User talk:Edgerck/general comments

If you have comments on the "Reliance on Information" experiment, please leave your message in the experiment talk page.


 * Archive: Archive 1

Wikipedia's meaning of "truth"
If you're asking for my opinion, I'll tell you: you'll get nowhere by pondering or debating the meaning of truth on Wikipedia. Wikipedia as an institution doesn't give the tip of a rat's tail about "truth", and, especially wherever they involve expositions long-winded and philosophical, such ruminations contribute nihil to achieving consensus on any matter. The only sheriff in these parts is attribution and citation (and they are distinct: see my rant here). Importantly, when someone tries to assert truth on the basis of logic/reasoning, personal experience/authority, interpretation, analysis/synthesis, or any other means that doesn't essentially border on copy & paste plagiarism from some source, with attribution to that source, then that someone will get smacked down with WP:NOR. So it's not worth it to argue about what's true. Just say what somebody else said is true (and that they said it), cite it, and if your POV is neutral enough (or at least represents a side of a valid controvery with a sufficiently large minority of supporters) to receive support from other editors, be cozily comforted that your edits will justly survive. That's the Wikipedia WayTM. Robert K S 23:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Context: Robert is kindly replying to my last question in his talk page, which you can see here.


 * I just submitted a comment to the talk-page of WP:V, which you can see here. --Edgerck 00:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ha! Like anyone would agree on what "objective verifiability" or "subjective truth" are.  Good luck, anyway. :-)  Robert K S 00:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I exemplified in WP:V talk. Objective and subjective are quite clear terms. Others can submit their understanding too. I hope it is useful. Edgerck 00:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Robert: I agree with you that "Just say what somebody else said is true (and that they said it), cite it, and if your POV is neutral enough (or at least represents a side of a valid controversy with a sufficiently large minority of supporters) to receive support from other editors, be cozily comforted that your edits will justly survive."


 * Those last three words "will justly survive" provided the main question (how long will it survive for?) behind the ongoing WP Reliance experiment, which BTW follows exactly the kosher recipe you gave -- the WP way. Edgerck 00:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Except that all of your arguments have had as one of their premises the notion that you are capable of ascertaining truth. Whether you are or aren't is immaterial, and the sooner you accept this, the better you will understand the Zen of WikipediaTM.  (I've never made up a faux ironic slogan before in my life, I swear, and now I'm two in one night.  Heaven help me.)  Objective and subjective may be quite clear terms, and humans may even be capable of thinking perfectly objectively.  This, again, is immaterial, and we return to what I first said on this matter: the more one tries to pontificate about truth and/or assert what is true, the further one departs from consensus.  Your first point above only indicates that you misunderstand completely what is meant by "...Wikipedia is verifiability".  "Verifiable" in Wikipedia terms does not mean, as it means in science, that you can go out and perform an experiment to test a point's validity, or as it means in mathematics, that you can draw up an airtight proof.  It means that you can visit the referenced source and check that what is being asserted to be said was actually said. Robert K S 00:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Objective vs. subjective huh? the difficulty inherent in those terms is probably the exact reason that wikipedia's policy is established as verifiability. That said, as long as your edits are well-cited and the editors invested in the project understand the reason for your initial changes, I don't think there will be much problem ascertaining general decay/improvement rates in the articles you are studying.--Cronholm144 00:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow! I understand this is a charged subject, from many discussions I (thankfully) did not participate. Thanks for summarizing it. But, basically, no, I don't think humans are  capable of thinking perfectly objectively, in any shape or form. And, yes, I mean "verifiability" exactly as you say WP does, as almost any journalist does, and as some physicists do. And that is why it makes sense to talk about "objective verifiability" -- for example, a book that A. Crank did self-publish (perhaps with different texts for every copy) is not objectively verifiable. The position of the Sun in the sky is objectively verifiable. A paper in the Physics Review Letters is objectively verifiable (in addition to be peer-reviewed, which is a second level of verifiability albeit intersubjective).


 * More generally, in our interactions with the world, we can perceive the distinctive views:


 * Objective Reality: money, market, companies, governments, law, books by reputable publishers, stars.
 * Intersubjective Reality: medical diagnosis, bank-client relationship, majority of e-commerce, hacker organizations, criminal gangs.
 * Subjective Reality: truth, thoughts, dreams.


 * which cannot be harmonized except to some extent. Truth is subjective. No wonder people have a hard time making truth be intersubjective (ie, acceptable by two people in a dialogue), or even attempting the impossible task of making truth objective. Further, objective does not mean immutable. The market is objective (as it would be very difficult for one person to single handedly control it), but changes every minute. Hope this is useful. Edgerck 01:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

You are still showing you don't get it when you say "The position of the Sun in the sky is objectively verifiable." I am afraid this is not the Wikipedia sense of verifiability. "According to the Astronomer's Solar Almanac, the position of the sun at X time in Y place is Z coordinates"--that is verifiable. Do you see the distinction? It is not the position that is verifiable (such requires an experiment). It is the fact that the cited source actually does present the contributed information that is verifiable; that is to say, you can "go look it up" without "going and looking up". Robert K S 01:42, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The WP objective verifiability is in my list as "A paper in the Physics Review Letters is objectively verifiable". The counter example (which is NOT quite WP objectively verifiable) is in my list as "a book that A. Crank did self-publish".


 * The Sun example, as well as the market example, is there but are clearly a non-WP example. The concept of "objective verifiability" > WP.


 * Hope this is useful. Edgerck 02:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, now you're showing you understand. Robert K S 02:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Intersubjectively OK, then. And you are exactly right: one thing is to understand, another is to show you understand. And you are also right when you say (above): the more one tries to pontificate about truth and/or assert what is true, the further one departs from consensus. The reason is that truth is subjective; as each person affirms their own subjectivity more, their positions move farther apart.


 * Now, just to make sure I understand it correctly WP-wise, let me present an example. Suppose I write (as I actually did, in the experiment dialogue above):


 * "...as predicted by his [Einstein] original equation (see Wheeler et. al., Gravitation, ISBN-13: 978-0716703440)".


 * What I am saying with my reference above is the fact that the cited source actually does present the contributed information in a manner that is objectively verifiable; that is to say, anyone (not just me or you) can "go and look it up".


 * In other words, exactly as it means in science, that anyone (not just me or you) can go out and perform an experiment that objectively tests the validity of my assertion, to "go and look it up". And, as the scientific method works in physics, anyone else can repeat the experiment ("go and look it up"), and will obtain the same results under the same circumstances.


 * The test of "objective verifiability" is thus quite different from "subjective truth".


 * Hope all this is useful. Edgerck 02:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)