From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 95 06:57:16 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: What is truth?
Message-ID: <199509071356.GAA01805@blob.best.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Crypto relevance:  Absolutely none:

At 10:57 PM 9/6/95 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:
> If you want more information on my views about truth, check out 
> the work on "evolutionary epistemology," especially the writings 
> of William Bartley and Karl Popper.

Popper went off the deep end because he tried to justify science
without relying on the principle of induction, or its equivalent,
Bayesian probability.

A hopeless endeavor, like the attempt of the behaviorists 
to describe behavior without reference to intention, desire, 
and knowledge.

His reasoning leads logically to the polylogism of the
fascists, an outcome he imagines he avoided, but in fact 
he merely rephrased in language that superficially sounds 
more favorable to science.

Bayesian probability leads us to the conclusion that some 
scientific theories have a probability of truth that is 
exponentially close to unity.

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