Clear Language, Clear Mind

This will not involve many science facts as the discussion is wholly philosophical in nature. This is an epistemological, not scientific essay, it just happens to use some facts of science.

I want to show the value of thinking of things as inconsistent sets of propositions (or whatever truth carrier you like, but I like propositions) or at least implausible sets of propositions (when at least one inference is inductive (or non-deductive, if you like that term better)).

Consider this set of propositions:

1. Newton’s physics is correct.
2. Things are in a such and such way at time t1.
3. That Newton’s physics is correct and things are in a such and such way at time t1, implies that things will happen in such and such way at time t2.
4. A study found that such and such did not happen at time t2.
5. The study is correct.
6. That the study is correct implies that such and such did not happen at time t2.

This set is plainly inconsistent; it cannot be true. At least one proposition in this set is false. Suppose we are around the time when Einstein introduced his relativity theories. At that time physicists had pretty good reason to believe (1) (among others: good explanatory power, lots of empiric confirmation), and I’m sure some people called physicists who did not stop believing in Newton’s physics even when some studies found results that are contrary to the predictions of Newton’s physics given some antecedent state of affairs dogmatic. I’m fairly sure such a claim of dogmatism is often thrown around in similar cases.

My point is that it is unwise to claim someone is being dogmatic quickly. For there are many things other than some widely accepted theory that could be wrong (in this case (1)). We could be wrong about the antecedent states of affairs (in this case (2)), or wrong about what the theory predicts (in this case (3)) given that state of affairs; perhaps the scientist that make the prediction from the theory made a calculation error. Something similar applies the the study that ‘challenges’ the accepted theory (in this case (5)). So there are many things that could be wrong without the accepted theory being false. It is wise to consider that before calling people that are being epistemically conservative for dogmatic.

The method of putting the relevant propositions in an inconsistent set forces us to be made aware of some perhaps not normally discussed propositions without which the set would be consistent (or not-implausible). Usually in a moderately complex case such as the one with Newton’s physics, a set of propositions that form as inconsistent set (or implausible) will contain 5-10 propositions. In more complex cases, the sets can be much longer (such as very complex cases involving the impossibility of an infinite past which involves temporal and modal logic). In general, the more propositions we can find that together forms an inconsistent set (or implausible), the better overview, and the easier to is to make a justified decision about which proposition(s) to stop believing in in the case that one actually believes all of them. If we are to avoid inconsistent beliefs (=inconsistent objects of beliefs), then we should think of the many potentially epistemically justified ways there are to deal with a such inconsistent set.

In the above case, rejecting (4) would probably not be a wise decision, neither would it be to reject (6). If there is only one study and it is not exceptionally well done, then rejecting (5) is probably not a bad decision to begin with. If more studies (by competent scientists) confirm the first study, then sooner or later we should begin wondering if not our beliefs would have better coherence were we to reject the theory (1). But before we do that we should consider other alternatives such as (2) and (3). It would not be good if we rejected some theory and later found it that we had no grounds to do that because we were wrong about what the antecedent state of affair was (2).

This way of solving problems (which usually involve an inconsistency of we add together the relevant propositions to a set), is applicable to every topic that I have thought of. It is especially useful to very complex situations where it is hard to get an overview and it seems hard to settle on a specific solution (that is, hard to find out which proposition is the epistemically most justified to deny).

If you happen to know about evolutionary peaks, good. If not I will briefly try to explain it though it is best if you know about evolutionary theory.

An evolutionary peak is a possible genome in the vicinity of which there is no other more fit genome. All mutations that could happen would result in a less fit genome (i.e. genes that replicate less than the genes in the peak genome). If evolution reaches a peak, it will stay there as it does not ‘have foresight’ (or ‘sight’) to move down the hill to another and higher peak even if there is one relatively nearby. Evolution is blind. The genome is evolutionary stable once at the hill. This continues until a change in the environment happens and another genome becomes more fit. Then evolution continues to change the genome to whatever is more fit. It is rare that a mutation occurs and thus gives evolution an opportunity to evolve change the genome into a more fit one. Evolution takes lots of time. It is even more rare that multiple mutations arise at a time.

Consider now webs of belief. A person’s web of belief is the entirety of all his beliefs. A web of belief may be more justified/warranted/better than another web of belief for a number of reasons (simplicity, coherency, lack of contradictions, mutual support, etc.). A person may change (at will but not completely free at will) his web of belief by changing its parts, either one belief at a time or many beliefs at a time. It is rare that a person changes his belief, if it is in the middle of his web of belief (=connected with many other beliefs). It is even more rarely that a person changes a lot of beliefs at one time.

The analogy is this:

Do you see the analogy? It is quite interesting I think. Similarly to evolution not having ‘foresight’/'sight’, most people do not have the necessary foresight/sight to see that another web of belief although a bit away from their current web of belief is better than their current one. And if they are at a peak or close to a peak, they will not move towards a higher peak if it is a bit away and they only change a few belief at a time. In a way it is rational to change one’s web of belief toward the nearest peak one can spot. Though ultimately it is more rational to try to spot the highest peak and then move towards it. But it is so hard to spot the highest peak (=discover which web of beliefs is the best), that we for all practical purposes cannot do so and thus stay near a local web of belief. Further, it is not humanly possible to discover with a high degree of certainty which webs of belief are the peaks and which are not. There is no known formula in which one can input all one’s beliefs (there are too many of them too) and in the output is the web of belief’s goodness rating.

But if we cannot do this with much certainty, how should we be able to say that another person has a worse web of belief than we have with much certainty? We cannot. Though we can do rough analyses and make somewhat justified claims about other people’s webs of belief. It is vary hard if not impossible for two rational and sophisticated people to discover which of them has the best web of belief. If their webs of belief are very different and are both near a local peak, then there is no way for one of them to move towards the other while continuously getting a better web of belief. He would need to change many/a lot of beliefs at once, and this very rarely happens. Arguments usually only change a single/small number of belief(s) in a person at a time. What would need to be done to change one’s web of belief so drastically, rationally, is an evaluation of all relevant arguments ‘viewed’ from both webs of belief. In the case of atheism/theism, doing so will take at least several years. It would be much better if one simply found oneself closer to the atheism peak to begin with (I did), or changed to moving toward the atheism peak without first moving towards the theism peak. But then, a person who happened to be a theist (because of, say, his parents) would most probably first move towards the theist peak than the atheist peak. That is the most rational way given a conservative principle like “change as little beliefs at a time as possible to continue gaining a better web of belief.”.

Still, given the above, I’m relatively sure that, say, a thomist (in fact it was a thomist that inspired me to write this essay) has a worse web of belief than I do and that the highest thomism peak is much lower than the highest atheism peak. But I should not claim much certainty about this.