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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34906 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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A theory that is unfalsifiable is like a compass that always points north no matter what direction it’s facing; it’s useless precisely because it’s “true” no matter what.

That's what a compass is supposed to do.

Argh, I didn't phrase this right. What I meant is referring to a compass with a stuck needle, where you use it to claim that every direction it points to is north.

Well yeah. But such a compass is still not trustworthy, which is the point @ymeskhout was making.

I guess you could interpret it as a compass whose definition of "north" is where the needle points, which is always in the same direction relative to its body. The mechanism adds no value, so "aligned with compass north" is equivalent to saying "pointed in a(ny) direction."

A better framework would be a compass that always points forward on its own heading axis: it's (tautologically) correct, but neither meaningfully falsifiable, nor very useful for any other purpose.

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