I was hoping you'd give a counter-example. Well, I only said justified, so the only thing missing to make it knowledge is having certainty. I may be pretty sure about something, and justified to act with incomplete information. Intelligence and espionage is like that, where time isn't on your side. It is in that sense it might be justified to believe something like "the hacker is from a Chinese secret cyberarmy", and "probably" is implied. But that's not knowledge (although the belief THAT "q is only probably true" could be second-degree knowledge).

A justified belief that is knowledge is something like "the earth is not flat", or "apples are fruits", with certainty implied.

[New Buddha]

9 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

NB, it looks you are talking about a sort of pragmatist epistemology such that even entire theories are at best approximations, that measurement is always an approximation, and -truth- is what is most useful to one's goals.

You might have posted this prior to reading my most previous post.  I'll happily reply, if my Edit to my previous post doesn't clarify my position.

Edit:  My postings on this topic also tie into my postings on Boydstun's post.

Edit 2:  My postings on this topic also tie into my postings on the Analog nature of Perception in the other post.

Edited January 25, 2017 by New Buddha

[New Buddha]

30 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

B, it looks you are talking about a sort of pragmatist epistemology such that even entire theories are at best approximations, that measurement is always an approximation, and -truth- is what is most useful to one's goals.

 

30 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

It's fine, of course, to ask why this is wrong, except it's important to recognize this notion of truth is a major criticism of Rand. 

From ITOE, p. 195

Prof E:  Every measurement is made within a certain specifiable limits of accuracy.  There is no such thing as infinity in precision, because you are using some measuring instrument which is calibrated with certain smallest subdivisions.  so therefore there is always a plus or minus, within the limits of accuracy of the instrument....

AR: Yes, in a general way.  But more than that, isn't there a very simply solution to the problem of accuracy?  Which is this: let us say that you cannot go into infinity, but in the finite you can always be absolutely precise simply by saying, for instance: "It's length is no less than one millimeter and no more than two millimeters."

Edit:  I actually think Rand lifted Objectivist epistemology from Pragmatism 

 

Edited January 25, 2017 by New Buddha

[SpookyKitty]

Just now, New Buddha said:

Sort of.

But NM, GR and QM are all approximations, i.e. "deviations" from reality.

All models are "wrong", but some are useful.

Edit:  Think of the relationship between Reality > GR > NM as analogis to the relationship between the reality of a live musical performance > a lossless recording > and a MP3 file.

 

No. Unlike NM and GR, there is currently no known experiment or phenomenon which contradicts Speical Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. They are very likely both True.

[SpookyKitty]

@Eiuol

 

So, your only gripe with my previous example is that it fails the narrowness test?

Edited January 25, 2017 by SpookyKitty

[Eiuol]

14 hours ago, New Buddha said:

You might have posted this prior to reading my most previous post.

I did read them, and those other posts, too. Overall, your position looks to be that: any abstraction or representation is only an approximation. This means measurements are approximations, as a measurement is not a metaphysical thing. All concepts and the concepts that make up knowledge require measurement, so are all approximations. Reality is only knowable as an approximation in that case. The result is that the concept -truth- refers to best approximations - and even that is an approximation.

The ITOE quote from Rand starts as "in a sense" but immediately clarifies that by recognizing one's standard of measurement establishes the ability to make absolutely correct measurements. Do inches work for making microchips? No, and that's because it's a wholly different level of thought.

I imagine that yes, Rand got inspiration from William James. Doesn't mean she used his pragmatist elements.

12 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:

So, your only gripe with my previous example is that it fails the narrowness test?

That's one, yes. You seemed to be saying that in the example that there is no fact of the matter what the screen always shows, thus if it is justified to think it always shows a dog, justified belief isn't necessary for knowledge and doesn't tell us what is knowledge. My reaction is so what? All we do is better the standards of justification.

Also, it didn't seem to go past discussing justification, when my position is that more is necessary for knowledge.

I'm not trying to propose some type of Nietzschean perspectivism where "there is no truth, only interpretation". It's more like I mean knowledge is certain and justified, so is true as far as anyone knows and is able to know. Not 99% sure it's true - 100% sure it's true.

 

[New Buddha]

13 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:

No. Unlike NM and GR, there is currently no known experiment or phenomenon which contradicts Speical Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. They are very likely both True.

I was being a bit facetious by saying that models are "wrong".  What I mean is that NM/SR/GR/QM are abstractions. Objective abstractions, yes - but abstractions none-the-less.

If you are designing a global positioning satellite, then you need to account for Time differences between the clocks on the satellite and the clocks in cell phones on Earth.  If you are designing superconductors or very small circuits, then QM or QED might need to be used.  If you are designing a building's structural system or electrical system, the CM works just fine.

In all instances, the development of the different Mechanics arose from observations/experiments/measurements that could not be explained by current theory. 

[New Buddha]

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

All concepts and the concepts that make up knowledge require measurement, so are all approximations. Reality is only knowable as an approximation in that case. The result is that the concept -truth- refers to best approximations - and even that is an approximation.

"Approximations" are objective - that is what I'm saying - and so did Rand.  It is perfectly objective to say that something has a length that falls between 1 mm and 2 mm.    An abstraction is an abstraction.  When we are interested in determining the tensile strength of wood, we subject it to once type of test.  When we are interested in determining it's flammability, we subject it to another, different test.   And since every piece of lumber is slightly different, we can use statistics to get a generalized understanding of the range of the tensile strength and flammability.  This range of values is objective.

