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Hello Eliezer, glad to have some interaction with you about these vital ideas. I was excited that you bothered to comment on my post, but alas, my excitement was shut down rather prematurely, when I tried to reply to your comment with another post (longer than I want to place in a comment box), but was blocked from doing so.
Apparently my “downvote karma” is -24 for my post “Secret Cosmos: Introduction,” and my total karma is -30 based upon my two previous short posts, when I first opened my LessWrong account (three post total so far, not counting my bio post; I don’t think anyone can downvote a bio page). I guess that means 30 people actually said they did not like my post? It is not clear from the explanation of “rate limit” posted at LessWrong if that is what -30 means. I understand the number -30, but I remain baffled, nonetheless. Thirty people down-karma-voted my posts? Really? No one else ventured to say why they down-karma-voted my posts; no one else left any comment at all. Sort of like, when the KKK burns a cross on someone’s front lawn but cover their faces.
Thank you for making yourself known to me.
Note: I really do not have any issue with 30 people not liking my ideas, but not liking my ideas without saying a word about what it is they disagree with, is not my idea of rational dialog in search of truth. I acknowledge that everyone is welcome, even to a wrong opinion, but common courtesy and etiquette suggest they defend whatever opinion they have with something more fundamental to justify that opinion.
In any case, the reply I have created to your comment and to you post “Infinite Certainty” by Eliezer Yudkowsky, https://www.lesswrong.com/s/FrqfoG3LJeCZs96Ym/p/ooypcn7qFzsMcy53R
is now posted on my Substack feed: Can We Agree on Anything for Sure? - by Al Link (substack.com)
I really do hope I have misinterpreted what is going on at LessWrong, but it all just seems to come down to, some of the folks at LessWrong really cannot tolerate the apparently dangerous idea that certainty could be not only possible, but actually necessary. I hope for all of our best interests, that is not actually the case with LessWrong. If it turns out that LessWrong is really an intolerant platform, I will simply not return there looking to engage its users in any further rational dialogue about truth.
Popper, Yudkowsky, and virtually all scientists, certainly all who endorse the doctrine of physicalism, particularly the false metaphysical assumption of physical closure, fall into the merciless jaws of fatal logical contradiction; reification and infinite regress.
What they all miss is natural a-priori, specifically, natural a-priori axioms.
If you read Yudkowsky’s statement carefully, I believe you will notice several errors, at least once I point them out for you.
See my (Al Link) Substack posts for an expanded discussion:
Less Wrong platform and author Yudkowsky, on Rationality and Justified Knowledge Certainty
https://allink.substack.com/p/justified-knowledge-certainty-and-f4b
Natural a-priori Axioms
https://allink.substack.com/p/justified-knowledge-certainty-and
Knowledge with certainty is possible. Knowledge with certainty is justified knowledge. There is a method to arrive at justified knowledge.
It is impossible that truth is impossible. It is impossible that existence is impossible. True + exist is my definition of real. It is impossible that real is impossible. It is impossible that reality is impossible.
Justified knowledge certainty is not only possible, it is necessary, it could not, not exist. It is necessary that we can know the truth about existence, precisely because true and exist are real, and real means true and exist are ultimately simultaneous = everywhere all-at-once, even if only some of us know that with certainty. If someone does not know this, that is what ignorance is.
LessWrong is an excellent platform for writers who think deeply about truth.
I have great respect for what the LessWrong platform is all about, but I believe it would be instructive to deconstruct the choice of name for the platform.
The reveal for my decision to deconstruct the name LessWrong is that the name is itself necessarily a fatal logical contradiction, i.e., infinite regress. Fatal logical infinite regress is certainly not a ground for truth, nor a ground for certainty, nor a ground for justified knowledge.
Less is a degree of the category wrong. Less-wrong-to-infinity is still wrong, therefore, infinite regress.
Incremental gains of knowledge are normal and necessary, but always wrong is certainly not.
In fact, we do not go from wrong to less wrong, we go from knowledge to more knowledge, and as necessary, change our minds about what we know, based upon new information.
Justified knowledge can only be grounded in a set of natural a-priori axioms that are not the result of any empirical observation; you either see them or you do not. Nor are they subject to any kind of proof, e.g., some imagined empirical test, or mathematical proof, nor are they disprovable. All further discourse about existence and truth depends upon a set of natural a-priori axioms.
See my Substack posts for an expanded discussion:
Less Wrong platform and author Yudkowsky, on Rationality and Justified Knowledge Certainty
https://allink.substack.com/p/justified-knowledge-certainty-and-f4b
Natural a-priori Axioms
https://allink.substack.com/p/justified-knowledge-certainty-and