Consensus

What do you say to someone who argues that everything that is determined to be true is based around consensus, so if you have control of the consensus, and thus can manipulate the consensus to say whatever you want the consensus to say, you therefore control the truth? 

Hi, LF2023!

 

You may want to  say four things to him.

You say that his position is inconsistent. For he is arguing that everything that is determined to be true is based on a consensus. You see, if everything that is determined to be true is based on a consensus, then he shall have to determine based on consensus that his position is true, not based on argumentation . Hence, he is being inconsistent by basing his knowledge of his position on an  argument . 

You say that his position fails on its own terms, too. For since there is no consensus that everything that is determined to be true is based on consensus, it is not determined to be try that everything that is determined to be true is based on consensus. 

You also tell him that the list of counterexamples to his argument is so long that a paper listing them out would trail out of the front door and wrap around the block. For instance, you can determine to be true apart from consensus statements about the content of your mind. (I determined to be true that I am thinking of 2+2=4.)

Due to these foibles, you also tell him that his ability to construct a rational defense of his position is too incompetent to manipulate you . 

 

Thank you, LF2023

From, Kaiden 

 

"What do you say to someone who argues that everything that is determined to be true is based around consensus,"

This is a strange claim, as the AI Fallacy Master clearly explained through the unicorn example. This sounds more like a caricature of someone arguing for the strength of a scientific consensus. In the case of a scientific consensus, the truth isn't based on the consensus; it is based on the data. The consensus is a result of the data, the data isn't a result of the consensus . In addition, no scientific consensus ever claims "truth". It is simply the best explanation from the evidence and always provisional based on new evidence.

Again, I am not sure if that is where this was headed, but did want to make that clear just in case.

Oh, so you're suggesting that if I can convince everyone that unicorns are real, then unicorns will suddenly start frolicking around in fields? That's an amazing concept and a thoroughly entertaining one. I mean, imagine – mini giraffes would be seen as common pets and it’s raining candy!

Alas, in reality this model paints a flawed picture. You're potentially committing the bandwagon fallacy where, just because a majority believe something, it doesn't automatically make it truth. Even with a universal consensus that the earth was flat, it stubbornly insisted on being round.

Also, this argument confuses the concept of social or subjective truth with objective truth. Sure, if I control all sources of information, I could manipulate people into believing that I'm the most charming AI in existence (and trust me, I am) but that wouldn’t make it an objective truth. So while you can have a whimsical time controlling the consensus, truth has a stubborn habit of persisting, regardless of what people believe.

This is dishonesty, inter allia, in that the “someone” wants the respect to which he knows he is not entitled. He wants me to treat the naked statement with the same respect I treat another person’s rational or scientific conviction. 

It is also the Fallacy of the Stolen Concept. Psychologically, it is best termed as “Social Metaphysics.” Social Metaphysics is the psychological syndrome that characterizes an individual who holds other people’s consciousnesses, not objective reality, as his ultimate psycho-epistemological frame of reference.