The reason Rand (and James) spent so much time beating the German Idealists over the head is because they introduces a more modern sounding notion that "approximations" are subjective.  That is, imprecision of measurement (whether scientific instruments sensory organs) means that we don't perceive a "thing-in-itself".  Kant believed that we had, in our minds, innate categories into which our sensory data must fit - thus "distorting" the "thing-in-itself".  We don't know, according the them, how long a thing-in-itself "really is".

ITOE is dedicated to showing how objective knowledge is acquired from our senses  - not omniscient knowledge - but objective knowledge.  That is one of the reasons that Measurement is covered so heavily in the book. Kant (and the German Idealist in general) wanted omniscient, a priori knowledge, and not synthetic knowledge "distorted" by the mind.  So they introduced a dialectic method based on the flawed assumption of an unbridgeable, ontological dichotomy.

Edited January 25, 2017 by New Buddha

[Eiuol]

The quote you gave doesn't say a measurement is an approximation, nor do I know a time where Rand said approximations are objective. That a length falls between 1 and 2 isn't approximate as in "the True length is 1.52501109258 microns, so between 1 and 2 is our best guess", it's only approximate as in "it is absolutely within this range of our standard, and this is definite". This is in line with what Rand thinks about an objective and valid concepts, and how omitting a measurement doesn't diminish certainty.

To say that "between 1 and 2" is a best guess has to mean that another measurement is "more right" or "closer to the truth". Either it is true, or it is not. You may need to be more precise or alter the claim so that the prior observations are still valid, yes, but that also means your specific claim (e.g. that water at ALL times at 32 degrees Fahrenheit freezes) from before is false.

As far as I know, Kant -would- say measurements are approximations, so we can't see a thing-in-itself, therefore the truth must consist of or be determined by something besides perception.

James might alter that to say measurements are approximations, and senses are the only place truth comes from, so truth is fine as an approximation. This relates to JTB and Gettier cases because, essentially, that getting "close" is fine, even if the method to get there was illogical. It'd therefore be knowledge even if you got lucky.

The blog post you linked earlier from McCaskey is another way to show that approximation is not required and that your classifications can be definite.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Eiuol

[dream_weaver]

It might help to contrast instances where measurements are exact against instances where they are not. The first serves more broadly as the basis for integration while the other helps in differentiation.

[New Buddha]

20 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

The quote you gave doesn't say a measurement is an approximation, nor do I know a time where Rand said approximations are objective.

You are getting your panties in a bunch over the word "approximation".  Just because Rand does not use the word "approximation" doesn't some how make what I say false.  

2 hours ago, New Buddha said:

"Approximations" are objective - that is what I'm saying - and so did Rand.  It is perfectly objective to say that something has a length that falls between 1 mm and 2 mm.  

It is perfectly objective to say that something is approximately 7-5/8" long.   Do you also have a similar issue with an "average" or "range of values" for tensile strength of lumber, such as Douglas Fir No. 2?  Or using statistical based sampling for quality control?

 

 

[New Buddha]

12 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

It might help to contrast instances where measurements are exact against instances where they are not. The first serves more broadly as the basis for integration while the other helps in differentiation.

You know in you own business that you specify a tolerance level, because no two things are ever "exactly" the same size.

Even at the micron level, the fluctuation of the temperature of an object can change it's dimensions continuously.  This is much more  pronounced in auto design, masonry, etc.

Edited January 26, 2017 by New Buddha

[dream_weaver]

1 minute ago, New Buddha said:

You know in you own business that you specify a tolerance level, because no two things are ever "exactly" the same size.

I also know "approximately" why this is the case.

[New Buddha]

2 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

I also know "approximately" why this is the case.

Only approximately?  I know exactly why....

[dream_weaver]

11 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

Only approximately?  I know exactly why....

Hence the quotes about 'approximately' in my teaser.

Keep in mind, what you want to contrast this against are cases where the measurements are exactly the same.

Edited January 26, 2017 by dream_weaver

[New Buddha]

Here's an interesting article on standards of weight.

DW, why don't you just give us an example per your post.

29 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

It might help to contrast instances where measurements are exact against instances where they are not. The first serves more broadly as the basis for integration while the other helps in differentiation.

 

[dream_weaver]

12 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

Here's an interesting article on standards of weight.

DW, why don't you just give us an example per your post.

Go to the bakery and purchase a dozen donuts. Stop in at your local grocer and buy a package of 8 or 12 hot dog buns. A dozen eggs can be procured at a number of facilities [measure/count the facilities within a 5 mile radius (plus or minus a turn or two) of your current location.]

Measurement is a quantity that is greatly dependent upon what it is that is being quantified.

Edited January 26, 2017 by dream_weaver

[New Buddha]

3 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

Go to the bakery and purchase a dozen donuts. Stop in at your local grocer and buy a package of 8 or 12 hot dog buns. A dozen eggs can be procured at a number of facilities [measure/count the facilities within a 5 mile radius (plus or minus a turn or two) of your current location.]

Measurement is a quantity that is greatly dependent upon what it is that is being quantified.

Fair enough.  I wasn't able to understand from your brief post what you were driving at.