These epistemic methods really want you to trust them. Each tries to prove itself to you:
1. Tautologies are true by definition, ’cause tautologies are true by definition. 😎
2. Induction worked in the past, so it probably will in the future. 😉
3. If deduction solves your problem, and you want it solved, then you’ll want to use deduction! 😊
4. If you thought Bayesianism had 3:1 odds, and you think this sentence is 2x more likely if Bayesianism than if not Bayesianism, now you should give it 6:1 odds. 🤠
5. If frequentism wasn’t true, you’d have a low probability of reading a sentence as extreme as this one. 🤓
6. You should trust your gut because your gut is telling you to trust it. 😘
7. The theory that Occam’s Razor is true is simpler than the theory that it is false. 🤔
8. The best explanation for why humans use abduction often is because it is useful for helping them figure out the truth. 🧐
If you liked this piece, you may also like Twelve Recursive Explanations.
This piece was first written on November 26, 2020, and first appeared on this site on August 12, 2022.
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