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From: sarge@thirdi.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Gerbode's position as Devil's Advocate
Message-ID: <56@thirdi.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 01:16:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: thirdi.56
Posted: Thu Jul  9 01:16:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 16:48:05 EDT
References: <3988@utai.UUCP>
Reply-To: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Distribution: world
Organization: Institute for Reserch in Mewtapsychology.
Lines: 40
Keywords: knowledge belief "paradox of preface"

In article <3988@utai.UUCP> cbo@utai.UUCP writes:
>
>When I try to do something and fail, I often believe that one 
>of my currently held beliefs is false, and is thus reponsible for the failure.
>The dilemma, of course, is that I don't know *which* of my beliefs is false,
>and since I can't give them all up, I am forced (for the time being at least)
>to retain them all. The net result is that I end up believing that what 
>I believe and what I know is not coextensive (although of course, I cant
>list the extension of either!). To believe anything else would be remarkably
>presumptuous, I feel.
>
My recent posting (and Alan Wexelblat's) should cover this point.

In the above case, you would retain all of your beliefs, but assign them
an average probability less than 1.  Your belief concerning the aggregate of
your beliefs would then be the same as your knowledge of the aggregate of your
beliefs, and the degree of belief in each individual member of the aggregate
would be the same ass your knowledge of same, so the mapping remains the same.

One of the problems is in the vagueness of the terms "belief" and "knowledge",
which sometimes mean something absolute and sometimes something relative.  I
mean both to mean something that admits of degrees, ranging from 0 or near-0
probability through 1 or near-1 probability.  For the sake of consistency,
let's call the thing believed or not an "idea".  Below 0.5 are various ranges
of DISbelief of or knowledge of the *negation* of the idea.  Above 0.5 are
various ranges of belief or knowledge of the idea.  Belief and knowledge, from
the viewpoint of a single individual at a particular time, are alike
agreement, assent, or acceptance of an idea (saying "Yes"); Disbelief and
knowledge of the negation of an idea are alike rejection, dissent, or
disagreement with an idea (saying "No").  Assent and dissent admit of
degrees.
-- 
"From his own viewpoint, no one ever has false beliefs; he only *had* false
beliefs."

Sarge Gerbode
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
950 Guinda St.
Palo Alto, CA 94301
UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!sarge