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Comment by JepZ | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why they argue that way, when it seems obvious that you need some common ground to start reasoning at all.

As we all start living in this world without any knowledge, all knowledge has been formed by the things we experience. And therefore, many of us agree to argue based on our (measurable) experiences (e.g. scientists). Others prefer to add beliefs which are wildly subjective (hard to reproduce) and therefore cause a lot of inconsistencies.

But in the end, it always comes down to the point where you need a common set of truths to start an argument. Otherwise there is no point in arguing at all.

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It's not as easy as that.

First we don't start from zero. If you would build a robot with all human senses but erased hard drive it wouldn't do anything, ever.

Second, while applied in RL, science might be labeled as "objective" and therefore be superior for, let's say, building a bridge. But on a very basal level, we're subjectively agreeing on what "scientific" is, or rather based on non-proofable paradigms, which is what the article is about

> First we don't start from zero.

There is strong evidence that humans, and most animals are born with built in knowledge and expectations about the world.

I found it simply fascinating when I learned that Blue Wildebeests are born knowing how to stand within minutes of their birth, and within a day can outrun adult hyenas:

"Extremely precocial species are called "superprecocial". Examples are the Megapode birds, which have full flight feathers and which, in some species, can fly on the same day they hatch from their eggs. Another example is the Blue Wildebeest, whose calves can stand within an average of six minutes from birth and walk within thirty minutes; they can outrun a hyena within a day."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precocial

Very interesting concept, thanks for providing this link!

We could also apply this terminology to startups: precocial startups are profitable and self-sustaining soon after their launch. Superprecocial startups would be so right away.

Aside from drug dealers there are few superprecocial businesses. The only reliable way to form such a business is to provide something everyone needs and nobody has, like water in the desert.

You can accept an axiom for the sake of arguemnt and do some reasoning from it without really agreeing with it. You can evaluate the form of an argument without necessarily thinking that it's true or false.

The Munchhausen trilemma explains why you need axioms at all. If you could put forward an argument that didn't need further support (interrupting the "ad infinitum"), then you wouldn't necessarily agree with the argument but you could at least accept it as a self-contained idea. But we can't even get that far. Proofs that aren't either circular or endless must rest on some other statements that we can't prove.

i believe that point is nicely encapsulated in gödel's incompleteness theorem (which is primarily about number systems, but analogous here nonetheless).

> I wonder why they argue that way, when it seems obvious that you need some common ground to start reasoning at all.

The compulsion to defend the castle arises despite the foundation of the castle being built on sand.

Or:

It sure would be nice if Truth was also convenient.

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