I was likely being too definitive there. I think there is a strong tension between rules rigid enough to structure a society and maintaining a principle of openness. I think optimistically allowing for failures of various kinds (one could imagine it at a lower level than the entire society) allows for a more robust pursuit of openness.
> the principle of fallibilism: Truths are only true if they are verified through the give and take of experience and experiment.
I think Popper would object to the phrase "truths are only true if they are verified". We don't knowingly verify truths. The things we think are truths aren't even true, they're just not false (yet).
Saying Plato is "just asking questions" seems like a cop-out, he's responsible for what he implies, whatever character he makes say it. How about the allegory of the cave? The roots of fallibilism could be traced to that allegory - except for the part about philosophers, who are the ones who have escaped the cave and have seen the sun, implying that they gain access to the absolute truth.
Even assuming that what you believe that the author implied is really true, the readers still have the responsibility of their own actions, so the author's responsibility is close to none.
If two characters express contradictory ideas, which side is Plato's? And even when there is not a clear contradiction it is not at all straightforward to decide what is being claimed. It's not an encyclopedia. It is written to be interpreted.
It doesn't matter which side is Plato's, blame isn't interesting, and I don't care much about the specific featherless biped behind the ideas. But you can't debate against a "dynamic space to think in". If there are opposing ideas presented with apparent perfect chin-stroking balance then it's fair to attack whichever one you like least, as if it was being given credibility, because it is.
Is every author who wishes to convey certain messages to their audience through narrative also responsible for every single thing his characters say? Character-driven narrative would seem to be at odds with such a view.
I was wondering about that too. But what I mean by "responsibility" is that the ideas presented have a definite form and don't get to evade criticism by being mercurial and shape-shifting. Not sure about art, like fiction. I'm not seeking to prevent authors from being ambiguously provocative, but it's a crappy way to reason.
Yes, that's why modern literature and media dealing with diverse opinions are terrible now.
You are expected to caricature and refute people saying "bad" opinions in the work itself since otherwise the reader could believe in those opinions. Leaving something open to interpretation is tantamount to endorsement.
When I was a kid learning BASIC, a lot of beginner examples in books used the (purely decorative) keyword LET for every assignment. Consequently I associate it with "coding like a baby who understands nothing" and still hate to write let to this day.
Early mazes, like the one on the coin, are strange because they don't present any choices of direction and thus could not bewilder Theseus, even without his ball of twine.
I'm learning to like 'em more, along with every other human idiosyncracy. Besides, it makes a kind of sense, the idea of some resonance occuring in one's gusset. Timber timbre. Flangent thrumming.
I don't think they have ideas, so I don't think they're intelligent in the sense relevant to AGI. The list of intelligent animals is constantly increasing because doing some feat or other suffices for the animal to qualify. Solving mazes (slime molds), recognizing self in mirror (not dogs). Playing, using tools, reacting appropriately to words, transmitting habits down the generations (the closest thing they have to ideas). This is all imagined to be the precursors along the path to evolving intelligence, which conjures up a future world of complex crow and octopus material cultures. There's no reason to assume they're on such a path. Really all we're saying is that they seem clever. We've already made AI that seems clever, so the animals aren't a relevant example of anything.
reply